iprayiam3
2yr ago
Overall, this is a great post, and I think you have a good point. However, I beleive you overargue it a bit, and even the insinuation that these examples might involve lying or dishonesty, is under-evidenced here(thought not necessarily untrue, just over interpreted given you're examples).
There's a very real difference in cross-examining on material facts of a situation from epistemic positions, and I think you're extending the implications of contradictions in the former too much into the latter. If I ask you 'where were you?, when?, what did you do?, with who?, and so on, and you provide me answers that self-contradict or are contradicted with other evidence, then I can fairly accuse you of being dishonest or mistaken.
Partly, this is because we're working on a very clear frame of ontology and epistemology that nobody is pushing back against. We're working within a materialist, physical reality that is universal and constant, and so forth. Contradictions that cannot exist in that shared framework must be reconciled, they are not usually allowed as evidence against the framework.
Imagine to the contrary, someone, when faced with a contradicting timeline, tried to argue that this is because of an update to the simulation or because of Christmas magic. You could dismiss as lying or crazy, but assume you didn't. To engage them, and get back to your orignal accusation of impossible contradiction between Event A and B, you must first travel down one level and redefend the consistent materialist frame. If your witness's entire argument rests on the existence of Christmas magic, and you refuse their allowance of arguing or even answering within a framework where that might exist, then you will walk away with the appearance of simple inconsistency, and interpretations of dishonesty, insanity, or stupidity.
So that's a somewhat silly scenario, because we all know that Christmas magic can't change the rules of physics and that we don't live in a simulation (right? don't we know that?).But the crux in epistemic, ideological, and political debates, is that the "we all know" is far less founded than in empirical examinations. When the examiner sets the frame, he controls the debate.
Chris Ruffo's example gets at this swimmingly, and he even tries to get to this meta-argument and it isn't accepted by the presenter (at least in your exerpt).
In his book, The Allure of Order about how educational debates are framed, Jal Mehta lays out three ways in which a particular paradigm in a debate shapes it. The main point is that having first mover advantage on setting the paradigm is powerful because replacing a paradigm is much more difficult, and the existing paradigm has tremendous authority over the conversation.
1. Consitutive (interpretations) effects. The paradigm sets the way an issue is conceived and discussed. 2. Strategic (incentives) actions. The paradigm creates opportunities for those who's views are consistent with it. 3. Regulative (intersubjective) function. It constrains the positions those who oppose the paradigm can take.
You can see all three of these on display quite clearly in the Ruffo example. And if you simply accept the paradigm, it might look like Rufo's in an epistemic jam. But if you reversed the cross examination, you would have seen an equal and opposite jam. These say nothing about who's epistemic position is inconsistent, because it only says that the conclusions of the one actor is inconsistent with the frame of the others... Which is not as interesting or 'gotcha' as it seems.
We see this also in your interpretation of the Murphey example, where you force a reframe of what's more likely a deontological view as an aesthetic one:
Murphy's responses make a lot more sense if you assume that her true objections to the sex industry are really borne out of an aesthetic or disgust aversion, and specifically only when men are the patrons.
This seems inaccurate, and you use that to ground your entire critique.Without the full clip, what I see Murphy doing here is having a deontological opinion, but defending it inside a paradigm about effects and outcomes. No fault to Destiny here. In fact, effects and outcomes, is kind of the default way to discuss morality across unsettled moral frameworks. But this has a constitutive effect, initially setting the converstaion into a causal discussion. There's nothign dishonest about taking this up, especially because the conversational cost to resetting the paradigm is great and rarely effective. (See Rufo's attempt).
Because we're talking effects and outcomes, Murphey takes the strategic position of showing the bad outcomes. But when it comes to exceptional examples, the regulative function of the paradigm set contrains her from being able extend the worldview. What we see here is an existing paradigm chase someone who's framework doesn't actually fit into a corner, not necessarily a breakdown of her actual position.
Now I think you get at this with your interpretation, but I think you mis-characterize it as her dishonestly hiding her real objection, when I think it's really getting chased down from trying to play along with a different framework's boundaries in realtime.
Sure, Murphey could have threaded this needle better by saying something like, "Male prostitutes for women are tremendously rare. Nominally allowing them, creates a standard of inequality for imperceptible benefit. Whether or not I find it wrong objectively is beside my point about the real-world affect of female prostitution on women."
