Grrl Power #932 – Designing women
And here we are, the end of the Times Square arc. It honestly took quite a bit longer than I thought it would, but I could probably say that about any storyline in the comic, so at least I’m consistent in that regard.
Apparently that escape pod has a restroom equipped with a urinal. I think that’s a weird choice, but I guess Ray Cosmos has his preferences. I think you have to have a lot of faith in your artificial gravity technology to install a urinal on little ship like that. Well, unless your urinal has micro-singularity technology, in which case the margin of aim would be wider than with your standard urinal, depending of course on just how micro the singularity is.
Romulan ships power their warp-drives with singularities. You think they also use them as garbage disposals, or would that annoy the chief engineer because “the singularity needs to be perfectly balance or else the ship will be sucked into it.” Whiner.
The gender select screen is actually full of icons from just Earth genders. I couldn’t tell you what the majority of them represent, but I do hope the one that looks like a hurricane icon on weather maps is a really cool gender. Like, if there’s a gender called “Here I am,” then that’s the icon they should use. Anyway, that’s just some of the genders we have on Earth, (I think there might be as many as twice that), and we just have two biological sexes. Imagine how many gender identities there might be for a race that has three biological sexes. Like Xenomorphs. “Uh, actually, I’m a backburster. I had an uncle that was a craniumburster, but really, who wants to do that much digging?”
Of course, now that I’m writing this, the MeatBlanks site shouldn’t have Gender Selection, they should really only have Sex selection. Sex being physical set of attributes and gender being mental or emotional. The Flame-Demon-Thing provides the emotional stuff, MeatBlanks is just providing the chassis. Still, I’m sure we’ve all seen enough pictures on the internet to know that there’d be like… I don’t know, seven possible combinations of male and female equipment? A dozen? Now imagine including all kinds of stamens and tentacles and every other possible variation you’d need for a comprehensive alien customer base. The Sex options list would be pretty insanely large.
Fun fact, the mosaic effects in panel seven are pictures of pizza.
The new vote incentive isn’t quite ready yet. I tried something different this month – instead of doing one well painted picture with a bunch of dress variants, I wanted to tell a bit of a story with this one, so instead of one picture, you guys are getting seven or eight. The art is a little streamlined cause there’s only so much time in a month. Still, I miscalculated slightly, but I’ll have them up by this weekend or with Monday’s comic at the latest.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Was that all just for the stort staw joke? ;)
It’s about the journey, not the destination.
*Short Straw*
Would help if I could type/spell! Sheesh!
The whole Times Square trip was a setup for this single joke.
No, I just thought of it as I was writing the final panel. :)
(Psst! Dave, you don’t explain the joke until AFTER April Fools’!)
Well timed for April fools though.
Cue the woke snowflakes who will claim to be offended because their favorite imaginary gender isn’t on the selection screen.
Why don’t you go play in traffic?
Pretty sure that if you’re the one being pre-emptively offended by some hypothetically offended hypothetical people, you’re the snowflake dude.
For god’s sake, you’re all idiots.
Move on.
Also, pretty sure most of those symbols are actually made up. Apart from the first three as far as I know anyways.
Male, Female, Intersex/Non-Binary.
On some small research, there’s a few more that exist, but at least half of those really don’t mean anything that I can find.
Most of the rest that exist are Transgender ones dependant on your birth gender, your chosen gender, if you’ve had the operation, etc.
Actually kinda interesting. To me anyways.
It’s really a non-issue here, regardless of which side of the debate you land on re: genders, when you literally have a species that can custom build their body, I’m assuming to the genetic level, and that body is already non-human.
Think it would have to be genetic level, if the bond with the host is really going to be effective. You’d either want full hormonal and epigenetic integration, or nearly none at all. Anything in the middle would seriously mess with hormone cycles and neurological processes.
All I’m saying is any argument about the whole gender thing is pointless, since there’s no way to correlate it with human RL stuff of ‘gender is a spectrum’ vs ‘they’re all trying to be speshul snowflakes’ arguments.
Mainly because Lapha is choosing a biological body anyway, made with advanced alien technology, of an alien body itself (ie, not human, let alone getting into gender questions), plus anyone who argues about sex vs gender would have to admit that anything dealing with any mental, psychological, behavioral, or spiritual aspects would be in the flame thing anyway, not in whatever body she builds and purchases.
We don’t know what Lapha’s body is like, or how its hormones work, or if it has hormones that are in any way similar to a human, since a lot of stuff might just be contained within the flame anyway.
So the entire idea of arguing about this is a moot point, since it would have nothing to do with anything in the comic anyway. And you know me, I’m all for a good argument at the drop of a hat, but I like it to be at least somewhat relevant, and I just don’t see how that sort of argument would be relevant since an alien’s biology like Lapha is likely significantly different than a humans, especially when her consciousness and personality and mental abilities are contained in something other than her biological body, apparently. There’s no reason to assume that any gender questions would not also be contained in the flame as well, since some people are arguing about ‘gender is in the mind, sex is in the body.’ If the flame’s the mind, then it doesnt matter what’s the body is.
Hence not worth arguing about.
And I just wrote a rather long post now about why I shouldnt write a rather long post about this. :)
Totally agree that we can’t map Terran gender issues into alien physiology / psychology, it just me thinking about the technical issues (which are nearly always more interesting and have actual answers). But you’re welcome for the nerd snipe. :D
Nerd sniping seems a lot like the whole myth of spilling a jar of rice in front of a vampire to make them have to pick up each grain until the sun comes up (vampires having some sort of OCD in mythology) :)
Sadly, we can’t simplify it at times. I mean, I understood the initial post, and I agreed at first blush. But certain compact/complex statements aren’t so easily conveyed to some.
I dunno, it just seems pretty simple to me that this wouldnt have anything to do with any of the arguments people give in the whole ‘gender is a spectrum’ argument when the person in question is ….
a disembodied alien in a flame (who was formerly in what I’m assuming was a female-but-alien body), currently inhabiting a male reptile alien, choosing a custom-built body blank.
Pretty sure that scenario just doesnt have ANY sort of comparison to anything human at that point. :)
Politics, man. Try to make a reasoned intellectual argument and the quality of the replies will be something like “but Youtube said…” Most people aren’t naturally that stupid; they intentionally dumb themselves down so they can keep arguing their nonsensical points sans self-reflection. It’s a harmful trait of humanity that we do this so easily.
And yet the word “gender” was used to describe some aspect of a non-human character, which prompts comparisons to what the word means with regards to humans.
If we can comprehend a work of fiction, then we can compare it to our own circumstances, and perhaps gain greater understanding of what is or what could be. Splitting bundled concepts that are generally inseparable in our own experiences, and allowing us to examine the pieces on their own, is one of the great strengths of fiction.
But there is not actually a comparison we can make because humans do not work like however Lapha’s species works. We do not have separable tangible and intangible parts. At least not yet. Our intangible elements are inextricably bundled up with our meat-parts.
So no, it’s rather difficult to compare this to a human. It’s like comparing a facehugger from Aliens to human copulation. It doesnt work even remotely the same way, so I’m not sure what the point of the argument would be. The closest I can come to a comparison to real life on this is something like a ‘virtual world’ like Second Life. Although that’s sort of the direct opposite – us having a different persona as data, rather than data having a different persona as a ‘meat chassis’ as it’s been described now a couple of times.
I just don’t see a good analogy of what Lapha is doing with anything that a human can actually experience with our current technology and biological constraints.
It’s weird that I’m dedicating so much posting to arguing that this entire argument isnt worth arguing.
I’m arguing about how the argument is a non-argument not worth arguing over. :)
Argument inception.
You’ve demonstrated my point. Comparisons do not just examine how things are similar, but also how they are different.
It’s funny that you bring up Alien and facehuggers, since those are kind of a rape analogy. That comparison is an intentional part of the movie.
Part of the point of fiction is to ask questions that make us reexamine our beliefs and biases, to separate things that we believe to be inseparable. Science fiction, in particular, asks questions about things that, while they may not be possible yet, may be in the future, so that we can consider the social and philosophical implications in advance.
“You’ve demonstrated my point. Comparisons do not just examine how things are similar, but also how they are different.”
I think you might have just changed the argument being made. We’re talking about why you can’t have a direct comparison between Lapha’s tangible vs intangible element of sex. There’s a disinct difference with her intangibles (mind, soul, personality, sexuality, gender identity, etc) vs her tangibles (biochemistry, genitalia, etc). With humans, the two things are linked together and can’t, at our current technology, be distinctly separated.
I’m saying ‘Lapha vs human are two scenarios that are so different as to not be comparable in the same type of argument.’ I’m talking about how the lack of similarities make this impossible.
Not sure how you can say the comparison of the ‘differences’ make it comparable.
“It’s funny that you bring up Alien and facehuggers, since those are kind of a rape analogy. That comparison is an intentional part of the movie.”
Not sure what that has to do with the argument either. I’m saying you can’t look at how a facehugger copulates and say it’s in any way similar to how a human copulates. It’s not. You’re shifting the argument to something else instead – violation, not copulation.
My point was there’s too much differences to use one to describe as similar to the other.
“Part of the point of fiction is to ask questions that make us reexamine our beliefs and biases, to separate things that we believe to be inseparable. ”
I don’t think it’s a bias to say that human thoughts and feelings are not able to currently be separated from our biochemsitry. ie, thoughts are created by synaptic pathways being formed, etc. instead of it existing in some flame that’s completely separate from our brains. Unless you’re trying to make a comparison of Lapha’s flame to something like a human soul? I didn’t think we were arguing religion though.
Although I suppose I did open up that argument by mentioning ‘spirituality’ – I was more meaning the psychology of spirituality than an actual ‘spirit.’
Pander’s right. Arguing about human genders is pointless since Lapha likely doesn’t share such gender modalities. Even if she did, customizing a blank probably wouldn’t change her gender; that appears to be contained within the psychic eye. She didn’t become male by latching onto Garamm. So all that menu would accomplish is mismatching her psychological and body gender. Which ranges from painful to pointless, but is likely never useful – unless her species has some purpose for a gender mismatch. Which, if it did, would make human genders even more irrelevant.
Even if, after all that, human genders were still somehow relevant: it doesn’t make sense for our genders to fill an entire page since humans aren’t dominant in any FTL civilization. Genders would be in alphabetical order if not sorted by species and I don’t see any species selection menu or header.
You cannot hoose your, “gender” That is set before birth; It is congenital. Transpeople get, gender Confirmation surgery! Intersex, is called, Indetermate Genitals!
For most people gender is at least partly optional. There are a few who have genetic variants but it’s like fat people claiming they’re “genetically fat;” for all but 1 in a million that simply isn’t true.
Those Wendy’s cheeseburgers are genetically delicious.
Sex is set at conception. (So it isn’t “assigned at birth”, it’s “observed and declared at birth”.)
Gender is apparently set at around the age of three, according to some sources (that you can go find yourself, have fun). According to others it’s a “social construct”, so why you’d need surgery to elicit social reform is a little beyond me. “Confirmation surgery” is more confirmation in the church sense than anything else. And intersex is still called intersex by those who aren’t into recoining words to “validate” their beliefs.
All of them are made up. Language is arbitrary, one of the core traits of language is arbitrariness.
Language is a system of descriptive symbology. Arbitrary would infer there are no agreed-upon rules or standards. If that were the case then language would be useless for conveying information. A proper language is about the furthest you can get from arbitrary while still remaining abstract.
You can tell me your meaning of “arbitrary” is different from mine, but that just makes you arbitrary… Not the language itself.
Define arbitrary.
Ok this is finally something I can post something definitive about in this really weird set of threads. :)
Definition of Arbitrary.
Arbitrary – Subject to individual will or judgment; contingent solely on one’s discretion; based on whim or personal preference, without reason or pattern – ie, random.
So….. at least where that’s concerned, Wzaerreazw is correct that a language can NOT be arbitrary, if it’s to have any reasonable use. It requires specific rules and syntax or it’s just gibberish, instead of a language.
Tempo saying ‘one of the core traits of language is arbitrariness’ doesn’t make sense, or he might be mistakenly thinking that language’s ability to ‘evolve’ over time means it’s arbitrary. ie, he’s confusion the potential for language to form with language itself. An incorrect conclusion – evolution can be random, but how the language successfully evolves is not.
Random chance can, and does as just a part of nature, produce pockets of order. There’s a myriad amount of random sounds available, but to make those sounds into a language, there has to be a set of rules put into place.
From the Oxford:
“not seeming to be based on a reason, system or plan and sometimes seeming unfair”
Now, explain to me the system behind the plural of goose being geese, while the plural of moose is…moose.
All of which is a barely amusing distraction, and nothing more.
The fact is that the point being raised isn’t all communication notices are issued without system, pattern or reason, but rather that there is nothing inherent to any given set of sounds that make them dependent upon what they represent.
In other words, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
““not seeming to be based on a reason, system or plan and sometimes seeming unfair””
Sounds like an equally valid definition of arbitrary – ie, ‘random.’ :)
“Now, explain to me the system behind the plural of goose being geese, while the plural of moose is…moose.”
Alas, there are some things in this world that are not meant to be known.
“All of which is a barely amusing distraction, and nothing more.”
What’s life without amusing distractions!
“rather that there is nothing inherent to any given set of sounds that make them dependent upon what they represent.”
Well the point being made is that ‘all the sounds in the world’ is ‘random without rules.’ But language, which comes from that sound, is ‘ordered with rules.’ Sounds can be ordered by one set of rules to be French, another set of rules to be English, or another set to be Chinese, but in each case, there are sets of rules to be followed – rather than just arbitrary whims in those languages.
Sort of like how the universe is composed of a lot of randomness, but there are pockets of order within that randomness (galaxies, solar systems, stars, planets, etc). Same thing with sounds vs language.
Consistently maintaining the outcome of an arbitrary decision does not make the original decision any less arbitrary.
You’re actually correct, Torabi, but the original decision is not the whole of language. As I said, a successful language is as far from arbitrary as you can get while still remaining abstract.
As Bharda mentioned, the plural of “goose” is “geese” while the plural of “moose” is “moose.” Likewise, “literal” is nowadays considered equivalent to “figurative.” These are examples of arbitrary (convoluted/useless) mangling that causes a language to break down.
Language is used to communicate so naturally a country whose primary means of communication becomes less successful will also itself become less successful. While not wholly or even in large part responsible for the decline of America and England, this slow abrogation of English lexical cohesion has reached a sort of tipping point; many speakers now believe the language is defective or even arbitrary as Bharda so demonstrates.
Torabi: Actually the entire study of linguistics and etymology would say otherwise.:)
However I am not an etymologist. But that does not mean the origin and evolution of words and different language is arbitrary. There are usually detailed reasons because language IS very rule dependent.
Pander, I do want to point out that studying an irrational decision doesn’t make the original decision rational. People study pseudoscience all the time but this doesn’t justify their results.
In the same line of reasoning, several major dictionaries added “figurative” as an alternate definition of “literal” and those are typically maintained by the aforementioned lexical scholars. So, I strongly believe Torabi is correct.
Wzaerreazw:
I wouldnt call etymology or linguistics to be pseudoscience any more than I’d consider anthropology or archaeology to be pseudoscience. Almost any word in even a language as haphazardly constructed as English usually has a reason for each word used. It’s just sometimes the route to how that word came to be used is a bit more convoluted or clouded by the fog of time.
As for people using the word ‘literal’ in place of the word ‘figurative’…. that’s because they are not using proper English. :) They’re using gibberish definitions, which actually harms language, which was the point I thought you were trying to make in the first place. It degrades the language.
They’re like people who argue that 2+2=5 (in base 10 so no trying to sidestep that by saying base whatever :) )
But lets steelman Torabi’s argument for a moment and say use your example of literal and figurative meaning the same thing, despite them actually meaning completely opposite things and only being used by people who simply do not know how to use English properly.
Even if the word literally becomes synonymous with ‘figuratively’ – it’s not something that was done arbitrarily, by your own admission. It was done because enough people made a mistake on how to use a word properly, for a long enough period of time, that it becomes an accepted RULE. That’s still the opposite of arbitrary. People didnt use the word ‘literally’ as meaning the same thing as ‘figuratively’ by random happenstance. They did so because they either were trying to exxagerate, they were being ironic, or they were simply being ignorant.
Arbitrariness is measured relative to the subject; it’s contextual. Language is meant to convey information, thus, non-arbitrary rules must conform to that purpose. “Popular usage” despite appearing to conform via common understanding is, perhaps ironically, antithetical to coherent information exchange.
With each error introduced into the lexicon the language becomes slightly more convoluted. Increased convolution degrades the performance of a language. Eventually, all systems operated in this manner will reach a tipping point where their usage base either collapses or fractures into multiple groups.
Let’s do a thought experiment using your 2+2=5 example, since a language consisting of only 10 “words” is perfect for simplifying the problem.
Everyone living in an area goes to the same church. At one session they agree that 2+2 does equal 5. Except, only when it’s Tuesday. Of course, 5 under this circumstance has the same value as 4, it’s not like the actual value changed, just the definition. So for simplicity’s sake, 4 is also the new 5; 2+3=4; but again, only on Tuesdays. So sayeth our lord and savior.
Later, one man realizes the power of 9 as opposed to 0. So he insists that all 0s are actually 9s according to the holy gospel. Of course, since in his view 9 is unimportant, 0 can keep its original value too. You just have to figure out whether 0+0=0 or 0+0=18 based on context. What context? Surely, the devout will receive a divine revelation. This is generally persuasive, though some are still skeptical and occasionally revert to the old ways.
Finally, one woman realizes that if 0+0 can also equal 18 then clearly 1 and 8 must be special. She decides that 1 is evil and should never be used except to signify that 8 is actually equal to 3, while 8 by itself means that all the other numbers except 0 are “arisen;” that is, 1 becomes 2, 2 becomes 3, and so on. 9 just stays as 9, because it’s already the divine number. This catches on with some members of the group, but some original believers view this as blasphemy.
Now, a random person walks up to you and hands you a sheet of paper. The paper says:
This is the problem with popular rules. Just because a rule exists does not mean that rule is actually rational or even cognizable to the average person. I’ll give you the answer to the above question. There is none. The language is no longer delineated by clear rules that clearly define each number. These people are just using the original language as a base and building their own ideas upon it without renaming it from “math” to “the word of math” or whatever they prefer. There’s a problem, too; they don’t all agree. Who wrote that paper? Do they believe the original or the woman’s new revelation? Worse still, even if you could get them to agree on a single popular usage, whatever interpretation they decide on will likely be far more convoluted than the original format. Because, it’s not about it’s no longer about communicating numeric values. Now it’s about communicating clique identity. This additional “meaning” serves no purpose other than to complexify. It is a rule, yes, but the rule itself is arbitrary.
Worst of all? Even after you spend an excessive amount of time boiling the math down via their convoluted interpretation, you’re still left with the 0: what does it mean? 0? or 18? Are you willing to gamble your life on a 50/50 chance? Do you have a choice? Is 50/50 even the correct way to write that proportion? Well, everyone agrees… Do the math. Prove your innocence.
This concept of lingual debasement was first used en masse by the Soviet Union to conduct the Kulak purges which resulted in an estimated 800k-1.2m deaths. It was then popularized as the “big lie” by Nazi Germany; Jews were synonymized with evil bankers not unlike classical Christian views on the “money changers.” Later still, Mao Zedong used the technique numerous times during his “great leap forward” where over 70 million died from various causes. Primarily, he named the sparrow as a “great evil” which led to mass infestation of crop-eating insects and thus mass starvation.
Language is powerful. If we accept new rules as “reasonable” by virtue of popular consent, rather than well-reasoned constructions like consistent spelling patterns, tense, and word order, then all we’re really doing is creating a clique language. It’ll necessarily lack sensible patterns and communicability because it’s not built with communication in mind.
On the plus side, the whole language will be ripe for manipulation by people like Stalin, Hitler, and Mao. I mean, uh, “plus side” means it’s bad, right? I’m literally 1000% sure that’s true.
No offense, but I have no idea about most of what you said there or how it can be used to argue that language is arbitrary just because sometimes people use literally and figuratively interchangeably, when they shouldnt be. It does not make language arbitrary. Nor does it make the study of etymology or linguistics into pseudosciences.
Also you sort of completely ignored what I said about using different bases. You know why? Because each numerical base is different set of RULES. Saying 0+0=18 is incorrect if you’re using Base 10, which is the default base we use. You actually have to SAY ‘0+0=18 in base 9’ for it to be correct. Because if you just say 0+0=18, you’re wrong. It’s like my saying ‘slavery is legal’…. without saying ‘… in Pakistan.’ or ‘… in North Korea’ or ‘…in the Democratic Republic of Congo.’ You’re leaving out a rather important bit of information. That doesnt mean the rule no longer is a rule.
If I was to say ‘Slavery is legal’ – I WOULD BE INCORRECT. Because the default that a person would assume is that I would be talking about is in the country in which I live. Unless I add something additional like ‘… in many parts of the world.’ Because I’m basing my assertion on a given set of rules…. laws… of a certain country, not of a DIFFERENT country. Which would have a different set of rules. And those rules for each country, just like languages, are not determined arbitrarily. They’re based on different histories and different causes and effects of those nations.
The same is true with your entire math example, where you ignored the fact that I specified ‘base 10, not any other base.’ It is not disproving that languages are primarily based on rational rules and NOT on arbitrary decisions, just like saying 0+0=18 is wrong in base 9 does not mean 0+0 does NOT equal 18 in the default base we use, base 10.
Even the base you use for your number system is not chosen arbitrarily.
The Sumerians used a base 60 system because the two tribes that formed the Sumerians used a base 12 and a base 5, so the lowest common base they could use together was base 60.
The Mayans used a base 20 because they used fingers and toes for their number system basis.
The Pamean language in Mexico uses a base 8 system, because it’s based on the spaces between their fingers, rather than their fingers.
There are rules involved. Even if you might not understand the reason for the rules. Ignorance of the reason for choosing a system does not automatically mean the choice was an arbitrary choice. Chalking it up to being arbitrary usually means the person saying its’ arbitrary are just unaware of the reason that a number system or a language structure is being used.
I’m not sure about most of what you wrote though because a lot of it has nothing to do with what I was saying. I wasn’t suggesting that language is not frequently manipulated. Anyone who’s read Orwell’s 1984 or who has lived in an authoritarian regime knows that happens. That’s the whole concept of wrongthink. But it’s a tangent to what I’m saying in response to what Torabi said.
Torabi said:
“Consistently maintaining the outcome of an arbitrary decision does not make the original decision any less arbitrary.”
This is incorrect. There are usually reasons for the decision in the first place, even if Torabi or I do not understand the reason, since we’re not etymologists or linguists who have studied word origins of obscure language rules. Ignorance should not automatically assume that the answer is ‘it was just arbitrary!’
The presumption should be that there ARE rules, then work from that. Not ‘there are no rules’ then decide there are, unless you go back REALLY far. And even if you go back so far that the VERY first inkling WAS based on something arbitrary, it doesnt make the millenia of incredibly non-arbitrary choices in word and sentence structure suddenly meaningless.
You said:
“studying an irrational decision doesn’t make the original decision rational.”
That’s literally how the universe works At the very beginning, something might be done based on chance. But then, within an overall chaos, pockets of order INEVITABLY form. The big bang was incredibly chaotic, then by complete random chance, there was slightly more matter than antimatter, which is why we live in a matter-based universe. And all the rules of the universe do not suddenly cease to be rational just because the original instance was based on random chance or there being slightly more matter than antimatter. Heck, for all we know, there could even be a non-randomized reason for THAT and we just don’t understand the reason yet.
And again I’m on a tangent.
My point is, Torabi and you are both incorrect in saying that order cannot come from chaos. If anything, pockets of order HAVE to form within an origin of chaos, and that order is not suddenly meaningless because there happened to be one incident of random chance in the inception.
“If we accept new rules as “reasonable” by virtue of popular consent, rather than well-reasoned constructions like consistent spelling patterns, tense, and word order, then all we’re really doing is creating a clique language. It’ll necessarily lack sensible patterns and communicability because it’s not built with communication in mind.”
I literally (not figuratively… literally) did not say anything even remotely having to do with that. I did not defend ‘new rules’ based on popular consent rather than well reasoned construction. I didnt even say that the ‘new rules’ are even accepted by more than a VERY small but vocal minority of the population (which would be the opposite of ‘popular’).
But yes, I can agree on something – it is a clique language, which is probably doomed to failure since the ‘new rules’ DO shift on an arbitrary basis since so many of these rules conflict with one another. Not sure why you even brought that up though since it had nothing to do with what I said. But a clique language with rapidly shifting rules that change on what IS an arbitrary basis will not easily replace well-reasoned constructions with consistent spelling patterns, tense, and word order.
It just sometimes doesnt seem that way because the internet does act as a megaphone for a lot of not-that-well-thought-out ideas from many directions. And we haven’t had a lot of time to see what will happen when those new ideas are properly challenged. The internet, as used by a LARGE population instead of as a niche group of elite people, is still pretty new in the grand scheme of civilization.
Oh god I have no idea where this thread has gone to at this point.
Pander: At the risk of repeating myself, consistently following a rule may make your behavior non-arbitrary, but that in and of itself does not make the rule non-arbitrary.
Torabi: I actually have given a pretty thorough reasoning about why I think you’re incorrect actually. Repeating the same thing again doesnt actually change that I’ve already refuted that statement. It would be better if you react to what I said, in order to show how I might be wrong in refuting you, rather than just doubling down and repeating the same thing again.
To sum up what I’ve said before in a TL;DR way:
Rules are VERY rarely arbitrary. You have to go pretty far back to find a point where they are. And even then you can never be sure if they are arbitrary, or if you simply are ignorant of the non-random reason for the rule. Remember – arbitrary means without any sort of reasoning behind it – randomness.
I would never be so arrogant as to assume that I know the reasons for everything. If 999 follow up steps on a journey have a reason, you shouldnt automatically assume that the very first step was without any sort of reason at all.
Btw when I’m saying ‘reasoning’ – I’m referring to some sort of logically consistent reasoning. Not nonsense-fueled reasoning, which is actually more of an oxymoron since it basically would mean ‘unreasonable reasoning :)
Your point about base 10 is exactly my point, but you’re somehow going off on a tangent. If English is our base 10, then the moment dictionaries defined “literal” as “figurative,” then that was the moment 0 started equaling 9. You can’t just insist “but base 10” because the base 10 is exactly what was nonsensically altered.
I think purpose is the reason why we’re not agreeing. Rules are arbitrary when they do not accomplish the purpose of the greater whole. If I have a normal swimming pool, whose only purpose is for swimming, and one of the rules is “no dancing on the death traps,” then that rule is arbitrary. If I have a language, whose purpose is to convey information, but the pattern of one word’s spelling differs from the rest, then that rule is arbitrary. In both cases the odd rule out merely complexifies the conveyance of other rules and therefore serves no beneficial purpose.
It doesn’t matter if a word evolved from some latin word 1000 years ago. It doesn’t even matter if there’s a reason why that particular word was chosen. The word has to effectively serve the purpose of conveyance of information. If the word doesn’t do that, or does so ineffectively, it has failed at its sole reason for existing.
“Your point about base 10 is exactly my point, but you’re somehow going off on a tangent.”
