Do you really believe that someone leading a for-now successful business precludes them undergoing mental decline? If anything, why not take a look at recent developments in contrast to past performance as more relevant evidence than the simple fact of a successful business existing? Tesla stock not doing so hot these days.
Should we assign truth value to people's opinions based on their wealth and following? I don't see how your comments about Hanania's global strategic positioning have anything to do with the veracity of his opinion.
You also seem to think...people are dumb for not following Trump even if they don't believe in his goals or execution? It seems extremely plausible that Hanania simply did not want to be a sycophant for Trump, which says nothing about how 'bad' he is at politics. You seem to be invoking some assumption that Hanania was clearly angling for some political gain that he fumbled by not supporting Trump, and that doesn't seem much more plausible than other explanations.
cartman
1mo ago
That's called coyote time, and it's a pretty commonplace feature of most platformers these days, not just in one or two games. Judging from the trend, It seems to be the case that consumers prefer the feeling of that timing much better than strict one-pixel-past -the-ledge and you're dead timing.
Its fuzzy in that there is a gap between what is shown to you and what the inputs will do, but it does not have to be fuzzy in the sense that the game will likely still have a strict threshold it adheres for what is 'too late'.
cartman
4mo ago
Right, but it is not itself a medical process. Many people will socially transition and then not medically transition. I don't see the inherent justification for a parent to know about something which may or may not lead to a medical decision down the line, even if it's somewhat likely to. I don't want teachers having to litigate these issues among themselves or worry about whether such and such behaviour is a step towards something which needs to be reported. It is either a bright line which needs to be reported or it isn't.
cartman
4mo ago
In your view, what are the most and least cringe age of prostitutes to hire, and for what prices?
cartman
4mo ago
The percentage of people who believe that ax2 + bx + c = 0 or that Shakespeare is mandatory reading off the top of their heads is also likely in a small minority, not to mention any more obscure things which are taught in school, but we don't change the curriculum to accomodate these beliefs if Shakespeare is stil genuinely the best way to teach English or we believe the quadratic equation is important math practica.
I really don't believe the distinction between factual and normative education is as bright a line as you think it is. 'every sentence must contain a subject, a verb and an object' is a normative statement, not a factual one. If you wanted to qualify with something like 'if you want to speak correct English as recognized by such and such body' then it would become factual, but as is there is clearly a normative element to this education where we are trying to get the kids to do things the way we want them to in the same way we dont want them hitting each other.
If you are claiming that educators are teaching kids en masse that "puberty blockers are completely reversible" then sure, we could agree that's likely not factual and a bad thing to teach. I don't think this is in the curriculum broadly. Just like sexual education which teaches kids about the existence of gay/lesbian people and how they differ from straight people is not the same as encouraging kids to be gay, I think there's a way to educate kids about transgender topics which you still might classify as 'gender ideology' that is relatively neutral.
cartman
4mo ago
I'm assuming from the context of Columbine that this was probably a decade or two in the past when such suspicions were more common. In any case, I think this is also an overreach by the school's admin.
An explicit dress code is of course a different thing because it pertains to students following the official rules of the school, it does not at all follow the same reasoning of a teacher reporting a student to their parents for wearing different clothing that is also within the dress code or using a different name.
cartman
4mo ago
Evolution is controversial among creationists, yet we still teach it in public school because it is factual and leave it to private/charter schools to teach creationism. Something being controversial among a subset of the population is not inherently enough to decide it should not be taught in public school, which caters to the general public, not a subset.
I don't understand how you justify a different name and different clothing being a step towards a medical process (justifying parents being given third party info) on the one hand but being completely innocuous on the other hand when it comes to Goth/alt culture. The teachers don't have any special knowledge about what students are going to do in the future. Presumably some teachers think wearing Goth clothing leads to some things they disapprove of (Satan worship, depression, arson, whatever) but they would still be rightly reprimanded if they called home about these things. It doesn't particularly matter to me that the correlation between social transition and medical transition is likely stronger than the example I gave. Until it becomes somethng parents need to know about, it is not something parents need to know about.
If parents want to impose some special conditions under which their students are watched, that's something for private and not public school, which should cater to the general public as decided by the government's education department.
cartman
4mo ago
I see arguments like yours a lot, of the form "they can't leave me alone". But this seems like weird reasoning that is employed to target only policies that are already disliked. I could grant the premise of your statement, but if I did that I would also be arguing that American history fans can't leave me alone, that grammar nazis can't leave me alone, that Big Science can't leave me alone.
Simply put, public schools are institutions whose goal is to educate children. Put another way, a public school's goal is to indoctrinate children with the beliefs that are commonly accepted in the society they're a part of. You (and most other people) are not complaining that all the English majors and all the physicists can't leave your kids alone, because (presumably) you agree with the majority of them. You are targeting an ideology you already dislike and claiming it is for the reason that they are indoctrinating children; but that is what public school is all about.
