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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   26353 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 8, 2024

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Your attempt to leverage semantics in your favor (e.g. via the word "penalize" vs "exclude") doesn't actually defeat the basic claim about the status quo.

Yeah that's why my literal next sentence was saying this is pointless semantic games and we should use an empirical metric instead.

I've been suggesting win/loss record statistics as an unambiguous and definitive empirical metric here, so we can ignore all teh rhetorical games and just decide the matter on facts. I'd love to get more engagement on that actual proposal.

I've been suggesting win/loss record statistics as an unambiguous and definitive empirical metric here, so we can ignore all teh rhetorical games and just decide the matter on facts.

Per your claim, the situation of fact is that we don't have good evidence, so we need to decide what to do as a default until we attain it, whether the burden of proof is on excluding or allowing transwomen in. You are the one who started rhetorical games about "women on women's sports", weaponizing the ambiguity of "woman", with regards to that.

And you are the one playing rhetorical games conflating 'male' and 'man' with regards to that.

The entire trans debate is about language and classification. Everything is always going to end up being an arbitrary semantic game, if you don't agree ahead of time on some empirical metric to use to settle the issue. That's why I'm advancing one.

And I don't say they should be allowed to play women's sports because they're women, I've said repeatedly that we should default to a policy of maximum liberty and freedom until we find compelling evidence of a conflicting interest. That's a bog-standard libertarian argument that you are ignoring.

Everything is always going to end up being an arbitrary semantic game,

not really, something does not end up playing semantic games. What ends in a semantic game, might have been a semantic game from start.

Why can't we have both sport leagues which include transwomen and ciswomen and sport leagues which accept cis women only? Why should they sport fans be subjected of intellectuals' effort?

And you are the one playing rhetorical games conflating 'male' and 'man' with regards to that.

No, I'm not. I have consistently been talking about biology, and I have made it explicit where necessary (by pointing out that sports divisions, which use the terms "men" and "women", are about biology.)

I'd like you to retract that accusation and apologize.

Everything is always going to end up being an arbitrary semantic game, if you don't agree ahead of time on some empirical metric to use to settle the issue.

That's one of the arguments you made, but not the one discussed in this comment thread.

Respond to the actual points made. Don't jump around between different arguments when you can't defend the one at hand.

I've said repeatedly that we should default to a policy of maximum liberty and freedom until we find compelling evidence of a conflicting interest. That's a bog-standard libertarian argument that you are ignoring.

I'm not ignoring it, you're ignoring my counterargument upthread:

The proof is easily given though: We have male biology. The burden of proof now shifts to the affirmative defense of "in this case the effects of male biology don't apply".

We have good evidence that male need to be excluded from female competition. We would now need evidence that these particular kind of males do not.

(by pointing out that sports divisions, which use the terms "men" and "women", are about biology.)

Right, saying that 'Mens team' means 'Males team' is the conflation.

The burden of proof now shifts to the affirmative defense of "in this case the effects of male biology don't apply".

Yes that is literally the thing that my entire initial comment was doing.

Right, saying that 'Mens team' means 'Males team' is the conflation.

I explicitly made an argument as to why this is the case, without even referencing the term "Men". There's no conflation.

I also made sure to avoid terms like "men" or "women" when they were potentially ambiguous, so asking again for your retraction and apology.

Yes that is literally the thing that my entire initial comment was doing.

So to be clear, you are accepting that the burden of proof lies on the trans-inclusive position and conceding your argument of

Since no one has ever demonstrated a statistical advantage in win/loss records and we have weak priors about innate ability, we should assume then null hypothesis for now and let trans women compete. If that leads to gathering enough data to demonstrate an unfair advantage some day, then we'll have a legitimate reason to revisit that decision.

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