domain:open.substack.com?page=0
jkf
5hr ago
communal showers i’m pretty sure went out of style due to increasing wealth making individual stalls more affordable.
Don't think so Tim -- at my high school the girls changeroom had separate stalls, while the boys' was prison-style. (but with nicer tile-work)
Fairly sure it wouldn't have killed the school budget to build the male changeroom to the same specs -- this is just what locker rooms were supposed to be like. (for bonding or something? IDK)
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
5hr ago
... because the other side called him a doge before they had a cause; if he is a doge, beware his fanges. (wow. very revenge plot. which caskete choose? argument much clever.)
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
5hr ago
I wonder how many of them ever un-ironically used that line about those accustomed to privilege perceiving equality as oppression....
jkf
5hr ago
It certainly dropped an impressive array of fireworks, with no apparent defensive response...
chooky
6hr ago
This is getting at one of my questions for the OP - what exactly is meant by "biological" and "trans"?
To me, an MtF "woman" lacks a penis and testicles. Does the calculus change if that is what "trans" means? In general, I am pretty much of the opinion that this is not an area in which the government should get involved, thougb I am grateful for an effect of previous bathroom controversies being that most restaurants and bars changed to genderless bathrooms, making it more likely that there won't be a line. However, lacking a penis seems like a reasonable standard for someone being allowed entry into the women's bathroom regardless of sex at birth.
Rov_Scam
6hr ago
But, we're starting to see fans catch on: the league achieves parity over time by making it impossible to keep a great team together. Instead teams go all in for a championship run, then rebuild. The result is more teams than ever aren't even really trying to be good at football, and fans tune out.
It's still better than the alternative, though. In 35 years as a Pirates fan I've experienced exactly 6 playoff appearances (1990–1992, 2013–2015), one winning season where they didn't make the playoffs (2018), and a handful more that were worth paying attention to at some point (1997, 2003 (April only), 2005 (Early June only), 2011, 2012, 2016, 2023, 2024). The rest were all over before they even started. Yet I watched anyway, hoping something would happen, hoping they'd turn the corner. Prior to their 2013 playoff appearance I made a list of all the little things we'd suffered through as Pirates fans over the course of 20 losing seasons. I put together an all-time 20 years of losing commemorative team, full of players who personified 20 years of losing. I'm accused of my family of either being insincere or an idiot for continuing to pay attention. Mostly, though, no one cares. The Pirates continue to exist primarily as an inexpensive pro-sports option for families. Kids watch until they are old enough to understand that the team sucks and isn't worth watching.
Winning does not rectify this. Every time the team appears to be having a decent season, there's a loud chorus warning that the success is ephemeral; don't get used to it. During their string of winning seasons in 2013–2015, people still said that the best we could hope for was a few winning seasons per decade. Even if the team won the World Series, all we'd hear about is that it's a fluke, like the Marlins, and that Nutting would soon sell off the team, like the Marlins. Granted, Bob Nutting is part of the problem, but if the league were actually concerned about parity and had a structure akin to the NFL, there would at least be some incentive for him to try to have a winning team.
The thing about NFL rebuilds is that they're at least short enough that they're fun to watch in real time. Granted, as a Steelers fan my team will never rebuild (or at least never admit to it), but there was always a reason to watch. Will Mitch Trubisky perform better than geriatric Ben? Is Kenny Pickett the answer? How will Russ and Justin do? Will the defense be enough to compensate for an anemic offense? Elsewhere, no one expected the Commanders to turn it around as quickly as they did. No one expected the Bengals to do the same a few years earlier. The Patriots suck, but there's reason for optimism. I'd much rather have this than a league where every decade there are like 5 good teams, a few teams that will occasionally make the playoffs, and a hige raft of incompetents.
