Spez1alEd
1yr ago
Given that the question states you have to choose between a red or a blue pill, presumably were this a scenario that was happening in real life with real life-or-death stakes, you would have to decide which option you were going to take by choosing one of the pills and swallowing it. There would be no misclicks in such a scenario.
Spez1alEd
2yr ago
I'm not a progressive but I suppose the steelman would be that in the progressive view, white people are intrinsically racist and possessed of certain unconscious biases and living in an area with a lot of white people would lead someone to encounter these instances of racism and bias more often, which isn't pleasant even if they aren't directed towards them. It may also lead white people in these areas to vote for less progressive policies and make the place less progressive as a whole. Even if true though, I suspect some other demographics may hold non-progressive sentiments at an even higher rate. I'd expect a city with a large urban black population or many devout Muslims to have more sexists and homophobes for example, although admittedly that's a guess.
Anyway, if you don't mind me asking have you ever asked your friend if they can see how this sort of rhetoric would turn people away from progressivism? It just baffles me how progressives will say things like this and then wonder why people become "anti-woke" or put it all down to them being racist and too attached to their privilege, not wanting to give it up.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
I don't think Rationalists would be worried about AI alignment if they thought that more intelligent = more better in every relevant way.
Isn't that exactly why they are worried about AI alignment? They don't necessarily consider intelligence to confer moral superiority, but many do consider it to be among the most important qualities in determining how competent/powerful an agent is. That's exactly why it's scary to think of what would happen if an extremely intelligent, hence powerful, agent that didn't share any of humanity's core values were to emerge.
Spez1alEd
2yr ago
It's pretty simple really. Mocking or ridiculing them for being trans, taking it as a sign they're a potential sexual predator, suggesting violence should be visited upon them for being trans, wishing them to be disowned by their family or socially ostracised generally, celebrating high rates of suicide among them would all constitute holding trans people in contempt: basically, considering them to be bad people, expressing hatred toward them or wishing harm upon them.
Whereas not validating their gender identity, i.e. refusing to agree that trans women are women or trans men or men, whether or not one chooses to use their preferred pronouns, is obviously not in line with modern pro-trans ideology but doesn't indicate a hatred of them. Nor does believing they should not be treated the same way as cis members of their preferred gender when it comes to sports or changing rooms or prisons and other gender-segregated spaces, or believing they should not be medically transitioning at a young age or without going through a thorough screening process to verify their gender dysphoria, or that in some cases transition is not necessary. Basically it just comes down to the fact that not affirming their beliefs or identity isn't the same thing as despising them the way people on places like /pol/ tend to.
Spez1alEd
2yr ago
In terms of relative severity, "Paki" in the UK is as bad as "Nigger", possibly worse. Both would result in a beatdown and/or prosecution if used to insult an identifiable member of the group referred to, and cancellation if used to insult the group generically.
Although it would definitely be thought of as offensive I don't think the word Paki is considered nearly as bad in the UK as nigger is in the US. It's anecdotal but when I was a kid my friends and relatives casually referred to the corner shop as the Paki shop and not in a manner that seemed to imply any genuine racial hostility on their part, likewise to this day Chinese people, restaurants and food can all be referred to as a chinky. I don't think you could unironically use these words on TV without causing a controversy, but at least people from around where I'm from aren't going to assume you're an unrepentant racist if they hear you using them the way I assume people would if you go around casually referring to black people as niggers in the US. It could be a class thing, my family is all very working class from a very white area.
I also can't ever recall the word Paki being censored when the media discussed racism against Asians, such as instances of "Paki-bashing" in which Asians have been physically assaulted for their race. If racist attacks against black people in the US were referred to by a term which contained the word nigger I'd be very surprised if the slur wasn't commonly censored when the media reported on it.
Spez1alEd
2yr ago
I find it strange as well, but perhaps it's because American conservatism can trace its lineage back to a liberal revolution and its adherents see themselves as carrying on the values of that revolution. The liberal/libertarian elements of the ideology have always struck me as an odd thing to pair with social conservatism, but its followers take them seriously it seems, and in that case perhaps it's no surprise they would opt for the freedom and individualism represented by a car-based society over the sense of community offered in walkable cities. America's immense cultural reach also means that these libertarian tendencies can be exported and influence other conservative movements worldwide.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
Does the author believe that a woman being "mentally ill, disturbed or needy or unhappy or really drunk at a party" makes her unable to meaningfully consent? It's not totally clear from the text, but to me it reads like she acknowledges that not all of those conditions would remove a woman's ability to consent.