I’m really not, but I think we’re both arguing across each other right now.
“If English is our base 10, then the moment dictionaries defined “literal” as “figurative,” then that was the moment 0 started equaling 9.”
That’s incorrect. Also dictionaries do not define literal as figurative. You’re confusing definitions with slang.
Base 9 vs Base 10 number systems is like comparing French with English. They’re completely different systems with different rules and structures.
“You can’t just insist “but base 10” because the base 10 is exactly what was nonsensically altered.”
Actually I can because, like I pretty laboriously explained :), base 10 was arrived at as the primary number system we used to day for non-arbitrary reasons. Not ‘nonsensical’ reasons.
“I think purpose is the reason why we’re not agreeing. ”
Yes, For some reason you’re coming at this that purpose is the ultimate end result of the rules, while I saying purpose is the cause of why the rules were set into place.
“If I have a normal swimming pool, whose only purpose is for swimming, and one of the rules is “no dancing on the death traps,” then that rule is arbitrary.”
Not if there are death traps set around the pool. :) And in any case, you should not dance on death traps ever in the first place, since you’ll die from that. That doesnt seem to be an arbitrary rule, although I have no idea why it would be a rule for a swimming pool, unless you define a ‘death trap’ as the slippery edge of the pool.
Arbitrary means there’s no reason for the rule. Not dancing on a death trap has a pretty good reason – ie, to not die.
“If I have a language, whose purpose is to convey information, but the pattern of one word’s spelling differs from the rest, then that rule is arbitrary.”
Again no, that’s the whole point of etymology. You are making an assumption that the pattern of one word’s spelling differs from the rest, when for all you know, there is a reason and you just are ignorant OF that reason. That doesnt mean it’s an arbitrary reason – it means you don’t know the reason. I mean… it ‘COULD’ be arbitrary, but it most likely is not.
“In both cases the odd rule out merely complexifies the conveyance of other rules and therefore serves no beneficial purpose.”
I don’t understand this sentence. Please explain again.
“It doesn’t matter if a word evolved from some latin word 1000 years ago. ”
Again, etymologists would disagree. :)
” It doesn’t even matter if there’s a reason why that particular word was chosen. ”
Linguists AND etymologists would disagree. :) Think of it like how we interpret law. Or at least how we are SUPPOSED to interpret law. We have to have some sort of reasoning on WHY we interpret law in a certain way, usually based on precedents, on footnotes in the law, in understanding the reasoning of certain words at the time that the law was designed, etc.
“The word has to effectively serve the purpose of conveyance of information. ”
Right. But the word’s purpose of conveying information is usually based on how the word evolved, and why that particular word was chosen.
And I still have no idea how this thread has gone off into the weeds as it has. :)
Upon checking marriam-webster, literal’s contradictory definition, which as I clearly remember it was “figurative (slang)” has been completely removed. I long ago threw out my abridged marriam-webster as protest for their misuse of the word “literal.” I suppose that boycott back then did convince them to remove the this other definition. Other dictionaries appear to have followed suit. However, “literally” is still secondarily defined as “virtually.”
Again, it’s not base 9. It’s still base 10. It’s just that 0 now equals both 0 or 9 depending on context. 0 and 9 are still their own numbers; there’s still 10 digits. Similarly, literally now equals both literal or virtual depending on context. It’s not like one confusing change suddenly made English become French.
Arbitrary means the reason was random, contextually improper, or poorly justified. Causality itself requires everything to have a reason for existing but that doesn’t therefore infer that everything within reality is perfectly justified. If your interpretation were valid then all crimes would be justified and no court could reasonably try a criminal.
Dude, you’re a lawyer, come on. You know damn well arguing against what was stated is only going to work in the barest of court cases. We’re not in a courtroom; we’re discussing logic. One can’t infer things that weren’t stated.
Inventing new interpretations by ignoring or misconstruing words makes all discussion pointless. One might as well insist I’m talking about candy canes. People choke on those, so candy canes could be called a “death trap,” and someone might be eating a candy cane at our hypothetical pool. By that same logic, “candy cane manufacturers” could be called “death trap manufacturers!” Incrementum ad absurdum isn’t a viable way to hold a conversation.
Rules are intended to provide structure. If a new rule breaks the existing structure via nonsensical context then that rule is antithetical to the purpose of having rules. That’s what my “no dancing on deathtraps” example was supposed to show. There’s no actual deathtraps in a normal pool. Even the example you gave of the slippery edge is a hyperbolic deathtrap; not an actual trap set up for the explicit purpose of causing fatal bodily harm.
Are they disagreeing because it helps the language or because it helps their job security? If it’s the latter then that’s a serious problem.
Oh, I am. That’s why I’m making this argument. Contiguity of wording is important but if a word is ill-defined then it serves no benefit whatsoever to the legal system. If it’s ill-structured then it merely serves to confuse some litigants (judgement, judgment).
A core problem with the modern legal system is that lawyers make up their own reasoning rather than drawing from rational or actual contexts. One can’t reasonably argue “we studied the status quo, therefore our study of the status quo makes the status quo reasonable.” That’s circular logic. That’s what you’re doing with your etymology argument.
This logic is so perfectly circular that I believe you’re confusing yourself and mentally attributing your confusion to others’ statements. Thus why you keep coming up with objections that don’t actually tackle what either of us are saying. I think this is why Torabi snidely remarked “I can only guess formal logic isn’t a requirement in law school.”
If a word was chosen for a valid reason, fine, that’s normally good enough on its own. But this stops mattering – entirely – if the word gains a null meaning due to confusing structure or definition. The purpose of a language is to convey information. If a word fails at this purpose by virtue of being too difficult for an a person to comprehend, then the existence of that word becomes superfluous.
Do you know what the word “antidisestablishmentarianism” means? I only know because it’s the longest non-scientific English word and that was interesting. But I also know almost nobody else can understand this word at face value. So, I’ve never used it in conversation until today.
Antidisestablishmentarianism was a movement which acted as a counter to the disestablishmentarianist movement. The Disestablishmentarianist movement was a group of disestablishmentarian activists. Disestablishmentarian activists sought to incept disestablishment of the Catholic Church in Christianity-ruled England. Disestablishment is the act of dis-establishing – depriving – an organization of its governmental support.
If we were to view the above as a legal text; it has very clear sub-definitions and logical progression. I can never use it in casual discussion but it can and should be used in, say, a document about historical England’s religions and their effect on law.
Contrast with “literally.” This word can be used in almost any context. Average speakers will know this word. But unlike “disestablishmentarianism” they cannot understand it by its definition. “Literally” could mean “exactly as worded” or “not exactly as worded.” So, listeners need to know the context in which the word is used. Unfortunately, if that context isn’t either: A) homeless guy, or B) peer-reviewed scientific paper, then the proper context often remains unclear even after multiple contextualizations. This word’s usefulness in law, scientific discussion, literature, and even casual conversation, is therefore notably decreased.
Though, loss of usefulness isn’t the only problem. “Literally” is a pivotal word in the English language. Like “disestablishmentarianism,” it used to mean a specific thing which no other word perfectly encapsulateed. Unlike “disestablishmentarianism,” the term “literally” is used to describe language itself. It exactly specifies – or, it once did specify – “explicit lexical interpretation.”
That is far more than a mere loss of usefulness. It’s a loss of clarity, of design, of purpose, and of intent. It damages our ability to succinctly show that our words are not figurative or hyperbolic and are meant to be taken as seriously and as exactingly as they are stated.
One might contend that I achieved this same result by carefully explaining above. However, human psychology prefers succinct and concise explanation; length is antithetical to human comprehension; the best explanation is short, simple, but full. The expansion of “literal” from solely meaning “specifically and exactly as stated” is therefore a net negative to every English speaker’s ability to convey themselves both factually and rationally.
Imagine someone runs into a room full of drunk party-goers.
Rather than immediately choosing whether to evacuate or grab a fire extinguisher, listeners must first parse the speaker’s context. Is the speaker is a jokester, hyperbolic, sarcastic, or are they just drunk? Mangling this particular word can lead to very real death or dismemberment.
Regardless of whether this particular word is slang it should never be codified thusly.
“Upon checking marriam-webster, literal’s contradictory definition, which as I clearly remember it was “figurative (slang)” has been completely removed.”
Honestly, even if it was listed in there as slang, slang isnt really the same as a proper definition.
“I suppose that boycott back then did convince them to remove the this other definition.”
To quote a certain chaos mathematician on a dinosaur-laden island:
You did it. You crazy sunnova bitch, you did it! :)
” It’s just that 0 now equals both 0 or 9 depending on context. 0 and 9 are still their own numbers; there’s still 10 digits.”
I must be missing something you’re trying to relay to me. You’re saying ‘if you use a base 10 number system incorrectly, then 0+0=18?’ Because if so… um…. the rules are still there. You’re just… not using the rule. ie, the person saying 0+0=18 and claiming it’s in base 10 is wrong.
“Arbitrary means the reason was random, contextually improper, or poorly justified. Causality itself requires everything to have a reason for existing but that doesn’t therefore infer that everything within reality is perfectly justified. If your interpretation were valid then all crimes would be justified and no court could reasonably try a criminal.”
I swear I’m not trying to be obtuse, but I honestly do not understand what you’re trying to say here. All I’m saying is a rule of ‘no dancing on death traps’ seems to have a very logical reason for existing as a rule. It’s not arbitrarily chosen as a rule. Continued survival makes logical sense as a rule – your example of ‘do not dance on death traps’ would be the opposite of an arbitrarily chosen rule.
“You know damn well arguing against what was stated is only going to work in the barest of court cases.”
I swear that I’m not messing with you. I don’t know what you’re trying to say. I’m not arguing aganist what is stated. I’m arguing that if you have a normal swimming pool, which has the purpose of swimming, and for some reason you put up a sign that says ‘no dancing on death traps’ – if you’re referring to the swimming pool edge as death trap, then the rule is not arbitrarily chosen. The rule is for safety. The only thing arbitrary in your example might be why you’re choosing to call it a death trap. But even there, maybe the person who put up the sign thinks the edge of the pool IS a death trap. In which case… not arbitrary.
“We’re not in a courtroom; we’re discussing logic. One can’t infer things that weren’t stated.”
I’m not sure what things I’m inferring? Seriously I really am not sure what you’re trying to say in this example. Maybe I’m missing something here in what you’re trying to explain to me.
“Rules are intended to provide structure. If a new rule breaks the existing structure via nonsensical context then that rule is antithetical to the purpose of having rules. That’s what my “no dancing on deathtraps” example was supposed to show.”
Okay so what you’re saying is, in your example, the arbitrary thing is calling the swimming pool a death trap. Okay maybe? But it’s still a pretty good idea to not dance on the side of the pool, since you can fall in and drown. The general rule still makes sense.
Lets just fix your example a little to something like ‘By the pool there is a sign that says ‘Please don’t feed the east asian elephants.’ That would be a very random sign that makes no sense and was arbitrarily placed there. I think I was getting stuck on your example because there was still a rational reason for your hypothetical sign’s existence, which made it not arbitrarily placed there.
Although now I’ve completely lost track of the point of the example of a sign by a swimming pool. :)
“There’s no actual deathtraps in a normal pool.”
Actually according to the ‘Attractive Nuisance’ doctrine in law, a pool can be considered a possible ‘deathtrap’ and a landowner may be held liable for injuries to children trespassing on the land if the injury is caused by an object on the land that is likely to attract children if he/she does not put adequate warnings or protections in place. :)
Lets just go with the elephant sign instead. It’s suitably ridiculous as a warning sign to be able to call it an arbitrarily assigned warning.
“Are they disagreeing because it helps the language or because it helps their job security? If it’s the latter then that’s a serious problem.”
Pretty sure they’d be disagreeing because it helps the language. We are having a very odd argument btw :)
“Contiguity of wording is important but if a word is ill-defined then it serves no benefit whatsoever to the legal system.”
You’re assuming the word is ill-defined though. What I’m saying is usually, in a language, words are not ill-defined. They usually come into being because of some sort of historical context that makes sense, even if the modern users of the word are ignorant of what that reason is. They arent ‘arbitrarily’ using the word.
“If it’s ill-structured then it merely serves to confuse some litigants (judgement, judgment).”
The spelling of the word judgment is not arbitrary either. Any more than why you spell words like ‘judging.’
“A core problem with the modern legal system is that lawyers make up their own reasoning rather than drawing from rational or actual contexts.”
There’s a name for lawyers who make up their own reasoning instead of drawing them from rational or actual context. Bad lawyers. Also known as ‘stupid lawyers.’ Also known as ‘hacks.’ :) If a lawyer is going to make up your own reasoning without any context or evidence, that lawyer is probably not going to convince the judge unless he or she is a bad a judge as the lawyer is as an attorney. :)
I’m… not doing that. I’m using evidence and context by saying that words are chosen in languages based on historical context. The study of etymology IS the evidence.
“One can’t reasonably argue “we studied the status quo, therefore our study of the status quo makes the status quo reasonable.” That’s circular logic.”
That’s not what I’m doing. The key part of the definition of ‘arbitrary’ is the reasoning has to be random and not have any rational basis aside from a whim of the individual. When I say ‘etymologists would disagree’ I’m saying that because etymologists would be able to likely tell you WHY a particular word is used, even if I (an attorney) cannot. Since I’m not an etymologist who’s studied the historical context of different words and how they came to be.
Basically I’m saying that just because a person is ignorant of the reason for a choice that was made does not make the choice of how the word was formed arbitrary – it could (and probably is) just that they are ignorant of what the reason for the word’s formation was.
“This logic is so perfectly circular that I believe you’re confusing yourself and mentally attributing your confusion to others’ statements.”
I promise this isnt circular logic. I’m not sure how to explain it more than I already have in this post.
“Thus why you keep coming up with objections that don’t actually tackle what either of us are saying.”
I have been tackling what both of you have been saying though. Maybe I’m not just adequately explaining my thought process on this to you.
“I think this is why Torabi snidely remarked “I can only guess formal logic isn’t a requirement in law school.””
I’m just assuming he was making a joke as a good natured ribbing instead of it being some sort of rude ad hominem personal attack. Possibly out of frustration that we keep arguing across from each others points somehow. :)
“Do you know what the word “antidisestablishmentarianism” means?”
1) I’m worried this is going to become another tangent in this thread. :)
2) Yes I know what it means. Probably for the same reason you do. You heard someone incorrectly say it was the longest word in the english language so googled what the definition was out of pure curiosity.
“I only know because it’s the longest non-scientific English word and that was interesting.”
Actually the longest non-scientific, non-medical word in the English language is floccinaucinihilipilification. It means the action or habit of estimating something as worthless.
But I’m just being nitpicky now. :)
“But I also know almost nobody else can understand this word at face value. So, I’ve never used it in conversation until today.”
Probably because we don’t have a state-run Church. :) Plus because it’s a real mouthful to say.
Btw, floccinaucinihilipilification has been used as a word since 1741. :)
And if we get into medical words, we probably will find much longer words that ARE used…. by doctors. :)
Anyway I’m off on a tangent. Going back to reading what you’re saying again. You start describing what antidiseestablishmentarianism means… then say:
“Contrast with “literally.” This word can be used in almost any context.”
It can be incorrectly used in any context, yes. Just like someone can say ‘irregardless’ or ‘all of the sudden’ instead of ‘all of a sudden’ but that doesn’t mean the word(s) isnt/aren’t nonsense
Just because someone is using bad grammar doesn’t make that word usage suddenly correct. It just means the person does not know how to speak proper English. If someone keeps saying stuff like ‘I literally walked a million miles to get here.’ then they are using slang and making an exaggeration for emphasis, although not meaning the actual definition of the word ‘literally.’ Or, alternatively, they’re not that bright or have a poor grasp of English. Either way, they’re using the word ‘literally’ poorly.
“Unfortunately, if that context isn’t either: A) homeless guy, or B) peer-reviewed scientific paper, then the proper context often remains unclear even after multiple contextualizations. ”
If a peer reviewed scientific paper used the word ‘literally’ in the way you’re describing, I’d question how well the paper was ‘peer-reviewed.’ :)
Unless the scientific paper was discussing the nature of people using slang and using words incorrectly maybe?
“This word’s usefulness in law, scientific discussion, literature, and even casual conversation, is therefore notably decreased.”
Only when the word is being used incorrectly, like when people use ‘literally’ in place of ‘figuratively’ or use literally when they did NOT, in fact, literally do something.
For example, if I say ‘we have literally discussed this for so long that I’ve forgotten the initial point of the discussion’ – I would not be using the word incorrectly. :) Nor would it be slang usage.
““Literally” is a pivotal word in the English language. Like “disestablishmentarianism,” it used to mean a specific thing which no other word perfectly encapsulated. Unlike “disestablishmentarianism,” the term “literally” is used to describe language itself. It exactly specifies – or, it once did specify – “explicit lexical interpretation.””
I’m very confused by these sentences. Mainly because I’m not sure how the word ‘literally’ is a pivotal word in the English language. The word ‘literally’ just means ‘exactly’ or ‘taking word in a literal manner’ (ie, taking words in their most basic sense without metaphor or allegory). Also, it isnt the only word that can be used. If being used as slang you can instead use the correct word – figuratively. Or you can just leave the word literally out of the sentence.
I’m still trying to figure out how we got to this tangent btw. :) I’m failing horribly to figure it out.
“One might contend that I achieved this same result by carefully explaining above. However, human psychology prefers succinct and concise explanation; length is antithetical to human comprehension; the best explanation is short, simple, but full. The expansion of “literal” from solely meaning “specifically and exactly as stated” is therefore a net negative to every English speaker’s ability to convey themselves both factually and rationally.”
I think that you’re still confusing ‘proper’ definitions with slang definitions. Like saying y’all or youse are proper words. Btw, even when certain fake words appear in the dictionary, it doesnt necessarily mean they’re actual words. Sometimes the editorsof the dictionary are wrong as well
Here are some fake words that somehow made it into the dictionary and were in there for YEARS before it was discovered that the words were gibberish or not actual words.
Dord.
Abacot.
Morse. (not as the code btw)
Phantomnation.
Momblishness.
Cairbow.
Esquivalence.
“Imagine someone runs into a room full of drunk party-goers.”
Not exactly a group that I’d expect properly spoken english from, but okay?
“Rather than immediately choosing whether to evacuate or grab a fire extinguisher, listeners must first parse the speaker’s context. Is the speaker is a jokester, hyperbolic, sarcastic, or are they just drunk? Mangling this particular word can lead to very real death or dismemberment.”
I’m very confused about the point you’re making here, and what it has to do with the initial statement that language is rarely composed of arbitrarily chosen words, just because some people use words like literally incorrectly or as slang/exaggeration.
“Regardless of whether this particular word is slang it should never be codified thusly.”
Okay. I agree with that. Yes. So… you agree that I’m correct then? That slang words are not proper definitions, and do not change that words are rarely arbitrarily chosen in language?
I am really weirded out at how long this thread has gone on over the word ‘arbitrary.’
I’d like to say that the tangents were arbitrary, but I don’t think they were. :)
I used the ‘deathtraps’ thing intentionally. I actually didn’t know the law said ‘deathtraps’ verbatim but kind of assumed it would still work. See, your average pool-goer doesn’t know that, so making such a rule defeats the purpose of having a rule. Nobody’s going to bother to go home and look up a law that isn’t even explicitly mentioned. It’s close enough that someone might go “hah, honey, don’t dance on the pool deck, it says so up there” by happenstance, but it would’ve far more elucidating to simply say “No risky behavior in or around the pool.” Or “horseplay” as I’ve seen it called on some rule boards.
Changing the meaning of “literally” changes the basic rules of our lingual base 10, that is; English. The rule you are insisting is still present within our lingual base 10 has vanished the moment that word got a double meaning.
– English is still English; it’s not French just because a dictionary decided “literally” would have two contradictory meanings.
– Base 10 is still base 10; it’s not base 9 just because some politically-important religious nuts decided 0 would have two contradictory meanings.
These are equivalent statements, logically speaking. Yes, the rules are being used wrong. That’s the point. Even if etymologists mostly agree upon this usage, and they clearly do via its inclusion in marriam-webster, it’s still wrong. The word “literally” is not postfixed by “slang” so it’s not considered slang by marriam-webster, which is even worse. This is arbitrary.
Random or irrational – but close enough. Hey, you nailed me on antidisestablishmentarianism.
One of the key antecedents of the first prong of rationality – understanding – is logical soundness.
I possess two cars.
Possession of cars can be given to others.
One of my cars is new.
I can give others possession of my new car.
This statement is logically valid. Now how about logical soundness? What if… I don’t possess any cars? Well, the statement is still logically valid but it’s not logically sound. Since logic is a key part of understanding, and understanding is a key part of the first prong of rationality, that means the statement is irrational.
What about the other prong of rationality? Having “reason” rather than “understanding.” Not “reasons” – “reason.” Or “sensibility.” Well, we would not call using a word that lacks contextual sanity something a “reasoned” or “sensible” person would intentionally do. They might do so out of ignorance or carelessness but this is explicitly not “reasoned” or “sensible.” So, we’ve also failed to achieve the second prong.
This is not the same thing as lacking any rational basis. Including a false definition for “literally” in the mariam-webster because someone paid an etymologist $50,000 is plenty rational. It’s just that some etymologist receiving a bribe is utterly irrelevant to the purpose of having a dictionary or a language. So, in the latter contexts, its inclusion remains irrational even though a rational reason exists.
This is correct. But all reasons for word choice come secondary to the primary reason language exists: conveyance and comprehension of information. Failing that you don’t have a useful language. Programming languages like Brainfuck are called “joke” or “esoteric” languages for a reason.
Uh, I was aiming to show the two extremes. Homeless guy being the most hyperbolic. Scientific peer-reviewed paper being the most exact. That wasn’t as clear as it could’ve been.
Not a valid reason to break a word that already works. I addressed this when I said I could carefully explain or use some other descriptive terminology, but noted this comes with its own drawbacks.
One of my most important points is that in some contexts you can’t know which usage is correct.
Someone on the internet says “Yeah, I literally went there.” You then read through dozens of posts and none of them seem to clearly demarcate where he might’ve went, or, if it were hyperbolic, what he might’ve been referring to. Granted, this example is wholly unimportant; the point is to show that it’s a contextual minefield.
Same goes here. I’m not saying either of these words should be changed, nor am I saying their reasons for existing are arbitrary; we’ve gotten along just fine by requiring people to not be idiots. I was using this as an example of how words break existing patterns for niche uses. So, what if a common word like “literally” were to be conflated in law? For example, the use of “person” as meaning “corporation…”
I know, I know, the legal system and politicians have repeatedly tried to justify this. Typically noting it simplifies the treatment of corporations by not having to emulate their rights parallel to natural citizens. In practice, though, it’s just led to a lot of corporate abuse and legal loopholes with very little actual simplification or deduplication of legal code.
Prior to and shortly after the SCOTUS ruling codifying this, our laws were typically several dozen pages at the longest. The Clayton Antitrust Act, one of the most pivotal laws in American corporate legislation, takes between seven to ten pages in a PDF depending on font and margin. The Affordable Care Act? Ten or eleven thousand; and it was amended numerous times. Point is, this hasn’t been shown in reality, so why should I trust any such justification?
I explicitly pointed out that “literal” was postfixed by “(slang)” in the old marriam-webster. I wouldn’t have done this if it was defeating my own argument. The codification of slang which breaks normal usage of a word is a serious problem. Even if it’s specified as slang. This codification prolongs or may even normalize fad usage of important common words like “literally” and this is ultimately harmful to the language.
As you said, drunk people aren’t apt to use proper English. That’s all the more reason why this word is a problem. It adds additional contextual landmines to an already error-prone situation.
Imagine someone deciding “saw” is the new word for “light.” Someone sits down on a sawbench and says “hey, turn on the saw…” It’s an absurd example but it’s also where we’re headed. Slowly, surely, we’re getting there.
I have to be honest here.
I’m a bit lost in where this back-and-forth is going at this point. :) Originally it was about the definition of the word ‘arbitrary’ and it somehow spiraled into all these posts, mostly about the word literally for some reason.
Soooo I’m just going to focus on your last paragraph (don’t worry, I did read the rest of your post as well), since I think it’s the closest to why this thread has kept on going.
Also I really hope anything I say here isnt going to offend anyone – I’m just trying to describe this in as nuanced and even-handed a way as possible from what I’ve been reading up on in the last couple of days.
First I’m basing some of this on the example you gave of ‘someone using saw arbitrarily as the new word for light’ and running with that.
Now my guess is (and you can tell me if I’m mistaken) that you’re concerned that people are currently, in modern times, changing language too frequently and arbitrarily. Probably because of a shifting definition of the word ‘gender’ (which I actually do know the etymological history for because I’ve been checking it out over the last couple of days) and some of the more ‘nonsensical’ words like xee and xir and xim and zim and whatever which have no historical context whatsoever. Or maybe using ‘them’ or ‘they’ as a singular word, which… yes it’s grammatically incorrect in most cases except when the singular person is unknown.
Sooo I’ll try assuaging your concerns on this, because I -think- that’s the reason for all the posts about changing words meanings too arbitrarily. I don’t think that twitter and tumblr and a lot of these online terms are really incorporated into the cultural zeitgeist in the same way that a more general definition like ‘gender’ has done. I think twitter is on its death throes and tumblr is already dead and culturally irrelevant but just doesnt know it is (largely because they banned porn, and everyone who’s watched Avenue Q knows ‘the internet is for porn.’)
Gender:
For most of the word’s history, it actually came from the middle French ‘gendrer’ (meaning beget or give birth to). This word came from Latin – genus, and the early Greek word of ‘genos’. Which basically means ‘kind’ or ‘sort’ or ‘type.’ ie, the ‘type of person you are.’ There’s also a PIE root of this word ‘gene-‘ which basically refers to ‘give birth’ or ‘beget’ as well.
In 1955, it started to become used as an alternative to the word ‘sex’ among the general populace, while in academia, as early as 1955, it was used to denote the social status of males and females. It was mainly used as synonymous or as a substitute for the word ‘sex of a human being’ by the general populace MOSTLY because the word sex had much more erotic qualities starting in the 1920s and in 1955, ‘gender’ was basically a more ‘genteel’ way to refer to ‘man’ or ‘woman.’
By the 1970s it was HEAVILY distinct from the word sex in academia, and moderately so in the general populace, mainly because that was when the term ‘gender identity’ came up in academia. In the 1980s, it fell out of practice in both academia AND the general populace and went back to again just being a synonym for ‘sex’ and it was pretty much that way throughout the 80s, 90s, and most of the first half of the 2000s. In the latter half of the 2000s, it started gaining popularity again in academia as a separate and distinct definition from sex based on the original 1955 definition. By 2010, largely because of the reach of the internet, a sizable amount of the general populace also tended to accept the two words were distinctly different words, although in the last few years, activists have sometimes muddied the water by conflating ‘gender’ as being a biological term, instead of what it was originally meant to be – a behavioral and social norm term.
So…. gender being different than sex as a definition was definitely not arbitrary. There’s a fair deal of historical context there.
Xee, Xir, etc etc:
On the other hand, words like xee and xir and zir and whatever… those ARE arbitrarily chosen, usually be people who do not seem to have a proper grasp of how grammar and language works.
