InfoTeddy
1yr ago
I was under the impression that pedophiles got murdered in prison instead of being raped.
InfoTeddy
1yr ago
That would never be accepted by the trans activists. Trans women are treated like trans women when convenient, and trans women are treated like women when convenient.
Namely, trans women = trans women when people want to amplify any injustice (perceived or otherwise) committed against a trans woman as an injustice committed against all trans women. For example, the murder of a couple months back of Brianna Ghey in the UK (despite the fact that one of the attackers was a trans woman herself, and there is literally nothing to suggest that it was a hate crime, rather than a fight that got out of hand). In this case, if Brianna Ghey was truly a regular woman, I doubt the case would have made headlines. Therefore, it would be very inconvenient for them to treat Ghey as a woman, instead of a trans woman.
Conversely, trans women = women when people want trans women to have access to spaces usually reserved for females, such as sex-segregated restrooms and sports teams. Sure, the discourse might (d)evolve into hurling accusations of transphobia (in which case it's back to trans women = trans women), but nominally, the conversation always starts with a claim that trans women are women in this respect, therefore they should have access to women's bathrooms and be able to get on women's sports teams. And I've never seen the option of a trans-only sports team or bathroom be much popular with the trans activist crowd. (Although, all-gender restrooms seem to be well-liked by them, but that's not trans-only.)
They want to have it both ways, and hate sticking to one side, because that would mean having disadvantages like everyone else.
InfoTeddy
1yr ago
It's an applause light. "Oh cool, I've been told that she's a friend of The Motte! That means she should be trustworthy!" It'd make sense to place her in as much a positive light as possible, because the very next thing in the post is the author attacking the arguments of Aella's debate opponent.
InfoTeddy
1yr ago
It is simply easier and less burdensome to prevent this in the first place and make this scenario completely impossible to happen, by segregating prisons by sex.
InfoTeddy
1yr ago
She's simply a semi-famous figure in the rationalist community. Even here she's revered a bit, with a moderator describing her as "friend-of-the-motte", despite her never having commented on /r/TheMotte or even registered on here as far as I'm aware. I don't even know of any evidence that she even knows of the existence of this place. Then there are people like Scott Alexander, who describes her as a "national treasure", and Eliezer Yudkowsky, who brags that he can satisfy her because he's immortal.
If I had to wager a guess, she got her notoriety from doing a ton of provocative Twitter polls, because the easiest way to get engagement is to get negative engagement. It's why PETA is infamous and behaves the way they do.
InfoTeddy
1yr ago
EDIT: Lmao we're such pedants around here. I'm only the fifth person to just have to correct the life expectancy thing
That's a good thing. If there are five different comments pointing out the same basic, fundamental error that completely invalidates someone's conclusion, that's a sign that this person really messed up in their reasoning. It's like Twitter ratios but in Motte form.
InfoTeddy
1yr ago
You misunderstand. It's not about people "consensually putting substances in their own bodies", it's about the violence taking place on many subway systems in America such that people will stop taking the subway.
I personally do not care if someone does consensually put substances in their own bodies, provided that this is done in the privacy of their own home, apartment, or other private room. Under this condition, it simply does not affect other people. However, when this is done in public, it creates a risk for violent behavior. Then this violent behavior deters people from using the subway. People not using the subway is bad because they might drive instead, and driving is bad for things like climate change and whatnot. Hence, the argument for prosecuting drug usage in public.
InfoTeddy
1yr ago
In that case, existing protections against rape in general should be enough.
The existing protections, i.e. keeping male rapists away from women, is being actively subverted.
It shouldn't be difficult for the guards to observe creepy behavior leading up to any incident, for example.
