MartianNight
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User ID: 1244
MartianNight
1yr ago
I wonder how much the choice of colors affected people's choices. Blue is the color of American Democrats. Red is the color of American Republicans. Most Twitter users are aligned with the American Democrats so they are biased towards "voting blue”.
The red pill is also a term that is also associated with the anti-feminist manosphere, which puts off the pro-feminist Twitter majority. Those people wouldn't want to be on record taking the red pill on any topic!
MartianNight
1yr ago
I don't think that's nearly as subversive as you suggest, since Yudkowsky ends up endorsing the orthodox libfem belief that the central example of a transgender person is a male body with a female brain in the skull (a view that is, as far as I'm aware, completely unscientific):
But if brains were not sexually typed, brains born into the wrong bodies wouldn't be in such awful straits - they could just construct a gender that matched their body. Yes, there are androgynous men and women, bisexuals, people who go transgender for other reasons... But to deny that many brains are strongly sexually typed is to deny the very real problems of a male brain born into a female body or vice versa.
MartianNight
1yr ago
a double-blinded study would actually provide evidence for the efficacy of magical healing in those times
Why would magical healing prove more effective than a placebo in a double blind study, where, by definition, neither the doctor nor the patient knows whether the patient receives the “real” treatment or a placebo?
MartianNight
1yr ago
This will never be allowed.
Do you remember the guy who modded the Spider-Man game to change LGBTQ+ rainbow flags into American flags (the game is set in New York City) and got his account banned for homophobia for daring to touch the sacred pride flag? That's right: users who bought and paid for the video game are not allowed to change the flag in the game they play on their own computer!
Also, did you know there is another mod for the same game that changes all the American flags in the game into LGTBQ+ flags, and this is perfectly allowed?
Given that, why do you think your augmented reality glasses (courtesy of Facebook, Google, Microsoft, or another ESG-compliant mega-corp) would allow you to remove the mandatory pride colors from the bench, you fucking bigot?
MartianNight
1yr ago
Your use of the word "luddite" suggests that you have a negative emotional valence towards the Actors' Guild strike.
It's unfortunate that Luddite has a negative connotation, but it seems useful to have a term to refer to people who are concerned about AI taking their jobs, to the point that they're willing to go on strike to enact a ban on AI. Can you suggest a more neutral term you would prefer?
MartianNight
1yr ago
It's not that crazy, considering that the US already had a full blown Twitter addict as a President.
MartianNight
1yr ago
I think it's also simple demographics: FtMs are mostly anxious/depressed teenage girls, while MtFs are a mix of terminally online losers and older men with successful careers (Kaitlin Jenner is a prime example of the latter, arguably Rachel Levine too).
So for someone like Joe Biden, if you want to promote an openly transgender but still qualified person, you probably have much more MtF than FtM options.
Also I've noticed that a lot of passing FtMs, like Buck Angel for example, actually seem critical of a lot of ideas the trans movement is pushing (e.g. Angel opposes giving MtFs free access to women's bathrooms, arguing for unisex toilets instead). It's probably because as women they understand that women don't want to compete against Lia Thomas, don't want to be locked in a cell with Karen White, don't want to wax Yessica Yaniv's balls, and don't want their six-year-old daughter exposed to male genitalia in a women-only spa.
It's probably quite hard to find mature FtMs who are willing to fight for the right of MtFs to invade women's spaces, and that's the front of the battle currently.
MartianNight
1yr ago
I really doubt that has much to do with it, since crime tends to concentrate in high-population areas.
For one obvious counter example, Canada's population density is 90% lower than the US, and they have 30% fewer cops than the US, yet crime rates are significantly lower. There are other factors involved too, obviously, but I don't think there is much evidence for the thesis that the need for police officers scales by area rather than population.
MartianNight
1yr ago
I'm not here to tell you what to care about, but you were arguing with @arjin_ferman, who made a claim about what leftists actually believe; you cannot refute that by talking about their stated beliefs. That way you're just talking past each other.
