Are people too soft today? Will there be consequences?

[z929669]

Personally I think it demeans STEP to give an open platform for ideological views. I have some strong opinions on the above but I don't log onto STEP discuss them. It's the wrong forum for that kind of discussion. All you will end up doing is alienating a section of the community. Let me finish with a quote from Melaran to get back on topic.

 

'Look at that. I've told you to watch your tongue and mine is waddling. I've said enough."

This is the Banter Inn. A perfect forum for such discussions. It has nothing at all to do with STEP. We just have the sense to host such a forum so that our members can vent and rant without having to log on as a member on some other forum. If anything, this strengthens our community by allowing everyone to express themselves. Modders are humans too. Express your opinion. It is valid due to the very fact of its existence.

 

---------------

 

@Mono ... wow, you are philosophically beyond me, my friend. I am not inclined to spend the time it would take to properly critique your assertions or to back up my own ... I rely on my own logic and interpretation of the world around me. I do not need evidence to corroborate or refute my own experiences and observations, and I think that my conclusions are sound based upon the evidence.

 

Women ARE more apt to nurture than men, just as men ARE more apt to commit violent acts than women. Isn't it obvious? Hasn't history demonstrated these facts for millennia? Indeed I say, it is so. Perhaps social influence does teach men to behave more man-like and women to behave more women-like (as defined by historical norms), but the root cause remains the same: varying levels of hormones like estrogen and testosterone (to name only a tiny fraction) that are associated with the sexes in predictable ways. It is, in fact, causal. Rather, social pressures are teaching us to ignore our biology, and it is not necessarily working out so well, IMO :)

 

I think Sparrow has some good points, and so does SRB ... and Mono. It's complicated. Would that humans could think past their daily grind. Oh how much better the human world would be if we all put so much thought into social problems. The blinders are on, and the narrow-minded ultimately control the world. Why? Because it is easier.

 

I am just calling it like I see it and nothing more ;)

[GrantSP]

_{Not the sort of topic I was expecting to see upon my return from vacation! Wow, far too deep for me. All I'll say is: I watched humpbacks playing with their young and cavorting in the waters off Sydney harbour the other day and it was unbelievably amazing, forget humans and just chill with the wildlife. It is a truly humbling experience to have a massive creature raise its head out and look you in the eye, an experience that will stay with me a very long time.}

[baronaatista]

I don't know if anyone is familiar with Sam Harris, but on the actual topic of 'are people too soft' or this new theme of being offended by just about anything and then going out and drawing lines, picking sides, and demonizing the offenders... Sam Harris has much to say about this, and an excellent podcast called 'Waking Up' where he discusses this exact topic and others with some very prolific modern thinkers.  

 

I wonder what is meant by 'will there be consequences'.  I'd say there already are consequences, and they're multiple;

1 - the consequences for real people, who said the 'wrong thing' and then hordes of people feel completely justified in attacking them in any way they can.  Careers and lives have been destroyed by this, from politicians and celebrities to ordinary people in ordinary jobs.

 

2 - it severely compromises the ability to have meaningful public discourse, which is a thing that is sorely needed at this very moment.  If certain topics cant be broached, or certain words or ideas are completely taboo, major areas of discussion are off-limits, and we are all intellectually poorer for it.

 

3 - what I believe to be Sparrow's thought - that it's actually not good for the people who claim to be offended.  Again, if you can't engage with challenging or opposing ideas or topics without completely losing your ****, that is a weakness on your part, and it will almost certainly impact your relationships, your private and professional life, as well as impeding your ability to grow intellectually.

 

That being said, it is not in my opinion equivalent to say that the modern social rights movement is meaningless or completely unjustified.  The world is still dominated by white males, and there absolutely are inequalities and racism and sexism and everything else.  The point though isn't that those things exist, or whether we should continue to attempt to erode them and bring about a more inclusive, equitable society - we should - the point is that we need to be able to discuss these topics in public, from a variety of different viewpoints, without killing each other over it.