And probably because a lot of the people who do want this tend to be seen as being very demanding about it, which is invariably going to make other people double down against it, because in general, people do NOT like being compelled in what they should say. Even more than being compelled to not say something.
Them as a singular non-gendred pronoun:
The term ‘them’ is a little more nuanced, but people who use it as a singular term are probably more wrong than right in how they’re using it. Generally, you only use ‘them’ if the identity of the third person is unknown, so you don’t know if it’s a he or a she.
ie, “I’m meeting my contact at 9pm. I dont know what they look like but they’ll give me the codeword so I can identify them.”
In that specific case, ‘them’ or ‘they’ can be used as a singular (not to mention as a non-gendered pronoun), based on existing linguistic rules for English, instead of as a plural.
Some people mistakenly think “Well since a transgender person does not identify as the sex in which they were born, we will use ‘they’ as a non-binary term.” I think this might defeat the purpose of trans, personally, but I see where they’re coming from when they try this. It has at least a rationale behind it, assuming that you believe that non-gendered people are a real thing. Which is a little different than saying a man who transitions into a woman, or a woman who transitions into a man, or a man who thinks of himself as a woman, or a woman who thinks of herself as a man. Mainly because in THAT case, you should logically still be able to use gendered singular pronouns as a general rule (ie, a man who transitions into a woman would, one would assume, want to be called she, and vice versa for a woman who transitions into a man).
It seems to me like the main confusion linguistically is coming from anything OTHER than ‘transgender’ – ie, genderfluid, genderqueer, etc. Because very often they can’t seem to give a very precise definition, which means the general populace is going to have a hard time with understanding how that translates to certain pronouns.
I mean you can always just call them whatever they ask, as a general courtesy, but that’s more about being voluntarily polite and having decent manners (ie, not being mean), rather then an actual rule change, which needs some sort of concrete basis of fact to build the rule upon (whether it’s in a law or in a language). It’s sort of the main reason that languages that are HEAVILY gendered, like most the romance languages (French, Spanish, etc) are pretty much impossible to make non-gendered, despite how much people who don’t actually understand linguistics might try to push words like ‘latinx’ instead of latino and latina. I read that less than 2% of all spanish speaking people even have heard of that term, and usually when they hear it they think ‘that’s a nonsensical word that doesnt make sense’ largely because the entire language is gendered with ‘le’ and ‘la’ or ‘el’ and ‘ella.’ Whereas English is traditionally a lot more ‘hodge podge’ in its evolution.
Summary:
So…. basically… gender vs sex as distinct words – not arbitrary – there’s almost 70 years of history on it’s recent evolution, and the word origin itself dates back to the ancient Greeks.
Xee, xir, whatever – that’s definitely arbitrarily chosen, which is why it is unlikely to catch on with the general populace (I’d be surprised if it did at least beyond certain niche areas, primarily on parts of the internet), although the internet is a pretty new thing relatively speaking so that MIGHT change things? But I don’t think it will as much as some people think it will. I think it’s more likely that it will remain a ‘niche fad’ as far as the majority of the world is concerned.
‘they’ instead of ‘him and her’ – Probably has more chance than xe/xir/etc catching on in the general populace, but if so…. probably won’t catch on for quite a long time, except maybe as a social nicety. Especially depending on how people go about trying to get it trending. The more aggressively, the less likely it will catch on. The more casually and under-the-radar, the more likely it will, as you say, slowly change the language to allow exceptions to the singular pronoun of a known third person.
The main problem with ‘them’ being used on a wide scale, at least from what I’ve read in the last couple of days, is that it only really works even a little bit in English, and not at all in other widely-spoken languages, because they’re heavily gendered as a basic element of how those languages were created in the first place.
I think a lot of people are probably not as ‘in the know’ as you OR Bharda are on this whole debate. So it might seem a lot more prevalent to the two of you and some others who spend a lot of time online than it seems to Joe Q Public, especially since any rules that ARE available are so fuzzy and difficult to define, which means it’s going to be really hard to put into that cultural zeitgeist with any permanence. If the terms BECOME defined, and gain some sort of rule consistency, then that could change. But if there are changes, I don’t think it will be achieved arbitrarily. Arbitrary changes lack deeper meaning, and societies change long-standing traditions only when the changes have deeper meaning to the society. Proponents of the linguistic changes are going to have to rely on some sort of concrete bases for the rules in order to achieve linguistic permanence instead of it being a passing fad.
Pander, I’m guessing that you’re a prescriptivist, despite recognizing that language arises from the needs of a society. I mean, I am too, but that’s because I am more interested in formal systems than in human needs.
You can tell a lot about a society from the language it uses. Concepts they value have words, and they have words for things they seek to distinguish between. That some speakers are so flippant about the distinction between literal and figurative suggests they have no use for literal truth. And that’s very much evident in politics across the world these days. Reality doesn’t matter as much as a self-serving narrative to a large number of people.
Wzaerreazw:
> So, what if a common word like “literally” were to be conflated in law? For example, the use of “person” as meaning “corporation…”
> Imagine someone deciding “saw” is the new word for “light.” Someone sits down on a sawbench and says “hey, turn on the saw…”
This is what scares me about textualism: at present, it’s easier to change language than law. We have rules for how the law can change, in an attempt to prevent abuse and protect fundamental rights, but we have no rules for how language can change, other than popularity. It is very scary indeed.
Pander, I am not concerned about the misuse of “gender” at all. Contrary though it may seem, I am not against transgenderism, in fact I am wholly in favor. I do not care if people skew the word “gender” because it was a loose word to begin with. Even in gender-related sciences there exists little ambiguity in the word itself despite the actual scientific field being a hot mess. That is WHY I have made those arguments in those other discussions. We will never see actual scientific advances toward true transgenderism while the field subsists on fake science. What we need is, in a word; rigor.
Bharda has first-hand experience but they are too close to the fire so-to-speak. Their experience has blinded them to rational thought. Bharda is “in the know” on firsthand faith. I am “in the know” on secondhand data and knowledge. These are very different realms of ideation.
The fact you’ve made this very extensive tangent is deeply worrying. Someone as reasonable as yourself has jumped out of the conversation to draw conclusions that were never once mentioned within said conversation. This causes me to fear greatly for those less reasonable.
I can only guess that formal logic isn’t a requirement in law school. That would explain a great deal about law.
What’s happening here is that I’m only criticizing a single part of your argument, and am not intending it to reflect on the rest of the argument. Invalidating a single point does not invalidate the whole, unless the whole actually depends on that point. I’m just saying you’ve made a bad argument.
You, on the other hand, haven’t addressed my point at all, but instead have tackled some other point you think I’m making. Indeed, it would be better if we were actually reading each other’s points, rather than talking past each other. But when you read something, toss out the grammar, and get something entirely different from the words, it’s difficult to have a conversation about complex topics.
Given that there are multiple languages on Earth, with entirely different words for the same things, and different grammatical structures, suggests a certain lack of inherency to language, a certain arbitrariness. On the other hand, there are patterns that appear in multiple languages that may have arisen independently, suggesting a common reason for those parallel developments.
“I can only guess that formal logic isn’t a requirement in law school. That would explain a great deal about law.”
I hope that’s not an ad hominem attack. Although maybe that was just meant to be a lawyer joke. Sometimes hard to tell in text. :)
“What’s happening here is that I’m only criticizing a single part of your argument, and am not intending it to reflect on the rest of the argument.”
Okay? I’m fine with that. I just disagree with the criticism that you’re making because I think your reasoning is flawed. Either that or you’re not describing your argument in a convincing way.
“Invalidating a single point does not invalidate the whole, unless the whole actually depends on that point. ”
And if I felt you were successfully invalidating that point, I’d probably agree. I just don’t think you’ve successfully invalidated it.
If I think I am wrong on a single point which doesnt otherwise invalidate the rest of my argument, then I wouldnt have much reason to put so much effort into arguing it. :)
I specifically wrote what you said – that ‘one of the core traits of language is arbitariness’ and said ‘that does not make sense’ because language is NOT arbitrary, and even if there might be an occasional arbitrary thing about a word here or there (which is still a leap since it might just be that we’re ignorant of the logical reason rather than that it’s an arbitrary reason), the CORE element of language are logical rules for words and historical context of those words.
I feel that you are confusing the potential for language to form with language itself. Which I feel is an incorrect conclusion because, while evolution ITSELF can be random, how the language SUCCESSFULLY evolves is not random at all – it’s based on what worked best for specific reasons. Just like how biological evolution is dependent on survival of the fittest, language evolution is dependent on survival of the historical context of those words until it becomes part of the culture that uses that language.
“You, on the other hand, haven’t addressed my point at all, but instead have tackled some other point you think I’m making.”
You made one single point, which I responded to.
“Consistently maintaining the outcome of an arbitrary decision does not make the original decision any less arbitrary.”
That’s what you said.
I’m saying you have no reason to assume the original decision was arbitrary in the first place, aside from you not knowing the REASON for the original decision. Which is why I brought up etymologists would probably disagree with you. I think you’re confusing ‘things you do not know’ with ‘things that have no reason for having happened.’
“Indeed, it would be better if we were actually reading each other’s points, rather than talking past each other.”
We might be. Although you only really wrote one sentence and I’ve been trying to focus on that sentence though. Then you basically repeated the sentence, which didnt really help me to be able to respond to it, since I’d just be repeating myself. But maybe I’m missing something that you’ve said. Let me read further in your current post since you said more now. :)
“Given that there are multiple languages on Earth, with entirely different words for the same things, and different grammatical structures, suggests a certain lack of inherency to language, a certain arbitrariness.”
Okay checking this argument. I don’t think entirely different words for meaning the same thing comes from arbitrary choices. I think it comes from the interaction of different societies and their languages overlapping, words being borrowed and traded between cultures, and combining different words together.
Also, I don’t think inherency means arbitrariness.
Inherent means involved in the essential character of something, by nature or habit
Arbitrary means ‘existing or coming about seemingly at random or by chance as a capricious or unreasonable act of will, or (like I mentioned before) ‘subject to individual will or judgment; contingent SOLELY on one’s discretion; based on whim or personal preference, without reason or pattern – ie, random.’
I might just have a more strict interpretation of the definition of arbitrary than you do. Or you might have a very lax interpretation of ‘arbitrary.’ What do you think ‘arbitrary’ means, since that’s the basic reason for allllll these posts.
“On the other hand, there are patterns that appear in multiple languages that may have arisen independently, suggesting a common reason for those parallel developments.”
I agree with that, obviously. :)
Ok… my conclusion is that I -think- our main disagreement here is that we have different ideas of what arbitrary means and what a ‘core element’ means. Since we have different definitions, we’re going to keep arguing across each other.
So in order to fix that, let me know what you feel are the actual DEFINITIONS for ‘arbitrary’ and ‘core element.’
Like Bharda said when I started responding in this thread. ‘Define arbitrary.’ :)
Ok, the other problem here is that you’ve gotten names confused, and are attributing arguments that someone else has made with mine. The threading on this comment system admittedly does not help with that.
I haven’t actually stated that language was arbitrary, or that any particular decision was arbitrary. I perceived you to be making an argument that the existence of rules precludes a system from being arbitrary, and stated that was not the case. That is admittedly just an objection, and not a refutation, but it would take far more time and effort to prove that than I really have available. It’s one of those things that should be obviously true, but explaining it requires unpacking a ton of linguistic axioms. I’m arguing about the framework of the argument, without much interest in the contents or context, but you appear to be perceiving it as an argument about the topic.
My understanding of “arbitrary” comes from a background in computer science, which… isn’t science, and precedes the existence of computers. It would perhaps be more accurately named “the philosophy of computation”, and involves a lot of math, logic, and linguistics. In that context, “arbitrary” effectively means “variable”, or “could be one thing, could be another”. It’s the opposite of “inherent” or “intrinsic”.
I’m not talking about multiple words within a language having overlapping meanings, which could indeed be a product of cultural exchange, but the fact that there are different cultures in the first place, with different languages. If they independently developed the same language, that would suggest that language was intrinsic, that a word for something came from that thing, rather than something chosen by the speaker to represent it. That different peoples have made different choices, have developed different languages, suggests that those choices are arbitrary, or, to draw on the definition you’ve provided, “subject to individual will or judgment; contingent SOLELY on one’s discretion; based on whim or personal preference”.
So I guess it boils down to the question of whether you believe the actions of individual people involved in the creation of a language are arbitrary or not.
“The threading on this comment system admittedly does not help with that.”
I will definitely admit the thread has gotten VERY confusing to follow.
I take a lot of blame for that because my posts are usually insanely long, but your posts and Wzaerreaw’s posts are sometimes no slouches in the length department either. :)
I find it sort of hilarious since my entire argument is ‘this is not worth being an argument. :)’ if you want to reduce it to its most basic premise.
“I perceived you to be making an argument that the existence of rules precludes a system from being arbitrary, and stated that was not the case.”
Oh I didnt actually say that. So that might be the first bit of confusion we’re having with each other’s posts. :) I said that languages are based on a set of rules that were usually NOT arbitrary. I wasnt saying it precluded there from ever being anything arbitrarily chosen in language. I just meant that it’s rare for anything a well-established language to be arbitrary. Usually there’s some sort of reason in historical context, even if we’re not aware of it.
” That is admittedly just an objection, and not a refutation, ”
Fair enough.
” I’m arguing about the framework of the argument, without much interest in the contents or context, but you appear to be perceiving it as an argument about the topic.”
I’m a little confused about what you mean here. Which is probably ANOTHER part of why we’re arguing across each other.
“My understanding of “arbitrary” comes from a background in computer science,” […] In that context, “arbitrary” effectively means “variable”, or “could be one thing, could be another”. ”
Okay yeah we seem to have different definitions since I’m using a general definition and you’re using one that’s more tailored to a particular field of computer science. Variable doesnt seem to be specific enough for me as a definition for ‘arbitrary’ as the definition I’ve been using.
“It’s the opposite of “inherent” or “intrinsic”.”
Okay we have the same or similar definition of inherent at least. :) Again I think I’m being a little more detailed on the definition though. But you’re coming at this as from a computer science background, while I’m coming at it from a legal background.
“but the fact that there are different cultures in the first place, with different languages”
I think that also tends to be based on some sort of historical context as well very often. But I get what you’re saying. The idea of one culture having base 8 because they count the spaces between their fingers for their number system vs another using base 10 because they use their fingers. Yes, I guess in that respect there is probably some arbitrariness, but I think by the time you get to something as complex as language, there’s a lot less arbitrariness than you were suggesting.
Unless I’m reading too much into what you’re saying. Possible. There’s a LOT to read in this thread.
“So I guess it boils down to the question of whether you believe the actions of individual people involved in the creation of a language are arbitrary or not.”
Right. I’m assuming that you think it is. I think it’s not. I can’t really say why you think it is since I’m not you, but I can say why I think it’s not.
I think it’s not arbitrary because, in general, I don’t think individual people create language. I think that, historically, it is societies that create language. Interactions back and forth between DIFFERENT individuals, which provides for historical context for why certain words are used to describe different things. Then the bigger the society gets, or the more interactions they have with others and more experiences they have, the more complex the language becomes. I find this to also NOT be arbitrary, because the historical context of the words is not arbitrary.
If you feel that languages are usually created by individuals, I guess I can understand why you’d think the core element of a language is based on some sort of arbitrariness.
TL;DR – I think language originates from societies, which requires historical context for how words are formed, and therefore an absolute minimum of anything ‘arbitrary’ about it. You think language originates from individuals, which means an individual whim would be more likely as the reason for word formation.
Am I close yet on your reasoning?
PS – you should watch Ryan George. It’s a youtube channel where this guy called Ryan George has a series of skits on how things became named. And usually they are named for completely arbitrary means, although it usually STARTS with some sort of non-arbitrary reason. It’s sort of hilarious and I think you’d enjoy it. His skits tend to be ENTIRELY about people using arbitrary reasons to come up with all sorts of things. Fruit. Animals. Animal sounds. Tool names. Colors. Houses. Cats. Vacations. All sorts of stuff.
Here are a few links. This one’s for how fruits got named. :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3CewJFEsEo
And this one’s for how tools got named. :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZFWDh8ZjFw
And this is his most recent one on how animals got their sounds. ie, how onomatopoeia came to be when a lot of onomatopoeia sounds different than the sounds they’re describing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1Cp64mFe7s
I said “Consistently maintaining the outcome of an arbitrary decision does not make the original decision any less arbitrary.” You responded with “Actually the entire study of linguistics and etymology would say otherwise.:)” That doesn’t make any sense, unless you assumed that I was saying that a particular decision was arbitrary. Which I didn’t. I was arguing about the logic you’re using, with no particular comment on the topic of language.
Something that is “intrinsic” or “inherent” couldn’t be any other way, given the other properties of the referent. The terms used in mathematics are “dependent” and “independent”. You could deduce an intrinsic property from other known properties, whereas an arbitrary property is independent of other properties.
The line of demarcation between an individual and a group is probably clear, but at what point does a group of individuals become a society? At what point does “subject to individual will or judgment; contingent SOLELY on one’s discretion; based on whim or personal preference” become non-arbitrary because of individuals interacting? Are the actions of individuals really independent, or are people’s actions a result of their interactions with others and their personal history?
What I’m saying is that without a line of demarcation, the distinction between “arbitrary” and “supported by historical context” is… arbitrary. To oversimplify, it sounds like you’re saying that if one person does something, it’s arbitrary, but if two people do it, it’s suddenly not.
Those videos are pretty great, thanks for the links!
“I said “Consistently maintaining the outcome of an arbitrary decision does not make the original decision any less arbitrary.” You responded with “Actually the entire study of linguistics and etymology would say otherwise.:)” That doesn’t make any sense, unless you assumed that I was saying that a particular decision was arbitrary. ”
I just meant that the study of etymology tends to assume that the reason for word formation does not originate with an arbitrary decision. Which means they’d likely disagree with you sayin there can be a non-arbitrary outcome’ stemming from an arbitrary decision, because they’d argue that the original decision is usually not arbitrary as well.
I hope that sounds clearer.
“The line of demarcation between an individual and a group is probably clear, but at what point does a group of individuals become a society?”
According to most sociologists, a society is ‘a group of people with common territory, interaction, and culture. So a society could technically be as few as two people, but the more people there are in the group, the more likely it is to be a successful and complex society. And language beyond a very rudimentary proto-language, according to most anthropologists, tends to only form once a society achieves a certain level of complexity.
The only thing definitively is a single individual is NOT a society. There’s no interaction with anyone else if there’s only one person. You’re limited to just yourself.
“To oversimplify, it sounds like you’re saying that if one person does something, it’s arbitrary, but if two people do it, it’s suddenly not.”
Not exactly. I’m saying that if one person does something it’s easier to define that choice as having been arbitrary. They could still have done it for non-whim-based reasons. But the more people are involved in a decision, the less likely it is that that decision was made on a whim, and therefore the less likely the decision was made arbitrarily.
“Those videos are pretty great, thanks for the links!”
Ryan George is hilarious and I’m glad you enjoyed them. I started getting into his stuff with his ‘Pitch Meeting’ skits on Screen Rant, and just kept watching his other stuff as well on his own channel. :)
“Which means they’d likely disagree with you sayin there can be a non-arbitrary outcome’ stemming from an arbitrary decision, because they’d argue that the original decision is usually not arbitrary as well.”
That would be denying the premises, not the logic. If the original decision is non-arbitrary, then it has no bearing on whether or not arbitrary decisions can lead to non-arbitrary ones. Again, I doubt that you have any background in formal logic, but I can’t think of any other way to represent the issue. Formal arguments have premises and conclusions. If the premises are true, and the conclusion follows from the premises, the argument is said to be “sound”. However, an argument can be “valid” if the logic is correct, even if the premises are false. That may sound like it would be useless, but only when applied to premises that can never be true, rather than those whose truth value depends on the context or circumstance.
So here’s a series of statements in an argument:
1: Original decision D is arbitrary.
2: If a population conforms to D, then D is not arbitrary.
3: Therefore, D is not arbitrary.
That’s how I’m interpreting your argument, and it’s a contradiction. I’m saying 2 is false, but that’s not the same as saying “If a population conforms to D, then D is arbitrary”. You’re saying that an etymologist would argue that 1 is false, and therefore… 2 is true? That does not follow in the slightest.
On the other note, I’m saying that group action is a product of individual whim. If those whims are arbitrary, what makes the group action no longer whimsical? At what point does “order” emerge from “chaos”?
I’m a determinist. A compatibilist, more specifically. I don’t believe in randomness, or rather, I believe random is a word for “unknown”, or perhaps “unknowable” or “unpredictable”. The future is the product of the present. People are a product of their environment. Everything has a cause, so at what point do you call something arbitrary, if there’s a reason for everything?
“So here’s a series of statements in an argument:
1: Original decision D is arbitrary.
2: If a population conforms to D, then D is not arbitrary.
3: Therefore, D is not arbitrary.”
That’s not what I’ve said at any point.
Point 1 is incorrect. I’m saying that etymologists would say that
1: Original decision D is usually NOT arbitrary. Usually it’s based on some sort of rationale from back and forth exchanges.
2: Population conforms to decision D based on historical context, which is not arbitrary
3: Therefore, D is not arbitrary.
“That’s how I’m interpreting your argument, and it’s a contradiction.”
1) The argument you used is not my argument.
2) Even if it had been my argument, I’d be able to show how it still would make sense, because packets of order invariably form within a sea of chaos. But that’s a moot point, since what you think I said is…. not what I said.
“I’m saying 2 is false, but that’s not the same as saying “If a population conforms to D, then D is arbitrary”. You’re saying that an etymologist would argue that 1 is false, and therefore… 2 is true? That does not follow in the slightest.””
No. I’m saying an etymologist would argue that 1 is false, and that 2 is false, because the population did not conform to D in a vacuum devoid of any historical context of those words.
But I’m also saying that, even if 1 was true, there would be a second step between 1 and 2 which is not-arbitrary, which makes step 2 true. I’m steelmanning your position in order to refute it in its strongest form, but MY steelmanned position is also correct.
“I’m saying that group action is a product of individual whim.”
I would disagree with that. Because the larger the group is, the more cooperation HAS to occur in order for anything to be produced. A single person can do things on a whim. Two people can only do things on a whim if both people decide spontaneously to do things on a whim. Three people can only do things on a whim if all 3 people decide to do things on a whim. The more people there are, the less likely it is they’d all decide to do something on a whim. The more likely it is that the decision made would be from group interaction, which would have some semblence of order and reason to it.
A single person CAN do things ordered, OR they can do things on a whim, because they don’t have to deal with any other people when making the choice.
“If those whims are arbitrary,”
Whims are always arbitrary. That’s why it’s a whim and not a reasoned decision.
“what makes the group action no longer whimsical?”
Because different people do not think identically. Therefore there needs to be some sort of debate, some sort of exchange of ideas, some sort of hashing out of the ideas in order to form a rule.
“At what point does “order” emerge from “chaos”?”
At whatever point that the complexity of the group is so big that it’s insanely improbable that they’d all spontaneously decide the same thing on a whim. Which usually is a pretty low number.
Pockets of order always emerge from chaos. In evolution. In the creation of the universe. In random thoughts becoming art. In language. In fractals. In pretty much anything. It wouldnt be a stretch to argue that it’s a universal constant. As entropy increases overall, potential increases, and pockets of order also increase in number and complexity.
“I don’t believe in randomness,”
Then why are you so insistent on saying that language always starts from something arbitrary? I’m confused about that.
“or rather, I believe random is a word for “unknown”, or perhaps “unknowable” or “unpredictable”.”
…. that’s literally (and I’m using that word correctly:) ) what I’ve been saying for the past several days. That just because someone thinks something is arbitrarily (randomly) created, doesn’ t mean it is. It more likely means you don’t know the reason WHY it was created, but there’s probably a reason.
“The future is the product of the present.”
Yes, that’s how linear time works. :)
“People are a product of their environment.”
At least partially, yes.
“Everything has a cause, so at what point do you call something arbitrary, if there’s a reason for everything?”
I didnt say there’s a reason for everything. I said that arbitrary decisions become less likely and less possible the more complex a society becomes, and more possible the smaller a society is, especially when you’re at the individual person level.
So you can call something arbitrary when a single person, or at most a very small number of people, just comes up with something off the top of his or her head and just start randomly spitballing ideas without bothering to subject those ideas to any greater scrutiny.
Like a game that two 5 year olds might play where they keep pulling new rules to the game out of nowhere, for no reason, not even paying attention to the rules that the OTHER child had justmade, just because their vivid imaginations have not yet been able to handle the concept of rule permanence…. to the point that the ‘set of rules’ to the game make no sense at all, conflict each other on a very basic level, and are nearly impossible to duplicate in order to teach it to others.
My original statement of “Consistently maintaining the outcome of an arbitrary decision does not make the original decision any less arbitrary.” could effectively be rephrased as “Order can arise from chaos”. You’ve effectively responded with “No, that’s false. Order CAN arise from chaos.” Do you see why I might be confused?
You’re trying to argue that D is not arbitrary, using some shaky inductive reasoning. I’m not arguing about whether D is or is not arbitrary at all. I’m just complaining that your argument is not rigorous.
> Then why are you so insistent on saying that language always starts from something arbitrary?
I at no point made that claim, and that you think I did is probably the source of all resulting confusion.
>> The future is the product of the present.
> Yes, that’s how linear time works. :)
>> People are a product of their environment.
> At least partially, yes.
How do you square the distinction you’re making there? If the future is solely determined by the present, then are people’s future actions not solely determined by the present state of the universe, or do you conjecture some other input to the system?
““Order can arise from chaos”. You’ve effectively responded with “No, that’s false. Order CAN arise from chaos.” Do you see why I might be confused?”
Yes. I think the reason for the confusion is we both agree that order can arise from chaos, but you might be missing that I’m saying that, with language, there isn’t chaos in the first place in most cases anyway.
“I’m just complaining that your argument is not rigorous.”
I dunno, I think my arguments are very rigorous, judging from how much I tend to write and how much time I’ve focused on a rather minor point. :)
‘I at no point made that claim, and that you think I did is probably the source of all resulting confusion.”
At least MOST of the confusion. Far as I can see we’re at loggerheads on two issues.
1) With language, it usually starts from order vs usually starting from chaos.
2) Order can come even when the start is chaos.
Apparently we both agree on the point 2, and for some reason we thought we were both at opposite ends on that. But with point 1, that is the other source of disagreement, because I think it’s very rare that a language -begins- from arbitrary choices, let alone evolves from it (the latter bein what we both agree about – that it does not).
“How do you square the distinction you’re making there? If the future is solely determined by the present, then are people’s future actions not solely determined by the present state of the universe, or do you conjecture some other input to the system?”
Largely because you used/added the word ‘solely’. Humans are sort of unique in the animal kingdom in that we can plan for the future based on things which have not even happened yet. They sometimes do things that have nothing to do with their past upbringing or the environment in which they were raised. I don’t think humans’ future actions are SOLELY based upon the present circumstances. I think it influences things, but it’s not the be-all end-all of their destinies.
