In the long run I think realizations like the authors are healthy ones.
PG is not a hero. He's just a guy. A guy who entered into business transactions with a number of people, many of whom benefitted greatly (as did Paul himself). I'm not saying any of that as a negative! Just that we have a habit of attributing superhuman characteristics to folks (Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize comes to mind) and ending up disappointed.
I'm not an affected group by any means but I still share the disappointment in the world we see today vs the possibilities I felt tech would allow when I was younger. The tech CEOs I previously viewed as visionaries now just look like a new generation of socially regressive robber barons. I wanted to be one of those CEOs, these days I'm still not quite sure what I want to be. My only consolation is knowing that I'm seeing the world more accurately than I once did.
At least we got some good universities (and a somewhat functional transcontinental rail system) out of the 19th century iteration.
> In 1975 the student body of Stanford University voted to use "Robber Barons" as the nickname for their sports teams. However, school administrators disallowed it, saying it was disrespectful to the school's founder, Leland Stanford [1]
It's a shame that the school's administrators (perhaps fearing the wrath of alumni and donors) were so humorless – "Stealin' Landford" would have been a highly entertaining mascot, and one oddly appropriate for the gridiron.
Indeed – Carnegie Libraries may be one of the best results.
I would like to see our modern robber barons and philanthropists (and society in general) put some effort into creating a usable digital library system; we actually have things like Google Books, which scanned many university collections, but it will likely remain unusable as an actual digital library unless some sort of copyright reform can be enacted.
The scale of the Carnegie library program is pretty incredible. My dad’s library as a kid was a Carnegie library in central Iowa. The libraries near where I live in Dublin, Ireland are Carnegie libraries.
robber Barons also destroyed nature and communities. only in their old age they tried to be remembered by universities and libraries.
only question is if musk and Zuckerberg will build their 2080 ouvres still in the USA or elsewhere. remember most Barrons made their fortunes living in the North East and ended up on the West. the world is more global today. the Musk University might as well end up in Shenzhen.
The current crop of tech billionaires seems fond of New Zealand and have been building bunkers there to escape from nuclear war or global warming or a peasant revolt or whatever. Maybe they'll build a university there as well?
Other than the ability to search the worlds knowledge at our fingertips, having a 1990s supercomputer in our pocket, being able to video call most people in the developed world, having fairly cheap usable computers for most people in the developed world, having high speed internet available around the world, being able to discuss things online with people all over the world, being able to play incredible computer games and having the cost of launching something in space reduced by a factor of about ten have have we got out of having a few hundred billionaires ?
Just think though, some of them might disagree with some our of politics.
nice try. The billionaires gave us none of the above. Sincerly, an old programmer who was actually there when these things were funded, often at the public expense in many nations.
Computer games are pan-et-circenses, IMO, but I also don't recall any billionaires having created any.
like I said, you might have a case with SpaceX (though how much does that help humanity? not so sure)
internet companies become defunct because some other company puts them out of business - if we had never had Facebook we would still have had a way to keep in touch online
> It's also worth considering how many millionaires were made by the companies that the billionaires started.
who cares? the world doesn't need more millionaires or billionaires
The point is that the 'billionaires' were not exploiting their workforce. The workforce that made Google, MS and many other companies were also highly paid.
The consumer surplus of all these things is the bigger thing.
The developers that made Google and Facebook and such were highly paid. The people who were hired for a dollar an hour to train the anti-CP models most certainly were not and have instead suffered horrible trauma.
Externalities are so easily ignored if they don't happen in SF (and even the ones that do. For instance, take a look at the pricing out of affordable housing for all the cooks, dish washers, janitors etc who cater to that highly paid workforce but now have to commute hours each way).
Just because San Francisco is disastrously run despite staggering riches and has horribly magnified problems does not mean it's the fault of people who started companies in San Jose.
and a lot of it is directly funneled to crony's of the current king...
I doubt DOGE will recommend cuts to SpaceX funding.
I need to remind you that Mush has invented nothing nor is he an engineer.
His vast personal wealth is extracted, and at least part of it's vastness is due to corruption.
Mush's personal views expressed on his own-media-trumpet Xitter, have hampered more technological innovation than he has ever enabled or paid for.
BTW what's SpaceX carbon footprint like? This 'man' also just paid for a slice of the US presidency that just pulled the US out of a global treaty to attempt to address human-caused climate crises that are unfolding in front of our face on a daily basis as predicted.
Mush has done net harm to Earth, not good.
sure it is.
"mature" markets are only interesting for large moneyed entities to try to tweak things and squeeze .01% more profit out of a service/process/product.
innovation is risky and rewards accordingly.
Ycombinator app-startups are low-hanging-fruit with marginal innovation and marginal risk => it ain't hardware, and it's just webservices and a few React devs...
I was going to grant this, but then thought of how VC hit rations work.
Is it really ‘hard’ to make tech firms profitable, or is it more a function of survival?
Many of the companies which enter are bought out, or acqui-hired, adding to the leaders. Tech often rewards those who survive long enough to consolidate.
And finally, enshittification is a way to make MORE money, but it’s not hard.
The internet was a government project. It's laughable to even imagine that if these billionaires didn't exist then nobody else would have invented video chat...
no, creating the actual technical standards and the internet is/was hard.
monetizing it and walling off sections of it is STEALING FROM THE PUBLIC that which we already PAID for and selling it back to us!
And the modern generation of tech industrialists? Probably not a coincidence either.
Though technically universities are more than just their endowments, business schools, engineering schools, sports teams, etc. They often have pretty good libraries, for example. Many universities also provide a variety of educational and course materials for free over the internet. Some train physicians and operate hospitals. And many universities have at least some minimal diversity of opinion on politics and policies.
The idea that elite universities produce elite university graduates is probably not controversial, and many of them were founded with the idea of producing "leaders", which they have arguably done.
{elite universities} produce {elite university} graduates
is of course tautological
but this
elite universities produce university graduates who are elite (meaning better than others)
is debatable.
Most people who say "elite universities produce elite university graduates" mean the second and then don't provide any especially great arguments for the opinion.
And polio is largely cured from this generation, and vaccines now exist that prevent diseases that once killed infants, and we have cheap and fast internet everywhere, ...
This generation of "robber barons" has very clearly done more good for society than any other group of people of the same size, and I can't imagine how anybody who works in tech can not know of the specific good things they have done or be so confused about the bad to believe they are outweighed.
It asked for a metric and I suggested a list of metrics. It's like if I said "whales are the biggest animal" and another asked "by what metric", then I said "weight". By saying "weight", I haven't specified how heavy the animal is, I only clarified what I meant by "biggest"
Your claim was that tech billionaires contributed more towards the good of society than any other group.
You provided a list of metrics that are in no way exclusively attributable to tech billionaires, and no actual data/number on how and how much these are attributable to tech billionaires.
Your analogy is completely unrelated too.
It's more like if you said 'whales are the best animal' and then gave me a bunch of random metrics about the state of the world.
Now you're playing games around the semantics of the word 'attributable'? Lmao
I also love how all of your analogies/examples immediately switched from amazing societal improvements to measurements of physical object characteristics. Truly amusing stuff.
Let's take one of the metrics you suggested - 'number of lives saved' - go ahead and tell me how tech billionaires have saved more lives than any other group.
Or maybe just admit that you're talking out of your ass.
I'm trying to simplify it so it's easier to understand. It's not semantics, it's a different category of thing.
Yes the billionaire I listed have saved more lives than 99.999% of humans. They do this by paying for specific individuals to be treated for specific fatal diseases, and by funding research that has led to cures and preventative vaccines that have already saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people
You don't seem to understand that your own personal feelings of love towards the 'benevolent billionaire' and their vanity projects do not in any way support your claims. Especially when you're quantifying your claims in such extreme and absurd ways.
You also don't seem to understand that if a team of scientists discovered a cure - that doesn't automatically get 100% attributed to whatever billionaire funded the building the scientists were working in at the time.
Yes I'm willing to concede that Bill Gates did not single handedly cure polio. Would you agree that he has done more good for the world than most people?
I have no way of measuring how much good Bill Gates had done for the world. He has certainly done a lot of evil as well. I literally have have no way of objectively quantifying either, and neither do you, which is why your claims cannot possibly be objectively supported by any rational means.
Well i meant "group" as in an actual group of people who are all doing roughly the same thing at the same time, like the previous generation of robber barons.
But even in this case, I could make a pretty strong case that Salk was less important for the eradication of Polio than Gates, and that Curie will likely be less important in the long run than Zuckerberg on healthcare and biosciences, and a weaker but reasonable case that Borlaug will be less impactful on human survivability with increasing population than Musk.
no. just NO.
look at maps of polio proliferation before/after Jonas Salk, the frikkin guy who DISCOVERED/CREATED the polio vaccine, and then look at maps related to Gates work, which, while admirable, bears no comparison from the night-vs-day world of pre-polio-vaccine vs post-vaccine.
Wards of people in iron-lung machines staring at mirrors on the ceiling.
It was before your time, but this is no excuse for spouting total nonsense.
You might be right. It is possible that Gates is merely one of the most positively impactful human beings, rather than the absolute most positively impactful.
So he didn't create the vaccine, and he didn't provide most of the money spent on eradication, but he did sit down for a nice long dinner with an administration that is now pulling funding from the WHO and other international health organizations.
In the meanwhile, the technocrat administration we just got is putting the anti-vaccine activist RFK Jr up as Secretary of Health and Human Services. The progress we have made on eliminating Polio is at risk directly because of actions taken by this crop of billionaires. That is more on Musk and Zuckerberg than Gates, but these people cannot be trusted to use the power and influence they have for anything other than self-enrichment.
Which do you think is more likely, that Bill Gates sat down with the administration to try to convince Trump to keep funding Gate's life work, or that Gates talked to Trump to end polio funding?
Trump bad, has nothing to do with Gates or Zuck. If you blame them for trying to prevent Trump from doing bad things, you should look into what they will benefit from and how they spend their money
Bill Gates also gave billions of dollars to the world for free, it's just a question of which one is more praiseworthy. I could be convinced Gates was not more impactful than Salk, but he's definitely in the running for top 100 best overall human beings in terms of positive impact on the world, in stark contrast to the claim that tech billionaire have contributed nothing
In fact the world didn't have this money before. Maybe this is the first time you've encountered the idea that the economy is "positive sum" so think of it like this:
Is the value of everything in the world higher or lower than it was 1000 years ago? If it's higher, how did it go up?
Maybe you need to do a quick Google on monetary policy 101 and how money is created. You seem to not understand the basics here.
While you're at it, consider what portion of MS success is directly attributable to Bill Gates and not the many thousands of other people involved in the company and code it literally copied from open source projects. Not to mention the extreme anti-competitveness of MS and their aggressiveness in suing and shutting down other companies, and other negative externalities they generated.
Ok let's compare the year 1000 with the year 1500. Do you believe the value of everything in the world increased in those 500 years? There was no monetary policy yet so that isn't the explanation
The explanation is the entire human race working diligently to produce, create and grow. Not because king Bobbert the 7th gave some artist some money, and not because king Jeffrey got rich by enslaving/conquering/exploring someone else.
The classic Cantrill bit about not anthropormphizing Larry Ellison applies to a lot of tech CEOs.
Thing is Larry Ellison doesn't write blog posts acting like he's a philosopher. Some tech CEOs really position themselves as arbiters of culture and it just feels more and more like trying to transfer their tech/business positioning into a cultural one. I do not like it!
They’re all a bunch of aspiring lawnmowers, some of them just try to ride whatever the latest wave of popular opinion is to cynically accumulate some social currency.
I feel like the best advice is to take the ideas, even principles you like from folks and run with that. That's it.
I still like a lot of what Steve Jobs had to say at times. I do not pretend to know what he was like IRL or if I would even like him ... doesn't matter.
Truth be told folks who take those ideas and principles from others and not carry the weight of those folks as idols, might even do better with them.
I was there, 1986-2006 and by and far what he said internally at company meetings was completely apolitical. He didn’t moralize, he pushed groups to create better products for customers and that’s what we as engineers were exposed to.
The one time I remember something different was around 2003 when he was asked at an all hands meeting, a question that came down to “how do we work with all this chaos, war, blaming ethnic and religious minorities”, etc. The person that asked it was almost in tears. Jobs response was to look seriously non-plussed and he answered “if you can’t do anything else, vote for the democrats” and then moved on to the next question. He may have had deeper opinions- but they were not part of his public discourse when he was ceo.
I dunno about even that. Forgive my example (though I love bringing it up, since so few people seemed to have grokked it in the time since initial release): in the video game Bioshock: Infinite, one of the later levels sees you transported into the far future of 1984. The game's setting, a flying city named Columbia, which was characterized by its almost cartoonish levels of capital-A capital-P American Patriotism, had featured in its original Gilded Age incarnation many of the ills of turn-of-the-century American society, including racism, an exploited working class, religion-driven insularity, and a predilection for violence. However, it had also presented an enthusiasm for the new and curious, an ambition for high living standards, and other cultural accoutrements that are usually associated with forward-thinking societies.
By this late-game level, however, the city has descended into dystopia. Why? Well, a three-quarter century game of telephone. The ideals of the city's original founder, already imperfect, were further transmitted imperfectly to his successor and her charges, whose personal traumas further warped their interpretation of Columbia's intended values, and the actions taken in their name. That repentant successor, having lost control of the city's populace to a revolutionary fever, sends you back to the past just as Columbia's weapons begin to level New York City (a caricature of America destroying its real-life historical "center").
It's a metaphor, of course.
It's easy for the soul of an idea to get lost in translation. It's easy for principles of one era to be an ill fit for another. It's easy for the original ideas and principles to be fundamentally flawed in ways that no one could or was willing to admit to.
"Running with it" can be dangerous. (Ask us how well Cold War politicking has worked out for us post-9/11.)
I think, at all turns, you must be asking yourself why you're doing what you're doing, and if it's actually effective. If it's actually good. I don't know that Jobs ever predicted that the bicycle for the mind would be beholden to OTA updates or have a commensurate attack surface exposure, but we have to deal with that reality, regardless.
For sure. I almost included something in my comment about "I guess this is what getting old is like", losing your idealism as you age. But equally, maybe not. If I'd grown up in, I dunno the 60s? I would have witnessed enormous leaps in technological possibility and enormous increases in standards of living, personal freedoms, yadda yadda. In my youth it felt like there was a viable future where tech enabled radical positive changes in society. Instead we concentrated wealth at the top of society at historically unprecedented levels.
I wouldn't call it "losing my idealism," but, rather "understanding that everything is a lot more complex than my simple young mind could deal with."
I'm probably more "idealistic" than I have ever been; it's just that I no longer have the silly "Let's just do this one simple thing" attitude. I've just found that getting places is always a lot more difficult than we think. Usually, it's people, and all their messy personal issues, that gum up the works.
The good news is, is that I am actually accomplishing more than I did, when I was younger. I'm devoting less energy, and it is often more frustrating, but shit gets done. A big reason, is that I understand myself, and the people around me, a lot better than I used to. They are no longer "NPCs" in my Game of Life.
As to the article, I seriously feel for the author, but I am not exactly in their shoes. I don't have anything against them, but their cause is not my cause. I don't have a dog in this race. I have nothing at all against trans folks. Many of my friends are varying types of LGBTQI+ folks. If I'm not going to bed with them, then who they love, and what they do, when I'm not around, isn't my concern. I'd usually like them to be happy, and support their choices, as long as they don't interfere with my life. I'm even willing to go out of my way, in some cases, to support them (that's what friends do).
The one thing that is almost guaranteed to make our cause to go floop, is insisting that everyone else is either with us, or against us. This is especially annoying, when our cause is important to only a small minority of stakeholders.
For some reason, almost everyone in our life ends up in the "against" column, and many of them started as people that actually supported us, but weren't willing to go much farther than that. So now, they are actively working against us, as we declared them to be "enemy combatants." The "woke" stuff caused exactly this reaction. It's not just left-leaning stuff, either. Activists of every stripe, do the same thing, and then act all puzzled, as to why everyone seems to be against them.
As Dr. Phil might say, "So...how's that working out for you?"
> The good news is, is that I am actually accomplishing more than I did, when I was younger.
How are you making that happen?
This is an honest question.
As I've gotten older, and developed a deeper understanding of the intractability of the world's problems, this change in perspective has cratered my motivation. It was one thing to give my all toward what seemed like it mattered, back when the scope for possible change still appeared to be great enough that one could imagine living in a better world: but knowing now that no matter what I do it's just going to be more of the same old bullshit, with maybe - at best, and this unlikely - one or another of the rougher edges on the great, awful machine of exploitation and suffering which powers our civilization slightly filed down, so that maybe a couple of people here and there don't get hurt quite as badly as they otherwise might have, while the core of the process continues crushing the life and beauty out of the world, unchanged... it's difficult to muster up any real energy to do anything about it. I still go through the motions, when it seems like I must, for conscience's sake; but I don't believe in it anymore. The source of my past effort is all gone.
I miss that past self, but I can't imagine how to believe that any possible accomplishment would actually matter anymore, enough to justify putting my back into it. What's your secret?
Well, speaking only for myself, I'm a lifelong member of a benevolent organization that provides many ways to do good works.
I can assure you that the work I do, makes a pretty big difference in some lives. We're not out to change the world. We're only trying to police our own area*.
Being older and more experienced, means that the work I do is much more effective, and much more economical (we don't have a lot of means). It also means that I work well with others, and am much better at team stuff.
*> “I was in the Air Force a while and they had what they call “policing the area.” And I think that’s a pretty good thing to go by. If everyone just takes care of their own area then we won’t have any problems. Be here. Be present. Wherever you are, be there. And look around you and see what needs to be changed.”
> The one thing that is almost guaranteed to make our cause to go floop, is insisting that everyone else is either with us, or against us. This is especially annoying, when our cause is important to only a small minority of stakeholders.
Masterfully said, I'd love this to be the pull quote here.
The real trouble starts when regular people allow the "purity test" type people to have any sort of power or influence instead of laughing and ignoring them like we should. This can result in a destructive purity spiral, even over seemingly trivial issues.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the US government coming after people because of who they are is a lot more worrying than some knitters in terms of "people getting access to power".
To demonstrate that you're in the "in group", it is not enough to simply support most of what they are into. You must take a potentially expensive position that demonstrates your absolute support.
That's exactly what you're doing with your own rhetoric, you know.
My "rhetoric" about the issue which Donald J. Trump spent something like 1/4 of his ad spend on. I didn't pick it to sound extreme. I picked it because it was very important to how politics will play out for the next 4 years.
If you don't like what Trump does now, you can thank Kamala's attempts to ingratiate herself to trans activists back in 2019.
This is genuinely absurd. 99.99% of the time the issue of 'where do female identify rapists belong' is brought up, it's because someone who disagrees with the broader point is trying to create some kind of gotcha.
It happens constantly online. Leftist A will say something about respecting gender self-identification and then rightwinger B will manipulate the conversation so that the leftist is now trying to defend putting biological men in women's prisons [1]
It's incredibly disengenous and bad faith.
[1] regardless of your moral position on this issue, there's a fuckload of other awful things about american prisons that these type of people are rarely concerned about.
You're missing the point because you're too wrapped up in left-right. The comment above about virtue signaling devolving into extremism could easily be re-written for the social issues relevant to 1500s Europe, 1790s France, or any other time and still be true.
As I clearly think, given what I said above, most of what trans people want is obviously fair and just. To go through life, being treated as their preferred gender, and not facing discrimination of various kinds for that choice.
But that isn't where we are. Instead we are in a world where Kamala Harris was, completely unforced, recorded talking about protecting trans rights in prisons back in 2019. Trump ran ads showing those clips with the tagline, "Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you." And now Trump is President.
Is it being brought up now as a gotcha? Absolutely! But back when Kamala was running the first time for President, SHE brought up her support for the policy. Unforced. Because it was how to signal her support for that issue. And now we're all paying the price for how activist extremism creates backlash.
So now you're arguing that it's all kamala harris and those darn leftist's fault for bringing up trans rights and if they had just shut up, everything would be peachy keen?
Like, I'm genuinely not trying to create a strawman, I'm just rephrasing literally what you said.
I'm reminded of MLK's quote about white moderates here...
It's not a left versus right issue, not really. Most of the feminists arguing against gender self-id are on the left.
This isn't a gotcha either. When the horrific outcomes of males being transferred into women's prisons is brought up, it's typically being done to explain why gender self-id policy is so harmful to women.
Often, the person advocating for gender self-id hasn't spent any time considering this impact at all. The detriment to women and girls isn't even on their radar. So it's worth explaining.
It changes views, too. I've personally witnessed several people rapidly undoing their support for gender self-id when they see evidence of the deleterious consequences. Though more in real life than online.
Conversations like those are the reason why support for policy that prioritizes gender identity over sex is dropping like a stone.
> It's not a left versus right issue, not really. Most of the feminists arguing against gender self-id are on the left.
In the sense that the vast majority of all feminists of any kind are on the left? Is there such a thing as a rightwing feminist? JK Rowling?
> This isn't a gotcha either. When the horrific outcomes of males being transferred into women's prisons is brought up, it's typically being done to explain why gender self-id policy is so harmful to women.
This is literally the point I was trying to make about these types of conversations. It's extremely tempting to argue with your blanket assertions of 'detriment to [other] women and girls', but now instead of talking about the person in the article's very real concern about being discriminated against while working or even being attacked while socializing, we're talking about some extreme hypothetical about women's prisons.
Also, it's weird how often people are completely silent about the treatment of female prisoners... until it's related to transgender issues. Or female athletes for that matter. If you were actually worried about it, there are probably bigger fish to fry.
> In the sense that the vast majority of all feminists of any kind are on the left? Is there such a thing as a rightwing feminist? JK Rowling?
There are some feminists who reject the left-right divide and don't place themselves anywhere on it, as a response to the male-dominated political system. It's not a very popular view but it exists.
JK Rowling isn't one of them, she has left-wing views and describes herself as such.
> instead of talking about the person in the article's very real concern about being discriminated against while working or even being attacked while socializing, we're talking about some extreme hypothetical about women's prisons.
Sadly it is not hypothetical.
If you believe that supporting gender self-id positively addresses the concerns of males like the blog author, then you should also be willing to consider the documented and evidenced harms to women and girls.
And certainly if you wish to understand why there is such significant opposition to policy that prioritizes gender identity over sex.
> Also, it's weird how often people are completely silent about the treatment of female prisoners... until it's related to transgender issues. Or female athletes for that matter. If you were actually worried about it, there are probably bigger fish to fry.
One might also wonder why policymakers haven't fried these bigger fish that would improve conditions for female prisoners and female athletes, and instead have chosen to introduce gender self-id policy which demonstrably harms women and girls while privileging males.
> One might also wonder why policymakers haven't fried these bigger fish that would improve conditions for female prisoners and female athletes, and instead have chosen to introduce gender self-id policy which demonstrably harms women and girls while privileging males.
If you keep repeating this, maybe you'll convince some people who desperately want to believe it.
And I don't really need to wonder why. Because they obviously don't care except when they can invoke "won't somebody think of [the women]" as a convenient excuse to achieve political power.
It's exactly as dishonest and intellectually bankrupt as "advocating for the unborn".
> If you keep repeating this, maybe you'll convince some people
I have helped some people understand the full impact of such policy, yes.
In my experience, it depends on whether the person I'm talking to has an interest in the wellbeing of women and girls, and is even slightly open to challenging their current understanding with new information.
> dishonest and intellectually bankrupt
Evidence-based and built upon feminist principles, actually.
That might be true, for a while. But I bet many of us have parents that are old enough that are, in uncontroversial, non-political ways, losing their ability to view the world accurately. It's not all that easy to convince them that yes, they are in cognitive decline, and we are doing their best to consider how the version of themselves 20 years before would like us to tackle the decline.
Even in less obvious cases that don't involve old age, we often call something growth, when we should just say change. Sometimes we are all just more set our ways. Others, our "learning" is just abandoning principles so that we can follow random emotional fancies. Knowing when we are actually seeing the world more accurately, instead of being wrong in a different way, is quite challenging. We all want to think we are getting better, which is precisely whi we are blind to the ways in which we aren't. The convenient story often defeats what is actually true, but inconvenient.
At the end of the essay he says "I’d be a better startup founder today than I was in 2015" and my thought was, yea but YC is biased towards college kids. And then I saw your comment and I think something clicked for me. But maybe the ignorance and pliability of youth really is required to make the crazy bet on the startup dream.
The youth has energy and are naive and will take a bad deal. They will work hard while others will make money off their work. Also, the author is not a man.
The federation judged that even a college athlete who gets a major concussion cannot be offered a bottle of water for free, “because it could be assimilated to a wage”. No, really, college athletes are worse than unpaid.