Look at the NFL in the '70s. The Steelers, Dolphins, Raiders, Cowboys, Vikings, Rams, and maybe Redskins were good. Then you had teams like the Colts, Broncos, Browns, and Oilers that were kind of good, sometimes. Then you had everyone else, who largely spent the decade in obscurity. the New York Giants did not make a single playoff appearance between 1964 and 1980. The Jets didn't make one between 1970 and 1980. The Patriots made 6 total playoff appearances (AFL included) between their inception in 1960 and the introduction of the salary cap in 1994. As I mentioned in my post below, the Steelers made the playoffs once in their first 40 years in the league.
A better example may be the NHL during the Dead Puck Era. You had New Jersey, Detroit, Colorado, Dallas, and maybe Philadelphia as legitimate cup contenders. The Sabres almost wone won but that was due to Hasek more than anything else. Even teams like the Penguins who consistently made the playoffs were never expected to do much. Look at the rosters and those teams were stacked. The other playoff regulars had a few stars but got thin quickly, and a bunch of teams had nobody. This is a big reason why Gary Bettman takes so much heat over expansion; everyone points to how long it took to get hockey going in the new markets, but most of the time those markets had very little to root for.
quiet_NaN
6hr ago
I do not think that describing trans women as 'men with a cross dressing fetish' is very close to reality.
There is a small fraction of people who are genuinely very uncomfortable with their biological gender. They sometimes take hormones, get surgery and go through byzantine legal processes to change their legal gender. They kill themselves at elevated rates when forced to conform to their biological gender. This is not just some kink.
Different cultures have dealt differently with non-conformists of all sorts. Killing them at the earliest opportunity is certainly a popular choice.
Modern liberal democracies generally frown on that and try to do better than just applying whatever solution would suit the majority of people. We don't accept "most straight men would prefer if they knew for certain that the man peeing next to them was not sexually attracted to them" as an excuse to kill all the gays and bisexuals, or even kick them out of the military.
The bathroom issue is simply an issue of trade-offs. Having to use a gendered bathroom which belongs to a gender one does not identify as clearly can be humiliating. Imagine getting told that you are too small or weak to qualify for the men's bathroom, or that you are too large, ugly or flat-chested to qualify for the women's bathroom.
On the other hand, there is both a perception of danger if people who are not cis-women are allowed in women's bathroom as well as possibly some actual danger.
I think that the actual danger is over-rated. With the possible exception of Hogwarts, gender restrictions in bathrooms are not strictly enforced. Someone who is entering a women's bathroom to commit rape is unlikely to care that he will also break some trivial statute about not going to the women's bathroom. Nor would punishing someone who disregards the gender sign on a bathroom (for example, to avoid waiting time) with a lengthy prison sentence be proportionate.
There will probably be some sick fucks who like to jerk off in the women's bathroom who can use the excuse 'but you see, I actually identify as a woman' if they are seen entering or exiting, but this is a lesser concern.
At the end of the day, it is a numbers game. If half of the rapes are committed by men in women's bathrooms who had previously invoked their gender identity as an excuse to be there, then I would agree that this was a huge fucking problem and we should restrict access to improve women's safety.
As things stand, I don't think it is a huge practical issue. At the risk of sounding like some woke, I think most women I know would very much prefer having to share their bathrooms with trans women to losing access to abortions.
A decade ago, Scott argued for drawing a more complex gender boundary than 'has Y-chromosome' as a cheap and easy way to improve outcomes for a lot of people. I think that his article is still spot on.
I think that the bathroom safety argument frequently is used by anti-trans people not because preventing rapes is their first and foremost concern, but because it is one of the few issues with trans rights that the average person will care about.
ChickenOverlord
6hr ago
I'm not sure what standard practice here is supposed to be (or perhaps ought to be), but Bill Cosby's conviction got overturned for similar reasons. And his was definitely less politically charged than Smollett's despite being related to the whole #metoo movement.
jkf
6hr ago
Maybe -- but this is the same thing as saying 'men who commit to physical transition don't do so for AGP reasons'. Which I'm pretty skeptical of, given the prominent examples. I'd be surprised if Bruce Jenner didn't have at least aspects of this for instance.
the ones who do are generally disturbed and disregulated enough that they'll get themselves into trouble with undeniably inappropriate behavior pretty quickly.