The last thing she needs is a penis. If she’s an upset, needy person and you [expletive] her and then the rumor starts going around school, she might need to, for the defense of her reputation, say, “He raped me.”
This quote suggests to me that the author thinks a woman who's upset and needy might simply regret any sex she had while in that state after the fact, not that it would be rape. But she goes on to say that if a woman in that position accuses a man she agreed to have sex with of rape "for the defence of her reputation" (so, not because it's actually true, but just because it would be less embarrassing for her if people thought that's what happened), well, it's basically his fault for being a jerk and a dumbass, even if he didn't actually rape her.
This seems to actually go beyond victim-blaming to the point of justifying false rape accusations so long as they're aimed at men who acted sufficiently sleazy and callous according to some vaguely-defined, subjective standard.
Spez1alEd
2yr ago
Even if it is ostensibly only about a certain subset of white people, calling it wypipoing clearly insinuates it's behaviour that is typical of white people and therefore insults them as a whole. It's equivalent to having an article titled Top 10 Nigga Moments of 2022 and just having it be a list of times notable black people impulsively attacked people, implying it to be typical black behaviour.
Spez1alEd
7mo ago
The male/female dynamic to me appears to very closely mirror the adult/child dynamic and I'm not sure why more people don't frame it this way. Most norms or policies that are criticised as misogynistic are really more paternalistic in my estimation, based on the intuition that women aren't as strong, capable or accountable and so are in need of special protection and consideration from men, who might even be asked to sacrifice their lives, but on the flip side people traditionally see men as much more capable and agentic and independent and generally worth taking seriously.
Women benefit a lot from this dynamic obviously and it's even embedded in a lot of progressive ideas and campaigns if unwittingly, but you can see how it's not exactly as flattering to them as it might first appear, framing them as more of a beloved subordinate than a respected equal.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
It seems clear to me he wasn't saying he believes in judging people as in "possessing the personality trait of being particularly judgemental." He just meant that when we assess someone's character, which everyone inevitably does, we should do so based on their actual individual character and not based on which identity groups they're a part of or on their immutable characteristics. At least I would be very surprised if he meant anything else.
Spez1alEd
2yr ago
That example isn't of somebody being against homosexuality but not homophobic, though. It's not an example of them being against homosexuality at all, just against books with racy scenes being in schools.
Spez1alEd
7mo ago
Turks take the attitude of 'it never happened and it was good that it did, Armenians are scum' when it comes to their misdeeds.
If you have to claim it never happened I think it does demonstrate that on some level you're either aware it's morally indefensible and do feel guilty over it, or you at least know it would look really bad if you tried to defend it as justified. Even if in the next breath you go on to imply the targeted group were scum who would've deserved it anyway, people are quite capable of this sort of doublethink. I definitely think this is what's happening in most cases of people denying atrocities, whether it be the Holocaust, Holodomor, Armenian genocide or Japanese war crimes: they know they can't defend those things so they deny or downplay them instead. Obviously you have some non-white/Western examples there.
So, I don't think it's true that non-white people just don't care about whether they're morally culpable for various atrocities groups they identify with have committed, because if they didn't care they wouldn't feel the need to deny or downplay them. They would either defend them or simply shrug.
Spez1alEd
2yr ago
The interesting thing about Bridget is that under the logic of gender being a social construct I think you could argue he was already trans, and when he adopted a female gender identity in the latest game, that was actually him detransitioning. In the backstory, although he was always male, he had also been raised as a girl pretty much since birth. So his sex was male, but the gender he was assigned at birth was female.
The fact he identified as a man in earlier games meant that he was rejecting the gender he was assigned at birth, making him a transman. By going back on that and identifying as a woman again, he's detransitioning in order to embrace the gender he was assigned at birth. Sure he's biologically male, but if gender is purely a social construct then that shouldn't make a difference, right? He's returning to his original gender identity, so he's detransitioning. Trans people largely didn't seem to see it that way though and accepted him as mtf.
Some people who didn't like the change also pointed out that by adopting a female gender identity, rather than bravely going against the grain he was conforming to the expectations of his parents, who raised him as a girl, and society at large which frequently perceived and gendered him as female due to his name and appearance even when he was identifying as male. If it was supposed to be positive trans representation then I think perhaps it wasn't thought out all that well.
