ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
No bio...
User ID: 626
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
19d ago
and I'm much more of a political doomer than a science doomer.
I think the way you use the word "science" conflates the method and the process with scientific institutions. I'm an equal opportunity doomer when it comes to scientific and political institutions, mostly because scientific institutions have become transparently political, and this has happened precisely because we've entertained the idea of "evidence based policy".
MDMA is exactly the kind of situation I want to avoid. They held hearings on the scheduling in the 1980's, and sought scientific input. Neurotoxicity studies where central. They've since been critiqued.
It's not like the avenue of legalizing it is completely sealed off, you can campaign for MDMA's legalization, and try to convince voters that it's not toxic, and has benefits. I think that's a much better process than relying on experts.
If you disagree, that's fine, but my point that this isn't a precedent still stands, we've been doing this for a long time. Also, I gave you two examples where the question of expertise is irrelevant, which you haven't addressed. I don't care how many studies there are saying that surrogacy is great, it should still be illegal.
Strikes me as a false dichotomy.
I mean, that's a staple argument of all sorts of human-nature-denying idealists since forever. Communists will call "you can have free(ish) markets or poverty" a false dichotomy, pacifists will call "let he who wants peace prepare for war" a false dichotomy, and I suppose scientism-ists will call "you can have science or a regulatory state" a false dichotomy as well.
Science has varying degrees of confidence. In this case, WPATH etc are peddling what I believe to be bullshit science with bullshit confidence.
And those degrees of confidence that science supposedly uses were completely ignored by partisans in the scientific community, until other partisans said "no, go and evaluate the evidence properly" and even after that, these finding have to be enforced politically, because the scientific establishment is doing everything it can to ignore those findings.
Commissioned, but real science was done. Sounds good to me.
The question here is why did it need to be comissioned politically, if the scientific community is "mugged by reality" faster than politicians?
Easily the most challenging critique for me to contend with, but perhaps I'm just limited. On what principle should I argue against people voting for representatives that promise to put lead in the water? On one hand, I do think people have that right. On the other hand, I'm just sitting here with my dick in my hand wondering how I can escape this principle.
I don't understand why you're so torn over this. The possibility (which already manifested historically several times) of experts putting lead in the water doesn't bother you, because you believe the experts will auto-correct. I'm similarly not bothered by the possibility of people voting for lead in the water, because people will auto-correct. As a counter to your earlier point, I'm much more of a doomer when it comes to unelected bureaucracies than when it comes to legislatures that have to face their voters (though to be clear, I'm quite a doomer about them as well).
So how was the conversation "played out" if progressive PMCs were yet to realize that?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
20d ago
As I stated, legislators can eschew medical/expert consensus for anything they please.
How is this not already the case? We routinely ban various drugs (you brought up MDMA yourself), medical procedures (surrogacy, euthanasia)... how does banning this particular field of medicine set some dangerous new precedent?
Imagine the scientific consensus states that natal males in womens contact sports poses an injury risk. Well, Srkmetti would provide precedent that elected representatives can ignore that consensus
Good! This is the part that I wanted you to explain how there's anything bad about! If people want to have unisex sports, they should be allowed to vote for people who will give them unisex sports. These controversies should not be decided by the scientific community, and giving it this sort of power will only lead to a degradation of science.
No, I want both internal and external experts to study things without their findings being handwaved away by politicians with an ideological agenda.
And abolishing the regulatory state and applying your approach of "just sue the current bad thing for torts" to everything is the only thing that will give you this result. If you only use that approach for things that "experts" agree with, but allow them to ban things they disagree with via agencies like the FDA, AMA, etc., all that means is that the experts are political actors themselves, and will therefore jettison science themselves, or will be slapped down by someone more powerful. The regulatory state, not cases like Skrimetti are the things that are preventing experts from studying what they want, and having their findings be taken seriously.
The cass report led to a reversal in the UK
The Cass Review was commissioned through a political process to begin with, and it's enforcement is likewise political, which you can tell by observing that it's effects are constrained to the UK. If this was the scientific community self-policing, it would lead to a reversal in the entire anglosphere, if not the world.
But experts will be mugged by reality far faster than case law.
The case law in this case is about whether these controversies can be decided by the legislature, and I don't think legislatures are any less responsive than "experts".
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
20d ago
Eugenics in practice necessarily entails a certain level of limitation put on women’s sexual autonomy.
Progressives have absolutely no issue shaming women for pairing up with the wrong kind of guy. The bigger problem right now is that eugenics in practice would require that they'd shame women for pairing up with people in their client classes. The moment surrogacy or other forms of industrial reproduction become viable, they'll happily return to eugenics.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
20d ago
The precedent it sets can be argued in favor of the next Bad Thing(tm).
What I'm asking is what precedent is it setting? As far as I can tell it's nothing new. Are bans on surrogacy some "dangerous precedent"?
