PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
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User ID: 890
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
1yr ago
The UN uses a liberal definition of genocide that includes things other than killing, so it's certainly not constrained to progressives.
Your post definitely crystallized the "cultural genocide" angle, but I wonder if you're thinking too hard about it. If I asked the TRA's I know in real life to explain what they mean by "threatening trans peoples existence" I wonder if they would give me a nuanced argument about cultural genocide, or if they would cite the 42% statistic.
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
1yr ago
Is there anything wrong with the term "transwomen?" Some people would say the term is offensive, and you should simply write "trans woman."
I think the OP's blog post lays it out simplest: this is a policy question disguised as a definition question. No amount of definitions will cause anyone to be OK with me saying things like "male trans woman." Socially/mentally bucketing Lia Thomas and Joe Biden together is an example of one such contentious policy.
No amount of gerrymandered definitions will change which concepts people think are worth using.
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
1yr ago
Relevant: dissolving disease.
In the face of fatness, a consequentialist might posit 2 solutions to reduce suffering:
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Cure fatness.
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Restructure society so fat people aren't disadvantaged.
Arguments over whether transgender, fat, autism, etc. are diseases seem like rhetorical techniques in order to enforce a preferred aesthetic on society.
Anti-memocide activists take option (2) in order to preserve cultures they like, such as the LGBTQ or autism community (what's the difference? snicker). Others, disgusted by these groups, suggest (1) we thin out those populations (without violence of course) to reduce suffering.
I imagine the disgust reaction to transgender and fatness happens first, and the designation of disease happens second. Of course, it's the same for actual diseases, like leprosy.
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
1yr ago
What is the "root" of the problem? Is it that people get fat? Or is it that fat people suffer increased health risks, beauty-ism, and are a literal poor fit for clothes and spaces? I'm going to do a little bit of mind-reading and assume that in your world where the problem is solved, everyone is thin.
A fat-activist does not have any disgust to fat people, and aesthetically values diversity of size, In her world where the problem is solved, there are fat people, but they don't suffer health risks due to improved medical technology, nor beautyism or logistical issues because of social engineering.
To make another unfair comparison to your position -- would you say glasses solve the root problem of poor eyesight? Of course, nobody is disgusted by poor eyesight...
You might argue that you consistently are taking the path of least resistance:
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the easiest solution to fat people probably is a world where everyone is thin (based on what the past was like)
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the easiest solution to poor eyesight seems to be glasses
The question then, is what is the fat-acceptance movement doing differently? You say they've given up on solving the root problem, but (if my mind-reading was correct) you would be modeling fat-positive types as giving up on making everyone thin. I do not think they want everyone to be thin. I think they are willing to implement more difficult solutions (medicine, social engineering) to achieve their preferred aesthetics.
I suspect even, that they are so against memocide, that they would approve of societal interventions to increase fatness, because interventions to decrease it are problematic. Whether or not they can do this openly is a political question of optics. This also explains LGBTQ groomers.
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
1yr ago
Well, an activist's argument might merely be "you call fatness a disease to enforce your preferred aesthetic on society".
My argument is that in addition, an activist calls fatness not-disease to enforce their preferred aesthetic on society: A society with fat people in it. Which is why they would argue for medical or social interventions to remove the bad things about being fat, while still keeping the diversity of body size that they inherently value.
Clearly, this is not persuasive to you, because the fatness itself is disgusting. You correctly hint at the reason for our disgust towards fat people: evolution.
Here are other examples of this double-bind:
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Babies are aborted. One fix is more birth control (maybe not the best fix), but if birth control is disgusting, then you're open to a gotcha like "If conservatives are against abortion so much, why are they also against birth control?"
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Blacks are oppressed. One fix is ethno-nationalism (maybe not the best fix) but if segregation is disgusting, then you're open to a gotcha like "If liberals are against racism so much, why are they do they like diversity so much?"
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LGBTQ is oppressed. One fix is to memocide their community so they don't exist anymore (maybe not the best fix) but if memocide is disgusting, then you're open to a gotcha like "If the woke is against LGBTQ oppression so much, why are they grooming children to be a part of this downtrodden culture?"
In all of these cases, there has got to be a second value difference:
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The right is against birth control, independent of abortion, for some reason.
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Liberals like diversity, independent of being against racism, for some reason.
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The woke likes LGBTQ, independent of being against oppression, for some reason.
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
1yr ago
In 2014 or so I saw a silly Facebook video from some low-tier rag (I think it was called NowThis -- I think they're still around but they no longer put out low effort CW) praising the "hella diverse" cast of some sports team or something -- it was all black women. That was probably the first time I noticed "Diversity" was one of one of those words.
If the legacy of slavery etc. really is as damaging as claimed, then the focus on the blacks over the browns, reds, and yellows makes sense. It doesn't explain the focus on women, gays, and trans though.
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
1yr ago
You'd welcome medicine to fix those health problems but will it fix the unpleasantness that you spent a paragraph detailing? I think more medicine is good but I'd still prefer a world where everyone is thin. It's less disgusting in my opinion.
