site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

13
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

To me the main difference is the epistemics involved. One can experiment with homosexuality and pretty quickly evaluate if they like it. And if they later realize they don't like it or like heterosexuality better they can later change their behavior. Gender care however is in a much shakier epistemic place.

One can't actually know what it's like to be both male or female and compare the experiences. A full transitioned transwomen has no actual possible way to know if their experiencing anything like natal female qualia. Likewise a young male cannot possible differentiate between the mental state of "I am a woman trapped in a male body" and "I am a man in a male body that mistakenly thinks I might be a woman trapped in a male body". There is no conclusive test that anyone can preform from any vantage point.

The only meaningful heuristic we can use to guide these kids is "would you be happier if you grew up undergoing natural puberty or medically guided cross sex puberty". The kid, having experienced neither, is in no epistemic places to make this decision and adults rightfully should take this question very seriously. What they absolutely should not do is insist that it should be up to do the kid and confuse them with nonsense about gendered souls.

As to make my position falsifiable, if you could actually show real evidence that the answer to that question is "Yes, this particular kid would be happiest undergoing medically guided sex puberty" I would be willing to listen. But gaslighting me about how actually gender is some privileged epistemic marker that no one could possibly be confused about while you also support things like gender demi fluidity is not convincing. You are going to need to throw a whole lot of the movement under the bus before you can even pretend to start addressing this concern.