Either that or they reshape society such that people who complain about their inappropriate behaviour are the ones who get into trouble!
chooky
6hr ago
I think its more that they erred horribly by trying to make Messenger standalone instead of keeping Facebook messages effortless and having messages by a draw to keep young people on facebook.
ControlsFreak
6hr ago
Testosterone/Estrogen
Ok, great. Let's start here. What I'm missing in your comment is an argument concerning anything having to do with it. You just named the substance. What's the argument?
SSCReader
6hr ago
but you need to realize that your fetish is your own fetish,
Well first you have to establish it is a fetish, which you haven't done here. Assume for a second it isn't a fetish. Assume that there are people who are born into the "wrong body" and this person is one of them. How would that change the framing of your argument? And your understanding of the argument, people who disagree with you are making?
Because the alternative could be "Your belief it is a fetish, is your own bias, and shouldn't be imposed on trans-women just trying to exist. Just let them have the bathroom FFS".
Your argument need some kind of underpinning otherwise, it can simply be turned back around on you. It hasn't any logical construction. Not saying you are wrong, but your argument is just not very good so far. You need to buttress it.
Spez1alEd
6hr ago
The male/female dynamic to me appears to very closely mirror the adult/child dynamic and I'm not sure why more people don't frame it this way. Most norms or policies that are criticised as misogynistic are really more paternalistic in my estimation, based on the intuition that women aren't as strong, capable or accountable and so are in need of special protection and consideration from men, who might even be asked to sacrifice their lives, but on the flip side people traditionally see men as much more capable and agentic and independent and generally worth taking seriously.
Women benefit a lot from this dynamic obviously and it's even embedded in a lot of progressive ideas and campaigns if unwittingly, but you can see how it's not exactly as flattering to them as it might first appear, framing them as more of a beloved subordinate than a respected equal.
FiveHourMarathon
Listen to Pierre
6hr ago
As for people being naked in locker rooms, I'd be happy to see the practice die out. Trans people or not. I don't wanna be looking at random dick and balls. It's the old men who're the worst. Dude, don't spread your legs on the bench to clean your saggy balls, and what the fuck's up with being naked while having socks on !! Please No !
You're wrong, this argument is bad, and the intense modesty that leads to men never seeing other men naked is making the world a worse place. Men should be able to be naked in the locker room without shame. Seeing other men naked reduces body anxiety, not seeing other men naked produces it.
Incognito
6hr ago
Bluesky is just the left-wing version of Truth Social. I thought that was intentionally obvious, with "Blue" right there in the name.
Throwaway05
6hr ago
Testosterone/Estrogen (for hormone replacement, not trans issues). Any scheduled or formerly scheduled substances. Any medication with significant CYP interactions or other related interactions. Any drug that requires lab work and/or monitoring. Any medication that can impact renal or hepatic function if used chronically or to excess acutely. Any drug that makes someone feel good in a non-addictive way but causes significant side effects like steroids.
And that's just taking 30 seconds. Do you know which drugs you'd want to prescribe yourself show up in which categories? Do you have any idea the number of ways you could kill yourself or cause yourself permanent harm?
No.
We had a guy on here a few weeks ago who describing Tylenol usage that could have easily gotten him killed in a slow and agonizingly painful way, and this forum is mostly stuffed with high intellect and education people. And Tylenol is over the counter...
You have no idea what you don't know.
I have seen plenty of patient mortality and morbidity associated with misuse of prescribed medications, bullying NPs into giving them non-indicated medication, or outright ordering meds from another country. And that's right now with the safeguards we have in place.
FiveHourMarathon
Listen to Pierre
7hr ago
When people talk about "when trans person X passes," I don't think they tend to mean "when trans person X only interacts with or notices people who will treat them in a certain way," but rather "when trans person X presents in such a way as to meet some sort of threshold in how others perceive their gender."