Of course, there is a difference between the above and the stuff that crosses the line. To go through your examples:
- Compulsory exercises. This is normal school stuff. Same as most other subjects. I'm sure there are some parents who complain about compulsory math worksheets specifically about quadratic equations or whatever, but I don't have much sympathy for them if they signed up for a school where that is common practice.
- Pornographic material. This would be a big problem if true but I highly doubt this is the case in any widespread fashion. There is quite a large distinction between pornographic material meant to arouse and anatomical/scientific maerial meant to educate. I would agree with you if the former was widespread, but I have seen no evidence of this.
- Secret social transitions. This could mean a variety of things, if you meant that a school would not tell a parent if their child started using a new name or wearing different clothes then this also seems non-probematic. There is a debatable correlation between wearing Goth clothing as an adolescent and going through troubled times, but teachers do not routinely make a habit of notifying parents of such things, and rightly so.
- I don't know of anyone who is 'forcing' anyone with a penis to enter a women's space who doesn't want to. The people with penises are presumably there of their own volition. If you meant that girls are now forced to use bathrooms which may also contain penises, then again I don't see how this is inherently any different than any of the other compusions forced upon pupils in schools.
cartman
4mo ago
"The new trans woman in Congress who was making video threats about bashing their female colleagues head in the bathroom seemed very threatening"
This is a wild claim to make offhand without a source. Surely if this happened it would be all over the news (at least the conservative outlets). And yet I can find nothing! Unless you were referring to threats left over the phone by anonymous people, in which case again you are making a wild leap in logic to assume that it is the new Congresswoman. Open to being proved wrong if you actually have a source.
cartman
4mo ago
I don't understand at all what you're trying to convey with this comment other than the first part.
cartman
4mo ago
Musk is by no means a centrist, he has actively campaigned as a partisan this election in order to secure a position for himself in the Trump ecosystem. He may have some kooky ideas that do not align with the rest of the Republican base but he has entirely abandoned the 'centre' position one could have argued he held years ago in favour of one side of the political spectrum.
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Okay. I'm unclear what distinction you're trying to make between evil intent and what you described as sinister purposes, or 'stemming from evil forces'. Is something done for a sinister purpose if those performing the act do it with good intentions but another participant may be affected negatively by the act? If this is not what you mean and simple evil intent is not what you mean then I still don't understand what you're getting at without more specific elaboration. I'll also state for the record that intention is not the be-all and end-all of my moral philosophy but it still plays a significant role. Intent is by far the best predictor that I'm aware of for whether someone is a generally morally 'good' person who is likely to do 'good' things.
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The meaning of abduction that I am familiar with involves taking someone somewhere against their will through violence or threats. If what you were asking me was whether I support minors being taken against their will through violence or threats to surgeries that are done with sinister purposes (I'm reading this part broadly here since I don't understand your meaning) then yes, I am against that. If what you meant by abduction was that the parents of the hypothetical minor did not give consent for whatever the procedure is, then my answer will again depend on the specific context and details. This leads into the next point.
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I fundamentally disagree that parents have some inherent incentive structure to care for their children that is superior to the incentives of social institutions. Parental incentives go wrong all the time! (as do institutional ones). You acknowledge this with your reference to cases of 'parental tyranny'. I would likely acknowledge that in the current world, parental incentives are more probable to be aligned with their child's than other institutions, but I dont think this is an inherent property of parenthood. In a different worldly circumstance with different institutions, it could easily be the case that the State is more aligned with child interests than parents are.
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We already recognize the right for minors to escape from the potential tyranny of their parents in a variety of scenarios. The common practice of minor emancipation in Canada, the U.S., and elsewhere points to this phenomenon. My understanding (which could be wrong, i haven't looked at it too much) is that these emancipated minors are able to make all sorts of legally binding decisions for themselves, including medical ones. What are your thoughts on this practice?
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Treatment decisions about mental illnesses are vested to the patient all the time! There are certain circumstances where this is not the case (imminent risk of suicide or psychosis, etc.) but I am confident that the vast vast majority of mental illnesses experienced by adults (excluding the subset of minors that we are directly disagreeing about) get treated based on decisions made by the patients which are informed by their medical team. If you were talking only about minors here, then again, I disagree.
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I'll skip any factual argument and just agree that the scientific literature now demonstrates what you say it demonstrates about GD. Do you think doctors (especially in America) were making these medical decisions with the full knowledge that the medical literature did not support these decisions? You can say they were wrong about the facts, but do you believe that all these doctors were performing procedures that they knew were likely to be on average harmful for the patient? If the answer is no, then I object to the framing of this state of events as 'abduction for sinister purposes'. Making a decision that turns out to have negative consequences but was done with the best of intentions for all involved (and not simply on a whim but based on some amount of research) is not what I would consider sinister. If the answer is yes, then I guess we have a big factual disagreement that I don't know how to resolve.