Humans are not SOLELY a product of their environment, or you’d be at odds to explain people like Oskar Schindler (former Nazi party member who winds up saving 1200 jewish men, women, and children – including disabled people – from the gas chambers), or Jeff Bezos (son of a dirt poor teenage mother who’s father left before he was born, who winds up growing up to become the richest man on the planet), or any number of other people who did not let the circumstances of their upbringing limit the outcome of their ultimate legacy.
We know from science that humans are not solely a product of their environment. Some is genetic. But even if that were false; explaining those events as a product of their environment isn’t difficult, either. We do not know what specific environment these folks had from birth.
Yes, one was a Nazi later, but early on their parents may have taught proper morals, or they may have suffered a traumatic event that made them feel empathy for those who also suffered. Humans are complex; most don’t simply fall into line with their immediate surroundings.
Yes, the other is a shrewd businessman, but despite their poor background, their mother was likely supportive and more importantly realistic. Realism is the most important business mindset. Most parents aren’t realistic but becoming a lone teenage mother does have a way of blasting reality into your forebrain. Some mothers go crazy from the strain but others become better parents than you might think possible. Jeff isn’t the only rags to riches story; one commonality among the origin stories I’ve heard is they always had at least one sensible person to rely on to help them build their own insight and competency. And sometimes, coming from the ghettos does good bringing out their ruthlessness.
As the saying goes:
It’s just an aphorism, but, it’s the best explanation I’ve found for why society is cyclical. It applies to individual businesses and organizations as much as it does entire nations.
I like the extra symbols. It would be neat to have the symbols be interlockable based on physical compatibility (er, without any extra work). Like puzzle pieces fitting together. Some symbols seem to have that.
… But I realize this might not be everyone’s cup of tea.
The next bit is not really related to the comic, which is good. I did look it up and noticed gender and sex symbols seem to be used interchangeably in current (Western) human society, which makes things a little confusing. Even if you could change physical sex as easily as our society can change clothes, some may not want to, and that’s without dragging non-physical sentients into the mess. (For those who wonder – the reason for my annoyance is that gender is used for (mental) identity, sex being biological sex. Then there are gender roles, which are basically what you’re expected to do when you’re a specific sex. This is a gross oversimplification and like I said, not really any criticism of the comic. :) )
Uh, feel free to ignore that. My thoughts got away from me. :)
Nah, you make sense. In ancient civs, Female and Male were represented by triangles, The mound and the cup, meaning protrusion and orifice, and they could fit together. So making symbols that are inherently “fitting” as puzzle pieces is the kind of thing a class 6/7 civ (like the Culture) would create to accurately portray the physical AND mental outlook regarding sex of a sophont.
I think I remember hearing about that in the movie ‘The DaVinci Code.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIwZVG5wMi8
Hey now, I resemble that remark.
Sadly, no.
Why have you not been in the lengthy thread on our discussing the word ‘arbitrary?’
I’ve been carrying the pedantic banner all by myself! :)
Nope. On this page is a chart showing most of those and their definitions.
https://anunnakiray.com/all-the-gender-symbols/
It could have been such a nice chance to throw in a (hilariously overloaded) swiss pocketknive style option.
I am offended by your stereotyping of snowflakes
#NotAllSnowflakes
All this offensive stereotyping of us stereotypes.
Snowflake much? I have found over the years the biggest snowflakes are those that whine about them the most.
It was never that subtle, to be honest. “They’re just looking to be offended!” said the person, about fictional strawmen, caring about things that don’t affect the speaker.
In nature, no two snowflakes are alike.
While makes sex between snowflakes potentially very interesting
At a minimum, it should make inbreeding harder. o.o
Two words: scroll bar.
Quick! Get this person Some Attention, STAT!
As a genetic research, they’re not imaginary.
It stands to reason that Lapha would have unknown genders on the panel; after all. Lapha’s a member of an unknown species!
Do you suppose seahorses have the same idea of their genders as ourselves? (Hint: the ones we call ‘Male’ are the ones that get pregnant.) How about Naked Mole Rats? With them, I suppose there have to be at least four genders, because the vast majority of both males and females are asexual. Or maybe Whelk, or Snails? Or any of the other several species that alternate between male and female during their lifetimes? Those are species we know about. Those are species whose reproductive cycle involves mixing two individuals’ DNA. We have no frickin’ IDEA what carries Lapha’s people’s genetic information (and I’m guessing at least two different things because the flame-self and body-self probably originated as two different species).
And even if we guess correctly what kind of things DO carry genetic information, maybe the mixing-of-exactly-two dynamic isn’t even the operative principle!
Seriously, we have no idea what the biology or sexual identity dynamics of Lapha’s people are like. If I see a screen with thirty choices, I tend to assume that there are thirty choices that are relevant and meaningfully different.
“It stands to reason that Lapha would have unknown genders on the panel; after all. Lapha’s a member of an unknown species!”
Right. That’s why all the people arguing about this, as if we’re talking about human beings, are arguing for no reason. :)
This is almost beyond parody.
Not only are the people you’re preemptively complaining about not here, a lot of people in the comments are decrying the mere existence of the gender symbols in the comic.
Maybe try calming down if the mere visual of non-binary genders gets you this defensive.
Heh. All of this is tmreminding me of my old crush in Xana from Dark Messiah.
Well if your physiology on sex is concerned more with pleasure and physical preferences than reproduction the sheer variety you could end up with could get very CREATIVE.
A vagina whose clitoris can manually inflate into a phallus for example, or a fold out ovipositor, prongs to grip, cat like barbs, a knot, baculum, multiples like a reptile *good with fat tails so either side from behind is comfortable, corkscrew various degrees of prehensile options up to what a Centauri from Babylon 5 had *a pair of five to six foot long squid whip like tentacles that folded up when not in use* just to name a few options for a humanoid frame.
of course those are just some phallus options, vagina, stretchy, depth, muscles, multiple paths, more than one, bristles, lubrication control, retractable teeth, ect…
There’s robably a mutiple choice/ multi appendage opti9ns as well, byt i think that is not available under the basic quick checkout 15 items or less rules.
That dropdown is to the left of gender.
um yes I want to be compatible with the dragonkin, male and female so. I am going to need a an armored phallus with a spiked crest on the head, as well as an armored labia and thick brush like bristles inside the vagina that are both tough and have pressure sensitive nerve endings on each one as they scrape against between the armored scales of my partner’s phallus to stimulate them. I will also need twisting muscles inside and a manual thermal regulation system with hydraulic speed control. Oh and also retractable teeth/spikes along the labia as a big fat “not in the mood” if need be.
… we have some really odd conversations in this forum, don’t we?
so when is max knocking the glass ?
They’re by Jupiter.
These guys are long gone.
Max is connonicaly not able to leave the atmosphere. One super that I know of has to basicaly fly like of like a jET SSTO to Around 45k then do a modified gravity turn to get into LEO.
After that well
Earth to the moon at 1g cruising thrust one way is 2 hours 22 m 12 seconds at a mostly optimal point In LEO. That’s basicaly him in sustained thrust mode. If there using a basic shuttle drive like EvEs, in that time they could be puttering along at a wimpy 5 au/s or Star cite zen s quantum drive .18 c for a cheep one. Let’s say around .2 for a souped up put put quantum. That’s about 1 au every 40 min. Or three times the distance between the Earth and the sun. Never mind the moon.
Space is big people.
The fastest way to get him to LEO is to slap a modified extreme altitude suit on Sydney and let Max fly them both to around or above 70k then drop him to do his imitation of a sky bolt ALBM
She won’t be. And I feel pretty confident making that guess.
1) Maxima might be extremely powerful, but she has limits, and one of those limits is she needs to breathe and can’t survive hard vacuum all the way from Earth to Jupiter. Maxima has a top ceiling for her flight before the atmosphere gets too thin, let alone going into actual SPACE. In canon. In the comic this has been shown, during Halo’s testing. She had to wear a mask when the atmosphere gets too thin. So far as we know the only ones who can survive in space are Sydney with her shield up and Achilles. Achilles would be rather useless here though since he can’t move through space with any significant momentum, since he can’t fly.
2) Maxima can’t move as fast as their ship is going by a long shot. Whatever speed she can move at, we only know it’s more than Mach 4 and significantly less than Mach 33. We’re not sure if she can even go faster than Sydney’s top speed, which is Mach 16 (assuming we don’t include aetherium causeways, which isnt really about speed).
3) Maxima, unlike Sydney, has to still deal with gravity. I believe that DaveB has said she can’t achieve escape velocity (Mach 33). I actually think this might be scientifically inaccurate, since escape velocity involvesthe speed needed for a NON-propelled object to escape the gravitational influence of Earth and she might actually be able to do that, but I don’t know how Maxima’s flight works, aside from that she does have to deal with gravity. She does not have her own localized gravity, like Sydney does.
4) It’s unlikely she’d be able to track which direction they went in three dimensional space. To quote Douglas Adams: Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.
5) Story-wise it honestly wouldnt make any narrative sense at this point.
Escape velocity decreases as you get farther from whatever celestial body you’re moving away form. Simply put if you’re at escape velocity you wont hit the ground if you turn off your thrusters/gravity drive/whatever your ship uses.
If you’re exerting enough force (via thrusters or gravity whatsits) to move up at all and can maintain that you will eventually hit escape velocity, so unless Max needs atmosphere to fly (like an airplane does, not breathing) then she could fly into space with a space suit on.
Except again…. Max isnt actually able to achieve escape velocity, according to DaveB.
My main ‘unless’ is if Maxima flies in some way that has nothing to do with thrust. But she seems to have to deal with gravity so I’m assuming thrust is also a factor. Halo pointed this out in an earlier comic, in fact. Panel 6 in the below link.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-350-its-localized-its-just-not-personalized/
If she can propel herself at as much as 1g of thrust, without stopping, and she points herself “up” she will eventually exit the atmosphere. “Escape velocity” applies only to objects with a limited supply of thrust, so to speak.
Rockets have a limited supply of fuel for thrust. Maxima does not, as far as we’ve been informed. She has NO NEED to “achieve escape velocity” at all!
And the “Mach 33” thing is for objects relying on (essentially) inertia to escape the atmosphere. Like cannon balls. Ballistic flight.
If *anything and everything* had to reach the magical number of “Mach 33” before it could leave the atmosphere, we’d never have made it to space.
In short, unless Maxima’s flight powers work like a bullet or a baseball, or early Superman (he could jump, not fly), which we know they don’t because she’s stopped in midair, turned, and resumed flying before, then the only thing preventing her from exiting the atmosphere is her need to breathe.
Tl;dr: “achieve escape velocity” is utterly meaningless unless maxima “flies” like a baseball or bullet. If she can continually maintain thrust, it’s a nonsensical statement. No offense to Dave, it’s just basic physics.
If Dave has said she can’t Escape the earth, then that’s canon. It probably means that her flight is powered by some interaction with some aspect of Earth.
Given that Halo has no powers but found a mysterious alien artifact, and Maxima got her powers from a mysterious artifact, I really hope Max’s artifact was NOT alien, and is actually somehow a part of the Earth. However I think Maxima was on the off-planet expedition that made Sydney time-travel, so that theory is probably shot.
I maintain that it was a Space Dragon Egg. o_o
maybe quantum locking.
After seeing demonstrations of quantum locking as a means to levitate objects off the ground I came up with a few Rejects (overly weak or limited powers) characters.
One of which could only fly up to 100 feet above sea level…yes, he didn’t even know he had powers till he visited the beach but found out as he got further away how high he could fly decreased, careful measurements and turned out it was based on sea level. So get 100 feet above sea level and zero distance able to levitate.
closer to actual quantum locking I had another character who had to be locked to a surface to levitate. He could glide up the side of a wall using his hands and feet *with practice*, otherwise look like he was hugging the wall, but if he got more than a foot or so off the wall this wouldn’t hold any longer and he’d fall.
However off a horizontal surface he got more stability and could levitate up to 20 feet off the ground, try to go higher and he wobbled and fell back down, with buildings around he could go a bit higher by using the roofs, but the ground always gave him the best stability…still only 20 feet which made power lines a real pain so he was usually levitating at less than half his flight ceiling which was okay for putting on shows for charity with The Rejects.
I’m a lawyer with some science background, but not a physicist, so i’m not sure if you’re right or not. But I’m assuming that only 1G of constant thrust won’t do the trick, because eventually the gravitational pull of Earth will pull you back down.
But again, that all depends on how Maxima’s ability to fly works, so it’s all a guess to me. However, since DaveB said she can’t achieve escape velocity, I’m assuming that she can’t achieve escape velocity.
I guess either:
A. DaveB doesn’t understand this aspect of physics
B. Maxima is propelled by some force that depletes when closer to space
C. He was referring to the fact she can’t achieve escape velocity but meant nothing about her ability to fly out of the atmosphere.
Hard to tell without seeing the original comment in context.
That said, 1G of constant thrust would be useless unless you’re already in motion at a rate greater than 1G. 1G thrust – 1G gravity = 0 so you’d just float in place. I mean technically the Earth’s gravity varies over its surface, but they just said 1G rather than absolute figures, so…
“A. DaveB doesn’t understand this aspect of physics”
That would admittedly be a trope – the “No Sense of Velocity” trope. But I think DaveB probably has done at least cursory research on that since a lot of pages regarding Sydney’s powers have dealt with that.
“B. Maxima is propelled by some force that depletes when closer to space”
Possible – Maxima’s powers arent THAT well explained yet. Or they are, but are classified so we havent found out yet in story.
“C. He was referring to the fact she can’t achieve escape velocity but meant nothing about her ability to fly out of the atmosphere.”
Again possible. Although there’s still the problem that Maxima does need to breathe, which likely means her body isnt completely impervious, or at least not as resistant as Sydney’s shield seems to be against hard vacuum. Otherwise I’m not sure why she would have required the mask when high up in high atmosphere, or why she would have let Sydney ferry her to the Black Reliquiry rather than accept the Council’s help if she was capable of doing the trip on her own under her own powers. It sort of reminds me in the comics about how Luke Cage might have invulnerable skin, but it doesnt mean his insides are impervious to massive pressure changes, like Superman or Supergirl are.
“That said, 1G of constant thrust would be useless unless you’re already in motion at a rate greater than 1G. ”
We’ve already gone beyond my scientific knowledge now :)
Earth’s gravity is roughly 9.8m/s² down toward the planet. If we assume that’s the uniform gravity across the entire planet and that Maxima is traveling straight up at 1G, that means she’s traveling up against gravity at 9.8m/s².
The rest is basic math. If gravity is pulling down at 9.8m/s² and maxima is going up at 9.8m/s² then 9.8-9.8=0… 0m/s². So, she’s not moving. She’s floating in place.
I apologize, when you said you had some science background I assumed you knew how gravity and acceleration worked. Those are typically used in the intro to Newtonian physics because they’re a lot more intuitive than some of the later subjects.
Also, I upon re-reading I made an error when I wrote that sentence. “already in motion at a rate greater than 1G” should be reconstructed as “already in motion in addition to that thrust.”
I’m an IP attorney who passed the patent bar, so i do have some basic understanding but I’m never going to claim to have expertise in physics. I took one physics course, a few math courses (stopped after linear algebra because that made my head hurt), and mainly concentrated on biology and organic chemistry for the ‘science background’ that I used when I sat for the patent bar.
Like I said – I have a science background, but I’m not a physicist. I havent cracked open a physics book since my first year of college, and most of the time I havent needed to use Newtonian physics when dealing with patents, trademarks, and copyrights that I’ve processed. And definitely not when doing non-IP areas of law :)
Most of what I know is, like I said, gleaned from a few science TV shows, being really into Michio Kaku’s lectures, and reading wikipedia. And no one should ever claim to be an expert or even competent at a subject by reading wikipedia, so I’m definitely not going to do that – I’m decidedly a layman in physics. I’ll stick to being confident when talking about the law instead of in physics.
:)
Thanks for the explanation btw. I still am not sure I got most of what you said though but you said it very confidently, so i’ll take you at your word. :)
If I can give one suggestion, you should watch science videos on independent channels like CuriousityStream, Thoughty2, ActionLab, Anton Petrov, etc. Independent youtubers aren’t perfect but I’ve noted a lot more effort to educate as opposed to the stuff I used to watch like the Discovery and History channels. Even NatGeo and the Science Channel appear to have fallen into the pop science trap; which is unfortunate because now my free TV subscription is useless unless I want to watch Bloomberg for some reason.
I’ll check them out, thanks!
I think I may have already seen some Thoughty2 but never heard of the other ones.
The other day Anton Petrov got hundreds of comments when he made an error. It made me realize independent creators are able to receive negative feedback more easily and quickly than corporate content creators. There’s plenty of other topic channels if those don’t suit you.
I saw one where a Russian guy made an entire bench saw by using wood, a drill, glue, bolt/nut/washers, and a solder tip to burn numbers into the ruler. He popped the drill into the bench saw to drive the sawblade. I never expected to see such practical content… Uh, anywhere. Table saw broken and can’t wait for Amazon? Here’s how. Well, enjoy.
Most of the science channels I watch tend to be a bit more silly, like ‘What would happen scientifically if the Flash were real’ :)
I kind of want to see Max waiting to arrest them on Fracture Station (after a conversation with Cora about their extradition policy), but that would require knowing about Deus’s stargate.
She would not have jurisdiction to arrest anyone on Fracture station.
I’m envisioning that Ray Cosmos can press some kind of charges against them for utilizing his tour for a criminal enterprise, and then maybe Maxima or Cora can talk them into extradition.
That would be a civil case, not a criminal charge. You don’t get arrested for civil cases like torts. Individuals sue. Governments charge. Okay governments can also sue, but ONLY governments (city, state, county, federal) can charge criminally. That’s why in any criminal lawsuit, it’s always ‘the state vs defendant’ or ‘US vs defendant’ or some name like that. Because the government is ALWAYS one of the parties involved, via the prosecution.
Also you can’t get extradited until there’s some sort of treaty or agreement in place for that. Which there isn’t. I think I’ve mentioned this in fact on a completely different case a while ago. The only thing that might in any way be considered a treaty with extraterrestrials in the Grrlpower universe is whatever they have with irradon via the council agreement with the US. And I’m pretty willing to bet that extradition from The Fracture’s was not a part of that agreement.
Not necessarily. Sydney could get them there through one of her wormholes. She probably still has the station ‘bookmarked’.
In fact we KNOW she does, since she got there with a bookmark in the first place, and has been back at least once, to answer NDT’s questions about gravity on the station.
I thought she didn’t have a bookmark back to Earth, though, and doesn’t know how to make new bookmarks, so without the stargate they’d have to wait for Cora to fly back there and pick them up.
I suppose both orb-travel and the stargate have the problem that we don’t want the station authorities to start asking questions about how a pre-FTL civilization got there faster than the criminals.
Remember the Q&A with Niel Degrasse Tyson at her comic shop? She went to Fracture Station and came back, so one of the things Cora helped her locate (remember, she offered to get Sydney some landmarks for galactic navigation) was the navigation point for Earth.
Her trip to buy Neil deGrasse Tyson some Grakz implies that she does now – or at least currently – have a reference for Earth.
Whether that’s a Bookmark or not remains unproven. The analogy to internet browsers may be relevant: there, a Bookmark is a reference deliberately deployed and permanent, while History automatically records the sites visited but only has a limited capacity in time and/or number. If Sydney has deployed a Bookmark for Earth, all is well. (If there was one left by a previous user, then the question is whether she knows about it and can use it.) If she instead relied on the Orb’s History function for that trip, then she risks losing her way home if she stays away too long or travels too widely.
Pretty sure she said they were wearing the masks to be able to talk, not to breath. Air is needed to talk and neither are telepathic. Is there a page where Max or DaveB explicitly stated so? It’d be appreciated.
Aetherium causeways are likely about speed; just that it’s 4-dimensional speed. Which might explain why there was a time gap between her and Earth during that trip to the Alari home planet. Also why she took half an hour to get Grakz for Neil Degrasse Tyson. I don’t remember if there was any such gap for the blood portal, though, which might be a hole in that hypothesis.
Doubtful since the conversation indicates that Dave is leaving an open opportunity for their return to Earth. People seem to enjoy their dynamic so maybe it will happen.
I participated in a play by post game once for which I did significant research into how the Romulan singularity stuff might work in the real world. There were some neat takeaways, like assuming they’re harvesting the radiation off of the singularity and employing some sci-fi nonsense to control its mass, the singularity outputs less energy the more you feed into it, and it runs off literally anything that exists. You could pour water, or stone, or whatever you wanted into it and just process the radiation coming off of it. The difference between a singularity that lasts a day and one that lasts a year was several orders of magnitude of mass.
Hmm… perhaps most interestingly, an evaporating black hole gives energy faster in a pure matter-to-energy conversion style sense as it runs down, with the rate increasing exponentially towards the end. So… a Romulan ship that lets the batteries run completely dry and doesn’t eject the singularity into deep space or a star or something should promptly explode with enough force to obliterate a planet. Of course, long before it hit that point they’d presumably have reached some kind of limit on their ability to use the energy, and the ship itself will have evaporated or collapsed into their mini black hole engine.
What would be better than harvesting the Hawking radiation would be harnessing a Kerr-Newman singularity – one that is rotating and carries a charge. Those are about the only two physical properties other than mass that a singularity retains, but they make it so much more useful (also, presumably all existing singularities are at least Kerr-type, since all matter has an angular momentum. You can add the Newman on if it’s not already by shooting a charged particle beam into the singularity). The charge lets you move it around (if you somehow found or made one small enough and it didn’t evaporate explosively) without touching it, which is kind of important, and apparently also increases the efficiency of the energy extraction. The rotation is how you extract energy – with the Penrose process, which uses the fact that the rotation of the singularity drags spacetime around it (rotational frame-dragging) in a region outside the event horizon, called the ergosphere. Launch a chunk of matter or shoot a particle beam or beam of light through the ergosphere, and some of it can come out with more energy than it entered with (“stealing” it from the rotation of the singularity). It’s one of the possible explanations for the relativistic jets observed exiting from the poles of the supermassive black holes in galactic cores.
Lab tests “proved” hawking radiation via an analogue. It still hasn’t been shown to exist in actual black holes. Which puts a huge damper on the sci-fi fun if the theory turns out less accurate than expected.
It’s extremely likely energy does escape from black holes, but personally I suspect the mechanism is far less convoluted than what Hawking laid out.
Based on my limited understanding of some courses in college and a few episodes of Nova and watching Michio Kaku on PBS, I don’t think Hawking radiation wa ever proven, it’s just a hypothesis. They’ve only even proven the EXiSTENCE of actual black holes in the last couple of decades. And I dont think its even been shown in microscopic black holes that have been produced, when they dissipate. But again, I can only learn so much from an hour of Dr Kaku or from narration by Morgan Freeman :)
Hah, you are correct; it is indeed unproven so far. We have not managed to create or prove the existence of microscopic black holes, either. Both are, however, “proven” by black hole analogues in several different labs. Which is not the same thing but even scientists nowadays swing around bullshit and call it evidence.
A fancy experiment that doesn’t test the hypothesis is pretty useless. Considering the cost and resources I’d say they even provide negative value. Blasting quanta with other quanta and they MOVE! Surely, we would’ve never learned that from Newton’s laws of motion.
Based on my studies I believe both of these are the result of fundamental misunderstandings of gravity and spacetime. Which is partly why I very much dislike Hawking; the man spread a lot of trendy “theories” that don’t pass muster when you examine the logic and math. I guess people gave him a pass because he was a cripple. Shame I don’t get any social freebies since I refuse to use a wheelchair. /angry huff/
” We have not managed to create or prove the existence of microscopic black holes, either. Both are, however, “proven” by black hole analogues in several different labs.”
Again, from my tireless research of watching three episodes of Nova and a couple of episodes of some show I don’t remember on PBS starring Michio Kaku with narration by Morgan Freeman, I do remember them saying they have managed to create microscopic black holes in lab conditions for fractions of a microsecond before they snuff out of existence, but I don’t remember them saying that they were able to measure hawkings radiation from that. Additional laborious research involving about a half hour of looking on wikipedia (I hope people realize how sarcastic I’m being once I’ve used the words ‘research’ and ‘wikipedia’ in one sentence:) ), has told me that hawkings radiation is only a guess made by Hawking, based on a prediction of what will happen to black holes EVENTUALLY. :) So…. I’m not sure if that’s actually been proven at all.
“A fancy experiment that doesn’t test the hypothesis is pretty useless.”
Total agreement with you :).
” Which is partly why I very much dislike Hawking; the man spread a lot of trendy “theories” that don’t pass muster when you examine the logic and math.”
A lot of his theories were also disproven by janitor-turned-amateur physicist Leonard Susskind, from what I recall.
“I guess people gave him a pass”
I think learning complex math and physics to begin with when you can’t move your entire body save for two fingers is still rather insanely impressive. Plus like I said, eventually Susskind proved a lot of Hawking’s theories on black holes to be wrong, including what happens to black holes when they ‘evaporate.’
Honestly not sure how he disproved Hawking but I’m sure it involved a lot of math that is beyond my Wikipedia and Morgan Freeman-fueled understanding.
Yeah, what you’re referring to are analogues like sound or magnetism. Actual mini black holes; that is, based on gravity, have not been observed. I mean, we know a magnet holds stuff. It’s not all that mysterious. I’m not clear why Michio Kaku would think that was similar to gravity. Stupid pop science.
I actually did not know at all about Susskind so thanks for letting me know. I’m a bit obsessed with raw information and try to ignore the people involved… Especially after I read Hawking’s work. I would like to read about the guy who took out his garbage, though. Heh, janitor joke.
“I’m not clear why Michio Kaku would think that was similar to gravity.”
It could just be I didn’t understand the show, or maybe he was just dumbing it down to the point where he was wrong, but the show where he talked about it had something to do with the large hadron collider in Switzerland.
But yeah, Susskind actually put out a book about it called ‘The Black Hole War – My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics’ back in 2008. It’s a pretty good read in case you’re into that stuff. Enjoy! :)
Why are there genders in the selection menu? If she’s building a body, she’d clearly be choosing sexes.
I find it funny to note no one’s commenting on the “Is it always akimbo” part.
Course, if you know anything about Herpetology, it makes sense. Assuming Garamm is *ahem* built like most Earth Reptiles.
Not always no, although 1:10 may be a bit low. Depends on time of day, ambient temperature and humidity, current storage capacity, time and nature of most recent usage, etc. Somewhere out there is probably a serious research paper with actual studies that has a definitive answer, but I’m not brave enough to put the necessary terms into a search engine.
Also, a urinal on a spaceship would be a complete waste of space for any ship so small, a galactic space toilet that can handle the majority of known species can surely be used with the seat up.
What is this “seat” of which you speak? Most species have the ability (and design) to squat, or just drop it out the bottom or back, so the simplest multi-species evacuator is probably something extremely simple, mostly dealing with size and geometry. It might be an odd-shaped hole in the deck and one wall, with or without buttons/actuators to alter the shape of the splash guards and adjust the amount of suction.
Of course, *all* of them have three seashells.
+1 internet for the Demolition Man reference.
I doubt it has anything to do with hemiphenes- even with just a normal wizzer every so often the stream randomly bifurcates at the start and takes a bit to straighten out. It can make a huge mess, especially when you aren’t expecting it because you’re going with the lights off in the middle of the night. You might not even notice until later because one of the streams hit the target.
