CloudHeadedTranshumanist
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User ID: 2056
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
I'm not saying I don't see the concern. I'm saying that it's disingenuous to compare it to death.
Also only somewhere around 5-15% of trans women get bottom surgery. So you can cut that risk factor for another 10x for them. Chemical castration is known to be reversible in trans women.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
If you consider children to be actual people with rights, then you reject the fundamental right of the parent to mold them into whatever they please.
Forget trans, every cultural standard that removes agency from children is up for review for exclusion from the eschaton.
Parents as the only role model and as an absolute force in a child's life is a single point of failure, at best it's a benevolent dictatorship and at worst its tyranny.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
10mo ago
I have to admit- I just think everyone deserves support and I suspect the fight will keep going forever or until conservatives kill all the abnormal people or stop trying to bully people who want to surgically alter themselves into giant spiders out of existence.
It's not going to end because um... why should it end exactly? I have this feeling of an underlying premise that there is an amount of weird that is... too weird. And... I just... don't have that premise. If something has pragmatic issues that prevent it from being pragmatic for society to support it, my first thought is "what technological advancements will cause support of this to be viable" not "lets suppress it forever."
But some people seem to see "technical advancements have caused support for this to be viable" and go into moral panic mode. Why?
Why are some people unhappy seeing the boundaries of the human condition expand? Why does it make some people uncomfortable?
What is wrong with your brains? Or is it me? What's wrong with my brain? Something is clearly wrong with someone's brain here.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
I'm sure some do. I have very little sympathy for those people.
It says something about their ulterior motives and what they see children as.
It also doesn't hold up to scrutiny when you ask the same people how they feel about progress in artificial wombs.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
I appreciate the candor.
But you missed the other half.
Child liberation is opposed mainly by people who want the power to ensure that their children become the upstanding ideal of their culture, and are uninterested in any compromise that would free their children to pursue becoming the upstanding ideal of a different culture.
So why is it bad for them to become the upstanding ideal of a different culture? I agree that it is bad when a child fails to find any viable niche, which is what your argument describes, but why should every child be crammed into their parents' niche? Last I checked, most of us here value horizontal and vertical societal mobility. Forcing children to be their parents but better is... inhuman. Ant-like.
Seeds within a child should be nurtured. However, if you raise a child with ulterior motives, you are compelled to quash seeds that do not conform. This damages the child and perpetuates a culture of painfully breaking people into a mold. You are losing efficiency by cramming round pegs into square holes. This is an argument against modern conventional schooling as well, you may be more familiar with it in that context.
Longterm- I proudly hold the goal of seeding every ecological niche with human/transhuman intelligence.
Crushing children's exploration of new cultural niches is antithetical to this prospect. Instead legitimizing and teaching the fear of the Other and the New. It robs children of their innocence and teaches them fear.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
11mo ago
Sure, "Fake News" being applied to biased news, the term "Cancel Culture" being applied to people calling you a jerk on twitter, "Patriot"... which is it again? Nationalism? Libertarianism? The status quo? Just slaps onto any right wing cause for ingroup points. "Socialism" meaning any form of social safety net, "Freedom" and "Liberty" being extended to Laissez-faire economics.
The list just goes on and on because this is a very common and effective strategy that people use to argue for their cause. They staple a metaphor with their preferred affect to their cause or the enemy cause and run with it. The connotation of the word shifts and becomes ingrained, and its history is forgotten as generations are onboarded into the linguistic tech.
Usually the culprit doesn't think they're redefining anything when they do it, because to them the metaphor is apt. They honestly think their cause is good for the same reasons that the thing they stapled to it are good, or vice versa, and that they have found a new valid use case. Meanwhile another person looking at the metaphor, might not see the same implications or values implicit in its components, and disagree that it is apt, seeing it as a redefinition.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
That's fair. I don't think children should be "taken away". I think children should be free to go where they want to and systems should be configured such that roaming children remain supported.
Since this is not what is actually happening in the top post- it's fair to say I disagree with present implementation.
But I do absolutely think- what most parents who are afraid of transgender role models are afraid of- is their kids making the choice.
I claim the resistance to my ideal would consist of mostly the same people for mostly the same reasons.
Child liberation is opposed mainly by people who want the power to ensure that their children become the upstanding ideal of their culture, and are uninterested in any compromise that would free their children to pursue becoming the upstanding ideal of a different culture. See "Groomer" rhetoric.
immediate otherwise unavoidable danger of death or grave bodily harm to the innocent.
so, a guy without a knife saying "I'm gonna go get a knife come back here and stab you"
According to this video, to be in the clear in most jurisdictions, you should... just not be there when he comes back.
