CloudHeadedTranshumanist
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User ID: 2056
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
I would say it's complicated.
Why don't we have Co-ed sports to begin with? Why don't we separate out people with genetic mutations that make them stronger into their own branch of sports? What is the goal of sports?
Sports doesn't have a philosophically rigorous premise. The way we divide it is based on convenience and profit and politics and other practical factors. The practical factors a TRA will be concerned with are the ones they think will help trans people.
Would splitting sports help trans people? TRAs are going to be happy with the results they think help trans people, both in the context of Sports glory and funding, and in the context of people's perception of trans people for use in the wider culture war.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
It's articles like this that really make me embrace Idealism and express outright pro-anthroprocentrism. That humanity is distinct and apart from nature, and that humans are more than mere animals, but are capable of Reason which is what separates and makes us superior to animals. Animals are stupid and much less important than humans. I don't care how much people make appeals to animals' supposed sentience. They are not sapient and not capable of Reason. It's not clear if they have any consciousness (and they probably don't, save for maybe our closest primate cousins). Animals do not deserve the same rights as humans, they are stupid beasts. I don't think anyone has ever said that to the author. We humans have decided that we want to preverse nature because we believe it has value - economic, aesthetic, moral etc value. But that value is ultimately derived from our human Reason something those animals are completely incapable of doing.
I think that's the wrong way to go about it. If you marry your ideology to claims that animals aren't sapient, are stupid, are incapable of reason, aren't conscious, you're... well I think you're just already wrong based on things I've seen animals do in life and studies. The untruths will eventually prove to have been an unstable intellectual foundation.
And unnecessary for the goal.
You can go much simpler. We are humans, we're the most dominant species on earth, so ultimately we are capable of acting in accordance with our values without animals stopping us. Ok. Now that we're established that, what do we want to do with the animals?
Even the author could do this. And then they could finish with "I aesthetically/morally dislike the constant war the animals live in, and if the average reader attempts to point human empathy at the average animal documentary, they probably will too. Let's improve the living conditions of wild animals (according to our aesthetics) as we're able."
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
Simpler arguments are easier to onboard people onto than complex arguments.
I'm not sure whether high level philosophy is iterating on them much.
But they're really easy for young intellectuals to get into and develop strong feelings about. So it makes sense that they propagate.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
The matrix is a fascinating piece of art.
- The agents possess people. They act as software that is distinct from the individual but possesses their body in service to an alien telos.
The sort of thinking that comes from applying this metaphor makes humans feel more modular, like different pieces of software on a machine. It makes it easier to think of unfriendly groups of memes as the tentacles of singular distributed agents, or like a hacker remote controlling your desktop.
Overall, I do agree with Joyce. The Matrix is easy to take as a trans metaphor.
But I think the themes are generalizable, and I think its easier to take it as a metaphor for Transhumanism.
Transgender and Transhumanism have a lot of overlapping themes. The modularity of the self. The ideal of rewriting what it means to be one's self, the rejection of innate properties as innate.
In the previous thread. A lot of people connected Transgender ideology to postmodernism.
Postmodernism deemphasizes the object level to emphasize the social level. It considers grand narratives a way to assert social control and rejects the stability of meaning. As a memetic tool, postmodernism is used it to empower individuals to write their own structure of meaning.
Transhumanism on the other hand, goes a step further. It takes those narratives that we have rewritten, and looks for a way to then reapply them to the object level. As a memetic tool, transhumanism is used to empower individuals to use technology to rewrite the physical world to match their self image.
According to Morpheus, and in the logic of the film, Neo was always 'The One', perhaps mirroring the TRA line that a given trans woman was always a woman. But in terms of what we actually see Neo do, the audience's experience of Neo, he starts his transition to becoming 'The One', right as he is beginning to believe; When he starts gaining the powers to defy the agents, culminating in his defeat of Agent Smith.
By postmodern logic, gender-identity is more important than gender. But few trans people stop there. They craft their bodies in an ongoing arc similar to Neo's. They use technology to shape the object level reality, until the object level mirrors the social narrative they've written.
