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"They" isn't a gender

Discussion in 'The RedBanned Bar & Grill' started by Travis Morgan, Nov 26, 2020.

  1. There are four lights.
     
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  2. #2 Mike Verta, Nov 26, 2020
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2020
    We've kept this very simple for Draco. We've let him know that people are free to chop things off, bolt things on - Frankenstein themselves in whatever way they want - but your gender is what they'll say you were when they have to identify your remains by your DNA.

    We've let him know there is more to a woman than tits and a dress; they're special and unique. You can't take a dude, Ginsu his junk and declare him a woman. There's more to women than that. But we've also reminded him to be grateful with all his heart that he doesn't have the sort of foundational struggles some people do. It's an 8-billion-caliber bullet he'll have forever dodged. We've taught him to recognize those truths which are immutable, and waste no energy trying to believe otherwise... and to be as patient as he can be with those who cannot face them.
     
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  3. WTF??

    So let me get this straight;

    It's Thanksgiving day, and your first impulse is to write on a music forum
    "They" isn't a gender

    Ok. o_O

    huh? Have I missed a meme? Is that a sexual reference? What are the four lights?

    o_O

     
  4. 1) It was yesterday.

    2) Star Trek.
     
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  5. In Star Trek, a Cardassian general attempts to break / brainwash Picard by repeatedly showing him five lights and asking him to say that there are four, to avoid further torture. At the end Picard shouts a defiant "there are four lights" to show that he has in fact not been brainwashed.
     
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  6. Well, in the spirit of Thanksgiving let me offer my thanks for Redbanned and @Mike Verta for being what/who you are.

    Don't always understand you, but I always appreciate you.

    It's also increasingly rare to find places on the internet where people with polar opposite political views co-exist together with a mutual respect.
    I value that this rare thing exists here. (mostly)

    Have a great Thanksgiving everyone. (except for non-binary turkeys)
     
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  7. I cannot fathom a world of complete uniformity; in fact I don't have to, for no such thing exists. And the pursuit is idiotic.

    Every well-debated dissent is an extra 25lbs added to the chest press bar. You're either getting stronger or you're getting weaker.
     
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  8. You're right, "they" is not a gender. "They" is a pronoun.

    Gender is a social construct. It exists separate from sex. Being trans is more nuanced than just "take a dude, Ginsu his junk and declare him a woman." Reasonable discussion allows for, and encourages, nuance. Dogma, on the other hand, eschews it out of necessity.

    "He doesn't have the sort of foundational struggles some people do." Sure, but perhaps only because you've convinced him that they aren't real. So if he ever does have such struggles, he will experience major cognitive dissonance rather than actually being equipped to understand his feelings.

    "recognize those truths which are immutable, and waste no energy trying to believe otherwise." Rigidity of thought can be a detriment. When someone presents their political beliefs to their child as "immutable truth," it leaves little room for nuance in the development of that mind.

    "and to be as patient as he can be with those who cannot face them." Teaching casual erasure as though it were a virtue is unfortunate. You're essentially teaching a kid that "if someone doesn't share your beliefs, it is because they are stupid."

    The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
     
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  9. I am certainly teaching Draco that the sudden emergence of a multitude of seemingly foundational social issues doesn't represent a surge in elevated thinking, but more likely a lot of bullshit from a people with no actual problems. It's a luxury. While we are busy increasing the ambient complexity of every facet of life and subjecting people to an impossible-to-navigate minefield of social missteps, we are not churning out a lot of Guernicas, 5th Symphonies, nor Roman Forums, all of which were managed by peoples not entirely confident where the next meal was coming from.

    I have the good fortune of being Director of Operations for a charity foundation in Ghana, West Africa which provides a wonderful perspective through which to view our own culture. It's refreshing to note how much simpler, and perfectly aligned with the bulk of the last 10,000 years of humanity a place can be, when the people have actual problems to face. Notably absent: food allergies, gender issues, tortured euphemistic language. You don't have to be starving to have your priorities made this clear, but it certainly reaffirms which things are necessities, and which are luxuries.

    We're at something like 10,000 years of human society, and suddenly nobody knows which bathroom to use? That's bullshit. And in our house we're as dismissive of it as we are patient; partly because it's got no sustainability. The "social construct" of gender being suddenly cleaved from actual gender is a complexity-multiplier, but of little value outside opportunities for the new national pastime of virtue signaling.

    Draco's exercises in logic and debate require a true empathy with positions not his own. To be successful, especially against me, he's got to do more than offer bullet points; he's got to internalize the rationalization of sometimes odious positions. Ultimately, he learns that some positions are simply less defensible than others. This inequality does not indicate an inequity, but it does challenge one to pick a position carefully.
     
