FtttG Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo. 22m ago

(Also, re: the specific "woman" scenario, a crucial detail IMO is that the slogan everybody learned by heart was "trans women are women", not "the word woman means XYZ". "What does the word 'woman' mean to you?" is itself the awkward follow-up question: "when you chant trans women are women, what do you mean by that word?".)

This is a very good point. Yet another interpretation of Swinson's response might be that she realised on the spot, not only that she didn't know what the trans-inclusive definition of "woman" was, but that there is no such definition which is coherent and non-circular.

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FtttG Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo. 31m ago

Sure – but the same is true of Progress Pride flags, RESIST TRUMP posters or any other number of progressive adornments, and no police officer would take you seriously if you called them to complain about those being mounted in your neighbourhood or workspace.

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FtttG Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo. 50m ago

That's fair.

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FtttG Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo. 53m ago

I know what you're getting at, but I don't think it fits the specific example of Clayton. Ossoff didn't ask him his reasoning for why he believed that so-and-so won the 2020 election: he just asked him who he thought won the election.

It may well be the case that Swinson blindly believes in gender ideology, but neglected to take the time out of her busy schedule to memorise the current definition of "woman" set out in Judith Butler's missive or whatever. But I'd hazard a guess that her attempt to appease the gender ideologues was only a marriage of convenience.

But it's a bad look when a person in a position of authority is shown to have no actual idea what they're talking about.

Agreed, or for that matter a person who aspires to be in a position of authority.

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FtttG Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo. 1hr ago

I suppose I should clarify. Gender ideologues treat it as a metaphysical question, but for gender-criticals like myself, it's anything but.

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FtttG Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo. 1hr ago

I know that many environmentalists carry a misanthropic streak, but if Greenpeace actually published anti-natalist literature under its own banner, that's news to me. Likewise with the NAACP, who to my knowledge are still quite a respectable organisation with admirable message discipline.

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FtttG Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo. 1hr ago

True, "what is a woman?" is much more of a metaphysical question. But what "who won the 2020 election?" has in common is that the person being asked is forced to choose between pandering to the lunatic fringes in their coalition at the cost of making themselves looking foolish to the mainstream, or vice versa – and, obviously, one of these choices also requires them to be dishonest.

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FtttG Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo. 1hr ago · Edited 1hr ago

Election deflection, C-section abjection, complexion dejection, the Meccan deception

Psyops and "gotcha" questions as tools for exposing dishonesty, cowardice and ideological rifts

I

Jay Clayton is the US attorney for the southern district of New York, and the nominee to serve as Director of National Intelligence. Last week, he appeared before the Senate Select Committee to judge his suitability for the role, during which Senator Jon Ossoff repeatedly asked him who won the 2020 presidential election. Clayton declined to answer.

With this simple question, Ossoff has just provided a powerful counter to one that so many progressives have tripped over in the last decade, "what is a woman?" The first example of its deployment that occurred to me was this clip, in which Jo Swinson (then-party leader of the Liberal Democrats) took questions on a call-in radio show. Clearly taken aback, she stumbled through a vague, digressive answer about how "we know what we are" and that all women are important regardless of ethnicity, sexuality or social class. It was like something out of The Thick of It.

Other prominent examples of the question's use include the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson (to which she memorably replied "I'm not a biologist") and Sen. Josh Hawley grilling a physician on whether or not men can get pregnant.

But while conservatives and gender-criticals understand how effective "what is a woman?" is in making their ideological opponents look absurd, I think many fail to grasp its precise mechanism of action. You'll often hear such people crowing "How can you claim to know how to run a country, when you don't even know what a woman is?" But of course Swinson knows what a woman is. While she might pretend to endorse a trans-inclusive definition, her revealed preferences surely tell a very different story. I fancy that if she was using a public bathroom and a specimen like "Karen" White strolled in, she'd be out of there like a shot.

Within the progressive coalition, there are a small number of people who subscribe to the woo-y circularity of "a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman", a "definition"1 that sounds preposterous to anyone with an ounce of common sense. There is a much larger group of people who don't endorse this definition, but are afraid to say so publicly for fear of alienating the crazy people who do. This makes "what is a woman?" a powerful "gotcha" question, as there's no answer a progressive politician2 can give which doesn't serve the inquirer:

If the politician answers "a woman is an adult human female", he comes off as normal to the median voter, but at the cost of alienating the people in his camp who endorse gender ideology - a turncoat.
If he answers "a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman", he comes off as ridiculous and insane to the median voter - a lunatic.
If he refuses to answer the question, or gives a vague waffly non-answer, then one can infer that either:
- He doesn't endorse gender ideology, but feels like he has to pretend to in order to appease the lunatics in his camp - a dishonest coward.
- He does subscribe to gender ideology, but knows that the median voter considers it ridiculous, so refuses to endorse it explicitly - a dishonest coward of a different kind.