> I'm not an affected group by any means but I still share the disappointment in the world we see today vs the possibilities I felt tech would allow when I was younger. The tech CEOs I previously viewed as visionaries now just look like a new generation of socially regressive robber barons. I wanted to be one of those CEOs, these days I'm still not quite sure what I want to be.
Upvoted because I couldn't describe better how I feel if I tried. There were so many of these tech leaders who I looked at with such awe, and a lot of it was because they did have a set of skills that I didn't and that I really envied (namely an incredible perseverance, amount of energy, and ability to thrive under pressure, while I was often the reverse). So it's hard to overstate how disappointed I am with people (and really, myself for idolizing them) whom I used to look at with such admiration, who now I often look at with something that varies between dissatisfaction and disgust.
But I realized 2 important things: the same qualities that allowed these leaders to get ahead also figures in to why I don't like them now. That is, if you care too much about other people and what they think, it will be paralyzing in the tech/startup world - you do have to "break some eggs" when you're doing big things or trying to make changes. At the same time, this empathy deficit is a fundamental reason I think of a lot of these guys and gals (it's usually guys but not always, e.g. Carly Fiorina) as high school-level douchebags now. Second, it's allowed me to have a higher, more compassionate vision of myself. I used to feel bad that I wasn't as "successful" as I wanted to be, and while I do have some regrets, I'd much rather be someone who cares deeply about my friends and family and really wants to do some good in the world, as opposed to someone I see as just trying to vacuum up power and money under the false guise of "changing the world".
I think the issue is not being disappointed, it's being scared.
Because PG yields influence.
OP describes the mechanism by which PGs words can create a dangerous world for them, personally.
Yes they are disappointed, but mainly afraid.
The very powerful just affirmed a reversal of "wokeness" this may become performative just as much as their acceptance of the "other" became performative by their admirers and corporate copycats. This will result in tangible harm to people. I think OP did a great job in explaining this.
He's very smart, but there's no need to idolize or politicize anyone on this earth. Both instincts are counterproductive to your personal health and success.
You want to look at a person and identify what they are very good at -- and then study what they know, say and do specifically in that area, maybe take it on faith a bit that they know something you don't in those spheres. You can safely ignore everything else from them.
So let's look at some people, with Mark Zuckerberg for instance, I would say here's a guy who seems to have some good instincts for doing aggressive and invasive viral marketing, and he also seemed to be a pretty prolific PHP hacker in his early days. I don't need much else from him.
With PG, high level Lisp hacker, good systems thinker, good at getting businesses going (if I'm being cynical I'd say in environments where there's not much competition, but a guy like PG might wisely argue finding those is part of the skill). I want to absorb everything I can from him on programming language design, startup thinking and then I want to move on.
With Donald Trump, here's a guy who is literally the best in the world at parlaying negative social media attention into power. And being fueled by rage at Sith Lord levels at an age when most people have thrown in the towel and are just waiting to die. Again, all I really need to hear from him is how he does that stuff, then it's best I just ignore the rest.
He also frames himself, accurately I believe, with his essays and the enabling-of-others nature of his successive accomplishments, as someone who genuinely values winning by helping others win.
But frustration can over simplify issues for all of us, at some point.
And power dulls sensitivity to those with less of it.
No, the word "just" in "He's not a hero. He's just a guy" indicates that he's not a hero. "Just" applies to the "just a guy" part, not to the "entered business transactions" part.
In conversational English, the phrase "He's just a guy" carries an idiomatic meaning along the lines of, "This person is no different from anyone else. He has no special power or influence or insight." And that might be true with respect to insight, but it is clearly not true with respect to power and influence. And that is why, when PG says something tone-deaf, it can hurt more than when some rando does it.
I agree in general, but not in this specific case. "He's not a hero. He's just a guy" makes it such that "he's just a guy" is applying specifically to the "he's not a hero" bit. I didn't take it as anything more than that, and I don't think the author intended it to mean they believe Graham is just an average person with an average amount of money, power, or influence.
Even if your essays win you a Nobel price (Paul Grahams certainly didn't) the writer isn't protected from becoming a bullshit-dispenser.
This is why I respect authors that publish a consistent level of quality more than those who hit and miss as if they were throwing darts at a map. And the stuff I have read from Paul Graham is definitly not in the former category.
I don't feel he is intellectually honest, either with himself (bad) or with his readers (worse). But if the past decade of the Internet has shown anything, it is that honesty and consistency isn't required to get insecure people to follow you blindly.
You are not wrong that volume is required for quality. But it does not necessarily mean all of that volume has to be published. E.g. in music there are bands where every single recording on every single release they did is good and not just a slight variation of another thing that worked.
Mow on the other side you have musicians who have two releases a year and every other of them has a track on it that is really cool.
I am not saying the latter is wrong, I just say the former has more of my respect, because you know that even the rejected stuff of the first band is probably stellar.
Keeping a thought to oneself that isn't fully fleshed out is a virtue.
Is he well-read? His essay on the origins of wokeness was pure vibes, with hardly any historical accuracy or understanding of sociology. Many here on HN explained it as him not being well-read.
I have enjoyed most of Paul Graham's essays, and even been slightly influenced by a few of them, but let's not overstate his influence. We're in a real echo chamber here. Outside of a tiny tech industry bubble no one in positions of power reads those essays and they have virtually zero influence.
One thing that I think is underappreciated in our current times, that gets lost on both the left and the right sides -- an individual is more important than their identity.
- A specific trans person can also be an asshole.
- A specific white man can also be a saint.
Extremists on both political sides will scream about the reasons one or the other of those statements is wrong, but doing so lumps all possible individuals of an identity into a "them" category to which blanket statements, positive or negative, can be applied.
That reductionism feels incredibly insulting to our shared, innate humanity.
Are there all kinds of subconscious and societal biases that seriously influence our perceptions of others on the basis of their identity? Sure!
But it doesn't change the goal of treating the person standing in front of you, first and foremost and always, as an individual person.
Be curious. Be courteous and respectful. Be a normal, nice goddamn human to human across the table from you.
(And maybe, if you feel so inclined, have some compassion about what they did to get to that table)
Be curious. Be courteous and respectful. Be a normal, nice goddamn human to human across the table from you.
In general I wholeheartedly agree. But if the person in front of you has done or advocated for things that cause harm or is themself a horrible person then I disagree.
>In general I wholeheartedly agree. But if the person in front of you has done or advocated for things that cause harm or is themself a horrible person then I disagree.
I feel like the parent comment is pretending to be deep and meaningful but is really just rehashing the 'both sides are the same' argument with a side of 'everyone is entitled to their own opinion'. It's nice to say that we should judge everyone for who they are, but if who they are is a vocal member of a group that wants to hurt other people, that's all we need to know to judge them. Pretending otherwise is silly.
The difference is between judging an individual for what they themselves say vs what identities you associate with them (or even those they associate with themselves).
Their associations are their works and words. You can't just handwave that stuff away as being irrelevant because you like the parts of their works and words that don't touch on anything you deem to be an association.
>I know people of the political party I tend to disagree with who are saints and dedicate the majority of their time to others.
Except for the part of the time that they are devoting to supporting a political party that is actively harming you and people you love.. you can't just wave that off as not being important just because they are nice the rest of the time.
>I know people of the political party I tend to agree with who are insufferable selfish pricks and treat others terribly.
And they should be negatively judged for the latter behavior.
Both examples should be negatively judged for their behavior, you're just choosing to ignore some of the behavior of the first person.
> But if the person in front of you has done or advocated for things that cause harm or is themself a horrible person then I disagree.
the current conflict in the middle east shows why this doesn't work in the long run.
despite what a generation that grew up consuming Marvel films was led to believe, not every conflict is a clearly defined superhero-vs-supervillain, good-vs-evil affair. eventually, you will be the one who, according to some, is advocating for things that cause harm and is considered a horrible person.
I dunno man.. When someone advocates for treating another person as "not human" or wants to deny them basic human rights, that's universally wrong in my book.
I think talking about whether it is universally wrong or not is a distraction. It is sufficient to simply _not like it_ without having to get the universe (which almost certainly doesn't care, at least not enough to step in and do something about it) involved.
Personally, I am a moral skeptic - I don't really believe that moral truths exist in the same way that physical truths exist. For me, the only questions are what kind of world do I want to live and and what power do I have to make the world that way?
But if someone acts inhuman then it’s justified. Russia’s war crimes are well documented and they started the war. When you are the baddies then expect to be called so.
But that's still too simplistic. It's certainly not fair to say that every single Russian (or non-Russian!) soldier who is or has been in Ukraine is a "baddie". Some are trapped by their circumstances to fight in a war they don't believe in and don't agree with.
It's easy to say, "well then they should refuse to fight", but you are not that person, and you don't know their struggles or what they feel they are capable of doing.
I think it's reasonable to say that Putin and his war-mongering crones are baddies, but you just said "Russia" and "they started the war". Lumping all people together like that is how we dehumanize people and fail to find common ground that can improve everyone's situation.
OK, but in practice what sort of common ground do you think we can find here? Because it sure seems like the only possible solution is to give Ukraine enough advanced weapons to exterminate all the orcs. If you have a feasible alternative then I'm sure we'd all love to hear it. The real world is an ugly place and sometimes there is no win-win solution.
Are we solving the Russian-Ukraine war in this thread? ;)
- Realistically no amount of weapons the west supplies Ukraine is going to enable them to push the Russians out of Ukraine.
- Putin doesn't seem to care about the number of Russians lost in this war.
- Direct involvement by western armies could lead to a nuclear escalation. NATO could easily push Russia out of Ukraine in a conventional war. Too big of a gamble.
- This is just part of a larger geopolitical struggle between the different powers. Russia. China. India.
We don't really know what Putin wants here but if some sort of end to the war can be negotiated that includes territorial adjustments in Ukraine I think that's the best win the west can hope for right now. The cold war wasn't won on the battlefield, it was won mostly economically. Doubling down right now on a military solution in Ukraine doesn't feel like the right path forward. Stopping the hot war and switching to a colder war is probably the path of least pain for everyone. Even if it seems like a temporary win for Putin. If the west helped Ukraine more in the early days maybe we'd have a different outcome but the west made some bad choices and here we are.
That said if Putin wants to keep fighting then the war will continue. I don't think he does but who knows.
> Realistically no amount of weapons the west supplies Ukraine is going to enable them to push the Russians out of Ukraine.
OK, general. I wasn’t aware of your military credentials. Russia is about 12 months away from completely exhausting all of its Soviet stockpiles of (tens of thousands of) vehicles and artillery, and their war economy is already unable to sustain production at replacement rates.
Source? I thought it was the west that couldn't ramp up and is running out of stockpiles. I'll admit I'm an armchair general but I did serve so I have at least some minimal idea of what war looks like.
EDIT: Also not clear how long the US is going to keep supporting Ukraine now that Trump is in power so that's another factor.
>I thought it was the west that couldn't ramp up and is running out of stockpiles.
It's worth pointing out that Russia's "production" claims generally include refurbishment. When they say they produced 4 million artillery shells, that sometimes means they produced 400,000 artillery shells and refurbished 3.6 million artillery shells from deep storage.
I hope that the Trump administration will continue supporting Ukraine and not try to force them into an unfavorable temporary peace settlement, but the US isn't essential. Other NATO and EU countries are fully capable of keeping Ukraine in the fight, if they want to make it a priority. They might have to cut back some of their social spending and agricultural subsidies to afford it.
Russia will never completely run out of materiel, but they have already exhausted most of their stockpiles of good stuff. At this point they've been reduced to using refurbished armored vehicles built in the 1950s and modified civilian cars along parts of the front.
You can track Russia’s stockpiles through open source satellite imagery, here’s a recent video overview: https://youtu.be/TzR8BacYS6U
Ukraine benefits from being on defense, as the attrition rates are significantly in their favor. I’m not sure what will happen after Trump does whatever it is he’s going to do, but it is clear that Russia’s current trajectory is not sustainable beyond a year or so
I agree Ukraine benefits from being on the defense. The question is what are their chances of retaking their lost territory where they need to be on the offense? Russia has higher attrition rates but also has a larger population to recruit from.
I'm not seeing Russia just crumble away under Ukrainian assault. If that's the case how does Ukraine benefit from the continuation of the war?
I would love to see Ukraine kicking Russia out as an outcome but it seems incredibly unrealistic.
Ukraine can't achieve a battlefield victory but with foreign military aid they might be able to slow down the Russian advance long enough for the Russian economy to collapse. Russia is only able to keep their economy somewhat functional through fossil fuel exports. We can give Ukraine long-range missiles/drones and targeting assistance to wreck Russia's key export infrastructure (ports, pipelines, refineries, storage depots). And we can choke off much of Russia's shipping through sanctions and interference with their tanker "shadow fleet". There are also still billions in assets owned by Russian government entities, corporations, and citizens but held in Western countries so we can just straight up steal it all and hand everything over to Ukraine. There are no guarantees but as long as Ukraine is willing to keep fighting it's worth a try.
Ukraine doesn’t necessarily need to retake its lost territories by force. They only need to keep bleeding Russia out until the war becomes untenable for them. Russia loses like 1500+ soldiers and 100+ vehicles per day, just to move a line on a map a few meters. Their economy is hitting double digit inflation despite a 21% interest rate. Their recruitment efforts are running dry and they may have to resort to mobilization soon to continue to fill their ranks with more cannon fodder.
At a certain point they may have to come to the negotiating table, and the longer this drags out the less favorable their position will be.
> it is clear that Russia’s current trajectory is not sustainable beyond a year or so
Those cheering for Ukraine have been saying this from the start. They have been lying again, and again, about everything... The Russian MoD has been on point, again and again. Why should I trust anything camp NATO/Ukraine says?
The reality on the battlefield is that NATO/Ukraine loses badly, while spending much/much/much more money. Donated money.
Sorry bro: it's a lost cause. The russians will be victorious again, fixing Europe's nazi problem again.
Everyone who teaches their kid "Bandera is my papa, Ukraine is my momma" is a nazi to me. And according to my research, that's a lot of the Ukrainian speaking Ukrainians.
> The reality on the battlefield is that NATO/Ukraine loses badly,
NATO isn't even on the battlefield.
> while spending much/much/much more money.
Yes, western labor has more value per hour, so the $ value of the smaller share of western effort devoted to the support of Ukraine is much higher than the $ value of the much larger share of Russian effort.
> Donated money.
See, you have to decide on your narrative. If your narrative is that NATO is who your Russian buddies are fighting on the battlefield, then it isn't donated money. If your narrative is "donated money", then you have to drop the "NATO/Ukraine" description of the belligerent opposing Russia.
You're still in the goodies-vs-baddies mindset. Western media pushes people into that way of thinking but it's the Marvel level view and is wrong. Also, look at all the people who think Russia is the baddies for starting that war, but Israel is the baddies despite not starting its war. That's an arbitrary standard people invented to justify their simply goodie-baddie view. If you apply a different standard to every war, then it's not really a standard, is it?
It’s mostly about willful acts of violence against innocents. This might be a nuance that is too subtle though. Bad acts and bad actors should be called out. Russia is the bad actor in the Ukrainian invasion. Hamas and IDF are bad actors in their conflict.
But then everyone is a bad actor. All the countries supplying arms to Ukraine are perpetuating the war and causing more deaths, so they're bad actors. As is Ukraine itself of course. You can't actually define that in way that has any use. It's ultimately just whatever your cultural influences led you to believe.
People should just be honest and admit they're nationalists, other kinds of ideologists, or just trying to fit in when it comes to opinions about war, because that's really all it is. If it was really unambiguous who was a bad actor, it wouldn't be a war in the first place because everyone would agree.
I think it makes much more sense, and is more productive, to reason about good and bad acts, than people.
Especially with regard to conglomerates of people, like whole nations, or whole governments. Having said that, some people and some groups do fall heavily on one side or the other. But most groups are a dynamic mix of players and situations, not good or bad in any rational or stable way.
Ukraine has also bombed civilians and engages in random/statistical attacks against Russian cities - technically a war crime. We can even stretch out the definition of innocents to include Russians or North Koreans that are forced to fight and have no options. Should Ukraine surrender and let the Russians take over? Clearly the path of least violence against innocents on both sides? All I'm saying is things aren't as clear/simple as you try to present them.
Sometimes violence is unavoidable and often it will impact innocents as well.
I agree bad acts need to be called out but you're casting too wide of a net and that just leads to a loss of clarity/nuance. Is there any war action that doesn't fall under "willful acts of violence against innocents"? Are we talking about "collateral" damage? Are we talking about the Geneva Convention?
Why is Russia a bad actor? Because they invaded? They claim to have legitimate reasons, security concerns, treatment of ethnic Russians or separatists in Ukraine? What if we side with them on the legitimacy of starting the war, does that change anything?
Can you provide specific evidence that Ukraine is intentionally targeting civilians, and not (for instance) flying a drone that gets affected by GPS jamming and hits a building unintentionally?
Just to be clear I'm not claiming the Russians are the good guys and the Ukranians are the bad guys. I'm just pointing out it's not as simple as someone did something bad in a war. You need to look at the totality of evidence and circumstances, challenge your own viewpoints and listen to people arguing the opposite of what you think, reach some conclusions and always be open to adjust to new evidence. Be aware of who is trying to manipulate you and why, what are the biases of the various sources of information etc. Again not that I think Russia are the good guys but things are never black and white. The west did meddle in Ukraine which in my world view is a good thing but unsurprisingly Putin perceived as aggression/attack on Russia's sphere of influence. To me it boils down to Putin being a force against western values that I'm aligned with.
>If you know the Russians are jamming GPS then what's the difference at this point?
"Why even bother if the chance of success is less than 100%"
Ukrainian attacks are very frequently successful despite GPS jamming and air defense. And vice versa.
>Just to be clear I'm not claiming the Russians are the good guys and the Ukranians are the bad guys. I'm just pointing out it's not as simple as someone did something bad in a war.
I have yet to see any videos of Ukrainian soldiers filming themselves laughing while using a knife to slowly decapitate a live prisoner. Or cut their balls off. Or put their decapitated heads on spikes. Or execute a dozen Russian POWs at a time
Ukrainian TV channels don't expound on the need to kill "as many as 2 million civilians" to denazify their opponent the way that Russian TV does fairly regularly. I've not seen any Ukrainians wave around the skull of a Russian killed in Russia live on stage at a metal concert.
I haven't seen those videos which is probably a good thing. Russians are known for their brutality. Doubtless there is brutality on the Ukrainian side as well. Both side have exchanged many prisoners so clearly it's not a matter of policy to execute them. Many Russians have family in Ukraine and vice versa.
It's pretty much a bloody mess. It's also complicated. For me it boils down to the fight between freedom and democracy and oppression and totalitarianism. Putin wants the world to be a worse place for all of us and is willing to have hundreds of thousands of people die for that.
I see lots of people getting hung up on the word "universally" so maybe that was the wrong choice (and also the least relevant part of my sentence but whatever).
I should have just said "wrong", plain and simple.
MAGA culture. Often frames people they don't like as "vermin", and it sets up a permission structure to cause violence against them by labeling them as diseased or inherently criminal.
There are legitimate arguments on both sides of these issues.
Couching the Outgroup's opinion on X as "erasing" or "killing" or "dehumanising" just precludes understanding.
Religious conservatives do this with abortion for instance. Is it constructive to say that Freedom of Choice advocates actually "support murdering babies"? Does it help, or is it just in-group signalling?
Care to point out where I said this or implied this? I’m opposed to gay marriage.
EDIT: I’m not really opposed to gay marriage. But I never said anything about my views on gay marriage or anything inconsistent with the view that gay marriage is wrong.
EDIT: I don’t consider people who oppose gay marriage to be bad people. I consider people who support and vote for a known felon, rapist, theif, and bribe taker to be terrible.
Do they? Different cultures have widely different axioms. E.g. compare Islam and Christianity. Not to begin with cultures far away geographically from each other.
It only “doesn’t work” if your goal is to appear morally impeccable to everyone.
If instead of this worrying you
> you will be the one who, according to some, is advocating for things that cause harm and is considered a horrible person.
you have a set of morals that centers something more or different than theoretical other people’s opinions, your example of the current “conflict in the Middle East” is still a good example just not for the reason you stated. It is a perfectly valid ethical position to think that genocide is bad and that people that advocate for genocide are also bad. To pivot to “actually the Really Bad Thing would be if you said that and someone somewhere disagreed with you” is weird and hollow.
“The truly wise know that everything is morally equivalent, except for the pursuit of unbounded approval which is Good for some reason, and believing otherwise is the same thing as getting your morals from comic book movies” isn’t a coherent or defensible moral position. The Marvel movie comparison is a thought terminating cliche.
You can't attack other users here, no matter how wrong they are or you feel they are.
You've been posting flamewar-style comments in other places too. That's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for, and we end up having to ban this sort of account, so please stop.
Actually I did ban you, but I reversed that after posting a warning to the other user. It seemed fairer to either ban both of you or neither.
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait, and being aggressive with other users? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
We've already had to ask you this several times. If you keep doing it, we're going to end up having to ban the account.
> There is no ethical requirement, upon seeing something happen in the real world, to entertain a series of hypotheticals so tedious and exhaustive that you have to throw your hands up and declare all things to be equally good and bad. That’s a weird habit!
Yeah, and this is the crux of many philosophies, most notably small-l libertarianism, where it seems like the chief appeal is that it's a simple set of axioms that can be followed to their logical conclusions for any moral question with minimal thought and maximal aesthetic "symmetry" and therefore beauty. It's easy to reason about, and therefore it's good.
It extends quite trivially from that to the so-called effective altruism, which relies on a fundamental assumption that a unit of good done to strangers on the other side of the globe is morally equivalent to a unit of good done to your neighbors. It's beautiful and therefore it's good.
It's the moral equivalent of imagining a spherical cow.
Morality is what you do in practice, not what you invent in your head. Treating him only as a literary figure, the reason Jesus is appealing to so many is not because he said "do unto others" and stopped. It's because he actually fed the poor, advocated for social justice, lifted up the injured, spoke truth to power, and gave his life for others.
No it's because genocide is too simple and poorly defined a concept to apply appropriately to every situation. It's just the result of people trying to generalize from a few specific events that happened in the past which they already decided were bad for some other reason and ended up creating the label genocide to describe them.
Look at the disagreement people have over whether Israel or Hamas committed genocide in this current war. People can't even agree on the meaning of the word as it applies there. It's a novel situation that doesn't fit the mold of what this word was invented for. Are civilians really civilians if they're complicit in the fighting as in Gaza? Are they really civilians if they've done or are still doing compulsory military service as in Israel? It's just an attempt to draw a line in the sand so people will agree what's bad.
> People can't even agree on the meaning of the word as it applies there.
The fact that your average Joe can't explain it is as material as your average Joe being unable to write a Bash script is to computer science not being a real thing.
Essentially everyone on Earth except Israelis and religious sycophants agree what Israel has done is genocide. It is ludicrous to suggest Hamas has conducted a genocide against Israel because then you'd have to say that slaves in the US conducted a genocide against slave owners.
Great harm then? I’m not morally obligated to to treat Putin with respect. Most people agree that there are people who are so reprehensible that they don’t deserve respect.
There are obvious bad/evil actors in the world. When people talk about engaging with other humans respectfully, they're generally not referring to the Putins of the world.
And it's pretty rare to have so much clarity about a person to know they're in the "obviously reprehensible" bucket.
I'm not saying this is what you're doing, but I often see people argue like this:
1. There are obviously bad actors in the world
2. Nobody would argue those bad actors should be given respect
3. So I won't respect people I come across who disagree with me
The fallacy is in the jump from 2 to 3, and the assumption that the existence of bad actors means the person I'm interacting with right now is one of them. The vast majority of people aren't Putin, nor can they be judged so quickly/clearly. And setting aside whether or not someone like that deserves respect, there's also a clear difference between respecting someone for who they are vs. behaving in a respectful manner out of self-preservation. The latter may ultimately keep you alive.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. That's a right I wouldn't take away form them even if I could.
They are not entitled to me being nice to them. Fuck that; if they advocate for something that I think is harmful, then I'm not going to be "respectful" to them.
My grandmother in no uncertain terms said that my wife should be deported. She doesn't have any power deport my wife, so she wouldn't fall into the "bad actor" in your definition, but she's made her opinion clear on that.
I could swallow my pride, roll my eyes, and ignore the horrible racist shit she says, but why exactly? The whole point of free speech is the ability to criticize bad ideas, and sometimes that's going to involve hurting a Republican's feelings.
Herein lies the crux of the matter in my view. The jump from 2 to 3. When Bob Dole ran for President I wholeheartedly agreed with the position about being respectful to those you disagree with. Politics was still normal in the U.S. at that time. But now we in the U.S. elected a known rapist. A felon and a con man. He can’t run a charity in New York due to his misdeeds. He lusts after his own daughter. We have entered into an era where supporters of one party’s President deserve the assumption of being terrible people.
