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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32908 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023

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There’s a bit of motte and bailey going on. Or maybe sanewashing, I don’t know.

The defensible example is what you’re saying—everyone does social adaptation, some probably do it via dialogue, the long tails of that distribution could look like multiple personalities. There’s long-standing rationalist blogposts about having such dialogue, fiction with characters who use it, along with a general credulousness when talking about weird mental states. It’s also what Scott defends in his post:

For example, the person might be kind of a pushover, and then one time after they watched Star Wars ten times in a row, someone bossed them around particularly badly, and they imagined Darth Vader telling them to give into their anger and fight back…They emphasize that it really feels like Vader is in their head giving them advice, or that they sometimes “become” Vader - and in particular they emphasize that this is different from just asking themselves “what would Darth Vader do in this situation?”. They understand that most people learning about their situation would expect that they’re exaggerating a much more boring “just ask yourself what Vader would do” situation, and they’re fine with people believing that if they want, but insist that it’s actually something different and more interesting than that.

Something weird but comprehensible, plausibly an exaggeration, plausibly as “real” as anything else going on in one’s head. More importantly, it’s easy to empathize if one can relate it to the very normal dynamics of acting, role playing, whatever.

Now start adding accommodations.

This is the spicier claim: that the other personalities are, on their own, valid persons. That they may (or should) be addressed separately. That memories may not be shared, and any inconsistencies are framed as personality differences rather than a mercurial disposition. Perhaps that different pronouns are appropriate, since communities which buy into this dynamic are much, much more likely to be deeply and passionately aware of gender.

I don’t mean this as an attack. I’m really conflicted about the phenomenon, in part because it has such a reasonable motte. Also in part because one of my best friends has been diving headfirst into this community, and I’m worried about her. There is clearly a complex of social obligations which entangles the community with trans issues and transhumanist issues alike.

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