The fact that Swinson took the third option strongly suggests that she doesn't endorse gender ideology, but feared alienating the people in her camp who do. She may be a dishonest coward, but she isn't a lunatic: she does, in fact, know what a woman is.

Likewise with Jay Clayton in the clip above. From watching the clip, I imagine many progressives (and perhaps also many conservatives) will conclude that Clayton thinks Trump won in 2020, but refuses to say so outright, knowing that it's an opinion most people rightfully consider absurd. But I would put money on Clayton knowing full well that Biden won, but being too afraid to say so publicly for fear of angering the lunatics in his camp. (And by "the lunatics", I of course mean "the current occupant of the Oval Office and his army of true believers"). Ossoff appears to agree, asking Clayton if it's "humiliating" that Clayton is expected to "indulge the President's delusions". Clayton isn't crazy or stupid: he's just a coward who lacks integrity.

To sum up: "what is a woman?" and "who won the 2020 election?" can expose someone as a lunatic with crazy beliefs. But even if they don't, they can still expose them as a coward or a traitor to their cause, and in some cases that can be just as useful.

II

When I started writing this, it occurred to me that the structure of these "gotcha" questions (wherein the respondent stands to lose face no matter how they answer the question) bears a familial resemblance to a series of anti-woke psyops from a few years back. Beginning in 2017, a group of anonymous pranksters mounted posters around American college campuses bearing the legend "it's okay to be white". If you're a person who agrees that it's okay to be white (not "being white is better than being non-white"; merely that being white is "okay"), you'll respond to these posters with "well, duh". The ingenuity of the psyop was that it forced the people who disagree with the sentiment to lay their cards on the table. The only people who could find something objectionable in the statement "it's okay to be white" are those who actually think white people ought to feel ashamed of themselves for the colour of the skin - something the most extreme woke people obviously believe, even if many of them pretend otherwise. By responding to this utterly milquetoast statement with shock and outrage, these people out themselves, exposing the gulf between their stated and revealed preferences.

Watching these people dutifully step onto the rake laid in front of them was hilarious, but became a bit disturbing when you mentally substitute the specific sentiment they condemned so loudly. "It's sickening and disgusting to know that people think [it's okay to be white]." Superintendent Andy Bennett stated "It is inexplicable and unacceptable [to believe that it's okay to be white]". "[Believing that it's okay to be white is] completely wrong."

A later example followed a similar format. In Winchester, Massachusetts, pranksters hung up posters which simply read "Islam is RIGHT about women". A local woman tore several posters down and reported them to the police, but when pressed, she found it remarkably difficult to articulate what, exactly, she found offensive about them. (It certainly wasn't anything as simple as her disagreeing with the sentiment on its face.)

Here, the purpose of the posters was to expose cognitive dissonance. Someone who endorses Islamic attitudes to women would read the poster and think "well, duh"; likewise someone who swallowed the silly lie-to-children that Islam is a progressive, feminist religion (a sanitised, sanewashed version of the faith that bears essentially no relationship to the genuine article). The only type of person who could be outraged by the sentiment "Islam is right about women" is someone who privately believes that Islamic attitudes towards women are abominable, but who feels uncomfortable saying so out loud for fear of appearing racist. The slogan explodes this obvious contradiction, an experience many Winchester residents found (to quote them directly) "confusing" and "upsetting". It's rather telling that none of the people interviewed said anything like "the posters are correct, because Islam is a progressive feminist faith" or "the posters are wrong, because Islam is a misogynistic religion".

One last example. TERF activist Posie Parker paid for billboards bearing the slogan "woman: adult human female". The gender ideologues just couldn't help themselves, promptly calling for the billboards to be taken down and declaring the definition transphobic. Over at Wikipedia, the phrase is bizarrely included in the category "pejorative terms for women", alongside old stalwarts like "bitch", "slut" and "whore".