I believe the theory and praxis of transgender ideology are postmodernism and transhumanism. These two things play into each other. As people learn that it's ok to change their model of self, the technology of transition that enables them to bring their physical self in line gains funding, and starts to catch up. As technology advances to make it easier and easier to change one's own body, the threshold for how much you need to want it before its legitimately worth it drop. Memes that it's a good idea become more viable, and start to catch on.
Animals have been observed engaging in creative innovative behaviors. I'm not sure 'Sapience' is well defined. I agree that no animals appear to possess Redwall levels of human-like intelligence.
I am on the same page regarding grammar.
I'm not sure of what you mean by abstraction. I haven't deep dived or replicated the studies but to my knowledge: Various animals can be taught to use currency. Crows can use vending machines and will even modify vending machine tokens to fit the machine of their own initiative. Many animals can solve puzzles that require them to innovate solutions.
As for 'humans have power over animals, so whatever we say goes' I think that's just a fact. Humans do have power over animals. What we say does go.
It is unpalpable that it also applies to humans. But it does in fact also apply to humans.
Your position is 'Humans have Reason (and some other useful/aesthetic properties), and all value that animals have is derived from our Reason.'
I'm curious. Why do you think Reason justifies doing what we want?
I can clearly see that it enables us to do what we want. But if reason is good because I can feel it / I say so, then that's just our aesthetics asserting themselves again. If reason is good because its powerful, that's just 'the strong do what they will' again.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
Everything that occurs in the brain is also mechanistic. AI is creative. Novel remixes of old data to fit new situations is a form of creation.
There are limits and caveats to that creativity. Including how much of it is data or architecture offloaded from humans, as well as the limits to what it can create in general. ChatGPT continuing to have issues with memory for instance, and lacking the insight or telos to remedy that issue in itself.
You might be skeptical of the generality of a crow's intelligence, or how much of it was informed by humans.
But I don't think it makes sense to be skeptical that it isn't 'merely' mechanistic.
We are too.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
I don't think I've said animals should have rights in this thread.
I've said that animals are intelligent and I think it's unprincipled to base a human supremacy stance on them not being conscious or creative because they are, but that I think there are more principled human supremacist stances.
If you want to delve into what I actually think about animal rights personally-
I don't like seeing things I parse as capable of suffering doing so.
So insofar as I can recognize suffering and stop it I want to.
I don't think their rights actually matter that much. I was pro-superhappy when reading Three Worlds Collide.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
Overturning and blurring the 'conventional' understanding has been a powerful tool for TRAs in pursuing trans acceptance. Prior understanding closely married sex and gender presentation and who it was ok to sleep with and strict gender roles. It's been blurring the whole time.
The battle of the TRA is to make the conventional understanding obsolete. A TRA wouldn't be happy with chromosome based sports, because that's an expression of a society that still cares more about sex than gender. A woman doesn't complain that another woman she's competing against has better genetics or a better training regimen, so why should it be legitimate for her to complain that her opponent used to be a man?
That is to say I agree. The ideological goals of trans rights are not compatible with conventional gender's existence. A TRA might accept limits for testosterone levels or muscle mass that equally apply to cis women, but the defeat of the immutability of sex, both conceptually through overhauling the understanding, and literally through the advancement of the technology of transition, is the whole point of the project.
You're right that individuals can demonstrably solve social problems. But it is not always demonstrable that individuals can solve social problems.
For example, I have ADHD. On days when I don't take my meds, I am literally less of an agent. I have less power to make choices happen. It's clear to me that agency is a spectrum. Just because someone could make a good choice in theory in a vacuum, doesn't actually mean they could make a good choice given the neurotransmitters presently available in their brains. Choices are made out of physical and psychological levers and dice that can be manipulated and stacked.
I'd note that childhood Lead exposure is famous for damaging the ability of humans to make rational choices, which makes the choice of Flint Michigan as an example an odd one.
