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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 29, 2024

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The culture war seemed subdued in my bubble for a few months, but picked up majorly recently. Oddly enough, the cause (mostly) doesn't seem to be the attempted presidential assassination, the quick Democratic party shifts, the ramping up of tensions in the middle east, or the black female presidential candidate, but the Olympics. Color me surprised.

I see non-stop posting currently about "The Science doesn't support the bigots who think XY chromosomes makes someone a man", "why do they care more about a woman competing in woman's boxing than they do about a literal child rapist competing?", "the people complaining about a woman getting punched in the face by another woman are the same people who don't bat an eye at men beating up women outside of the Olympics". There seems to have been some really high-profile culture war controversies in this Olympics. I really doubt there's more fodder for controversy in the Olympics in general than in everyday life, so why is everyone picking up their keyboards to go vanquish the enemy all of a sudden?

Because a man punching a woman shouldn't be an Olympic sport. Its much more visceral than the three XY males that took the medals in one event during the 2016 olympics.

Images like this are powerful.

https://twitter.com/HazelAppleyard_/status/1820091385199865963

The fact that he groped his first opponent after the match was terrible too.

Too many people didn't care about "just" the women losing out on scholarships, victories, and fame. Too many people don't seem to care about the injuries suffered by teenaged girls playing soccer, rugby or volleyball with much stronger males. But here we have a dude punching a woman in the face so finally more people are saying "you know what, maybe thats not fair".

But here we have a dude punching a woman in the face

Do we? Perhaps if you have reason to trust IBA's judgment despite them being quite abrupt and tight-lipped about it, you believe it. I don't, and the other info appear to be coming out the other way. As found by other posters, Khelif's record is not the dominating streak one would expect from a male fighting women, neither do her other fights suggest she is a stronger if unskilled fighter.

Do we? Perhaps if you have reason to trust IBA's judgment despite them being quite abrupt and tight-lipped about it, you believe it. I don't,

Given that you were criticizing me for engaging in precisely the same type of skepticism, I think you shouldn't be allowed to use it here. The ICO is just as cagey, they never bothered denying that the IBOs tests took place, or their accuracy, nor have they made a statement about their own tests show something different. Instead,l they're focusing on accusations of corruption, or decrying the fairness of the tests having been done at all / not testing all the other athletes.

and the other info appear to be coming out the other way. As found by other posters, Khelif's record is not the dominating streak one would expect from a male fighting women, neither do her other fights suggest she is a stronger if unskilled fighter.

That's not info "coming out the other way". This does not prove the athletes sex one way or the other, and is nothing but a deflection from a very simple question.

If you want to stay completely agnostic on the athlete's sex, be my guest. Even if I accept a 50/50 prior (which is ridiculous, approximately no one, not even the die-hard gender-non-assumers do that), performing on par with other female-patterned boxers is info.

I'm not engaging in "precisely the same type of skepticism". You said you can't know her sex one way or the other without evidence. I'm saying I can, in fact, know "one way", even if it's not 100%. I trust my eyes more than I do Olympic (or formerly Olympic-certified) commissions, that's all.

I'm leaning towards them being dudes, but I'm not going to act like it's based on "info coming out the other way". My point us you're selectively playing a skeptic, all the while you were acting outraged that I asked for concrete evidence earlier.

The whole idea of using Bayesian analysis for these sorts of controversies was a disaster for rational discourse, so I don't particularly care what priors you pick.

Performance is irrelevant, this matter can be resolved with a simple test, and people claiming these athletes are women are bending themselves into pretzels to avoid having these tests done, which is highly suspicious behavior.