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If your sole point was that such decisions were perhaps too hasty in some cases given the relatively limited quantity and quality of research on the topic, then I would have a hard time disagreeing.
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A hypothetical for you: A doctor has a patient who is a minor and is heavily depressed and suicidal. They have attempted to commit suicide in the past, and are still at high risk in the present. The doctor now learns that the minor's parents inflame this suicidal ideation by repeatedly making comments that the minor is trash, that they'd be better of without them, that the minor's death might solve a lot of problems. They leave sleeping pills open and in plain view on the kitchen table regularly. The doctor now faces a choice: does he intervene through some legal process in order to take parental authority away from these people to protect the minor (with the minor's approval), or does he stay silent and try to help the minor as best he can without changing the predicament?
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You might say this hypothetical is hyperbolic and unrealistic. I agree. I bring it up only to poke at the fact that in certain circumstances, mental illnesses and their surrounding complications are more than enough to warrant considering revoking some or all parental rights.
cartman
5mo ago
Some people may think that way, you and I will likely disagree on how likely or prevalent such things are.
Frankly, I don't much care if the doctor think it's good for his bank account, his social status, or his pet activist causes as long as any procedure is still deemed in the best interests of the child (and keep in mind the doctors are performing these procedures based on their belief in the scientific/medical literature that demonstrates their efficacy, not because of some personal sexual motivation that gets twisted to include the child. That is the key difference). These assessments can be wrong of course, but that's no reason to abandon them altogether
cartman
5mo ago
I laid out the differences in another comment, the distinction is the reasoning and intent behind the act.
Society deems that killing is murder unless you kill the right person in the right context (self defense). Cashing a check that you stole from someone is fraud/theft, while cashing a check that you were given legitimately is a business transaction. I believe that the vast vast majority of doctors providing gender affirming care through therapy, puberty blockers, and in very rare cases surgery, are doing so with the best interests of the child in mind, which was not the case for castrati historically as I understand it.
The parallels may seem glaring and obvious, just like a self defence killing might look like murder, but there are quite substantial differences.
I inquired about what OP meant by sinister purposes, your answer refers to an act and not a purpose and does not reference abduction. I am still unclear what they meant by abduction for sinister purposes.
cartman
5mo ago
Okay fair enough. I will say for the record that I am a new poster (jumped in for the discussion after election day as you noted) but have lurked reading every so often for at least a few months so I'm not unfamiliar with the forum as a whole.
I somewhat disagree with the characterization of my behaviour as 'just asking questions', but I understand how it appears that way. I do have a habit of questioning people to poke at underlying disagreements, and I can acknowledge that sometimes I do this too much or with somewhat inflammatory rhetoric, but it is usually with a goal relevant to the discussion in mind.
In this particular case, the questions regarding moderation were genuine. If there's something in the forum's history thats relevant to my moderation I wanted to know it. I did receive a message from another poster yesterday, that in hindsight, makes me think they also suspected me of being a specific different user evading a ban.
I want to stress again at the end here that my picking apart of this moderation may come across as being in bad faith, but I am genuinely attempting to understand the rules of engagement and how I would have to change my rhetoric in order to consistently participate. If I engaged less now, I might misunderstand something else down the road. The impression I get is that my familiarity with the forum is suspicious and also my asking questions is suspicious, but I felt that not asking questions would make it more likely that I was banned in the future for a reason I did not fully understand.
In any case, I will endeavour to make future posts acceptable.
cartman
5mo ago
Hello, thanks for the welcome.
I won't deny I have a habit of responding to the posts that seem egregious to me with rhetoric in kind. This is true. I can work on my charitability.
I don't want to come across as if I'm complaining about the moderation (I think it's fine) but I am a bit confused about the rules of engagement here and would like some clarification before posting further so that I don't get unceremoniously permabanned. If this comment is unacceptable on the forum please feel free to delete and continue the convo in messages, but I am actually asking for clarification in good faith.
First of all, am I being moderated for the tone/content of my posts or for ban evasion as a suspected alt? I'm assuming from your comment that there was a previous user on this forum who used to engage similarly to me and was banned for it. If that's the case and you think this person is me, then what can I actually do to make you believe otherwise? I recognize as a moderator the need to restrict ban evasion from problem users, but from my perspective I am unaware of previous users having similar rhetoric (and it seems onerous to expect me to write deliberately in a different tone or avoid certain topics) so what is my recourse to avoid a permanent ban for this reason?