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  10. "I don't have/understand those problems, therefore those problems aren't real."

    Empathy and compassion are not requirements. That doesn't mean they should be thrown out. Sure, the caricature of "woke culture" is bad, and definitely doesn't represent a surge in elevated thinking. But outright denial of the plight of others, based primarily on one's own willful ignorance, is far from elevated thinking.

    Sure, the outlook is grim if you base your perspective of reality on what the "woke left" is tweeting and yelling. But society is a complex, evolving organism. I know you're a smart guy, but just because you haven't learned how to do something doesn't mean it's impossible.

    Nor should we be stuck repeating the accomplishments of the past. We barely had airplanes a hundred years ago, now we're landing on other planets.

    I'm calling bullshit here. Everybody knows which bathroom to use: the one with the toilet that flushes. The problem is not caused by people not knowing which bathroom to use. The problem is caused by telling other people which bathroom not to use.
    Man, woman, non-binary, genderqueer, foxkin, whatever. Doesn't matter. Don't care. Just please flush and clean up after yourself.

    Cool!

    These are examples of issues that are not caused, but are revealed, by a more globalized society. You'd never know you were allergic to mangos if you've literally never had the opportunity to eat a mango. The mango showing up on your doorstep didn't cause you to become allergic to them; you just didn't know you were.

    If you are never given the tools to understand a concept, then it's natural that you might not know how to articulate your feelings on that concept. That doesn't mean the concept doesn't exist. Come on. By this logic, we can say that before we invented the word for murder, nobody was ever murdered, so therefore murder wasn't a problem.

    Yeah, it does seem to be getting out of hand... if twitter/tumblr is your barometer. I live in a big, democratic city with a huge LGBTQ population and tons of college kids. I'll even go so far as to say I'm immersed in it, being young-ish, queer, and progressive myself. And pretty much everyone is very forgiving about the terminology and all that. They don't harass you for using the wrong pronouns. Usually, they say nothing, or they give a kind reminder or gentle request. There's no twitter meltdown, viral tiktok level of outrage. People appreciate when you make a damned effort to be accommodating of your neighbors and their beliefs. I've never had someone get mad at me for using the wrong pronouns. I have had people who have said what basically amounts to "it's okay, you're trying, and that's what counts."

    It's like the vegan lifestyle. If you go on the internet, you see all these people complaining about sanctimonious vegans. But in the real world, you hardly ever see any of that. And you start to realize, the "complains about sanctimonious vegans" people are actually more prevalent than the actual sanctimonious vegans they rant about. And I feel we're seeing that same thing with the woke, SJW stuff. It's such a small minority of people, but when those few instances go viral on everyone's screens, it's easy to think "holy shit, these idiots are everywhere!"

    That doesn't render them invalid. You can "philosophize" anything down to non-existence or non-importance, even after just a single lecture in epistemology or logic. That doesn't mean you have anything worthwhile to gain from doing so. But worthwhile is subjective, I suppose.
     
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  11. Also, humans come in two genders. They're creative enough to imagine an infinite variety, or to imagine gender as a non-biological concept, but until recently, they've been too busy with more pressing matters to do so.

    Is this progress? I dunno. I do know my boy has been spared the challenge, even if not the fallout. Also, he's crushing on this chick Vivian so hard he voluntarily takes showers and puts on his best outfits before seeing her. She likes how tough he is in Tae Kwon Do. So that's a least two next-gen'rs crystal clear on the matter, who won't be arrested burning down Portland in a few years or whatever. Gratitude abounds.
     
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  12. Gender is a spectrum. I'm pretty sure I've seen you imply as much yourself, talking about how some men are more effeminate than others. If it were binary, as you imply now, there would be no girly men or manly women or whatever. There would be no distinction between a Man's Man and other men. Yet here we are, existing on a spectrum.

    The earth was flat because we were too busy with more pressing issues. Gosh, it's almost as if people can learn and adapt their worldview based on new evidence. Well, some people, anyway.

    There are tones in between A and A#. A lot of them, in fact. You can say "well, not in 12-tet." But that doesn't mean the tones don't exist, simply because your frame of reference doesn't acknowledge them. But you're a smart person, and I suspect you are cognizant but simply opting to ignore certain aspects of reality, as is your prerogative.
     
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  13. #13 TD Gary, Nov 28, 2020
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2020
    Frequency's a spectrum for sure.

    Gender, though? Well I know there's "boy stuff" and "girl stuff" with some common ground between them like "breathing" and "shitting". Beyond that and other basic needs and functions, I can't imagine there's much of a spectrum if there is one at all. Plain reality comes into view: some things are impossible without a dick, just as some things are impossible without a vag, and bodies are built to work to that end. Thank nature for that revelation, not me.

