6 ms·

> trans people make body modifications that don't prioritize my values (fertility) Doesn't seem like a very strong argument that it doesn't fit into the cyberp

> trans people make body modifications that don't prioritize my values (fertility) Doesn't seem like a very strong argument that it doesn't fit into the cyberpunk ethos. Modifying your body for reasons you care about seems very cyberpunk, and exactly the sort of thing that other people would have moral qualms over, especially if they don't share your values. Certainly the technology could be improved for people who do care about fertility, but, well, newer, improved versions of body modification technology is also very cyberpunk.

yarg 4y ago
A disingenuously paraphrasing quote? Sure thing. But I'm not espousing my values, but values vital to the continuation of life. Values that have been around for thousands of millions of years. Perhaps there's the potential for this to change, but it'll just be fertility in another form.
- LesZedCB 4y ago
  who cares though? species have come and gone, and will continue too if you died and then a millisecond after a chicxulub scale asteroid obliterated all mammalian life (again), who would be there to care about fucking fertility or propagation of the species?? the point is we don't have to be limited to biological mandates -- that's what transhumanism is about. moralizing it is just wasted and you clearly don't understand what it's about. instead you decide to whinge about trans people being mentally ill. please
  - yarg 4y ago
    Where did I say that they were mentally ill? (Misremembering other people's arguments is a poor strategy in a technical forum.) And regardless of what transhumanism as a whole is about, it will always be about continuation of sapience and its evolution through time. Biological or otherwise.
    - LesZedCB 4y ago
      > The transgender community needs to stop pushing the notion that it's healthy and desirable; it's not - it's a devastating hormonal/fertility disorder. what exactly is your word for unhealthy and undesirable? you are clearly referring to dysphoria. i don't know if you realized, but the DSM has changed in recent years.
      - yarg 4y ago
        No mention of mental illness there, but you already knew that.
        LesZedCB 4y ago
        sorry, you just disagree with them being happy even if it makes them infertile. classic intellectually dishonest HN concern troll
        stale2002 4y ago
        If you stopped acting in bad faith, looking for some gotcha, for one single second, you'd realize that by "unhealthly" they were referring to the effects of hormone treatments, which clearly have significant effects and side effects on the physical body.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        fzeroracer 4y ago
        People literally do hormone treatments to solve things like pattern baldness. If you're concerned about unhealthy hormone treatments you should probably start with the stuff that's far more common. Finasteride is used for both hair loss as well as hormone therapy for transgender people.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- space_fountain 4y ago
  The human race isn’t in an immediate danger of dying out for lack of babies. People are allowed to and do take many actions with a risk of sterilization. For goodness sake’s people get vasectomies and their tubes tied. This can’t be about fertility or else you should be out campaigning against the pill, condoms, and just plain old normal drinking. Also do you imagine grafting electronics, really progress of any kind to be free of risks? Honestly, I’m sort of anti cyberpunk, because that sort of body modification is on a whole different level of risk
  - yarg 4y ago
    I can assure you, my only concern here is inate fertility - (idiocracy aside) I don't give a shit about people deciding not to have children. As for the danger, population collapse is often precipitous - and by the time you notice it, is very hard to roll back. And it's not just our species impacted by the changes.
    - space_fountain 4y ago
      Ok, so are you also against birth control and or opt in sterilization, otherwise your position is inconsistent and I don’t claim morals are logic, but they should at least be consistent. Oh also since we’re on a technicality forum. Trans hormones don’t necessarily cause permanent sterilization. Plenty of trans people have children
      - ungamedplayer 4y ago
        Citation for plenty needed.
        simonh 4y ago
        https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15295192.2020.1792194 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15295192.2020.1... > Of the adult trans population, between 25% and 49% of individuals are believed to be parents (Dierckx, Motmans, Mortelmans, & T’sjoen, 2016)
- sangnoir 4y ago
  > But I'm not espousing my values, but values vital to the continuation of life. > Values that have been around for thousands of millions of years. I could make the same arguments about modern therapeutics for asthma and short-sightedness being againsts millions of years of nature.
- Emma_Goldman 4y ago
  >"But I'm not espousing my values, but values vital to the continuation of life." There are no self-grounding values. You cannot objectively justify why fertility is the overriding value here, rather than, say, fairness, liberty or anything else. So yes, you are absolutely espousing your values. If you want to make an argument, make it, don't pretend it's self-evident.
  - yarg 4y ago
    Not all of your ancestors had lives that were free or fair, but every last one of them was fertile.
    - simonh 4y ago
      Humans are a communal species, our cultures and psychology include behaviour that sacrifices our own personal reproductive chances in favour of the survival of the group, or simply deprecates personal reproduction as a priority. It’s genetic propagation by proxy, and it’s called kin selection or genetic altruism in the literature. A member of society can contribute to the survival and propagation of that society in many ways, propagating the group genome, and that doesn’t have to include through personal reproduction. We have all benefited from the contributions made by members of past generations that didn’t reproduce, but their genes live on through their relatives that did reproduce. If all we care about is survival of the species, the best thing for all of us is that trans people get the help and support they need to leave the healthiest and most fulfilling lives possible, so that they can maximally contribute to society. I think that’s an overly reductive attitude, but that’s one way of thinking about it.
    - lljk_kennedy 4y ago
      What of people who were fertile but didn’t have children, through choice, medical reasons, death etc? Surely a person who is fertile but doesn’t have a child for any reason has the same net impact on the growth of population as an unfertile person (trans or not)?
      - yarg 4y ago
edflsafoiewq 4y ago
Cyberpunk != transhumanism
taylorius 4y ago
Is an amputee cyberpunk?
- space_fountain 4y ago
  Yeah if your replacing it with something better for you

yarg 4y ago

A disingenuously paraphrasing quote? Sure thing. But I'm not espousing my values, but values vital to the continuation of life. Values that have been around for thousands of millions of years. Perhaps there's the potential for this to change, but it'll just be fertility in another form.