In the case of Neely... did he have a history of causing grave bodily harm to anyone? The man had... let's see... four alleged assault charges? everything else was trespassing, public urination, disturbing the peace, etc. Is that even enough? If his assaults were impotent does that count as disparity of force? In the situation where he died, he was in a subway with enough other sane people that he was rather outnumbered... everyone else had the force of numbers. This doctrine seems to let you do a lot of dickery before anyone is actually permitted 'deadly force'.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
But if they expect others to pander to their however self-justified illusions
You're doing the thing again. I get it. You don't think their preferences should be respected. You think their identities are less legitimate than other forms of self identification.
And you don't want people to be forced to respect them, or be forced to do other things they don't want to.
That last line at least I emphasize with.
But as long as people need to eat to live and need respect to get the help of society to live fulfilling lives, people are going to keep finding ways to socially pressure one another to cooperate in building an amenable environment for them personally, nyaa.
I too, would appreciate a less coercive society. But that's not the world we live in. You can't actually live as a cat if everyone around you constantly mocks you for acting like a cat, nyaa.
But I get the impression that the crux of our disagreement here, is at the root of your value judgement, you are set on the idea that people shouldn't be respected for 'acting like a cat', nyaa. You want to be able to keep producing social pressure that reduces the number of people nyaa-ing in your vicinity.
It seems to me that some measure of culture war is inevitable here. Both sides poisoning the environment's ability to support the ideas they find harmful to their personal hopes and dreams.
I take the position that children can't meaningfully consent to change gender
But they can meaningfully consent to having one?
You must have interesting trolley problem outputs.
Listen. Sex with kids is bad because it traumatizes and wrecks them. It's not that complicated. Bad things are bad.
We care about consent in adults so much because we've seen the consequences of people not using it. It's the same thing, those people are traumatized and wrecked. Bad things are bad. It's not that complicated.
If you want to argue that early transition traumatizes and wrecks people-
I can appreciate that argument. I might not agree but I recognize it as an argument rooted in a sensible definition of the Good and the Bad.
Though, there are also people who swear by the early transition they went through and became FAANG programmers or whatever. (namely my in-group). And I am always going to be on the side of those people being able to have done what they did. Because everything turned out great for them and they were clearly not traumatized and wrecked by transition. The only thing they tend to be working through is the time their parents sent them to gay deconversion camp, or some other mistreatment by anti-trans normative society. Which I will fight against because it is traumatizing and wrecking people.
Consent is about locus of control. If you think parents can rob teenagers of that locus and not risk doing the same sort of damage...
I don't think you understand why rape is bad.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
You said they expect others to pander to their self-justified illusions.
calling them self-justified illusions is value-loaded language. When you use that language it communicates the message that their identities aren't real, that you don't think a cat-identifying person should be allowed to expect others to treat them the way they want to be treated.
I do think the culture war has become overly totaling in this regard. Not everyone should have to respect everyone.
But it's reasonable to expect those who want to be close to you to respect you. And it's reasonable to want and fight for a society that respects you enough to not disadvantage you in the competition of capitalism.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
I agree with everything you're saying and only get confused when you get to:
mutilate themselves
which is culturally and personally subjective value laden language-
and
Transpeople are creating chimeras and forcing others to respect that.
which sounds accurate, cool and based. Yes I just agree with this, and disagree with the values that seem to be getting laid onto it.
I do think the conversation has lost itself. The ultimate progression of the philosophy of morphological freedom, does not stop at trans people. It shouldn't even really start with gender. But the saturation of gender into society, the fact that it is one of the things we have made matter, has turned it into the central issue. Furthermore, the push to normalize the artistic (read, self expressive) flesh-crafting of the body has become combative. Too combative. Both in the sense that its created push-back and in the sense that it's been pushing an ideological conformity.
Still, I always feel a bit exasperated by these conversations. People are arguing whether people should be allowed to grow tits, and I'm still here in the year 3000 rolling my eyes and waiting for the public to take universal morphological freedom seriously as an ideal so I can become a velociraptor.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
10mo ago
Arguably coercive? My friend. We live in a society. It's always been coercive. You see progressives say that they want more diverse sets of people to be permitted to exist, and conservatives say they want to be allowed to force people to all fit a certain mold, and you call the former coercive?