Now obviously there are many people who disagree with the above. But this is how I see things and I act accordingly. The call for civility comes from those who hold terrible beliefs. We are well into the Paradox of Tolerance situation in the U.S.
To me, the issue boils down to pragmatism and utility.
It’s just human psychology; people tend not to change their minds when someone screams at them and otherwise disrespects them. If the goal is to move society in any particular direction, that requires some degree of successful communication, and throwing respect out the window directly counteracts the goal. If the goal is just to hold some moral high ground for the sake of it, that’s a pointless goal if it doesn’t lead to any underlying change.
Collectively, we don’t need to change the minds of obviously evil people, but we do need to influence the population that can vote them into or out of power. I just don’t see that ever happening if your outlook on life is this extreme:
> We have entered into an era where supporters of one party’s President deserve the assumption of being terrible people
I know many people have convinced themselves that this is true, but this ultimately boils down to the question: so what then is the goal? To push these people deeper into their bubbles?
At some point one has to ask how much of the problem is being directly created by this “they’re all terrible people so I won’t even talk to them” mindset.
My personal view is as follows. American society has reached a point of no return. Something has to give before a new equilibrium has been found. As an extreme example look to Nazi Germany. The repugnant views that were normal in 1939 Germany weren’t normal in 1960 Germany. A similar (though far less extreme) change will happen in the U.S.
I have no desire to change anyone’s mind about their political views. Anyone who supports a known rapist and felon and who openly takes bribes can not be convinced of anything. I don’t engage in political discussions with such people. There is no consistency in their beliefs so no meaningful discusion can be had.
For me, my desire is secession. The country needs to beak up. This is an extreme view but will likely be increasingly held by people with similar political beliefs as mine.
> For me, my desire is secession. The country needs to beak up. This is an extreme view but will likely be increasingly held by people with similar political beliefs as mine.
So, you envision an enormous red country plus about forty or so small nation-states, virtually none of whom can support themselves and would be defeated by the red state's military and agricultural output in days?
Secession is unworkable. Whoever secedes from the most militarily powerful nation in history gets wiped off the map in twelve hours.
I'm going to be pedantic for a second, as a sort of dark coping mechanism:
>Anyone who supports a known rapist and felon and who openly takes bribes can not be convinced of anything
Clearly, they can be convinced of something, just not anything you or I might consider good.
In all seriousness, I think the truly disturbing thing about this whole sorry situation is just how many people don't actually hold any durable ethics or morality, just rank self-interest. Pearl clutching over the death of American dreams like economic mobility is a sideshow to the death knell of American idealism. America is not the shining city on a hill we thought it was, and honestly, it never was.
The colloquial definition of rape includes using your fingers, which is what he did. The fact that the specific NY law defines digital violation as a separate offense from "rape" doesn't make using the term improper for the non-NY-lawyers among us.
> “The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,’ ” Kaplan wrote.
He added: “Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”
Kaplan said New York’s legal definition of “rape” is “far narrower” than the word is understood in “common modern parlance.”
The former requires forcible, unconsented-to penetration with one’s penis. But he said that the conduct the jury effectively found Trump liable for — forced digital penetration — meets a more common definition of rape. He cited definitions offered by the American Psychological Association and the Justice Department, which in 2012 expanded its definition of rape to include penetration “with any body part or object.”
I didn’t compare anything to Nazi Germany. I gave Nazi Germany as an example of how what is socially acceptable can drastically change in a short period of time.
I apologize. He was found liable for sexual abuse, battery and defamation. These distinctions are extremely important. He’s not quite as bad as I made him out to be. What about him calling his daughter a nice piece of ass? The other stuff?
I didn’t call anyone a Nazi. Trump is not a Nazi. Most of his supporters aren’t either. I did use Nazi Germany as an example of societal views changing to the extreme.
"over 50% of the country i live in are irredeemably terrible people" is obviously hyperbole -- if it were true, the onus would be on you to start taking action against those terrible people. but my guess is you don't actually think they're so terrible, because you're still working your 9-5 for your terrible-person boss, getting paid like every other schmuck, and you're happy to let those irredeemably terrible people deliver your DoorDash, teach your children at public school, and keep your electricity and water running.
"over 50% of the country i live in are irredeemably terrible people"
A large majority of the people did not vote for Donald Trump.
but my guess is you don't actually think they're so terrible,
People who support Donald Trump are, in general, terrible people. They aren’t evil people doing evil things so why would I have an obligation to take action against them?
It is a fact of life that we all must live amongst people who we think are terrible human beings. Of course I haven’t the slightest idea what a person’s views are for almost everyone I interact with. I give everyone the assumption that they deserve respect until proven otherwise.
Given the context of the thread it’s ironic that you don’t seem to understand what it means to give the assumption of respect to people. I think you edited your disparaging remarks to me. It was hilarious to read those remarks given the context of the discussion at hand. Feel free to put them back. I don’t mind them.
> People who support Donald Trump are, in general, terrible people
This is not true, and that shows your narrow mindset. To give you the benefits of the doubt, can you explain why Trump supporters are not only wrong, but generally "terrible people"?
I have no desire to change anyone’s mind about their political views. Anyone who supports a known rapist and felon and who openly takes bribes can not be convinced of anything. I don’t engage in political discussions with such people. There is no consistency in their beliefs so no meaningful discusion can be had.
Do you not see how you're part of the problem? You're applying cherry-picked standards that just happen to match what Trump did because you'd already been brainwashed to hate him and his supporters. What if you judge presidents by how many deaths they cause in wars instead of what dirty jokes they made? Wouldn't that be more meaningful measure of badness? No because you're cherry-picking to support your pre-existing hatred that you were driven to by the news and social media.
Cherry picked facts? Ha. Being a rapist is a cherry picked fact?
The difference between me and you is that I consistently apply my morals and ethics. I don’t support rapists and bribe takers for President. I didn’t support Clinton when it became clear what he did and I don’t support Trump. Have a higher standard for yourself. Don’t support bad people.
I do judge George W. Bush for the deaths he caused. Obama too.
Biden hasn’t been convicted of felonies. He’s not an adjudicated rapist. He doesn’t refer to his daughter as a nice piece of ass. He isn’t banned from running a charity. He hasn’t bribed any porn stars. He hasn’t accepted $30 billion in bribes. He hasn’t taken secret documents to illegally keep in his bathroom. He hasn’t met with Putin alone without an interpreter or any other U.S. official present. He hasn’t made fun of a reporter’s disability. He didn’t appoint his son-in-law to be an advisor who then accepted bribes from Saudi Arabia. He hasn’t engaged in Twitter feuds with 15 year old kids from Sweden. He didn’t threaten to withhold disaster aid to states that didn’t vote for him.
Nothing I’ve said against Trump is about his politics. He, as a person, is narcissistic, self centered, selfish, boorish, infantile, incurious, lustful, and greedy. He’s a despicable person and those who support him are terrible people.
"If you want to discuss Biden then start another thread. This one is about Donald Trump."
You cannot talk about Trump without putting him in context. The fact is, the reason why we have Trump for President again, is because the person who replaced him was so horrible, that Trump looked better in comparison.
And what's more, conisdering what I said -- and what you are responding to -- I have to bring up Biden, because my entire point is "both sides do it". If you want to bring back honor and decency to the White House, you have to do it with an honorable and decent person. Neither Biden nor Harris fit that bill.
"Harris’ moral and ethical failings are nothing compared to Trump. You can do what I did and not vote and not support either candidate. Stand up for truth and righteousness and stop trying to justify your support for a person as shitty as Trump. It’s a choice to defend shitty behavior. When you do so you end up smelling like shit."
She implicitly supported Biden. She was complicit in all the lies that were pushed about Biden, particularly those about his fitness for the position. She endorsed going after political enemies with the legal system -- and then had the gall to claim that Trump would do just that himself.
And then to go on and claim that if you supported a crappy candidate, then those people are crappy too, you have basically condemned the 95% or so who voted for one or the other -- for motivations that are well beyond either yours or my understanding -- this attitude right here is why politics is so toxic these days.
You cannot talk about Trump without putting him in context.
I can. I did. It doesn’t need context. It’s well documented the things he did.
The fact is, the reason why we have Trump for President again…
This is not an established fact.
… Harris fit that bill.
Harris’ moral and ethical failings are nothing compared to Trump. You can do what I did and not vote and not support either candidate. Stand up for truth and righteousness and stop trying to justify your support for a person as shitty as Trump. It’s a choice to defend shitty behavior. When you do so you end up smelling like shit.
You aren't aware of what was found on Hunter's laptop, or in Ashley's diary (she had to choose her showering times carefully to make sure her father wouldn't join her), or Tara Reed's allegations. To say Biden hasn't accepted $30 billion in bribes, in particular, is laughably funny, and he was caught having secret documents kept illegally in his garage. He is on record threatening aid from Ukraine unless they fired a particular prosecutor who was investigating his son. He has, for all intents and purposes, withheld disaster aid from North Carolina, who didn't vote for him. He has plagiarized speeches several times over the years -- indeed, this is what derailed his first attempt to run for President, back in the 1980s. And he hasn't been particularly nice to reporters, and considering what he is on record saying to constituents, I can confidentially say that the only reason he doesn't engage in Twitter feuds is because he's too senile to be allowed near Twitter.
Biden, as a person, is narcissistic, self centered, selfish, boorish, infantile, incurious, lustful, and greedy. He’s a despicable person and those who support him are terrible people.
Either that, or they are just ignorant -- because the mainstream press has worked hard to hide these kinds of things from us. It is why trust in them has plummeted over the last few years.
You are reciting points that are provably false. Low information voter, reason your party lost and will continue to. Normal people do not agree with your extremism.
>Low information voter, reason your party lost and will continue to
It's funny, in a sad way, that after so much discussion here about how silly it is to have this us vs. them, side vs. side mentality, that we end up with someone saying this.
Maybe they're not so much "low information" as not sticking their fingers in their ears over the subsequent legal ruling by the presiding judge that the jury's finding that Mr Trump "sexually abused" Ms. Carroll implicitly determined that he forcibly penetrated her digitally - in other words, that Mr Trump did in fact "rape" her as that term is commonly used and understood outside the context of New York Penal Law when tossing out Trump's countersuit
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.54...
I don't think it's "extremism" to suggest that a legal ruling that somebody forcibly penetrated their victim for sexual gratification might be a stain on their character.
Sure I can support that. The difficulty as always comes with the grey area in defining "great". There are truly reprehensible people in the world, but they're the exception not the norm. I see you did address that in your comment with "in general" so I was a bit strong in my wording, but I do believe the in general case covers >99.99% of people.
Stupid and vapid. Tech is already full to the brim with people with zero moral convictions aside from the things that get them paid. Those are the real monsters
At least someone being paid to make your life worse can often also be paid to stop. I'm more afraid of someone convinced that they're saving the world as they destroy it instead.
My challenge is I can’t even tell if me and someone else are seeing the same facts. Take trump for example. Policies etc I may disagree on but I can see why someone else would support them.
As a person, looking at everything he says and does I can only conclude that he’s a narcissist that only cares about himself. But then there are a lot of trump supporters that are convinced he cares about them and the country. What am I missing that we can come to such dramatically different conclusions?
In normal times I would agree with you. At present in the U.S. I’d not agree with this sentiment. People who support electing a known racist, thief, con man, and felon are deserving of ridicule and ire. They don’t deserve respect in my opinion.
When the politics of a nation shift so far in one direction we get into a situation where supporters of that shift don’t deserve respect. Stalinist Soviet Union is an extreme example of this.
So what lengths do you think you're justified going to against individuals you disagree with?
And how do you feel about them feeling the same about you?
Mutual righteous hostility is why ethnic and religious wars simmer forever, because there's always a convenient justification for acting violently towards others (and them towards you).
… justified going to against individuals you disagree with?
I don’t do anything at this time. But I understand why there are those who do have vitriol for supporters of a rapist who lusts after his own daughter. There are times when a nation’s society fractures as the social cohesion evaporates. We are beginning to be in such a time in the U.S. Well, it appears that way to me. Only time will tell.
The one who rapes and lusts after his daughter is the one who has issues. Well, him and the people who support him. Never thought I’d live to see Republicans, the so called party of family values, support such an asshole. You should get some ethics and apply them consistently.
Sexual abuse. Not rape. The distinction is extremely important. Now that I know he is only a sexual abuser and not a rapist I support him. A sexual abuser who cheats charities, is a convicted felon, who accepts $30 billion dollar crypto coin bribes is worth supporting. But not a raping one. I retract my complaints against Trump.
I will enjoy the next 4 years. I voted for Trump in 2016. I want the one who will do the most damage to the U.S. to be in power. I won’t suffer. I’m well off.
What constitutes "harm"? Is hurting someone's feelings harm? Is misinformation harm? How do you determine intention? To what extent does intention matter? How do circumstances impact the answers to these questions?
When your creed is basically "I only hate bad people", you have given yourself permission to hate anyone and feel righteously justified about it. And you'll never feel the need to empathize because bad people always deserve whatever bad things happen to them.
You don't need to love everyone unconditionally, but clearly more neuance is needed.
What constitutes "harm"? Is hurting someone's feelings harm? Is misinformation harm? How do you determine intention? To what extent does intention matter? How do circumstances impact the answers to these questions?
I know the answers to these questions…for me. Each person decides for themselves where the lines are drawn. It has always been this way.
> Be curious. Be courteous and respectful. Be a normal, nice goddamn human to human across the table from you.
The unintuitive thing is that both this article and pg's essay are both advocating this! They're each complaining about another group being mean.
Paul Graham's essay doesn't mention anything about LGBT people or issues. It doesn't really say what specific events he may have in mind, but it complains that woke people are being intolerant, sometimes bullying or ostracizing people for their beliefs, and trying to enforce allegiance to their side over honesty.
The author of this essay is reading between the lines and assuming pg is a bigot who might discriminate against a trans person. They say actions like pg's are "mean", "unkind", and "malicious".
I think a lot of this has to do with people being polarized and viewing every political statement in terms of which team it supports: if someone says something against your team, that means they must be on the other team, and are therefore evil. But regardless of the reasons, these uncharitable assumptions (on both sides) cause way too much conflict between people with similar core values.
I don't think either author would discriminate against anyone based on their sexuality or gender. One can disagree with pg's criticisms without calling him a bigot.
I call it the "could I share this with my grandmother" test. I don't like things that are supposed to have a point or make a good argument but fail the grandmother test.
> If you were multiparty system there will be less identities in politics.
If only it were that easy. I come from a country that is notorious for having political parties dissolve/new ones forming all the time, and politics are still all about identities and people still treat issues with a very black-or-white perspective.
As many have made the point before, I think this kind of discourse/attitude is more due to the social media echo chambers environment we now evolve in, and that modern societies can't escape it.
No, that just means the identities split into smaller groups that constantly fight for power within larger coalitions. Instead of Red vs Blue you get racial groupings and all sorts of subdivisions.
Lebanon is a good example of what happens when you try to enshrine smaller subdivisions than A vs B.
Focusing on the individual means dropping the notion of “sides”. Identifying people (or even arguments) by their alleged “side”, instead of taking them on their own merit, is where things go wrong.
Where things go wrong is that the "extremists on both sides" is used to distract from what people on one side do. It is just a shield designed to prevent analysis.
I would argue it's currently en vogue to incessantly repeat the argument that "Both Sides" have bad actors, thus commenting on the bad actors of one side is an incomplete argument.
It's tiring and non sequitur to hear such arguments however, as what the opposition to a position does is wholly unrelated to the arguments related to that position.
Haha trying to get around pattern matching by lopping off the word “both” doesn’t really strengthen your argument.
The problem is that you’re pretending like the sides don’t exist now, yet they do.
In reality, the individuals that compose one side are different from the individuals that compose the other side in predictable and problematic ways. Yes, individuals matter, but so too does the trend those individuals embody.
> In reality, the individuals that compose one side are different from the individuals that compose the other side in predictable and problematic ways.
Predictable is where we disagree strongly.
I think there's more diversity than unanimity at the individual level in both parties.
In the sense of what people say they believe around a dinner table, not what they passively nod their heads to at a rally or while watching partisan news.
Which is ironic, given it's increasingly a trope on both sides that the other is sadly monolithic and all marching in lockstop to their leader's tune.
Republicans complain about Democrats being like this; Democrats complain about Republicans being like this.
PS: "Problematic" is a terrible non-word. Surely there's a more descriptive adjective to be used?
There is actual political program and actual laws being pushed on. That is the reality. And yes, that political program belongs to that side.
It is OK to blame republicans as such for what Trump or JD Vance does, because they made them big. It is ok to blame them for the for the supreme court politics too, because they knowingly put exactly those people there, knowing they will remove protection for abortion and lied about it.
It is OK to blame democrats for what Biden does.
For the both sides thing however, you need to attribute acts of people who Democratic party actively pushes away to that party ... and to pretend that people voting for republicans have zero to do with what that party does.
For politicians (as opposed to people in other professions), they are obviously responsible for the policies their parties support, to the extent that they support their parties. Given not every politician votes in lockstep with their party.
BUT for individuals in the US, their personal positions are often more complex than the binary reductions the two-party system affords us.
Consequently, there are many (most?) dissenters on one issue or another in both parties.
If a person has thoughts on matters, it's therefore more interesting to me to discuss those thoughts, than to derive my interactions with them solely by their D or R label.
I think your point is what gets missed in this conversation.
Many people just want to go to work and do their job … and not have social topics or politics discussed at work.
That doesn’t mean they don’t care about those topics, they just don’t feel like work is the correct place for discourse.
And the sense I get from recent moves by tech execs is that they simply want employees to focus 100% on work (because obviously they want to get the most productivity out of their paid staff), and anything non-work related is viewed as a distraction. Regardless of what that non-work topic might be.
"I’m certain he wouldn’t be rude to my face, but he might quietly discriminate against me, say no thanks. He might not even think of it as discrimination, only that I don’t have what it takes."
This resonates pretty strongly (and depressingly) with me being an immigrant academic in Europe who came originally from a third-world country. Even though I am one of the most productive researchers in my department, even though I studied in the best university in my country (which is mind-blowingly better than the one I'm currently in), even if I say yes to almost everything, and even if I work easily 150% what an average native colleague does, none of this matter at all. Every morning I wake up there is a new knife on my back. Opportunities just vanish transparently; pressure amounts over pressure amounts pressure; there is always that quiet, mute side look that says (without words) "if you don't like it, why don't you leave?".
And what really makes this ten times worse is that the country I'm in has this almost ethereal reputation for begin some kind of paradise where everyone is super polite and calm and rational, so whenever I complain about anything it feels like I'm some kind of spoiled child. Half the time I even convince myself of that.
It can be any country in Europe. Fact is that the country inside looks different than in the movies in one’s home country. Another fact is that we like the others that look like us and not like the others. In other words racism and xenophobia are real. Some people can live with that and bite back when confronted, for others occasional reminder about their origin is too much.
going to start introducing all my straw men with “according to the Internet” and closing all my arguments with “if you downvote me it’s because you’re triggered” now, thank you for this neat trick
I worked as much as 200% more than some of my colleagues while having the lowest wage in the team. When I left, projects in my perimeter took 12x more time to develop (as assessed by a former colleague). I had a manager fired for failing to recruit me back.
You're wrong in assigning the injustice you're going through to discrimination based on your ethnicity, especially in an academic context where the vast majority is pro-immigration.
There is no concrete example of racism in his testimony. He describes universal situations of professional rivalry ("opportunities vanish," "pressure amounts") but interprets them as implicit racism without tangible evidence.
The intangibility of racism paradoxically makes it more powerful as an accusatory mechanism. Its very invisibility becomes proof of its omnipresence - the more impossible it is to prove, the more "obvious" it becomes. The vicious cycle is perfect: the absence of evidence strengthens the belief in a hidden evil.
This structure mirrors the logic of primitive sacredness: an absolute but elusive evil that demands even more victims precisely because it defies empirical verification. The accused can neither defend themselves (since denial is seen as proof of guilt) nor confess (as the evil is portrayed as unconscious).
Some relevant Proust:
>"Miss Vinteuil might not have thought evil was such a rare state, so extraordinary, so exotic, such a restful place to emigrate to, had she been able to discern in herself, as in everyone else, that indifference to the suffering we cause which, whatever other names we give it, is the terrible and permanent form of cruelty."
Once upon a time, not that long ago, within my lifetime in fact, being gay was targeted for public abuse the way that transgender people are being targeting now.
That has declined as people came to understand that being gay, lesbian, bi is part of how a person is made. Under public pressure, a gay person can act straight or at least act not gay. But it doesn't change who they are, doesn't help anyone around them, and makes them miserable. There is no point to it. Thankfully popular opinion and the law have adjusted to that reality.
Being transgender is the same way. A transgender person is not someone who dresses a certain way, takes hormones, or gets surgery. A transgender person is someone who is absolutely miserable when they are not permitted to express the gender they feel. It is part of who they are deep inside, how they feel every day of their life. Like gay people, they can hide it to avoid abuse. Like gay people, it's not fair to force them to do so. And it doesn't help anyone around them either.
It seems to me that prigs, as defined in pg's article, are just jumping on the transgender issue because it's an easy way for them to enforce rules. From my understanding, having read both articles, PG might say that the prigs have chosen to ride the lgbt movement. The problem is not with the lgbt movement itself.
Unfortunately, this gives the movement a bad reputation. Some prigs aren't lgbt people at all, but they speak on behalf of them, as they also speak on behalf of other groups that they aren't a part of. Some prigs might actually be a part of the minority they speak for, but I would hazard a guess, based on no data, and say that these are the minority of all prigs.
I think PG's problem is with the prigs, not the lgbt movement itself.
Can these be separated?
Self-congratulatory, self-righteous prigs are all over the place within human society.
When people complain about them, the substantive content of their complaint is the context in which they issue it. For example pg is complaining about the prigs who nag everyone about transgender acceptance, but not the prigs who nag everyone to reject and abuse transgender people.
Matters of speech, manners, and decorum are convenient ways to launder the advocacy of a certain set of values. All you have to do is accuse your enemies of violation when they advocate, and stay silent when your allies apply the same tactics.
In order to consistently navigate politics, one needs to start with one's own values. That's why I posted my comment above. The core issue for me is whether transgender people can show up in their preferred gender. Not whether other people are annoying jerks when they talk about that question. There are plenty of annoying jerks on both sides of any value question, if one has the open eyes to see them.
> Self-congratulatory, self-righteous prigs are all over the place within human society.
They try to be. A given social movement will be judged on how well it deals with them - whether it embraces/encourages them (or, worse, makes them its leaders), or discourages them. Bullies, grifters, and sexual predators are everywhere, but "this organisation protects/doesn't do enough against its bullies/grifters/sexual predators" is a legitimate criticism (in cases where it's accurate); it's the same with prigs.
> The core issue for me is whether transgender people can show up in their preferred gender.
Break down what that means. Are you talking about whether these people act in a particular way? Or whether they demand that other people treat them in a particular way? Those are very different asks.
Perfect example of what I'm talking about. People criticise traditional religions for that kind of thing (and criticise specific sects as handling it particularly badly, rather than just throwing up their hands and saying every community has bad actors) and they are right to do so.
Except many of the most vocal criticizers of progressive prigs come from reactionary prigs and their enablers, and many of the most vocal criticizers of the reactionary prigs come from progressive prigs and their enablers. There isn't really a lot of reflective self criticism - the whole dynamic looks more like a prig battle, with criticizing the current popular fashion myopically just used to attract otherwise disinterested people to the cause of enabling the next trend.
Maybe I've just gotten older and less worried about social consequences, but as priggishness goes the currently-passing fashion felt pretty tame. In the mainstream culture - thirty years ago it was "godlessness". Twenty years ago it was "support our troops". Ten years ago it was "gender". And today it's "woke". Within specific subcultures, "gender" will continue to be one, as "woke" has been for quite some time. When someone starts talking (or even preaching!) with any of these unquestionable assumptions, you just keep your mouth shut, and hold your real thoughts for your real friends with whom you can imperfectly express nuanced views in an environment of good faith rather than getting jumped on for social points.
> Except many of the most vocal criticizers of progressive prigs come from reactionary prigs and their enablers, and many of the most vocal criticizers of the reactionary prigs come from progressive prigs and their enablers.
I don't think that's true. I'm old enough to remember when priggishness was mostly right-coded, but at that point it looked like church ladies and curtain-twitchers complaining about boobs on the TV, which is not the group that's criticising leftist priggishness by any means. In political compass terms, it's something bottom-left attacks top-right and bottom-right attacks top-left for, because it's more of a top-bottom issue than a left-right one, and it's not really hypocrisy from one side or the other, it just looks like it when viewed through the left-right axis (of course there are some legitimate hypocrites who just cheer for their own left-or-right side and have e.g. flipped from being pro-free-speech when it was left-coded to being anti-free-speech now that it's right-coded).
