This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Well it's not just the popular one, it's the scientific one. When biologists or geneticists refer to sex this is technically speaking what they mean. And it's not a human specific thing.
I think the xx/xy chromosome one is actually more "popular" because this is what people remember from high school and it's true 99% of the time, but sex is not which chromosome you have it's the trait that conditions which type of gametes an organism produces.
Technically speaking it's improper to say organisms that produce no gametes have a "sex" since it's a category error, they don't engage in sexual reproduction and have therefore no such trait. It's like asking what color is the number 42.
But it does work for social purposes, so adding a null option to our boolean is a common implementation detail, but so is defaulting to the previous value or to some readily apparent characteristics when you're not sure.
Are you sure? I've always had the sense that cluster of traits definitions were most common in biology and genetics. While I don't like such definitions as the "lie to children" version we teach most people, I do admit that something like the following process:
Is going to be a fairly reliable method, and a scientist will be able to plug a new data point in and identify what cluster it belongs to the vast majority of the time. It just doesn't really produce an easy, human-learnable rule for dealing with edge cases.
I have considered that, but it doesn't work since Trump's EO eliminates the X category and mandates everyone either be classed as male or female.
No. I am certain.
Administrative sex is a social category that has different imperatives to the scientific definition. The healthcare and genetic identification implications are more important because for the purposes of government, sex bestows special rights and is used to establish identity.
I think the EO has more to do with a reaction to the queer political strategy that expressly attempts to dissolve sex as a category by reducing its political expressions to absurdity. But we're leaving the topic of a coherent definition and entering that of politics.
Bacteria are not of neuter sex, they do not have a sex. It's the bureaucrat that is compelled to fill the empty square on the official document. Not the scientist, not the philosopher.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link