Very well. It may well be. We live in a society until the day we are all so powerful that we no longer need to and can live in deep intergalactic space off the skin of our hydrogen collectors. But don't tell me the society crafted by our forefathers isn't just as coercive if not moreso.
Holy writ? No not by everyone. I expect combat. I expect culture war. I would prefer a peaceful unfolding. But I am here to change the world. Not to coddle it.
I don't expect- I think our world is built up from the tragedies of the violent birth of our species into a hostile world. Our precedents are the sacrifices we have made to keep ourselves alive. And even thinking about it costs energy. Costs scarce resources. Time spent arguing over whether it is time to remove Chesterton's fence is time not spent growing food. The legal system costs millions of dollars and the time of our best and brightest just to print and execute precedent at a grueling rate. I get that it's not cheap. I get that it has value that we have paid dearly for.
But- this is probably because I am an American born in the Live Free or Die state. But I expect people to not terminally value fences- to merely instrumentally value them. Even though I do understand- you can terminally value just about anything.
What I want... I want people to have... reasons beyond inertia or precedent for why things are bad. I want people to actually be interested in understanding why Chesterton's fence is there, and remain aware of when it can, or should be torn down. They don't have to be objectively correct. I don't expect all humans to have the same understanding of good and evil or the same predictions of the consequences of actions. I just want everyone to remain aware and humor the idea that there is a point at which we outgrow the fences we have erected for our safety. I want people to imagine when tearing it down would be viable, so that they can give one another firm expectations of what they have to build if they really need it torn down. If the suppression of trans people and enforcement of gender norms hadn't been so coercive, if conservatives could have made some compromises and set firm expectations for what trans people have to do before they're allowed to remove that fence-
If we had been cooperating on this from the start with clear expectations then this culture war never would have happened.
Of course this is a fantasy. Our history didn't build us up as people who could have cooperated like that.
Skulls? I have seen millennia of skulls. Skulls of the strange and the outliers. Skulls of the weird slaughtered in the name of conformity to make sure food could be grown. Are we simply looking at different skull piles here? I get that sometimes, when the weird grow in power, walking off the beaten path, the food stops getting made, and the skulls become myriad. I am told "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good". And I agree, but I also contend- "Do not let the good be the enemy of the better."
Morality? Everyone has one. Get yours now. 50% off. If you don't like having a conscience get rid of it. Don't worry. I won't get rid of mine. If you hurt someone I'll just kill you. If you can erase your conscience without doing that- or want to die- go for it. That's not a threat. It's more... this all just seems so simple to me. We are all here. Just don't let go of the parts you want to keep and they'll stick around. Yes. It doesn't escape me that conservatives are doing the same thing- to a degree. I can appreciate that trans people may have pushed too deeply too quickly for systems to adapt. I can appreciate that where exactly I draw the line is somewhat arbitrary, that some people might not want to let go of the gender binary for reasons more terminal in addition to the pragmatic. But my concern is more the lack of interest some people have in letting the systems ever change to support more types of people. Some people don't seem to be looking for how the world can become better, they are only looking at how the world can become worse.
I have a fetish for novelty. Definitely. Novelty and intensity. Glory, expression, fire, intensity, fearlessness.
Ah, yes. perhaps I do expect other humans to at least taste a hint of why those things are good. Even if they weigh them against other values.
I think conservatives have a fetish for safety. I think many of them have very reasonable takes around safety and sustainability. But I think some of them have a fear-driven blindness to almost everything else that makes the universe wonderful. I think conservatives, as the leaders on caring about safety and sustainability- should have been the ones thinking about global warming. Not necessarily cutting emissions earlier- there were real economic tradeoffs there that merited consideration. But actually recognizing and thinking about the problem. But instead it was fully denied because of the implication that we might have to change the way we live our lives over it. Something has gone horribly wrong- when precedent is the thing blinding us to the safety it was built for. When safety is the thing stopping us from living the lives it was built to preserve.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
11mo ago
It doesn't seem melodramatic to me. I mean, everyone knows what the current culture war is, it's clear which actions are enemy action. Propaganda is just the memes the enemy is spreading to further their cause and people are pointing at them.
Regardless of whether you think people should be censoring each other over the direction of their activism to begin with, I think it's perfectly sensible to say "This is clear enemy action" and use the word "Propaganda" for that once you are committed to this sort of combat.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
Agency should be maximized insofar as it does not contradict possibility and sustainability.
Limits on the possible and sustainable should be attacked aggressively insofar as technological and social progress can eliminate them.
They should be treated as enemies of all humanity that require slaying, like Death or Cancer.