[z929669]

@Grant & baronaatista

 

I can drink to both of those comments

[MonoAccipiter]

"... a child or teen is no way mentally ready to decide if they want a sex change." How do you know this? When are people "mentally ready" not to feel at home in their own bodies, or with their own sex? Is this not a feeling that eclipses most other concerns? Do note that the study you linked did not conclude with a dismissal of sex reassignment, but rather that it might not suffice as a treatment without additional care. This is a conclusion not at all far removed from what I presented in my earlier post. They look at the effect of said treatment and try to differentiate between whether it means the treatment is faulty or whether the problem is more complex than initially assumed. It's infinitely important to understand the limits of any statistics, and in this case there could be several other contributing factors to the high mortality and psychiatric morbidity amongst transsexuals. Take for instance the general discrimination and negative attitudes surrounding transgender people, or even the taboo nature of psychic illness in itself. LBGT youth in general have one of the highest suicide rates in any given demographic (link). Then there's also the question of how these statistics would compare with people suffering from gender dysphoria that are denied treatment. 

 

"...  underlying fact they never will truly be male/female in my opinion anyway. That is just a biological fact." Is it a biological fact that they will never truly be male/female in your opinion...? If you mean that being male or female is a social construct then to some degree I have already made that point in my earlier post (remember existence over essence). However, an important difference in my approach to the matter is that while I do not think gender should be something that defines you it is still something that affects you, and thus gender dysphoria is a perfectly valid condition, which should be treated accordingly.

 

That picture is not something I consider far-left. In Norway we have a fringe party (occasionally getting a seat in the Storting) that wants a planned economy. That is something I consider far-left. This seems more like something to do with feminist values than any particular wing of the political spectrum. I do, however, see no issue with that particular picture though. Awareness of what gender is supposed to be imply (and the confusion when their ideas conflict with reality) seems infinitely better than never bothering with those questions in the first place.

 

In regards to the comment on Asians - I'm not sure that extends to other countries, but it might very well be. An interesting observation in any case, but payroll isn't the only measure of privilege. I gave one example of an environment where belonging to a minority certainly doesn't seem to pay off in my last post. And again, what would be much more interesting is a comparison of people doing the same jobs, as has been done for women in comparison with men.

 

@SRB: Maybe in a year I'll be a freshman if everything goes right. 

 

@z929669: "Women ARE more apt to nurture than men, just as men ARE more apt to commit violent acts than women. Isn't it obvious? Hasn't history demonstrated these facts for millennia?" Yep, it has. History also pushed for a family structure where women were only seen as needed for the act of nurturing for millennia though. Then for centuries it assumed a male-dominant warrior-culture where women were mystified as something that men could not, and need not try to understand. Did you know that chivalry was an attitude largely invented by women (partly Eleanor of Aquitaine who used poetry as a subtle means of insinuating how men should behave around men) to instruct men of war on how to behave around members of the other sex? The essential difference here is that your evidence (which is true) doesn't actually say that women are more apt to nurture, but rather that they have been. What is interesting then becomes whether this is something inherent to their social or sex-tied identity. Society has for the longest time (centuries at least) espoused the idea that women should aspire to be better at this than men, and that men need not even try to understand this act of nurturing, because it is simply not their job. Is it then so strange to imagine that this could have affected how history "demonstrates these facts"? Hormones being tied to these attributes then become more a cause of correlation, than a certain causation, because behavior is infinitely more complex than looking at biological factor and immediately determining what it does. Using history as evidence in this case becomes inherently flawed because you cannot really eliminate the other potentially relevant (mostly social) factors. 

 

What is also much more important in the stance I am arguing for here, is not so much that we should ignore these biological effects which I do in no way deny, but rather that we should question whether they in themselves should be enough to dictate how members of either sex choose to live their lives. I hold that these factors are no more things we chose than we chose our parents, and as such it seems strange to think that they should get to define who we are. 

 

@GrantSP: I like your post. Just wanted to add that.  ::

 

EDIT: "what" to "that".

Edited September 6, 2016 by MonoAccipiter

[z929669]

You are inferring the old biology vs environment argument. I think it is reasonable to say that each contributes significantly. Therefore, generally speaking, women are biologically predisposed to nurture and child care, while men are biologically predisposed to protection and procurement. Environment and behavior reinforce these biological tendencies ... hmmm, are such environmental reinforcements largely governed by biology (e.g., hormones). It's reasonable to conclude that they are. We are all largely victims of our biology, and society reinforces these behaviors, I think ;) ... but feminism and social justice represent environmental pressures against the behavioral 'norm' I think. Which is why I think it is so difficult to swim against the biological tide. It can be done, but at uncertain cost.