That's not how it works. I doubt you can prevent rapes simply by "observing creepy behavior". And even if you could, there's still the fundamental problem of legibility. Let's say a guard does in fact notice some behavior that they consider to be creepy. What do they do then? If they take any sort of disciplinary action it's not hard for one to argue that it's overkill and say just because there's creepy behavior doesn't mean a rape has been committed yet. It's the same problem as the cops being called to a domestic dispute, then being unable to do anything because they didn't personally witness anything illegal happening, and they can't just take someone else's word for it. This idea of recognizing creepy behavior sounds like one of those ideas that only makes sense in hindsight after an incident has occurred, yet isn't workable in practice.
Also, come on. Are you really suggesting that it's easier for guards to "just prevent rape" than it is to place trans women rapists in men's prisons?
If the guards fail to prevent rape by a trans woman, then they would've failed to prevent any other sort of abuse between inmates.
This does not follow. There are all sorts of offenses a guard must prevent, and rape isn't equivalent to all of them in difficulty or observability. So them failing to prevent rape doesn't give us any information about what other things they have failed to prevent.
Besides, the easiest way to prevent men raping women isn't to have guards on duty. It's just keeping male rapists away from women.
I continue to not see a problem with trans rights here.
Trans rights have resulted in demonstrable negative externalities to other people. These externalities would straightforwardly not have happened if there weren't trans rights. It's as simple as that.
Also, I don't think this is a problem, statistically speaking.
Okay so, using statistics to triage the collective effort we spend on problems (and thus dismissing statistically insignificant problems) only makes sense if it would take too much effort to eliminate them. In this case however, the effort is relatively easy. All we have to do is not put male rapists in the same building as women. In fact, that's what we were doing before, until trans rights activists rolled around and demanded we do otherwise.
InfoTeddy
1yr ago
The accusations of right-wing "gayops" smack so heavily of "big if true." I can believe that it may be possible, but if so, then trans activism has a bigger problem than a stupid wizard game if they can be reliably punked by 4Channers in such a way.
I very sincerely doubt it's a possibility. There are plenty of people in the crowd dogpiling Pikamee who have internet presences dating back years, that don't seem to be fake (but I can't prove a negative). I have yet to see a convincing argument that the majority of people dogpiling were, say, avatarless randomly-generated usernames who joined Twitter yesterday.
Of course, the standard response to an argument against a conspiracy theory is to double down on the conspiracy further and postulate an even bigger conspiracy to cover up evidence of the conspiracy being a conspiracy. I have no doubt they'll just say the 4channers will have planned this out years in advance or something. It reminds one of a JFK truther going to heaven, being told by God Himself that JFK was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, and concluding that the conspiracy runs deeper.
InfoTeddy
1yr ago
My understanding is that this is effectively impossible because many crime scenes were contaminated by CHOP inhabitants (e.g. the one where the kid sitting in the car got shot). There was a lawsuit against the city by the businesses on Capitol Hill that recently got settled, though.
InfoTeddy
1yr ago
The theory goes that normal people will see this extreme behavior and "peak", i.e. change their opinion on the trans movement, and trans people in general. It's an optimistic theory for sure; I can't claim anything on how it will all play out one way or the other.
InfoTeddy
1yr ago
There's even a Tumblr blog named They Say This Never Happens. It contains quite a few instances of the thing very much happening.
InfoTeddy
1yr ago
Not to be uncharitable to Freddie, but it seems to me that he's toeing the line here because he's blood-related to a trans person and trans activist. (Giving details about this person is probably against the rules, so I won't.) So, he simply doesn't want to be cut off from them. It's why every time he writes something about trans people, it just seems so intellectually hollow, like he's fundamentally refusing to question any of his assumptions and preconceived notions about trans people and trans activism, and just wants to go along with the flow to keep them happy. For example:
I also just don’t agree with the conclusions drawn from some kinds of evidence. For example, it’s entirely possible for clinics that specialize in adolescent transition to be mismanaged or otherwise imperfect. That’s simply the reality of medical care at scale. What I don’t understand is why this would be uniquely disqualifying; there are no doubt dialysis centers and radiology labs and pharmacies that have serious operational problems, but no one thinks that this discredits those kinds of medicine.