But the fact that she didn't isn't really a point against here. When you drop someone else in your own maze, it's a hollow gloat that they get lost. What is interesting is whether they get lost in mazes they got to choose.
With that, we get to Tim Pool's example which is different, and notably happens because Tim interjects, he's not the cross-examiner.
Remember before I said:
These say nothing about who's epistemic position is inconsistent, because it only says that the conclusions of the one actor is inconsistent with the frame of the others... Which is not as interesting or 'gotcha' as it seems.
Here, Pool allows Lance to draw out his own framework. The "mother's body, mother's choice" has no starting point in the pro-lifer's frame. And Lance walks into an open contradiction within his own set of justification. It's somewhat similar to Murphey, but you already admitted that Murphey here probably isn't arguing her actual epistemic foundation around prostitution. There's no appearnce that Lance isn't. Lance is just proving that his heuristic is undercooked. It's nothing like the Rufo situation, which is just open paradigm warfare.
iprayiam3
2yr ago
Yeah that's right. The only two options are to legally mandate or disallow it. quite.
iprayiam3
2yr ago
It's not the same, sure, but where you get residency can be very career defining, especially if you have ambitions at being something other than being a shopping center dermatologist.
I have medium experience wtih academia.
I sympathise with the aims of the system but even so I’m surprised people aren’t livid - I’d never heard of this system before.
My PhD chair was one of these. I found it entirely unremarkable.
And getting a position because of who you’re sleeping with is the dictionary definition of nepotism. This is word-thinking. I don't care that it's called, nepotism. It isn't just not bad. It's good. Liberalism should be subordinate to the family, not the other way around.
At least if they limited it to marriage or shared children there would be a higher bar to climb.
Sure No disagreement there.
iprayiam3
2yr ago
You'll be shocked to hear then when two students meet and marry in med school (another common practice), they will try to keep them together or compatitble when assigning their internships and rotations.
I can't imagine a more sympathetic to human realities to this concept, and am really baffled by the person who would put 'liberal fairness' on such a pedestal that they would get remotely worked up at the idea of supporting marriages / families, the fundamental social unit of society.
iprayiam3
2yr ago
So does Semaglutide do anything for the weight loss mechanism except effectively suppress appetite? I mean I know it affects blood sugar etc, but in terms of losing weight, is the effect simply from causing the user to eat less calories? Put another way, if you stopped taking it, but were able to maintain the same diet as if you were taking it, would the effect be the same? Or is there additional effects of the drug that induce changes in how your body metabolizes the food?
iprayiam3
2yr ago
You seem to think hereditary positions and nepotism protects societies against intelligent sociopaths
No I don't seem to think that. My post was an argument against that narrow interpretation. I think strong, and robust institutions that are somewhat protected from the whims of personalities currently occupying them limits the fallout. Hereditarianism in and of itself doesn't make this, and to any extent @2rafa thinks so, I disagree with her
iprayiam3
2yr ago
In theory, you’re making an argument about ‘personality’ versus ‘IQ’, but what you actually propose is blood versus everything else
I don't agree completely with @2rafa but this absolutely isn't what she's saying. It's not even a strawman.
Sure, hereditably personality and bloodline will work into it, but the central idea of @2rafa 's scenario is the stability of the institution, which can then be (overtime) refined toward a direction.
Meritocracy, through both speed of turnover and by it's nature, offers 'seats' which are themselves insubstantial, and entirely shaped by the person in them. Whereas a system where the seat makes the person, they defects of the individual are swallowed up by the nature of the seat, and when they are hereditary, they evolve symbiotically.
I don't personally agree with even @2rafa 's focus on class and heredity, so much as I agree with the concept of strong instututions, which offer a rigid and slow moving hegemony that doesn't fold like a lawn chair to whoever has the most raw "meritocratic" capacity to obtain it.
Essentially, is the legitimacy of the throne defined by the will to power of the person in it or is the legitimacy of the person's power defined by the institution embedded in the throne? Meritocracy is the former on steroids.