LesZedCB 4y ago
who cares though? species have come and gone, and will continue too if you died and then a millisecond after a chicxulub scale asteroid obliterated all mammalian life (again), who would be there to care about fucking fertility or propagation of the species?? the point is we don't have to be limited to biological mandates -- that's what transhumanism is about. moralizing it is just wasted and you clearly don't understand what it's about. instead you decide to whinge about trans people being mentally ill. please
- yarg 4y ago
  Where did I say that they were mentally ill? (Misremembering other people's arguments is a poor strategy in a technical forum.) And regardless of what transhumanism as a whole is about, it will always be about continuation of sapience and its evolution through time. Biological or otherwise.
  - LesZedCB 4y ago
    > The transgender community needs to stop pushing the notion that it's healthy and desirable; it's not - it's a devastating hormonal/fertility disorder. what exactly is your word for unhealthy and undesirable? you are clearly referring to dysphoria. i don't know if you realized, but the DSM has changed in recent years.
    - yarg 4y ago
      No mention of mental illness there, but you already knew that.
      - LesZedCB 4y ago
        sorry, you just disagree with them being happy even if it makes them infertile. classic intellectually dishonest HN concern troll
        stale2002 4y ago
        If you stopped acting in bad faith, looking for some gotcha, for one single second, you'd realize that by "unhealthly" they were referring to the effects of hormone treatments, which clearly have significant effects and side effects on the physical body.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        fzeroracer 4y ago
        People literally do hormone treatments to solve things like pattern baldness. If you're concerned about unhealthy hormone treatments you should probably start with the stuff that's far more common. Finasteride is used for both hair loss as well as hormone therapy for transgender people.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
space_fountain 4y ago
The human race isn’t in an immediate danger of dying out for lack of babies. People are allowed to and do take many actions with a risk of sterilization. For goodness sake’s people get vasectomies and their tubes tied. This can’t be about fertility or else you should be out campaigning against the pill, condoms, and just plain old normal drinking. Also do you imagine grafting electronics, really progress of any kind to be free of risks? Honestly, I’m sort of anti cyberpunk, because that sort of body modification is on a whole different level of risk
- yarg 4y ago
  I can assure you, my only concern here is inate fertility - (idiocracy aside) I don't give a shit about people deciding not to have children. As for the danger, population collapse is often precipitous - and by the time you notice it, is very hard to roll back. And it's not just our species impacted by the changes.
  - space_fountain 4y ago
    Ok, so are you also against birth control and or opt in sterilization, otherwise your position is inconsistent and I don’t claim morals are logic, but they should at least be consistent. Oh also since we’re on a technicality forum. Trans hormones don’t necessarily cause permanent sterilization. Plenty of trans people have children
    - ungamedplayer 4y ago
      Citation for plenty needed.
      - simonh 4y ago
        https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15295192.2020.1792194 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15295192.2020.1... > Of the adult trans population, between 25% and 49% of individuals are believed to be parents (Dierckx, Motmans, Mortelmans, & T’sjoen, 2016)
sangnoir 4y ago
> But I'm not espousing my values, but values vital to the continuation of life. > Values that have been around for thousands of millions of years. I could make the same arguments about modern therapeutics for asthma and short-sightedness being againsts millions of years of nature.
Emma_Goldman 4y ago
>"But I'm not espousing my values, but values vital to the continuation of life." There are no self-grounding values. You cannot objectively justify why fertility is the overriding value here, rather than, say, fairness, liberty or anything else. So yes, you are absolutely espousing your values. If you want to make an argument, make it, don't pretend it's self-evident.
- yarg 4y ago
  Not all of your ancestors had lives that were free or fair, but every last one of them was fertile.
  - simonh 4y ago
    Humans are a communal species, our cultures and psychology include behaviour that sacrifices our own personal reproductive chances in favour of the survival of the group, or simply deprecates personal reproduction as a priority. It’s genetic propagation by proxy, and it’s called kin selection or genetic altruism in the literature. A member of society can contribute to the survival and propagation of that society in many ways, propagating the group genome, and that doesn’t have to include through personal reproduction. We have all benefited from the contributions made by members of past generations that didn’t reproduce, but their genes live on through their relatives that did reproduce. If all we care about is survival of the species, the best thing for all of us is that trans people get the help and support they need to leave the healthiest and most fulfilling lives possible, so that they can maximally contribute to society. I think that’s an overly reductive attitude, but that’s one way of thinking about it.
  - lljk_kennedy 4y ago
    What of people who were fertile but didn’t have children, through choice, medical reasons, death etc? Surely a person who is fertile but doesn’t have a child for any reason has the same net impact on the growth of population as an unfertile person (trans or not)?
    - yarg 4y ago

edflsafoiewq 4y ago

Cyberpunk != transhumanism

taylorius 4y ago

Is an amputee cyberpunk?

space_fountain 4y ago
Yeah if your replacing it with something better for you