nomenym
4mo ago
The way I've seen it explained is that this is no different from a 16 year old dating a 22 year old (or maybe even a 14 year old dating a 20 year old). Super ick.
nomenym
1mo ago
There are logically possible universes where natural selection is false. At minimum, it posits some kind of continuity of structures, time and place, inheritance of traits, and so forth. Another way of putting it is that evolution by natural selection is not an inherent part of all possible simulations. If Lamarck was correct, then Darwin is wrong.
It's not just a language, because it purports to describe a thing that is actually, or has, happened. It purports to explain the seen by the unseen, which is fundamentally what all truth-seeking explanatory hypotheses purport to do. There are certain core metaphysical assumptions, such as there is with all scientific investigation, or investigation of any kind.
We had many Darwinian concepts before Darwin, but Darwin synthesized them into a more powerful framework, theorized about the mechanism of inheritance, and began exploring the logical consequences of that theoretical system. His insight about evolution by natural selection gave him the tools needed to bring together previously disparate phenomena into a unifying scheme. Evolution by natural selection, when applied to the world we live in with its particular physical laws, allows us to reverse engineer nature, and to read history from its present. This framework has produced many testable hypotheses that have proven amazingly successful.
I think you fundamentally don't understand this subject or what you're even trying to do here.
nomenym
3mo ago
There are some interesting stories about severed heads looking around for a few minutes before going completely inert.
nomenym
4mo ago
I'm working on native habitat preservation/restoration on our property. It's a twenty year project, and it's going to be something special when I'm done (and it kind of already is). Bought a rifle recently--too many deer, and the meat would be nice. Controlled burns are fun.
nomenym
1yr ago
The best way to understand this ideology is to assume its trying to destabilize society by trans-ing as many people as possible. The purpose of destabilization is to facilitate a revolution toward some nebulous utopia. The individual agents of this ideology may or may not explicitly recognize this, and even fewer say it out loud and in public. Most have internalized some incoherent set of arguments which superficially appeal to liberal principles, and they intuitively understand what they are expected and forbidden to say and think. It is low status to be seen to disagree or oppose this ideology, and the worst fear of many people is to be mistaken for the wrong sort of person.
The arguments are just tools deployed strategically to increase the number of trans people given the context. There are no unifying principles, and there is no explanatory theory that ties it all together. Water is wet when saying so increases the number of trans people, and water is dry when saying so increases the number of trans people. Those individuals within the fold who try to stick to a principle or rationalize the theory inevitably find themselves as outcasts, because at some point they derive a position that doesn't increase the number of trans people.
Incoherence is swept away by continuously redefining and coining new terms. Both the theories and social dynamics encourage dogmatic thinking and suppression of wrongthink. Agents are led to enmesh their personal identity, their sense of self-worth and purpose, with the ideology, such that they cannot be separated. Attacks on these ideas are then reflexively construed as attacks on people. Objectivity is impossible. Rational discussion is prohibited. Conflicts can then only be resolved by manipulation and power relations.
These are the dark arts.
nomenym
1yr ago
The objective test for brilliance is lifetime achievement, and it correlates with but is not the same as being good at academic tests.
nomenym
1mo ago
Technically, evolution by natural selection, in its most abstracted form, is something like a metaphysical research programme. It is not a tautology; it can be false. However, it cannot be tested empirically. It is not falsifiable. It also doesn't itself explain very much at all. But that's kind of missing the point, because what it does is provide a framework for generating theories that can be tested. A lot of details, facts, history needs to be plugged into the framework for it to generate testable explanatory hypotheses, but those resulting falsifiable hypotheses have proven very interesting, predictive, and they now form the backbone of our understanding of the life sciences. Usually, when we talk about the theory of evolution, we mean to include all kinds of other general background facts about the universe and how life functions in it. We are rarely, if ever, just talking about the pure logic of evolution as it might apply to any logically possible universe, but yes that highly abstract version of evolution by natural selection is unfalsifiable metaphysics, but also highly fruitful, fecund, and insightful metaphysics.
nomenym
3mo ago
That's a lot of "ifs". In the meantime, I'd also sacrifice a few goats to the gods just to be sure all your bases are covered.
nomenym
1yr ago
It's one of the things I find utterly contemptible about the UK and its people. The mongal horde will rape their daughters, pillage their cities, and pull down their idols. Hard times are coming.
The modern nanny doesn't really care about raising the children, because they're not her children after all. It's enough for her to make sure the children can't hurt each other; it's not her role to teach them manners or responsibility.
nomenym
3mo ago
It's usually an active rejection rather than neglect. "Expanding the audience" is just what they say to the moneymen. In practice, it's always about rejecting an audience who don't deserve to have nice things. I used to be more charitable about this, but fool me once and twice and all that.
nomenym
5mo ago
No, it's going to be some flavor of insanity because it's purity spirals all the way down. The so-called less insane alternatives are just stepping stones between there and here.
nomenym
7mo ago
I entirely agree. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone is willing to make the compromises that are necessary to solve this problem, because even suggesting most of them is taboo. There will need to be a technological solution or natural selection will eventually solve us for it.
nomenym
1yr ago
The quip is that autogynephiles are men trapped in male bodies. Mulvaney doesn't seem to be that.
nomenym
1yr ago
I wonder where that places Iranian trans women. Infamously, Iran has a very high rate of transwomen, because it's the legal alternative to homosexuality. However, this is clearly an instrumental motivation, even if it often coincides with significant efforts to present and live as women.
It's also an interesting definition, because much of what is driving opposition to the rise of gender ideology is the belief that social pressure, contagion, and misdiagnosed mental illness are the primary drivers trans-identification right now, and these are seen as extrinsic motivations that are often misunderstood as intrinsic by those who temporarily self-identify as trans. If the activists truly believe as you say, but then they pretend otherwise for politically strategic reasons, then they are fundamentally untrustworthy on the very important factual question of what is actually driving increasing rates of trans-identification.
nomenym
1yr ago
There's a difference between being teased for "looking like a dude" and having people quietly suspect or assume you're attempting to "pass" as the opposite sex has rather different implications.
nomenym
4mo ago
Yes, and it also incentivizes them to indulge in short-term mate selection. That was also my original point.
nomenym
1yr ago
I think the claim is that our methods of testing are inherently biased in favor of diligence over brilliance. Therefore, relying solely on test scores will tend reward the former too much and the latter too little. If true, then some kind of counterbalance may be desirable.
nomenym
3mo ago
"A few minutes" was a careless choice of words. I forget the details now, but there was some guy who made it his business to try and see if he could communicate with the severed heads, and he reported indications of consciousness.
I don't intend this as a criticism of anything. I'd be fine with reintroducing the guillotine.
nomenym
4mo ago
I'm reminded of the Muslim suicide bomber's parents who said that they didn't know their son had become so religious as though that were the inevitable consequence. There is a sense in which leftists are just liberals that take the liberal's ideology seriously, and so liberals have no real textual defence against leftists. When a leftist takes them to task on an issue, they might have pragmatic objections but they can't argue the principle.
But those of the least moral worth are people we want to suffer.
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