Have you considered the possibility that the author may have already addressed your question in his notes on the page?
The author’s comments in the author comments section may have addressed it, but I’d like to point out that ‘gender’ isn’t a trigger word for trans people. The same couldn’t be said for the other option. I mean, at least for some trans people.
As far as why the incredible selection if it’s for the physical rather than mental selection? Humans may only come in four configurations in that regard (top left three, plus the one on the top right), but non-humans have more variety.. A lot of the varieties depicted there are even represented by creatures on earth.
Just to clarify my point about configurations humans come in – I’m not talking genders here, but the trigger word. If this is a ‘indicate the gender you are as a prelude to determining things about your physical attributes’, then we certainly have more items on this list.
I rather like this interpretation.
The idea that the menu designers were smart & empathetic enough to ask about one’s identity as a filter for biological configurations is actually pretty damn clever. With many trillions of various options for meat suit design in a Pan-galactic setting, you’d _have_ filter options for the customer, or they’d literally die of old age before getting a look at everything they’ve an interest in, let alone everything they don’t.
Speaking from the trans perspective, no, the word ‘gender’ isn’t particularly triggering in its own right. It’s the context in which it get used that can create problems.
Now, that being said, yes, it does get our attention, because it does seem to get brought up mostly in relation to issues that effect us directly, and often in very serious, very personal ways. And given the abuse most of us have suffered in relation thereto, that should be neither surprising or very difficult to understand. Sadly…there do seem to be a whole fuckton of people determined to make a fight of it, even when nobody else really wants to.
I think that’s where the “preemptive snowflakery” comes from. They want/need to assume we’re going to give them their dragon to slay, when all we really want is to pee in peace, comfort, quiet, and security. Their egos demand we get outraged, to justify their outrage.
After all, it’s no fun, playing by yourself.
“Justify their outrage?” “Playing by yourself?”
You’re literally discussing gender being a “trigger word.” Don’t be such a monumental hypocrite.
Actually, sweetie, I was literally saying that, for we in the trans community, “gender” in and of itself is not, in fact particularly triggering.
Go read what I wrote, and not what you assumed I wrote.
You both say it isn’t, then explain contexts in which it is. Contradicting yourself, being sarcastic, and even condescending, doesn’t help your point. Because, you know, that’s typical behavior of someone who’s triggered.
Intellectual cohesion and rationality are much harder when you’re trying to argue a point you yourself disbelieve; all the more so when your argument is “I’m not angry, you’re just too dumb!”
“Triggered.”
#Drink
I don’t think you’re “too dumb,” furendo, I just think you’re too emotionally tied up in your assumptions.
But hey, maybe I’m mistaken? Let’s engage in a little critical reading exercise.
You tell me what you think I meant.
> condescending
> condescending…
Okay, so, please explain. You only get triggered when it’s used in some contexts. Does that mean the word should simply not be used in criticism? Critique? Examination? What? Because I’ve yet to find a context in which you, specifically, don’t act nasty when I use it.
Scroll down.
Zero nastiness.
As for the accusations of condescension…definitely going to own the first one. That was 100% me being a capital-B Bitch.
The second one was just a literal statement, and not really intended personally, per se. Everyone -EVERYONE – has a habit of making assumptions about things they start to read, at least some of the time, especially when things get emotionally charged. And don’t claim you’re not, your frustration and feeble sexual tensions are bleeding through my screen.
(Yes, that was me ribbing you, don’t get ‘em in a knot)
Sarcastic disarmament.
Dismissing my inference, then adding a word a non-Italian isn’t going to understand.
Trying to establish mutual understanding and then going back to one-sided bullying under the pretext of assumed lack of comprehension. (My mother was an expert at this; it’s how she slowly destroyed my self-confidence until she was able to convince me to torture myself.)
I’m not picking out everything just to rag on you. I’m doing this to demonstrate that your hostility goes beyond what is normal for a person talking about a word they supposedly don’t find offending. I don’t know what you really think; I can only read the contexts you provide. Maybe you just hate me, I dunno, but I don’t feel I deserve that either.
Just to be clear; I was only actually angry when I wrote my very first reply to Harmony. I’ve done my best to refrain from expressing negative emotion since because I do have a bad habit of undermining myself when angry. That only seems to be the case when I’m rebutting someone else’s rebuttal, though; I’ve rarely had an issue being anything more than upset in a passionate way in my initial criticisms.
Well, “furendo,” may be an actual wordin
Italian (I neither know nor care), but I was just using bad engrish.
tl;dr
“I’m just trying to help you, person whom I have repeatedly insisted is sick and unstable, and I have explicitly stated I will disregard the autonomy of.”
“I identify you with my mother, and want you to feel guilt for the abuse I suffered.”
“I don’t deserve the hate you might very definitely for me, that I am associating with you, and claiming to be the innocent victim of, despite being an antagonistic NazBol and asserting that trans people do not have aright to their own identities.”
“I am very normal except when I’m not because it’s everyone else’s fault, and I don’t even care about you, whom I’ve spent days failing to “beat” on an Internet forum.”
All of that was intended to hurt me, so, I’m going to disregard you now.
If Dave wanted to go that route, it could be that he wants to establish that whilst sex is what’s between your legs, gender still has physical component for this (and/or other) species in that it’s part of the physical makeup of the brain they will interface with and that the incorporeal “soul” like entity is either genderless or is influenced by the physical properties of the grey-matter.
I’ve always found the whole mind-body distinction a bit contrived. It’s an inherently dualist perspective, after all.
Yes, it is true that gender & genitals are not the same thing…but our brains are part of our bodies. We can’t ignore that…entanglement, to borrow from quantum theory.
“It’s complicated.”
“but our brains are part of our bodies.”
Except with Lapha’s species, the brain, or at least the mind (I probably shouldnt use those two words interchangeably since Harem shows in the comic that a humans brain and minds can be distinct from each other, at least in the grrlpower universe) is apparently separate from the body. :)
As I understand the authorial intent (Barthes be damned), the meat sack isn’t the intrinsic “Lapha,” but rather a sort of biomech she was piloting. A better question to examine might be whether or not there is a way to separate Lapha from her flaming wisp eye thing.
Right, exactly. Which is my point. Any non-biological elements of Lapha (mind, sexuality as opposed to sex, emotions, psychology, etc) are in the ‘flaming wisp eye thing.’ So if the argument is gender is in the mind, sex is in the body, it’s sort of a moot point to argue it with Lapha’s species. While there can be an argument on either side with humans, with Lapha’s species, there’s a very distinct cutoff line between mind and body. Or maybe the flaming wisp eye thing is just a storage system for what would otherwise be something very intangible like ‘data’ (see below on the last paragraph I write).
The closest thing we see to that with humans in the Grrlpower universe is how Harem’s mind is quantum entangled and there’s only one ‘Harem’s mind’ even though there are 5 distinct biological brains. Although I’m assuming Harem’s probably a unique case among humanity in the Grrlpower universe. But it’s still a start to build from.
It does make me wonder if this is a natural thing for her (Lapha’s) species or if it’s something they evolved into via technology. Like…. maybe they eventually transformed themselves into data, and were able to use ‘meatsacks’ so they can just flit from body to body as needed. Probably the closest thing I can compare the idea to in popular media would be that movies involving virtual reality, but in reverse. Like the Lawnmower Man. Or maybe that Bruce Willis movie, Surrogates. Although not exactly since in that movie, there was still an actual biological body at home and they were using the shells as a remote piloting thing.
Although there is some sort of blending that takes place, from the whole ‘fwaash’ in the eyes when she joins with Garamm, and how her eyes blacken out when it leaves her body. I guess it could be either blending or just piloting.
Let me restate myself, seeking greater clarity.
I am suggesting that the wisp flame eye thing, which is clearly a manifestation in material reality, is Lapha’s actual “body.”
That’s definitely a possibility as well.
That is definitely a possibility as well.
It does make me wonder how a species with just a flame wisp thing as a body would be able to evolve in a way that lets them build meatsack bodies, though. At least based on what Dabbler said about how alien evolution seems to work.
Maybe they originally controlled simple minded animals native to their planet like the cactus thing from Outlaw Star although it could also influence people. There is also the possibility their people pulled a failed ascension like the self sufficient brain that still needs a body to carry it around.
lucky someone had the clip,
the cactus thing (set up, in the episode they were supposed to be looking for the giant roach that an alien had snuck through customs without going through proper quarantine along with a cactus, but he couldn’t remember why he took such a dumb risk; meanwhile gene and Melfinfa *who is a bio-android) were hired by an ice cream vendor to discover why his competitor was suddenly getting all the customers. the truth was this cactus was an unknown alien life form that had been influencing and controlling others and experimenting to see how much control it could have over humans *had total control over the roach*, by using the ice cream vendor as its testing ground.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAxdE4Ixmg4
“Maybe they originally controlled simple minded animals native to their planet like the cactus thing from Outlaw Star although it could also influence people.”
Describing them like that reminds me of the Go’a’uld from Stargate. :)
Btw thanks for that link. I’ve never thought I’d hear the lines “the cactus still has control over him!” But now I have.
you’re welcome, but seriously if you can find it you should check out Outlaw Star, it has everything you could want from an action sci-fi, imagine Cowboy Bebop but with various aliens, robots, space pirates and magic space pirates. The main character even has a Caster *a gun that fires magic bullets* for emergencies. action, drama, and comedy in a well balanced mix.
The mind is to the brain like a image is to a painting. The same image can be represented in many different mediums, which are physically different, while still being the same image. A mind is a pattern, a shape. A brain is the medium in which that shape is represented.
Must resist… …MUST RESISSSST… …nope, gotta say it. We don’t have that many genders on Earth, at least not outside of Tumblr/Twitter, and if you meet anybody that identifies as something other than 1,2, or 3/5 run the other way.
21’s also a Trans Symbol, but yeah, other than that, the rest are completely screwball.
Actually makes me curious. As a Diphallic, would I use the Male symbol? Or a version of it with two arrows side by side pointing the same way? XD
For all we know one of the symbols could be ‘liquidform’ or ‘gaseousform’ or ‘switches-back-and-forth-metamorphic-form’ which, while impossible for a human being to be biologically, might be quite possible for an alien species that has access to significantly advanced technology for making artificial bodies. Especially considering her consciousness is in a flame, which is already pretty different than typical biology that we’re aware of.
i’m guessing 6 is agender? so that is definitely also a thing, even if you’re saying “there’s only two genders”. either, both, neither.
and then, since we’re talking about gender, there’s also transsexuality. cisgender/transgender adds another two forms to male/female-gender. so even if you assume only two genders – female and male as absolutes – that already creates 6 genders.
and then there’s enough people on a spectrum between the two. like basically everyone is. i don’t like cars and i don’t lift and i like cooking, but i do have a beard. that’s a 3:1 on the “not very masculine”-scale.
and even then you’re gonna run into problems, because then there’s still problems with genderfluid people, they would wake up one day feeling more masculine and the next day feeling more feminine.
it’s okay to not give a shit about gender, cis-gender people have it easy here. but actively saying “run away from everything that’s not cisgender” is pretty mean. like… why do you give a crap?
Well somebody else failed their Will save to avoid poking the bear, so I guess I might as well do the same. The “run away” reaction is founded in a very realistic and reasonable desire to avoid dealing with a person who is dealing with some degree of mental instability and has chosen a non-therapeutic response. I say that as a person within that category myself; I have a personality disorder and I’ve rejected medication as an option, so I can speak from experience on this topic. I often act in ways that are not entirely under my control, and that means that most possible employers and potential romantic partners, the moment they get a whiff of the idea that I’m this volatile person who frequently lashes out at anybody who pushes his buttons, they very understandably choose not to enter into a long-term partnership with me. But for all that, I at least recognize my mental illness AS a mental illness, even if I’m choosing not to have it treated. People with gender dysphoria have decided that calling gender dysphoria a mental illness is hate speech, and have managed to get the law to agree with them (particularly in Canada, but even in the US to some extent); that makes them the ultimate example of someone who has decreed “My problem isn’t a problem at all; if you have a problem with me, it’s you that has a problem!” Running the other way is absolutely the correct response to a person who is that unwilling to consider any possibility that they need to engage in self-improvement. When someone says “I am right and everyone who disagrees with me is wrong, end of discussion”, that’s ALWAYS a wildly dangerous attitude; most of history’s greatest atrocities were powered by such self-righteous certainty.
HRT. Hormone Replacement Therapy. It is a therapeutic response to dysphoria, one that is proven to work.
“I’m this volatile person who frequently lashes out at anybody who pushes his buttons”
I think it is unfair to equate anger issues or whatever it is that you’re dealing with with dysphoria.
Yes, not wanting to deal with peoples issues they don’t deal with themselves, hearing over and over “I’m sorry, it’s because of […]” is unbelievably exhausting. I think most people have experienced shit like that and it is very much a reason not to seek out people like that, especially if they’re not working to better themselves.
That is very much not what Dysphoria is about though.
Thank you, too. ^_^
+1 Internets
I found several studies regarding this. A metastudy exists which uses three of these studies to support your specific claim.
It achieves this result by excluding 16 relevant studies that were deemed “not relevant” based on metrics like whether it was written in English or produced inconclusive results. The remainder of the data were given “low” or “very low” reliability with the exception of two Zung self-assessment tests from the same study, which was rated as “moderate.” Strange, I wasn’t aware self-assessment counted as rigorous science.
This is laughable. Who funds this stuff?
*Citation needed.
Sure thing.
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/trgh.2015.0008
The front page of liebertpub isn’t a citation.
You need to supply the specific document, with page number, so that someone other than yourself can read it. Alik would be appreciated, but with a document title, author, and page number, I can find it on my own.
Hi, just want to mention that while he didnt put it in citation form he did link to a specific research paper, not the front page of liebertpub.
The research paper he linked to is called “A Systematic Review of the Effects of Hormone Therapy on Psychological Functioning and Quality of Life in Transgender Individuals” written by Jaclyn M. White Hughto and Sari L. Reisner, published online on Jan 1, 2016. Apparently it later got republished in a book called Transgender Health.
It gives another link in there as well above the Abstract that says: https://doi.org/10.1089/trgh.2015.0008
It has a proper citation as well on the right hand side:
Jaclyn M. White Hughto and Sari L. Reisner.Transgender Health.Dec 2016.21-31.http://doi.org/10.1089/trgh.2015.0008
Published in Volume: 1 Issue 1: January 1, 2016
It’s also downloadable as a pdf with this link instead: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/trgh.2015.0008
(I haven’t read it btw, just letting you know it’s not the front page in case you wanted to read it)
Okay, that’s weird.
When I hit the link originally, it landed on the top page & stopped.
I’m going to blame the technology.
God, I hated citation form. This one professor always said I didn’t have enough citations or didn’t cite things properly; didn’t seem to matter how many I included or how closely I matched the rubric. I then gave between 44-72 citations for each page on a 19 page project and structured it exactly as written without a bit of deviation for any reason like formatting or clarity. He said it was “too many citations” and “unclear.” Goddamn.
Well, thanks for writing all that out.
Bharda:
Yeah I figured there might have just been a problem with your browser using the link for some reason. :)
Wzaerreazw:
No problem. :) Also… 72 citations for each page. Yikes!
have you ever in your entire life met a single trans person? talked to them? hung out with them? you don’t need any studies for this. just go out and meet people instead of reading about them.
Someone who seeks treatment is more likely to be psychologically stable than someone who isn’t. Classic confirmation bias and placebo effect.
tl;dr
“Trans people are sick, and if they aren’t seeking a “cure,” they’re “unstable,” and we can dismiss anything they have to say.”
At this point, you’re just repeating your own garbage.
I wouldn’t bother with him.
I go through the same bullshit for being Autistic. Probably why i get along reasonably well with trans folks. We have that common ground of idiots thinking something has to be “wrong” with us when in reality our brains are just wired differently.
Course, the fact my mom tried to have surgery done on me as an infant (that thankfully my dad blocked) is a bit of factor there too.
I am also autistic.
I didn’t claim “trans people are sick” – that was just Bharda’s fallacy-ridden attempt at insulting me because I’ve stuck to facts and Bharda dislikes that.
“I am autistic,” doesn’t excuse being an asshole, butterbrittle.
Like I said; insulting. Thank you for demonstrating, Bharda.
Yes, I’m going to agree, Trans people are sick. But not the way you think.
Mostly, they’re sick of attitudes like that one. I think they’re just about sick of being beaten up so often, targeted in crimes, and dismissed by the police when they report crimes. That would get sickening fast, wouldn’t it?
They’re probably sick of legislators pandering to people whose personal discomfort with somebody, translated into law, turns into straight-up oppression. Hell, I’m sick of that myself, and I’m not even trans.
In my experience, a whole lot of them are sick about friends and family they’ve lost, one way or another, and that most folk don’t seem to care.
So, yeah. Make a few idiot comments like that, and I’m suddenly sick of you. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
…I’m a bit confused by this post.
You seem to be in agreement with me…but then seem to think that I am the one calling trans people (myself being included) “sick,” rather pointing out that this is the position being danced around by the person I responded to.
…just in case my skull sponge is hiccoughing, could you clarify a bit?
I think I replied to you when I intended to address the person you were responding to.
That time it was a pure mistake. This time, it’s because the nesting level here has gotten sufficiently deep in your post that the ‘reply’ button no longer appears in it, so I’m responding to my own instead.
Ah, I understand now.
Also…post depth achievement unlocked? ^_^’
I think Bear meant “Sick” as in “sick and tired of this crap.”
That’s was clear, yes, but I was confused about who he was addressing.
I would think that people who don’t seek treatment, because they have no condition to treat, would be more stable than people who seeks treatment for a condition they don’t have.
Paradoxically, no. The medical system uses checkups precisely to stabilize the human body before ailments become physically disabling. Stuffy nose, cough, watery eyes, sneezing, upset stomach, pain, etc., those are all homeostatic responses to illness rather than directly caused by the illness. At least in early stages. In short, all illness is primarily a psychological malady until the disease becomes functionally disabling.
If your skin is melting from bacteria literally eating it, well, now you’re seeing the macro effects of the disease. Chances are by that point you aren’t feeling much pain anymore. The body tends to back off on extreme psychological responses for the sake of life preservation.
That said, physical injuries like a broken bone are a little more straightforward in their pathogenesis. The psychological factor tends to be roughly in-line with the ailment assuming other factors like edema and secondary injuries related to the jagged bone stay under control. Sever a nerve, though, and all bets are off.
Yeah, I know! It’s weird. The human body is complicated.
tl;dr
“Trans people are sick.”
So, what about gay people? They clearly aren’t conforming to their biology, right? Are gay people also sick? What about mosaics? What kind of sick are they? Intersex people exist, so what about them?
Will, you have your issues, and I’m not going to knock them, or you. I am going to suggest that you don’t know wtF you are talking about, and you need to either get educated on the subject, or stFu & sit down.
Any kind of genetic maladaptation is an illness in the most clinical sense. If you want to say transgenderism is genetic then by virtue of being a non-conforming genetic variation it is no different from, say, Ribose-5-phosphate Isomerase Deficiency. Which may not kill you but does cause harm and distress.
Exactly. Yes, Gender Dysphoria is a mental illness, in the strict medical definition. Some wires in the brain got crossed. It’s no different than my depression or someone elses phobia of cotton balls, or whatever weirdness. We’re all human, we’re all different, and we’re all broken in unique ways.
Just because the wires in your brain aren’t connected right doesn’t mean I think you’re any less of a person, or any less deserving of respect.
It’s when you start insulting others for not holding your exact beliefs about something no one knows everything about that you start losing that respect toot sweet.
I see someone else is desperate for attention. *sigh*
It’s late, I’m tired, and you’re really, spectacularly not worth this much effort, so let’s cut to the chase.
You psychosexual hypochondriacs use the language of pathology towards us, because it gives you an excuse to describe us in terms of being “less than.” It demonstrates your sadly comedic insecurities, and desperate attempts to form an in-group identity to make up for the general powerlessness you feel in your own lives, because you are more afraid of admitting your vulnerabilities and seeking solidarity with marginalized groups, because you demand of yourselves that you feel powerful and secure as individuals, rather than sharing the strength of our community(ies).
tl;dr You’re trying start shit with us to make your balls feel big, and seem bigger & stronger by comparison.
It isn’t working, and you’re coming across as an insecure adolescent asshole.
We’re here, we’re staying. Sit the fuck down, and grow the fuck up.
You’re partly correct. People often use the language of illness or other condescension to dehumanize and denigrate others and make them feel “lesser.” All I literally did, though, was speak from a place of science and fact. I did not and will never intentionally justify bigotry.
An excellent example of such condescension is the phrase “insecure adolescent asshole.” Look how quickly you became what you hate.
tl;dr
dril
I don’t want to hear that from an active supporter of authoritarian behavior.
Says the NazBol who has spent days arguing that trans people are sick and have no right to their own identities.
I actually claimed the opposite. Repeatedly.
Just say you’re transphobic and move along, we don’t need a wall of text about how righteous you are for calling people you disagree with mentally unstable.
He believes it’s a mental illness. You say that’s wrong. Fine – mental illness is very poorly defined.
You also say he’s transphobic; that he hates trans people. He didn’t say that. So… you’re a bigot, huh?
Walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it’s probably not a gd Studebaker.
Using the language of pathology to demean or invalidate Trans people is, in fact, a transphobic behavior, just the same tacit was, when applied to gay people, homophobic. A person who engages in transphobic behavior is, definitionally, a transphobic person, by the same token that someone who plays music is a musician.
You’re not a great philosopher, you’re just a punk kid trying on a pretense of hyper rationally because you think it makes you an internet badass.
It doesn’t.
Did you know science was originally called “natural philosophy?” I figure, if I’m at least trying to be rigorous, I’ve got a leg up on everyone who merely goes around flinging insults.
tl;dr
dril (again)
I have to ask, what does dril mean?
Referring to a Twitter account (somewhat) famous for shitposting. His most famous post was:
“im not owned! im not owned!!’, i continue to insist as i slowly shrink and transform into a corn cob
That would be relevant… If I were shitposting. I’m not. I’m sussing out errors in logic and science that are then often used to warp the conversation into something less rational. I do of course try to sound witty, but if you find that also insulting, I can refrain. It’s not necessary to convey the information I wish to convey. I only do it because people typically treat me like I’m an annoying robot when I bang out facts without any humanizing tone or context.
In fact:
– I’ve been called a bot numerous times
– I’ve been banned from social media for botting
– I was accused of plagiarism because my explanation of a book’s synopsis happened to be loosely similar to Wikipedia’s even though I wrote it from my own understanding (I then copied someone else’s synopsis off the internet and was no longer accused of plagiarism… Figure that.)
It’s just how I write; I don’t know why people are so pedantic about pedantry. What would you suggest I do to insert humanizing traits instead of wit?
You’re still flinging insults, you’re just doing it with flowery words, dude. So get off your fucking high horse.
Yes, I’ll refrain from all rejoinders because the opposing party has decided to be offensive and perpetually offended at the same time. /sarcasm
What can I say?
NazBols offend me, and really do bring out the Mama Bear in me.
Stop assuming we’re too stupid to understand what you’re actually saying. I know full well you were still being an asshole.
Fact is, man, regardless of your opinion, Trans people exist, and there isn’t anything “wrong” about them. They just have different brain chemistry than you. Just like Autistics, and every other condition labelled an “illness” assholes like you have put people in Asylums for. So leave Bharda the fuck alone. Like you should have the first time they asked.
You want to use my money for your sterilization surgery, then you incessantly insult me when I don’t give into your mafia-style behavior? Yeah, I find that offensive too.
I said “illness in the most clinical sense.” I’m not “actually saying” anything except what’s in front of your face. You all are the ones who keep construing that as “sick.”
I know the word “illness” can be misused. That is precisely why I specified “clinical sense.”
Thank you.
+1 Internets
Good thing she’s an alien then, huh?
I’m more invested in the will they/won’t they relationship between these two than most of the recent plot. Need more
I concur. Many of the side bits he creates are so interesting. He could probably make multiple spinoffs
I’d love the adventures of Lapha and Garamm. :)
Laphramm.
Garapha?
Larphamm? None of the combinations really roll off the tongue.
Laphramm seems the best so far.
Demon Girl Is Dating a Lizard Man?! is my new favorite manga.
I’d definitely buy that manga! :)
Actually there probably is a manga like that already, if I was to do some searching.
Yo Dave, in Panel 5 when Garamm has his mouth open, his teeth (the ones that freaked Lapha out in 925) are missing!
They’re retractable. :D
I’d say his race gives excellent blowjobs, but, you know, the lip beaks.
Retractable teeth…?
Anyone wanna take a stab at guessing what sort of environmental pressure would bring that particular adaptation into being? ^_^’
Sharks have retractable teeth (from what I know about it at least), so…. probably something similar to that.
I did a little quick research btw before hitting enter and found there are some other animals that have retractable or movable teeth.
1) The Chinese Water Deer has semi-retractable/movable tusks.
2) Several types of snakes, like vipers, have retractable fangs that lie flat against the roof of the mouth
3) Some sharks have rows of retractable teeth.
So if I had to make a complete guess, I’d say the adaptation started with retractable fangs, then evolved into all of their teeth being retractable since they already had lip tusks for most bite attacks, without having to wear down or risk breaking the teeth on a bite attack. :)
random mutation that may have been selected for not by its use in the environment but sexual selection *like so many traits that don’t serve a survival purpose, and may in fact harm it….bringing your teeth up into the gums with potential bits of food seems like a bad idea. Reminds of me of Squirrel Girl explaining why she doesn’t use her retractable knuckle claws very often *she lacks the healing factor of Wolverine* so if she gets any blood or anything else nasty with diseases or chemicals ect… on her claws she is then retracting them into her body.
that said, animals like cats have a sheath for the claws, which is harder to imagine a mouth having for all its teeth rather than just a pair of fangs, but its not impossible.
Well for snakes it is the diffeence in killing prey vs swallowing it. 1st stage bite to poison/2nd stage fold back to swallow easier.
suction and a muscular tongue can make up for that.
Im certian 2 of those gender symbols are variations of the pokemon unknown
Quick OSHA safety precaution: when driving male… ish apendaged meatsticks it is considered rude to cross the streams in public. Failure to do so will most likely get mentioned items severely kinked snd forcibly compacted. If witnessed by health and safety fines will also be incured, adding insult to injury
I think Garamm gets a pass, given both streams were his.
Hopefully MeatBlanks has some kind of customer loyalty program.
What would it include besides monetary discounts? Buy 3, get one free? Bulk rates when you get 10 or more? Annual test drives of new feature options? Now that I think of it, there’s no reason rich customers wouldn’t keep a dozen options to choose from, unless the shells have to be inhabited at all times… I’d bet a chip to handle autonomous maintenance would solve that though.
*Multiple chassis, in case that wasn’t clear from the poor wording. There’s probably a “Jay Leno’s Garage” type show where some collector has a warehouse with hundreds of exotic models.
…
I want multiple chassis. 0_0
We have something sort of like that in reverse. :) Online instead of meatspace.
Have you ever played ‘Second Life’? :)
I gave it a poke, like, ten years ago, but I couldn’t figure out the interface & construction properly.