Spez1alEd
2yr ago
It's called the Labour Party because it began as a party for workers and socialists.
Spez1alEd
2yr ago
Am I wrong to think there's just something fundamentally different and more sinister about euthanising someone due to mental rather than physical defects?
It might not be entirely rational - there probably are people who suffer immensely due to mental trauma who actually would be better off ending their lives - but it just feels different. I think what bothers me about it is that it's easy to separate physical disabilities from character flaws, I mean there really is no relation at all, being physically weak has nothing to do with weakness of character.* But it's a lot harder to separate a mental illness from somebody's personality and who they are as a person - if being a sociopath means you're an asshole, okay maybe it's not your fault you're a sociopath but you're still an asshole when you get down to it. I'm still going to judge you for acting like one, and likewise I'll give you credit for exhibiting positive traits associated with sociopathy like bravery. That might be an offensive way to think about mental conditions but I really don't think anyone can claim they're truly able to fully separate the disorder from the person.
So to euthanise somebody for a mental condition comes off to me like you're saying there's something fundamentally wrong with who they are to such an extent that they're better off dead. It feels like a value judgement in a way that euthanising somebody so they don't have to suffer through the final few months of cancer doesn't. It doesn't sit right with me. I mean, the Nazis described mentally ill people they considered unworthy of life as "empty shells of human beings." If you euthanise someone for say, clinical depression, even if you have their consent aren't you basically agreeing that that's what they are?
*Well there are cases in which a person might be injured and become disabled because of a character flaw, or might develop a character flaw because of a physical disability, but you know what I mean. Being in a wheelchair doesn't really say anything about who you are, whereas if you're autistic that's an integral part of your personality.
Spez1alEd
9mo ago
It doesn't have to be that sinister. Rather than explicitly forgoing profits in an effort to "punish" incels, it could be that the screenwriters felt upset or embarrassed about creating a movie that was alleged to appeal to incels or to legitimise their frustrations, even if unintentionally. So they made a push to move as far away from that as possible in the sequel to refute those allegations, and didn't see this as conflicting with their pursuit of profits.
Incidentally is there any reason to believe incels even particularly liked the first film or ever identified with the Joker? I feel as if that association was entirely made up by people parodying them, unless maybe it was a riff off the "clown world" idea that was popular in right-wing circles for a while.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
I can't claim this is particularly rigorous, but I have noticed a broad pattern in which traditional or right-wing ideologies tend to include a strong belief in the power of individual agency to shape the world, whereas progressive or left-wing ones don't. If you look at arguably the most traditional belief system there is, Animism, it attributes agency to absolutely everything down to trees, rocks, rivers and clouds, which are perceived as conscious beings that act with deliberate intent. Even something as simple as it raining is thought of as the deliberate act of a god.
On the other hand, far-left ideologies such as Marxism tend to stress the role of socioeconomic forces larger than any one man in shaping history. It's believed communism's victory is inevitable because the material conditions will shift and make capitalism obsolete. Class conflict is portrayed as inevitable, with the capital class effectively incapable of not exploiting the labour class to the greatest extent they can due to the way the system is set up. I believe there's also a parallel here with progressive beliefs about how white people are incapable of not perpetuating racism due to their position in society.
Great Man Theory, too, is right-coded and stresses the role of individual agency in historical change, where leftists prefer to believe that structural forces play a larger role; conservatives speak of the importance of personal responsibility while progressives emphasise the effect of environmental influences on a person's choices, and consequently cons tend to believe strict punishment of criminals is just as they are ultimately responsible for their choices, where progs favour leniency as they believe a person may have had little choice but to turn to crime.
I would even argue that the reason rightists seem to be more likely to give credence to conspiracy theories is that they align with the idea of a small number of individual agents acting with deliberate intent to change the world, something more plausible to the right-wing worldview than the systemic explanations the left favour, which suppose people perpetuate systems of oppression without necessarily having conscious intent to.
On the other hand, it could be argued that belief in HBD or in certain individuals being chosen by God to rule is anti-agency, and some right-wing ideologies do seek to greatly restrict agency for certain classes of people (e.g. women) or sometimes the population at large, whereas left-wing ones can seek to greatly expand the agency of groups previously denied it (again, women). Perhaps that's not so counter-intuitive though; if you think individual agency is powerful you might logically seek to restrict who can wield it, whereas if you think it doesn't matter so much, why not let everyone have it?
