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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30042 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 2023

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Websites like transgendermap.com, and apps like Shinigami Eyes tell you which sources of information are good, and which are bad, so you know who to avoid as a good practicing member, and who your friends will know to dismiss if you bring them up.

Why is it bad to give people more information to make a decision? That seems like the opposite of controlling information!

  • -11

I was referring to their profiles on critics of transgender medicine.

How did you miss the part where I said "tell you which sources of information are good, and which are bad, so you know who to avoid as a good practicing member, and who your friends will know to dismiss if you bring them up"? You quoted the text!

Well the way you phrased your comment made it sound like transgendermap or Shinigami Eyes were themselves the problem, rather than the way people use them.

They are themselves the problem. Shinigami Eyes is literally an app for marking social media accounts as TERFs so you can dismiss them (at best). Likewise the problem with the profiles written by transgendermap.com isn't the people who read them, it's the people who write them. Their entire purpose is to demonize the critics of gender medicine.

This still sounds like an objection of the way people use the tools. The demonization or dismissal are the issue. There is nothing that forces someone to dismiss (or take seriously) a person or website on the basis of Shinigami Eye's evaluation. Similarly there's nothing that forces people to demonize those profiled on transgender map.

Their entire purpose is to demonize the critics of gender medicine.

This do not seem to be true, to me. The profile you linked identifies specific beliefs O'Malley has that the website considers anti-trans. Specific groups she's affiliated with that the website believes oppose trans writes. It links to outside resources as citations for these claims and even links directly to a number of social media and other websites operated by O'Malley herself so people can do their own evaluation.

This still sounds like an objection of the way people use the tools. The demonization or dismissal are the issue. There is nothing that forces someone to dismiss (or take seriously) a person or website on the basis of Shinigami Eye's evaluation. Similarly there's nothing that forces people to demonize those profiled on transgender map.

At this point I have to ask you, how do you think cults do control of information?

This do not seem to be true, to me. The profile you linked identifies specific beliefs O'Malley has that the website considers anti-trans. Specific groups she's affiliated with that the website believes oppose trans writes. It links to outside resources as citations for these claims and even links directly to a number of social media and other websites operated by O'Malley herself so people can

...dismiss her, and all the groups she's involved in, without ever engaging with them directly.

At this point I have to ask you, how do you think cults do control of information?

They encourage people to use cult-approved sources of information, generally other sources inside the cult, and disapprove or punish the acquisition of information from non-approved sources. The fact that transgendermap links directly to O'Mally, in her own words, seems quite the opposite of that.

They encourage people to use cult-approved sources of information, generally other sources inside the cult, and disapprove or punish the acquisition of information from non-approved sources.

Not quite. Discouraging even looking at outsider information is too obvious (contrary to popular belief, the typical victim of a cult is pretty intelligent), so what you actually want to do is convince your followers that a certain class of arguments is evil. That way they'll stop themselves from considering the arguments without the impression they're being prevented from looking at something.

You'll notice that you yourself have pointed out O'Mally's positions are "anti-trans" according to the website, even though in itself there's nothing anti-trans about "disease models", "gatekeeping", or ROGD (or even "LGB without the T" though I can grant that it's more debatable).

The fact that transgendermap links directly to O'Mally, in her own words, seems quite the opposite of that.

It's funny you should say that. Every single link on that page links to another page on the website itself, not to primary sources where O'Malley explains her positions in her own words. The only direct link to her material is a link to the homepage of her personal website, but by that doesn't help you find what her arguments about the mentioned positions are, and point the well is poisoned anyway.

BTW, do you think that portrait on top is neutral and accurate, or might be at all caricatured?

You'll notice that you yourself have pointed out O'Mally's positions are "anti-trans" according to the website, even though in itself there's nothing anti-trans about "disease models", "gatekeeping", or ROGD (or even "LGB without the T" though I can grant that it's more debatable).

That's why the descriptions of those positions link to other articles explaining why they're anti-trans. Maybe you don't think they're anti-trans but the site authors do and link to specific arguments for why they think that.

It's funny you should say that. Every single link on that page links to another page on the website itself, not to primary sources where O'Malley explains her positions in her own words. The only direct link to her material is a link to the homepage of her personal website, but by that point the well is poisoned.

This is just false? In addition to the link to O'Malley's own site it contains a link to Beyond WPATH. An anti-WPATH declaration of which O'Malley is a signatory. As well as O'Malley's Twitter, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Substack, YouTube and more. As I write this there are five articles about trans issues, four of them about ROGD, on the first page of the substack as I write this. If people want to read O'Malley's beliefs about trans people in her own words, transgendermap has told them where to go!

BTW, do you think that portrait on top is neutral and accurate, or might be at all caricatured?

Relevance?

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You're all for the app that marks social media accounts as Jewish then, presumably?

What do you imagine my objection to this app would be?

That's interesting - I'd personally find it distasteful at best but can't but into a short sentence why. Let me think on it

Are we talking about the jew finder or the TERF finder? For starters, being ethnically jewish isn't a choice.

It breaks the gentlemen's agreement that a pseudonym you encounter for the first time online is a blank slate.

Outside of 4chan and a handful of other places, that gentleman's agreement disappeared 10+ years ago when mass adoption of smartphones enabled normies to use the internet easily.

I can. It's coordinating meanness against people who don't deserve it. That's always a bad thing.

I suspect this is tongue in cheek, but one wonders about the gish-gallop style of rebuttal that takes place here in contrast to debate on the substantive issues.

I'm lost, who's doing "Gish gallop debunking"?

Im over generalising and it's not the right term probably. I mean picking at the margins, like the 'well that doesn't sound exactly like a cult to me', when the OP was making parallels. Or, pointing out how rare it is, when the argument is not about volume.

It's not arguing the substantive points but rather deflecting in a manner that can be defended as being a legitimate argument, this hiding the true motive.

I may be projecting however...

Oh, that's fair enough as a criticism, but yeah "gish gallop" usually refers to spamming with sources in hopes of their sheer volume leaving your opponent unable to respond.

Yes, it's not the right term, I agree.

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