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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023

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One thing that rolls around in my head when talking about the rise in transgenderism is the complexity of comparing outcomes. Now I don’t personally think this topic should be primarily judged through an outcomes lens, and my position isn’t based on it. However, it inevitably gets tossed around, and it’s also related to the question of how much a rise in transgenderism is revealed preferences vs changed preferences, so to speak.

It shouldn’t be controversial to say that a person who transitioned in the past, say even 2003, would have poorer outcomes on average than a person who transitioned today, due to both medical progress and social acceptability etc. Consequently, the baseline unhappiness for a person to transition should end up being higher in 2003 than 2023.

Thus there’s a lot of argument that the rise in transgenderism is at least partly due to a lot of people who would have transitioned in 2003 in a 2023 environment. And I think that’s straightforwardly true.

But I still think that doesn’t show the whole picture Consider the difference in comparing the level of happiness of a person who transitions today as compared to…

• If they didn’t transition today vs

• If they didn’t transition in 2003.

I think social contagion is certainly partly responsible in cause. [There are certainly some people who would never have felt gender dysphoria if they weren’t socialized into this, and I think it accounts for a lot of ROTD in young women, but I suspect it’s also less so in men with AGP, though I definitely suspect things like porn as @2rafa suggest also cause an increase in amount of AGP.] But I think it is also responsible partly for degree of dissatisfaction. How many people in a social context where transition wasn’t an option, would have been happier not transitioning than people not transitioning in a social context where it is an option? Again, the answer seems obviously a lot.

A person tempted to drink, but trying to remain sober is probably going to have a harder time at a party where they’re being encouraged to drink than in an environment where everyone is sober and encouraging them to stay so. So the real comparison is how much happier is a person who transitions in 2023 than that same person would have been if they hadn’t transitioned in 2003.

Obviously it’s a difficult if not impossible measurement. But I think there’s reason to believe that the answer on average is less happy. And if that were true, there’s an argument for a society that is less accommodating, knowing that the person who transitions is less happy, but on average the individual doesn’t transition and is happier for it.

Consider it a related thought experiment that could be measured:

Take a group of children and divide them into four blind groups. **Groups A and B **are given an enthusiastic conversation about and shown advertisements etc for Disney World and told they might get to go there this weekend. Only Group A is taken. Group B is brought to a local playground for the day.

Group C is also shown the advertisements and get the topic presented, but not told that they have a chance to go, and are told upfront they will be taken to a local playground, which they are. Group D is also taken to the local playground after being told they would be, and not shown any adversement for Disney, even though they are likely aware of it.

Even though we might expect that the kids in Group A might have a better time than the kids in group D, it’s reasonable to assume B will have the worst time of it.

Now suppose one wanted to make an argument that A’s overall satisfaction was not great enough over D’s or even C’s to be worth the expense of taking them there, and that C’s and B's satisfaction could be most effectively increased by including them in group D (avoid showing them DW promotions), rather than A’s (taking them to Disney World).

Now imagine that your opponent’s response was to compare A to B (the group who was told might go and then denied) and used B’s dissastisfaction to argue for making D’s into C’s, dissatisfied C’s into Bs, and then arguing it’s human decency to make A available to all Bs.

TLDR, my, not particularly unique point, is that I bet there's a lot of people with a given level of dysphoria, who would have lived a hardly affected life untransitioned 20 years ago, but would suffer much more for it in today's context, and that should be accounted for in extending social permissiveness.

Since many here will already agree with me, I'll go ahead and make the more controversial: The same argument above but for divorce, extramarital sex, and religious participation.

Since many here will already agree with me, I'll go ahead and make the more controversial: The same argument above but for divorce, extramarital sex, and religious participation.

yes_chad.jpg

Or to elaborate: a lot of what our modern culture is selling as freedom and pursuit of happiness is absolutely fake, and we'd be a lot better of just forbidding it (in fact, I'll go out on a limb and say the only reason these things were allowed and promoted was to meet depopulation goals).

I don't even think the satisfaction / dissatisfaction comes quite from the mechanism you describe. Does cake taste good because I'm not allowed to eat it every meal, or do I not eat it because I know it would come with negative consequences, and would end up not tasting as good as a result of eating it so much? I'm pretty sure it's the latter, and so it is with all the other things you mentioned.

in fact, I'll go out on a limb and say the only reason these things were allowed and promoted was to meet depopulation goals

While the existence of depopulation goals is so well documented that it’s not a conspiracy theory anymore, they don’t seem to have been targeted at wealthy first worlders. So this theory has to account for why these things are more first world than third.

... So this theory has to account for why these things are more first world than third.

At a basic level, third worlders simply don't have time for a lot of the progressive nonsense first worlders love to preoccupy themselves with. This kind of garbage you get out of the progressive wing, is only the kind of stuff you can afford to entertain in a fabulously wealthy country that has no real external threats or internal ailments of any kind. As used to be a saying in Catholicism, "idle hands are the Devil's playthings." When people have no real problems to contend with, they start creating them where none exist.

What are you referring to specifically when you're saying depopulation "goals?" We all know it's happening, but what are you saying is at the driving force of it? When I watch CNN for instance, and they're occasionally say something about the population, and then later something about the need to import further immigrants from third world countries to make up the difference, I see that as a byproduct of their fundamental political views (i.e. racial diversity is a good thing, I have no self-esteem, I need to pat myself on the back to feel good, etc.).

This is little more than a screed about "my enemies only believe these objectively dumb things because they're dumb and unselfaware." Arguing that progressivism is a luxury ideology is fine (lots of people have done that), but "I have no self-esteem, I need to pat myself on the back to feel good, etc." is not something you can simply ascribe without anything more than your feelings about it.

Clearly you hate progressivism with a burning passion, but just because someone genuinely believes in racial diversity doesn’t make it “garbage” or “bullshit” and doesn’t give you the right to psychoanalyze them all into having low self esteem.

I could just as easily say Christians believe in a benevolent god because they’re wealthy and don’t have to worry about real problems, and having a big sky daddy helps them with their low self esteem.

Less heat more light please.

I'm definitely not sympathetic progressivism's 21st century incarnation, for sure. Believe whatever you what about racial diversity, but shit logic that gets you there doesn't cease being shit, if it 'is' shit. I believe in racial diversity myself, but there's no denying there's a crucial self-esteem component to the motivation that underlies a 'lot' of what progressives do.

I deny it.

I see that as a byproduct of their fundamental political views (i.e. racial diversity is a good thing, I have no self-esteem, I need to pat myself on the back to feel good, etc.).

Their fundamental political views are downstream of an understanding that a growing population is necessary, and that you can’t have a first world population growing through natural multiplication without cutting back a bit on women’s lib(although I don’t think you have to cut back very much- the red tribe is at replacement and objectively their women are pretty free, even if the CNN crowd can’t acknowledge that for ideological reasons). Hence immigration, and a fig leaf that it’s preferred due to ‘diversity’.

The driving force behind depopulation goals is a substantial part of the world’s elites Unironically believing in malthusianism. That was the stated justification for India’s population control campaign, and it’s hard not to realize it’s the reason behind population control campaigns in Africa as well. And you’ll notice that actually happening population control campaigns are usually in developing world crapholes- where wealthy developed countries have a thumb on the fertility scales, it’s in favor of more fertility, often specifically out of wedlock births. Contrast that to government policies in, say, India or up until recently China. This does not look like anti-white-natalism.