III

From the analysis above, "gotcha" questions and psyops serve three essential functions:

Exposing ideological fault lines: In a democratic society, ideological coalitions between unlike political factions are vital tools for bringing about changes in policy and legislation. Inevitably, there will be points of major ideological disagreement between differing factions. The coalition can either deal with this honestly (acknowledging that Faction A believes X and Faction B believes not-X, but as long as they both believe Y they can do business together), or avoid the issue entirely and try to paper over any ideological discrepancies. I'm sure Jo Swinson agrees with the gender ideologues that trans people should not be beaten up because of how they dress, nor discriminated against in employment or housing. Unlike them, she almost certainly does not believe that anyone who calls themself a woman thereby becomes one (a disagreement she would greatly prefer that people not draw attention to). Similarly with Jay Clayton: while I'm sure he shares many of Trump's beliefs and supports many of his policies, he does not believe that Trump really won the 2020 election, a fact that he knows would be fatal to his political career were it to be advertised. "What is a woman?" and "who won the 2020 election?" hence expose major points of disagreements in these two politicians' respective coalitions.
Exposing preference falsification: While many woke people claim to believe that there's nothing wrong with being white and that absolutely no one should feel ashamed of the colour of their skin, in practice many of them behave in a manner strongly suggesting they believe the converse. The hysterical and outraged reaction to the sentiment "it's okay to be white" expose their real thoughts on the matter.
Exploding cognitive dissonance: Most people with even a passing familiarity with Islam and societies run in accordance with Islamic principles understand that it's a religion in which the subjugation of women is a basic fact of life. Progressives are reluctant to dwell on this fact, for fear of being seen as racist. "Islam is RIGHT about women" forces them to confront a contradiction they would rather not dwell upon.

Hmm - a political coalition whose constituent factions have massive, irreconcilable points of disagreement which go studiously unremarked upon. A political movement whose members' stated opinions routinely appear vastly out of step with their revealed preferences. A political movement beset by cognitive dissonance at every conceivable resolution.

No doubt there are numerous movements meeting the descriptions above, but for me the first that comes to mind is the pro-Palestine/anti-Zionist movement.

As noted by Yassine Meskhout, if you attend a pro-Palestine march you're almost equally likely to encounter a well-meaning young person who's simply upset by gory war footage in her Instagram feed, and a nutcase who thinks that Hamas are nobly trying to finish the job dear old Adolf started. This fundamental difference of worldview is an absolute godsend for maintaining the movement's superficially positive optics, and is virtually never remarked upon by anyone within the movement:

The unabashed loons braying for the complete destruction of Israel could take cover behind the normies who showed up to protests simply because they hated seeing pictures of dead kids on their Instagram feed. Kind of like human shields... Pause and consider how insane this is. Imagine if Greenpeace was infiltrated by human-extinction advocates holding "KILL ALL HUMANS" signs at rallies. Imagine if the NAACP had a vocal contingent calling for race war, and the organization's response was to shrug and say "big tent, you know?"

Earlier this week, Shany Mor posted an excellent article in which he observed that, while most pro-Palestinian types claim to be disinterested humanitarians who object to Israel's war in Gaza solely on account of the needless suffering it imposes upon Gaza's civilian population - in many cases their revealed preferences indicate that they are closeted Hamas supporters who wish to see Hamas accomplish its stated aims, even if that entails more death and suffering among Gaza's civilian populace than would happen otherwise. And while I would like to think the accusation of cognitive dissonance is so obvious that it requires no elucidation, for completeness's sake I will note the peculiar irony that many pro-Palestinians accuse Israel of ethnic cleansing while chanting a slogan whose original untranslated wording3 is a transparent call for ethnic cleansing. They accuse Israel of genocide with every waking breath, while relentlessly signal-boosting propaganda published by an organisation whose founding charter is openly, unabashedly genocidal. It's a movement that purports to be anti-racist, but which is perfectly happy to recycle all of the old blood libels and canards against Jews (Jews secretly control the world, Jews murder Gentile children for their own amusement, Jews are sexually deviant etc.) provided they clarify that they are only addressing them towards "Zionists" * wink wink *.

I think the pro-Palestine movement is long overdue for its very own "what is a woman?" or "it's okay to be white", a psyop or "gotcha" question calculated to expose the irreconcilable tensions in the multiple factions gunning for a "free Palestine", and the gulf between what its members purport to believe and what they actually believe.

I'm not entirely sure what this would look like in practice. At last year's Berlin Film Festival, director Jun Li read out a speech on behalf of the actor Erfan Shekarriz, who boycotted the festival in protest of its purported lack of support to Palestinians. Li was heckled by audience members, one of whom yelled "Free Palestine from Hamas." That's a good start. I've noticed that when I discuss the conflict with my peers (most of whom are very hostile to Israel), many of them get quite taken aback when I point out that the most recent war in Gaza began when Hamas invaded Israel - the relentless focus on the perceived brutality of Israel's military response has caused many to overlook the basic fact that it isn't a war Israel started. Many also give vague evasive non-answers when asked "if you object to how Israel is prosecuting its war in Gaza, then how do you think they should have responded to October 7th?" Some pro-Palestine types explicitly object to admitting Gazan refugees into Europe (or even neighbouring countries) on the grounds that doing so would constitute "ethnic cleansing"; applying this logic to other world conflicts could be fertile ground for exposing the cognitive dissonance (e.g. "why should we play into Putin's hands by allowing him to ethnically cleanse the Ukraine?").