> Maybe I've just gotten older and less worried about social consequences, but as priggishness goes the currently-passing fashion felt pretty tame. In the mainstream culture - thirty years ago it was "godlessness". Twenty years ago it was "support our troops". Ten years ago it was "gender". And today it's "woke".
The part that worries me is that this time we don't have the separation of personal and political (partly because feminism deliberately, explicitly tore it down) that ensures people don't have to fear for their livelihoods because of their views. It was illegal to fire people for godlessness (or its opposite) or gender, and that was an important protection that unions fought hard for. Wokeism is akin to religion in most of the ways that matter, but since it isn't recognised as such, people can be (and are!) fired (not to mention socially excluded etc.) because they were too woke or not woke enough, and we seemingly just accept that.
Have you considered that using the term woke as a pejorative is priggish behavior? Because amongst my conservative friends it is used at least once every social setting.
Well, I think "priggish" better describes how a person advocates for a belief, not the belief itself.
I do think the issue is more complex than just women's rights, in part because a lot of women are fine with trans women being around them, and in part because biological females can express a variety of genders, including male.
Women who say they find it acceptable for males to impose themselves on female spaces don't speak for all women and cannot consent to this intrusion for all women.
I think this is spot on. The confusion for me comes from the fact that, as far as I can tell, I've never met a prig in real life. And yet they seem to be the biggest political issue of our time. Is it because I live in Australia and it's more of a US thing? Or is it because I'm not online as much maybe? I find it really confusing.
Yes on a pragmatic basis, if the coworker is male and gets upset at being referred to by "he", but it goes against your own personal beliefs to refer to him as "she", it's best just to refer to him by name and practise wording your sentences to be pronounless. And, where possible and not disadvantageous, to avoid situations where he's involved in your own work.
With this approach, he's less likely to make a complaint to HR about you (though he might notice the careful lack of "she", but that's much more difficult to make a substantiated complaint about), and you still get to stick to your own beliefs.
It's still somewhat vexing to have to do this, but at least it prevents you from getting in the crosshairs of HR.
If it goes against your personal beliefs to call someone what they prefer to be called at no expense to yourself, then you need some new personal beliefs.
What about neopronouns? Can someone just make up a new set of words like zi / zim / zis and expect you to remember them whenever talking to or about that person?
You already remember what standard pronouns to use to refer to each person in your life. They're words you learned right from the start of learning the language. The same isn't true of "neopronouns".
Probably that gender ideology played a sizable role in getting Trump re-elected. It was the topic of his most popular ad, and IIRC the plurality of swing state voters said it was the most important issue for them.
So getting people to use preferred pronouns was a bit of a Pyrrhic victory in my book.
>IIRC the plurality of swing state voters said [gender ideology] was the most important issue for them.
I don't think that you RC. Citation very much needed here.
The issue of neopronouns is largely theoretical, since almost all users of neopronouns also accept the gender neutral 'they'. The Trump ads weren't about neopronouns, and I doubt that most Trump voters (or indeed most Democratic voters) could tell you what a neopronoun is.
Using people's preferred pronouns out of he/she/they is just common courtesy. It's essentially what everyone, social conservatives included, already does whenever they take someone's word regarding their gender rather than looking down their pants before talking about them in the third person.
Eh, ok. [1] I guess there must be another reason Trump's campaign spent hundreds of millions of dollars broadcasting that ad. It was way more than they spent on any other ad.
You're moving the goalpost here and pretending that neopronouns is not that big an issue. But it's obviously just part of the gender ideology issue, which was clearly part of the reason Trump won.
I can see that there are still people out there with their heads in the sand. I wonder who you'll help elect next time around?
You said ‘swing state voters’. The survey you indirectly link to is talking about ‘swing voters’:
>Our definition of swing voters includes those who are undecided in the presidential race, have changed their voting preference since 2020 (voting Democrat in one election and Republican in the other), or are independents who either indicate they split their votes between Democrats and Republicans, or who hold either favorable or unfavorable views of both Trump and Harris.
The sample of voters is weighted towards swing states, but judging by the numbers for 'All voters', gender wasn't the predominant issue for swing state voters in general.
I don't think that neopronouns are a big issue outside of hypothetical arguments on the internet. You can certainly link neopronouns to a broader issue that people care about. But this thread was just about neopronouns (starting from your question "What about neopronouns?") before you brought Trump into it!
Personally, agree with calling people what they want to be called. That said, here's a thought experiment: What if someone is inconvenienced? What if someone feels uncomfortable using pronouns that don't match the sex of the person? What about uncommon "neopronouns" like "zhe", "xe", or "fae"?
We expect people to say things that make them uncomfortable all the time. I don't feel comfortable telling my boss that I'm the one who wrote the buggy code that caused the incident, but I have a responsibility to do it regardless. I might be expected to thank everyone involved in a project, even if I don't feel personally grateful to them. And so on.
Obviously there's no easy way to reason these cases from first principles. As it is, I'm aware that being affirmed in their gender identity is recognized as therapeutically important for trans people. On the flip side, I'm not aware of any condition that causes people to suffer significant distress due to using a particular pronoun. So in this case, I feel like it's a pretty easy decision.
EDIT: The "neopronoun" question was added after I replied, or I missed it. I have never met a person who expected me to use them, nor have I ever encountered a workplace environment where policies required their use, so I haven't formed an opinion.
I've never met anybody who used neopronouns either, I've only heard about it online.
I wonder if there are any long term effects of forcing someone to say something that they consider to be untrue? Taken to its most hyperbolic extreme, it could be used as a form of psychological torture, like something out of 1984, where Winston is tortured for not accepting that four fingers being held up is five, or "Four Lights" from Star Trek.
To get one to renounce what they know to be true and accept whatever you say without question is probably the ultimate form of control and subjugation.
For emphasis: "taken to its most hyperbolic extreme".
edit: more realistically, you could say that transgender or gay people might feel like they are compelled to lie about who they are in order to fit in, or in certain circumstances. Surely, if we recognize this as psychologically damaging, then we should recognize all other types of forced lying to be similarly damaging.
I don't think so. If someone shows you their baby you say "how adorable, how beautiful" no matter how ugly the baby is. If you haven't learned to accept that by the time you're an adult you're going to live a miserable life.
The analogy in my comment was about adherence to philosophical beliefs, in response to what appeared to be a suggestion by you that such beliefs should be ignored if someone else finds them to be an inconvenience.
Could you explain why you think your analogy works, please?
Your right to untrammeled adherence to your philosophical beliefs ends the moment that those beliefs result in conduct affecting other people. After that point, some form of balancing occurs.
Exactly, which is why the balanced and pragmatic solution described in my earlier comment works well in a conflict of philosophical beliefs over sex-based pronouns versus preferred pronouns.
Simply avoid using them at all if a colleague is likely to get upset and complain to HR should the colleague's sex be accurately described.
If treating this colleague the same as you'd treat anyone else is likely to cause a complaint about you to HR, but at the same time you don't want to compromise your own philosophical beliefs, then it's about the most pragmatic and balanced approach you can achieve given the circumstances.
So is it a problem to use the "wrong" pronouns for someone or not? You take people at their word on their gender every day. Why go out of your way to fret about what you call people only when they tell you they're trans?
No, to the whole sibling thread. He’s talking about the “pledge of allegiance” required to get hired in a university or like company, circa 2020. Also posts that imply you’re a monster if you don’t conform.
Sticklers for rules are the traditional definition. I think most of us have met a tyrant before, ruler of a very small kingdom. Often in a government position.
Read his essay again, past the first two paragraphs. Look at the social movements he describes as priggish, woke, politically correct etc.
> There was at this time a great backlash against sexual harassment; the mid 1980s were the point when the definition of sexual harassment was expanded from explicit sexual advances to creating a "hostile environment."
> In the first phase of political correctness there were really only three things people got accused of: sexism, racism, and homophobia
Going by the examples pg gives, anyone willing to support women, or LGBT, is a prig. Don't let his abstract theory cloud the rest of the essay. He says it in black and white, his problem is with minorities standing up for themselves.
Consider, for example, expanding the definition of sexual harassment to also include creating a "hostile environment".
I think that pg's point is that this expansion to include a "hostile environment" makes it fall under the "eye of the beholder", which makes it a lot more vague and arbitrary. Something being vague and arbitrary is the perfect playground for a prig, because they can essentially invent new rules and enforce them. For one example: Microagressions. What are they? They could be anything, really.
"Supporting women" and "enforcing arbitrary rules" are not necessarily the same thing. One can claim that they're doing the former when they're really just doing the latter.
If you were to make up a new rule and say that men need to bow to every woman within a 10ft radius in order to show respect, is that really "supporting women"? Is that what women want? This is an intentionally ridiculous hypothetical (in certain cultures), but I think it demonstrates the issue that an arbitrary rule is not necessarily "support".
Did this joke create a hostile environment? Did the shaming of these people make anything better, or did it make things worse? Was this an example of "supporting women", or was this just an example of punishing people for not following arbitrary rules?
>He says it in black and white, his problem is with minorities standing up for themselves.
Someone who acts priggishly may not be a part of the minority that they are 'standing up' for.
I agree with the definition pg gives in the first two paragraphs of what a prig with, which is why I suggested you reread past that section. As OP said, DEI initiatives are regularly hollow and performative. Re: dongle gate and the other hypotheticals, sure, not great, I agree enforcing arbitrary rules isn't good for society, and we really gain nothing.
Let's look at this essay critically, and let's not doing any legwork for PG. He has an opening statement about priggishness that, again I agree with, and then (eventually) dives into examples that we're discussing re: hostile environment. Does this example support his argument about what wokeness is?
You claim that the goal of this example is for PG to provide evidence
> that this expansion to include a "hostile environment" makes it fall under the "eye of the beholder", which makes it a lot more vague and arbitrary. ...
Which i agree is PGs point in introducing this example as he says so himself
>But the vagueness of this accusation allowed the radius of forbidden behavior to expand to include talking about heterodox ideas.
So we have this example, and we can clearly identify how PG /thinks/ it supports his argument. This is where I disagree, and like almost all of the examples in the essay, it does not support his argument.
Do you believe that, as PG says, in 1986 and the following few years, (not now, we'll save that for later, he specifically is talking about the 1980s) this title IX ruling that expanded the definition was misused in a priggish sense, to punish people arbitrarily, and that it did not support women? Talk to some women who were alive at that time, and you'll soon realize that yes, outside of direct sexual advances there are many things that professors would do or say to dehumanize female students. So by giving these students a mechanism to hold professor accountable for dehumanizing them, we are... supporting them!
Now maybe you believe that is the minority case, and that in general this was misused. Would you trust women in the 1980s to decide for themselves whether or not they were being sexually harassed by a professor in this expanded definition? Remember, the original definition was just when a professor/whoever would make a direct sexual advance. Ok, so say we trust women to know when they themselves are being sexually harassed. Do you think that men were going around in the 80s accusing professors of sexual harassment? Yea probably not. So who was misusing this? Basically no one. Who was benefiting from it? Women. So this is not priggish in any sense.
As far as today goes, I went to university within the past few years, at a very woke school even by my standards, and even with this expanded definition, I have not heard of any professors suffering from false accusations of sexual harassment. I have had quite literally dozens of friends tell me their experiences where professors dehumanized, belittled them, or have even blatantly asked for sexual favors or been assaulted by them. And of course these reports go through title IX, with this expanded definition, and even today rarely is a professor's career upended. So even today, not priggish.
You can rinse and repeat this for almost any example pg gives. His examples do not support his argument at all. So either his initial argument is wrong, or this essay is just plain bad. Either way it's worthless as a way to defend the argument we both agree on. OP explains why it's also harmful.
>Do you believe that, as PG says, in 1986 and the following few years, (not now, we'll save that for later, he specifically is talking about the 1980s) this title IX ruling that expanded the definition was misused in a priggish sense, to punish people arbitrarily, and that it did not support women? Talk to some women who were alive at that time, and you'll soon realize that yes, outside of direct sexual advances there are many things that professors would do or say to dehumanize female students. So by giving these students a mechanism to hold professor accountable for dehumanizing them, we are... supporting them!
I have no reason not to believe that Title IX in the 1980s was misused in a priggish sense, other than what you've told me just now.
He doesn't give any examples of how it was misused in the 1980s, but says "...but since for a professor merely being the subject of a sexual harassment complaint would be a disaster whether the complainant was reasonable or not..."
Did this mechanism support women? Perhaps. Was it also misused? Perhaps. Does it support his argument? I don't think I agree that he has an "argument", so much as he is merely telling a story that he believes to be true, and this bit of history is part of that story.
Even if this was never misused in the 1980s, it laid the groundwork for the future.
>Would you trust women in the 1980s to decide for themselves whether or not they were being sexually harassed by a professor in this expanded definition?
Well, I wouldn't trust anyone, in any time period, to have all the power of a judge, jury, and executioner. What I quoted above from footnote 5 indicates that. If there is any kind of accusation, it should be taken seriously, but it should also go through the proper procedure for determining guilt while presuming innocence.
Handing the female students of the 1980s virtually unlimited power to ruin the lives of others with just a word could be said to be "supporting" them, sure, but that comes at the cost of everyone else.
> So who was misusing this? Basically no one.
He gives no examples of this being misused in the 1980s, but he does give an example from the 21st century with Larry Summers.
> I have not heard of any professors suffering from false accusations of sexual harassment.
What can I say to your anecdotes, except... "Great!" Or perhaps it's not great that dozens of your friends have had such bad experiences with their professors.
First, let me say that your comment is thoughtful and makes many good points, and it lacks so many of the strawman arguments that some others have laid out.
Thank you for that.
That said…
> Do you think that men were going around in the 80s accusing professors of sexual harassment?
Yes.
I will be sure to tell my roommate from college that you don’t think he exists.
> So who was misusing this? Basically no one. Who was benefiting from it? Women. So this is not priggish in any sense.
I’ve been involved directly or indirectly with the academic world since the 80s.
The best I can tell, you weren’t alive then. I’m not sure who you got your information from, but it seems to be selective. There have been more than a few abusers of the “expanded definition”.
These provide some well-documented examples of questionable title ix implementation. There are many more examples if you look for them.
> I have had quite literally dozens of friends tell me their experiences where professors dehumanized, belittled them
I’m a straight, white male (allegedly a privileged class in these situations), and this has happened to me more than a few times, usually from professors (usually older) who were known to have a bad attitude.
I imagine that a lot of these cases are not related to being a woman — it’s just general shithead behavior from the professor that should probably be addressed by the administration, but not under the umbrella of title ix or sexual harassment.
Of course, crossing the line of asking for sexual favors does fall under that umbrella.
As for anecdata, I know of:
- a professor who was investigated for sexual harassment and inappropriate touching for… wait for it… tapping students on the shoulder to get their attention in a silent way. I was the observer. I saw what he did. When I asked the accuser if this was the behavior she was referring to, she said yes. It was a total nothingburger, but it put a massive stress on his life unnecessarily. An appropriate complaint/suggestion would have been to ask him to speak softly from a distance, which is what he did moving forward. There was no reason to put this under the umbrella of sexual harassment.
- a k-12 teacher who was accused of sexual harassment for engaging in standard classroom safety procedures. Lost his job. Later found not guilty on the criminal side, and won a civil lawsuit for wrongful termination (and other things). In this case, it was the administration weaponizing title ix against a teacher while putting minors (the students) into the middle of it.
- a professor was accused of sexual harassment for… again… wait for it… sliding a handout across the table to a student in a small graduate seminar… after the student decided to sit as far as possible from everyone else in the seminar. This was her statement, and it was corroborated by other students, and the action was not seen as sexual or aggressive by anyone else. This student had accused every professor she had taken a class from with some sort of abuse, so the investigation was cursory. Again, why should someone like this be able to weaponize some of the powerful systems of title ix so frivolously?
Lest you believe that this is only a teacher/professor thing, similar examples exist in administration as well as the private sector. Often they aren’t spoken about publicly in order to avoid giving other bad actors ideas that they can work with.
I could go on, but I will spare you.
Let me be clear, I do believe that something needed to be done in the 80s to address callous behavior (both by educators and by the population at large), but I think that too many actions started to be categorized as sexual harassment that were probably better addressed in a different way (probably much lower key) and under a different label. Sexual harassment accusations end up being a scorched-earth approach to conflict resolution, and sometimes the best way to affect change of minor issues is with a deft touch.
Getting back to the original point, when I read pg’s essay, my experiences jibed with his interpretation of events during that time frame. It’s fine to disagree with him, but I hope that folks will at least take a charitable read of his interpretation of the zeitgeist of that time — at a minimum, it passes the sniff test for me.
Thats a good call out, I was definitely being hyperbolic re: no one was misusing the expanded title IX definitions, and I appreciate the anecdata, since you're right that I was not alive back then and so don't have a grasp of exactly what it was like. I trust you that it happened back then, and I have also seen similar situations happen now.
> I imagine that a lot of these cases are not related to being a woman — it’s just general shithead behavior
I agree, a lot of these cases are just shithead behavior, but a lot of them are not, and were overtly sexual in nature (though not direct, but maybe thats up to interpretation), or just overtly sexist. E.g. discussing sexual fantasies or their ongoing sexual escapades, commenting on bodies in a sexual manner that may not be an advance but instead negative in nature etc. But I would agree even within that, title IX may sometimes be overkill, and I've said that to friends and peers myself.
But this exchange touches upon why I still think PGs essay is not worth a charitable read, and just overall more or less harmful. We both have anecdata about correct and incorrect uses of title IX, ways that title IX could be better, etc. How society should treat this and other issues relating to class and abuses of power is an important discussion to have and should be ongoing. What PG is doing is claiming that changes to title IX (along with his other examples of wokeness/priggishness) are in conflict with "truth":
>Surely if truth should prevail anywhere, it should be in universities; that's supposed to be their specialty; but for decades starting in the late 1980s the politically correct tried to pretend this conflict didn't exist.
Which, given your anecdata, is sometimes a fair assessment, and given mine, sometimes unfair. But PG does not allow this nuance in his arguments, and completely disregards the problems any of his examples were trying to treat in the first place. In fact he claims that the thought process that leads to these changes causes disaster, and need to be stopped.
So PG is not directly arguing whether or not the 1980s title IX change was effective in its goals, but instead arguing that the type of thought that lead to that change (and others) simply needs to be stopped entirely. There is no allowance in his argument to affect change, with a deft touch or otherwise, to these societal issues. The only change he suggests are ways to stop or tune out those trying to solve these issues.
Contrast that with Adrienne maree brown's essay https://adriennemareebrown.net/2018/05/10/we-will-not-cancel... Although a different type of writing for a different crowd, it also acknowledges that cancel culture (or wokeness, priggishness, whatever) is harmful and must come to an end, but acknowledges that the problems that have spawned it are real and still need to be fixed.
> We must all do our work. Be accountable and go heal, simultaneously, continuously. It’s never too late.
All great points, and I think we more or less see eye to eye on most matters as they currently stand.
But getting back to pg’s essay and the zeitgeist of the late 80s and early 90s…
> But PG does not allow this nuance in his arguments, and completely disregards the problems any of his examples were trying to treat in the first place. In fact he claims that the thought process that leads to these changes causes disaster, and need to be stopped.
In the quote above my quote of you, pg was talking about how “political correctness” began to limit the ability to discuss heterodox ideas at universities. He was lamenting the fact that “the search for truth” had given way to “the search for ideas that generally do not offend” (my wording, not his).
He gives an example of Larry Summers discussing a theory of Darwin’s. Whether that theory is right or wrong is irrelevant — the mere discussion of it cost him his very high profile job because it made some people feel uncomfortable. Note that Larry Summers continued to have great jobs after being ousted as Harvard’s president (including remaining a professor at Harvard), so it’s not like anyone that mattered actually thought he did anything particularly heinous, it was just a forced and capricious move in the performative art of “social justice”.
This happened in many other lower profile examples, and it produced (and has continued to produce) a chilling effect on the discussion of ideas that might be offensive to certain groups (mainly the folks that pg is referring to in his essay — call them whatever you want).
So why is this important?
1. When ideas, especially controversial ones, can’t be discussed, then research areas tend to end up at local maxima. This is incredibly regressive and limiting for research fields. Note that this already exists by way of not being able to challenge the ideas of certain researchers while they are still active/alive, and limiting this by not being able to challenge ideas that certain groups might find offensive (even if backed up by data) is even more restrictive. I’m guessing this is one reason why pg regularly takes shots at the socials sciences — the discussion of ideas is often to limited to that which is fashionable/acceptable to a small group, and progress in the field languishes and is limited because of that.
2. Ideas that are important but controversial end up either being shelved or (at best) discussed behind closed doors rather than openly. As a simple example, when scientists realized that challenging certain aspects of the efficacy of covid vaccines (a completely normal and relatively banal topic in public health circles) was grounds for getting canceled, they just had to do it in secret. By limiting the pool of people who can discuss a matter, the ideas are either less finely honed or take longer to hone. In the case of Covid, this literally cost lives. There are many ideas out there that fall into this category, and what is happening is that these researchers are either researching in relative silence (loss for the world, imho) or they are just leaving academia and either going to the private sector (where research is sometimes not shared for competitive reasons) or just leave academia completely (thereby thinning the pool of talent, also a loss for the world and the search for truth, imho). As a former academic myself, I can just say… I have stories, and they sadden me.
To summarize, the chilling effect I mentioned has made a mockery of certain areas of academics and university life.
Are the benefits better than the losses. I think that’s an interesting discussion that is beyond the scope of a forum like this, but I would say that, as a whole, they are not. Many/most of the benefits that came out of the PC movement and the “woke” movement (as defined by pg) could have been accomplished without the massive amounts of collateral damage that they caused in other areas due to casting an unnecessarily wide net.
[edit: I think this is the crux of the issue. The pc/woke folks seem to take an approach of “at any cost”, while more moderate folks who support many of the same ideas of fairness and equality care deeply about potential collateral damage. IMHO, the pc/woke folks would gain much more support if they were willing to negotiate on this aspect rather than completely ignore it.]
I think that we will find an equilibrium at some point [1], but I think that the “woke” folks are going to find that some of their sacred cows get absolutely destroyed on the way there. Again, it will be an unnecessary over-correction to an unnecessarily extreme intervention. It didn’t have to be this way.
[1] Note that some of the best practitioners have pretty much already found this equilibrium, but much of their best work is (again) only discussed in limited circles. One of the most amazing people I’ve ever met was the head of dei (or some title like that) at a widely known gaming company. We discussed all of the hot-button topics in her field, and she gave answers that I think would be widely acknowledged (e.g., by both “liberals” and “conservatives”) as being actionable and incredibly reasonable. She was a prime example of knowing when to use the deft touch (e.g., someone just wasn’t socialized well) versus using the scorched earth approach (e.g., someone had deep-seated issues that made them a danger to those around them). I think that the “woke” community would win massive kudos from large swathes of the general population if they rallied behind folks like this woman, but the “behavior police” and the “ragers” (my term) would then have no cause celebre, so I doubt it will happen.
Again, thank you for your thoughtful and interesting comments. This exchange has caused me to exercise some rhetorical muscles that I haven’t had to use in a while.
Please continue your search for truth with passion and vigor — I’m certain that you will wield that knowledge and power constructively.
>I think PG's problem is with the prigs, not the lgbt movement itself. Can these be separated?
You're essentially asking if the LGBT movement can be separated from the exact kind of activism that's enabled the advances in LGBT rights that we've seen since the 1960s. In a word, no, they can't be separated. The 'priggishness' of one or two decades ago is the moral truism of the present. Here, for example, is a spoof flyer in the British satirical magazine Private Eye published in 1969:
It's funny. But what's even funnier is many of the items in the list of obviously ridiculous demands (demands that surely signal that Political Correctness Has Gone Mad, etc. etc.) have turned out to be completely reasonable and, in time, uncontroversial.
As always with history, you can imagine how things might have happened differently. For example, you can imagine gay marriage having been legalized without people ever having put social pressure on others not to use homophobic language. The two things are certainly not inherently linked. But then, very few things are inherently linked in history and politics. It's not much of an argument against a certain form of activism to point out that its results could in principle have been obtained by other means.
Maybe the people who voted for Trump genuinely don't like trans people and the prigs have nothing to do with it.
I mean its really fucked up to vote for someone who will dehumanize and villainize a population NOT because you dislike that population but just because SOME OTHER people are speaking about it vehemently. Is this what you are suggesting happened?
Yes that is what I’m suggesting. Don’t ask don’t tell type policy would be acceptable to many voters where current dem policy is not. Fucked up but the voters were heard
"Consumers have emphatically rejected brands that ventured too far into wokeness. The Bud Light brand may have been permanently damaged by it."
Bud Light sent promotional cans to a trans influencer. The content of the promo was completely anodyne, a joke about March Madness. For this, a boycott was led by social conservatives.
Aren't the people who led this boycott "prigs"? Why is Graham referring to them in a neutral-to-laudatory way if he's so opposed to priggishness? What "wokeness" does he think Bud Light was punished for?
