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For the folks here who talk heatedly about trans issues - I want to pose a thought experiment. Let's say it's the year 2300, and people can quickly, cheaply and painlessly switch their sex from male to female, and vice versa. There are no long term side effects, and it's as simple as going to buy a pill from the corner store.
On top of that, fertility issues have been handled, babies are grown/raised by artificial wombs and many different types of family structures are available with parents being able to choose what works best for their preference. Gender and sex can play a role if needed, but only for those who wish to have traditional families. It is not socially stigmatized to raise a family with two women, or two men, etc.
If this all were the case, would you have issues with people transitioning genders/sex still? If not, at what point along the line do you think it becomes okay to freely switch?
No, it’s not ok. We should stigmatize options other than traditional families, because other options make a shitty default and seem unable to just coexist without being supremely annoying and whining about how their near-constant promotion isn’t good enough.
What's your proof that non-traditional-family advocates are unable to exist without "whining"?
This being a negative claim, I think the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that they indeed possess such an ability.
What's your proof that full-communism won't happen if we stack a few more million bodies? That Jesus Christ is not God? That there isn't a teapot orbiting Saturn?
Nope, the default assumption is that we don't know if they are unable to exist without whining. Anyone who wants to come down on either side of it has to prove it either way.
Well, note, what I actually said was ‘seem unable to just coexist without being supremely annoying and whining about how their near-constant promotion isn’t good enough.’
This is, notably, not a strong ontological claim. It’s an epistemic claim(they come off as unable to stop being annoying and cease complaining about needing to be promoted more).
It’s factually true that non-traditional family advocates spend a lot of time complaining about how broader society needs to further reorient itself towards validating them and promoting their lifestyles, in spite of everything society is already doing along that line. Them being annoying isn’t a claim that can be objective; it’s inherently a subjective value judgement. And my lived experiences and preferences are as valid as theirs are.
It can be to an extent. We already defined the word "annoying", so we can presumably show cases of them fitting the definition. If you're going to say that they spend a lot of time complaining about how society isn't good enough for them, I'd like to see proof of them doing this.
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It never ceases to amaze me how quick people are to join me in radical skepticism if their assumptions are pressed. But surely if you hold to such high standards you must know that nothing at all can be proven, right? As Pyrro, you must realize in the wisdom of this logic that knowledge is impossible. Because it ultimately always could be that what has been deemed true could be invalidated, and that forever remains this possibility. Therefore the default assumption should be that we don't know that anything is true.
But then, let's assume for practical purposes that we're not stabbing at the truth but at a practical empirical model that would allow us to make predictions. One that holds to, among other principles, parsimony.
Would you agree that such a model must consider all negative claims to be false by default?
I'm not jumping to radical skepticism because my assumptions are pressed, the person I was responding to was making a positive claim without proof. I think I can have my own assumptions and also note the lack of evidence being offered by the other person.
I think Phoebe said the same to Ross in Friends at one point when it came to the dinosaurs, but even I understood at that age that Ross should have responded that both of them had an obligation to believe whatever the evidence said at this time. That we might update our knowledge doesn't mean we can't have it, as far as I know.
I don't understand how you wouldn't be approximating truth by doing that.
Incorrect. They were making a negative claim. That is a statement about the nonexistence or exclusion of something. Saying something is impossible is not a positive claim, it is a negative one. By definition.
And Ross would be mistaken, clearly, as being wrong in a context that gave you good reasons to think your error was the truth is still being wrong. At least in the absolute terms we speak of here.
What Ross should have said is that this is our best approximation of the truth. And that operating under one's best guess is reasonable.
Oh but it does mean just that. What you think is knowledge isn't knowledge. It's a model. The map is not the territory.
You would, but there is no other possible thing you can do.
Okay, fine. They were making a claim without evidence. There you go. I don't know what the point of this philosophical discussion is, it seems to be fairly trivial.
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