My point is that a philosopher of perfect emptiness couldn't choose between these two:
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making fat people no longer exist
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making it healthy to be fat
It takes an additional axiom like:
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most efficient solution
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fatness is disgusting
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fatness is beautiful and diverse
In order to really care for one over the other.
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
1yr ago
Fair enough, you're right that actual fat-activists are not the consequentialists I described in my first post!
I still wouldn't support this hypothetical, steelmanned movement because I find fatness disgusting, but the thought-experiment was novel to me. Maybe I'm just behind.
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
1yr ago
Some people have argued that to affirm a trans person is lying. I sympathize with someone who says, "if I call a trans person by his preferred pronoun, it feels like I am lying." If this is all that is meant, then I suppose the rest of this post isn't relevant. To me, the stronger claim is, "if society calls a trans person by his preferred pronoun, society is lying." I never bought that claim, because I never encountered a contradictory set of definitions for sex and gender.
But recently I realized the term passing is actually transphobic according to the definitions laid out.
This is pretty clearly a woman. I can tell because of the hair and clothes. I infer she goes by "she." If I had to publicly address her, I'd do so with she.
People typically speak of passing as a woman. Since I can infer she is a woman, it follows that she passes as a woman. But as far as I can tell, nobody would describe her as passing, because she looks transgender (i.e. male). Based on how "pass" is used, it seems to really mean pass as cisgender. To see passing in this sense, as a good thing, is deceptive. It also seems transphobic. Surely a less transphobic worldview would suggest she passes as a woman because I can correctly infer her pronouns, and that her womanness is just as beautiful as a ciswomans.
Inb4 replies castigating me for just now realizing this: nobody had ever crystalized to me that passing meant to misrepresent a trans person as cisgender because most discourse talks about "passing as a woman"
Am I missing something? Can anyone else steelperson all this?
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
1yr ago
Do you have any links to these radical activists who say that? That's new to me.
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
1yr ago
I already do embrace it, though I'm sad to see many replies to my post seem unable to.
Most of the time I've heard people define passing or talk about passing, they talk as if one "passes for femme."
But most of the time I hear people use passing, it's better described to mean "passes as female"
Certainly I don't blame someone trying to pass - it certainly comes with advantages. But I also wouldn't blame a woman who alters her behavior at parties to avoid being raped. Victim blaming is when society asks women to change their behavior to avoid rape (problematic) right?
Trans people trying to pass reminds me of women trying to avoid being raped. Isn't the ideal activist world one where neither minority has to alter their behavior? What's the difference? Why is one more realistic than the other? Is it just about optics, and what activists can get away with asking society to do?
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
1yr ago
If womannees (the social meaning) was actually useful to discuss then passing would be about passing as a woman. Since I can correctly infer most people's pronouns thats what it would mean to pass.
Since passing is actually about passing as cis -- that is, passing as female (the physical meaning) then it is deceptive because its goal to cause observers to make false inferences.
You intrigue me with your clever hypothetical where the terms are defined as conflating the physical and the social into one category. Of course, any category buckets things so that's not necessarily a bad thing. Could you elaborate on that?
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
1yr ago
Sounds like a lot of development effort and there's a lot of higher priority issues currently.
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
1yr ago
Seconding this: I cheated and griefed/trolled in Minecraft as a child but I wouldn't cheat in a competitive ranked online shooter game in 2022.
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
1yr ago
Defining anti-racism as being an activist against racism doesn't strike me as linguistic terrorism.
I suppose the worst thing Kendi is doing in that quote is the you're-either-with-us-or-against-us trick, but all sorts of ideologues do that.
This feels a little like the "feminism is the radical belief that women are people too."
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
1yr ago
So I looked through the thread and I can't really find what's so crazy about this.
They took a creepy image and combined it with all sorts of random stuff, and then out come more creepy images? That doesn't sound noteworthy.
The twitter OP emphasizes in the replies that the noteworthy thing is that the derivative images seem to conjure gore and body horror. The original creepy image is merely creepy and doesn't have any gore or body horror. This isn't that noteworthy if the training associates gore and body horror with the generally demonic looking eyes and the raw wounded-looking skin that are already in the source Loab.
Since Loab was discovered using negative prompt weights, her gestalt is made from a collection of traits that are equally far away from something. But her combined traits are still a cohesive concept for the AI, and almost all descendent images contain a recognizable Loab.
It seems the researchers did negative(negative("Brando")) to get the original creepy image. I would be more impressed if negative(negative(X)) generated a Loab for many X, including things not anthropomorphic. Or am I misunderstanding something?
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
1yr ago
I can't visualize what "an AI going over your stuff or your community" is. Like if you wanted to make art but do some steganography on it to make it "unlearnable" by a text-to-image AI? Or; if you wanted to have a forum but do something to it so that a language AI couldn't generate plausible-sounding posts?
It's hard for me to imagine a way to mix that would attack the AI but leave human perception unchanged.
Other comments have already pointed out the gotcha whereby sexism is also said to be a societal cause that shapes a woman's desires. In this way, a society where everyone is happy can still be sexist!
This is a little odd, but not too odd because otherwise you would be also able to justify American chattel slavery. It's been said that emancipated blacks were unhappier on average etc.
