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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   38491 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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Can you tell me more about these natural categories?

Human beings, like all mammals, reproduce sexually. The process requires contributions from two distinct categories of humans. The process output is a human who will develop to resemble and be one of these two distinct catagories unless interfered with by a disease or intention effort. This is all fundamental to human reproduction, it is a fact about humans. We call one of these groups, the ones who develop overaries, female or women. Without this process humans would cease to exist and this process requires there to be a meaningful distinction.

I don't really see how the pro-trans crowds goal is to discredit the concept of categories entirely. Indeed, it seems a central feature of their (our) arguments that there is a meaningful category called "women" and that it includes trans women. The anti-trans crowd clearly does not like this fact but it seems obvious to me the pro-trans crowd is not anti-categorization in some general way. We just want more complete and accurate categorizations for the purposes we think they should be put towards.

I suppose it would be more clear for me to say you want to discredit the concept of natural categories. That categories can be facts about the world. You favor treating catagories as totally arbitrary so that you can draw the boundaries wherever you please. But it's wrong, natural categories exist. It's not just arbitrary whim that causes us to differentiate oxygen from carbon dioxide and there are whole processes, that are very important to humans, that rely on these differences. If you give humans carbon dioxide instead of oxygen they will die. If you don't give plants carbon dioxide they will die.

You can of course propose other methods of categorization but you won't be cleaving reality nearly as neatly at the joints. In fact, as I said before your definition of "woman" necesarily contains my definition to avoid being totally circular, you've just tacked on a "also anyone who we would call a man but identifies as a woman" at the end.

But what you can't do is, after making this new arbitrary categorization, name it the same thing as the category we've been using with my definition this whole time and retroactively apply all the systems and assumptions we've built up under the original definition without having to get wide societal buy in. Women's sports were conceived and are predicated on my definition of woman, not your new one. If you want trans women in women's sports you need to make that case, not just play around with words. People do not like being manipulated and this tactic is so transparent.

Different people... do have different numbers of limbs!

But humans naturally have 4 limbs. Instances of people with some other number are exceptions where things have gone wrong. If nothing had gone wrong it would be in their nature to have 4 limbs. For the same reason a centipede with 4 limbs has had its nature subverted. This does not make the centipede more human like, it makes it an exception to centipedes. A man who mimics a woman is an except of the man case, not the woman case because it is in his nature to develop as a man. We can call this man a trans women if you'd like and if people are so inclined they can decide to use she/her pronouns - I myself would and have - but she is not a woman and cannot become one.

I am not sure what the "original intended purpose"

This is where it gets maddening. Are you seriously expecting me to believe you cannot fathom why we created woman's sports leagues?

Human beings, like all mammals, reproduce sexually. The process requires contributions from two distinct categories of humans. The process output is a human who will develop to resemble and be one of these two distinct catagories unless interfered with by a disease or intention effort. This is all fundamental to human reproduction, it is a fact about humans. We call one of these groups, the ones who develop overaries, female or women. Without this process humans would cease to exist and this process requires there to be a meaningful distinction.

Can you be more specific? What is it these humans develop to resemble? I'm also a little unclear on what is meant by "disease" in your description. I read "disease" as a stand in for "anything that causes humans to be different than my model of normal", which seems like it makes your definition tautological. "Humans develop into one of these normal categories unless something happens that makes them develop otherwise."

I suppose it would be more clear for me to say you want to discredit the concept of natural categories. That categories can be facts about the world. You favor treating catagories as totally arbitrary so that you can draw the boundaries wherever you please. But it's wrong, natural categories exist. It's not just arbitrary whim that causes us to differentiate oxygen from carbon dioxide and there are whole processes, that are very important to humans, that rely on these differences. If you give humans carbon dioxide instead of oxygen they will die. If you don't give plants carbon dioxide they will die.

I think I have been clear since the beginning I don't believe in natural categories, but not believing in natural categories doesn't make categories arbitrary. Categories are useful at serving various functions and we should draw the boundaries of the categories so they serve the function we want them to. The boundaries of the category are not arbitrary, but decided by the function we want to put the category to. Categories like "oxygen" and "carbon dioxide" are very useful, because the particular atoms and molecules so described share many properties that let us make useful inferences about them and manipulate them in various ways to our ends.

You can of course propose other methods of categorization but you won't be cleaving reality nearly as neatly at the joints. In fact, as I said before your definition of "woman" necesarily contains my definition to avoid being totally circular, you've just tacked on a "also anyone who we would call a man but identifies as a woman" at the end.

I disagree.

But what you can't do is, after making this new arbitrary categorization, name it the same thing as the category we've been using with my definition this whole time and retroactively apply all the systems and assumptions we've built up under the original definition without having to get wide societal buy in. Women's sports were conceived and are predicated on my definition of woman, not your new one. If you want trans women in women's sports you need to make that case, not just play around with words. People do not like being manipulated and this tactic is so transparent.

What is stopping me from doing this? More generally, part of the argument by the pro-trans side is that gender based categorizations on the basis of the presence of secondary sex characteristics, or appearance, or similar measures more closely track how the term "woman" has been used than a definition based on chromosomes or reproductive capacity. After all, sterile women are still women and we had a concept of "woman" long before we knew anything about chromosomes or gametes.