It’s pretty fun. Sort of like Minecraft, but instead of building blocky things, you build avatars and skins and stuff. I used to run a DJ nightclub on Second Life and a gambling area where I was able to make some RL money (Lindens can be changed into American dollars) back when i was in college.
But in general it’s a fun little escape from RL.
Oh also I think they’ve simplified the interface a bit since a decade ago. :)
If you ever try it out again, let me know and I can set you up with some skins and stuff that I probably have on my avatar.
I may take you up in that.
I really would like to become a maker of cool digital stuff. ^_^
Woot! okay!
I think gender selection could make sense when getting a custom meat-suit. I agree that it’s definitely more mental/emotional than physical. However, the hardware will still produce hormones in various ratios, and do a lot of other fiddly stuff that can impact mental/emotional states. A gender selection could help tweak that to make for a smoother ride in the body.
Before anyone asks, a certain super who is not Max that I know would not be able to make it out to jupiter at constant with turnaround acceleration given today’s distance to Jupiter of 5.2374 days flight time one way. His current Max endurance is well short of that. Basicaly to Mars surface and back under 4 days which at closest approach is under his current personal endurance limmit of 4 days 12 hours. And both times are with a constant acceleration-turnaround-deceleration flight profile
Space is big people.
To quote the Guide: Space is big, REALLY big. You won’t believe just how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.
And, You Are Here -> *
That just reminds me how much more there is to own.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-417-gravitas-check/
I greatly suspect that Big D might just cause the Total Perspective Vortex to collapse in on itself.
If anyone can, it would be the paragon of all reality which is Deus. Praise be his name.
All hail Deus, amen.
+1 internet for the Hitchhiker’s Guide reference btw.
There’s a repeat in those gender symbols.
Column 2, row 5 and
Column 4, row 2 are the same.
Other way around I think, rows are horizontal and columns are vertical. But yes, the symbol in column 5, row 2, is the same as column 2, row 4.
Also row 1, columns 3 and 5, unless there’s a subtle difference I’m not seeing. Though I think it’s a clever way of getting all us detail-intensive readers to interact with the comic, staring at the minor details and playing Memory.
No difference. Duplication error is in the original, with the left two having the additional label “example”.
https://anunnakiray.com/all-the-gender-symbols/
Row 2, column 2 and row 3, column 5, except that the latter is ever so slightly larger.
That said, just because there’s three pairs of symbols that are duplicated, does not mean they would actually have the same presentation. It’s entirely plausible that the chart is subdivided into clustered sections, and those duplicated symbols represent very similar options that exist within different clusters.
While I don’t see obvious clusters apart from the top row left side look to potentially represent humans, I do admit that the two traditional gender symbols make no real sense to me, and for all I know the two on the top row that do not appear to represent any human options I’m aware of could be a cluster.
If that chart represented exactly ten clusters, with three symbols per cluster, that would seem too neat and tidy. The real world doesn’t seem nearly so tidy.
On the other hand, if the chart represents some clusters horizontally, others vertically, and some wrap around the sides or the top and bottom, then whomever developed it is probably about as much of a WTF as many of the people who develop such things in our world. I mean, thedailywtf.com exists for a lot of reasons.
“[The] two traditional gender symbols make no real sense to me” – Some Ed
Is that based on expecting them to correspond to the relevant anatomy? I think their origin may be more philosophical than physical: either from alchemical principles, or from astronomical references to Mars and Venus. Whichever came first (and both disciplines are old enough that we’re unlikely to get an answer) the biologists then borrowed the existing symbol from the abstract masculine/feminine principle to apply to the male/female gender.
About the two traditional gender symbols making no sense? You should blame alchemists.
Not sayin’ it’s their fault, but you should blame them anyway. See, they had this ridiculous fetish for finding correspondences between things, and then using the one as a symbol for the other. They would write down formulas using these symbols, and then read them using the alternate meanings they had assigned the symbols, and then somehow assert that the resulting proposition must be true as well, and ruminating on what hidden qualities of the things the symbols stood for, must exist in order for that to make sense.
And they just loved those signs.
The signs are the same signs they used for Iron and Copper, the same signs they used for the planet Mars and the planet Venus, and depending on how obscure you want to get, the same signs some of them used for Mirror and Weapon. So they’d do some experiment about the oxidation rates of Iron and Copper, write down the result, then read them differently and believe some quasi-analogous thing about men and women.
It took centuries to sort all that crap out. Still working on it in places.
People still do that, bridging wholly separate concepts that happen to share some terminology. Sometimes it’s intentional, to mislead and deceive other people, but other times, it seems like people just aren’t very precise with language.
True enough, but the thing was Alchemists were doing this deliberately. It wasn’t just confusion resulting from the same symbols being in use for these things, it was meanings *CHOSEN* for the symbols in order to cause the confusion. Or, as they’d have stated it, to “illuminate the correspondences between higher and lower aspects…”
True enough, without alchemists and astrologers we’d have taken a lot longer to develop chemistry and astronomy. So, props for that I guess. But holy crap they left a huge intellectual mess behind them.
That’s fascinating. I’d never heard this side of alchemy; it was always “this thing that preceded science” and “they wanted to make gold” like everyone was too ashamed to talk about it.
Those two duplications in the original source as well, which is found here – https://anunnakiray.com/all-the-gender-symbols/
defined as genderfluid: female and male.
The double in the first row is bigender: male+female.
Quit worrying so much about labels and just be yourself.
Best advice I’ve got.
I agree. The realization that people don’t neatly fall into the narrowly-defined categories of masculine and feminine should have resulted in those categories becoming less important, rather than us inventing an endless array of new categories for people to try to figure out. Everyone should just be themselves, and not worry about how much that is similar to or different from anyone else. Like what you like, do what you like, and don’t worry about whether or not you should, based on your physical properties.
Way to go missing the point made, mate…
My second- or third-favorite YouTuber (who recently quit YT so you can’t find his stuff there, but he is on several other platforms linked to his now-blank YT channel) once gave a really good description of this. Instead of recognizing that masculinity (and by extension femininity and perhaps other things along similar lines) exists on a spectrum, people want to be able to fit themselves and each other person into one of hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions of individual boxes…”BUT YOU WILL FIT INTO A BOX!” The idea that a person might just act slightly differently one day to the next, without having to actually have become a different thing, just seems incomprehensible to these people.
Humans naturally seek to label things.
And as much as they might be comfortable being who they are; other people certainly are not. And are willing to legislate laws/attack them to voice their displeasures.
Labels are a matter of value ascription. If people insist we refer to them as “hir” or whatever constructions they come up with, they’re really insisting we value them more than others.
That’s what I take umbrage with. You can’t cry bigotry then insist all of society bend to your whims.
“they’re really insisting we value them more than others.”
No, they really just prefer that they be called by the pronouns they identify with.
That’s hardly forcing society to bend the knee for them. It’s just being polite.
Really, then I guess we can repeal those misgendering laws.
In which country can you get in actual, legal trouble for misgendering someone?
Certainly not in America, I know that much.
Canada. A man, Robert Hoogland, from Surrey, British Columbia, was arrested on Tuesday for referring to his biologically born daughter as his daughter, and using feminine pronouns to refer to his child. The judgment was made by the Supreme Court of British Columbia.
I think there actually are a few states where there are misgendering laws as well, although it’s limited in scope. I know that New York has it written into the New York State Division of Human Rights, as part of the state-wide regulations prohibiting harassment and discrimination ‘on the basis of gender identity, transgender status, or gender dysphoria.’
General Regulations 466.13 – it probably will need to be rewritten since it was vaguely written to go past the original intent of the law, though.
Btw I’m just giving the cases, not giving an opinion on it one way or another, since you asked if there were any laws where you can get into actual, legal trouble for misgendering.
After a bit more digging…
Hoagland was jailed for contempt of court, not “misgendering.”
Moreover, the kid’s OTHER PARENT, his mother, the one who is actually taking care of him, has greenlit the whole thing.
This greater context would seem to indicate that the father is more interested in asserting himself and using the kid as a weapon against his ex wife. (Wish that didn’t sound familiar)
No Bharda. Hoogland was jailed for contempt of court BECAUSE he was misgendering. The reasoning for the charge of contempt of court was literally misgendering. The judge made a court order to refer to his child as his son. He referred to his child as his daughter. That was the violation – called ‘contempt of court’ because of misgendering. If not for misgendering, there would be no contempt of court. Trust me on this, please. It was the exact thing the judge said.
“This greater context would seem to indicate that the father is more interested in asserting himself and using the kid as a weapon against his ex wife.”
That REALLY isnt how it happened. The father referred to his biological daughter as his daughter. And because of Bill C-16, under the Canadian Human Rights Act, that gave the judge authorization to jail him for contempt of court. ‘Contempte of Court’ does not exist on its own. It’s always contempt of court FOR some specific reason – in this case, the contempt of court was for misgendering. The father was not even in court at the time when he said it. There was a court order to refer to his child as his son. He instead referred to his child as his daughter. That was the reason for the arrest warrant.
It’s very problematic, because Canada basically just gave a reason why you can jail someone for speech beyond creating a dangerous situation where someone can be injured or defamation, which are historically the two exceptions to free speech, both in US law (First Amendment) and under Canadian law (Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms). And it’s going to paint transgender rights in a pretty bad light if it becomes the norm, because it’s exactly the type of thing that critics of C-16 were worried about happening in the first place.
Regardless of how anyone feels about his parenting skills (whether he is concerned for his child’s safety because he feels his wife is endangering the child,or if he’s a jerk using his child as a weapon against his ex-wife and does not give a crap about his daughter except on how it reflects on him or if he’s just a mean guy period), a court really should not jail a person for saying something, outside of the courtroom, that another person does not like when it’s not defamatory or creating a provably dangerous to another person where non otherwise exists (ie, crying fire in a crowded theater, although there’s even an exception to that where you can cry fire in a crowded theater – when you think there is actually a fire in the crowded theater). In fact, even if it IS defamatory, that is not supposed to be a criminal charge – it would be a tort, because defamation is a civil charge, not criminal.
I’m not a Canadian lawyer, but I would not be surprised if the judge’s initial court order was ruled by a higher court to be in defiance of Section 2, which could put Bill C-16 itself at risk as well in the public eye and to lawmakers who supported the bill. Like I said, it’s a problematic situation – both to free speech advocates AND to transgender advocates because of the implications.
1: I use DDG, not Google.
2: “He was only charged with contempt because he willfully disregarded the instruction given him by said court,” isn’t exactly a great defense. As well say, “So-and-So was only charged because they refused to pay the damages the court instructed them to.”
3: Misgendering is verbal abuse, abuse such abuse is no more ethical or moral than it is lawful, and you should seriously consider why you’re so eager to defend this behavior.
And, finally, I’m going to point out that the position you’re defending, whether you mean to or not, is that it should be totally okay to engage in this form of abuse, because, “hey, it doesn’t hurt anybody.”
The thing is, it isn’t the prerogative of the abuser to determine what constitutes abuse. You don’t think this does harm? Okay, what exactly is your lived experience? Are you transgender? Do you, personally, have any way at all to judge the experiences or mental health of people who are?
I’m going to go out on a limb, and say, no, you probably don’t.
Or, maybe you want to hang your argument on the idea that whole “biologically female” bit you keep repeating, as if it were some sort of magic talisman.
I get it. Gender is complicated, and as more of us come out of the closet, it’s just getting more and more complicated & unpredictable. So let me give you a simple enough rule of thumb:
Gender & genitals are not mutually dependent. “Female” and “girl or woman” are not the same thing, as Simone de Beauvoir explains most excellently.
“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” To go a step further, one can also add the fact that gender is as much about performance by oneself, as it is about perception by others. The same goes for every other gender, too. Gender emerges out of the conflux of psychology, neurobiology, sociology, genetic biology, economics, and a dozen other facets of daily existence.
This is a long post – sorry in advance. Not lecturing and not talking down to you. I’m just trying to respond respectfully. I want to make that clear in advance.
The first part of the post is to respond to the three points you made. The second part is to try to just explain what the side that you’re arguing against is saying, since it’s good practice for strengthening an argument.
“1: I use DDG, not Google.”
It’s a better engine than google, admittedly, but my point is a lot of christian papers VERY heavily focused on it, so it’s skewing the algorithms in general. But there are left and center-left papers which have also reported on it, and I provided several of them, from various sides – left, center-left, center-right, and right. It does exist.
“2: “He was only charged with contempt because he willfully disregarded the instruction given him by said court,” isn’t exactly a great defense. As well say, “So-and-So was only charged because they refused to pay the damages the court instructed them to.””
Except there’s a question as to the legality of an order like that, according to the people arguing this, because of how Canada’s Section 2 is written, which is my point. The idea of a court being able to tell someone not only what they cannot say, but what they MUST say, is legally questionable in any nation that values freedom of speech. Even speech which a person might find reprehensible.
“3: Misgendering is verbal abuse,”
Well that is what is said in Bill C-16, yes. The question is whether verbal abuse is worthy of a criminal charge, rather than civilly culpable (ie, intentional infliction of emotional distress, etc).
Okay, up to this point I’m just stating pure facts. I havent given my own opinions because my own opinions are irrelevant to the original question asked. The question was ‘In which country can you get in actual, legal trouble for misgendering someone? Certainly not in America, I know that much.’ I answered that SPECIFIC question. I wasn’t giving my opinion on if it’s right or wrong, just that it exists.
I’m only posting any more than this because I respect you enough to give you a good argument on the other things you stated, while still trying to tie it to the post that I initially responded to. Again, this is just how I do things – I make arguments as a living (well, I did…. nowadays I mostly just work with patents and trademarks and copyrights instead, but I still sometimes work with people). If I was to defend a person, I don’t need to actively believe them, it’s just a zealous advocacy thing. Or if I’m in a debate, I like to know that I can try to make arguments on both sides of the debate, regardless of which side I’m coming from. I could probably do the same thing with Wzaerreaw from the other side. I’m going to try to remain as open minded as possible because I’m not lecturing, and definitely not trying to be mean or belittling…. just making a respectful argument.
————————
“abuse such abuse is no more ethical or moral than it is lawful,”
That seems like it would be difficult to measure. There’s often a difference between something being illegal and something being immoral or unethical. Or even simply ‘mean.’ It’s immoral AND unethical to cheat on your spouse or significant other. But it’s not illegal. You will not be sent to jail if you cheat on your boyfriend or girlfriend. It’s unethical to break a promise you made to a friend. But you won’t go to jail for it, because it’s not illegal. It makes you a crappy friend, sure, but your friend can’t then have the police arrest you as a result.
The argument being made against C-16, and probably which will be made against Hoogland’s imprisonment from violating a court order about misgendering, is that verbal abuse and emotional abuse should not be, and have never been prior to this, illegal, mainly because of how nebulous the terms have been defined as. It has never been something you can charge someone criminally with. Criminal abuse tends to require a physical attack, which is a lot more narrowly defined, both in Canadian and American law
“and you should seriously consider why you’re so eager to defend this behavior.”
Because I’m an attorney who likes to try to steelman (as opposed to strawman) both sides of an argument so I know what I’m arguing against, no matter which side I’m arguing for. It’s a good method of finding holes in both sides of a debate. Honestly I didnt even WANT to argue either side of this, because I think it’s irrelevant to the comic. The only reason I mentioned anything was because a question was asked, and I knew the factual answer to that question.
“And, finally, I’m going to point out that the position you’re defending, whether you mean to or not, is that it should be totally okay to engage in this form of abuse, because, “hey, it doesn’t hurt anybody.””
I didnt say it’s ever been okay. I never -remotely- said it’s ever been okay.
Although it’s never been illegal. It’s an important distinction. The people who defend Hoogland can argue that being rude is not, and should not be, illegal. Even in tort law, ‘intentional infliction of emotional distress’ needs more than the emotional element in order to use in a CIVIL charge (it also requires a physical result as part of the ‘damages’), and has never been used criminally in Canadian (or American, not that that matters here) law. Because the police are the police of laws, not of common decency and good manners.
Btw, I wouldn’t personally misgender another person because I’d find it rude to do so. I’m sometimes a little blunt because I write so much and try to keep it based on facts, but I don’t like being mean, and I feel bad if other people take what I say as BEING mean. Like when I first responded to one of your posts quite some time ago, and you were offended because you felt I was lecturing you, when that’s just how I argue things. I felt TERRIBLE that I had made you feel bad, and apologized for lecturing, and that I was NOT trying to talk down to you. I was justt vigorously arguing a point. BTW – it’s not lost on me that how long this post is might also feel like a lecture, but I hope you don’t think I’m talking down to you here. Again, not my intent.
“The thing is, it isn’t the prerogative of the abuser to determine what constitutes abuse. You don’t think this does harm?”
The element is not emotional harm, because it’s too nebulous a definition. Every flame war on the internet would result in everyone jailing everyone else on the other side if they feel emotionally harmed. Laws can’t be easily made on something that’s so vague without spiraling out of control.
“Okay, what exactly is your lived experience?”
I’m not even going to argue my lived experience, because criminal laws are also not made based on individuals lived experiences. Every individual has a different lived experience and is unique. The laws would have to be thousands of pages for each single law and would be completely impractical for a civilization.
“Are you transgender?”
I am not, no. I have no problem with people who are, though. I’m also not a man, but I can argue that men can be raped just like women can be. And I have, actually, in other posts during the Chunky McSalsa arc. My lived experience does not preclude me from being able to empathize with others or to understand other people’s reasoning, if they are trying to explain their reasoning.
For example, I am, at least partially, indigenous. But I’m pretty sure that a white man would be capable of understanding the past wrongs done to native americans, pacific islanders, etc. I don’t, and can’t, base people’s ability to understand or emphasize with others plights on if they are the same exact people in every respect.
“Do you, personally, have any way at all to judge the experiences or mental health of people who are?”
I’d think the same way you can judge the experiences of other people who do not share your history. You don’t have to be black to know slavery is wrong. You don’t have to be indigenous to think the Trail of Tears was bad. You don’t have to be Japanese to think japanese internment camps were bad. You don’t have to be jewish to agree that the Holocaust was evil. And you don’t have to have a mental health issue in order to empathize with anther person’s mental or emotional anguish. You just need to have empathy.
One can only be an expert on your own experiences. However, one can still form a coherent understanding without being that ‘other’ person. That’s the whole foundation of the jury system. People being able to judge others by being given enough information on the underlying facts. And any legislator HAS to be capable of having a coherent understanding of the underlying facts if that legislator is going to make a law in general, let alone a law which can put someone in prison.
“Or, maybe you want to hang your argument on the idea that whole “biologically female” bit you keep repeating,”
I’m repeating it because other people repeat it, and I need some basis on which to argue by knowing what both sides are saying. Because that’s what the people in the Vancouver case will be doing. Genetics vs psychology seems to be the closest thing that people are describing. The reason I keep using biologically female or biologically male is in order to have SOME sort of underlying fact that people will agree upon, in order to understand the law and the case. When making a law there needs to be some bottom level, grounded basis to set the law on top of it. Otherwise the law is going to differ wildly from person to person, and there won’t be any equality under the law, which makes the law meaningless and you might as well descend into mob rule instead.
“I get it. Gender is complicated, and as more of us come out of the closet, it’s just getting more and more complicated & unpredictable.”
Yes, we can both agree that this is definitely complicated. And I don’t envy anyone who has to deal with this sort of stuff as part of their daily lives, especially when it’s even confusing to THEM to describe what’s going on. But that’s why it’s problematic to make a law from something that’s so complicated that both sides of the argument can’t even agree on the ground rules.
There’s a legal maxim, attributed to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, which states:
HARD CASES MAKE BAD LAW. The full quote is “Great cases like hard cases make bad law. For great cases are called great, not by reason of their importance… but because of some accident of immediate overwhelming interest which appeals to the feelings and distorts the judgment.”
An extreme case is a poor basis for a general law, and the most complex or difficult the ground rules are that are being discussed, the more impossible it will be to create a ‘generalized’ law that will be fair and not prone to abuse. I’d assume that a vigorous defense of Hoogland would be that before one makes a law which will imprison people, one should first have some sort of agreement on what they’re making a law to cover in at LEAST the definitions and elements of that law. Which is why they’d likely argue the court order was in violation of Section 2, since the contempt or court charge was centered around his ability to use his own words.
“Gender & genitals are not mutually dependent. “Female” and “girl or woman” are not the same thing, as Simone de Beauvoir explains most excellently.”
I havent read any of her writings so I can’t really say one way or another, but I’ll check that author out. My point would still stand that if the definitions are confusing or nebulous, it’s not going to make good law as a general law, and I’m concernd that it would harm transgender people by turning public opinion against them when the defense argues that a court order has gone a step too far.
Btw, I’ve never been a defense attorney, I’ve actually been on the prosecutor side when I briefly was involved in criminal law (I never actually chaired anything though, I was more of a para grunt). But even when i worked in the ADA’s office, the prosecution is expected to know what the defense would argue in order to counter those arguments.
“To go a step further, one can also add the fact that gender is as much about performance by oneself, as it is about perception by others. ”
Let me know if I’m getting this correct or if I’m off base on what you’re saying. I don’t want to misconstrue anything you’re stating if possible.
What I’m mainly getting from what you’re saying, and again please correct me if I’m mistaken, is that gender is ‘nebulously defined’ but sex is ‘narrowly defined.’ Which I think is similar to why I say ‘biologically female’ or ‘biologically male.’ I’m referring to sex instead of gender. Because it’s sort of impossible to figure out a law based on nebulous and shifting definitions, or definitions that are exceedingly complex where there’s no firm answer being given.
“The same goes for every other gender, too. Gender emerges out of the conflux of psychology, neurobiology, sociology, genetic biology, economics, and a dozen other facets of daily existence.”
Question – I’m not sure how a few of those definitions fit into ‘gender.’ For example, how does economics fit into the definition of gender? I’m not saying it doesnt – I’m just asking you to explain how it does so I can have some basis to understand what you’re saying.
Also, how does genetic biology fit into the definition of gender, if genetic biology (ie, chromosomes) is for sex, instead of gender? Unless you’re talking about rare genetic intersex (hermaphrodism?) instances where people are born with something like XXY or XXYY or XYY? But the other stuff you wrote makes me think you arent meaning that since it’s more of a much broader social construct structure for gender argument.
I’d understand if you were just saying gender is psychology, or even that gender is neurobiology (chemical reactions in the brain, etc) and sex is basic genetics (chromosomes). But I don’t think that’s what you’re saying. If it is, please let me know so I can understand your stance better.
If the courts can’t understand and explain those definitions when adjudicating laws…. then … well…. hard cases are going to make bad law.
*sigh*
…you know, my mother always wanted me to be lawyer. She genuinely thinks that just because I can read & understand it, that can, or would want, to do it.
First of all, Pander, Don’t be anxious. Yes, I remember, and yes, I was resentful at the time, but I have, in fact, gotten over myself enough to recognize that you are not only “not trying to lecture me,” but sincerely trying to be thorough, forthright, and scrupulously beneficent.
Second, I recognized the Holmes quote, though I always felt it was a bit of a copout. The idea that laws can, or even should, be these clean, neat, orderly mechanisms is…unhelpful, at best. To paraphrase T. Roosevelt, “The law is made for the people, and not the people for the law.” My point being that human beings are not mechanisms that can be fitted into a larger, abstract machine called ‘the law,’ and expected to be processed satisfactorily.
In fact, I stand the science fiction writer, Frank Herbert, in his declaration that, “humans must never submit to machines.”
Every case is going to be engaged emotionally, because that’s just how humans work. We are not rational decision making mechanisms, impaired by emotional disruptions, we are emotional decision makers, somewhat informed by reason & logic. That doesn’t mean uniformity can’t exist at all, or that impartiality cannot be sought for…but it does mean that we have to accept the fact that not everything relevant to the human experience, and human society, can be a neatly, comprehensively, impartially defined “element.” It’s going to be messy, and demands constant refinement.
Third, even though we tend to discuss – or at least refer – to gender as if it were a discrete thing, it isn’t. It is emergent, and derivative, and thusly subject to change & redefinition…especially as more of what gives rise to gender changes.
Part of it emerges from how we are perceived by others, both in terms of our physical composition, and behaviors. A beard is “masculine.” Inward turned elbows are “feminine.” Crossed arms are masculine. Exposed wrists are feminine.
And this bleeds into the idea that gender is also something you perform, from how you dress, to how you speak, even what you eat & drink, or the music you listen to….or your choice of recreation. That’s a point of crossover with economics. What is targeted at women, for example? Spa trips, shopping sprees, romantic getaways…”family fun,” is almost exclusively targeted at women, in ads aimed at adults, and there is the implicit message of, “your most important function is childbirth & rearing.”
And all of these things have some biological influences as well. “Women are better communicators,” is a common trope…but women have also been the ones historically responsible to keeping the offspring alive, and the best way to do that is in capitalizing on human social behaviors, so it shouldn’t be surprising that many (perhaps most) women are better communicators. There’s a selection pressure there. Compound that with the expectation itself, and produces yet another, now social, pressure to engage that expectation.
This is what I mean…gender emerges from so many different things, simultaneously, in so many different ways, that trying to create a single, hard, fast, universally applicable “legal definition,” is effectively impossible. Yet, that doesn’t give us license to ignore it, because in spite of all that, gender is a really facet of every person’s humanity, and ignoring it, for any reason, means dehumanizing them. Treating them as “less than.”
This is what I mean when I say, “it’s complicated.”
“…you know, my mother always wanted me to be lawyer. She genuinely thinks that just because I can read & understand it, that can, or would want, to do it.”
If I recall you once said you drive a truck for a living right? Probably has more job security than an attorney nowadays anyway. :) Most of my work has been from home since August, with occasionally going into the court clerk. I havent argued anything in front of a judge, even in a traverse hearing, since last summer because of COVID limitations and because the Intellectual Property part of my office can be so easily done from home instead of my office. Also why I have a LOT of free time on my hands to post on a webcomic forum. :)
“First of all, Pander, Don’t be anxious. Yes, I remember, and yes, I was resentful at the time, but I have, in fact, gotten over myself enough to recognize that you are not only “not trying to lecture me,” but sincerely trying to be thorough, forthright, and scrupulously beneficent.”
Thanks :)
“Second, I recognized the Holmes quote, though I always felt it was a bit of a copout. The idea that laws can, or even should, be these clean, neat, orderly mechanisms is…unhelpful, at best.”
He was basically saying that the point of general laws is to be as consistently equal to everyone as possible in order. The more messy the case is (ie, the less defined the elements of the case are), the worse the resulting law will be because you generally try to have a law be as generalized for a society as possible.
So I don’t think it’s a copout insomuch as it’s trying to have ‘practicality’ involved in the formation of laws and decisions of SCOTUS cases.
“To paraphrase T. Roosevelt, “The law is made for the people, and not the people for the law.””
Good quote, and I totally agree with it. :) Also I don’t think that quote is inconsistent with the Holmes quote.
Think of it this way. Holmes said that hard cases made for bad law (that’s the simplified quote at least). He was meaning that a generalized law needs to be consistent to as many people as possible. In order for that to happen, the elements have to have concrete bases in facts. The less concrete those bases are, the harder the case will be, and the less adequate the law or the judicial opinion will be to resolving the problem. IE, a law made from hard cases, where they did not bother to thoroughly examine the underlying elements, will not be serving the people.