Imagine two neighboring island nations Meritocita and Institunia. Both have a similar native population. One day they are both met by several boatloads of foreigners fleeing a famine who wish to rehome and integrate into these societies. Generally speaking they come under no kind of colonialist or conquering mindset. Overall however, they are of greater intelligence than the natives. They are warmly welcomed into the respective nations
In Meritocrita, very quickly, due to their high IQ, the aliens work their way into centers of power and leadership. Not only that, it is disproportionately the most power-hunger and greed-thirsty. While most of the Aliens are nice and integrate into the middle of the society, the percentage with sociopathic, greedy, selfish, etc tendencies disproportionately take over the ruling class. In a generation, the natives of Meritocrita are ruled by a class including the worst of the Aliens. Because IQ is hereditable, this also serves as a de facto class system. Only the people most able to climb into it are those from the population most disproportionately thirsty for power.
Meanwhile on Institunia, the Aliens have the integrate themselves into existing, and much more rigid centers of hegemonic power. Again, the most intelligent and power-hungry are going to find paths into the system, but there willbe much more obstacles, their total ability to amass / concentrate power will be limited to the confines of the instituions, and they generally have to integrate further toward the institutional values to get there. For a power hungry Alien to work their way into a role of religious influence, he is forced to adopt the pieties and reenforce the religious values of the system. Another sociopath becomes a community leader, but excercises his power, furthering the goals and community fo the social club he has infiltrated, because that is necessary to retaining the power.
All the while, High IQ aliens who actually expemplify the existing native values have a leg up on joing and re-enforcing these institutions.
A few generations later the Aliens have conquered Meritocrita and integrated into Institunia, even as their 'bloodlines' have similarly dispersed into the native population. In fact, Institunia over time becomes less genetically sustained than Meritocrita despite having a more heredity and legacy oriented society on the margins.
iprayiam3
2yr ago
As @Meriadoc says:
There's no way 92% of Americans actually think that way, or even half of them.
This doesn't pass the sniff test so badly, that you don't even have to think that the results can be interpreted straightforwardly. (Which is itself a metacommentary on the usefulness of straightforward readings of written facts. Do the authors comment on that?).
Go ask 5 friends in plain terms whether they think this is a reasonable use of the credit card in a way that you are sure they understand your straightforward intent of the question.
I know it's not quite independent, but for simplicity, if zero of them say it's reasonable, then the probability of that happening is 0.08^5 or .000003. Do you think it's that unlikely that 5 friends of yours would find this unreasonable? If not then you must concede that this question is clearly not actually producing a view of whether Americans find this reasonable.
So what is it telling us? Who the fuck knows. In cases like this, surveys without cognitive interviewing are less than garbage. Especially paid online surveys.
I can guarantee you that 92% of Americans don't find this reasonable in plain terms. If you want to pivot to an argument about some semantic interpretation where it's technically true, then look at that, you've made Justice Barrett's entire fucking meta point for her by showing how autistic readings of data out of context are often clear misinterpretations of they actually mean.
Are the authors of this study self-aware enough to reflect on that?
iprayiam3
2yr ago
Well sure, as a maxim goes, don't take everything anyone says seriously. At the same time, I'm kind of at a loss about this kind of reaction to people being absolutely right and then some about the direction of the culture especially queer stuff.
I mean, if the gay stuff was still suppressed by the cultural hegemony or a quiet unassuming part of the multi-culture, I'd get mocking people who take what gay activists say seriously as a warning. But here we live in a culture where the Pride Flag is essentially the national flag, kids of all ages are given LGBT propoganda in schools, excecutives at Disney throw homosexual characters into everything and own it as a positive influence unapologetically, there's an actual debate about letting men in drag strip in front of children and so on.
..and the reaction is to look back at the people who said, "hey these people are intentionally trying to influence the culture in this direction"... and still be skeptical that they were cranks all along? LGBT activism has been wildly successful, especially with the exact age range that was in diapers in the 90s. Sure, a myopic focus one particular datapoint in the trend can be zoomed in on and mocked and ineffective. But something the lgbt lobby did in the past few decades certainly worked.
At what point do we have to get to to say, yeah it might have made sense to dam the river upstream before it became a flood and maybe the people asking to weren't insane?
That's not true, IIRC, the narrator absolutely used their pronouns.