Apart from that, I would still recommend that you try to distinguish between expressed beliefs and true beliefs. It's quite common for these to differ, and the difference is important. What's the point of quibbling about the letter of the law, when the judgment is not based on the letter of the law?
MartianNight
1yr ago
So at least one person on the left (cautiously) believes him enough to honour his request to be addressed by the relevant pronouns.
I don't think you can conclude that they believe he is sincere. It seems more likely that they are willing to humor an obvious troll to cement the rule that everyone's preferred pronouns must be respected. If they make an exception in his case, it becomes clear that the rule is not absolute, which raises the question: who gets to decide who is truly trans and therefore deserving of their personal pronouns? It's better for them to insist that the rule is set in stone and accept the occasional troll as the cost of doing business.
It also reminds me of how Black Lives Matters supported Jussie Smollett even after all the evidence came out that proved his story was a hoax: “In our commitment to abolition, we can never believe police, especially the Chicago Police Department (CPD) over Jussie Smollett, a Black man who has been courageously present, visible, and vocal in the struggle for Black freedom.”
Does the black professor writing this actually believe Smollet is the more credible party here? I doubt it. But throwing their support behind an obvious liar just because he's black reinforces their rule that all black people must be believed over the police all the time.
MartianNight
1yr ago
You tell me. You told me that transwomen never pretend to be ciswomen. I mentioned Semenya because she is a male (or at least nonfemale, if you think her disorder disqualifies her from being a regular male) who against all objective facts insists she's the same as ciswomen. Objectively, Semenya should be competing with other males, because she is genetically and phenotypically male. She isn't female in any way except the fact that she was incorrectly assigned female sex at birth, and these are facts she continues to deny to this day.
The trans activist motte is that “womanhood” is separate from being male or female. But then the bailey is that all privileges that have been granted to ciswomen based on their female biology must also be extended to transwomen because “transwomen are women” and distinguishing between ciswomen and transwomen based on their biological sex is bigotry.
This doesn't make sense in any of the main debates around gender. We have women's sports divisions because males are stronger than females because of biological differences; therefore it makes no sense to include trans-identified males in the women's division. If we did, males would win both divisions and biological females wouldn't be able to compete, which was the whole purpose of introducing a women's division in the first place.
MartianNight
1yr ago
If she's intersex, she is definitely not a woman.
In reality, Caster Semenya is a male with 5α-Reductase 2 deficiency (I had to google this), which very woke and pro-trans Wikipedia defines as (emphasis mine):
5α-Reductase 2 deficiency (5αR2D) is an autosomal recessive condition caused by a mutation in SRD5A2, a gene encoding the enzyme 5α-reductase type 2 (5αR2). The condition is rare, affects only genetic males, and has a broad spectrum.
5αR2 is expressed in specific tissues and catalyzes the transformation of testosterone (T) to 5α-dihydrotestosterone (DHT). DHT plays a key role in the process of sexual differentiation in the external genitalia and prostate during development of the male fetus. 5αR2D is a result of impaired 5αR2 activity resulting in decreased DHT levels. This defect results in a spectrum of phenotypes including overt genital ambiguity, hypospadias, and micropenis. Affected males still develop typical masculine features at puberty (deep voice, facial hair, muscle bulk) since most aspects of pubertal virilization are driven by testosterone, not DHT.
So in every way that matters for the purpose of participating in sports, Semenya is male. I don't think it's reasonable to say that a male with a disorder of sexual development becomes eligible to compete with women. It might be different for people with disorders like CAIS, but obviously Semenya is a genetic male with a male-typical body and male-typical levels of testosterone. She has never acknowledged any of those facts, and neither have you.
Semenya identifies as a woman despite being genetically and phenotypically male. That makes her transgender, by definition.
MartianNight
1yr ago
Okay, I see what you mean here, and I agree that you can become a member of a group by virtue of being recognized as such by your peers. After all, words have meaning only by virtue of people using them to refer to things; if everyone agrees you are a woman you pretty much by definition are one.