In my mind "passing" is normally used to refer to some mix of:
Strong Passing: your average observer can't tell that the person is trans.
Weak Passing: your average observer knows the person is trans, but its close enough that their existence isn't uncomfortable, their intention is obvious, and most polite people will treat them as the target gender.
My point about trans people experiencing passing is that there's no difference between the two for a trans person going about their day. When I work with the public, I run into trans people who pass weakly, treated them like their target gender so as not to make a day out of it, and moved on. If I ran into a person who passed Strongly, so that I had no idea they were trans, I would have treated them exactly the same way, politely treated them as their target gender and moved on. From the perspective of a trans person, these two things are mostly indistinguishable until you get to a problem like "getting a date" or something like that.
From the perspective of the observer, these are very different experiences.
Where conflict results is from people trying to motte and bailey the definitions and lived experiences against each other.
Throwaway05
7hr ago
Metformin is seemingly more benign than statins (which have a bigger argument) but has a few significant drug interactions and a bunch of hypothetical (read: hotly debated) kidney and Lactic Acidosis issues.
Most otherwise safe medications have COVID vaccine problems - you give em to the entire population and weird shit starts happen. One in a million side effects happen hundreds of times.
Ponder
7hr ago
Awakening from the Meaning Crisis is what came to my mind too. The first 25 lectures are also now in book format. I think the book presents the material in an even better way because John gained additional experience in communicating the material since the lecture series.
I am curious how the series practically improved your life? For me it provided deep insights into modern problems and explained how we need an ecology of practices to address them. We need to go deeper than propositional knowledge (statements that are true or false) and utilize the other ways of knowing (procedural, perspectival, and participatory). One thing I'm kind of stuck on is the Philosophical Silk Road (in the lecture series it is the idea about a Religion that is not a Religion). I see the necessity of distributed cognition (i.e. collective intelligence), but I haven't had success in finding a like-minded group of people locally that is interested in John's work.
@roche Episode 8 (The Buddha and "Mindfulness"),9 (Insight), and 11+12 (Higher States of Consciousness) are particularly relevant to your post.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
7hr ago
More comprehensive tl;dr (text of decision):
-
A grand jury is led by the county prosecutor to indict Smollett on 16 counts of felony disorderly conduct (falsifying evidence).
-
The county prosecutor recuses herself and appoints an assistant county prosecutor to replace her in this case as "acting county prosecutor". The assistant county prosecutor decides to drop the case (nolle prosequi) in exchange for 10 k$ of restitution (less than 10 percent of the overtime pay spent by the Chicago police on investigating this case) and 15 hours of community service, all of which Smollett has already provided. Smollett will not even be required to admit guilt.
-
A third party moves to disregard the assistant county prosecutor's actions and appoint a special prosecutor. The third party argues that, when the county prosecutor recused herself, she was required by law to appoint a special prosecutor in her stead, and had no authority to appoint an assistant county prosecutor to the nonexistent position of "acting county prosecutor". The trial judge agrees and appoints a special prosecutor.
-
A new grand jury is led by the special prosecutor to indict Smollett on six counts of felony disorderly conduct. Smollett moves to dismiss the indictment, arguing that starting a new prosecution after entering into a nonprosecution agreement of which the defendant held up his end is a violation of the constitutional prohibition of double jeopardy. The trial judge denies the motion. A nolle prosequi is presumed to be a unilateral and non-final decision rather than a formal nonprosecution agreement (dismissal with prejudice) that triggers double jeopardy if reneged upon (like what Bill Cosby received in Pennsylvania), and in this case there is not enough evidence of a bilateral agreement to overcome that presumption. Smollett is convicted on five of the six counts, and is sentenced to 5 months of county jail, 25 months of probation, 25 k$ of fines, and 120 k$ of restitution (the aforementioned overtime pay). A majority of the appeals panel affirms the trial judge's analysis.