The prigs are doing a motte-and-bailey thing, where if you're against them, then they will claim that you're against trans people or gays or minorities or whoever.
> A transgender person is someone who is absolutely miserable when they are not permitted to express the gender they feel.
Is that true of everyone who identifies as trans, though?
I get the impression there is a subset of trans folks for whom this is the case, and many others (perhaps a majority) who simply prefer to use different pronouns than the ones they started with.
I would love to have data that establishes whether that impression is correct or incorrect. There appears to be a puzzling conflation between folks who enjoy or prefer alternative gender expressions and folks whose survival depends on it, and it would be a great relief to know what's really going on.
Yeah, I don't think people understand what transgender person is. They understand being born like that, but not why someone chooses to change their gender. It simply is not in anyone's experience nor there is any analogous thing to bridge understanding. It is NOT like being GAY, because I know and read about gay animals, and say ok, this is not specific to humans. There isn't anything like that for TGs, because animals obviously don't dress. They just are.
I also understood one thing. Most people were paying lip service to TGs. This includes people like Mark and PG. And we like, good employees, are just following what HR says without rocking the boat. I now doubt head of HR knows or understands what this is about.
Also, there are not many people who are TG. Should society adjust itself for everyone on the margin is a question one should ask themselves? Does it adjust for everyone who has kidney disease, or other ailments? I know western countries do a good job of addressing handicapped people in several ways, but the last 1% is very hard and expensive to reach. And I feel we are paying the price. Is TG issue big enough to put Climate Change activism at risk, which it is now? I am not against TG, I am against not prioritizing what's more important.
This is self-evidently incorrect, for a multitude of reasons.
Reason 1: Gay men do not wait to 'realize' they are gay until their 30s, 40s, 50s, or 60s. "Trans" do.
Reason 2: Autogynephilia exists.
Reason 3: Orientation threatens (essentially) no one. But transgenderism directly attacks the sex-based rights that women have long fought for, undermining their rights to sex-segregated spaces (see Tickle vs Giggle or that crazy LA Spa case).
Reason 4: While homosexuality is trivial to define (same-sex attraction), transgenderism is not. Gender was defined as "performing" one's sex, per feminism. But if one "performs" the other sex, they are merely non-gender-conforming, not the other sex! This is why "what is a woman" has become such an infamous question, because trans activists cannot answer it in a way that actually makes sense to anyone.
I could go on. Downvote if you must, but we are post-peak-trans and reality is re-asserting itself; I am glad of it. Without wishing ill towards those caught up in the madness, I say: No. I shall not use pronouns that require me to lie about how I perceive the world, and I deny that the assertion of my right to speak truth is an act of hatred.
This is the part that we all don't really actually converse about. It's not an easy point to prove (genetically, after sequencing the entire human genome, there is not actually any proof that gay is something one "is" intrinsically), but it's also so personal and getting it wrong has such heavy consequences that most avoid the topic.
Graham says he thinks wokeness is a religion, which I think is silly, but ironically religion in the workplace is an effective model here. I don't have to believe in someone's religion to understand that I shouldn't challenge their beliefs in the workplace, nor should I whine that so-and-so took time off for their holiday, and so on. I've regularly seen people make "[holiday greeting] for those who celebrate" remarks in work chats for Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu holidays, and it would be pretty inappropriate to jump in and say (as an atheist myself) "by the way, your god doesn't exist".
Similarly, I don't need to have any particular belief about the nature of gender to respond to my coworkers asking me to use "she" or "he" or "they" to refer to them. It's not my business.
Even trans people don't have a single monolithic set of opinions about what it means to be trans, what gender is, etc. The bar for not offending most people is extremely low.
Your analogy is a good one. We can respect people's religious beliefs and understand that challenging them isn't appropriate in a work environment.
But this isn't about a work environment. There are many issues where LGBTQ identities and desires overlap with concerns society has about them. Religion is the same way. American society has chosen to give religions more leeway than most societies do. We are currently choosing that for LGBTQ rights, but it's often predicated on the idea that sexuality and gender identity are innate and immutable. Science doesn't actually back this up, and so the pendulum for us as a society to decide where the boundary between personal rights and societal wants / needs lie is up for debate, except we tend to avoid the topic. That's what I meant.
I agree with you about a transgender person who is 23, but not about anyone who is claiming to be transgender at 13. That is way too young to be sure of such things, and peer pressures/influences exist.
The current backlash is mostly caused by the hardcore activists pressuring for "the alternatives are either gender-affirming care or SUICIDE! SUICIDE! even for 13 y.o.'s"
This attitude is so hysterical that it cannot stand for long.
This does not feel like at all a good faith reading of the situation. Hardcore anti trans-activists on the right would like to make life so miserable for transpeople as to essentially eliminate them from public life entirely. That is the context in which these supposedly hysterical responses emerge. I say supposedly hysterical because transgender people of all ages do commit suicide at a higher rate than other groups. This should be considered a public health emergency but it largely isn't because transgender people are the most useful scapegoat of the day (even better than immigrants). Of course that doesn't mean that every child who questions their self identity should be given immediate medical intervention, but neither does it mean we should deny care for all.
"Hardcore anti trans-activists on the right would like to make life so miserable for transpeople as to essentially eliminate them from public life entirely."
You may be right, but the anti-trans backlash in the context of the anti-woke backlash is much wider than just a few hardcore anti-trans activists on the far right. And it mostly revolves around two issues:
a. Very young kids being treated in invasive or hard-to-revert ways on flimsy evidence.
b. People with male musculature competing in women's sports leagues.
If these two things go away, the popular reaction will significantly moderate itself, maybe into gay-marriage-like acceptance levels.
But these two things won't be broadly acceptable anywhere soon, if ever.
Those two things already barely exist. I’m skeptical it’s possible, in a nation of hundreds of millions, to get them much closer to not existing than they already are.
So if those are the parts really bothering people… it sure seems like a case of looking for something to be upset about, in which case attempting to address their grievances won’t help. Or, a case of being told by people who are exaggerating the situation that these are actually really big deals, then not bothering to check whether that’s true. And in that second scenario, I don’t think making reality even closer to what they prefer than it already is will convince them of anything, so again, why bother to try to address their concerns?
Their perception is out of phase with what’s actually going on, that needs to be fixed before any useful discussion about some nugget of a point they may hypothetically have or helpful nuance their perspective might provide can meaningfully be engaged with.
This is not how politics works. Politics is about spectacle, not facts. In order to turn people pro-trans the movement needs to come out emphatically against those two things. Make a spectacle out of it. “We’re just like you” consistently works
It is more like "outrageous things dominate the news cycle". It is not even a new thing; on a similar note, already in the 1990s, people started believing widely that child abduction from the street was a real danger in their own communities.
That said, the politicians meet the demand, sometimes to their own detriment. The Trump campaign could only deploy the "Trump is for you, Kamala is for they/them" slogan because Kamala herself, in 2020, felt the need to conform to then-prevailing winds and declare that she would fund gender-change surgeries for prisoners from taxpayers money.
Is that a thing? No, as far as we know, 0 prisoners asked for a taxpayer-funded gender change surgery before or after, and there was probably no risk for Kamala in 2020 if she brushed that question aside as marginal and irrelevant.
But she wanted to prove her progressive credentials on a thing that barely existed, and the thing that barely existed turned viciously against her four years later.
Maybe it would be better if politicians just didn't chase barely existing things in EITHER DIRECTION.
> The Trump campaign could only deploy the "Trump is for you, Kamala is for they/them" slogan because Kamala herself, in 2020, felt the need to conform to then-prevailing winds and declare that she would fund gender-change surgeries for prisoners from taxpayers money.
She was asked a question about it once by Fox, because Trump had brought it up, and answered that yes, she would follow the law and not deny medically necessary gender affirming care, and noted that the Trump administration had also followed the law in the same way. It was a response to an unfounded fact-free attack, prompted by a question from an unfriendly network. She didn’t bring it up again.
You have not found an example of a leftist politician chasing barely-existing things in this example—the opposite, in fact, she was playing defense to right wingers trying to make something out of nothing at all.
Do prominent democrats do this, on some topics? Probably! But they don’t have a media machine and strategy structured around that as a core activity.
[edit] I mean, they do this because it works, of course. Look at the thread on PG’s piece, and this one. It’s clearly working to get people riled up and shift the zeitgeist, reality be damned. “Welfare queens”, that was a fun one, and so successful that I bet 35+% of Americans who’ve heard the term still think it was an actual problem. Some fizzle (“they’re eating the pets!”) but they’re not punished for those instances, so why not endlessly throw out BS and see what sticks? Some of it does, and then we’re all talking about a bunch of basically-fake grievances instead of anything that matters, and they may even use the BS to advance positions that do affect things that matter. It’s so very tedious to deal with.
The ACLU had her fill out a form where she agreed to that position in 2020. That’s why it was a topic that Fox could ask about. This is absolutely a case of a tiny minority making a point of making the candidate take a fringe position, or be bullied by the activist class.
I don't get why is there so much energy wasted on these non issues:
> a. Very young kids being treated in invasive or hard-to-revert ways on flimsy evidence.
Leave it to the doctors/counsellors/psychologists and parents. They know best. If my kids wanted to change their gender I would sure appreciate if the state wasn't making it any more difficult.
> b. People with male musculature competing in women's sports leagues.
So a man won a boxing match with women. Who cares? Sports are entertainment. They have never been fair. Women boxers have a federation they can decide themselves who gets to play with who. No need for state to get involved.
There are clearly broken experts addicted to the fact that SRS sterilize recipients. As much as I would support people with GID, there's something very broken about the field.
Just anecdata but my sister was encouraged to change her gender by multiple different therapists. She later “outgrew” that for lack of a better term and has emphatically told me that listening to them was a mistake. Sometimes parents know best idk.
Sports are more than just entertainment. There is no way for the state to avoid getting involved when the sports are run through publicly funded schools. And this impacts more than just boxing. At some point the state has to decide whether inclusion or fair play is more important. At least for sports that involve strength and speed we can't have it both ways. There are no easy answers here, and we can't just pretend the issue doesn't matter.
It's not considered a public health emergency because the suicide claim is bullshit and is only trotted out by activists to try to manipulate others into accepting their demands.
Anyway it's better to listen to gender critical feminists on the left, rather than anti-trans reactionaries on the right, because the former have a principled and humane opposition to the ideology of trans, that is based on women's rights and safeguarding of children.
> Anyway it's better to listen to gender critical feminists on the left, rather than anti-trans reactionaries on the right, because the former have a principled and humane opposition to the ideology of trans, that is based on women's rights and safeguarding of children.
They don't and it isn't. On this issue terfs share policy goals with the far right almost exactly, to the point where self-identified white nationalists keep showing up to support them at their actions. They used to experience or feign discomfort about this but since 2022 or so they are openly allied in some regions, especially the UK.
>Hardcore anti trans-activists on the right would like to make life so miserable for transpeople as to essentially eliminate them from public life entirely
Who are these hard core anti-trans activists? Are they mainstream? (Please dont say JK Rowling)
Stephen Miller just gave a speech last night saying that trans people don't exist, and the new President he advises is issuing an executive order to that effect.
There is a social movement that seeks the suppression of all transgender expression, including by fully informed adults. They led with “save the kids” for the emotional impact, as many other well-organized social movements have in the past.
It works because concerns about kids are real. But it’s important to see and understand the greater goals of the movement, and how it affects everyone. The essay at the top of this HN thread was written by an adult, expressing their adult concerns.
I agree, and I hope you stand up for your sense of the middle. Because there is something going on that is way larger than kids. Look at how quickly this adult essay got flagged off the HN homepage. Look at what the president said in his inaugural address today.
I think being gay and having gender identity disorder are two things that are somewhat related culturally, but not that much as a condition.
Being gay has no negative consequences and when homosexuals are left to live how they want, they are happy and overall have no problems. Also, this identity doesn't change much during their lives.
In comparison with that, people who are delusional, are not feeling any better when they recognize their delusion. And it might actually be dangerous to affirm them in their delusion.
People with GID are somewhere on a spectrum between homosexuals and delusional people. Even the most affirming countries are clearly not enough. They still have a very high suicide rate. Plenty of them detransition, especially kids. There is statistically significant prevalence of mental disorders. 58% of people with GID have at least one psychiatric diagnosis (source https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6830528/).
Personally, I think that society is accepting gays for a good reason and not affirming people with GID for a good reason, too. It's not bigotry, it's a recognition of reality.
The highest risk of suicide for trans people is how the surrounding people treat them. Additionally, regret of transitions is lower than for most surgeries. There is no real reason that allowing trans people to live their lives as they please causes any harm to them, it's only moral panic.
I'm not a target of tech's fascist turn, but my head is still spinning from the change of direction. When I entered this industry it was for hackers, nonconformists, weirdos, nerds, people who don't care about titles or clothes or what your genitals are.
What particularly stings is that the vipers at the top tricked people into giving away an enormous amount of intellectual property. Zuck is removing tampons from the men's room—will he also remove open source code written by queer people from his company? Of course not.
I feel like the way you describe it came from the people who came of age in the 70s and made so much of what we now see as “hacker culture.”
Now, the leadership is mostly people who came of age a couple of decades later, and got sandwiched between the elders’ ancient wisdom and a newly democratizing toxic online culture.
Some found the right path, many hung out with (or were) the sort of people who pretend to pretend to have heinous opinions on 4chan and are finally feeling comfortable enough to drop the facade.
That hacker spirit is alive and well, and will be long after the fascists for one simple reason:
The same open minded creative attitude that fully and warmly welcomes people who are different, is also what makes us better able to solve science and tech problems in a creative way. The fascists need the hackers, but we don’t need them.
Authoritarianism is fundamentally culturally incompatible with innovation. Nazi cryptography was broken by an eccentric gay man, and so on- thousands of such examples.
Operation paperclip? A huge number of scientists and engineers unable to accomplish much under an authoritarian regime, but then driving massive innovation and discovery when freed from it, is exactly my point. Even when employing brilliant creative people authoritarians will always setup a work culture and organization fundamentally incompatible with innovation where traits like creativity and honesty are seen as threats, and aggressively punished.
Even in the USA, you can see the effects of this- highly innovative research programs from Skunkworks to DARPA always have a radically anti-authoritarian work culture.
They did accomplish a lot you just don't hear about it because history is written by the victor. Think about the numbers it took to defeat them: USSR, USA, British Empire, French Empire, and China.
The reason the scientists were gobbled up by the US and USSR is precisely because of the knowledge they developed during and why everyone else was hanged.
One can argue a lot of the advancements made until the era of computers was made because of that horrible war
Not pro authoritarian regimes but logically if your life depended on creating something 9/10 you will
I do hear all about it because my wife is an obscure history buff interested in Ww2 and Soviet history, and I am particularly interested in foreign science and technology we don’t here about in the USA, and enjoy learning about soviet research and other science that still hasn’t made it back into mainstream western knowledge.
Authoritarianism does not fundamentally make it impossible to develop technology, it just stifles innovation and creativity to a degree that creates a noticeable disadvantage. Even US academic and government research institutions suffer from this to a substantial extent. Even being under stress for your life will be motivating but stifle your own creativity to an extent- and that physiological dynamic itself is very much central to how differently authoritarian organizations function, as they maintain a high stress environment to motivate and control people- which it does, but not in a way conducive to creative thought or risk taking. You also have the aspect of just giving individuals much less freedom and independence: needing to justify and seek approval up front for every little experiment, etc.
Just wanted to thank you and the commenter above for your thoughtful comment chain. It’s exceedingly rare to encounter such thoughtful nuanced conversation online.
I also wanted to add that although I chose a specific example from WWII, I agree with you that this dynamic I am taking about ended up not being a decisive factor in the war.
I would argue that this dynamic was one reason we got the bomb first- and that the leadership and culture of the Manhattan project was uniquely effective, and the culture persists today in the USA national labs to great effect, but the bomb also happened too late to be a factor.
> When I entered this industry it [... didn't] care about titles or clothes or what your genitals are.
Are we experiencing the same industry? Because as an LGBT person, I have experienced a tech industry so drunk and fixated on identity that it can't shut up about it. It's patronizing, insulting, and divisive.
I got online in about 98 and had many many friends in online games or on AIM / AOL and it took until many years, maybe even a decade, after FB for me to even discover what some of these people looked like. The standard "ASL?" and just chatting about life was what happened, so I agree with the comment you replying to.
Corporate isn't an AOL chatroom. I remember those childhood days, and you're right. But the corporate environment I worked in was nothing like that. From about 2014 or so, identity was front and center.
This post [1] mentions a couple of the most salient anecdotes about my experience, but I've got so many more.
I was told I couldn't hire or refer white people on numerous occasions, certain groups (mostly the "WomEng" group) were given nice lunches and off sites and I had to take their oncall or interviews, I was told to cover for the work of underperforming engineers for well over a year before anything was done about it (a couple of non-special friends were simply let go), we all had to sit and watch other engineers get awards for their race (exactly what it sounds like), we had our walls painted with caricatures of our special identity groups. Every bit of it felt like an HR gimmick.
And that's barely scratching the surface.
It was one of the weirdest things I've experienced. And it carried on for years.
I tried to participate. I was an early proponent of this stuff. But when it started turning into favoritism, inauthentic gestures, and began feeling more like policing than something uplifting, it demoralized me and made me feel shitty.
2014 is way past the "hackers, nonconformists, weirdos, nerds, people who don't care about titles or clothes or what your genitals are" period of the industry. I entered the industry in 2011 and it was already bland, corporate, and hyper-capitalist by that point.
My sense is that the term is alluding to the late 90's or even earlier.
So a person you knew personally for years asked for your respect and understanding of an extremely difficult and personal decision, and you thought "Wow, I didn't care about this 5 minutes ago but now I've decided to get really bitter and vindictive about it"
In summary, Conway and others conducted a years-long campaign of harassment against psychology professor J. Michael Bailey. This included several attempts to get him fired from his job, a series of vexatious complaints to his licensing board, and - most infamously of all - posting photos online of his children suggesting that he had raped them and asking if his young daughter was "a cock-starved exhibitionist".
It was highly vindictive, highly unhinged behavior. They disagreed with his published work and rather than attempt to refute it, attacked him personally and extensively.
how did free speech become fascist? even in this ludicrous essay, which claims meta announced it will "increase the hate speech people like me receive". no, it announced reduced filtering of content.
what is more conformist than forcing people to adopt your speech and view points under threat? what you don't realize is the hackers and nonconformists _are_ taking the tech back, they're taking it back from this oppressive bureaucratic regime that stifles creativity and forces everyone to tiptoe within its absurd religion of rules and newspeak. they're taking it back from dei consultants and hr departments. make it about merit and hacking, not about dogmatic adherence to a (fundamentally incorrect and bad imo) social cause.
What “fascism” are we talking about here? A company pulling tampons from men’s rooms? Companies scaling down DEI departments that advocated (probably illegally) in favor of gender and race-based discrimination?
Or are you speaking more broadly about the U.S.? Is it fascist to revert to a sane border policy that’s aligned with what most U.S. citizens and legal immigrants want? Or an executive branch that’s actually run by a democratically-elected individual, instead a non-elected shadow government that governed on behalf of a dementia-afflicted president whose condition was hidden from the American public for years? The same government that censored the media? Or the tech companies that willingly obliged with the government censorship? The same tech companies that fired employees for expressing opinions that differed from those held by the liberal establishment?
Sorry, I’m getting very confused if we’re turning into the fascism or finally turning away from it.
It is fascism to create a false narrative that all of our problems are caused by people with a different skin color, country of origin, gender identity, etc., and that it justifies setting up an authoritarian government that unjustly persecutes those groups and anyone that disagrees or tries to stop them.
Immigrants are welcome in America, but we do not have an open border. We have an immigration process that must be followed, just like every other country on Earth.
Violating the immigration process is breaking the law. Enforcing our laws is not “unjustly persecuting” people.
If you can’t be intellectually honest and distinguish between illegal and legal immigration, or the fact that the U.S. does not have an open border and US citizens overwhelmingly do not want an open border with the rest of the world, there’s no basis for a conversation.
It is unreasonable to pretend this movement in the USA is even remotely content with strictly enforcing current immigration law, or welcoming to legal immigrants. The foundation of the movement is based on fundamentally dehumanizing and hating immigrants- with blatantly dishonest rhetoric like “they’re eating our pets” and discussion of how to revoke 100% legal full US citizenship by widespread denaturalization under dishonest and fabricated accusations. Just yesterday there was an unconstitutional executive order with a motivated misinterpretation of the law that aims to deny citizenship to US born children.
I am an academic scientist and many of my coworkers are foreign born and all here legally with green cards or visas. These are brilliant people with PhDs developing tech that is massively stimulating the US economy. Every single one of them knows they are unwanted by this current administration and political movement and is making family preparations for forced deportation. I noticed about half of our foreign postdocs suddenly needed to “visit home” this month, and I expect many are terrified and don’t plan to return. A similar terror to what trans people are facing, as discussed here. New hires have been refusing prestigious job offers for lesser offers in other countries.
The core of the movement is driven by hatred and dehumanization of specific groups of people- any particular immigration policy is only secondary and a first step.
Focusing on the immigrant aspect alone is also not appropriate here, when they are systematically implementing the entire philosophy and systems of fascism in all other aspects as well.
Who “vilifies immigrants”? President Trump is married to an immigrant, as is Vice President Vance. And many of Trumps advisors are immigrants. And he has repeatedly said he wants America to attract the best people from around the world. You mean he vilified illegal immigrants specifically. That’s fair, he did. But he’s not obligated to speak kindly about people who flout our laws.
> Is the republican party full of bright young twenty year olds?
An absurd question, especially when outgoing Democratic president is a senile octogenarian. Twenty year olds traditionally favor Democrats, (although many shifted towards Trump in this election) but how is that evidence of fascism?
> Can you post “cis” on twitter?
Could you speak freely about Covid-19’s origins on Facebook? Is censorship only fascism when you don’t like it?
He's not obligated to do anything, man, but I can point at what he does and call it fascism.
I know you may struggle with this because the American education system is awful, but if you pay a tiny fraction of attention to what American senators are like, you'll come to know that in a fistfight or a battle of the wits there is a non-zero number of senators that Biden could beat. This is not a Red vs Blue issue, as simple as that might be for you.
You're claiming America is "turning away from fascism" because of free-er speech. Citation needed. The Christian right is famously book-ban happy, my friend.
It's really quite narrowly scoped. There's no indication I could see that he doesn't still hold the same basically liberal politics (he included explicit disclaimers, for all the good that did); he might still be fine with transgender identity. He just wanted to talk about how the particular loudmouth brand of annoying leftist came to prominence. He even had a decent definition of them beyond "leftist I don't like", and put them in a broader context.
Even in the HN thread on the essay, it felt like hardly anyone actually read and understood it, just brought their own assumptions and intellectual allergies and let them run wild. It would be great if people could discuss these issues rationally, but the vast majority can't. Everyone is on a hair trigger.
It is not narrowly scoped, it states that we need to stop another "wave" of "social justice piggishness" which would include challenging the gender identity framework the author is using among other things. It also makes broad claims about social justice politics writ large.
Having read it carefully I found the hn thread interesting and it correctly criticized the essay's lazy reasoning.
Unless pg just now edited it out, you're making false quotes and misrepresenting his words.
I cannot find the quote "social justice piggishness" or the word "gender" in his essay. Every single mention of the word "wave" is attached to "wave of political correctness" or a close variation thereof.
Thanks for this. I've always considered PC an entirely different thing, but after perusing the comments here, and given our new president's attitude toward the people affected, I can see your point.
Are you sure? How many of us in tech actually made decisions that made social media how it is? How many of us were even complicit in implementing it? I wasn't. Most of "tech" is not social media. Now how many of us were sounding the alarm and trying to build alternatives?
I don't think we should put all the blame on social media anyway.
My startup idea is a iPhone/Android virtual keyboard that detects the user is writing something toxic, and refuses to cooperate. Using AI. Who wants to fund me?
My other idea is a video/audio communication app that mutes the user if they become toxic.
Yes, I'm only joking. I wonder how many will be triggered and foam about "But who determines what is toxic!?!". That makes me think about the joke about feminists where the setup is "I have a joke about feminists..." and punchline is someone from the audience yelling "That's not funny!" straight away.
From the essay: "Consumers have emphatically rejected brands that ventured too far into wokeness. The Bud Light brand may have been permanently damaged by it."
What Bud Light did was hire an influencer to promote their product in an Instagram video (and then of course they later backtracked). The only thing "woke" about the video was that the influencer was a trans woman.
If Paul Graham would like to elaborate on this passage meant I welcome it, but my read was that supporting a trans woman falls under his definition of "wokeness".
Indeed. I mean, an article on censorious "priggishness" could have easily picked outrage mobs boycotting brands over deeming a trans person worthy of association as evidence that the "woke" people didn't have a monopoly on self righteousness and censoriousness.