But from the fact that there doesn't need to be a rigorous definition of “woman” to be recognized as such, it doesn't follow that any definition will work, and that self-identification is enough. There is practically no noun where you can become that noun simply by self-identification. Am I an artist if I say I am? Am I a genius if I say I am? Am I a greengrocer if I say I am? Am I a nice guy just because I say I am? Am I a black person just because I say I am? Am I an American just because I say I am? All of these things come with some expectations, and although you can quibble about the details, pure self-identification doesn't work (I can't be a Chinese person born in China to Chinese parents that hasn't been in America in my life and meaningfully claim to be American).
In short, even if you cannot define what a woman is, exactly, it's clear that “anyone who identifies as a woman” isn't it.
MartianNight
1yr ago
Before I respond to the content of this comment, have you found a place where Caster Semenya admits to being male, or do you take back your earlier claim that all transwomen recognize that they are male and therefore different from ciswomen?
MartianNight
1yr ago
But that is not how I defined a woman. I said, "Suppose I had a rule that says that men must open doors for women." That rule requires men to open doors for all women, regardless of whether they want the door opened for them or not.
If being a dorble is defined only as identifying as such, and the only consequence of that identification is that non-dorbles must open doors for you, then yes, I think people would identify as dorbles only based on whether they want doors to be held open (or whether they don't want to open doors for others, of course). After all, what else could feeling like a dorble mean? If identifying as a dorble comes with no duties or privileges, it's meaningless.
What is your dorble identity anyway? How did you determine it if not by thinking about doors being held open?
So no matter how you squirm, you have defined dorble as "someone who prefers to have doors held open for them, rather than hold doors open for others", because someone of the opposite preference wouldn't identify as a dorble!
It's the same with genderism. Transwomen want to be seen as women because women are viewed and treated differently in society. What's the point of identifying as a woman if nobody treats you like one?
I am extremely skeptical that that is the reason that a dedication to logical consistency is the reason that they don't like genderism.
It's not "logical consistency", it's the erasure of biological sex as a real thing and the root cause of women's oppression.
"I also understand that simply wishing you were a (cis)woman doesn't make you a (cis)woman." No transgernder person makes that claim, because it is impossible by definition
Oh sweet summer child! I agree it's a logical contradiction, but the whole trans movement is illogical. Go read/watch some interviews with Caster Semenya and find me a single instance where she will admit to being male. It's all "everyone is different, I just happen to have high testosterone", which makes me want to scream: you have high testosterone because you are male, or rather: you don't have high testosterone levels, they are perfectly normal for a male. But again, go find me one interview where this biologically male transwoman admits to being male and/or trans. I'll wait.
Then when you can't find it, please retract your statement and admit that I was right that some transwomen refuse to admit they are not ciswomen. (It's not only Semenya, by the way, but it's a high-profile example.) This is the erasure of biological sex I was talking about.
It would be perfectly fine with me if we used "dorble", but that is not really germane to the underlying issue. because we already have a different term for people who feel that they are women, yet are not born as a member the sex able to bear children: It is "transwoman"!
Except that we also already have a word that means "adult human female" and it's "woman". So instead of relabeling "woman" to "ciswoman" why don't we keep "woman" (sex based) and "dorble" (identity based) and invent a new term for the superset, let's say "worbles"? That seems much less confusing: Caster Semenya is a dorble and a worble but not a woman.
Of course, the conflation of terms is very much intentional. By saying "transwomen are women" trans-activists intend to claim privileges are conferred to ciswomen on the basis of biological sex.
Or if you really want to use the term "woman" to include both males and females, how would you feel if, as a one-time concession, we replaced the words "woman" and "man" with "female" and "male" in all laws and rules written before 2010 we would replace man and woman with male and female? Men's bathrooms would be male bathrooms, women's sports would be female sports, women's prison wards would be female wards, your passport would contain your biological sex again (maybe next to your chosen gender identity), and so on. In this framework I would recognize that I'm male but I wouldn't identify as a man or a woman since the term is meaningless to me.
Then we can discuss whether female bathrooms should be changed to women's bathrooms, and so on. Do you think that would be acceptable to trans activists? Or do you agree it's likely they would fight tooth and nail to get male women recognized as "females" so they can claim all the female privileges by default?