No, it doesn't discredit dialysis centers, radiology labs, or pharmacies in general. But, the first objection people take here is to the existence of adolescent transition in the first place. Ignoring that though, the bigger objection is that there's no feedback mechanism to root out and address these mismanaged clinics, and not only is there not one, people are discouraged from doing so and branded as "alt-right fearmongerers" if they ever attempt to call them out. It's a self-coordinating conspiracy (prospiracy?) that Big Pharma can only dream of. Big Tobacco is wishing people would've done the same for any anti-tobacco talk in the '90s.
And in general, it's like this for any proposal of the trans movement. You ask, what if men take advantage of trans identification to creep on women in the bathroom? You're told that that's not going to happen and you're just repeating a scenario that only originates in the minds of alt-right Nazis. Okay, then some men end up doing exactly that, so you ask what will be done about them, and then you're told that you're just making up lies and that they never actually creeped on women. Or, my favorite, that man is actually just a right-wing psyop to discredit trans people... so it did happen, but it doesn't reflect bad on the trans movement. Which is a really convenient way to avoid any blame for any of your implemented proposals. How about another one: You object that normalizing policing behavior against anyone deemed anti-trans (i.e. being a cop) is simply harassment and bullying that is legitimized under the guise of trans activism. "Well, uh, we tell them not to harass people, we don't condone harassment!" Okay, so a VTuber announces her intent to play Hogwarts Legacy and is immediately dogpiled to the point that she quits streaming. "All those harassers are just right-wingers in secret trying to discredit and kill trans people!" and "She deserved it anyways." You point out that detransitioners exist and go over why they detransition, and then:
Worse, right-wing fixation on detransitioners has had the ugly side effect of making some people who are supportive of trans rights suspicious of them, when they should be treated with respect and understanding.
Sigh. Should I go over how trans activists treat detransitioners in the first place? (Spoiler alert: Very poorly.)
Trans activists always react like this when something bad happens. Every single instance of trans policy producing bad outcomes is ignored, dismissed, or discredited under the fear that this legitimizes opposition to trans people and will threaten their lives. There's no mechanism in the movement itself to stop bad behavior, proactively or reactively, so the brakes are ripped out and the foot is pushing the accelerator to the floor. If that doesn't give you pause at agreeing with shibboleths like "trans rights are human rights", then I don't know what will.
I don't really want to blame Freddie, because no one is perfect at everything and there will always be some blind spot they'll miss. Still, for all his dissident writing, it's a shame he fell in line on the trans issue. For some far better dissident content on the excesses of the trans rights movement, I recommend Sophia Narwitz's video "Trans Activists Are STILL Their Own Worst Enemy".
InfoTeddy
1yr ago
Again, this seems to just simply not be correlated. What say you about Japan, which has a cultural/demographic problem so bad it's the origin of the term "hikikomori", meaning a youth or middle-aged person deliberately socially isolating themselves from society at large? Isn't Japan full of walkable cities? Conversely, suburbs have a culture of their own, not all of them, but many of them do.
Simply put, it seems to me that however much an individual chooses to interact with their environment is completely up to them, and not necessarily correlated with "car-dependency".
InfoTeddy
1yr ago
Probably 2. In that case though, the definition of "induced demand" has been changed to be something more reasonable. At that point you might as well drop the "induced" part because, well, the demand doesn't come from nowhere. Even a name like "proportionally induced demand" is far better.
InfoTeddy
1yr ago
I will never understand why urbanists will name other countries such as Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, and then gloss over the key differences between them and the United States: Cultures, laws, and norms. Singapore even bans chewing gum, for heaven's sake. Meanwhile in the US you'd be surprised if a three-time felon murderer stays in jail for more than a year, in San Francisco they just recalled a prosecutor for not prosecuting crime, and Vancouver is flooded with homeless drug addicts under a misguided "harm reduction" policy.
