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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022

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Understanding precisely what's going on with some stupid set of beliefs can be enlightening.

It can also be useful - if, hypothetically, said beliefs were held by the vast majority of the smartest, most influential, and most powerful people in your country / civilization (and also by most of the less smart, and less powerful people too). In that case, it's probably worth figuring out what they mean and why! Saying "lol this is dumb who cares" doesn't seem to help with that, or suggest ways to solve it.

I understand that "this is dumb who cares lol" can be used to hand wave away any discussion, and that a lot of important things might have seemed dumb in the past.

Fortunately in this case, it is very dumb evidenced by the fact that the theory is logically inconsistent in just about every level of analysis. Gender is infinitely malleable at the same time sex-change surgery is paramount? It's not like it hasn't proven itself to be NOT dumb, what pressing problem does the theory solve?

They need to come up with a better framework than "I can do whatever I want, and whatever I want is logically airtight"

Fortunately in this case, it is very dumb evidenced by the fact that the theory is logically inconsistent in just about every level of analysis

Sure, but this is also true of 'all people are equal and we should love everyone', 'the Christian god exists and He is three persons co-equal in one substance', most schools of moral philosophy, and a lot of stuff people believe. My argument isn't "you should consider it because it might be right", it's "you should consider it because it's worth figuring out why people believe it" (same for all of the former). Also, it is currently winning.