Secondly, my understanding was that as a new user all my comments have to be approved by moderators before becoming public. Until this comment I had not received any mod feedback. If it is not just ban evasion I'm being modded for, is it only this most recent comment that goes over the line into being problematic? If not, does this comment act as a warning that all of my previous posts were unacceptable?
I'm not trying to be deliberately difficult here, I actually don't understand or know the answers to these questions. I'd like to retain the ability to post here, and in order to do that I need to know where the line is.
cartman
5mo ago
Right, but these 'malicious actors' could be anyone, even the parents themselves. I don't think parents should have a special right to make these decisions for their children if their interests are not aligned with their child's. I can't remember the exact details, but there was a news story a year or two ago about a couple whose child died because they refused to get a basic medical treatment for religious reasons.
In such a case, do you think the parents have the moral right to refuse treatment for the child? (I believe in the case I'm thinking of the child was a newborn, so the question of consent was obvious).
If you answer negatively to the above (as I do) then we switch from having a discussion about what is absolutely allowed or not allowed to one in which we must judge the pros and cons of taking away agency from parents depending on what the issue is.
I largely agree with you that children can be convinced of anything depending on the right context, but here is my main contention with your points: The key difference between a groomer targeting a child and a doctor performing a surgery is their interests; the latter is doing so based on what they believe to be in the best interests of the child based on medical/scientific literature, the former is doing so for personal reasons.
Malicious actors can convince children of things, but that does not mean any expert telling any child about a solution to their medical issues is grooming them. You might want a parent to sign off on antibiotics, but I hardly believe that if a doctor came up to a severely sick child and recommended they start antibiotics, you would label them as a groomer.
cartman
5mo ago
Can you elaborate on what you want me to respond to? Are you referring to singers who in the past were castrated for their singing voices? I don't think that was a morally good practice.
I obviously would agree that 'abduction of minors for sinister purposes' is bad, you literally put sinister in the description. I suspect we disagree on what sinister purposes refers to, so you need to describe something more specific if you want to prompt my thoughts to see our differences of opinion.
cartman
5mo ago
I will repeat: do you think children can consent to surgery for appendicitis? treatment via antidepressants? Antibiotics?
cartman
5mo ago
Do you actually not understand the difference or did you just want to get a cheap dig in?
Do you see all medical interventions in under-18's as 'grooming'? No? Just the one you already have a prior about not liking?
If I'm wrong please tell me how. There's a huge host of reasons why they are different, but I'm only going to bother explaining them if you're not going to respond with another sarcastic one liner that is indistinguishable from an inflamed partisan spouting nonsense about 'the transgenders grooming my kids to want to be raped'.
cartman
5mo ago
It's preposterous and totally insane sounding because you analogized a situation where a child is raped without consent to one where the child willingly undergoes a medical procedure (regardless of whether you think it's warranted or not). That is a preposterous and insane analogy to make so it's no wonder that's what your conclusion is.
cartman
5mo ago
You and the other so-called 'partisan hacks' don't get to say you're right because a coin came up heads despite a poll saying it had a 60% chance to come up tails. The fact that you 'correctly predicted' an event has little inherent bearing on whether your reasoning was correct.
I'm incredibly tired of hearing this talking point. Did you correctly predict the election map in 2020? in 2016? Do you have a better record overall than the pollsters you critiscize? What reason do I have to believe that you are not a broken clock that is right twice a day?
On the other hand, you're fine to critiscize OP calling someone a crank with no substantive reasoning.
Again, you seem to be squashing a lot of plausible complexity into a very simple categorization of Hanania being 'antiwoke'. Does being antiwoke preclude one from disagreeing heavily with other antiwoke people to the point you publically break from them? I don't see why it would. It COULD be the case that he thought this was best for his career and this is some massive error on his part in sensing what his audience wants, but it's just as convenient an explanation that he disagrees with Trump on policy to such a degree that simply being on the antiwoke team is not enough to garner a blind eye.
I think there's a country mile between cynically falling in line behind 'your guy' and being an internet troll. Was Sanders trolling when he ran against Clinton? Or is it more likely that people on ostensibly the same wing of politics sometimes do things that hurt others in the same wing because they have different beliefs?
If you don't accept that people who don't run successful businesses can't provide insight on those who do, then I struggle to see how you manage to derive value from any comments on this forum, where anonymous internet randos constantly comment on the goings-on of high profile business and government leaders who are usually, by every public metric, very successful. A sneer (or criticism, or observation) is just as good as the argument it presents, no more no less. People who are successful may have on average better insights into others that are as well, but you can still always judge the critique on its merits no matter who submits it. In this case, to refute Hanania's comments a good response would be to cite Musk's recent successes, as you've done. The comments on Hanania' lack of business success don't really address anything directly. (And in fact, I find it likely that he is, by this metric you've chosen, more successful than most commenters here, the forum you elect to participate in.)
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