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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023

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Thank you too.

The large multicultural city zhe has grown up in has a political culture where identifying as trans changes how therapists and teacher treat you in relation to your parents.

Life is confusing and full of psychic distress, for all of us, we all want validation. If you give people validation for something, people desperate for validation will be attracted to it.

Hmm. This is important. I don't know what to say about it yet... might be a long time before I do.

There are a few things I suppose... this is just rubber ducking that I'm showing you because... well you spent a lot of words on your comment and I feel you should see their results:

  • I don't know how big of an effect this is having, but I am certain it's significant.

  • If people becoming trans gets them a sort of validation they are not otherwise getting, then clearly we are doing something very wrong with regards to how we are allocating validation. This is a very concerning thought but also implies alternate solutions. Big if true.

  • It also implies that trans people being crazy is a symptom of them being filtered into the category by forces of validation. Which means shutting down these people's transition... well certainly people who think of it as mutilation will still see it as treating the most serious symptom, but the underlying cause would go untreated, and in fact be less treated... ideally you would treat the root cause and that would reduce unnecessary transition instead.

Second, while physically I might be a hobbit tucked away in the shire, I'm a citizen of the internet.

I realize this sounds ridiculous.

No. I don't think this sounds ridiculous. Real life experience is important. But the internet is also important.

I think the internet exaggerates the real world a lot- and does so in an unbalanced way. For instance, people without a life are more likely to be posting on the internet all the time... and... well, your model is that the trans community is attracting people who aren't getting enough validation, so that would be an example.

but it affects the world, the world affects it, so the patterns you see on the internet always mean something, even if you can't take them quite at face value.

And some people make their living through it, and we live a lot of our lives on it.

I think we should be worried about a lot more than just liberalism or the trans community when it comes to making the internet a more free and sane place.

But problems being caused by groups on the internet are still legitimate problems, and are worth discussing.