I hire an alien to be the head of Women's Services at my university. [..]
To summarize, what you're arguing for here is to use different definitions of "woman" in different contexts. This is similar to my proposal of separating male/female from man/woman except you make the meaning of the word variable instead of using separate words.
I'm not philosophically opposed to this (many words have different meanings depending on context) but I would start from the assumption that "woman" means "female" and any case to include males would have to be made separately. So no males in women's sports or women's spa's just because those males self-identify as women.
Finally, we provide a safe space for "women" to contemplate the oppressions of the patriarchy. Because of the nature of that patriarchy, for the purposes of admission to that space, we define "woman" thusly: "a 'woman' is anyone who identifies as a woman."
This safe space of course already exists: it's every single college campus in America.
In this model, will there also be a safe space for females who want to contemplate their oppression at the hands of males, which is actually much more common than gender-based oppression? Or do they get banned, harassed and assaulted everywhere they go, as is the case for TERFs today?
Are females allowed to have female only spaces such as spas?
Are lesbian females allowed to have female-only dating apps?
Unless the answer is yes, you are just advocating for more oppression of the female sex.
MartianNight
1yr ago
I guess my overall point here is that “woman” isn’t some mysterious reified category. Like many words for humans, it includes three facets: biological, behavioral, and relational.
I don't think I follow you. Yes, there is a biological definition for both "woman" and "mother", that is clear. Genderists reject biological definitions of women, though.
Then it comes to behavior: it's clear there is some behavioral definition of "mother", or rather "parent", where "mother" refers to a parent that's also a woman. What's the behavioral definition of "woman", though?
Finally, relational: I have no clue what you mean by that, neither in reference to mothers nor to women.
So please, define these terms.
MartianNight
1yr ago
The radical feminist perspective is that Mulvaney isn't a woman because he is male.
The liberal feminist perspective is that Mulvaney is a woman because he identifies as a woman.
Neither group seems to care much about how he behaves, which contrasts with the stepmother discussion, because the consensus seems to be that if you are not a person's biological parent, then to have a valid claim to being the child's parent, you need to have done at least some actual parenting.
MartianNight
1yr ago
In your example, a woman isn't defined by identifying as a woman, but rather by wanting others to hold the door open to them, so there is no recursion.
But wait! We already have a definition of “woman” which refers to the approximately 50% of humans that are of the sex that is able to give birth to children. That has practically nothing to do with holding doors open, so it's confusing to use the same word for both. We should use a different word for people who want the door to be held open for them, let's say “dorble”. Now people can identify as dorbles to signify they want to have the door held open for them, without confusing what a woman is.
A person with a penis and no uterus can be a dorble but not a woman. Would that satisfy you? The reason people don't like genderism is that it conflates desire to be treated as a woman with quality of actually being a woman. I can understand some people want to be a woman (I've thought about it many times myself) but I also understand that simply wishing you were a (cis)woman doesn't make you a (cis)woman. If transwomen only desired to be known as dorbles rather than women they'd get a lot less pushback.
And I define an "unhappy person" as anyone who feels he is unhappy. Would you claim that that is endlessly discursive?
If the only definition of “unhappy person” is “person who identifies as unhappy” then yes, it would be a circular definition. But you already said “feels” and not “identifies”, which implies they must actually feel a certain way. Happiness is hard to define objectively, but it involves a certain feeling of contentment. It's clear that if you are clinically depressed you cannot cure yourself by simply identifying as a happy person. So there does seem to be some intrinsic quality to happiness beyond mere self-identification. And of course, a person who feels happy cannot be unhappy, but actually feeling happy is different from claiming that you feel happy.
From the other side, there are lots of teenagers on Tiktok who whine about how they suffer from anxiety and depression and Tourettes and ADHD and autism and narcolepsy and... and... and.... are you saying all these kids are actually suffering from depression and anxiety disorder etc. in the clinical sense just because they identify as such? Or do you agree that for a lot of these people what they claim to experience is different from what they actually experience? I think transgenderism is similar: a lot of the people who claim they feel like the opposite sex don't actually feel that way.
