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An actual, living, breathing human being is not invented by the author. Do you also complain about novelists misgendering their fictional characters?

eganist 7y ago
That's a novel perversion of the assertion. An author inventing a character can create any character they want. But if you're going to make a remark about a hypothetical person who could exist, don't bound the gender. The two are completely incomparable. We could keep going down this rabbit hole. Up to you.
- iso947 7y ago
  The author of the post invented a character born today and who will live for 1010 years. The author’s character was described as “he”. You seem to think that this is wrong despite it not being your character.
  - eganist 7y ago
    101* and they're a hypothetical person who could exist, not a fictional character who could not exist. And really, this whole thing misses the point: if you're describing someone who could exist, you shouldn't put bounds on who the person could be.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - techbio 7y ago
      Or how many of them there may be? Potentially more than zero, certainly fewer than the (large) number of births today, and the argument is that one pronoun is (in)accurate for an individual...what we need here is “they” because there will as likely be a group of “them” as one alone.
      - techbio 7y ago
        I’ll assume the downvote is due to an inability to analyze basic grammar.
- CrazyStat 7y ago
  Of course the two are comparable. In both cases an author is inventing a person and situations and narrating their invention. Calling them incomparable is a transparent attempt to shoot down the argument without actually engaging with it. The joke described a hypothetical person who was born and died on certain dates, and then fleshed that out with additional invented details: gender and use of diapers at both the beginning and end of his life. If you're going to complain about the author of the joke assigning their fictional character a gender you might as well also complain about them assigning him to use adult diapers, since many real actual people would also be deeply offended by such a mis-diapering. If you're going to complain about the author of a short humorous anecdote assigning their character a gender you might as well also complain about the author of a novel assigning their character a gender. I'm happy to have a serious discussion here but I'm not going to bother if you continue to try to dismiss my arguments without engaging.
  - eganist 7y ago
    The difference between a hypothetical person and a fictional character is that the former can exist and the latter cannot. Your argument was not dismissed, it was deliberately engaged. The person could exist with a nontrivial degree of probability, and therefore, gendering the person is inappropriate.
    - CrazyStat 7y ago
      Plenty of lengthier literary works describe characters who could exist with a nontrivial degree of probability--indeed, with probability approaching one. All it takes is a minor character with minimal identifying information, which happens all the time. A store clerk who the main character briefly interacts with, for example. Should these characters not be gendered? Also you're ignoring the mis-diapering issue.
      - eganist 7y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man, regarding your literary works argument, but I'll bite. The person described could exist, so gendering them is inappropriate if we're to fix our issues with inclusion in tech. If you're asserting that the person described is definitely fictional, sure, give them any gender. But they're not, they're a hypothetical person with non-trivial likelihood. Characters in novels have a trivial/negligible likelihood of existing because the specificity of events described in the story rules out their existence to a large degree. Whereas here, all that's described is a potential person born today and dies 12-12-2121. Of the ~360,000 people born today, you're looking at a sizeable likelihood that someone will live that long and pass on that day. So, since the person described is somewhat likely to actually exist, do our own culture of inclusion a favor and don't presume gender. How hard can this be? --- Edit: I feel myself becoming frustrated at my inability to convey the point, so I'll opt out. I regret I couldn't bring you around.

eganist 7y ago

That's a novel perversion of the assertion. An author inventing a character can create any character they want. But if you're going to make a remark about a hypothetical person who could exist, don't bound the gender. The two are completely incomparable. We could keep going down this rabbit hole. Up to you.

iso947 7y ago
The author of the post invented a character born today and who will live for 1010 years. The author’s character was described as “he”. You seem to think that this is wrong despite it not being your character.
- eganist 7y ago
  101* and they're a hypothetical person who could exist, not a fictional character who could not exist. And really, this whole thing misses the point: if you're describing someone who could exist, you shouldn't put bounds on who the person could be.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - techbio 7y ago
    Or how many of them there may be? Potentially more than zero, certainly fewer than the (large) number of births today, and the argument is that one pronoun is (in)accurate for an individual...what we need here is “they” because there will as likely be a group of “them” as one alone.
    - techbio 7y ago
      I’ll assume the downvote is due to an inability to analyze basic grammar.
CrazyStat 7y ago
Of course the two are comparable. In both cases an author is inventing a person and situations and narrating their invention. Calling them incomparable is a transparent attempt to shoot down the argument without actually engaging with it. The joke described a hypothetical person who was born and died on certain dates, and then fleshed that out with additional invented details: gender and use of diapers at both the beginning and end of his life. If you're going to complain about the author of the joke assigning their fictional character a gender you might as well also complain about them assigning him to use adult diapers, since many real actual people would also be deeply offended by such a mis-diapering. If you're going to complain about the author of a short humorous anecdote assigning their character a gender you might as well also complain about the author of a novel assigning their character a gender. I'm happy to have a serious discussion here but I'm not going to bother if you continue to try to dismiss my arguments without engaging.
- eganist 7y ago
  The difference between a hypothetical person and a fictional character is that the former can exist and the latter cannot. Your argument was not dismissed, it was deliberately engaged. The person could exist with a nontrivial degree of probability, and therefore, gendering the person is inappropriate.
  - CrazyStat 7y ago
    Plenty of lengthier literary works describe characters who could exist with a nontrivial degree of probability--indeed, with probability approaching one. All it takes is a minor character with minimal identifying information, which happens all the time. A store clerk who the main character briefly interacts with, for example. Should these characters not be gendered? Also you're ignoring the mis-diapering issue.
    - eganist 7y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man, regarding your literary works argument, but I'll bite. The person described could exist, so gendering them is inappropriate if we're to fix our issues with inclusion in tech. If you're asserting that the person described is definitely fictional, sure, give them any gender. But they're not, they're a hypothetical person with non-trivial likelihood. Characters in novels have a trivial/negligible likelihood of existing because the specificity of events described in the story rules out their existence to a large degree. Whereas here, all that's described is a potential person born today and dies 12-12-2121. Of the ~360,000 people born today, you're looking at a sizeable likelihood that someone will live that long and pass on that day. So, since the person described is somewhat likely to actually exist, do our own culture of inclusion a favor and don't presume gender. How hard can this be? --- Edit: I feel myself becoming frustrated at my inability to convey the point, so I'll opt out. I regret I couldn't bring you around.