Just sue the current bad thing for torts.
Again, if that's what you're going for you shouldn't be arguing against Skrimetti, you should be arguing for the total abolishing of the regulatory state.
You guys are still doing the "he wasn't ready for Kamala" thing?
I wouldn't quite call it "believable" even at the peak of the media offensive, but at least it's with all the media being on-message they managed to generate enough hype that I could see where that statement could come from. Now? Trying to frame Trump's strategy as hoping the decrepit Biden stays in the race is bizarre (not in the least because everybody sneering at the supposed strategy was swearing up and down that Biden is perfectly fine). Are you personally hyped up for Kamala? If not, what on Earth are you talking about?
Well, I gotta applaud the consistency of taking away kids from their parents for transitioning them, because it's child abuse, and for not transitioning them, because it's child abuse.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
21d ago
Seemed like a smart idea at the time.
Yeah, I can't judge, I cosigned it too back then.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
21d ago
So I take it you'll also cheer the state taking away children from affirming parents?
Memory holing something that can be looked up with a single click of a hyperlink on your phone is harder than doing so for something you'd have to look up old newspapers or journals in a library.
The persistency of the Internet is somewhat overrated to begin with. My goto example is usually this compilation of epidemiologists saying Covid is no big deal.
But aside from that, it's not a question of accessibility, it's a question of who cares. In the linked thread I gave an example of a similar episode in medicine, where scientists were selling the idea of solving personal and social issues with brain surgery. The academic papers are there, the newspaper articles are there, the bestselling books and Hollywood adaptations are there... it's all just collecting dust, all these people are long dead, nobody cares.
Without a constant drumbeat of how we must Never Forget, this will be the fate of any atrocity.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
21d ago
Part of the thesis was a call against government expansion, which won't be the case if Skrmetti prevails.
No one arguing against Skrimetti actually wants to stop government expansion. What they want, as the Alabama brief eloquently argues, is to have political controversies be resolved by unelected, supposedly scientific bodies like the FDA, or the alphabet soup of medical associations.
If you actually want a government that does not interfere in science, you need to roll back the entire regulatory state. Otherwise the supposedly neutral institutions will simply become a political faction, and science will go out the window anyway (which is exactly what happened).
I'm confident that "gender science" won't hold for a hundredth as long as the precedence Skrmetti will establish
Well, first you'll have to explain what's so bad about that. Unless I'm missing something Skrimetti is just about banning / age limits on gender medicine. I don't see how it's qualitatively different from banning heroin or other recreational drugs.
An ideological legislature could dismiss that, and instead pursue their own policy, ethical, or ideological goals.
And if these controversies are settled through scientific institutions, all that will happen is that political factions will use underhanded means to take them over, and produce shoddy science that serves their political goals. Which, I repeat, is exactly what happened. The WPATH and Olson Kennedy did not fall from a coconut tree, as they say.
Trans issues were never going to be a permanent part of the Dem ideological setup
If it was so obvious, howcome you never said anything about it? The only thing I remember from you was you saying how the issue was played out by the Bush era.
because it’s precisely the children of PMC urban Democrats (ie NYT readers, DNC and associated think tank / lobbyist staffers etc) who are at increasing risk of coming out as trans
Didn't stop the from still being pro-gay. If there was nothing wrong with transition, the concept of "at risk" would make no sense.
We signed a death warrant on Science the moment we thought it could be a "neutral" way of resolving political disputes. The instant that idea was entertained Science was doomed to either go the Olson Kennedy route, where scientists themselves abandon the scientific process in pursuit of their political agenda, or to be brought to heel by another institution with political power (and I agree with the other poster, that it's better to have politics be done by a transparently political institution, than under the guise of "neutrality").
For you to get what you want, we'd need to take science out of politics.
Has anyone else noticed a clear "vibe shift" on trans issues recently?
Funny you ask, I noticed something a year and a half ago.
I'm am curious where this trend continues. Is it going to go all the way? Will trans issues be seen as the weird 2010s, early 2020s political project that had ardent supporters, but eventually withered away and died like the desegregation bussing movement?
A question that intruiges me as well. My guess is that that it will be entirely forgotten the same way that the pedo rights movement of the 70's was. Sure every once in a while someone will dig out some receipts, and it will be seen as that weird thing that apparently happened in the past, but it will not be something pinnable on the progressive movement
The New York Times just published an article on a trans study not being published for ideological reasons
According to the brief you mentioned, WPATH is sitting on like a dozen of those. I posted about it too.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
22d ago
Not really, you just got used to the pre-Musk censorship regime.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
23d ago
All posts need to be manually approved by mods, even for veteran posters.
I expect people to say "damn those republicans, why are they so easy to appeal to with what does not appeal to us". Which people do say.