[elenhil]

I would like to point out that in terms of biology men and women are almost exactly like their first 'proper' homo sapiens sapiens predecessors. That is, while society and culture changes, biology doesn't. And child-rearing, while obviously influenced by culture (sometimes to the point of all but derailing the process!), is, by its nature, a biological process that ensured the survival of our species. So you can't claim that women have been better at nurture. It's in their nature, for Akatosh's sake!

 

As for eliminating social factors - that's where cross-cultural studies come in. You can't claim 20th century cultural notions governing non-Industrial (or even 'virtual Stone age' primitive) societies.

 

P.S. And, BTW, give Eleanor of Aquitaine a rest - the whole court of love thing was, much like the rest of allegations of 'unnatural, unwomanly behaviour' against her, a slur. Quite understandable when you have a woman of such a 'caliber' (politically speaking) :)

Edited September 5, 2016 by elenhil

[EssArrBee]

You are inferring the old biology vs environment argument. I think it is reasonable to say that each contributes significantly. Therefore, generally speaking, women are biologically predisposed to nurture and child care, while men are biologically predisposed to protection and procurement. Environment and behavior reinforce these biological tendencies ... hmmm, are such environmental reinforcements largely governed by biology (e.g., hormones). It's reasonable to conclude that they are. We are all largely victims of our biology, and society reinforces these behaviors, I think ;) ... but feminism and social justice represent environmental pressures against the behavioral 'norm' I think. Which is why I think it is so difficult to swim against the biological tide. It can be done, but at uncertain cost.

I completely agree with you on the biological predispositions argument. One major issue with it today is that somewhere in the late 19th century/early 20th century we reached a tipping point where technological progress started accelerating faster than society and culture could adapt to it. Natural selection has been beaten. We beat back three of the horsemen of the apocalypse. Plague was defeated by sanitation and vaccines, war was defeated by mutually assured destruction and globalization (there is still war obviously, but nothing that threatens the world), and famine was defeated by refrigeration and large scale farming and ranching. Death is all that's left. Removing Darwin from the equation is a really big wrench being thrown into the mix. Population explosions have really demonstrated just how much we've changed. Imagine we still had wide spread smallpox and polio. The world would probably only be around the 5 billion mark right now.

 

We changed the natural order of the natural world that was given to us by the cosmos, so it's only natural that we might also ignore our natural predispositions to fit our new world order.

[Aiyen]

"Plague was defeated by sanitation" 

Sometimes I think public restrooms show just how doomed humanity is! :) 

[elenhil]

We changed the natural order of the natural world that was given to us by the cosmos, so it's only natural that we might also ignore our natural predispositions to fit our new world order.

Except, you can't change kids. They do not know they are being born into a brave new world. They are the victims of this new order because they are the most conservative creatures there are: they are born for the old order, because that's how it was for millennia (or, more appropriately, that's what Nature has been preparing them for). And you don't change the nature of a newlyborn. They don't come in special custom-made feminism-friendly (or institutionalised daycare-friendly, or gay surrogate, or even merely nuclear family-friendly) varieties.

 

I believe it would take a bit more Idunnowhat to think we might ignore their natural dispositions.

Edited September 5, 2016 by elenhil

[z929669]

Agree elenhil ... kids represent the unbiased nature of humanity, and they are inherently unreasonable for at least a few years (possibly the most important and ingrained part of social development).

 

Agree SRB ... humanity has largely countered evolution by way of natural selection; however, our nature represents millions of years of evolution, and Homo sapiens sapiens are all but unchanged since they arose from Homo erectus (arguably, of course), and both of these exhibited similar sexual dimorphism with regard to social roles. It will take a million years or more to wash that out of our genes ;) ... and I doubt the Earth can support our twisting of the natural order due to the process of farming and fertilization alone, not to mention all of the other unsustainable 'cheats' humanity has undertaken.

[Guest]

How do you know this? When are people "mentally ready" not to feel at home in their own bodies, or with their own sex?

 

Look back say, what, 5 to 10 years in your own life. Are you smarter or dumber now? It's not all about feeling at home with their bodies, it's about letting your mind grow to the point where you can make decisions you won't regret.