EDIT: Looking it up now, in the US it was renarrated over, so possibly the Engish version didn't have pronouns?
iprayiam3
2yr ago
So, there's a tremendous difference between actual historical figures being claimed as gay or not vs. fictional media characters being created with subversive intentions or influences.
Whether or not Abe Lincoln was gay is a matter of fact one way or the other, depsite which you'd prefer be true, and dispite whether you can ever know for sure. Whether or not Tinky Winky is gay is somewhat interpretative. The three questions are whether TW models gay messaging, whether it's intentional by the creators of the media, and whether it has an influence on the view.
With the latter, the answers could be yes-yes-yes, yes-no-no, yes-yes-no, yes-no-yes, or even no-yes-no.
iprayiam3
2yr ago
Falwell was wrong about Tinky Winky’s supposed harm to children. But he wasn’t wrong that children’s television—and culture in general—was becoming much more comfortable with queerness.... Today, the backlash that is taken seriously by most culture producers comes not from dinosaurs like Falwell but from the LGBTQ community demanding richer representation. Tinky Winky would be right at home.
Dreher's Law of Merited Impossibility: "It will never happen. And when it does, it's a good thing, you bigot!"
iprayiam3
2yr ago
So in my initial reading of your post, I missed that an in-law confronted your father. I though it was a member of your own family. That is pretty wild to say the least, and an unhelpful approach to any conversation of weight. You have all my sympathies there.
At the same time, if you're response to the others who disagree with your behavior is Deal With It, expect to be returned the same when seeking sympathy that others are behaving ways you don't agree with.
iprayiam3
2yr ago
trangender disphoria.i meant that as a catch all, men wading into transism
iprayiam3
2yr ago
I'm suprised you haven't heard this before. I agree with your last sentence, especially with MTF. I think the phenomenon is multi-faceted, but AGP is a tremendous part of it, and I don't think anorexia is particularly fetishistic.
Just spend a minute looking up the concept of 'euphoria boner', and it lays waste to most of the narrative. Especially on trans forums where it gets brought up as the most crushingly painful example of pretending something isn't there by closing your eyes. The essential concepts is that it's really common for dudes with TD to get really turned on by crossdressing etc. Instead of accepting this as straightforward evidence that this is psycho-sexual in all the obvious ways, they've invented a tortured concept that no, no, just the opposite. This 'euphoria boner' transcends fetish and is a result of a much deeper sense of self-understanding.
Noone reflects on why this concept only exists conveniently in this use case of convincing yourself a clear turn on is more meaningful than that. Thinking with the wrong head and the related post-nut clarity is pretty well trodden and understood male pyscho-sexuality, and this is the most painfully transparent attempt at gaslighting this into the opposite.
A very common and sad gaslight is some recently cracked egg on these forums makes a comments like, "yo, I'm worried this is a fetish / sexual fantasy, because I get super aroused when I induldge" (usually much less concisely and straightforward, but that's their real point). To which, they are showered with " no no, it's the exact oppposite. Your sexual excitement in this context actually proves it's not a sexual indulgence.... because...um... euphoria boner".
iprayiam3
2yr ago
Well I mean fallen short in advising you both not to enter a mixed marriage. Look, I don't know your family and would guess that 90+% percentage of inter-family value pressure and hostility (Christian or otherwise) is counterproductive just from a human nature perspective, so I'm not carte-blanc defending that.
But your wife, especially if she's a practicing Catholic, doesn't get to just make up the rules to force-fit her preferred marriage arrangement. Overall, by entering a Christian marriage, both of you should expect and act gracefully in the face of the Great Commission's demand's on your families, or else you shouldn't have entered into a marriage with a Christian.
This is where my charge of arrogance comes into play.
Maybe this isn't what you're saying, but it's not arrogance to act upon your convictions.
iprayiam3
2yr ago
So let me get this right, to ever defend practices of Christians as straightforwardly how Christianity works is turbo-autism?
iprayiam3
2yr ago
Well I assumed you don't ridicule her. But I assume she knows you don't believe and think it's 'idiocy' (if in lighter terms). I personal would advise people against marrying people with such fundamental moral epistemology mismatches It seems quite difficult for reasons you describe in your OP.
FWIW, my wife is Catholic, but her family isn't and that alone is hard enough.
iprayiam3
2yr ago
should be left alone.
