5 ms·

So, what's the current take? Brain is hardware, and sex is software driven by hormones?

by 1996 6y ago

core-questions 6y ago
...with specific hardware acceleration for certain functions that can't be emulated in software, sure. The question I have is: will this lead to therapies that can help people with gender dysphoria become comfortable in their unmodified bodies?
- orthecreedence 6y ago
  My immediate reaction to this idea is that it's effectively "conversion therapy" but then after I let it sit for a while longer, it seems like it's really yet another option/tool available to people. I do really have to wonder how it would be used (ie, forced-detransing someone) but on the other hand, if someone is not comfortable in their body and has no means to modify their body to their liking, could this help them in the long run? Or are they supposed to live in ongoing anguish because one part of them doesn't line up with another part and they can do nothing about it? This is an interesting idea, with wide-ranging ethical implications.
  - klyrs 6y ago
    Not "effectively". It is conversion therapy. The situation you're describing is very uncommon, except in places that make it exceedingly difficult for people to transition. So that's where such a therapy would be applied the most. So the ethical question is "is it okay to eradicate a population because they will be otherwise oppressed?" Looking back a few decades: Turing was given estrogen to "cure" his homosexuality. Is that an "interesting idea" too? Granted, it sounds much easier than curing society of its homophobia and transphobia...
    - prirun 6y ago
      Forced anything is obviously bad. But if there is the possibility of taking drugs to temporarily alter ones gender identity, perhaps to match their body, or the sex they are attracted to, it would give people with these issues more options to explore. Perhaps they would be happy in their altered state and not need to undergo years of therapy or surgical procedures. Or perhaps seeing the "other side" would convince them that they need to stay true to their original self, at any cost. This could eliminate a lot of internal self-doubt and "what if" debate.
      - klyrs 6y ago
        I've got skin in the game, but it sounds like you don't. So let's put the shoe on the other foot. Would you choose to take a drug intended to induce gender dysphoria, or change your sexual orientation? Would you want to enter a relationship with somebody for whom it would be necessary to pop a pill daily just to remain attracted° to them? Or conversely, would you want to be in a relationship with somebody who was only attracted to you because of that pill they were taking? And yeah, forced anything is bad. I've been forced to not transition, and it was utter hell. Just because you think that this could have good uses, doesn't erase the fact that being transgender is a capital offense de jure or de facto, in much of the world today. Development of such a treatment would be immediately followed by it being forced on people.
        CryptoPunk 6y ago
        >>a drug intended to induce gender dysphoria Why would someone want to develop gender dysphoria? It is associated with a significantly heightened risk for multiple mental illnesses and suicide. It would make sense that someone would want to get rid of gender dysphoria, not the other way around. >>I've been forced to not transition, and it was utter hell. How were you forced to not transition? Did someone threaten to punish you in the event that you made an attempt to? Or was it just a matter of the procedure not being available to you? Anyway, would it be hell to not transition, if you didn't have gender dysphoria? >>Development of such a treatment would be immediately followed by it being forced on people. This is speculation, and your speculation on how such a treatment would be used doesn't create a moral justification to exert totalitarian force on others to prevent them from developing the treatment.
  - core-questions 6y ago
    > (ie, forced-detransing someone) Why assume that this is the kind of application that would be used? Do you really think it's so uncommon that someone might have the seeds of these feelings and really rather that they just go away? If it's something that can be handled therapeutically and allow the person to live in the skin they were born in without dysphoria, doesn't that seem like something an awful lot of people would probably consider, especially if it's not invasive?
    - orthecreedence 6y ago
      > Why assume that this is the kind of application that would be used? I guess because trans people are treated like lepers and because conversion therapy used to be a pretty common thing. > Do you really think it's so uncommon that someone might have the seeds of these feelings and really rather that they just go away? No, I don't think it's uncommon. Which is why I engaged your post instead of downvoting and moving on. > If it's something that can be handled therapeutically and allow the person to live in the skin they were born in without dysphoria, doesn't that seem like something an awful lot of people would probably consider, especially if it's not invasive? And, we're back to conversion therapy. I don't necessarily disagree with you here. I think my reservations don't come from the therapy itself, but rather the circumstances under which it's recommended or administered. For instance, is it better to take HRT and be closer to the person you feel by default? Or is it better to take b-yr-c15-53lf trans-blockers to get back to living your happy norm life? Is it being pushed by a therapist? Am I discovering it myself? It brings up a lot of questions about vulnerability, self, identity, etc.
      - core-questions 6y ago