-
The Illinois Supreme Court unanimously reverses. (1) In this case, from the wording that the assistant county prosecutor used, it is apparent that a bilateral agreement had been reached between the assistant county prosecutor and Smollett, and that the parties intended the agreement to be final. Under these circumstances, the fact that the charges technically were merely nolle prosequied rather than being dismissed with prejudice does not matter. Call it a "bilateral nolle prosequi". (2) Smollett himself never argued that the assistant county prosecutor's appointment was unlawful. Rather, he relied on the idea that the appointment was lawful in obtaining the bilateral nolle prosequi. Therefore, the third party was not entitled to suggest that the appointment was unlawful in order to cancel Smollett's bilateral nolle prosequi.
We are aware that this case has generated significant public interest and that many people were dissatisfied with the resolution of the original case and believed it to be unjust. Nevertheless, what would be more unjust than the resolution of any one criminal case would be a holding from this court that the State was not bound to honor agreements upon which people have detrimentally relied. As the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania recently stated [in the Bill Cosby case] when enforcing a prosecutorial promise not to prosecute:
It cannot be gainsaid that society holds a strong interest in the prosecution of crimes. It is also true that no such interest, however important, ever can eclipse society’s interest in ensuring that the constitutional rights of the people are vindicated. Society’s interest in prosecution does not displace the remedy due to constitutionally aggrieved persons.
That court further noted the consequences of failing to enforce prosecutorial promises when a defendant has relied on them to his detriment:
A contrary result would be patently untenable. It would violate long-cherished principles of fundamental fairness. It would be antithetical to, and corrosive of, the integrity and functionality of the criminal justice system that we strive to maintain.
Okay, so you have crafted a hypothetical situation where police wouldn't have probable cause to arrest a person who is guilty? Now what?
This doesn't mean the law is unenforceable, it doesn't even mean this law is special. There are dozens of laws which are hard to prove, especially when not witnessed by a cop, and sometimes the cop goes to investigate it starting with a "voluntary" talk and the person doesn't given them the necessary evidence for there to be probable cause for arrest despite that person being guilty. Are those other laws unenforceable, despite hundreds of people being arrested and prosecuted for them daily in the US?
What constitutes probable cause for a search, arrest, detention, etc. if a cop smells marijuana? Well, how much of a smell? What kind of smell? From where was the smell? Funny enough, all of these quandaries were answered and guidelines were produced as to what was enough to constitute various standards of suspicion. Institutes of serious training were created so officers could get a certificate of expertise in the smelling of drugs.
It turns out the court system is capable of coming up with answers, however unsatisfactory, to answer this sort of string of questions which look more like an attempt to overwhelm to stop them from trying as opposed to informing. These aren't actually hard questions to answer and enforcement of such a law could be just like every other law which is regularly enforced all over the country. All that is necessary is the will to expend resources to enforce them.
Whether or not these laws or weed laws are stupid is another question, but it hardly makes these laws special or these questions some sort of unique hurdle for enforcement.
dovetailing
7hr ago
dovetailing
7hr ago
I checked out that archival link to 4chan. I have to say, there definitely is a heavy selection effect going on there, but at least it's a different one than the the other places I've looked.
I find 4chan slang and culture to be extremely offputting, but a certain subset of the population there at least has the "brutally honest" thing going. (Or maybe they're being hyperbolic or making shit up for fun. Hard to tell sometimes...)
hydroacetylene
7hr ago
My grandfather, back during segregation, conspicuously used the colored bathroom many a time. Nothing was ever done because no one gave a shit(it, uh, might have been different the other direction, but a wage slave at a store has Better Things To Do than get in a confrontation with a customer so lots of them presumably got away with that too- I think some of the segregation cases involved blacks who got away with using the white section over and over again before anyone called them on it).
Of course the real benefit to these laws from a red state perspective is it makes it impossible for blue cities to force bathrooms to be gender neutral.
I don't understand at all what you're trying to convey with this comment other than the first part.
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