No disrespect back at you, but that's not how Christian marriage works. you knew that going in, and you're wife knows that. If either of you don't know that, your respective fathers have certainly fallen short here.
Whether or not your spouse is committed to raising your kids Christian is a private conversation.
From within the Christian worldview, it's not though and that's the disconnect. Christian ,marriage and baptism are necessarily public and community arrangements and within Catholicism, sacramental. Marriage is a living metaphor for the relationship of Jesus and the Church itself.
That doesn't mean everything is everyone's business all the time, but even if you come into the marriage as nonChristian, this is what you are getting into. Christian marraige is not a function of an atomic, private, liberal mindset even if you want it to be.
As I said in the other comment, it's true that OP didn't necessary make a vow to raise his kids Catholic, but he publically entered a union with a person who did and the other members of the Church to an extent have a right and even (in the right context) a duty to assure that commitment.
OP's whole post is "why can't Christians subject their faith to my standard of polite secular tolarance within our family the same way I expect it from our state?" Because Christianity doesn't work that way and isn't a servant of liberalism.
iprayiam3
2yr ago
If you don't want to raise your children religious why get them baptized, if you had been clear with your intentions from the start I don't think you would have this conflict (might have other conflict but not this one!).
To be validly married in the Catholic Church in a mixed marriage, the Catholic party has to promise baptize and raise their children in the faith. Prior to 1970, both parties had to make the promise.
While I think mixed marriages are a very bad idea to begin with, assuming they had a valid Catholic wedding, @yofuckreddit is/was likely aware of this promise of their spouse and respects her enough to not obstruct it. If they are not validly married, I would spend my time pestering his wife about getting that fixed were I their relative, before I moved on to hassling @yofuckreddit himself.
I don't know why one marries someone who thinks their beleifs are idiotic, but love is love I guess.
iprayiam3
2yr ago
When I was in high school, I found I could do this by jumping out of bed immediately upon waking up either naturally or via alarm clock and moving, suppressing any reflection on how I felt or temptation to look at a clock. I stopped doing this after leaving college and felt groggy on waking up no matter what for the next decade or so. I have recently resumed something like this, as I have tried to shift myself into an early riser, and it has worked well.
For me, the 10+ minute loop of grogginess is somewhat re-enforced by a cycle of thoughtful awareness about how I feel, and my body trying to react by going back to sleep. If within 30 seconds of waking up, I am in the bathroom brushing my teeth, and within 2 minutes I am already beginning my day with activity, I don't have time to feel groggy (assuming I am overall well rested). The negative is I now get much tired-er at night right after dinner, but this could be a function of having small kids.
iprayiam3
2yr ago
I think this kind of discussion gets wrapped up too quickly in accepting a liberal feminist frame to even make sense. Now sure, we can talk about the merits of specific policies or realities in isolation, which have gendered outcomes and discuss approaches. But to try to wrap it into 'men' as a class vs 'women' as a class and holistically discuss the social deal, cedes the entire frame that this is the appropriate way to modularize social policy.
When I think about how good or bad I have it, I think about my family in a unit. What's good for my wife is good for me and vice versa. Within our family, my wife certainly has it "worse" than me because she had to go through childbirth to get a child, where I didn't. Everything else is an equal share of reward and burden, even if we divy it up differently, because we are one unit yoked together. I feel sorry for people incapable of thinking like that.
I fully agree that at a social level, 'women are victims but also exactly the same as men' thinking has poisoned the well, and I don't disagree with pushing back on that thinking generally and in specific policy or social norms. I don't think men should just roll over at problems that affect men. But I completely disagree with simply taking the feminist frame and trying to reverse it.
From what I can gather, the narrative is supposed to be something like:
"It was the set-up by the Democrats tried to bait/incite riots and use it for headlines etc, but unnsuccessfully so because of how peaceful and orderly Republican protestors are. Even with the plants, it only ended up mildly raucuous. The democrats tried to save their efforts by coordinating a massive exaggeration of what happened and suppressing actual picture of what was pretty tame, even after attempts at goading them into BLM level rioting."
In short:
I'm not saying that's true, but it's the narrative. It's still probably too complex to be digestable talking point than just picking option A or B.
More options
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