Sure, I'll take that as an example of what people would say if Trump was hitting a nerve. So I guess we agree?
The way I see it, fool me once means shame on you. But fool me twice, thrice, a million times, and you're an "honest liar" and we're supposed to regard you as someone so detached from truth that it's not even in question whether anyone is actually being deceived
So again, what's your take on advertising? I actually think it's cancer myself, and wouldn't mind banning it, but I can't quite get angry over it, since it's been part of the landscape for the entirety if my life. And even when I think it's bad for society, I can't help but enjoy some ads when they're funny, witty, or catchy enough. From there it's hard to get mad at Trump in particular, when everybody else is doing it all the time.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
23d ago
Another idle week as far as programming goes, how's your stuff going @Southkraut?
Also, re: last week's comment on Redot:
It's more alive than I expected. My confidence in it going places is still low, but I do suppose I'm already somewhat surprised
Yeah, I was a bit more hopeful from the start. Looking at their social media, there seemed to be a decent amount of activity. Also, as far as I can gather, politics was not the primary / only motivation for the fork, it seems like people where getting frustrated with the technical side of how the engine was managed, and the political drama was just a good opportunity to channel that frustration.
Eyeballing people's reactions, it seems the userbase wasn't actually as political as the community managers would like, and you were far from alone. Let's see how it goes.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
24d ago
Am I missing something? That doesn't seem like very compelling evidence.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
24d ago
Where are those legions who express the belief that it is unbefitting of Trump to appeal to the common folk (as opposed to saying it's wrong to falsely appeal)? I've linked mine.
It's the same link. You don't really expect people to outright say "damn that Trump, why is he so appealing?" even that's what they feel, do you?
What's your platform that is not a propaganda platform
We're running short on those these days. I guess you can still post anything you want on Substack.
It's also bad, in my personal opinion, because it's transparently dishonest to associate yourself with menial work that you do not do and have never done
I'd chalk it up to getting upset at Gillette's slogan again, except:
If Kamala is acting like her time at McDonalds was a nightmare, she's at least being honest
This is completely backwards. There is no evidence she has spent a single day working in McDonalds. It's Trump who's honest here because his "lie" is just advertising, and everybody knows how it works. Kamala is the dishonest one, because people (including you) actually believe she made a factual statement about herself.
This is also how we know people upset at this aren't upset at dishonesty or stolen valor. No one who is criticizing Trump for this will turn around to criticize Harris, when it's pointed out she didn't work for McDonald's.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
24d ago
My point isn't about shoving petty status games into romantic relationships (which as you point out were always there), it was about shoving politics there.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
24d ago
No one? Not one single person on planet Earth? Well sure then.
Most people on planet Earth have never heard about it. Most people who will see this will think "heh, that's kinda funny". Somewhere, out there, there might be some lonely indivuduals upset at the valor stolen from service workers, but they'll be drowned out by legions that are upset that Trump did something mildly appealing to the common folk.
Of those service workers whose viewpoint I do see on Reddit, or for example on various discords, they're closer to /r/antiwork in their ideology than to "it's 'onest work".
"Of those service workers whose viewpoint I do see on Reddit" had to pass through so many filters that it will bear no resemblance to any remotely normal person. Reddit is a propaganda platform.
Unfortunately, our visceral resonances seem to be at odds.
I know this will sound weird, but I don't know if I believe you. Kavanaugh being a rapist vs. not was a disagreement of visceral resonances, Rittenhouse being a murderer vs. an innocent kid was a disagreement of visceral resonances... but this? The only visceral feeling I get here from the progressive side is "Trump bad. This good for Trump, therefore this bad".
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
24d ago
There's definitely a stolen valor angle.
I'd be open to the possibility, but no one who's freaking out about it seems to be credibly approaching it from the "stolen valor" angle.
Do you think upper PMC democrats are the ones posting on Reddit about the entire thing being a sham?
I'm sorry what? Do you think /r/antiwork, or the entirety of Reddit for that matter, is in any way representative of a typical McDonald's worker?
To me it looks like there's a huge disconnect between themotte's view of a typical democrat voter and reality.
This isn't about The Motte. It's one of those things that has visceral resonance, and the more you push back against it, the more it will look like Trump had a point to begin with.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
24d ago
Thanks for the explanation, it was a real head-scratcher to me how anyone could be upset at his endorsement, but it makes sense now. Though it's some real Game of Thrones shit, and more cunning then I'd expect from an 80 year old man.
Thanks for making this top-level post, I have to rate-limit myself, or this place would become a TERF twitter feed!
Every once in a while I promise myself I'll start helping out with the code and add a few features like that for the benefit of users and mods, but I can barely find time to work on the projects I do for fun, so...
Anyway I don't mind people coming to similar thoughts to mine (quite the contrary), just couldn't resist the opportunity to say how I was doing this before it was cool.
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