“My point being that human beings are not mechanisms that can be fitted into a larger, abstract machine called ‘the law,’ and expected to be processed satisfactorily.”
I agree with that as well. Law is a machine. It’s composed of parts. These parts are facts, scenarios, arguments, evidence, and opinions. It needs all of these to be a good law that will serve the people. So if the arguments have holes or inconsistencies, or if the facts are not well-argued, or if the evidence is subject to too much interpretation, the machine (the law) will not serve the people well.
“In fact, I stand the science fiction writer, Frank Herbert, in his declaration that, “humans must never submit to machines.””
The only books I’ve ever read from Frank Herbert were Dune and Children of Dune. So I probably don’t know where that quote comes from, but sounds like a good quote worthy of John Connor. I approve. :)
“Every case is going to be engaged emotionally, because that’s just how humans work.”
This is correct as well, although I’d usually argue that the judge is going to be more detached than, say, a jury, since judges take an oath to be impartial and base their decisions on the law, not by emotion. It’s why some defense attorneys prefer to have a jury and others prefer to have just a judge. Depends on how emotional arguments will sway things. Juries tend to be more easily swayed by arguments that appeal to emotion than judges are. In theory at least.
” That doesn’t mean uniformity can’t exist at all, or that impartiality cannot be sought for…but it does mean that we have to accept the fact that not everything relevant to the human experience, and human society, can be a neatly, comprehensively, impartially defined “element.” It’s going to be messy, and demands constant refinement.”
Again, you’re not saying anything I disagree with here. I just do want to point out, though, that the law needs to hold emotion in check as much as possible in order to maintain some sense of consistency in its application. Holmes’ maxim still seems to apply.
“Third, even though we tend to discuss – or at least refer – to gender as if it were a discrete thing, it isn’t.”
Just wondering what you mean by discrete. I know that sex and gender have been used on and off as either synonyms or distinctly different words depending on the decade (in the 50s they were synonyms, 60s and especially 70s they were distinctly different words, especially in academia, in the 80s and 90s they were again used as synonyms, and by the 2010s they were starting to again be used as distinct different meanings, eventually accepted by a significant portion of the general populace, mostly because of the reach of the internet).
Not sure if that’s what you mean by discrete though. I probably should read through the whole paragraph before responding to each sentence though. :)
“It is emergent, and derivative, and thusly subject to change & redefinition…especially as more of what gives rise to gender changes.”
I don’t really know what most of that which you said means in a way that I can use as a definition. Unless you’re saying that it’s very nebulous. In which case we agree again. But that’s also why it makes for bad law until a more concrete definition can be used in order to serve the people as consistently and accurately as possible while minimizing any negative side effects of a bad or inconsistently applied law.
“Part of it emerges from how we are perceived by others, both in terms of our physical composition, and behaviors. A beard is “masculine.” Inward turned elbows are “feminine.” Crossed arms are masculine. Exposed wrists are feminine. And this bleeds into the idea that gender is also something you perform, from how you dress, to how you speak, even what you eat & drink, or the music you listen to….or your choice of recreation. That’s a point of crossover with economics”
Okay, so your definition for gender is basically ‘masculine and feminine’ rather than ‘male and female.’ ie, gender expression. If it was firmly established that sex = male/female, but gender = masculine/feminine in the messaging, there would probably be a lot fewer arguments made, because I can’t think of any real arguments against saying that masculine and feminine exist on a spectrum, while I can think of a LOT of arguments that can be made against saying male and female exist on a spectrum, if I was to try to steelman both sides of an argument to be as strong as possible.
But it still seems to conflate behavior with biology, which is why I’m confused on how economics fits into any sort of description of ‘gender.’ I just think it ‘muddies the waters’ to try to put too much under one tent. From an argument standpoint, at least. It becomes almost impossible to argue a coherent point that will take various shifting definitions into account. Honestly, if I’m getting confused by it, I’m pretty sure a lot of other people would get confused by it as well. Including judges and jurors who are, as you very aptly pointed out, “humans who are emotional decision makers, impaired by emotional disruptions, SOMEWHAT informed by reason and logic. Reason and logic tend to need a firmer footing in order to base generalized laws on it. Confused or rapidly shifting definition, unfortunately, make for inconsistently applied or contradictory laws. Inconsistently applied or contradictory laws are bad laws.
Most of this is sort of a moot point to the idea of making laws to make misgendering grounds for imprisonment (ie, the Hoogland case, where a judge makes a court order to not misgender, based on C-16, and when someone does, they wind up going to jail due to contempt of court for violating the judicial order to not misgender). I’m not sure it will wind up holding up in court because the court order conflicts with Canada’s version of freedom of speech (Section 2). I feel like it will fail because you wind up having to choose between a person’s ability to NOT be forced to say things that they don’t believe (regardless of if that belief is accurate or not – it’s a moot point to this particular question), and a person feeling that they have been discriminated against because of that person’s words. And in that contest, generally people are going to say the freedom to be able to speak ones mind takes priority.
There’s a reason why in the US, there are so few exceptions to freedom of speech, including freedom to say hurtful, hateful, vile things. Aside from defamation, and calling imminent physical violence or criminal action on another person, freedom of speech tends to be sacrosanct. People generally agree that it’s important to keep it sacrosanct so that the law (in this case, the law protecting freedom of speech) will serve the people, rather than the people having to serve the law, like the quote that you mentioned by Roosevelt.
I’m not making a judgment on how right or wrong that is. I’m not saying Hoogland is right or wrong, or making any opinions on his character. Or the mother is right or wrong. I’m not making an opinion on if a 14 year old is or is not emotionally mature enough to make certain decisions. I’m just stating what I think will happen and why in that case. Let alone if it ever was tried in the U.S.
“This is what I mean…gender emerges from so many different things, simultaneously, in so many different ways, that trying to create a single, hard, fast, universally applicable “legal definition,” is effectively impossible.”
I again agree. And that REALLY is the problem. A consistent legal definition is not possible. Therefore, a generalized and consistent law is not possible. You need to have a solid foundation before you can build a structure.
“Yet, that doesn’t give us license to ignore it, because in spite of all that, gender is a really facet of every person’s humanity, and ignoring it, for any reason, means dehumanizing them.”
Didnt ever suggest it gives license to ignore it. I’m just saying imprisoning someone for being mean with words, even to the point where the victim feels dehumanized by those words, seems like a step too far, and it will very likely not have the desired result of increased tolerance.
I tend to come at things like a lawyer figuring out how to argue a case. And if I feel that an argument will put me in a worse position, I have a few options. Making a different argument. Or getting an adjournment to a later date, during which I can try to patch up any holes in my existing argument to make it more resistant to counter-arguments.
Good convo, Bharda. :)
I think the definitions of “male”, “female”, “masculine”, and “feminine” are agreed upon by most parties, and the core fight is over who gets to define “man” and “woman” (and the associated pronouns), and whether those refer to sex or gender.
Why can I not find this “case” anywhere except Breitbart & self-proclaimed “Christian media” sites?
Seems to indicate that this reporting might be missing some key facts.
It’s not just in Breitbart and christian media sites, Bharda, although google is seeming to promote primarily christian and right wing reporting of it on the front search pages.
Aside from that you just can look at the court transcript directly, there are newspapers on both sides that have reported on this.
I’ll list a few on both sides below, to give an even mixture, without any of the christian sites or breitbart or NY Post, according to mediacheck and Allsides:
The Toronto Star (Left-Center biased news)
Canada’s Global News (Left-Center biased news)
Metro Voice (Left biased news)
The Guardian (Left biased news)
LailasNews (Right-Center biased news)
CBC News (Canadian Broadcast Corporation News) (Left-Center biased news)
The Washington Examiner (Center-Right biased news)
Western Journal (Right biased news)
WND (Right biased news)
Plus like I said, you can literally just look up the case transcript itself. I believe it would be an court order addendum to A.B. vs C.D. and E.F. (2019 BCSC 254, Docket E190334, Registry Vancouver and Docket S191565). The reason for the odd name is the cover page had the names of the parties anonymized.
Again I’m not giving a personal opinion on this.
Someone disputed if any such cases existed – I’m just showing that cases do exist. I’m just saying the case is real, and this really did happen. The court order violation happened within the past week. The court order itself has been on record since the case was adjudicated by I believe a ‘Justice Gregory T. W. Bowden’
PS – I’m also not trying to lecture I promise. Even if it might be …. coming out that way a bit.
I just get really long-winded when I start getting into lawyerspeak mode and giving out legal information on a subject. Or when I go down a tangent in general (see the thread with Torabi and Wzaerreazw where I’m arguing about why this isnt even really something to argue about).
I’m not trying to be remotely political about any of this because I don’t really feel this is something that relates to anything happening in the comic, and I only really responded in this thread because someone asked if there were any laws or cases where someone got in legal trouble as a result of misgendering. Then the responses I made to you are only to bolster up that the cases does, in fact, exist, and the specifics of WHY it exists (ie, what a contempt of court charge actually entails and how it doesnt exist in a legal vacuum).
Annnnd now I’m posting a lot about why I’m posting a lot. Fabulous. :)
I’m not going to comment on the legal side of things because Pander has done so with clarity I could scarcely muster when pertaining to the intricacy of law. I’ve tried. It’s hard. I’m better at other things.
I will seek to answer your question why Google is showing “Brietbart and self-proclaimed christian media sites.”
Google is able to predict your likes and dislikes. That’s how they serve you ads. Which means if they don’t want you to learn more about a subject, they can promote websites you dislike, thus dissuading you from thinking it’s anything more than “a right-wing talking point.”
Try logging out of google (or going to google on another person’s computer if you aren’t) and searching a few different things. Chances are you’ll get subtly different search results. Google calls this “personalized search” and it’s what they’ve been using to manipulate search results for several years now. Project Veritas was the first to get high-ranking Google employees admitting to this manipulation on camera. Since then it’s been a major discussion topic in both infosec and freedom of speech communities. Eventually, an employee came out and discussed it in public without the surreptitious undercover recording.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1VeElBAeas
Google isn’t the only company that does this. DDG does as well. So does Yahoo, Qwant, Bing, EntireWeb, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, etc., etc. You get the idea. There are a few search/social media engines that don’t appear to do this – but by and large this is how the internet works nowadays.
It’s not even a conspiracy – doing this is completely legal. It’s just how things work now.
Wzaerreazw:
The thing is, while such a system could theoretically be abused to manipulate people, if the people running it can actually influence it, rather than just feed it data, most of the people making it are just trying to make it serve the people using it more effectively, without having to figure it out themselves.
Interpreting natural language is hard. Formally writing rules, a computer program, that can actually understand what people mean when they ask a question, and supply the desired answer, is really hard. Because natural languages generally don’t have actual, formal rules. We derive rules from the patterns, but they’re not controlling. It is so much easier to write a program that mimics a human brain, then mimic the process of human experience by feeding it a ton of data.
Or to put it another way, rather than try to figure out the rules of a language, and write a computer program using those rules, instead write a computer program to figure out the rules of language for you.
The purpose of an internet search engine is to take a query, and return an appropriate URL. But determining what the correct URLs to return for a given query is really, really hard, given that people can write whatever they want in the search box, and the contents of the web are constantly changing.
It’s made further complicated when we cannot agree on objective truth or reality, and lots of people want their side to be represented, and are constantly complaining that if something isn’t biased in their favor, then it’s biased against them.
Wz:
Your exact words: “Labels are a matter of value ascription.”
Either support your basic claim, or abdicate the entire argument.
Additionally, you’re going on about compelled speech, and completely disregarding all that icky, inconvenient context. Refusing to acknowledge a person’s identity, particularly when they have followed the laws and customs pertaining thereto, is abuse. It is a form of harm. “Freedom of Speech” does not shield one from liability for doing harm. That’s the underlying point of the whole “crowded theater” argument.
You are, at the root, insisting that you, or whoever, has the right to do harm. You’re arguing that it is somehow unethical & immoral to be “compelled to not harm someone.”
So go ahead, enjoy that fight. I look forward to seeing the outcome.
I know that this is already pretty much over by now and we’ve all moved onto the next page, but just wanted to respond to two things here. Also I’m not sure which of WZ’s posts you’re responding to unfortunately because the threads have gotten very confusing to follow. I just like responding to legal topics.
““Freedom of Speech” does not shield one from liability for doing harm. That’s the underlying point of the whole “crowded theater” argument.”
Just want to start with a little bit of a tangent. :)
There is one time that you can shout fire in a crowded theater. When there’s a fire in a crowded theater. Okay that’s a bit of a joke, but it’s also accurate. If someone’s put a bomb in an area, someone sees it and yells ‘There’s a bomb! Everyone get out!’…. that’s actually still allowed, even if people are harmed as a result of the ensuing panic. If someone sees a fire and points it out to another person by yelling ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater, that isn’t ‘creating’ imminent physical danger – the danger is already there, and the speaker is trying to lessen the danger.
Sorry, had to say that first part because it’s something my Constitutional Law Professor told us on the first day of my first year in law school. :)
But more seriously speaking… in any case, I think there’s a difference between being compelled to speak vs being prevented FROM speaking. The former has some examples of limitations of free speech (ie, defamation, creating imminent physical danger to others). The latter does not have any examples in history of any nations in the western hemisphere that support freedom of speech (until Hoogland and maybe a few other limited cases this year).
“You’re arguing that it is somehow unethical & immoral to be “compelled to not harm someone.””
I’m not sure if Wz is arguing that (I honestly don’t know which post you’re responding to), but my take on compelled speech would be more centered around law and if it should be:
1) Is it legally harm to engage in verbal or emotional abuse (which is difficult or impossible to narrowly define as such), vs physical abuse (which is very easy to narrowly define as such). The easier it is to narrowly define something, the easier it is to make a law based on it. The more broadly something is defined, the harder it is to make a law based on it. Usually when something is too broadly defined as a law and it winds up going to SCOTUS, SCOTUS has a history of throwing the law out as being ‘overly broad.’ – ie, when, in the process of regulating unprotected free speech, it negatively impacts protected speech in a way that was not intended. That’s why ‘compelled speech’ is such a worrisome idea, far moreso than restricted speech. The former is FAR more harmful to protected speech in a way that was not intended (and possibly completely destructive) than the latter.
2) Is being mean always the same as being unethical or immoral, and can we successfully legislate something like that?
3) Is it a good idea to make ANYTHING that is unethical or immoral (or just mean in general) illegal? Because we do not use mere immorality or unethical behavior as being the same as illegal behavior.
Is that a great outcome? Not necessarily, no. But law unfortunately doesn’t always solve problems. Usually it just tries to minimize the problems to tolerable levels for the entire society. And in the US and Canada, freedom from compelled speech, in particular, tends to be considered a step too far to enforce upon the citizenry.
Torabi: As someone who has worked with AI algorithms, that is DEFINITELY not true. The whole point of these algorithms was to make user-generated content more “acceptable” for profit. Therefore, if fascism becomes acceptable… You see where this is going.
So, websites like Reddit made the conscious choice to manually ban anti-authoritarian groups alongside actual nazis as though those two things are the same. Now their algorithms are learning this behavior, as learning algorithms do.
This applies to all major tech with the exception of Google and Facebook. Those two are plain evil. You should read the stuff they’ve been doing to manipulate their userbase. Check out Project Veritas for all things Google. Facebook has run more under the radar, but check their “emotional manipulation experiment,” along with Congress’ hearings with Mark Zuckerberg.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/smallbusiness/mark-zuckerberg-just-asked-congress-to-eliminate-all-of-facebook-s-future-competition/ar-BB1eZl3B
It’s almost laughable – if it wasn’t so goddamn terrifying.
I am arguing that it’s unethical and immoral to be compelled not to harm when no evidence of harm can be reasonably presented or proven in a court of law. Misgendering laws are fine in theory except there’s no legal requirement whatsoever placed upon the plaintiff. They can even claim they were misgendered by changing their gender. Which is a problem because it becomes the defendant proving their innocence rather than the plaintiff proving the defendant’s guilt.
Fair enough concerning Canada.
But the laws in NY are about discrimination and harassment based on a person’s pronouns. Not something as common as whether or not you refer to them correctly.
Correct. Like I said, the law in New York is of LIMITED scope, unlike the case based on the law in Canada. I am not sure if the New York regulation allows for an argument that something solely verbal like misgendering would be covered. It probably wouldn’t be. U.S. Judges, in my experience, -tend- to try to construe laws narrowly – they don’t usually WANT to be doing things that create drastically new laws that the legislators did not intend – although sometimes judges will interpret more broadly (sometimes referred to as judicial activism).
I was just trying to be thorough in my response to you. :)
It’s honestly not that bad.
Course, Here in Canada (and I actually live local to that case), we usually tend to actually ask people for their preferred pronoun starting out anyways.
Surrey’s also mostly a loosely disguised Ghetto, so, to be blunt, the guy using his Trans kid against his ex-wife actually pretty closely fits the bill, just knowing the area. Lower Mainland BC probably has the highest population of assholes in the entire western half of Canada (which is funny, given how Redneck Alberta is, and I say this as a former Albertan). In any event, Canada’s just different, which is why that law actually works for us. We actually ask people their preferred pronoun, we don’t just assume it.
Pendrake, that’s called compelled speech. You might be okay with Canada determining everything you can and can’t say (ever read 1984?) but here in America we have a thing called The Constitution. It doesn’t let the authorities do that, at least nominally, for reasons that were well-understood all the way back ’til the founding of this nation.
Nowadays people don’t care about ‘ethics’ and ‘law,’ so they do what you did: “Ah, it’s not a big deal; let me repeatedly insult this one guy to show you why it’s fine.”
That’s basically how mass-murdering governments like Stalin gain and maintain power. Next time you might be that “one guy” and your ‘great leader’ won’t have a problem putting you to death to ensure everyone else stays happy.
Think I’m kidding? Insulting you? Read some history. Everything I said is based on real-life governments. Still happens, too. Myanmar, the Philippines, Eritrea etc. Canada is a small country population-wise and America is a fan of cooperative dictatorships. Wanna find out?
Wzaerreazw I think you may be overreacting.
Canada hasn’t had traditional “free speech” laws for well over a century now and done just fine. Definitely not bad enough to start any insinuation of 1984.
While America, on the other hand, has strangled free speech and expression of various groups over the years with far more hostility than Canada ever has. (With the Tulsa Massacre being the most egregious example.)
“Nowadays people don’t care about ‘ethics’ and ‘law,’”? Please get out of whatever doom&gloom hoax you’ve been sucked into.
That couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Canada has 1/8th the U.S. population and 1/37th military spending. Of course they haven’t slid into autocracy. The U.S. would do precisely to Canada what the U.S. did to Mexico in the 1800s.
The battleground is here precisely BECAUSE our Constitution protects free expression.
Jhfc on a bicycle…
Okay, here are two labels, “us,” and “them.”
Tell us which one inherently ascribes, in its own right, without any external reference, greater value, and why.
I don’t know.
All I know is that calling a non-binary person by their preferred pronouns, if they even bother asking, is pretty effortless and benign.
I do the same for non-binary people all the time anyways.
*I do the same for binary people all the time anyways.
The demand to specify anything with a certain term over others is a matter of control which can be (but is not always) used as a sort of psychosocial brainwashing. This concept was first put to use in the early Soviet Union where the rich were referred to as “Kulak” and then executed. Later, the “Kulak-adjacent” were executed, and so on. Millions died.
While we haven’t reached that point here in America, we’re already seeing the rise of terms like “alt-right” and so on. Gender pronouns are little more than a crafty way of using this trend for personal social benefit.
Which, of course, does no harm… Unless it becomes law. As it has.
tl;dr
“Whoops, someone asked me to demonstrate my bullshit claim, better ignore it through up a bunch of tangential bullshit as a deflection.”
Jhfc on a bicycle, you are painfully predictable at this point.
It’s called “history” and it’s anything but tangential.
I can’t tell you which label ascribes greater value because the question is nonsensical. It’s the demand to use a specific label that is harmful. Which you’d know if actually read my comments instead of skimming just enough to find something to insult.
Well, here’s some history for you. The grand majority of times someone has claimed “They’re infringing on my Freedom of Speech” in the US, it’s basically “I should be allowed to be an asshole and treat people I don’t like like shit” which actually ISN’T defended by the first amendment in the majority of those cases because the person in question was using it to incite hatred and violence against said people.
You know why the law works in Canada and doesn’t work for the States? Because there isn’t some ingrained belief up here that we should be able to be complete douchebags to whoever we feel like. Most Canadians are polite because we choose COMMON DECENCY as something important to us. Course, it probably helps we also had roughly a century of seeing how badly the US screwed up with the Constitution and how people would twist it to their own ends too.
The things I stated about kulaks, alt-right techwashing, and gender laws are factual; drawn from actual historical events. Not some opinion regarding whether people are, quote; “assholes.”
This is unironic conspiracy theory nonsense.
No, trans people are not trying to brainwash you.
And it isn’t illegal to misgender someone in America, either. Employers just can’t discriminate against them.
1) Actual historical events are not conspiracy nonsense.
2) Yes, they are.
3) Yes it is, in several states.
It is if you have no evidence of it currently happening. Seriously; how are non-binary pronouns brainwashing people?
And if you’re so confident; Which states?
*lawn chair & popcorn*
It’s kinda funny that he’s went from being all big words and flowery language to starting to rage now. ten bucks says he picks out longstanding Republican and/or Bible Belt States too.
*sets up Lawn Chair as well, puts beer sixpack on table*
Just in case the post I wrote doesn’t go through moderation (grrlpower doesn’t like lots of links) here’s the post without links and a link to the sources:
—
I do have evidence. Why don’t you ask for that instead of being a jerk?
[laws here]
I wouldn’t have a problem with any of these if people were required to register their preferred gender with the state. Instead these laws become “hate speech” traps. There are more states but these two have the most restrictive laws.
Driver’s licenses with gender “X” as in 20 different states are even worse: they don’t specify the gender but they do legitimize above practices. In addition to criminalizing an unspecified gender, this protects these individuals from being fired, evicted, or denied public services regardless of whether there was any actual discrimination.
Here in the United States we have the premise of “innocent until proven guilty.” By not requiring people to prove their gender, mere accusations of misgendering will result in cash settlement and jailtime because defendants are required to prove their innocence while the entirety of a plaintiff’s case can rest upon the claim that the “defendant was mean!”
As for tech’s attempts to “recondition” people:
[Tech links here]
Source backup:
https://pastebin.com/cMnn59UD
Sorry to disappoint you, Pendrake, the states I picked are northern democrat. They’re the two I’d have selected anyway due to their forerunner status. Moreover, I’ve not been “raging” so I’d love to know where you got that idea from.
Seeing that gender selection screen, and if they really are all different genders and not random symbols, makes me think we should just do away with the concept of gender all together, it’s become such a wild growth of different definitions that it is not fitting or benefitting anyone anymore.
That, and on doing some research, at least half of them are literally the same thing.
Only ones there that i see making sense and just need one symbol are male, female, transgender, Intersex, and Genderfluid.
Well, and Asexual (it’s there).
What about Gender Nonconforming? Is that a separate gender, or is that a little asterisk that says ‘results may vary?’ Or would that be multiple separate genders (male nonconforming, female nonconforming, … etc? I’m not sure what the others nonconforming would mean.)
Really there are just a few dimensions –
1) How male are you mentally?
2) How female are you mentally?
3) How stable are you in each of those?
4) what physical gonads do you have?
5) something something something something.
I would argue that it never really benefited very many people. Classes such as gender are full of tradeoffs, where you accept certain restrictions in exchange for certain freedoms. The only people who benefited from those definitions are the people who fit them perfectly, and thus didn’t suffer from the restrictions, because those were things they weren’t interested in anyway.
That’s how virtually all class systems work. Clique mentality is prototypical of generalized human behavior.
Kinda hope we can see these dorks again, get a bit of an epilogue to this little love story. Its been as fun as that mini explanation of Dabbler’s school days from… a good long while ago I guess
Maybe in #1000?
This whole chapter had me laughing. From the gender options all the way to the ‘short straw’ joke.
Wonderful page.
And here I thought you had fun designing space gender symbols. But nope, these are just earth derpery from earthly derpers. The problem with those people, (apart from taking their bullshit entirely too seriously, as the “go play in traffic” responses here show) is that, as you noticed, smashing your sexual preferences into your genitals then calling the resulting mess “gender” is exactly that: An icky sticky mess.
I can understand “male” and “female”. (Well, no: I am one and fail to understand the other, which is par for the course.) I can sort-of imagine “intersex” (nature made a boo-boo). I can understand people wanting to partner with either one, or not having much of a preference, or preferring not to partner at all, but that strictly does not belong in a sex indication symbol.
All the rest look like near-identical snowflakes. We know each snowflake is different from all others. But they’re all snowflakes. And a good thing too, because if they weren’t they’d never stick together and we’d never be able to ski. I really don’t see how, if everyone is yet another gender, you could possibly get yourself a mate of the proper other gender (and which one would that be?) that you manage to somewhat like, too. The whole thing just doesn’t work. Which is perfectly understandable because it is academic bullshit from academic shitheads.
But then again, this storyline is fantastic science space fantasy so re-using earth derpery to convey icky sticky mess works pretty well. Pity about abusing the noble pizza like that, though. I’m pretty sure you offended at least one Italian chef with that.
Hmm, pizza and beer for lunch, all’aperto in Italia.
What I see as the big problem with the whole sex/gender mess is that we observe there to be a male and female sex, and then decided there must be a corresponding male and female gender. Gender isn’t just about sexual preferences or activity. It’s social roles, a list of acceptable behaviors, mannerisms, preferences, etc. The concept of gender being distinct from sex comes first from restricting acceptable behavior based on sex, and then people rebelling against being told that they weren’t allowed to like or do certain things because of their sex. If we hadn’t told people in the first place that they weren’t allowed to be themselves, they wouldn’t feel the need to make up bizarre new categories to justify being themselves.
I think the whole argument on human gender stuff doesnt really apply here anyway, since we’re talking about an alien species that can create blank genetic body templates which could be very specifically tailored with technology far beyond our own existing genetic tech. Plus, yknow, an entirely different set of genomes for an entirely different species than human. It’s a big red herring to get into a debate on it as far as this particular comic is concerned with Lapha.
Gender, is between your ears; while, sex is bewteen your legs!
Since Lapha is only talking about a replacement body, that would make the entire question about gender as some sort of mental construct, rather than a biological definition, a moot point here as well, since her mental thoughts and consciousness are in the flame, not in whatever biological body she happens to be attached to.
While not terrible as an extremely simplified shorthand…even this fails at the post.
Gender emerges from a complex entanglement of genetics, socialization, observation, and much more.
“It’s complicated,” is really the best answer, but at least some people can’t handle that. *le sigh*
Whenever something is labeled as complicated, inevitably people will try to simplify it so the masses can understand it, preferably in a pithy soundbite that could fit on a bumper sticker. :)
With depressingly predictable results.
Agreed.
Most of my posts would never fit on a bumper sticker :)
Also why I would never be good at being on twitter (I never even tried to make an account – 140 characters? HA! 280 characters? Still HA!)
I can do slogans & bumper stickers pretty well.
“The People Who Make The Country Run, Should Be The People Who Run The Country.”