Spez1alEd
2yr ago
I doubt that you hold radically politically correct views.
I'm not sure how this is relevant.
The claim to double standards also doesn't work perfectly, as the left sees no contradiction here, because they consider whites to be a large enough and powerful enough group that such generalizations do not pose a threat to anyone.
Yes, I understand their justification for the double standard, I just don't agree with it. Besides that I'm not sure how it contradicts what I said: even if negative generalisations of white people don't have the same consequences as negative generalisations of black people, it still is a negative generalisation of white people and not merely criticism of Republicans/chuds/etc.
Spez1alEd
2yr ago
I feel as though there is actually a relevant difference here, in that from what I understand Kaepernick refused to stand for the anthem as a form of political protest. He wanted to draw attention to himself and his beliefs with his refusal to stand. By contrast Reimer, I would imagine, refused to wear the jersey because it conflicted with his personal religious beliefs. He wasn't doing it to protest LGBT stuff or draw attention to himself, he just did it because he felt his conscience and beliefs compelled him to. If that's the case I would argue Kaepernick was inserting politics into sports where Reimer wasn't.
However, if Kaepernick wasn't using his refusal to stand for the anthem as a protest, but instead refused to stand because he felt his conscience wouldn't allow him to celebrate his country given certain critical flaws he perceived it to have or injustices he felt it was committing, then I would argue he wasn't inserting politics into sport either.
Ultimately it comes down to the question of whether the acts were done for external reasons, i.e. to promote a certain political agenda to others, or for internal ones i.e. simply to ensure one didn't betray their own values and beliefs.
Spez1alEd
2yr ago
Maybe it's a weird thing to hone in on but it seems a little strange they didn't bother to capitalise neither white nor European, the names of the groups they're willing to kill and die for, but did capitalise Yoruba. Not to mention the fact they even bothered to bring up her being Yoruba as though white nationalists would care in the slightest what variety of black person she is, as others have mentioned.
I mean virtually everyone in the replies just believes it's genuine without question so if it is a forgery I guess you don't have to try very hard to make it convincing to people, at least people that are already on your side and want to believe it's real, but it's still a really strange mistake to make.
If we were to follow this logic to its ultimate conclusion, seemingly it would mean we should consider anyone who mimics the outward appearance and behavioural standards of a group to be a part of that group. Is that something you'd endorse?
Correct me if I'm wrong though, but mainstream progressives don't appear to accept this line of argument in regards to any social construct besides gender. When white college professors are exposed as having falsely claimed to be Amerindian despite lacking any Native DNA or cultural background, they're typically considered to have committed a grave act of cultural appropriation and transgressed against a marginalised group, even though evidently they quacked and looked enough like a duck to convincingly pass as one for several years in some cases.
If we were to apply the current trans self-ID paradigm to the situation, they needn't even have done that; just claiming to be Native should have been enough for them to be considered valid, even if they made no changes to their appearance or behaviour at all. Likewise, an American weeb who claims to be Japanese shouldn't be a valid target of mockery, but every bit as Japanese as an actual born-and-raised Japanese, who has no right to object.
If we're going to so strictly police the boundaries of every other social construct, and say that there is an actual essentialist element or at least one of lived experience required to qualify as part of it, why are we expected to make an exception for gender?
Maybe you think mainstream progressives just don't go far enough and follow their logic to its conclusion here, or maybe the idea is that there are good political reasons to police the boundaries of race; in practice a white man who self-IDs as black isn't going to be perceived as such and so won't be subject to the same struggles actual black people face. But people who object to trans ideology might say the same, that the struggles of a transwoman are not those of a cis woman and so this is a valid reason to police the boundaries of womanhood, too.
That said, personally I am sympathetic to the idea that it may ultimately not matter much if transwomen are granted access to women's changing rooms, sports and prisons, provided they've undergone full medical transition at least. But if this is the reasoning as to why trans self-ID is valid, then fundamentally there is no philosophical reason full ethnic self-ID shouldn't be valid too; it's simply politically inconvenient currently where trans self-ID isn't.
Ultimately though I think if we take this radical self-ID paradigm seriously, it implies people should be able to adopt absolutely any identity they like and be considered valid immediately, no questions asked. But socially constructed identities are an extremely helpful method used to distinguish between categories of people who have salient material differences from one another, so we can't just cease to police all their boundaries.
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