Instead, he effectively endorsed the position that trans people were "woke" simply for existing and the consumers cancelling them had a point.
I read this less as "the Bud Light campaign was morally wrong because it was woke" and more as "the Bud Light campaign went disastrously badly for its brand and sales because it was woke". I have heard people call it "the gay beer", which is a pretty bad branding change when double-digit percentages of your (former) drinkers are homophobic and you sponsor NASCAR.
One of my personal beliefs is that paedophiles who never act on their inclinations and instead seek treatment are doing the right thing, but I sure as hell wouldn't market a beer using that belief.
How was the campaign "woke" unless you define "trans people exist and should be supported" as woke? If Graham dislikes prigs, shouldn't he be criticizing the censorious social conservatives that led the boycott?
I define "trying to market a beer that's commonly drunk by Republicans using a trans influencer" as woke because it's:
A) ineffective at marketing the beer, because it prioritises a social justice objective instead (making it a political stance)
B) ineffective at changing any Bud drinker's mind on trans people, because it prioritises aggressive performance (making it woke)
The problem is not "oh, trans people exist, that's so woke"; it's doing activism in a way that harms both your company, because your brand is now "the gay beer", and trans people, who have to put up with a public debate about the existence of Dylan Mulvaney as well as a damaging boycott that scares marketing departments and moves the Overton window rightward.
What social justice objective is being prioritized? By whom? Go watch the actual video — it's a flat joke about her not knowing what March Madness is but drinking Bud Lights anyway. It's completely unremarkable influencer #spon content. Her being trans isn't even mentioned.
The goal was not to change Bud drinkers' opinions. It was to expand the market for Bud Light to new demographics (women, younger people). We know this is true because the exec who spearheaded the overall campaign said as much before the boycott, and Mulvaney was just a small part of the strategy. I don't think most Bud drinkers were expected to even know about the campaign, since it wasn't directed at them in any way, and A-B chose one of the least confrontational trans influencers possible.
I'm not defending A-B here -- they ended up throwing Mulvaney and everyone involved under the bus in a shamefully craven display -- but I believe them when they say they hadn't actually intended to get involved in the culture war.
The act of taking a beer with a strong existing brand that's popular among a mixed demographic that skews slightly Republican, and then marketing it with a "bland safe commercial" that intentionally uses a transwoman as the ambassador for said brand, is pure wishful thinking.
Okay, yes, you and I agree that we're not offended by the ad and it's not going to change our beer-drinking habits. We are not the only people on this earth.
The performance and aggression come from this silly dance where I say "if it caused impactful boycotts against the brand and made marketing departments afraid of using transpeople in ads, then despite my opinions it was neither bland nor safe" and then you say "but my opinion is that it should have been bland and safe". We don't live in that world. We should not stick our heads in the sand and pretend we live in that world, nor should we lash out at the world for failing us. We should learn from the failure of the campaign to achieve either commercial or activist success.
Is "please don't do activism when it's obviously going to be counterproductive" so ridiculous to you?
Jim Beam did an an actual ad campaign with Ru Paul's Drag Race at the same time. Travis Tritt (who supported the Bud Light boycott) tried to get people to go after them, too. It went nowhere, as had most attempts to protest LGBT marketing. Even Bud Light had done much more overt pro-LGBT campaigns before. The difference was that Ben Shapiro had Mulvaney in the crosshairs and A-B fumbled the response.
Again, the question isn't whether the ad campaign was good, but what it says about Graham's definition of "woke".
> Even in the HN thread on the essay, it felt like hardly anyone actually read and understood it, just brought their own assumptions and intellectual allergies and let them run wild. It would be great if people could discuss these issues rationally, but the vast majority can't. Everyone is on a hair trigger.
I think the essay was a rorschach test for readers. On its face, it has a very reasonable and measured tone. It also has some nods to the other side like the disclaimer you mentioned. However, it starts from some uncharitable premises (e.g., its definition of wokeness) and contains unnecessary gibes (e.g., against social sciences). More importantly, it takes the tone of a social sciences essay, a discipline that he mocks, without any of the rigor. There are not sources for his claims about the origins of wokeness or how universities operated from the 80's until today, you just have to take him at face value. It gives the illusion of being erudite without doing any of the actual work.
I'm too lazy to search my comment history, but I wrote a comment on the original post about pg's essay that I did pretty much agree with what pg wrote, and so consequently I agree with most of what you wrote.
But that said, I definitely could not ignore the timing of pg's essay, and it felt plain gross to me. It felt like a lazy, convenient pile-on at that moment, even if pg's position had been largely consistent for a long time. I've seen all these tech leaders now lining up to point out the problems of the left (again, a lot of which I agree with), so where is the essay about the embarrassingly naked grift of the POTUS launching a ridiculous and useless meme coin just before his inauguration?
Also, there was nothing in that essay that I felt was particularly insightful or that I learned much from. It was, honestly, some bloviating pontification from someone who I now think holds his ideas in much higher regard than they deserve.
I can explain the "pile-on", because the climate has been unsafe for the last 10 years or so he might have gotten cancelled harder, with tangible business impact to his acquaintances. I know because I faced similar dilemmas as I commented on that article.
You know who you can't speak up against because they might feel upset, that your speech is mean, unkind or malicious? The privileged class. There has not been equality on social discourse for the last 10 years or so, at least for the intellectual crowd. I see this as a natural caused power balance cycle.
I can largely agree with this as well. There were plenty of interesting and valid critiques people could make of the content, if they actually read it. I'm seeing a few of them in the replies to my comment here, but more intellectual sneezes.
The pile-on isn't a coincidence. Forgive me for the tin foil hat, but there was an absolutely massive amount of investment in Silicon Valley coming from Saudi Arabia in the last year, and reading the tea leaves from the public statements of all of the partners of these firms, those investments absolutely came with strings attached. Mark Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, who were both longtime democratic donors but only occasional-endorsers, suddenly announced their support for and endorsement of Trump almost simultaneously with an announcement of $40B from Saudi Arabia. That's just the tip of the iceberg...hundreds of VCs have received funding from SA in the last year, and many of them ended up helping Elon buy twitter and get out of a lawsuit for trying to back out of the twitter deal, and he didn't even have to sell his Tesla stock to do it. Conveniently all within the same month that Elon first met Putin, and first started echoing Putin's "plans" for Ukraine.
It is well known that Donald Trump's deal to sell jets to SA is what elevated Mohammad Bin Salman from Defense Minister to Crown Prince over Bin Nayef. It is also well known that Donald Trump ran political interference for MBS when he had international condemnation for the assassination of Khashoggi...he even was caught bragging about it. And from the best that I can see from the public record, Trump called in all his banked Saudi Arabian favors all at once and Silicon Valley, once the domain of establishment democrats, became the firm territory of MAGA nearly overnight. All it took was money.
Idk if it's just me, but I voted blue in the last 3 presidential elections and I'm way more pissed about the Democrats than the Republicans right now.
They failed the country, so hard, by making poor decisions which made them lose. They did this repeatedly, I think which decisions were the wrong ones is up for debate, but the surest one imo is Joe Biden running again instead of stepping aside and having a real primary.
Anyway, all that is to say that I feel like I understand choosing now as a time to talk about what things you despise most about the left, because a lot of people feel like they failed America and the entire world by losing so decisively for reasons that feel stupid.
It's all about expectations. I expected very little of Trump and expected, something, of the Dems. When my expectations are far out of wack I get pissed.
Very much agree, but as I've found myself saying lately, "As much as I think the Democrats deserved to lose, I can't fathom thinking Trump deserved to win."
This is a widely held view amoung a lot of socialists and left-of-centre folks within America and globally. You could try "Chapo Trap House" podcast if you want to hear this point of view.
This one’s footnote #2 addresses PG’s definition of “woke”, which I agree is useless (I’d go further: that kind’s so inconsequential that it’s nonsense to bring it up unless you’re using those complaints to attack other actions that do maybe have some justification, using the definition as cover to retreat to if called out; if that’s actually the only part you’re complaining about, just don’t write the piece, everyone already dislikes that kind for the same reasons you do)
What is “that kind” referring to? That kind of essay? The first essay? The response essay? That kind of definition? The author? Which author? That kind of person who is aggressively performative? If by “that kind” you mean that last definition, then let’s take one example in that happened recently and address your claim that “that kind” is inconsequential.
Undemocratically, performatively, anointing behind closed doors a weak but social justice signaling candidate to run on the democratic ticket in the recent US election, seems to have been just a wee bit consequential.
Yes - this is exactly how I felt about the "Wokeness" essay. I am constantly afraid that PG is gonna fall down the same strongly right rabbit hole so many of his colleagues have, and he hasn't so far, so seeing the title of the essay was worrying.
When I read it though, I realized he was just using "wokeness" to mean the dogmatic surface level understanding of the subject (IE, not that he was being surface level, but he's talking about people who engage with equality/identity issues in a surface level way). It's kind of a strawman idea, but people like that exist and are annoying. It makes me wonder how many people who are really centrists hate wokeness because they think the most annoying wing of it is representative of the whole movement.
Reading PGs article, I get the sense of someone who doesn't fully understand the thing he's criticising, so makes me hopeful he can learn. But again, I'm always a little afraid that the legit criticizisms of his article will get drowned out by people who reinforce what he says in it.
This is exactly the thing the essay seems to be complaining about. It's not the ethics of equality being targeted, it's the moral hypocrisy.
People put on a false front with offensive messaging claiming support of these groups, but the whole purpose is to build clout or benefit themselves. They don't care about the message at all.
Messages like "I support lgbtq, and if you don't you're a bigot," are self-aggrandizement. "I support lgbtq," is all that's needed if you want people to know they are supported. No one needs to hear it at all if the discussion isn't relevant. Just try to treat everybody with respect.
Your argument is, "Don't say 'I believe X and if you disagree with me you're bad'. Just say, 'I believe X.'"
But then literally in the same sentence, you say, "If you do the thing I don't like (in this case, calling people bigots because they don't support lgbtq) *then you are self-aggrandizing."
"Nobody should be called a bigot for their views on lgbtq, but it's virtuous to call people self-aggrandizing for calling people bigots."
Either name-calling is okay or it's not. You can't have it both ways.
You can argue hypocrisy or about the way the argument is presented here, but it’s beside the point. Saying “there is only one correct opinion on this matter and if you disagree then you’re a bigot” is exactly what is driving people to oppose those opinions, regardless of whether they are correct. It’s just a really, really poor move, in terms of rhetorical strategy.
I agree that people don't like being called out for their views (on race, lgbtq, women, whatever). They would rather be left to believe what they believe in peace and not face the disapprobation of others.
Calling individuals may even further radicalize them, as you say. I am not convinced on this point, I sort of think their mind is not changing either way, but maybe I am wrong.
What I am sure of is, it is not the responsibility of people whose rights are being taken away to be polite to their oppressors for the sake of rhetorical strategy.
> What I am sure of is, it is not the responsibility of people whose rights are being taken away to be polite to their oppressors for the sake of rhetorical strategy.
Re your last paragraph: I feel I'm quite left, but it feels like a lot of these activists are busy trying to make enemies out of everyone, which makes me think "I'll just shut the hell up" and, if I ever get confronted as being a part of the enemy class (I'm a heterosexual male, get the pitchforks!) , I'll just point out, "if you don't want me as your ally, then hey, no worries, I can be your enemy."...
Have you heard of or witnessed someone who was confronted as part of the enemy class just for being a straight male?
Where are you going that you need a contingency plan for this situation? Are you expecting this in a work situation, on a campus maybe, or just walking down the street?
During BLM, I've seen rhetoric that said "If you're silent, then you're part of the problem!". Sheesh! Luckily I don't live in that quasi-apartheid country and don't have to speak out and say how guilty I am for taking my privileges for granted.
I support their right to challenge the oppression, but please, don't make me the enemy if I'm minding my own business. Yes, I get that there's tremendous privilege of being able to not be enraged by the issues...
That's how I feel. Everyone always has to have an "us vs them" methodology. Like you have to take sides. No thank you, I'm apathetic to the situation. I'm not going to deliberately make life worse for anyone or support it.
The mere fact that pg takes the word “woke” seriously tells me he’s fallen for the right-wing doublespeak where they take a word vaguely related to left-wing ideals, pretend it means something else, apply to anyone center-right or leftward, and get the mainstream media and self-conscious centrists like Paul to accept their intentional distortions at face value.
This pattern happens again and again with words and phrases like “liberal”, “socialist”, “Black Lives Matter”, “critical race theory”, “woke”, and “DEI”. Anyone who can’t see through it is either okay with the distortion, or not as good an observer as they think.
It might be reasonable to disregard Mr. Graham if he were somehow abusing the term "woke", but it seems wrongheaded to disregard him due to "the mere fact that [he] takes the word "woke" seriously".
The point OP is making (and it
‘s one that I agree with) is that Graham’s particular usage of the word “woke” as written in his essay functions as a shibboleth for a collection of reactionary beliefs and impulses — not merely that he uses the word, but that he does so in a poorly-defined and pejorative way that is characteristic of the word’s usage in various right-leaning circles.
> This was not the original meaning of woke, but it's rarely used in the original sense now. Now the pejorative sense is the dominant one. What does it mean now?
It's early in the essay, too. Pretty near or above "the fold".
> He just wanted to talk about how the particular loudmouth brand of annoying leftist came to prominence.
Nah, this is just not true about that essay. This is sort of excessive "lets twist what people say with maximum leftist spin so that we can paint everyone who disagree with them as crazy". It is getting repetitive, tiresome and amounts to a massive amount of online gaslighting. Center and left are all supposed to pretend that everyone is leftist just concerned with some extremists, no matter how much it is clear it is not the case, unless someone actually supports nazi party ... and sometimes even longer.
That essay did not even cared about actual history of events either.
I appreciate the author and this article. As an immigrant and person of color, the author's concerns resonate with me. I don't think people like PG or Andreessen are evil bigots. But they are underestimating and enabling a movement that is cruel and exclusionary by design. A movement that they seek to tame and harness, but not understanding that the movement is fundamentally untameable.
I miss the days when the Republican party was led by a President like Bush, who told America that Islam is a religion of peace. And nominees like McCain, who told his supporters that Obama is a decent family man, and a natural-born American. I worry for the future, and my children's place in it.
> I miss the days when the Republican party was led by a President like Bush, who told America that Islam is a religion of peace
At the same time he also said that if you don't agree with him, you're with the terrorists. I do agree that Bush went out of his way to not stigmatize Muslims or Islam, but "don't be a flaming racist" is not that high of a bar to meet, and he was very much not a moderate open to nuanced views (on this topic, and various others). Never mind stuff like Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, torture. I'm not sure it really matters for the Guantanamo Bay whether Bush is or isn't prejudiced against their ethnicity or religion: they're still detained in a camp. Without trail. For years. Being tortured.
McCain defending Obama against vile racist attacks was also not that high of a bar to meet. McCain was also a standard GOP senator during the "obstruct whatever Obama does at all cost" years, never mind how he tried to appeal to the crazy Tea Party fanbase with Palin. I don't entirely dislike the man by the way – I'd say his legacy is mixed and complex.
I guess what I'm trying to say is: don't look at it the past too rose-coloured. The current mess didn't spontaneously come to exist out of nothing. People like Bush and McCain made a pig sty of things, and then were surprised pigs turned up to roll around in the mess. The old "gradually and then suddenly" quip applies not just to bankruptcy.
> I miss the days when the Republican party was led by a President like Bush, who told America that Islam is a religion of peace.
He said this as he invaded a majority muslim country causing the deaths of tens of thousands of muslims. It was perception management, not a genuine concern for muslims. Words are not more important than actions.
Far be it from me to defend GWB, but in fairness he didn't invade them because they were muslim. There were many (poor) reasons for the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, but their primary religion was not among them. If it were, many other Middle Eastern countries would have also been invaded.
Words are not more important than actions. But words can inform us of the intentions behind the actions - which must be considered when casting judgement.
I don't have exact numbers but my understanding is/was the US-led wars into Iraq and Afghanistan didn't cause millions of deaths but the insurrections against the governments established afterwards did. Iraqis killing other Iraqis, Afghans killing other Afghans.
Bush might have been the one who toppled the existing equilibrium of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, but most of the suffering was inflicted by the bloody civil wars (often fueled by third parties such as Iran).
You break it, you bought it. You get zero points for invading a country for no good reason and saying you’re going to bring freedom and democracy while having no realistic plan for actually doing it.
> Islam is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a religion of peace.
It is. The word Islam and Salaam are etymologically tied to the word "peace".
If your definition of peace is "never wages war", well there's no country or political regime in the world like that. Even India, which was liberated by the famous nonviolent philosopher Gandhi, did not last many years without needing to wage war and take territory.
Islam is the only remaining religion with a political element and an existing desire for statehood. You could argue for Judaism (but some of the Orthodox would disagree) also. Back when Christendom had aspirations of statehood, it was also not "peaceful" in the way most people imagine. But this isn't a feature of the religions. It's a feature of world politics. No one can be peaceful and engage meaningfully in world politics. Everyone is propped up by some army somewhere.
You can have many arguments against the social regime, views on gender, etc. Etc. of Islam, but to say it's not peaceful because it is a political entity is just not understanding politics or the world, imo
I'm reasonably sure the GP is referring to the fact that there are explicitly political aspects to Islam (wanting an Islamic state) that don't exist in other religions.
I'm not sure I agree though, as Judaism now has a state and Christianity had one and lost it.
As POC I feel like equity movements in the US have, by far, become majority LGBT+ issues with a minority of racial or religious issues. Many POC cohorts in this election shifted toward Trump and I suspect it has to do with how much diversity initiatives have come to settle around White LGBT+ voices. I don't think I've seen the topic of Islam in America covered in any MSM article in years unless buried deep into an Opinion section.
I like to build bridges between minority groups but the current moment is really about mostly White gender minorities in the US. This is especially fraught right now because many POC communities tend to be more socially conservative than white communities, and LGBT+ acceptance is lower in POC communities than among the general American public.
That said I am not a fan of Trump and the modern MAGA movement's discriminatory politics, lack of respect for rule of law, denial of basic climate realities, and many many other things that I could list for days.
Kindly you're mistaken. I know it feels that way but polls say it isnt.
A solid majority of the US want mass deportation. This moment is about being white, make no mistake, the trans stuff is a side show.
I can't read minds of the POCs who went along with it but my guess is they essentially think they're white enough now and won't be swept up, but their white friends certainly don't see them that way. Likely over the next month (next week really) a lot of them who did vote for him are about to find out.
While I understand the point you're making, I am surprised by the examples you chose.
What Bush's speechwriter wrote, did not stop Bush from authorizing torture stations across the world, murdering hundreds of thousands of Muslim civilians in two failed military occupations, while weakening America vis-a-vis Russia and China, a confrontation that has dominated the past several years. Do not mistake public statements as any indication of actual policy.
As for McCain, his words were "No Ma'am, he is not an Arab, he is a decent family man", which I suppose is addressing misinformation with a decisiveness Republicans wouldn't dream of today.
> As for McCain, his words were "No Ma'am, he is not an Arab, he is a decent family man", which I suppose is addressing misinformation with a decisiveness Republicans wouldn't dream of today.
To be precise: they'd oppose the misinformation if they felt it was to their benefit, embrace it if they felt it was to their benefit, or behave neutrally towards the misinformation when it was brought to their attention... if they felt that was to their benefit.
"who told America that Islam is a religion of peace"
This is something I considered a brazen lie in the interest of stability.
I believe in existence of individual peaceful Muslims, but I don't believe in inherent peacefulness of a religion founded by a warrior who converted Arabia by the sword and which had since seen an endless series of holy wars initiated in the name of Islam.
You can't really build societal understanding on a foundation of such misinformation.
To be clear, Christianity and Judaism aren't "religions of peace" either. Some explicitly anti-militaristic sects like the Amish maybe. But the Abrahamic faiths as such, no.
I haven't said that every Muslim area in the world was converted by the sword.
But Muhammad led a lot of wars, in which thousands died. Which is fairly untypical among the founders of currently widespread religions, though the Old Testament heroes like Joshua can be categorized into a very similar slot.
Having read many of PG's essays from the 2000s and seeing how he communicates now, I can only reach one conclusion. Like Musk, Zuck and the others who got rich quick decades ago, they are too far removed from any kind of "hacker" ethos today, and see everything from 30,000 ft, almost literally. What kind of self-described hacker spends their days advising incubees on the best way to close "high-touch B2B sales"?
They concern themselves with accumulating power first, and maintaining their "innovator" image second. Any empathy or compassion they may have had for the concerns of ordinary people appear to be long gone, except perhaps for their personal friends who may be on the receiving end of state-sanctioned bigotry. Reagan for example ignored AIDS, seeing it as a "gays and minorities" issue, while in private he looked out for the care of his AIDS-afflicted gay actor friend Rock Hudson, who passed from complications in 1985.
Back to PG, see his essay from some years ago, "How People Get Rich Now"[0]. You would think it was ghost-written by an investment bank's IPO division. Every single line is another way of saying "raise money for speculative bet, then go public", ignoring his own decades of experience at YC indicating the overwhelming majority cannot achieve this, in the biggest VC market in the world. Much of the United States population has absolutely no entry point into Sand Hill Road.
A response to that essay from a software engineer provided a sobering perspective to counterbalance the winner-take-all world PG lives in. [1]
tbf, "high touch B2B sales" is very much something a quite ordinary hacker doing quite ordinary B2B stuff is likely to want to figure out unless they're already quite good at it or know someone else that is, and I'm sure some of the suggestions are "hacky" in ways with both positive and negative connotations.
But yeah, he's always ultimately been an outspoken advocate for the most optimistic outcomes Silicon Valley ecosystem, because that's where his startup funnel leads. See also his article from 2004 in which he suggested that a startup was a way to work at a high intensity for four(!) years instead of forty[1]. Wonder what proportion of YC alumni retired happy after the four year work life?
I'm sure if you actually met PG in office hours he'd be realistic enough that your most realistic exit strategy almost certainly involved a lot more than four years of hard work and that yeah, your chances of success probably aren't high enough to impact the Gini coefficient, and I'm sure if you were trans he wouldn't take the side of people that send death threats to Budweiser for featuring people like you. But most of the essays are about positioning Silicon Valley. In a sense, he's a low touch, very high stakes B2B salesperson
As I remember PG took a bold stance on the Israeli-Palestine conflict within the past couple years. For context, you can think of me as an average dude who works at a tech company, and I can't imagine coming out with anything as fiery as he did on this topic (and no one reports to me). I saw other VC's, prominent ones, publicly condemn him for it. So I wouldn't say all his takes are bland.
I really appreciate this article, and I would like the author to know that there are lots of people - yes, especially in tech - that support their happiness.
This was also my first thought -- a deep sadness over someone hurting and feeling threatened and persecuted. I'd also like them to know they're not alone in this.
As someone pondering the exact same sentiment of "I like women so much that I kinda want to be one" but who hasn't fully committed to it yet, I really appreciated your vulnerability and lucid writing. I hope folks are kind here in the comments.
> It took me a while to remove my facial hair, I still haven’t trained my voice.
The facial hair removal really does take forever, it's so annoying :sob:. And I've found voice training (particularly around other people) to be really intimidating. I wish you the best of luck if you decide to pursue it!
I came out socially for most of a year before I committed to hormones, and it took me another year and a half to commit to removing my facial hair. At some point it really is a leap of faith. But you can do a lot of exploring and trying things out until you feel comfortable – or decide it's not really what you want.
I seem to be going in the opposite order lol—I've been getting my facial hair removed for almost a year now, but am only barely starting to become comfortable with the idea of actually transitioning. And if I did transition, I think I'd likely only come out socially to a very small group of people until I'd also transitioned hormonally! Perhaps my priorities are all backwards...
I read your linked post and enjoyed it—I've heard vaguely similar sentiments expressed before by some of my trans friends. It's like that RuPaul quote: "We're all born naked, and the rest is drag."
I hope you have a nice day, and thank you for the well-wishes :)
I found your post extremely touching and humanizing. We need more of these perspectives right now that highlight the complex feelings of lived experiences. This is literally what makes us human, and has the potential to reach people in ways that polemic does not (which is not to say polemic isn't important). Thanks for sharing.
Beautiful writing. I also read pg's essay and was also upset. Just know there are cis men like me who are on your side and hate where tech is going. The bigotry being out in the open is disturbing.
I thought this was better than most essays in this vein.
I do fundamentally disagree with the author. People can think poorly of you for whatever reason they want. If someone hates trans people, they can, and you can't stop them. The whole "war on hate" thing was a bad idea; you can't forbid hatred. It predictably didn't work, and it's good that we're turning away from it.
Adding on, the trans issue isn't simple. There are real questions about bathrooms, women's sports, and when medical interventions are called for. Of course, there are also just bigots. The proper response to bigots is not to banish them, ban them, shadowban them, etc. That didn't work. The proper response is -- in the spirit of the new era of free speech -- to firmly state your opposition to their beliefs.