        > trans people are treated like lepers Says you; here in Canada at least transpeople are a protected class and have as many or more rights than the next person. This is not the same thing at all as conversion therapy, and it is unreasonable to suggest that there should not be research and development into techniques, therapeutics, and methods to help people who would rather not actually be trans. This is not mutually exclusive with allowing people to be trans, or granting them protected class status! It's merely another option, and in no way is it implied that it should be forced on anyone. In fact, "conversion therapy", as long as it is 100% consensual on the part of the person taking it, should be fine. Why shouldn't it? Because it won't work? Homeopathy and plenty of other things that "won't work" are legal. It's the lack of consent that is the moral issue, not the fact that someone might want assistance at living a simpler life, which being cisgendered no doubt is, at least at this time. > For instance, is it better to take HRT and be closer to the person you feel by default? This really depends on the outcome that you're after, but the higher-after-HRT-and-operations suicide rate of transpeople makes me wonder whether it's actually the better outcome or not. Since this is 100% contextual and differs widely by individual, the only correct standpoint in a free society is to allow both options. > Is it being pushed by a therapist? Some therapists are going to be gatekeepers, some are going to push you towards HRT, it's luck of the draw at this point based on the personal biases and ethics of the therapist. The fact is, we're supposed to be recognizing and validating people's feelings; and it's entirely believable that there is a class of people who feel gender dysphoria and simply want it to go away. These people are underserved by the current system.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
Mostly, it's "'Of Men and Mice' isn't just a movie..." But, also: - Nature/Nurture is almost unsolvable for humans, at least within the confines of commonly accepted ethical standards - Even where you can show statistically significant between-group differences, they are almost certain to be swamped by variability between individuals. Example: Women are, on average, slightly older than men (because of higher life expectancy). The p-value here is as close to zero as you'll get in the real world. But, given two randomly selected people, one male and one female, knowing the above is close to useless! The probability of the woman being older differs from 0.5 by no more than a fraction of a percentage point. - The difference b/w mice and humans is that humans have the ability to overcome biology with reason.
- PeterisP 6y ago
  "Nature/Nurture is almost unsolvable" - I was under the impression that for most traits we have researched the evidence shows that the Nature/Nurture answer is simply "both" ? I.e. I agree that it's getting good experimental data on the exact mix of nature vs nurture is difficult or impossible with ethical methods, but for many traits we can (as far as I understand - it's not my field of research) demonstrate that it's definitely not 90/10 or 10/90 purely from observational studies. But perhaps it's more accurate to look at this from a "four quadrant" (simplified) perspective, with nature/nurture on one axis and hereditary/nonhereditary on the other axis. So you'd have hereditary nature (biological determinism) factors in one quarter, non-hereditary nature (biological variation, mutations, things like most cases of Down syndrome) in another; hereditary nurture (socioeconomic status, which affects a lot, cultural aspects and family values), and non-hereditary nurture, where (among other things) I'd be eager to place things which are under the individual willpower control even though they're not technically "nurture".
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
    Yes, indeed. I was thinking of gender roles, specifically, where twin studies are of little help (because "nature" is just sex, not "inherited from parents", and "nurture" is about the influences of society, not your immediate caretakers)
h0l0cube 6y ago
Brain is hardware, male and female sex are the APIs, hormones/VNO are the authorization, the client software is parenting, environment and your (illusory) free-will.
- h0l0cube 6y ago
  If you can't articulate why something is wrong, you have no justifiable reason to downvote it. Open to criticisms.
  - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
    don't feed the down voters.
    - h0l0cube 6y ago
      Fair call :) I'm more interested in furthering 'the discourse' than reclaiming silly karma points. It's just nice to know where people think I'm wrong, and beings able to discuss why that might be.
      - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
        In my experience if someone has an argument they feel is worth making, they will make it. Downvotes mean that someone doesn't know how to respond verbally/textually, or they feel the comment detracts from the discussion. Or both. Frankly some of my best comments have been downvoted. If there's nothing obviously deficient and no one offers a correction, I consider it possible that it was because it threatened someone's worldview. People will go to great lengths to protect their worldview, downvoting is nothing on that scale.
        h0l0cube 6y ago
        Absolutely in sympathy with everything you said there. But I can't help but challenge my silent aggressors :) I really wish downvoting was replaced with a flagging feature. The official guidelines are pretty easy to follow and fairly effective in labelling the sorts of comments that take the conversation backwards. If someone is arguing in bad faith, they're likely in contravention of one of the guidelines, in which case moderation is a more appropriate tool for the problem.