Now, there are some things about being a slave that are, irrespective of being happy, potentially unhealthy. For example, it might be the case that slaves were malnourished or abused. Even if they were happy, keeping someone down and making them happy about it is generally considered bad.
I think feminists are making a similar argument. They don't care if (on average) women are happy being homemakers instead of programmers and CEOs. The feminist believes it is harmful, likely because programmers and CEOs are paid more and so are more financially independent.
I kind of see this angle, because I for one feel fortunate that I enjoy programming, and am good at programming, and I can make a buck while I'm at it. It's one of the few ways I feel like I'm meant for this world, and i suppose it is a little unfortunate (for them) that the median person does not desire this. I suppose women are disproportionately affected by this.
A lot of people don't like beats or brussel sprouts. (I hope I can form a consensus about this!) These people speak as if those foods are gross and icky and wouldn't even want to like them. But I would say, it is probably better to like them. It is inconvenient to be picky. Let us decouple our thoughts on brussel sprouts from our thoughts on liking them.
Feminism is kind of condescending in that it tells women what they should and should not want. Else, it must defend that the lot of a western woman is like that of a slave. The latter appears to be the more common strategy.
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
1yr ago
regardless of whether women actually want to be in leadership roles, there should not be structural bias against it
You appear to use "structural bias" as a negative term here, and "actually want" as a neutral term, as if peoples preferences are just the way the world is. (What if preferences are malleable to social engineering?)
feminists claim the gender disparity at management levels is evidence that structural bias exists
Firstly, there are many feminists and they claim different things, so we need to be specific. Secondly, as other comments have alluded to, the structural bias here causes female preferences.
It is common for a feminist to make the above empirical claim about gender disparity, and use "structural bias" in the same way you do. When evidence to the contrary is presented, the feminist interlocutor either ends the conversation, changes the topic, or falls back on a subtly different meaning of "structural bias." I suppose charitably he used this other meaning of "structural bias" the entire time, but I will explain the complications of assuming that charity.
The fallback meaning of "structural bias" require us to read the feminist claim as being tautological, not empirical. "Structural bias" is simply anything socially-constructed which makes men and women different. "Bias" should be read here like statistical bias not "human bias." Since women have a tendency to not be leaders, this is tautological evidence for some systemic bias. I will also explain the complications of the term "socially-constructed."
I originally had a monologue on preferences and meta-preferences, but to keep it shorter: feminism's true preferences are not merely "women are happy" or "women face no discrimination." Feminism's true preference appears to be: "women are not different from men." Since the first two are an easier sell to the public, those are what we hear the most about, but I think those are only stated reasons, not the true reasons. The problem with assuming that feminists always use "structural bias" in the tautological sense is that the layman thinks it means discrimination anyways (Standard motte-and-bailey)
The problem with socially-constructed things is that it is just a synonym for "things." My inflammatory claim that feminism aims to erase all distinction between man and woman seems like it would fly in the face of biology, but we mutate biology all the time. To demonstrate, I will make an even more inflammatory prediction: if artificial wombs become feasible, I would expect feminists to agitate for one or both of these:
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men to receive artificial wombs to equally bear the cost of bearing children
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an end to all traditional conception
In both of these cases, I would expect feminism to use social engineering to align peoples preferences with this outcome. According to this model, feminism is in the business of world-outcomes, not making people happy. There is another model I alluded to in my original reply that describes feminism as harm-reduction, but that model wasn't as relevant to the quoted text.
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
1yr ago
I do not understand the distinction made in Edge Case 1. What is an earnestly held belief? I believe (haha) beliefs are anticipations, and so true beliefs are by definition the thing that makes people do what they do (caveats for deception). I would say that particular minority of SJer really does think they are making the world a better place. Consider the following thought process:
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Conservatives are bad people
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It doesn't matter what they think
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The world will be a better place once they die out, regardless of what I do
In this thought process, conversion just isn't a terminal value. "Yeah, but on the other hand, fuck 'em" sounds like a not-so-well-thought-out response, because it doesn't actually say anything about reality, it is just a "boo outgroup" light. So, you should avoid reading too much into it. I certainly don't think it means, "I agree with your empirical claim that being less hostile will convert more people. And I agree with your value claim that converting more people will make the world a better place. But on the other hand, fuck them."
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
1yr ago
Where exactly is the list of idealogically affiliated subreddits? I couldnt find that list anywhere on the links you posted.
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
1yr ago
the specific SJ proponents we are discussing -- ones who think conservatives are not worth converting -- do behave in accordance with that anticipation, which is why I was arguing that they are in fact, the hero of their own story and making the world a better place according to their true beliefs.
Whether these individuals are open-minded in the scientific sense and open to experimentation is a completely different question.
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
1yr ago
Thanks! I erroneously thought the first link went to the website's homepage, and so didn't directly click it.
PutAHelmetOn
Recovering Quokka
1yr ago
Too much validation is also a problem. Men and women are probably just too different to have hard analogies.
This feels like it is applicable to any tool and any skill. Programmers have to keep up with tools is a well-known trope if only because the tools change so rapidly.
In your original post, you described this tool as coming from malice, can you elaborate more on that?
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