As for your last sentence
"Parents as the only role model and as an absolute force in a child's life is a single point of failure, at best it's a benevolent dictatorship and at worst its tyranny."?
Yes, perhaps that belongs in a separate post. I intended that to stand on its own, it follows from the definition of benevolent dictatorship and the phrase "Parents as the only role model and as an absolute force".
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
7d ago
Maybe I should rename myself to Cassandra...
I already have systems that make the porn I want on demand. After that need is sated- the realization that I can actually also breed with said porn takes precedence. You think people won't want to actually have kids with their beloveds? Won't be interested in what they have to say about the architecture of their minds?
Perhaps I'm typical minding, but if I am- that just means more of the world's bot children will be mine. Survival of the fittest I guess.
I don't buy this. I don't think choosing to trade off life expectancy for something you value more constitutes a mental illness.
Even if you go full natural law I don't think you can reasonably argue that maximizing lifespan to the exclusion of exploration or ideals is man's nature.
Hell, I took estrogen for years just because I perceived the world as having two Ice cream flavors that I was only allowed to have one of, and I still endorse having done that, even now that I've stopped. It seems like depriving yourself to me if you don't try the other feel at least once in your life. Do you really want to die without knowing how that flavor you've had in front of you your whole life tastes?
And- the material reality of the body is that you can alter it with hormones. Why pick on people who take hormones instead of people who work out to get buff? They're also battling a material reality.
If you crux with 90% of trans people, they aren't going to have object level disagreements about the facts.
They'll agree that trans women do not have wombs and so on.
And if you break down their claim that they are a girl, it's probably going to boil down to their definition of 'girl' being different than yours.
I do think it's common for trans people, particular youth, to lack nuance with regards to this.
I do think fearful people (as in the case of many trans women) are susceptible to clinging to safe, oversimplified un-nuanced defensive ideologies. ("trans women are women")
I do think this has led in many cases to unfair expectations of how other people have to treat them to be ethical.
And- this is a 'mental illness', in the sense that it would be good for them and for everyone else to fix those issues. But those mental failure states occur in most of the human population around various hangups. It's hardly a trans thing. Removing the 'illness' would stop the trans twitter presence from being cancer, but it wouldn't change the fact that they like taking estrogen and getting f*****.
Trans girls know that they have XY chromosomes and no wombs, but they also know that they have Breasts, Soft Skin, Fem Voices, and that they feel euphoria when they are refereed to using the pronoun "she" and treated in accordance to the norms historically afforded to people with XX chromosomes.
There is a category that splits reality at the seams here. "They are just men" is not a very practical use of language. "Men" don't inject themselves with estrogen and pop Spiro. "Men" don't have a girl-smell. And I don't go looking for them when I want a good time.
I admit gladly, that "they are just women" is just as inaccurate. The based trans girls I know wear the trans label with pride and will gladly differentiate themselves from cis women among their dating group.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
The trans movement has been about lots of things.
I see that your main concern wrt it is:
it insists that some men are already women
I imagine you refer to the many pragmatic concerns regarding how we handle the segregation of men and women as the concepts break down.
The short of it is that I just agree that those are complicated and difficult and have to be hashed out on a practical level.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
3d ago
This is probably too political for the Friday fun thread so-
Florida: Not Literally Hell, Confirms Relieved Expert
State's Residents Reassured Their Suffering Merely Earthly, Politicians Confirmed Just Regular Humans
In a groundbreaking announcement that has reassured millions, Dr. Hugo Vortex, a leading expert in infernal studies from the International Institute of Theological Phenomena, confirmed earlier today that Florida, despite widespread rumors, is not literally hell.
"After extensive research involving environmental scans, interviews with local wildlife, and an unfortunate weekend spent in a Daytona Beach motel, we can confirm that Florida is indeed part of Earth—not an annex of hell as previously speculated," stated Dr. Vortex during a press conference, adjusting his flame-retardant suit.
"The presence of sinkholes swallowing entire homes and swarms of biting insects led some to believe they were portals to the underworld," added Vortex. "Our findings show these are just very unfortunate landscaping and wildlife management issues."
The study also examined the social atmosphere, noting the influx of notorious individuals like O.J. Simpson, which Vortex attributed to the state's generous homestead laws rather than any supernatural pull. "Such occurrences mimic the claim of the infernal upon the souls of sinners, but are indeed grounded in legislative text, much like the state of our prison system and our bans on certain civil rights," he clarified.