But humans naturally have 4 limbs. Instances of people with some other number are exceptions where things have gone wrong. If nothing had gone wrong it would be in their nature to have 4 limbs. For the same reason a centipede with 4 limbs has had its nature subverted. This does not make the centipede more human like, it makes it an exception to centipedes. A man who mimics a woman is an except of the man case, not the woman case because it is in his nature to develop as a man. We can call this man a trans women if you'd like and if people are so inclined they can decide to use she/her pronouns - I myself would and have - but she is not a woman and cannot become one.

Frankly, this is entirely too essentialist about humans for me. If someone had, say, a genetic abnormality that caused them to develop a different number of limbs it seems to me it would be in that individuals nature to have that different number of limbs. There might be commonalities of human experience and existence but whatever our "nature" is, it is in us not some metaphysical model from which we deviate.

This is where it gets maddening. Are you seriously expecting me to believe you cannot fathom why we created woman's sports leagues?

Who is "we"? I am skeptical that every women's sport league that ever was created was for the same reason.

Frankly, this is entirely too essentialist about humans for me. If someone had, say, a genetic abnormality that caused them to develop a different number of limbs it seems to me it would be in that individuals nature to have that different number of limbs. There might be commonalities of human experience and existence but whatever our "nature" is, it is in us not some metaphysical model from which we deviate.

A common assumption in this kind of discourse, taking after Plato I presume, is that there is an abstract, immaterial essence of humanness or manness or womanness which actual humans and men and women in the material world may reflect more or less perfectly, but which nevertheless exists independently of any physical instance. I think you reject this assumption, and if so I agree; it's one thing to speak of a typical human that has four limbs as a useful generalization, but humans with three or five limbs exist no less than humans with four, they are just fewer in number. If a rule has exceptions, it's because the rule fails to describe reality in full, not because reality fails to conform to the rule.

Can you be more specific? What is it these humans develop to resemble?

Sure. The two natural categories of human develop different features to facilitate their different contributions to reproduction. Most primarily and obviously the woman side develops ovaries and eggs and the equipment around which to facilitate the man category's ability to get sperms in contact with these eggs as well as structural differences to allow for the incubation of the offspring, wider hips and a pelvis capable of pass a baby. In addition to these primary traits women also develop secondary traits that also aid in the production of offspring, one of which the category of mammal gets it's name from, mammaries or breasts to feed young infants. Men naturally develop a different set of features in order to perform their role in reproduction primarily the prostate and semen as well as the equipment meant to aid in getting the semen in contact with the woman's eggs.

All these natural differences cause the two groups to have distinct appearances.

I'm also a little unclear on what is meant by "disease" in your description. I read "disease" as a stand in for "anything that causes humans to be different than my model of normal", which seems like it makes your definition tautological.

Disease is the deviation from natural development that impedes healthy function and development. Heart disease is the category of things that prevent, or reduces the ability for, the heart from perform it's vital task of pumping blood throughout the body. Likewise anything that interferes with humans to develop in such a way that their reproductive ability is prevented or retarded is a disease.

It's not just different, it's different in a way contrary to the function that the organs developed, or would have developed if not prevented from developing, to support. If lack of key nutrients caused an infant's heart to not pump blood resulting in the infant dying we do not conclude that hearts aren't necesarily meant to pump blood because in some situations they fail to. Nor do we say that the infant didn't have a heart. They did, just not a functioning one. We say that hearts are meant to pump blood but can fail, if the heart did not fail then it would have become a healthy heart that pumps blood. Likewise if there is some intersex condition we identify what went wrong in development to cause it, because something must have gone wrong.

I think I have been clear since the beginning I don't believe in natural categories, but not believing in natural categories doesn't make categories arbitrary.

This just strikes me as confused. Do you agree that there are facts about the world? Because these facts necesarily imply categorization. If we agree that atom exist and that atoms can have different stable configurations and that these different stable configuration constitute different materials and those materials have different properties then a categorization system simply follows. Carbon is different than oxygen. This is a natural category.

Categories like "oxygen" and "carbon dioxide" are very useful, because the particular atoms and molecules so described share many properties that let us make useful inferences about them and manipulate them in various ways to our ends.

Carbon and oxygen do not need you to acknowledge their natural category to have one. Carbon and oxygen have been behaving as distinct things far before there were any humans to name them and will continue to do so if we are no longer here. The same is true of mammalian sex. There is no kangaroo word for woman and yet the joeys find the self in their mother's pouch anyways. In communication we are forced to use words which are only maps of reality, but the purpose of the words is to faithfully describe reality. Reality contains categories. You are using language for a reason other than to describe reality for some means you find just. I get it, people appear to be suffering from a condition and desperately wish reality was different - I see the temptation to just lie about the mapping between words and reality. But it's a lie, a kind of linguistic defection.

I disagree.

You disagree that your definition of woman necessarily contains mine?

What is stopping me from doing this?

I suppose nothing is stopping you from trying. Just like nothing is stopping you from attempting to enforce a category of "healthy food" inclusive of human excrement. But I'm not going to eat it uncoerced.

sterile women are still women and we had a concept of "woman" long before we knew anything about chromosomes or gametes.

Sterile women, if not afflicted by a disease, would have developed into healthy non-sterile women. They are unfortunate exception that do not in any ways undermine the category.

Who is "we"? I am skeptical that every women's sport league that ever was created was for the same reason.

Give me three different plausible justifications.

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