 

If you mean that being male or female is a social construct then to some degree I have already made that point in my earlier post (remember existence over essence)

 

Nah, I mean what is says. "Are you a normal everyday woman?" "Yes." "Ever had a menstrual cycle?" "No." "Okay then..." My point is to not belittle their life choices, but I'm saying they will never be a true male/female biologically in my opinion. This could perhaps be one of the causes of said mental health issues after surgery. The world is cruel, a lot of people will make fun of these people regardless.

 

That picture is not something I consider far-left

 

This is what I mean about "Where do people draw the line?" in essence. FYI this has been tested on primates and both sexes do exactly the same thing that normal human children do. It's instinctive.

 

Not the sort of topic I was expecting to see upon my return from vacation! Wow, far too deep for me. All I'll say is: I watched humpbacks playing with their young and cavorting in the waters off Sydney harbour the other day and it was unbelievably amazing, forget humans and just chill with the wildlife. It is a truly humbling experience to have a massive creature raise its head out and look you in the eye, an experience that will stay with me a very long time.

 

Oh yeah!...

So jealous. :P

 

 

Sometimes I think public restrooms show just how doomed humanity is! :)

 

I would always use the disabled bathrooms if I could, roomy and always pretty spotless.

 

Death is all that's left.

 

Yeah, well you will will probably be burned to a sunder anyway in about 20 years if you live in a hot country. The Earth has a fever and it's trying to destroy the virus.

[Razorsedge877]

   One of the funniest things I ever seen was Bruce jenner playing golf in a womans tornament. Does this guy really think he is a chick. Social media and media in general are ruining people. Half the problem is that in the past you pretty much had to work from sun up to sun down in order to survive (a little exaggerated maybe). You had no time to watch all of this crap on TV and computers. Life has become so easy that all people have time to do is try to outdo the next moron. Anyone who thinks that a person under the age of 18 is mature enough to make these decisions must not have kids of their own or are just plain old living in fantasy land. I'm sure some guys and women are born masculine and some feminine (warriors vs the academic) but that does not mean you get a fake set of boobies and cut your wang off.

[MonoAccipiter]

I would like to point out that in terms of biology men and women are almost exactly like their first 'proper' homo sapiens sapiens predecessors. 1: That is, while society and culture changes, biology doesn't. And child-rearing, while obviously influenced by culture (sometimes to the point of all but derailing the process!), is, by its nature, a biological process that ensured the survival of our species. 2: So you can't claim that women have been better at nurture. It's in their nature, for Akatosh's sake!

 

3: As for eliminating social factors - that's where cross-cultural studies come in. You can't claim 20th century cultural notions governing non-Industrial (or even 'virtual Stone age' primitive) societies.

 

P.S. And, BTW, give Eleanor of Aquitaine a rest - the whole court of love thing was, much like the rest of allegations of 'unnatural, unwomanly behaviour' against her, a slur. Quite understandable when you have a woman of such a 'caliber' (politically speaking) :)

1: I have never claimed that biology changes, in fact, if you read my first post in this thread that was one of my main points in arguing for why evolutionary precedence often causes as much problems as it provides solutions. Evolution stopped happening at a large scale well before we settled into anything resembling modern societies. Hence why using it as an argument for how modern society should be is rather precarious.

 

2: I need to quote myself here: "The essential difference here is that your evidence (which is true) doesn't actually say that women are more apt to nurture, but rather that they have been." i.e. the history argument does not work. You also can't really say that raising people to function well in modern society is something evolution has taken into account. Monkeys are probably fairly good at nurturing their children from harm and satisfying their other needs, which I assume is what humans needed to do as well, way before we decided to form large societies (i.e. before evolution stopped occurring on a large scale). This does not mean monkeys would raise humans well to function in modern life. This happened to the evolutionary process because at some point we stopped killing people off when they didn't do well, which stops evolution dead in its tracks (as opposed to extreme eugenic measures).

 

3: I can't quite make sense of this. When did I claim that "20th century cultural notions" governed ancient societies? Again, I simply pointed out that history as evidence doesn't quite work in this case, as most of recorded ancient history has been under a male-dominant warrior-culture which arrived with Indo-Europeans as early as in the days of the Sumerian city states. As far as I know there are no societies without gender roles (with their associated ideals) so cross-cultural studies wouldn't reveal much.