Can you break that statistic down into stepfathers and stepmothers?
(Ideally without including males in the category of “stepmother” but I realize that in our society that might be too much to ask.)
MartianNight
1yr ago
Fair enough, but those aren't really appropriate dress in a lot of situations, for example if you work in any kind of office environment.
MartianNight
1yr ago
Fortunately my real-life experience with transgender people has been reasonable too, and I don't think we would see as much pushback against genderism if all trans people were like that, but unfortunately there is a minority that isn't like that, and what's more, those are explicitly endorsed by trans activists, whose mantra is that "a (wo)man is anyone who identifies as a (wo)man". So I think it's fair to attack that idea by focusing on the people who don't particularly look or act like their desired gender and are basically ruining it for the rest.
The fundamental problem with allowing people to earn their gender stripes by performing gender roles, is that it requires accepting gender roles. Maybe people on The Motte do believe in gender roles (men must be strong and protect women and children, women must be pretty and nurture children), but feminists have historically rejected those. I think both views are defensible, but you can't have it both ways: if a woman who wears jeans and doesn't shave her legs isn't any less of a woman, why would a man who wears a skirt and shaves his legs become less of a man? What has Dylan Mulvaney done to earn the name "woman" besides dressing up and acting like a ridiculous gender stereotype, almost a parody of a woman?
Compare that with parenthood: being a biological parent does come with the expectation that you will nurture and care for your child. A deadbeat dad who impregnates a woman and then bails isn't much of a parent, neither is a mother who neglects her children. So stepparents can emulate the expected behavior and earn the recognition of being a parent, at least partly, but only because there are expectations that a parent is supposed to fulfill beyond the initial act of donating genetic material (for men) and giving birth (for women). If you define a parent as just the genetic donor (just like radical feminists define a woman as someone who just has female biology) then obviously you cannot work your way into parenthood.
But none of this really matters because trans activists don't even require trans people to behave in any particular way: "a (wo)man is anyone who identifies as a (wo)man". That's like saying "a mother is anyone who says they're a mother" but if you haven't given birth or taken care of any children in your life, you're obviously not a mother in any meaningful sense of the word. You can't discredit that argument by pointing to a group of stepmothers who take care of their stepchildren.
(By the way, I do think there is some gatekeeping for the word "mother" too. For example, there is a whole subreddit dedicated to hating on Hilaria Baldwin, and some of that is based on the accusation that she's lying about giving birth to some of her children.)
It's just missing the bow-tie.
To be fair, it's hard for transmen to dress casually and distinguish themselves from women. Jeans? Slacks? T-shirts? Button-downs? Hoodies? Women wear all of these, even though the fit is typically a little different. Really the only part of a casual male outfit are the shoes, and good luck getting men to look at your shoes.
By comparison, transwomen can put on a spinny dress and programmer socks, and while they might not pass as a woman, at least it's clear they don't want to be identified as a man.
MartianNight
1yr ago
This sounds like what might actually happen today if the races were swapped
Huh? You're saying if a white man murdered two black men that raped and tortured a white girl, an all-black jury would let the murderer off the hook entirely?
MartianNight
1yr ago
This change is uniformly impacting everyone
This is plainly false. The API changes mostly affect third-party app users, and moderators that rely on bots/external tools that depend on the Reddit API. Users of old.reddit.com or even new.reddit.com aren't directly affected.
I always assumed that phone users made Reddit worse for people interested in information and discussion: following external links is harder in apps so this discourages citing sources or reading external resources, phone screens are too small to read long-form content, and writing detailed messages is hard. Consequently I imagine app users disproportionately write one-liners and upvote memes and short comments (the opposite of what people do on The Motte).
I think reddit without phone users would be an improvement over what it is today, even if it doesn't fix the moderation problem.
The point is that to a utilitarian rationalist who optimizes for expected utility, the mechanism shouldn't matter, only the (expected) outcome.
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