    If it was possible to change gender as easily as it is to change register, we'd all have a very different society. But since we can't, is it really a good idea to try?

    Could you imagine forcing a violin down to the doublebass range just because "they're all the same spectrum of string instruments" and "should be able to manage" if only the violin's strings were a touch longer and resonating chamber a tad larger? By design, they have very clear and obvious roles and the way they're played is dramatically disparate even while they're strikingly similar, and the "why" of it comes down to their very real and very well-defined physical differences.

    Naturally, all violin-likes are commonly bowed or plucked and play so lovely together that their homogeny could fool any old bloke into believing they're just one big spectrum of stringiness, but never forget that they work in concert to build up that ideal sound - as individuals coming together with distinct and clear purpose - not to intrude on each other.

    Don't believe me? Go on and write a violin solo for contrabass. Better yet, a melodic timpani solo for bass drum. I mean they're both just big drums, so why not? All you have to do is remember to tell the percussionist to tune the thing every note. Oh boy, that'll be fine and not at all wonky or unnatural, for sure!

    Actually, I kind of want to see/hear that.
     
  14. Actually before Star Trek copied it, the phrase "There are 4 lights" and that whole torture scenario came from the book 1984 by George Orwell. I remember seeing that episode of Star Trek and being disappointed that the writers couldn't think of something more original.
     
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  15. They're tirelessly working on it at VI-Control.
     
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  16. Oh damn, I forgot to unsub the thread, so I'm coming back to say:
    Asymmetry is a beautiful thing.
    Leaders and followers, full and empty, high and low, big and small, and so on. Interest lives in between it all, animated and alive.

    Equality and generic qualities are just grey. Just colorless, inoffensive, dead and boring. Fuck political correctness trying to wring the beauty out of life.
     
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  17. Among other things, you're conflating gender and biological sex. When it comes to gender, what even is "boy stuff" and what is "girl stuff?"

    "I can't imagine there's much of a spectrum" is more of a statement about your lack of imagination than anything else.

    So because something is not easy, we shouldn't even try?


    Sure we could say the gender role (the "violin solo" or the "melodic timpani solo") doesn't match the biological sex (the contrabass, or the bass drum). But we musn't leave out the holistic view of the music (the human) in this comparison.
    We could say "you're a contrabass, play a contrabass solo" (you're a boy, do boy stuff). We could acknowledge that "violin solo" isn't the best fitting term, but maybe it's because we haven't created the right term? Maybe we love the idea (the human) and we can accept that "violin solo" isn't the best description (gender) for it, nor is contrabass the best instrument (sex). Instead of loving the human and finding a way to make it work, we create confusion (gender dysphoria) by forcing it arbitrarily down a certain path (you're a "violin solo" played on a contrabass; you're a "woman" in a man's body) and then calling it "wonky and unnatural." And then we get into the weird area of deciding that the music itself (the human being) is wrong, or bad, all because of the arbitrary constraints we've imposed. It's 2020 and humans are pretty clever; we can make new instruments. We don't have to call it a violin solo, and we don't have to play it on contrabass either.

    If it were such a simple binary with a "correct" solution, we wouldn't have so many gender identities.

    It's not about political correctness. It's about acceptance of others. It's about accepting another human's identity as valid even if you don't relate. People don't use "they/them" pronouns just because they want to get mad at you for getting it wrong. They're not trying to "wring the beauty out of life." People want to be themselves.

    "I don't want to listen to your music" is one thing. But when we get into "that's not even real music," things get ugly.

    With the previous comparison, it's "I don't like you as a person" versus "You are not even a person." It's dehumanization; it's erasure; it's bigotry.

    It saddens me to see the lengths to which people will go in order to justify their discrimination against others. As if we don't already have enough problems in the world...

    https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/stop-using-phony-science-to-justify-transphobia/

    http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2016/gender-lines-science-transgender-identity/

    https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01237-z
     
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  18. Oh boy, here come the article links and self-righteous generalizations.
    Want me to grab a bunch of crime or suicide statistics to help you hate minorities? Want the other ones that claim they're all productive geniuses so you feel better about your beliefs? Or do you prefer some flavor of satire taken seriously that was published in a journal for its quality formatting rather than its content? You can find articles that will justify anything you want to believe.

    There's nothing to read between the lines, so I don't get why you're trying. When I say "fuck political correctness" I mean "fuck all that arbitrary bullshit you expect me to do to make you or others feel better about abnormalities or shortcomings".

    Here's some advice: know your weaknesses and own them. If you expect others to compensate for your inability to meet your own ideals, that's on you and you alone.

    In "the world", if you can't be a realist, you can never be happy. I choose to be happy as is my right and yours.
     
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