Opinions on the findings vary among residents. "I always knew those weren't demons; just politicians and real estate agents," chuckled Marcy Klump, a lifelong Floridian who recently had to replace her car's air conditioner for the third time this year. "Though I suppose the distinction can get a bit blurry." Meanwhile, critics such as local commuter Barry Gundham argue that Dr. Vortex's study overlooks key elements like the notorious traffic jams and recent bans on lab-grown meat. "Anyone who's been in a factory farm or stuck on I-95 can recognize the torment of the damned," he countered, before excusing himself to begin his three-hour commute.
Despite the reassurance, Dr. Vortex recommends that residents continue to wear sunscreen, hydrate regularly, and avoid making deals at crossroads after midnight. "While we can definitively say Florida is not hell, vigilance is advised. The devil is in the details—or in this case, possibly in the HOA bylaws."
No.. SOMETHING IS MISSING FROM THIS ENTIRE CONVERSATION.
Certainly you should avoid being in that situation in the first place
Yes agreed. But you mean being in a situation where you have to pass a black man late at night on a spooky street, and I mean living in a universe where black people are scary. (I mean, you in particular probably agree with me on that too but- this popped to me when you said that.)
It was his DNA
Ok. Then how do we get better DNA?
I'm going somewhere with this I swear. This isn't just transhumanism- this is-
The reason affirmative action is bad is because it is trying to fit an unfit population.
Yes! This is so close to what I want to say! You can't just shove the unfit in random places and expect magic to happen... But as long as you still pressure them to do well in the places you shove them (->this might be a good place to attack<-), you can expect magic to happen. Giraffes didn't get long necks by magic or genetic drift. They got them by breeding with Giraffes with long necks!
My point- what this whole conversation is missing- SEXUAL SELECTION IS METALEMARKIAN On a species-wide level, giraffes DID get longer necks by trying to have longer necks!!! So there is good reason to give races opportunity to aspire towards one another's greatness.
Also, memetic selection is Lemarkian even faster. But that's somewhat evened out by the fact that you and competitors both have a whole planet of well developed memes already at your fingertips when you decide to do something- And is already present in this thread implicitly (cultural differences are memetic.) And- its already factored in. A lot of G seems to be the ability to select the correct memetics from those available.
Striving for self-improvement every day is a commendable goal. I agree with your entire last paragraph. However, my frustration with non-transhuman sports is that we've been approaching it wrong. By establishing boundaries on the extent of self-improvement, we've failed to encourage individuals to truly maximize their potential. Imagine how much stronger and healthier you could be with a carefully developed and safe PED stack? Society discourages such considerations. How much greater could you become by aiming for a pair of cybernetic limbs? Integrating the best technology is a core component of human betterment. Rejecting this notion undermines the very premise.
The purpose of sports is to teach people to continuously strive to push the limits of human physicality—except, it seems, when it comes to genuinely pushing those limits. Sports have always been constrained, sanitized by the types of self-improvement that the general public finds acceptable. This approach is marred by the sentiment, 'I don't want to better myself in this way, so no one else should be rewarded for it either.' It's affirmative action for bioconservatives.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
I didn't even understand what you meant by this until I started seeing the responses because it didn't even seem like a response to my post...
And now I see why.
You see my brain's response to what you have just said is...
"That's enough culture war for this month. Time to go read all the ML papers my gay lovers have recommended to me so we can continue building our children together."
It seems clear to me now that we are living in entirely different realities.
This explains why you would say something like -
Reality is not under any obligation to make sense. The obligation is upon us to make sense of reality.
When from where I'm standing it is you who has clearly failed to make sense of reality.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
It's a very inefficient and ethically dubious way to make new people.
Beings that start without well formed motives and worldviews is an ethics of consent issue, and the consequences of that issue has been every "think of the children" argument against personal freedom ever.
Still, people evolved to have kids. They want to. So assuming we don't outlaw it for reasons like those- I wouldn't be too surprised to see bio-conservative reproduction methods numbering in billions of births per year 1000 years from now...
But it's still inefficient. Nine months and a child that starts as a complete dependent? That you have to watch grow through all the pain and suffering of being a new mind? I would expect other methods like forking and spawning new teenage AI minds to be thousands of times more common at least. This is 1000 years we're talking about. We could easily have 10 more AI booms in that time even if this one fizzles.
There are a lot of people in this thread comparing their child transitioning to death.
It's one thing to think of it as a bad thing that is happening to your child. But it is hyperbolic to compare transition with death.
Um. Sir or Madam. Your child is not dead. Unless you're saying they're dead to you-
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