These are only off the top of my head, I'm just spitballing here. I'm sure someone more creative than I could think of something to rival "Islam is RIGHT about women" in wicked ingenuity.

1 I don't even think it rises to the level of a "definition", frankly. Circular definitions are no such thing.

2 The question is most effective when posed to politicians in democratic societies, as it's the nature of the job that such people have to appeal to a broad swathe of voters with heterogenous beliefs and opinions. It is not half as effective when posed to, say, activists working in the NGO space, wherein the incentives (per the iron law of institutions) favour ostentatious displays of ideological purity, even if you make yourself look ridiculous and insane to ordinary people in the process. Such people don't care what the "median voter" thinks, and will happily respond "a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman" with a shit-eating grin.

3 من المية للمية / فلسطين عربية, "From the water to the water / Palestine is Arab". I suspect it's not an accident that the English translation sounds so much more palatable to Western ideas of liberty and democracy.

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FtttG Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo. 10hr ago

Yeah, he acknowledged that in the commentary. It still made me laugh.

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FtttG Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo. 10hr ago

Two weeks ago, the winners of the 2026 edition of the Lyttle Lytton award were announced.

For those unfamiliar, the Lyttle Lytton award is a competition in which entrants are challenged to write the worst opening line to a novel they can think of, using no more than 200 characters. In addition to the competition itself, there's a "Found" division in which people submit lines from actual published work (not just novels, but also journalism and non-fiction).

Some personal favourites from this year's edition:

It was 2016, the summer of Pokémon Go, but I was going nowhere.
The year is 1353. The Black Death has unalived half of Europe.
My hands trembled as I watched the emperor form his much steadier hand into the shape of a thumbs down emoji.
“Oh Chat!” Vanessa wailed as she gazed upon the throbbing em dash which would soon be thrust into her sopping wet data centre.
As she lustfully stared at me, my loins exploded like the Titan submersible, and she, the ocean I wanted to be so deep into.
On my first mission I HALO jumped into Muhammad City, but was KIA (Kicked In Ass) by unfriendlies and had to exfil via helo.
Joe, having finally bought a plane, could now travel everywhere! You know what else is everywhere? Your personal data. BlockMi can protect you from data brokers online. More on that later, back to Joe
This fanfic was written and uploaded on the traditional homeland of the Anishinabe people.

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FtttG Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo. 17hr ago

By shooting your shot I mean sending them a DM, per the punchline.

I don't know Gen Z dating etiquette. It's just a play on words.

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FtttG Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo. 22hr ago

I don't exactly like so-called "ugly Americans" throwing their weight around, being crass and acting flabbergasted by anything that's the slightest bit different from back home (just yesterday evening I had to run over to a carload of them and politely tell them that we drive on the left here – thank Christ I noticed before they got themselves into an accident). But I will say this in their defense: at least they're being authentic. I find the "preemptively apologising for being American" oikophobia routine even more insufferable, and insincere in exactly the same way Scott described in "I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup" – you're not apologising for being American, you're "apologising" for things the Red Tribe did in your name. What I find most irritating about it is that, for all their talk of how embarrassed they are by their nationality and how much they admire the European way of doing things, these people usually seem exactly as ignorant about the world beyond the stars and stripes as their "ugly American" brethren.

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FtttG Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo. 1d ago

My uncle lent me Snowblind, a Nordic noir murder mystery set in Iceland. I'm about halfway through it. It's not exactly good writing, and the prose is rather clunkily expository (which I suspect is not only an artefact of the translation), but it's an easy read and passes the time.

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FtttG Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo. 1d ago · Edited 1d ago

I don't doubt your version of events, and the following advice may come off as condescending, but it would be remiss of me not to mention it anyway: in people of either sex, bitterness and self-pity are some of the least sexy traits going. No one is going to want to fuck you if you come off as bitter over past dating experiences, or feel sorry for yourself.

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Knowing it is one thing – acting on that knowledge is quite another.

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FtttG Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo. 1d ago · Edited 1d ago

I love root beer, but my fiancée thinks it's disgusting, comparing the taste to Deep Heat, a muscle relaxant cream. (Google tells me the American equivalent is called IcyHot.)

It's an entirely apt comparison: it does taste exactly like Deep Heat. But I still love it. Shame it's so hard to come by in Ireland. Part of me even wants to order a case of Barq's just for the novelty.

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FtttG Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo. 1d ago

Have you seen Silicon Valley?

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FtttG Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo. 1d ago

When I posted the comment, I didn't know she was 16 at the time.

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