“Work Works – Restore The WPA”
“Hope Versus Nope”
I’m waaaaay too verbose.
I particularly like that first slogan btw. Very catchy.
That is an interesting take, but I thought the point of emancipation and equal opportunity was that the label no longer matters for that purpose. So why the need for more labels? And why be so loudly demanding about other people using your self-invented “proper” pronouns, to the point that using the wrong ones gets you fined hard (in California) and even giving in to demands you “declare” yours but give the wrong ones (“beep/bop/boop”) gets you fired and denounced? It doesn’t make sense to me on that premise.
I heard someone related how his teenage daughter is now a “trans gay boy” because she happens to like boys. Because being straight is apparently Right Out for her peers. That means to me that the movement itself inflicts far more restrictions than society at large. The answer to not being able to express yourself in society is not “more restrictions”, so that line of reasoning seems a dead end.
I’ll just quote myself, re: the gender pronouns;
You still haven’t explained exactly value is assigned by a label.
Tell us, which label assigns more value, “us,” or “them?”
Any label you insist others specify. You’re trying to forcibly override their values when you do that.
Which, fine, you can if you want. Others can comply if they want. But you can’t make people say it. That’s compelled speech which is a gross violation of both freedom of speech and freedom of thought.
Denying a person’s identity is abuse. It is doing harm to them.
You’re trying to argue that it is unethical/immoral to be “compelled to not do harm.”
Baseline, you want the right to hurt people.
You don’t think compelling or suppressing speech could also constitute harm? Minimizing harm requires considering all involved parties. I’d like to believe it’s possible to eliminate harm entirely, but I haven’t been able to prove it yet.
Well, I find it harmful you keep calling me rude names. We should pass a law for at least 1 year’s jailtime for your very offensive behavior.
Hopefully you can see why the above is absurd. If you can’t, I don’t know what to tell you.
Denying a person’s identity is abuse. It is doing harm.
You’re trying to arguing that being “compelled to not harm,” is somehow immoral or unethical.
You are arguing for the right to hurt people. I mean it completely fits you, as NazBol, but it’s not a super good strategy.
I see. So if the shoe fits, no need to worry about doing harm.
You are an authoritarian, bigoted, self-centered, obscenely self-righteous, proselytizing, inconsiderate person who lacks any sense of empathy for anyone who disagrees with you or anything you find favorable. You prefer to hate others rather than communicate in good faith, you prefer to hurt them in every way you find acceptable, simply so you can justify your own twisted sense of self-worth.
Don’t worry, I didn’t misgender you.
Gender as social role is infinite.
What makes a 1950s American a “man” is very different from what makes an 1890s coal miner a “man” is different from what makes a 1430s Japanese townie a “man” from what makes a 1980s Turk a “man”.
That’s a really interesting way of putting it. It’s like, something we all know and accept, but don’t think to distill into words. I believe society becomes a better place when more perspective is available for people to see and consider. Thank you for saying so.
Calling a trans man a girl/woman isn’t a “perspective,” it’s abuse.
Ms Pedantic didn’t say that.
You cannot possibly be this stupid.
I think the appropriate response is, “right back at you.”
Humans come in varieties that even I probably can’t imagine, and I’ve been learning about its varieties for a long time. A decade ago, I thought I was past the point of being surprised. I am now wondering if there is such a point.
One thing I’ve seen demonstrated time and time again is that many of us are incredibly brilliant in some areas, while having other areas of weaknesses that others can’t imagine having coupled with that brilliance. This is most common in people seen as incredibly brilliant by a sizeable population. I think the classic example was an astrophysicist who couldn’t tie his shoes, but the variations seem pretty endless.
Just to be clear, I’m not making a comment about whether the OP is stupid or on point or whatever. My entire point is different people are different. Our estimations of other peoples’ level of intelligence is fraught with issues, and a lot of that is tied to this idea that intelligence is this linear thing, where people are either brilliant or stupid, or somewhere in between. It’s my experience that most people are better at some things than others, with stuff they excel at and stuff they completely fail at. Most of the time, when one is having difficulty conceiving of the intellectual position of some other person, it’s a personal problem.
I’m having a difficult time following most of the threads today. There’s a whole lot of tangents, some of which I’ve gotten caught up into without even trying.
All I know for SURE is it started with panel 2’s ‘Gender selection’ because it’s using symbols, some or most of which were originally on social media sites like Tumblr and Reddit, then for reasons that I can’t even follow it became an all out argument on the ‘gender is a spectrum vs gender is binary’/ social construct vs biology debate, despite the nature of who was making this selection in the comic.
I think I’m going to sit out the rest of the posts because this looks like it is rapidly devolving into a flame war.
Looking forward to the next strip, and I do love this one!
I’m reasonably sure you read the author’s notes below the pages. Did you miss this one? Perhaps read it again? DaveB kind of started the conversation, so it shouldn’t be surprising for other people to join in.
The only thing I see that DaveB wrote was that the chart was a bunch of Earth genders that he used although he had no idea what most of them mean anyway. Probably because they just look neat an alien-ish.
Specifically, he said:
“The gender select screen is actually full of icons from just Earth genders. I couldn’t tell you what the majority of them represent, but I do hope the one that looks like a hurricane icon on weather maps is a really cool gender.”
And then he said it probably would have been more appropriate to use ‘sex’ as a choice instead of gender, presumably because the ‘meatsuit chassis’ that Lapha uses would be a biological-only component, which lends itself more to sex than gender, which he sort of alludes to as being more of a psychological component, which doesnt really seem to fit into a ‘biological-only chassis’ when all that psychological and intangible sexuality stuff would be contained in the flame.
Annnnd now that I write this out I see what you’re saying :)
I’m still surprised at the amount and direction of arguments that have spurred off of the existence of the chart and DaveB’s following paragraph, considering Lapha’s state of being isnt really human-analogous.
Disagreement breeds discussion.
True but I never imagined the volume of the discussion over such a small disagreement. :)
My impression is that sex or gender is core to the identities of most humans. There can hardly be a “small disagreement” over such a topic.
You might want to clarify who exactly you’re talking to there, since your comment doesn’t seem to be a response to any other particular poster.
“I really don’t see how, if everyone is yet another gender, you could possibly get yourself a mate of the proper other gender”
That’s not how gender works, is how. Do you seriously think only people of the same exact gender/sexual prefrences can get together?
Wait, so is it that any snowflakes fit together, or that only two matching snowflakes can fit together? You seem to be saying both judging by the third paragraph of the minirant. Just because you personally don’t understand something doesn’t make it untrue. If that had been the case, the sun would have been circling the Earth for quite a while.
He’s asking how the snowflakes are expected to know which will fit… In a… very odd way.
I think if humans knew the answer to this problem, we wouldn’t have Tinder, eHarmony, etc. Lol.
I seriously love these two. Seriously. Despite being aliens, and despite Lapha having caused the problems in the first place, they have been SO humanized so that I care about them.
I might worship Deus, as he is our beloved savior and light and paragon of the world, the best hope for the universe, and all should bow in supplication at his magnificence and forward thinking and strategy (G..), but these two I just love for much more simple reasons with their back and forth relationship. :)
Hmm, bioluminescence. Reminds me of the Chymlaxi species created by Nyuunzi (Very NSFW if you go searching.)
Cyberpunk 2077 wants what MeatBlanks.GalNet.MW has
They didn’t even put in as many options as they could’ve for that.
I mean seriously, for Genital Options, they coulda just had “both” but didn’t.
Maybe they didn’t want a Cartman’s Mom situation?
You can weaponize your arms but not your genitals. Such a missed opportunity.
Vagina dentata?
The game might be limited to what can be programmed into it.
Video games tend to give the illusion of infinite choice, rather than actual infinite choice.
We have yet to see a transgender character(maybe one with a suspicious looking bulge between her legs)and having the shower to herself as the other female characters keep their distance!?
Yet to see one reveal themselves, anyways.
After surgery, there is no :bulge”!
Yep.
Also, a woman can actually have kind of a bulge in tight clothes due to the Mon Pubis as well, so really “seeing a bulge in their pants” isn’t really proof they’re pre-op Trans either.
I noticed that there are four symbols that are the same. The first two are in the first column, the third and fifth from the left, and the second two are in the fifth from the left on the second column and the second from the left in the fourth column.
There is a third one too.
Yeah I came here to point that out, too.
Duplication in the source, found here.
https://anunnakiray.com/all-the-gender-symbols/
Is it just me, or does the 16th symbol sort of look like a plumbus from Rick and Morty?
I know it’s not and it’s from some list of genders on tumblr or twitter or reddit or somewhere (I have no idea, I don’t really follow this stuff that deeply and have no idea where most of them originated), but I just found it an amusing little thing that I noticed.
Hmmm… Pretty sure one of those is an Unown.
RE censored pics…
DUDE! They are still ‘pieces of ‘pie’ … still bet ya one was cherry.
(Ya perv, our kind of perv thou)
… and now I’m hungry
(Forgot obligatory Spaceballs – Pizza the Hut)
“Or I’m gonna send out for YOU”
I’m intrigued that the galactic DNS format matches ours – apparently ICANN is “Intergalactic” and not just “International”. DARPA would’ve probably had some input from Earth’s alien presence looking to simplify network access for the tourists.
Although in reality, DNS was actually developed entirely by one dude who was assigned the “easy” grunt task of managing IP assignment and lookup so the ARPANET folks could stop spending so much time maintaining resource lists and answering phone calls requests. I think he may have been a grad student at the time?
Typically, that’s all you need to do; hand off a hard problem to one smart person and let them work out a framework. Then the implementation can be banged out by some worker drones.
In the modern world we give hard problems to teams of 800 consultants. Predictably, hilarity ensues.
“A Strong, Capable Man To Rescue The Situation, And Command The Followers In Society.”
Feel like I’ve read about this Struggle somewhere before…
That’s literally why I said “person.” To remove that exact bias.
Do you have a problem with everything I say?
Wow, you completely missed that one.
*disappointed headshaking*
Seems like a several people have had a problem with what you’ve been saying. Maybe you should consider thinking about that.
I find myself unconcerned by their – and your – repeated character assassination.
Let’s face it; it’s insert Tab A into Slot B that keeps the Human Race rolling along through the centuries. The rest of the Gender crapola is all forms of masturbation, fantasy, rationalization and psychological confusion. Flavor of the Month, as it were. Having “Body Blanks” is interesting, though. “Claws and a tail were fun, but I prefer wings, talons and feathers with a beak as an option, I hate straws”
In a galaxy where sometimes races propagate by inserting Tab A into slot C and Tab B into Slot D, your crass opinion isn’t particularly helpful. Also, I feel like the real world is far more complicated than you can imagine.
Thank goodness he wasn’t talking about said galaxy when he made that reference, right?
Oh. Oh, I see, you intentionally misinterpreted him.
On a planet where species complete alter alter their own sex in order to breed, it really isn’t a misinterpretation, at all.
Sure, but he said “Humans.” Specifically humans. We still haven’t figured that out for humans, sorry.
Deflection.
Ed was addressing the “gender crapola; flavor of the month,” line.
Try harder, NazBol.
I would agree if he had kept it at “I feel like the world is far more complicated than you imagine.”
He did not. He chose to address unstated claims.
Like your continuous “NazBol” references. I didn’t even know what a NazBol was until you said it. You’ve been so consistent it’s making me question your political alignment. Are you engaging in false flag politics? Are you even trans?
It really is.
The reproductive methods of some Earthly species already beg the question, “How are you not extinct already?”
To quote a chaos theory mathematician on a particular dinosaur-populated island:
Life … ah… finds a way.
Struth.
speaking of odd reproduction, the Argonaut (It’s basically a shelled Ocotopus, also called the Paper Nautilus).
the genitals of the male are on a tentacle that detaches and swims to the female.
The even funnier thing is the OP claiming “Tab A into Slot B” and doesn’t even realize not even all MAMMALS all do that, let alone other life on Earth. Marsupials have forked Penises for instance. And don’t even get me started on how weird Echidnas’ junks are. XD
Again, he specifically said “humans.” “Human race” if you want to be pedantic.
What is wrong with you folks? Can you not read?
Can you not see that there was more in that post than “human reproductive mechanics?”
I mean, it’s not even subtext. It’s just text.
He probably can’t. Folks like him are always context blind.
You didn’t respond to the “other text.” You explicitly responded to “insert Tab A into Slot B” – which they explicitly specified was related to the “human species.”
Speaking of context blindness…
Human race* typo
If issue of gender & reproduction were, somehow, dependent on one another, you might be making some sort of a point.
As it stands, however, all you’ve done is communicate that you’re basically incapable of anything more complicated than binary logic.
We could replace you with a calculator.
So the Cyberpunk 2077 character creator was just a trial version of logging onto this?
Not a bad reference. XD
…still, it would be nice if they’d separated the voice from the pronouns, among other things.
Isn’t it weird that an alien computer system would still use the “Venus” and “Mars” symbols for female and male?
Elfguy:
The display options are possibly chosen based on nearest planet by default, with a menu option to choose a different locale/language etc.
Other:
The sex/gender issue, or as I refer to Poles vs Holes, gender fluidity is a thing but toilet & changing room use should be based on the physical attributes of pole or hole, as for hermaphrodites whichever way the urine tinkles.
“Based on physical attributes” instructions unclear, those come in more than two variations and basing yourself on just one (and a pretty invasive one to verify, at that) yields no improvement on any front for anyone except the promise of more policing that will be only solved by more invasive “checks”. As for intersex people, their urine is subject to gravity same as everyone, so the way it tinkles is downwards. Happy to help!
I don’t think most people question their own internal logic as to why we have separate restrooms or locker rooms, and who should go in which — they just assume everyone else is using the same unstated logic, which is clearly not the case. I think that’s a discussion that the public needs to have before any progress will really be made on the issue.
It’s cheaper than building individual rooms and still does a reasonable job of separating the predominant genders.
That, and prior to just recently nobody gave a damn about genders other than the first two.
But back to economics, I have seen estimates that clearly state building individual rooms would cost hundreds of thousands more, if not millions, depending on the scale of the facilities. Some locations are now opting to not build any bathrooms or locker rooms at all.
*Citation required
You… just kind of skipped over the whole question. Which doesn’t actually surprise me much, given that my point was that the answer is believed to be obvious to the point that few people can even contemplate the question. Why are we separating people at all? Why are people comfortable with one arrangement, and not another?
Skippy here doesn’t like to get bogged down in things like context.
It gets in the way of his rhetoric.
Must write speeches for Republicans.
I wish – they would fire me. You think politicians like data and reason? No. Of course not. It’s a shame because they pay so well, too.
No, actually I get too bogged down by context. That’s why I got stuck on the economic part of my explanation.
… No, I didn’t.
Establishments worked on the basis that sex determined which people go in which bathrooms – gender wasn’t ever so much as discussed. Therefore, they had no internal logic. They didn’t even have unstated logic insofar as gender was concerned. You’re asking for something that did not exist to be examined. People need to know why a thing matters before they’ll bother to consider it.
That’s why I focused on the economic aspect. Resolve that problem and you give people an actual reason to respect the rights of others. I admit, this part was poorly construed, but the above argument was fairly concisely explained and very much relevant.
I really think your mind keep slipping over the question, because I’m questioning something that most people consider unquestionable. Why do we have separate bathrooms at all?
Did you miss the part where I said it was separated by sex? You’re implying it historically had something to do with gender. I can almost promise you it did not.
That’s how they’re separated, but not why. Sex-segregated public restrooms are a relatively recent invention (first regulation in the U.S. passed in 1887 in Massachusetts), but not so recent that any distinction between sex and gender was widely recognized. Some people obviously perceive sex to be the important distinction, while others believe gender is more important, but few in either group even question the validity of segregated bathrooms.
Because in the late 1800s women were attempting to break out from their traditional role as child-bearer. Some men supported this ideation and helped them by providing them their own bathrooms. Contrary to popular belief, segregation can be useful in cases where the opposing class of individuals are apt to use that lack of separation as a tool of oppression.
Nowadays it’s probably not helpful anymore as people have come to largely recognize gender as you’d stated. When I made this as a response to your question I just kind of assumed you knew the history of the sexes in the United States – and, you know, the entire world, since some countries still don’t have women’s suffrage.
I am again reminded that I’ll be treated as though I’m the stupid one when someone else is ignorant of history.
An alien computer probably wouldn’t. Lapha’s external physiology looks like it is about 75% consistent with human physiology. The two example of her species we have seen appear to be generally female and mammalian but for all we know at this point, that is just the default appearance that most of Lapha’s species finds aesthetically pleasing and has nothing to do with reproductive orifices. One could have just as easily shown a list of random phonemes arranged into words for the available genders but I don’t think it would have resonated as well with most readers.
I just assumed it was translated for our convenience tbh. These “tourists” all have translation devices anyway, right?
This is what TVTropes calls an “acceptable break from reality”.
Influence of spaceborne human generations on the rest of the galaxy
Obviously a coincidence. :) Like Gin and Tonic in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. :)
“It is a curious fact, and one to which no-one knows quite how much importance to attach, that something like 85 percent of all known worlds in the Galaxy, be they primitive or highly advanced, have invented a drink called jynnan tonyx, or gee-N’N-T’N-ix, or jinond-o-nicks, or any one of a thousand variations on this phonetic theme.
The drinks themselves are not the same, and vary between the Sivolvian ‘chinanto/mnigs’ which is ordinary water served just above room temperature, and the Gagrakackan ‘tzjin-anthony-ks’ which kills cows at a hundred paces; and in fact the only one common factor between all of them, beyond the fact that their names sound the same, is that they were all invented and named before the worlds concerned made contact with any other worlds.”
Shameless the way those two flirt.
I think Garamm is a smoother operator than Ray Cosmos.
Garamm’s an honest down-to-outer-space lizard alien who just loves love. Bless his romantic reptilian heart or whatever a reptile alien has in place of a heart.
Same reason most ME players playing FemShep romance Garrus. You might not even have compatible DNA and could kill each other with your bodily fluids, but dammit, you love each other.
Not gonna lie, first play, my girl was all about Tali. ^_^’
I wish she was a romanceable option, but then it’s also sorta implied she’s Bi-curious in the Citadel DLC, given she fantasizes about having a threesome with FemShep and Garrus.
I was all over Tali first chance I had to romance her as MaleShep. Mostly because she’s the one you really have the best relationship with, and it actually grew organically over the course of the games.
I really liked this page, from the gender selection screen that gave some of us flashbacks of harder times, to the awkward flirting they have going on which may give us some flashbacks of simpler times ;)
Since there’s so many people ready to discuss it, here’s the thoughts of a trans gal about the gender list thing:
1) It could be actually useful insofar as your meatbag will need brains and some if not all gender markers are inside it. Seriously, no matter how the fire spirit / brain interaction goes, you don’t wanna inhabit a body that will give you gender dysphoria. Spare yourself the pain.
2) Stop yelling “snowflake” and getting pre-emptively offended for what non-existent straw-man will suddenly appear and cry. This is a non-issue and you just want your preconceived notions to take shape. Perhaps so your own unease about people’s genders seems retroactively not so weird?
3) Most of these icons don’t represent genders, they’re just logos of sorts tbh. “Transgender” isn’t a gender for instance, it’s the way you relate to yours. Same with lesser known labels such as “genderflux” etc. Furthermore, these logos were more or less created as artistic tests, aside from Venus, Mars, and mixed Venus/Mars symbols they rarely ever appear anywhere and nobody’s expected to know them by heart. Again, a non-issue.
4) This is the part of games I hate most, except colour codes and puzzles (accessibility much?). CHARACTER CONFIGURATION. But if I got to configure my own body, darn. Yes, please. Gimme the small frame and the independence from external hormone sources!
Hello “Lysbeth”, thank you for your valuable contribution. It is important to us.
In response, I would like you to know that “a willingness to discuss” is not “a willingness to be proselytised”, nor does it imply that. Why bring up what gender you are or pretend to be? Do you honestly believe it gives you the right to tell others off?
But since turnabout is fair play: 1) Who says it’s the body that will give you gender dysphoria? Treating it as such seems to carry a risk of suicide attempts in 50% of the so treated. 2) The offense is all in your head. Though we do seem to have someone appearing and crying. 3) Very few outside of your in-group safe-space echo-chamber bubble are interested in the finer points of proper snowflake symbol usage and meaning. As to 4), de gustibus non disputandem.
The brain is in the head too, which is a part of the body. For most of us, anyway.
So, other assumptions aside, to some degree one would expect the brain chemistry and such to be relevant to ones preference in a blank.
Even if so, preference as to the plumbing of a potential partner is not the same thing as degree of happiness with the plumbing you have. The latter is what “gender dysphoria” is all about. It’s not “halp I liek teh boys” but it’s “halp I are a boy”. Or girl, whichever. If you get your bodies made to order, why, don’t order the wrong plumbing for yourself, eh. Or do, if that floats your boat.
The wild thing about the whole zoo of “genders” is that the “gender studies” bunch say gender is a “social construct”. Is “social construction” also the result of brain chemistry? Should we therefore drug the whole of society to right all the gender construction wrongs? Such reasoning is prone to descend into “happiness is mandatory” territory.
Oh good, I got a live specimen of caricature in the flesh!
First off, you don’t understand proselytism. The existence of people and scientific accuracy regarding who they are isn’t an ideology. I mention my experience because actually having it DOES in fact provide me with more information on the subject than you have, since all you have is a knee-jerk reaction from your point of prejudice.
Since educating you is fair play:
1) Where does that 50% statistic come from? Burden of proof.
2) It seems to me I described a behaviour clearly visible above, set the record straight, and someone jumped in inaccurately complaining about “proselytism” and pulling a “nuh-uh, it’s you” which, about as mature as the rest of your comment, but not terribly convincing.
3) An in-group is people who share the reference you’re making. So my “in-group” here is English speaking people. I never participated in a safe space meeting. An “echo chamber” is what you get when you aggressively oppose differing experiences to impose a unique one. So far, you’re at one for three. Let’s see about the “snowflake symbol usage and meaning” – you completely missed the point being that all of which you’re trying to denigrate are nowhere near what you depict them as. Some people decided to get artsy and creative and conservatives started crying their eyes out about muh gender roles. See again (2) from my original comment.
4) Misquote aside, you seem to be pretending that you have a code of conduct when it comes to differing opinions. You should start by knowing what you are talking about and working against your own biases. Right now the pretense is embarrassing.
I got to admit, those two are growing on me. Will be fun to see ’em again.
I suspect that the website is just using “gender” to mean “sex”, in this case. Presumably the gender screen chooses the overall body plan and genital type, and then the “configure genitals” screen lets you make further customizations to the naughty bits, like if you want Dabbler’s “muscles that human women don’t have”, or something like that.
Then wouldn’t it be better to have a body type indicator as defined by primary locomotion aspects (N/A, Singular, Bipedal, Tripodal, Quadripoidal, etc), and then some spore-esque body sliders? Fun bits (horns, tails, wings, fur) could be attached at any point then, and customization of individual parts should then be procedural (to keep body-growing costs down, as you can have an algorithm write the shape into a DNA equivalent), along with structure.
Then you can have as many as you want- although the AI or VI in charge of getting the plumbing right might have some concerns with getting the primary functions working out through one or more vectors….
…
I just realized how nerdy I just sounded. Oh well!
The different macro configurations are in the first dropdown we didn’t see, to the left of that one.
The customizations on the limb structure here are attachments to the basic humanoid frame already selected. Arachnoid blanks would have different options.
Galnet? Elite dangerous much?
Or Pre-Slannesh WH galactic empire, or Pre-Reapers, or translation error- that’s not in a human language after all.
Or maybe it is….
Funny, i was expecting some sort of nuclear wasteland from all the gender debate comments but aside from a few tame jabs, it’s actually pretty polite in here.
Funny what expectations and exposure will train your mind to think.
S’funny cuz we’re alway led to believe by media and social media that an issue is always more dramatic than it is and it seems that those on the outside are always more easily offended than the target demographic their are trying to act on behalf of.
The only transphobes here seem to be the ones who try to hide it behind Jordan Peterson-esque rambling. It’s honestly not worth the trouble of engaging them and having to deal with more of that nonsense.
Some people just want to fight. Some people really want other people to fight each other to distract them from the people rifling through their pockets.
“Some people just want to fight.”
Welcome to the internet. :)
“Of course, now that I’m writing this, the MeatBlanks site shouldn’t have Gender Selection, they should really only have Sex selection. Sex being physical set of attributes and gender being mental or emotional.”
had me going because I thought seeing the “choice” in the comic was an April fool joke.
Assuming DaveB translates a lot of stuff we’re seeing, the menu might not actually have the words “GENDER SELECTION” at top but something that roughly approximates to that.
Likewise the URL ….MW is the official extension of Malawi … I would have expected Galityn to be connected to Galnet but perhaps Malawi just made a better offer….
Perhaps the symbols are also translated, so that those that appear to be identical are simply too subtlely different for the translater to render. A more sophisticated meatmaker might provide some of those choices as sliders rather than pushbuttons, but every UI is a compromise, just like life itself.
Silly me …. “.MW” is TLD for “Milky Way”. My bad.
But because of this coincidental resemblance, I think we should officially assign Galityn to the area of land in Africa which is the country of Malawi (or part of it, or a larger area including it) IRL. The only alternative to doing this to some real-world country is to assume Africa is larger and differently-shaped in Barrackworld than it is here, and that would inevitably lead to artistic issues whenever Dave next draws a globe or something. So if we have to put Galityn somewhere, Malawi is as good a “victim” as anyone.
Reminds me what they’re doing with the MCU. Due to the “Blip,” that basically gave them the exscuse to create some new countries, as borders would’ve shifted around a lot when there’s suddenly half of Earth’s population. Sokovia (that fictional country Zemo, Wanda and Pietro are from in the MCU) ceased to exist, for instance.
At least it didnt have www.
This is a LOT bigger than the WORLD wide web. :)
I hate the ‘www’ convention – 99.9% of the time it does absolutely nothing, just a subdomain redirect to the root domain (and the other 0.1% of the time you have to train people why it’s different). It’s pure marketing cruft from the .com boom when people were still learning what “the web” was.
Eh… It comes more from the initial assumption that those domains, and the servers behind them, would process significantly more traffic through other protocols, and that serving web pages would only be a small fraction of their purpose.
And really, we do ship a lot more data around these days using other protocols, but people encapsulated them inside the web for… terrible reasons. “Everything looks like a nail when all you’ve got is a hammer” kind of reasons.
www originally differentiated webservers from mainframes running on the same domain. This is because Network Address Translation had not yet been invented. Subdomains existed since 1987 but were not commonly used. You had to pay for each subdomain and the amount was not insubstantial. (I only know the latter because I tried back in the mid 90s.)
Yes, www was later a fad, but there exist technical reasons why www is still valid, too:
https://www.yes-www.org/why-use-www/
The .htaccess convention can do away with user consideration of www. Still, Apache Server, the most common server today and one that uses .htaccess, would not be publicly released until 1995. Nginx, the second most popular, was not publicly released until 2004.
I’m not 100% sure, but I believe HTTPd was the first webserver released publicly. You can still see this historical tidbit in Apache Webserver today via the “httpd.conf” file. Apache is a direct successor of HTTPd as the former shared the latter’s codebase.