5 ms·

I don't get the whole discussion. There are just many different models of gender. Its like particles vs waves. In one model, there are only two genders, in anot

I don't get the whole discussion. There are just many different models of gender. Its like particles vs waves. In one model, there are only two genders, in another five. There are those who say gender is culture and sex is real, and those who say sex is constructed, too. Some models describe reality better than others, some are useful, some are harmful. But nobody can or should stop you from thinking about reality with the model of your choice. If I were Microsoft, I would post a shrugie and say copilot offers arbitrary responses based on the actual code it reads; it is not supposed to be "correct" or good or fair, but just follow what it sees other people do.

xupybd 4y ago
>>Nobody can or should stop you from thinking about reality with the model of your choice. While I agree with you, that is very much the game that is being played here. We have competing world views and one way to help a world view dominate is to play a linguistic war. That was the point of Newspeak in 1984 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak). If you control the language such that competing ideas are instantly taboo just by the words required to describe them you can stop people from promulgating those ideas. So you gain ground without ever having to debate the new ideas. This has happened in many countries when one religion dominated. Western society was starting to get to the point where it taboos were being shed and ideas could win based on their merit. Sadly we're regressing back to a society controlled by dogma rather than an open exchange of ideas. I suspect this is the normal state of human societies, we fluctuate between open and closed societies.
- WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  > Western society The problem seems fairly limited to the USA from where I stand.
  - xupybd 4y ago
    I'm in NZ and it's very much here as well.
- indigo945 4y ago
  The whole point of (post-)structuralist philosophy, which informs the left-wing view on this, is that all language is already newspeak. (And since it follows that you can't choose not to play, you may as well play to win.) > Western society was starting to get to the point where it taboos were being shed and ideas could win based on their merit. Name a year that things were actually better. (In the 40's, before the civil rights movement? In the 80's, when queer people were still regularly oppressed and excluded from participation in society? Did ideas "win on their merit" when police beat up people in gay bars?)
  - tiahura 4y ago
    - indigo945 4y ago
  - xupybd 4y ago
    >The whole point of (post-)structuralist philosophy, which informs the left-wing view on this, is that all language is already newspeak. (And since it follows that you can't choose not to play, you may as well play to win.) Exactly that. This is the current conflict. Things were not better in the 40s, action movies were better in the 80s :p. Things were trending towards a more open society they had not become perfect by any stretch of the imagination. That trend, IMO, has reversed, due to the tactics involved. That is not to say some groups haven't benefited from this. There is a genuine drive to create a utopia here. However I fear the cure might be worse than the disease.
bergenty 4y ago
It’s really not some complicated multiverse of possibilities. It’s biological, very factual and the underlying genetic basis is as objective as something can get.
- spoils19 4y ago
- kmonsen 4y ago
  There are actually corner cases here, although that’s not what usually comes up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex Just a reminder that often reality is more complicated than we think. Names, numbers and upper/lower case are the usual examples.
  - q-big 4y ago
    > There are actually corner cases here, although that’s not what usually comes up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex No biologist would claim that the sex is constructed.
pyrale 4y ago
> If I were Microsoft, I would post a shrugie and say copilot offers arbitrary responses based on the actual code it reads; it is not supposed to be "correct" or good or fair, but just follow what it sees other people do. The last time Microsoft did that, they ended up with their bot posting racist content on twitter. They of all people understand that just following what people do on the internet is a recipe for disaster.
q-big 4y ago
> Some models describe reality better than others, some are useful, some are harmful. The idea of science is to get rid of models that are wrong.

xupybd 4y ago

>>Nobody can or should stop you from thinking about reality with the model of your choice. While I agree with you, that is very much the game that is being played here. We have competing world views and one way to help a world view dominate is to play a linguistic war. That was the point of Newspeak in 1984 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak). If you control the language such that competing ideas are instantly taboo just by the words required to describe them you can stop people from promulgating those ideas. So you gain ground without ever having to debate the new ideas. This has happened in many countries when one religion dominated. Western society was starting to get to the point where it taboos were being shed and ideas could win based on their merit. Sadly we're regressing back to a society controlled by dogma rather than an open exchange of ideas. I suspect this is the normal state of human societies, we fluctuate between open and closed societies.

WastingMyTime89 4y ago
> Western society The problem seems fairly limited to the USA from where I stand.
- xupybd 4y ago
  I'm in NZ and it's very much here as well.
indigo945 4y ago
The whole point of (post-)structuralist philosophy, which informs the left-wing view on this, is that all language is already newspeak. (And since it follows that you can't choose not to play, you may as well play to win.) > Western society was starting to get to the point where it taboos were being shed and ideas could win based on their merit. Name a year that things were actually better. (In the 40's, before the civil rights movement? In the 80's, when queer people were still regularly oppressed and excluded from participation in society? Did ideas "win on their merit" when police beat up people in gay bars?)
- tiahura 4y ago
  - indigo945 4y ago
- xupybd 4y ago
  >The whole point of (post-)structuralist philosophy, which informs the left-wing view on this, is that all language is already newspeak. (And since it follows that you can't choose not to play, you may as well play to win.) Exactly that. This is the current conflict. Things were not better in the 40s, action movies were better in the 80s :p. Things were trending towards a more open society they had not become perfect by any stretch of the imagination. That trend, IMO, has reversed, due to the tactics involved. That is not to say some groups haven't benefited from this. There is a genuine drive to create a utopia here. However I fear the cure might be worse than the disease.

bergenty 4y ago

It’s really not some complicated multiverse of possibilities. It’s biological, very factual and the underlying genetic basis is as objective as something can get.

spoils19 4y ago
kmonsen 4y ago
There are actually corner cases here, although that’s not what usually comes up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex Just a reminder that often reality is more complicated than we think. Names, numbers and upper/lower case are the usual examples.
- q-big 4y ago
  > There are actually corner cases here, although that’s not what usually comes up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex No biologist would claim that the sex is constructed.

pyrale 4y ago

> If I were Microsoft, I would post a shrugie and say copilot offers arbitrary responses based on the actual code it reads; it is not supposed to be "correct" or good or fair, but just follow what it sees other people do. The last time Microsoft did that, they ended up with their bot posting racist content on twitter. They of all people understand that just following what people do on the internet is a recipe for disaster.

q-big 4y ago

> Some models describe reality better than others, some are useful, some are harmful. The idea of science is to get rid of models that are wrong.