So, what's the current take? Brain is hardware, and sex is software driven by hormones?

by 1996 6y ago

So, what's the current take? Brain is hardware, and sex is software driven by hormones?

...with specific hardware acceleration for certain functions that can't be emulated in software, sure. The question I have is: will this lead to therapies that can help people with gender dysphoria become comfortable in their unmodified bodies?

orthecreedence 6y ago
My immediate reaction to this idea is that it's effectively "conversion therapy" but then after I let it sit for a while longer, it seems like it's really yet another option/tool available to people. I do really have to wonder how it would be used (ie, forced-detransing someone) but on the other hand, if someone is not comfortable in their body and has no means to modify their body to their liking, could this help them in the long run? Or are they supposed to live in ongoing anguish because one part of them doesn't line up with another part and they can do nothing about it? This is an interesting idea, with wide-ranging ethical implications.
- klyrs 6y ago
  Not "effectively". It is conversion therapy. The situation you're describing is very uncommon, except in places that make it exceedingly difficult for people to transition. So that's where such a therapy would be applied the most. So the ethical question is "is it okay to eradicate a population because they will be otherwise oppressed?" Looking back a few decades: Turing was given estrogen to "cure" his homosexuality. Is that an "interesting idea" too? Granted, it sounds much easier than curing society of its homophobia and transphobia...
  - prirun 6y ago
    Forced anything is obviously bad. But if there is the possibility of taking drugs to temporarily alter ones gender identity, perhaps to match their body, or the sex they are attracted to, it would give people with these issues more options to explore. Perhaps they would be happy in their altered state and not need to undergo years of therapy or surgical procedures. Or perhaps seeing the "other side" would convince them that they need to stay true to their original self, at any cost. This could eliminate a lot of internal self-doubt and "what if" debate.
    - klyrs 6y ago
      I've got skin in the game, but it sounds like you don't. So let's put the shoe on the other foot. Would you choose to take a drug intended to induce gender dysphoria, or change your sexual orientation? Would you want to enter a relationship with somebody for whom it would be necessary to pop a pill daily just to remain attracted° to them? Or conversely, would you want to be in a relationship with somebody who was only attracted to you because of that pill they were taking? And yeah, forced anything is bad. I've been forced to not transition, and it was utter hell. Just because you think that this could have good uses, doesn't erase the fact that being transgender is a capital offense de jure or de facto, in much of the world today. Development of such a treatment would be immediately followed by it being forced on people.
      - CryptoPunk 6y ago
        >>a drug intended to induce gender dysphoria Why would someone want to develop gender dysphoria? It is associated with a significantly heightened risk for multiple mental illnesses and suicide. It would make sense that someone would want to get rid of gender dysphoria, not the other way around. >>I've been forced to not transition, and it was utter hell. How were you forced to not transition? Did someone threaten to punish you in the event that you made an attempt to? Or was it just a matter of the procedure not being available to you? Anyway, would it be hell to not transition, if you didn't have gender dysphoria? >>Development of such a treatment would be immediately followed by it being forced on people. This is speculation, and your speculation on how such a treatment would be used doesn't create a moral justification to exert totalitarian force on others to prevent them from developing the treatment.
- core-questions 6y ago
  > (ie, forced-detransing someone) Why assume that this is the kind of application that would be used? Do you really think it's so uncommon that someone might have the seeds of these feelings and really rather that they just go away? If it's something that can be handled therapeutically and allow the person to live in the skin they were born in without dysphoria, doesn't that seem like something an awful lot of people would probably consider, especially if it's not invasive?
  - orthecreedence 6y ago
    > Why assume that this is the kind of application that would be used? I guess because trans people are treated like lepers and because conversion therapy used to be a pretty common thing. > Do you really think it's so uncommon that someone might have the seeds of these feelings and really rather that they just go away? No, I don't think it's uncommon. Which is why I engaged your post instead of downvoting and moving on. > If it's something that can be handled therapeutically and allow the person to live in the skin they were born in without dysphoria, doesn't that seem like something an awful lot of people would probably consider, especially if it's not invasive? And, we're back to conversion therapy. I don't necessarily disagree with you here. I think my reservations don't come from the therapy itself, but rather the circumstances under which it's recommended or administered. For instance, is it better to take HRT and be closer to the person you feel by default? Or is it better to take b-yr-c15-53lf trans-blockers to get back to living your happy norm life? Is it being pushed by a therapist? Am I discovering it myself? It brings up a lot of questions about vulnerability, self, identity, etc.
    - core-questions 6y ago
      > trans people are treated like lepers Says you; here in Canada at least transpeople are a protected class and have as many or more rights than the next person. This is not the same thing at all as conversion therapy, and it is unreasonable to suggest that there should not be research and development into techniques, therapeutics, and methods to help people who would rather not actually be trans. This is not mutually exclusive with allowing people to be trans, or granting them protected class status! It's merely another option, and in no way is it implied that it should be forced on anyone. In fact, "conversion therapy", as long as it is 100% consensual on the part of the person taking it, should be fine. Why shouldn't it? Because it won't work? Homeopathy and plenty of other things that "won't work" are legal. It's the lack of consent that is the moral issue, not the fact that someone might want assistance at living a simpler life, which being cisgendered no doubt is, at least at this time. > For instance, is it better to take HRT and be closer to the person you feel by default? This really depends on the outcome that you're after, but the higher-after-HRT-and-operations suicide rate of transpeople makes me wonder whether it's actually the better outcome or not. Since this is 100% contextual and differs widely by individual, the only correct standpoint in a free society is to allow both options. > Is it being pushed by a therapist? Some therapists are going to be gatekeepers, some are going to push you towards HRT, it's luck of the draw at this point based on the personal biases and ethics of the therapist. The fact is, we're supposed to be recognizing and validating people's feelings; and it's entirely believable that there is a class of people who feel gender dysphoria and simply want it to go away. These people are underserved by the current system.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago

Mostly, it's "'Of Men and Mice' isn't just a movie..." But, also: - Nature/Nurture is almost unsolvable for humans, at least within the confines of commonly accepted ethical standards - Even where you can show statistically significant between-group differences, they are almost certain to be swamped by variability between individuals. Example: Women are, on average, slightly older than men (because of higher life expectancy). The p-value here is as close to zero as you'll get in the real world. But, given two randomly selected people, one male and one female, knowing the above is close to useless! The probability of the woman being older differs from 0.5 by no more than a fraction of a percentage point. - The difference b/w mice and humans is that humans have the ability to overcome biology with reason.

PeterisP 6y ago
"Nature/Nurture is almost unsolvable" - I was under the impression that for most traits we have researched the evidence shows that the Nature/Nurture answer is simply "both" ? I.e. I agree that it's getting good experimental data on the exact mix of nature vs nurture is difficult or impossible with ethical methods, but for many traits we can (as far as I understand - it's not my field of research) demonstrate that it's definitely not 90/10 or 10/90 purely from observational studies. But perhaps it's more accurate to look at this from a "four quadrant" (simplified) perspective, with nature/nurture on one axis and hereditary/nonhereditary on the other axis. So you'd have hereditary nature (biological determinism) factors in one quarter, non-hereditary nature (biological variation, mutations, things like most cases of Down syndrome) in another; hereditary nurture (socioeconomic status, which affects a lot, cultural aspects and family values), and non-hereditary nurture, where (among other things) I'd be eager to place things which are under the individual willpower control even though they're not technically "nurture".
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
  Yes, indeed. I was thinking of gender roles, specifically, where twin studies are of little help (because "nature" is just sex, not "inherited from parents", and "nurture" is about the influences of society, not your immediate caretakers)

h0l0cube 6y ago

Brain is hardware, male and female sex are the APIs, hormones/VNO are the authorization, the client software is parenting, environment and your (illusory) free-will.

h0l0cube 6y ago
If you can't articulate why something is wrong, you have no justifiable reason to downvote it. Open to criticisms.
- chordalkeyboard 6y ago
  don't feed the down voters.
  - h0l0cube 6y ago
    Fair call :) I'm more interested in furthering 'the discourse' than reclaiming silly karma points. It's just nice to know where people think I'm wrong, and beings able to discuss why that might be.
    - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
      In my experience if someone has an argument they feel is worth making, they will make it. Downvotes mean that someone doesn't know how to respond verbally/textually, or they feel the comment detracts from the discussion. Or both. Frankly some of my best comments have been downvoted. If there's nothing obviously deficient and no one offers a correction, I consider it possible that it was because it threatened someone's worldview. People will go to great lengths to protect their worldview, downvoting is nothing on that scale.
      - h0l0cube 6y ago
        Absolutely in sympathy with everything you said there. But I can't help but challenge my silent aggressors :) I really wish downvoting was replaced with a flagging feature. The official guidelines are pretty easy to follow and fairly effective in labelling the sorts of comments that take the conversation backwards. If someone is arguing in bad faith, they're likely in contravention of one of the guidelines, in which case moderation is a more appropriate tool for the problem.