3 ms·

> It's true that most people fit into binary, but I don't really see how that's relevant. It's relevant because it's efficient more than 99% of the time and re

> It's true that most people fit into binary, but I don't really see how that's relevant. It's relevant because it's efficient more than 99% of the time and removing it introduces ambiguity 99% of the time. The person you're responding to even said they didn't have a problem with adding more pronouns, just not making it worse by removing them.

seba_dos1 5y ago
> and removing it introduces ambiguity 99% of the time My whole point 2) was about how it does not (most of the time it just removes irrelevant noise), so I'd appreciate a counterexample.
- guerrilla 5y ago
  Your second point is wrong. Obviously it narrows specificity by half the room on average. I don't know why you'd argue against that obvious fact. It's basic math: If you have a set C that is the union of two sets A and B where A and B have the same cardinality, referring to "a C" gives you twice the possibilities than referring to either "an A" or "a B." So it's measurably twice as efficient to do the former. Since so many unrelated languages in the world ended up with such a system (or very close), it's reasonable to think that that efficiency was worth it. Since most of those systems are not much more specific, it's reasonable to think that being more specific wasn't worth it (one can always specify further using more words.)
  - seba_dos1 5y ago
    Of course it narrows down specificity. My point is that in today's society, it seems mostly useless to me. Most of the time I don't need to narrow it down this way at all. This may have been different in a world where people were segregated by sex so intensively that half of the population didn't even have the right to vote, but today I fail to see the usefulness of it.
    - guerrilla 5y ago
      > but today I fail to see the usefulness of it. Then you fail to see the usefulness of specificity and efficiency in speech, which is both weird and explains why it took you so many words to say that.
      - seba_dos1 5y ago
        If I'll want to refer to you and this conversation when talking to someone else, I don't need to refer to your gender at all. Just like I don't need to refer to your race, your social class or color of your hair. Stopping to consider whether I should use "he" or "she" (or maybe something else) is the exact opposite of efficiency in speech. It seems to me that it's actually you who misunderstands the usefulness of specificity. It's not useful to be overspecific.
        guerrilla 5y ago
        Obviously it depends on your goals and the context. Both specificity and generality are useful. To ban one is foolishness. They coalesced into short words for a reason: people use them, a lot.
        seba_dos1 5y ago
        We can exchange truisms all day ;) But that doesn't change the fact that in my experience specificity related to gender pronouns is needed (or even helpful) only in a very tiny minority of everyday contexts. For the record, my native tongue is much more gendered than English (it has gendered nouns, verbs and adjectives; not just pronouns) - I don't understand how it's useful at all, I don't miss it in English.
        TOMDM 5y ago
        I think you're underselling the importance people find in their gender. Personally I agree, for me gender holds little importance, if I'm being most true to myself I identify as non binary simply because I don't really identify with a gendered label. That motivation has also lead me to being ok with being gendered male, because it just doesn't matter to me. I understand I need to look outside of my own experience to see the importance people place on gender though. You can say all you want that most people don't care, but I feel if you misgender people, a lot of them would be very upset. Trans people are very vulnerable to suicide because of this, to diminish the importance of gender (this includes the binary, of which many trans people want to fit into) to these people is to be at best lacking in empathy. Now if you're approaching this from a gender abolitionist angle where you believe all this attachment to gender is socialized and that we should push to de-emphasize genders role in society, then I believe that's a far more defensible position, but I feel you need to at least recognize the importance gender has to people today (socialized or not) if you're to have any hope in bridging that gap with people.

seba_dos1 5y ago

> and removing it introduces ambiguity 99% of the time My whole point 2) was about how it does not (most of the time it just removes irrelevant noise), so I'd appreciate a counterexample.

guerrilla 5y ago
Your second point is wrong. Obviously it narrows specificity by half the room on average. I don't know why you'd argue against that obvious fact. It's basic math: If you have a set C that is the union of two sets A and B where A and B have the same cardinality, referring to "a C" gives you twice the possibilities than referring to either "an A" or "a B." So it's measurably twice as efficient to do the former. Since so many unrelated languages in the world ended up with such a system (or very close), it's reasonable to think that that efficiency was worth it. Since most of those systems are not much more specific, it's reasonable to think that being more specific wasn't worth it (one can always specify further using more words.)
- seba_dos1 5y ago
  Of course it narrows down specificity. My point is that in today's society, it seems mostly useless to me. Most of the time I don't need to narrow it down this way at all. This may have been different in a world where people were segregated by sex so intensively that half of the population didn't even have the right to vote, but today I fail to see the usefulness of it.
  - guerrilla 5y ago
    > but today I fail to see the usefulness of it. Then you fail to see the usefulness of specificity and efficiency in speech, which is both weird and explains why it took you so many words to say that.
    - seba_dos1 5y ago
      If I'll want to refer to you and this conversation when talking to someone else, I don't need to refer to your gender at all. Just like I don't need to refer to your race, your social class or color of your hair. Stopping to consider whether I should use "he" or "she" (or maybe something else) is the exact opposite of efficiency in speech. It seems to me that it's actually you who misunderstands the usefulness of specificity. It's not useful to be overspecific.
      - guerrilla 5y ago
        Obviously it depends on your goals and the context. Both specificity and generality are useful. To ban one is foolishness. They coalesced into short words for a reason: people use them, a lot.
        seba_dos1 5y ago
        We can exchange truisms all day ;) But that doesn't change the fact that in my experience specificity related to gender pronouns is needed (or even helpful) only in a very tiny minority of everyday contexts. For the record, my native tongue is much more gendered than English (it has gendered nouns, verbs and adjectives; not just pronouns) - I don't understand how it's useful at all, I don't miss it in English.
        TOMDM 5y ago
        I think you're underselling the importance people find in their gender. Personally I agree, for me gender holds little importance, if I'm being most true to myself I identify as non binary simply because I don't really identify with a gendered label. That motivation has also lead me to being ok with being gendered male, because it just doesn't matter to me. I understand I need to look outside of my own experience to see the importance people place on gender though. You can say all you want that most people don't care, but I feel if you misgender people, a lot of them would be very upset. Trans people are very vulnerable to suicide because of this, to diminish the importance of gender (this includes the binary, of which many trans people want to fit into) to these people is to be at best lacking in empathy. Now if you're approaching this from a gender abolitionist angle where you believe all this attachment to gender is socialized and that we should push to de-emphasize genders role in society, then I believe that's a far more defensible position, but I feel you need to at least recognize the importance gender has to people today (socialized or not) if you're to have any hope in bridging that gap with people.