InfoTeddy
1yr ago
The issue with traffic is that more traffic causes more traffic.
Uh... how? I am severely confused as to how this could be the case. This would imply that cities could generate however much arbitrary economic value they want simply by building more roads and letting the traffic cause more traffic.
Many parents drive their kids to school because it is too dangerous to walk and the danger is other parents driving their kid to school because it is too dangerous to walk.
Is this really true? I would imagine there are more dominating factors in these parents' decisions, such as the desire to see their kid get to school quickly and on time.
A person in Houston can't really choose a low car lifestyle in the same way that a person in Barcelona can.
Is this really true? Downtown Houston seems pretty walkable to me.
Public transit works best when transporting relatively large amounts of people relatively short distances. Urban sprawl is absolutely awful for public transit with vast distances and few people in walking distance of each stop.
See, the reason why not everyone is on public transit (yes, not even in the countries urbanists put on a pedestal like the Netherlands and Japan) is that those people are dispersed over a wide area, so either public transit can't serve everyone or it will get slowed down trying to do so. I know you blame urban sprawl for causing this problem but this is still a problem even in countries without urban sprawl.
Cars make public transit worse.
I don't see how this could be the case, and in general, I'm skeptical of the theory that building one type of infrastructure inherently antagonizes and competes against other types of infrastructure. Such an approach is short-sighted and fails to see the bigger picture.
InfoTeddy
1yr ago
Yeah, that's the case for any example of "induced demand". Proponents of the induced demand theory seem to think that the new traffic spawns in from nowhere; in reality, the new traffic comes from population growth, and yes, some people who wouldn't have made the trip before who now see the opportunity to do so. This suggests that new traffic isn't some magical force that can't be satiated, but rather has a finite demand that can (and should) be supplied.
InfoTeddy
1yr ago
InfoTeddy
1yr ago
This seems very uncharitable. Are you seriously suggesting that "car-dependent" places don't have a culture and people are obese in them? I've seen obese people in all sorts of places; it doesn't seem particularly correlated to "car-dependency". What does it even mean to not have a culture anyway? Culture is simply the way humans do things; it seems impossible to avoid having a culture, even deliberately.
InfoTeddy
1yr ago
Before cars, cities were built to accommodate horses and horse traffic, such as horse-drawn carriages. This resulted in wide roads being built, which is not at all like the picture you linked to.
InfoTeddy
1yr ago
It is agnostic over whether greater capacity is a good thing, it just says greater capacity won't fix rush hour problems.
That's what we're arguing against, and that's plainly wrong. Otherwise, what do you recommend that planners do in Mumbai, where the trains are jam-packed full of people? Build more trains? But then wouldn't that just induce more demand? Or does "induced demand" somehow not apply to trains?
It's more honest to simply concede that "induced demand" isn't actually a thing, and switch to arguing against increasing car infrastructure capacity for other reasons. At least, that's what the urbanists I talk with eventually end up doing.
InfoTeddy
1yr ago
This is true, but then in that case people would naturally stop driving past a certain point unless they otherwise can't avoid it (e.g. tradesmen). It's not like if you let it go unchecked, cars will keep coming until the road is so jam-packed it's always filled, all the time.
InfoTeddy
1yr ago
As I understand it, he apologized not because he went to a lawyer, but because Rowling went to her lawyers who served him a notice. It is my understanding that it is extremely easy to prove libel/defamation under UK law, so he made the (wise) decision to apologize and retract in response to that.
Sadly, only hearsay on social media like this LiveJournal and a bunch of TikToks, supposedly originating from kids living near the area who couldn't keep their mouth shut. There's no official source confirming this because official sources are prohibited from naming minors (and places like Twitter keep taking down their names), but it does line up with them being a boy from Leigh and a girl from Warrington who are both 15. In any case if there was a prediction market or something that their names would be revealed to be Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe when they turned 18, I would bet on it in a heartbeat.
More options
Context Copy link