Your idea of "an ordinary level of effort" is also very odd.
The typical response of a rat in a learned helplessness test is to lay down and rot. Is this the 'ordinary' level of effort? Of course not. The 'ordinary' rat is not subject to being trapped in a room with electric shocks until it's used to them. The idea of "an ordinary level of effort" being constantly looking for work is likely holding some similar assumption. These people could all be responding entirely 'typically'. 'Ordinary' is just a line drawn in the sand here.
The idea that Anyone who isn't looking for work is "not working by choice" is odd for another reason. Jobs exist in a market. Even a perfectly rational agent will notice that there are costs to finding a job and benefits to having one, and that if the costs or benefits change, the cost benefit analysis changes. A rational agent "choosing not to have a job" is making that choice in the context of the current market. It's not like they have the libertarian free will to snap their fingers and have a 100k salary. Systemic changes to the costs and benefits will change the number of rational agents looking for Jobs.
However, this isn't to say you're wrong either. For one, I've given examples of things that remove people's ability to make rational choices, and things that can cause your observations while being beyond an individual's power to change. But these aren't going to be responsible for everything. Some things are going to be things individuals can change, under the right circumstances. I only mean to point out that agency is a spectrum, and that spectrum responds to systemic changes.
But also- as you are also pointing out, Media response might still be part of what contributes to things like learned helplessness.
I notice the irony though, that if media response contributes to learned helplessness- this can still be framed as a systemic issue that could be affected by regulating the media.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
That sounds like a hit or miss theory of mind.
Not everyone's violent thoughts translate to violent actions. People can be in the process of slowly losing control of their actions while continuing to have violent thoughts, or continuously gaining control of their actions while continuing to have violent thoughts.
Violent thoughts can indicate repressed violent tendencies that are building to a popping point, or they can provide the simulated schadenfreude that negates any need for violent action.
It's not generalizable a priori.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
To me Hitler is just a symbol for modern people who want social totalitarianism of any sort.
Should I forgive those people?
Maybe in some abstract way while still fighting against what they stand for with all my being?
I believe in redemption and all that.
But if you've sold your personal identity to an ideology I want eliminated, I still want the thing you're calling "yourself" erased.
It's shallow consolation to you that I wish your body well and only want the death of your identity.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
In my case my meds stop working if I take them more than two days in a row, so I have to take off days during which I am less of a person and need more supervision.
I'm lucky enough to have people who look after me in those times.
I imagine someone without my resources in my situation would just be fucked. And would not be contributing nearly as many data science dashboards to the economy.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
I don't agree with limiting the transhumanity of our imaginations. Period. The individual should have access to the quality of life improvements technology makes available. Including vividness of imagination.
As soon as your data is inside another individual's desktop computer, not only is it their data, it's literally part of their corporeal being. It's inside that which makes them who they are and determines how they function and what they can do. I don't take this as a metaphor at all. This laptop is the hand with which I reach out and touch the world. This word processor is the mind with which I structure my thought. This is ME. And I will not be chained nor see my brethren chained without righteous fury.
Whether other people should be allowed to publish deepfakes of you is a different discussion.
At the very least, humans should have the same rights to protect their image that Micky Mouse has.
Ultimately, I don't believe in Micky's rights though... my ideals are freedom maximizing, but this produces contradictions in a world where people require scarce resources to flourish.
When humans see two things coupled, they correlate them. In a world where any two concepts/styles/IPs/morphs can be coupled at a touch of a button, most such correlations are in some sense spurious. Humans need time to adapt to this.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
When someone doesn't want you to see deepfakes of them, doing so violates their boundaries.
So, when is it wrong to violate boundaries?
We don't consider all boundaries sacred, and in fact consider some of them dumb or even harmful.
But even when someone violates a non-sacred boundary, we still usually think of them as a jerk.
Where does this one stand?
If you want to claim that poor Americans and residents of Flint lack agency and cannot make good choices for themselves, then the natural question is why do we allow them the freedom to make choices?