 

And, uhm, about Eleanor of Aquitaine: how on earth did anything I stated (i.e. her commissioning of poems) come close to resembling a slur, or have anything to do with "unnatural, unwomanly behaviour"?

 

@SparrowPrince:

 

This has nothing to do with capacity for mental thought in any regard at all, an absolutely everything to do with feeling at home in your body. Gender dysphoria is not something you show up at your doctor's office suddenly saying you have, it is something a psychiatric professional diagnoses you with and treats accordingly. 

 

 

Nah, I mean what is says. "Are you a normal everyday woman?" "Yes." "Ever had a menstrual cycle?" "No." "Okay then..." My point is to not belittle their life choices, but I'm saying they will never be a true male/female biologically in my opinion. 

 

What you're doing is literally the definition of belittling their life choices. Saying that they can never truly be like the sex they swap to is making a mockery of the attempt to do so. Plus it just sounds like the "no true Scotsman" argument. Why would you care if they're "biologically a true male/female"? I basically refuted the argument in my original post by arguing that it should be seen as a treatment and measured by its effect on the person in hand, not whether they're some kind of "true" version of whatever sex they feel as if they belong to.

 

 

This is what I mean about "Where do people draw the line?" in essence. FYI this has been tested on primates and both sexes do exactly the same thing that normal human children do. It's instinctive.

It still has nothing to do with the political spectrum... Which the part of that paragraph you omitted clearly said. Again, a source would be nice for that study if it forms the basis of your argument. I wouldn't be surprised if it's true at all, but without me knowing exactly what it revealed it's impossible to attempt a deconstruction of its meaning. 

 

When it comes to drawing the line: I draw it at the post above which was the first in here to retreat to the "anyone who thinks otherwise must be..."-argument.

[Guest]

This has nothing to do with capacity for mental thought in any regard at all, an absolutely everything to do with feeling at home in your body. Gender dysphoria is not something you show up at your doctor's office suddenly saying you have, it is something a psychiatric professional diagnoses you with and treats accordingly.

As I'm not really talking about dysphoria (which is evident) there are still other underlying problems that may be linked to dysphoria:

 

"Seventy-five per cent of the applicants (35/47) had been or were currently undergoing child and adolescent psychiatric treatment for reasons other than gender dysphoria when they sought referral to SR assessment, and two more were contacted with general adolescent psychiatric services soon after entering the SR assessment."

 

and

 

"Adolescents seeking sex reassignment represent a variety of developmental pathways differentiated by the timing of onset of gender dysphoria, psychopathology and developmental difficulties. It is important to be aware of the different groups, or developmental pathways, in gender dysphoric adolescents in order to be able to find appropriate treatment options. In the presence of severe psychopathology and developmental difficulties, medical [sex reassignment] treatments may not be currently advisable. Treatment guidelines need to be reviewed to appreciate the complex situations."

 

So it seems like a more complex situation than you are suggesting, which was pretty obvious. A lot of these kids are unfit to make any decisions because of other undiagnosed problems.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4396787/

 

What you're doing is literally the definition of belittling their life choices. Saying that they can never truly be like the sex they swap to is making a mockery of the attempt to do so. Plus it just sounds like the "no true Scotsman" argument. Why would you care if they're "biologically a true male/female"? I basically refuted the argument in my original post by arguing that it should be seen as a treatment and measured by its effect on the person in hand, not whether they're some kind of "true" version of whatever sex they feel as if they belong to

So you think I go out and seek every trans person then tell them they are not real people or something? If I did that you would have a point, but I don't. So if you slept with a trans person and didn't know, that would be fine because it doesn't matter if they were born male/female? Or would you be totally annoyed like any sane person if you were not into that? :P

 

It still has nothing to do with the political spectrum... Which the part of that paragraph you omitted clearly said. Again, a source would be nice for that study if it forms the basis of your argument. I wouldn't be surprised if it's true at all, but without me knowing exactly what it revealed it's impossible to attempt a deconstruction of its meaning.

As Ess said, left and right doesn't have a definitive definition for each person. My thinking it of it is both very far variations are equally as stupid, and not all of it political. Chimps in the wild and captivity actually.

 

By the way, I don't mean to misinterpret you or miss stuff, it's just I have been using my phone when I am at work (and at night) and it's not a great reading and writing experience. XD

Edited September 6, 2016 by Guest