> The whole "war on hate" thing was a bad idea; you can't forbid hatred. It predictably didn't work, and it's good that we're turning away from it.
This is a myopic view. You are obviously correct that you cannot legislate that someone think in any particular way or otherwise force someone to change their minds, but the idea that collectively deciding that a viewpoint is not longer tolerated within the broader society and then making efforts to support that at all levels is ineffective and not worthwhile is absurd. Threats, physical violence, and murder have always been illegal, but used to occur with much higher frequency against many minority groups toward which society tolerated hatred and abuse. It's plainly obvious what changed is the idea that it would be brushed under the rug, that others would at worst turn a blind eye to the perpetrator if not support them, that there would be no real consequences whether legal or in social circles - this environment in which people act on impulse rather than thinking twice about what they're doing - went away. We must remember that progress isn't permanent, that civil rights must be maintained and won't protect themselves, and that there's probably someone out there that hates someone each of us loves and cares about for some arbitrary reason and would act on that if only society gave them permission.
> The whole "war on hate" thing was a bad idea; you can't forbid hatred. It predictably didn't work, and it's good that we're turning away from it.
I don't understand any of this. It feels like you live in a different information bubble than mine.
What was the "war on hate", and who is turning away from it?
What would it mean to say that the "war on hate" worked? That there was no more hate, or that the situation improved somehow? What does it mean to say that it didn't work?
> The proper response is -- in the spirit of the new era of free speech -- to firmly state your opposition to their beliefs.
This doesn't really work because social networks are designed to amplify the most "engaging" things, which often means "controversial". Reasoned debate is often drowned out - this happens even here on HN for particularly controversial topics.
If social media was just people following their friends and interacting with them (I remember when FB was basically like that), we maybe wouldn't be in this horrible polarised mess.
> If someone hates trans people, they can, and you can't stop them. The whole "war on hate" thing was a bad idea; you can't forbid hatred. It predictably didn't work, and it's good that we're turning away from it.
It is disingenuous to suggest that anti-discrimination laws for trans people are attempting to legislate away the hatred held in people’s hearts, instead of access to healthcare, public facilities, protections against workplace discrimination — things you describe as having “real questions,” but which are, in fact, the parts of a full and dignified life that bigots would deny to trans people in particular. If you pretend like it’s trying to legislate “thoughtcrime,” it’s much easier to distinguish anti-discrimination laws for trans people from rulings like Obergefell or Brown v. Board — far easier to say “look, those were good, but this particular civil rights legislation is simply unreasonable.”
To platform these beliefs is to afford them a legitimacy they do not deserve. To suggest that bigotry, when amplified, will be in some way countered or reduced is naïve beyond belief. Instead, it becomes easier for bigotry to find an audience of receptive listeners and willing conduits for further transmission.
>The whole "war on hate" thing was a bad idea; you can't forbid hatred
You can't forbid it but you can absolutely make it socially unacceptable. "Free speech" doesn't mean letting people spew hate and doing nothing; choosing not to hand them a megaphone, support their business, etc. is entirely valid.
It became so socially unacceptable that its proponents won the US presidency and took control of Congress and globally famous business leaders are bending the knee to them without repercussion? What definition of "can absolutely" are you using?
The popular vote does not determine what is right. The US elected an incredibly racist Richard Nixon by a Landslide in 1972, but that doesn't mean society couldn't make progress on making it unacceptable to use racial slurs in public.
There is a danger to hating something so much, that it goes underground. A major reason why President Trump won the first time around was because hatred against Trump and his supporters was so strong, that many people being polled were afraid to tell the pollsters who they were really voting for, for fear of being destroyed. This is a major reason why Trump outperformed his polling.
In the meantime, when people are lied to by every avenue of culture, they are convinced everyone else believes in the lies, so they feel alone and in the minority, even though they may very well be in the majority. So long as this spell can be maintaned, the dictator can hold his grip on power.
But what happens when that spell was broken? When something happens, and all of the sudden, everyone realizes they've been in the majority all along? This is how dictatorships topple -- and the toppling can happen very swiftly, as Ceausescu discovered in Romania.
Elon Musk acquiring Twitter and taking out the censorship is what initially cracked the spell this time; and when Trump was elected not just by Electoral College, but by the Popular Vote, the spell was broken completely. It's why we're seeing so much change now, and why it's so rapid.
I intended to include something that I now see I forgot: this phenomenon is called a "preference cascade", and it's a big reason why we see dramatic shifts in power in oppressive regimes.
> There are real questions about bathrooms, women's sports, and when medical interventions are called for.
Yes there are real questions, but there are also real answers. Currently, 99% of people asking questions have literally zero interest in answers. They do not care about what research say or whether there is harm or not. They ask questions to convince the audience about their political project.
They do not care about whether medical interventions are good, bad, safe or unsafe. They want to convince you that that they are unsafe. They want to stop the interventions regardless of their impact. They do not care about safety of bathrooms, they want you to punish transgender people in the wrong bathroom. They do not care about women sports either, in fact they are the same people arguing against women sports whereever it matters.
> People can think poorly of you for whatever reason they want.
And it should be my god give right to call them sexist and racists if they think of me poorly because of those reasons. But somehow that is supposed to be a taboo. We are all supposed to pretend there is no sexism, that there was no historical sexism, so that someone feels good about themselves. Again and again, sjws pointed out someone is sexist/racist, there was an outrage in response, they were painted crazy stupid exaggerating. And I actually believe the response, multiple times. Except that it turned out, multiple times, that they were right all along.
I would think that your claim about "99% of people asking questions have literally zero interest in answers" applies more to 'both sides' than one might initially think.
Is either side open to being told "no", or at least "wait, we need to be more cautious about this"? Or do both sides just want their demands to be accepted?
Would either side actually back down if the research said that what they were doing was harmful or ineffective?
> "wait, we need to be more cautious about this"? Or do both sides just want their demands to be accepted?
I think that yours "wait, we need to be more cautious about this" or is this just another "I do not care about answers, I just want to pretend so".
> Would either side actually back down if the research said that what they were doing was harmful or ineffective?
Research is there and it is saying current clinics were not harmful and were not ineffective. So yes, one side cares about research and the other is not.
>I think that yours "wait, we need to be more cautious about this" or is this just another "I do not care about answers, I just want to pretend so".
I don't know what you're referring to, but if you would like to get specific about it, many authoritative medical organizations, such as the one that presides over Sweden, have declared a halt on procedures such as prescribing puberty blockers to minors. This is an example of a "wait, we need to be more cautious about this", saying that the risks outweigh the benefits.
But here you are implying that the science is already "settled" and that there is no harm. So when you say that one side cares about the research and the other does not, are you completely sure about that?
I am completely sure about that, yes. Because even your "many authoritative medical organizations" thing cherry picks one organization saying maybe and ignores any positive results entirely.
You do not care about which procedures were actually done nor about what it took to get them. Puberty blockers for minors are not something new or done to transgender kids only. They have been used for years for non-transgender kids and they are not the only treatment constantly under attack.
If you cared about puberty blockers safety, you would care about also about when they work, you would care about accessibility when they do work ... and you would not act as if they were so easy to get in the first place.
It's not just Sweden, I could list other countries too, such as Denmark, Finland, England (outside of trials), Wales and Scotland. Norway calls it "experimental". All this information was found on the homepage of the same site I linked earlier.
But you don't seem to be open to discussion on this issue, and that's the double standard I'm pointing out. "They do not care about what research say or whether there is harm or not" is what you've said about others, and it seems like it applies equally to you as well.
And since you don't seem to be open to discussion on this issue, I'm going to leave it here. I think my point has been made.
In my local city there was conservative article about unisex bathroom putting framing it as transgender thing.
The bathroom was unisex when I was a kid, when trans were universally mocked. Bathroom is unisex, cause there is exactly one toilette in a small cafe in a super old building.
You’re wrong that a so-called “war on hate” doesn’t work. More correctly, it doesn’t work in the US because of the first amendment and the few limitations on it.
Many other countries have robust anti-hate speech laws that are effective, although less so in the age of the internet.
People broadly conform to the society in which they live, and the rules of the society are broadly set by the laws they adhere to. So in countries where hate speech is disallowed, people conform to a less hateful viewpoint as a rule, and hateful people are the exception.
In the United States, it is clear that hatred is the norm as long as it is permitted by law and by leadership.
> People broadly conform to the society in which they live, and the rules of the society are broadly set by the laws they adhere to
Well this can work very differently from what you imagine I believe. Like late Soviet Union where certain things were said in public and other things were said in private or in "trusted environments". For years and years... From what I hear this is in part what goes on in large multinationals where the pressure to conform is quite tangible.
> it doesn’t work in the US because of the first amendment and the few limitations on it.
This isn't clear to me. For instance, Meta was free to forbid hate speech on their platforms, or not to promote it in their feed algorithms. I don't think first amendment would force them to authorize hate speech. They do it to align with power in place (freely or coerced, not clear), but it's not a legal enforcement.
> So in countries where hate speech is disallowed, people conform to a less hateful viewpoint as a rule, and hateful people are the exception.
"Maja R was sentenced to a weekend in jail after her comments because she had a previous conviction for theft and had not attending the court hearing for the case."
Whatever you can say about the suspended sentences, merely "given harsher sentence than rapist for calling him ‘pig’" is not true by your own article.
> The court did find the two men guilty of wrongly making and distributing the sex video and fined them 1,350 euros ($1,500) each. But it reserved its gravest punishment for Lohfink, levying her a fine of 24,000 euros for falsely accusing the men.
If we're talking about the same story, it has nothing to do with "war on hate".
The author isn't talking about abstract "hatred" in the sense of people's internal, personal experiences. They are talking about hate speech, a specific concrete act with external material consequences.
Hatred is extremely infectious, especially in difficult times. If you do not extinguish it, you can end up in a country like Nazi Germany, where it even became encouraged.
How can you disagree with the author, they are doing exactly what you suggested, firmly stating their opposition to PG's beliefs.
It seems you didn't read their post. Also, yes, if someone hates you, you can definitely change their minds. The weapon in the war on hate is love. And there is a lot of love in the author's essay. Love for others in their position.
So you too can join the War on Hate by showing love to the author and letting PG know he is wrong, so very wrong.
I feel this a lot, not so much from the perspective of someone that belongs to a formerly "protected" group, but came into tech at the height of the tech revenge-of-the-nerds style "zeitgeist" in the early 2010's to 2015, around the same time he mentions being involved in startups. My first job was a startup, with a bunch of students and a professor at my alma mater. We failed miserably - not in the way I had envisioned, but because of just basic VC funded stuff. We were a $20 million company with half a dozen of us, which would have been great for any of us, even our founders - but the VC's wanted a $200 million company. Poof.
That put a bitter taste in my mouth that has gotten more bitter when the "promise" of a society led by technocrats has yielded a barrage of increasingly shitty and invasive products that don't provide any additional utility to anyone except the people who stand to profit from them. It's exhausting, extremely depressing, and if I had to do it again I probably would have avoided tech, as much as I like what I do - I feel a deep sense of shame sometimes at the state of how it's gone.
There are a lot of things that bother me these days. But particularly some things that are pervasive, unnecessary, habitual amplifiers of disagreement.
If someone is going to address extremists on an issue, don't just be anti-extremist. What empty courage is that?
Address extremists by pushing the dialog back to the real issue. In this case, treating people who have been denigrated for centuries better.
Otherwise, ungrounded one-sided criticism of extremists on one side of an issue, just gives tacit permission for the extremists on the other side. It can even be difficult to tell, whether they are not simply mirror extremists themselves. But either way, they just amplify the extremist vs. extremist narrative.
And completely distract from the real human level issues that are being hijacked.
Don't be anti-bad, while conspicuously avoiding acknowledging what would be good. How should we address discrimination against trans and other non-binary people? What changes are beneficial? What companies have DEI approaches that are good models?
PG, any thoughts?
Please, don't call out "your going too far!" - no matter how necessary or accurately - if you don't have the courage, insight, or a genuine desire to solve the underlying problem. And express "how far" you agree we should go.
Don't just poke a bear. Address the elephant!.
--
One-sided viewpoints just make an easy sport, score trivial (dare I say, also performative?) points, out of something more serious.
I.e. don't make strong arguments for or against one side of the Israeli-Palestine situation, without acknowledging the strong points you do accept as valid from both sides.
I hope I don't offend anyone by suggesting that any intellectually honest discussion of divisive views cannot possibly boil down to one-sided criticisms of other people's one-sided views.
I agree with your premise that there is often an unproductive pendulum-like phenomenon in public debates where interpretations swing from one extreme to the other, making nuanced discussions difficult.
However I don't believe that PG's article meant to address the elephant, but rather was a meta-level thesis on how he sees debates being shut down by orthodoxy, and for that he does suggest what he thinks would be a possible solution.
Perhaps the thesis could have gained in being more balanced to as you say "avoid giving tacit permissions for the extremists on the other side"? On the other hand, does one always have to shield one's expressions with disclaimers and is one not free to share thoughts however raw in order to express, discuss and learn, update our beliefs?
There likely is a bigger responsibility when one has a larger audience to avoid misinterpretations, but ultimately I believe as long as there is a rational and nuanced discussion to take the good points and have a productive debate, it should be okay.
How can we create incentives to have a more nuanced discussion?
> does one always have to shield one's expressions with disclaimers and is one not free to share thoughts however raw in order to express, discuss and learn, update our beliefs?
The problem with one-sided criticism of extremism is:
1. It is indistinguishable from the default extreme-vs-extreme debate. So it amplifies stupidity all around.
2. The takeaway is unclear. Are all programs to counterbalance discrimination just evil things from the bottom up.
3. It ignores middle ground. Guess we better give up on being more fair, and benefiting more from societies outcasts, and more fairness in general? It must be anti-capitalist, -technology, -patriotic, or something?
None of that is helpful.
So yes, I would say quite strongly, addressing complex divisive issues requires wide situational awareness, nuance, intellectual humility, curiosity, honesty, and an aim to move discussion away from division and toward solutions.
Not more reactionary communiques.
---
A completely different approach would be: these DEI programs are out of hand and creating new problems of their own. Not good. But the status quo they are meant to address isn't good either.
So, here are some thoughts on how we could systematically address harmful discrimination in a way that doesn't forget to be fair to everyone else... And fair to everyone is the point of all this, right?
If anyone might be a useful mentor here, it could be pg, if he steps back and thinks about things more. It fits with his general quest to help startups succeed on all fronts. Wisdom for handling side issues well, professionally, creatively, so they don't keep cropping up as distractions.
Does PG or YC have a sensible practical low-ideological view on ensuring hiring and employee treatment reflects and benefits from diversity, avoiding the pitfalls of unfair discrimination, without creating new ones, and defining diversity to mean ALL of us?
That might take more thought. But it would be well worth a PG post. It is also liable to hit more people FROM ALL SIDES or NO SIDES, as worthy of consideration.
> I.e. don't make strong arguments for or against one side of the Israeli-Palestine situation, without acknowledging the strong points you do accept as valid from both sides.
What Israel is doing to Palestinians last 77 years it exists is much worse than what Palestinians do to Israel on average from several perspectives by at least an order of magnitude or more (eg. amount of destruction and killing for sure, amount of subjugation, ...).
So wanting balance and giving one-sided defence to one side seems fair, regardless of any "strong points" on any side. If one has strong arguments, they should be used and voiced, because it's simply a numbers game in democracy.
Agreed. I do not suggest false equality. Or insipid "it takes two sides" type arguments.
Another advantage of fair arguments, they add credibility for calls to hold the more powerful in a situation to take more responsibility for solutions.
I really appreciate and am impressed by how thoughtful and genuine the responses here - including those not in support of the OP - are in general. I don't see nearly anyone giving the author crap for not blindly loving PG, I don't see nearly anyone purposefully using the wrong pronouns as an insult (and the few who are are mostly getting flagged). Even folks who clearly disagree are praising the author and being respectful of them.
Seeing this, though, just makes it even more perplexing to me how the same community that is so open to the experience of the author here is also so accepting of the changes that Meta and PG are describing because they're made under the banner of "free speech" or "allowing conversation." It seems clear that we as a community don't support, encourage, or permit people to throw slurs, insults, and harassment at others. Why are we okay with much larger and more powerful communities doing it in the name of these "freedoms" (in quotes because free speech is actually about the government, not private communities, policing speech).
>It seems clear that we as a community don't support, encourage, or permit people to throw slurs, insults, and harassment at others. Why are we okay with much larger and more powerful communities doing it in the name of these "freedoms"
Because the community uses the same freedoms to police those that throw slurs and does not feel it requires--that is the hope anyway--any other mandatory enforcement?
> Because the community uses the same freedoms to police those that throw slurs and does not feel it requires--that is the hope anyway--any other mandatory enforcement?
We don't, though. We have moderators (hi dang) who get rid of those people. It's the same thing Facebook used to do, just on a much smaller scale.
Hmm, I guess I misunderstood. But in that case, it's a bit of a mixed message.
You say:
> we as a community don't support, encourage, or permit people to throw slurs
then you say:
>We don't, though. We have moderators (hi dang) who get rid of those people.
In the first you consider moderators as part of the community. In the second you don't it seems. And the people who can downvote I think are probably so high enough in number as to be seen as normal users and not moderators.
The perception of the moderation in larger communities is that it is way more heavy handed and less accountable than the moderation that dang does. For example, in HN, I can see messages from dang warning a user they are repeating offences they have committed and I can easily see their past posts to verify whether that's true or not. And dang at least gives more than one-worded defenses or explanations about certain cases of moderation in the public forum itself and not restricted to private messages. HN even says you can email them regarding certain cases you feel strongly about. With Twitter, when an account is suspended you can't see the paper trail between the moderators and the user, or the past posts. And you need to get a hold of some hotshot acquaintence with a decent amount of followers to publically make your case to get the company big-wigs to notice.
In HN, even in cases of shadow-banning, though newbies might not be aware, you can even toggle the shadow-banning off and see all the posts unfiltered. In Twitter, that option does not exist I think.
It doesn't scale people say? Well, no one said it's easy...
Huge pretending going on though that we are doing this. We are not throwing away the baby.
There is nuance and people are pretending there is not. I support trans people but also support safety for all people. There are some nuanced details when you get to reality, and we can’t just pretend those away.
The symptoms or pretending are things like not finishing the essay, or not even reading far enough to uncover PG’s definition near the beginning, so it had to become a footnote later when someone told them about it.
I appreciate this post, and that HN clearly isn't moderating it in a way outside of their stated policies.
It is really hard to see the backpedaling of big tech with regards to identity politics as something other than virtue conformance. The sad and natural question that gets drawn is, where does the real virtue start and the performance begin?
> where does the real virtue start and the performance begin
This reminds me of when people criticize other people for not simply being themselves. Maybe they are being themselves, and that's just not good enough for you?
The argument against "virtue signaling" is a judgement against doing something which the critic doesn't think is beneficial or necessary, and so they conclude it must be performative. But, the person doing it thinks it is beneficial or necessary.
Thus, the critic is failing to allow for a different view. Not that they have to accept the different view, but they should at least be able to recognize that someone else has a different view than their own. But, they can't or won't.
> He thought it was a decent enough idea, but the name, Appcanary, he wasn’t crazy about the name. He was very good at naming companies.
FWIW, he hated the name Reddit, and the mascot even more. He said if they have to keep the mascot, it should be on the bottom right where no one can see it.
PG is a smart guy, but you gotta trust your gut sometimes even when taking to experts.
These days I just feel sad for some of the richest people. First their wealth seem to have pulled them away from their humanity. Now I just see them lead troubled existence and inflict pain on others, amplified by the said wealth. All the money in the world and no humanity or peace at heart.
My guess is there are two possibilities as to what's going on:
* Many tech pioneers and leaders deep down felt an animosity towards supporting people who didn't fit the mold and finally feel free to express it (the worst-case outcome), and/or
* Many tech pioneers and leaders wish to continue supporting those who don't fit the mold but feel their own status threatened by figures with nearly infinite power[0] who disagree.
The former are simply the intolerant coming up for air. The latter exhibit a cowardice, though there's a subpoint to that second bullet: there could be some in this crowd who prefer to conform to but then dismantle the power structures enabling hatred from within, but these people likely won't be known for a while, and it'll be difficult to predict who's acting subversively in this way. Though given PG's narrowly scoped essay, there's a reasonable chance that this is his footing.
The best people can do is assume the least-worst case - the cowardice - and instead seek to either craft themselves as the people they wish to see... and/or protect oneself from the rising tides of hatred.
There's also a third type, that I consider to be the most likely reality given self-selected population of founders / successful leaders:
- People who will amorally play to the limits of the rules if it helps them win.
It doesn't matter what they personally feel, or even if they have feelings at all. They tack with whatever way the wind is blowing in order to derive the maximum benefit.
E.g. the million dollar inauguration contributions
That's not a lot of money for that sort of person. The point of kissing the ring is the visible action and the favor it curries, not because the kiss is dear.
This is lacking a lot of nuance though isn't it? You're basically saying hate the player not the game, and that isn't really useful. When you step up to the arena and decide to play a competitive sport, because of game dynamics you can only know so much about who you are playing against, so you should play. The whole philosophical theory behind capitalism is literally progress emerges from the conflict and tension created between it's functional systems. If you want to get down to blaming humans, you're going to hav to go over to Adam Smiths or Joseph Schumpeter.
> Many tech pioneers and leaders wish to continue supporting those who don't fit the mold but feel their own status threatened by figures with nearly infinite power[0] who disagree.
If only tech had some sort of rugged frontiersmen who weren't afraid of a bit of hardship. Davy Crockett types, pushing boundaries and standing firm under siege no matter the personal cost.
Yeah, there’s probably some Pulling The Ladder up like my Irish immigrant ancestors did. At one point everyone in the discussion was a nerdy social outcast. Now that they can afford to hang out with the Beautiful People, time to be as agreeable as possible.
Or maybe the world is simply returning to the way it has been for pretty much all of recorded history. Wars, male dominance, two fixed genders, oligarchs and barons and racism is the norm for all human beings since forever. “Wokeness” is a very recent anomaly.
Even most of the world right now doesn’t care about wokeness and never has. India, the Middle East, Africa, China, Russia etc. never caught on to most woke stuff that came out of the west in the past 20 years.
This isn't a response to what I posted. You said that it's a recent concept without any presence in non-Western spaces. My link clearly demonstrates that's not the case.
I read the Paul Graham article mentioned here immediately before reading the Neil Gaiman exposé, and it left a sour taste in my mouth.
PG is an incredible writer and contributor to this community, but that doesn't mean he isn't human (as others have been saying). Open minded people who spend too much time with the same group of global elites (including tech-minded POCs and trans people etc.) end up thinking social justice has already been served and start wondering if those saying it has gone too far are correct.
Yeah, PG just seems completely out of touch and isolated in a bubble- not understanding the reality of what people different than him are facing day to day in terms of racism and discrimination. I am white but in a mixed race family- and see the racism black people face day to day: getting followed and watched when they shop in a store, being always accused and suspected first when something goes wrong at work, being seen as dangerous or violent if they ever get visibly upset, etc.
This is a really personal article and I'm really grateful the author shared it. I think too often conceptual terms like "wokeness" and "identity politics" get thrown around without really considering the people underlying those ideas.
It's easy to make snap judgements along the lines of "the world is too woke these days", but a lot harder to argue against peoples ability to live as they choose with basic dignity.
>We could get people to pay us hundreds of dollars per month, but not thousands
I find it interesting that they say their startup folded because they could only get people to pay hundreds a month. That sounds like success to me.
>That’s the death knell of a vc-backed b2b saas sales model.
>We were too burnt out to pivot to another business idea, and we quietly folded.
I guess VC funding killed their successful startup and burned them out. It sounds like they didn't need funding in the first place, and it caused more harm than good in their case.
Can't help but OP might have been better engaging with PG's Wokeness article itself (it's full of holes, and probably one of the weakest he's written), than talking about what they think the article said made them feel.
Ironically the Wokeness article does what most people accuse "wokeness" of doing, predetermining its conclusion, and then shoehorning in a bunch of loosely connected facts and phenomena to support that assertion.
> A few days ago, Paul Graham published an essay on “Wokeness”. I skimmed it. I couldn’t finish reading it, it made me too upset...I’ve been feeling quite anxious ever since. It feels like the world is crumbling around me.
...as if this sort of mental fragility is something normal. This is the sort of mentality I've come to associate with woke and prig culture.
In my experience, the more "woke" a community is, the more these sort of hysterics are accepted, normalized, even celebrated - to the point of caricature. Part of it is that in those communities, the more "oppressed" you are, the higher status you are accorded, and the subconscious status-seeking primate part of your brain notices this, and molds your thoughts and feelings accordingly. While those on the right also play up their victimhood, it's not held in high status in their communities. You'd get outrage and compassion playing up victimhood in right-leaning communities, but in left-leaning communities you also get more moral weight when you're upset.