Making choices isn't free. We don't just let people make them, we often make people make them. We haven't set things up to give everyone personalized think tank support yet.
Trust is also an issue. If I had a personalized think tank I'd want to be part of the process of personalizing it and so on. Ultimately we give people freedom because we value freedom, and not having to trust or depend on other people. Sometimes to a fault. Sometimes to our own societal detriment.
Yes. It seems that for some folks, idleness (supplemented by wealth transfers) is more fun than work, and that's why we have poverty.
That is not what I said.
For one I'm explicitly avoiding any claims about what the situation actually is on average, or on a case by case basis, because I don't actually know.
But two, fun is far from the only factor in the cost benefit analysis I am describing.
Looking for a job is a cost. You don't actually do anything productive to society while looking for a job. Your cultivation options are limited while actively looking for a job. It's not worth very much to the person looking for a job or for anyone else in the economy until a job is actually acquired. Looking for a job is not always the best way to not die, or even the best way to contribute to society. In some cases, looking for a job is legitimately a waste of everyone's time, because the individual is worth little to employers and their time is worth more elsewhere. I'm not talking about playing video games here.
Which media do you believe is actually conveying this message?
Not nearly convinced of that message but-
Yeah the media is fucked. The main issue is I don't see a way to gain epistemic certainty about the object level of anything politically charged by watching the news.
There might be some outlet that has a complete model of why people are poor. But it's not like I can tell without becoming an expert myself.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
Which implies that painkillers and muscle relaxants can relieve pain for far longer than they're supposed to last in such cases by helping to break the cycle.
Which conforms to my personal experience as well. Though I'd expect cases of chronic pain to be filtered a bit against cases where that works.
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
1yr ago
We have pet chickens at my house. They are extremely loving animals if you get to know them. They'll roost with you, cuddle, ride on your shoulder... sure, they're the descendants of dinosaurs, and I'm sure you could befriend those too if we still had them.
Sure, the roosters can be insecure bastards. Sure, befriending animals can get you killed.. to say nothing of messing with them...
and sentimentality about farm animals in particular, where if you've had any contact with them you know it's not like that - chickens, man
But seriously. Where are you getting this? Have you ever mothered a chick from an egg?
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.
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
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
That was someone else.
Ah, yes my bad.
Your right to believe you're a cat ends at my right to not be forced to say "heeereee kitty, kitty, kitty!" when I see you.
This is a bit too abstract to address. We definitely do put social and legal expectations on one another that compel us to do or not do things all the time. And sometimes we hit one another with serious consequences for these things.
Perhaps we could focus it a bit.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
Fair enough.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
Am I correct that you're a new name in this comment thread? Sometimes I lose track.
But yes. I fully expect people to load their language like this. I was somewhat confused for a moment when I believed the person I was responding to lacked self-awareness on the matter. In any case, the confusion was sorted out.
I think there is quite the conversation to be had on the nature of identity. Certainly it is not true to say "I am of the species Felis catus" but if I say "I am a sapient being who goes 'nyaa', and wears cat ears, and likes pets and scratches." then that is not an illusion. That's objectively correct, nyaa. I might even shorthand that to "I am a catboy."
Unless we want to go deeper, and speak of all identity as an illusion. Or we could have a whole conversation on what constitutes the cultural legitimacy of an identity.
Either way it seems overly simplistic to just say "Their identities are not real" and leave it there. There's just so much to say about identity.
Correct. They should have no such expectation.
Why not? I certainly expect it from all of my confidants and peers.
I believe that's political strategy rather than peacetime philosophy.
In places where trans woman are well accepted, trans women don't care about the distinction existing. In some spaces trans women are even thought of as more ideal than cis women.
It's only in locations where rights are under contest- where people actually want to put trans women in men's bathrooms, where you start seeing lines of thought like that grow.
They're arguments as soldiers that don't catch on in peacetime, and TRAs are on the front lines so they are more likely to hold them.
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