The result, I think, is that the American left is genuinely less happy with the world, and more likely to echo doomer sentiments.
> Ironically the Wokeness article does what most people accuse "wokeness" of doing, predetermining its conclusion, and then shoehorning in a bunch of loosely connected facts and phenomena to support that assertion.
This basic approach underpins the pop-business and some of the pop-science industry. Plus much of self-help. And a good chunk of popular political books, of course.
It’s a winning approach, lots of folks read that kind of thing and nod along, are glad they paid money for it, and recommend that others do the same.
Even the “good” books in those genres are often guilty of it :-/
Motivated reasoning, cheap rhetorical tricks, and half-fake but digestible and uncomplicated history/facts are how you “win” the war of ideas.
Earlier in my (now long) career, tech didn't feel political at all (just a bunch of nerds trying to figure shit out). Nowadays, it feels really weird to associate things like cryptocurrency with "tech bros on the right", etc. It all feels very unnecessary, but I suppose humans have a natural tendency to divide into camps as a survival characteristic. Whatever the case, The United States has certainly at a stage where it feels like tolerance for others is at a low point--at least as far as my historical memory serves--and the country seems far less welcoming than it has in the past to a variety of cohorts which will affect the makeup of the work force. The general politicization of the tech industry makes me less excited about continuing as an engineer, which is sad, because it's always been a discipline that I've really loved. It feels like "hate politics" are oozing out of everything these days, and I don't see how that represents progress of any kind.
There’s just more money in tech than in 2000s, so the most interest is mostly coming from financial incentives rather than general curiosity. That just puts extreme pressure for it to be politicized.
I met many people that met Paul Graham once. 2 > 1. right? Not sure Paul would ever have invested in my companies. But the world is smaller than you think.
I read the second part of the essay, about the author choosing to transition and live their life identifying and presenting as female. If that makes them happier then I am all for it but I certainly think society’s norms are upstream of people’s decisions. I personally believe that society should be more accepting in general, of autism, tomboys, femboys and other ways of presenting, especially for children. If they were, then people wouldn’t feel so much pressure to conform to a specific stereotype.
Instead when it comes to kids they are often told how they should behave — eg ADHD is another thing that’s overdiagnosed and medicated — including with amphetamines. Notable progressive Thom Hartmann even wrote a book about this ADHD medication industry, with his theory of “hunters and farmers”, when his own son was put through the ringer. In the past, many girls would be called tomboys rather than encouraged to transition because they didn’t like to associate with “feminine” things or present as female. In Sweden, they even had gender-neutral “hen” pronouns for kids.
As far as their observation about trans women being programmers — I want to ask a risque thing on HN. Who are the top female developers that you know? I want to follow their work.
I have found that some of the people I have found to be really innovative female developers, such as the makers of Redbean server (Justine), or decentralized database technology such as Mauve Signweaver, are (I believe) in fact trans women.
What is it that leads to nearly everyone who does hardcore programming and abstract concepts being born as a biological male? In evolutionary psychology “just-so stories”, one could say men were used to long periods of silent stalking animals or building constructions instead of socializing in the cave or raising children. But I am not so sure about just-so stories and the effect size is just way too strong. Was programming really so much different when Ada Lovelace or Grace Hopper or Margaret Hamilton were doing it? Female programmers were more prevalent when it was punchcards. But then you look at, say, Apple and everyone’s a dude and Susan Kare is hired to design icons, rather than programming. Or when I worked at Bloomberg, practically all the developers were male and some of us would go to lunch with the people from the Sales department, because that’s where the females were.
I've noticed this as well in the compilers community. Essentially every woman I know in this area is MtF.
I can't back this up with science, but my feeling is that because neurodivergence/autism occur at higher rates in males than females, and ND brains are better at abstract reasoning inherent in programming, male born people are drawn to it. I also believe this accounts for the overrepresentation of MtF trans women, because there is definitely an intersection of autism and transgenderism.
Which is really ironic because Zuckerberg, Musk, and Gates are all definitely on the spectrum. The current tech power center was created almost entirely by queer autistic neurodivergent weirdos.
If the OP struggles to reconcile their perception of PG before and after discovering his differing beliefs, that’s neither PG’s fault nor anyone else’s.
This reaction reflects a broader cultural issue that PG himself occasionally comments on. It’s an unfortunate symptom of our times to misattribute personal frustrations and resentments—born of an often unfriendly and unfair world—to solely external causes like a conspiracy of bigotry and malevolence.
In reality, such feelings often stem from an unrealistic internal denial of the natural (painful) "othering" of outlier behaviour or identity, something that can only be mitigated through education and maturity, and pragmatic reasonableness on both sides.
It cannot be solved by the hectoring, bullying, self-pitying, or other toxic behaviours rightly associated with the declining “woke” movement, which the OP seems to criticise PG for opposing.
> It cannot be solved by the hectoring, bullying, self-pitying, or other toxic behaviours rightly associated with the declining “woke” movement, which the OP seems to criticise PG for opposing.
This sounds like the criticisms of MLK, Jr. and other civil rights activists for always stirring things up. People who want change tend to stir things up.
That being said, I think you exaggerate about the toxic behaviors of the "woke" movement. Certainly, you must be referring to online, because I can't think of when I have ever experienced any of that offline. If you're talking about Twitter, then I guess I could believe it, because that place is toxic as hell.
It's interesting to see how tech bros are slowly sliding to the right. The first thing I ever read from Paul was his thing about lisp, and I almost instantly disliked him. There is an intense ego that radiates from his ilk. You see a similar thing with some small business owners. Owning and running a business gives them a feeling of superiority. They feel that they are affluent thanks solely to their own efforts (and perhaps some negligible work from their employees), and seeing that others are less wealthy they conclude themselves to be superior [1]. I think it's an inevitable fact of capitalism that the people who rise to the top are the ones who are greedy, who confuse profit with virtue. It's really no surprise that they are easily influenced by the winds of fashion; you don't get rich by taking a stand.
Reading that helped me come to terms with how most of the time when I read PG essays I was a lot less impressed than everyone else seemed to be, and often (any time the topic wasn’t narrowly tech or maaaybe business) his writing struck me as actually bad—not well-reasoned, not convincing, and giving an impression of his being poorly-informed.
When I experience an author everyone else is praising that way, I wonder if I’m the moron. But, sometimes, maybe I’m not…
I see many people confidently and incuriously throw this idea around, meanwhile many of the tech bros are saying “no, I haven’t shifted all that much , the left just went crazy”. [1] I’m not sure which claim is “correct”. Probably breaks one way or another on an individual basis. But it does seem like we should probably give people some credit for introspection versus mind reading.
I find this idea to be honestly laughable, especially from an American. What's really happening here is pretty simple. You have a guy whose maybe an average amount bigoted, a little but not much. He spends years voting for the Democrat party and supporting Democrats because he is told that doing otherwise means he is bigoted. The issue he has is that he has the aforementioned bigoted views. When he expresses, say a general distrust of trans people, he is condemned as a bigot. So he is faced with two options: change his mind (hard) or deny reality (easy). So he claims that the left used to be distrustful of trans people like he is, but now has changed to be "woke" in accepting them. What really happened is that he discovered he had right-wing views on these matters and that the left did not. This fantasy that the whole world has moved around him, instead of him moving within it, is simply a way to rationalise his beliefs. He is right-wing, but embarrassed about it.
This is quite a common view throughout history. A good example would be the "moderate" white during the civil rights era, who wasn't racist but paradoxically opposed equal rights laws. The world is filled with people who wish to appear progressive, yet do not want to do the often difficult introspection required to embody that belief system. They would like to be seen as a tolerant person without having to let go of their intolerant views.
You need only read a few of this man's tweets to see that he has drifted to the right, along with much of America. Perhaps he always thought like this and just hid it better before. He is, for instance, advocating the abolition of trans healthcare for minors. The Democratic party has never held this view or anything approximating it, yet he claims with this comic it used to be a "centre left" position. Another great tweet that almost entirely disproves his narrative is one where he talks to the white nationalists in his replies. He obviously condemns them as trash, but fails to realise that being regularly exposed to white nationalists who support the same candidate as you is a definite sign of a political shift. It is clearly not something that would have happened to him before and is clearly not the left running away from him, but him running towards white nationalism. He frequently makes tweets mocking peer reviews papers, an anti-intellectual bent which I'm sure he would not have expressed before.
You can see his progress clear as day. He used to be "neutral" on the issue of trans rights (thinking both sides are bad), now he opposes trans rights. He is currently "neutral" on the issue of race (thinking both racists and anti-racists are bad because anti-racism acknowledges that black people deserve help in society which is racist), eventually he will be openly racist. This kinds of both-sides centrism is really just intellectual frailty. Instead of considering the points made, they just point out the aesthetics of the movements and use that to ignore them. "BLM has riots, racists have riots, therefore they are the same and I'm superior to both and they're both wrong." Of course, when you place yourself at the midpoint between people who want equality and people who are racist, you are a moderate racist and not a moderate civil rights activist.
My current way of thinking about it is that we should tolerate communities that we find weird. People who cross dress are to me as weird as the religious people or the overly enthusiastic magic the gathering players. Should I hate them or discriminate against them? No. Should I let them force their community rituals on me? No as well.
I don't like someone telling me "God bless you" as much as someone forcing me to pretend they're a different gender.
Wokism was a movement against discrimination, bullies, and such. Not a movement to force you to adhere to specific communities rules
Many examples of people losing jobs, becoming the object of online mobs, etc for refusing to use preferred pronouns.
Men participating in women’s sports.
Men entering women’s spaces like locker rooms and bath rooms.
Men imprisoned alongside women, with predictably horrible results.
We can treat trans people with compassion, but they are not entitled to change our culture and trample common sense without slow, careful examination. Now that we’re returning to sanity on that front, the data aren’t looking very good.
You seem to have ignored that all my examples were of biological men entering women's spaces and activities.
A biological female entering men's spaces and activities is far, far less problematic. I for one would have no problem with that person entering a men's restroom or locker room. But I think it's not unreasonable for others to object.
I think the pertinent question is, should a person who made the affirmative choice to transition their body via surgery, hormones, etc. have their preferences supersede those of others who were not involved in that choice? This question is a corollary of a deeper question, which is: should a person who insists that material, shared reality is incorrect have the right to force others to participate in their delusion? Should a schizophrenic experiencing visual hallucinations have the right to reorder society in order to accommodate their delusion? The answer is obviously "no". So why then do trans-people have the special right, in the minds of some, to reorder our language, customs, and culture to accommodate their delusions?
So, returning to your question, my answer would be, either Buck Angel should use a unisex restroom, or, if none is available, go elsewhere to find one.
Here is a sample of what I think are better questions to ask:
Should this person be imprisoned alongside biological women? [1]
Should these biological males be allowed to compete in women's cycling? [2]
Should this man have been imprisoned with women? [3]
Should this biological male have been given use of the girls' restroom at his high school? [4]
Should this biological male have been given use of womens' restroom? [5]
Should this person be imprisoned alongside biological women? [6]
Should this biological male have been given access to the girls locker room at his high school? [7]
> So, returning to your question, my answer would be, either Buck Angel should use a unisex restroom, or, if none is available, go elsewhere to find one.
So you are trading one form of dehumanization for another. I think if you want to implement this policy you need to mandate unisex restrooms. Otherwise you are excluding trans people from public life... but that's the point isn't it?
> Should a schizophrenic experiencing visual hallucinations have the right to reorder society in order to accommodate their delusion? The answer is obviously "no". So why then do trans-people have the special right, in the minds of some, to reorder our language, customs, and culture to accommodate their delusions?
We routinely set policy based on voices our representatives hear in their heads they believe to be the voice of God. George Bush is quoted saying God told him to invade Iraq. For thousands of years human history and law has been guided based on a bunch of people claiming an invisible sky wizard told them how to order society. Why do the voices in their head rank higher than a trans person's?
Once again, you ignore that all of my examples were of biological men entering women's spaces and activities.
> So you are trading one form of dehumanization for another
It's not even close to dehumanizing. Concentration camps are dehumanizing. War is dehumanizing. Genocide is dehumanizing. Requiring Angel to use an appropriate restroom is at most an inconvenience (for Angel).
Angel wasn't born this way. Angel's decision, motivated by desire and/or delusion, to undergo surgical and chemical alterations was made deliberately and affirmatively. And thus Angel should bear the consequences of those decisions. Angel doesn't have the right to reorder society's customs, culture, and rules as a result of those decisions. (And I would argue these kind of anatomical disfigurement is far more "dehumanizing" than being asked to use a unisex bathroom.)
I'll also note that it is telling that you've chosen as the trans exemplar in this discussion a pornographer and fetishist whose behaviors and values are wildly out of line with the mainstream of society.
> We routinely set policy based on voices our representatives hear in their heads they believe to be the voice of God
Straw man, and also, false. [1] It is obvious that no delusional person has the right to reorder society's customs, culture, and laws. Or are you arguing that we must take all delusional people seriously in order to placate trans-people?
-------------
[1] Bush had to follow the rules by going to Congress to make his case for war. The basis of the case presented to Congress was not "the voice of god".
Some of the disagreement or confusion seems to stem from the definition of the word "woke" which means different things to different people?
Having read both essays I don't see them necessarily in disagreement. pg criticizes the performative and orthodox nature of some social justice activists' behavior, however it doesn't seem that the author's behavior here is performative at all.
Perhaps we should just avoid these terms like "woke" and just say what we mean to avoid this societal dissonance? I feel like decent rational people can talk past each other depending on how they have been exposed to the term.
If they’d named “wokeness” to be “kindness” or “considerate”, then there would be people who would still have found a way to be “anti-considerate”, and mean it as a “good” thing.
In some circles, someone being gay or trans will always be a sin, and non-whites seen as “lesser beings” (both their views not mine). As it stands, these people vote more consistently for the same party and in larger numbers.
We should hire the right people for the right job, but let’s be honest, in cultures where the majority perceive such minorities in disgust through lack of education and bigotry, they are unlikely to hire them regardless of whether they were better fit the job or not.
DEI should have been left at a reminder checking your own biases. Instead in many organizations it spiraled into minority preferential hiring, and that caused a backlash, and rightly so.
Where do we go from here? Who knows. My hope is that we find kindness and consideration for each other, but since the incoming administration has experienced such success from beating the anti-woke drum, I fear that it won’t be such a nice ending.
>If they’d named “wokeness” to be “kindness” or “considerate”, then there would be people who would still have found a way to be “anti-considerate”, and mean it as a “good” thing.
"If we name our religion the Religion of Peace..."
Graham's essay refers to Bud Light sending a trans influencer promotional beer cans as "woke". I don't know how that's "performative and orthodox social justice activism".
So I found the author to come across as a sincere and thoughtful individual, but when I went over to actually read PG's essay on wokeness, it didn't seem to have any resemblance to what was described. I wonder if the author actually read it, or just read enough to see that it was not pro-woke and decided that was all they needed to know?
I like the article, but one doesn't need to meet pg once to get to know what he is.
You can just read his tweets (x's?) and he, like many VCs or higher-ups in SV doesn't give a huge importance in how other humans feel, just in his kids/family/relatives.
So overall, he doesn't care about how you think or feel.
If he did, he wouldn't write an essay on a touchy topic without making a big disclaimer.
By reading him tweet for sometime you'd realize the kind of person he is, and he isn't somebody that is there to support others or something, or has threaded prejudice or huge issues in his life.
The deepest essay pg has written that touches the "They don't like me" point, from all I've read is his thoughts about nerds/geeks, after all we get bullied! You can't compare being a nerd to being transgender, or a victim of racism, or xenophobia. It's very different.
He just doesn't have studied, or suffered enough to understand the perspective of a "woke", then he wrote that article. AI engineers would say the problem with pg's llms didn't have enough training data ;-)
I'm suprised that people are super-duper angry at pg's 2025 essay when it's substantially the same as his 2004 essay "what you can't say" - https://www.paulgraham.com/say.html other than using the word "woke".
It would have been better if he'd also called out some of the people who are prigs on the right (e.g. the people who are suddenly very very upset about the integrity women's sports, which thy don't watch anyway).
I think I have strong feelings about this because PG exploits people the same way cults exploit vulnerable people insecurities and uses them to build power and influence for the cult. If PG is now sharpening the lines (us vs them), in a way which benefits him - it's at the cost of the victims who didn't make it along the way.
One way to think of him is a wealthy person unaccustomed to hearing "no" that wants to say whatever they'd like regardless of the social collateral and writing an essay complaining about an empathy zeitgeist. Make no mistake, a person with thinking so fixed and undeservedly confident in ideas which he has a woefully limited understanding about will just as soon tell you to to rename your preferred pronouns as they would your company.
The industry has become very unsettling, mean, and malicious. For 20 years I have warned people about the old "we are changing the world" mantra and that the people leading that chant were "evil", and therefore "change" would not be aligned with good... and here we are. Remember kids. Change and progress are extremely subjective.
> I’d be a better startup founder today than I was in 2015
You should do a startup then. I think you'll be surprised how little most VCs and customers care about your personal life.
No doubt the vibes worldwide are taking a dark turn, but pg has been pretty reasonable and his essay in particular seems like an accurate read on what has happened.
This made me unreasonably annoyed, not from the author though.
>The mentors applied a neat and very effective trick: they believed in you.
It's crazy to me that the LeetCode interview style is still such an aberration compared to other jobs that yield potentially much more money
Do you want to be a Software Engineer at this company? We don't trust you, the previous company could have let you in under the radar and you could secretly be a terrible engineer.
Do you want to run a SaaS and make us and yourself a bunch of money? Welcome aboard, we trust you completely once you're in. Just change your company name to fucking Oracle, ha ha ha.
This industry is such an imbalance of misplaced scrutiny, and certainly more so when they get into political stuff like wokeness.
> Moves like Mark’s, and essays like pg’s, create the permission structure for people to discriminate against me.
This is key. Many people might say, "come on, Mark's just doing the usual sucking up to the new President" or "Paul's just expressing his views and trying to bring things back into balance.", just like they defend Trump's famous denigration of a disabled person on the campaign trail -- he was just joking, playing to the crowd.
Words are real things, and when spoken by people in positions of great power, they can enable abhorrent behavior which the original speaker might never engage in (well, maybe Trump) but others will.
> the reason why conservative women are so mad about trans women is because they don’t want to share washrooms with the sex slave caste.
I would like to see more of the HN caste engage with the very notion of a caste system, but I can't immediately think of a way to do it that also accommodates the spirit of HN—which I value—that dictates we focus on technical subjects. Perhaps the techie workforce angle is the only good faith approach.
> I’m still not sure what pg thinks “Wokeness” means.2 I know for a fact, that for most people – including many of the people he hangs out with – it just means “left-wing thing I dislike”. I got the impression that he thinks it’s bad, and that companies should purge people who are too woke. Maybe I’m being unfair to him.
The funny thing is that Paul Graham has a framework for thinking about these sorts of things, which is explained very eloquently in "beating the averages". He calls it the "Blub paradox".
Blub is a hypothetical programming language that is roughly average in terms of expressive power and abstraction. The Blub programmer can recognize languages that are inferior to Blub because they lack some important feature that they would find it difficult to do without. On the other hand, they can't recognize the merits of more powerful languages very easily because the features are unfamiliar and seem like "a bunch of abstract nonsense invented by ivory-tower academics" that have limited real-life application.
I think the same thing works for social views. It's easy for someone somewhere on the spectrum from might-makes-right brutishness on one end and perfect wisdom, justice, and harmony on the other to know when they're looking down. But someone who is more "progressive" than they are will usually appear indistinguishable from someone trying to impress their friends with how "woke" they are.
I think this comes into play in elections. Voters in general seem to be more willing to vote for someone more conservative than they are than someone more liberal.
I have to say that this is a very well written piece. The story in the first half does a good job of showing the author's personality and making him seem very relatable, at least if you are a typical HN reader. And it's a good story and didn't have me thinking "get to the point", especially since the title doesn't make you expect anything more than a good story.
Then halfway down, he drops the words "I'm transgender now" and you start to realize what he/she is really writing about.
If the article started there it would have lost a lot of people. Instead with the first half it gets you invested and you stick around to read the rest of it.
PG's essay about wokeness, on the other hand, didn't really accomplish this. In fact it kind of did the opposite: came on strong and imprecise at the beginning and became more measured and precise towards the end. And thus it probably lost a lot of readers toward the more "woke" end of the spectrum like this author.
This take seems to project a massive amount (of negative falsehood) onto Paul Graham's essay. As I read his essay, Paul Graham does not care one wit about the gender (trans or otherwise) of an individual. He is explicitly criticising those who create arbitrary rules (e.g., the term LatinX) that don't actually serve society but instead serve as virtue signals.
If you are competent, you'll be able to find employment. Yes, discrimination exists, but if there is an abundance of talented trans people, someone is going to exploit that talent pool (by hiring) in an efficient market economy.
Frankly, the author seems a bit egotistical. Being transgender has nothing to do with being woke. People like Paul Graham criticising wokeness are not criticising transgenderism. His essay is not about you (and nobody reading his essay should interpret it in anyway as being against you).
The wokeness essay was long, hard to process, and still vexes me and makes me wonder if there were any specific triggers involved. One of the parts that most leapt out at me was the question of what would activists worry about after the Iron Curtain fell? Most of Europe both east and west have health care integrated with their social fabric, so that seems a likely target. And that subject is especially problematic since Romney put the Heritage Foundation market based universal health care access in place in Massachusetts which means that there is no longer any political or philosophical basis for fighting so called "socialized medicine". But instead of extending health care to all the problem is the wokeness which might lead us to conceive of such a thing in the first place?
I met PG once when we went to visit him for some office hours for my YC startup. I was a late cofounder so I hadn't been part of the program. During the conversation I said something, he looked and me and said "I have no idea what you just said", then turned back to my cofounder and kept chatting. o_O
Didn't downvote you, but I'm not sure there is anyone in the American VC class that shared the harrowing plight of Palestinians as much as Kamala-voting pg did. Not to say he does it alot, but in the VC feeds that I normally check out once in a while it's virtually non-existent. Hell, Musk even attended and applauded Netanyahu's speech in Congress.
...By that metric that would make pg a radical leftist.
You know what wasn't on my bingo card for 2024? Paul Buchheit being red-pilled harder than Paul Graham.
Since then, PG seems to have gone silent on Trump. Instead he decided to post that essay about wokeness, right after major SV players publicly sucked up to Trump. Didn't he - or the people who read the draft - realized that it would make people believe he joined the MAGA camp? What happened there?
I think Musk called pg a retard and released the right-wings trolls on him by doing so after pg pushed back on Musk's UK interference when he shared a UK poll showing a dislike for Musk across party lines. He's stated his preference for Kamala over Trump on multiple occasions ("I don't agree with xyz, but on the whole Trump is worse." being the gist of it). Right-wing trolls also went after him after this anti-woke essay, claiming he was late to the party. though he had been consistent on that point for quite some as well.
> when he shared a UK poll showing a dislike for Musk across party lines.
Love it! But all of that doesn't really explain why he went silent on Trump and decided to publish that essay at probably the worst time possible. I know it is consistent with some of his past essays, but the optics are terrible. What was he thinking?
It’s infuriating how fast the masks have come off with the tech elites.
They were up on stage today with better seating and vantage points than the hard-working civil servants and diplomats who actually care about making the world a better and more peaceful place.
People like PG need regressive policies to keep the gravy train running because the hacking startup thing works less and less over time. Everything you can solve with a computer has been solved. All that’s left is oligarchs consolidating left and right.
Zuck, Cook, Musk, and the rest need to fuck right off.
PG is just another member of the .01% who is an exploiter of labor. His founders who grind and eat ramen to survive are just individual dice rolls for his portfolio.
... and every other right wing movement in Europe. I would also say that supporting Trump is not exactly a centrist thing to do.
BTW: AfD are far right, but I wouldn't call them a Neo Nazi party (although some members certainly are). Examples for true Neo Nazi parties would be "Die Heimat" (formerly known as NPD) or "Freie Sachsen".
If it's any comfort, I'm also an immigrant who was raised in a single parent household. When we last (it's a long story) moved to Canada, I had to share a bed with my dad for a while.
We were never actually poor, poor, at risk. I never skipped meals, or lacked for clothing, though certainly that was a living memory my grandparents had. It was never in question that I would attend university.
Privilege is intersectional blah blah, there are layers to things. I'm not of the dominant Anglo culture, I have an "ethnic" last name, I don't have the same connections people who grew up upper-middle class do. But people certainly see me as white, I'm smart, and I built my career as a bearded guy.
Living as a bearded white guy is just a lot easier, it presents a lot less friction, than being gender non-conforming. That's it, really.
But if you consider humanity as a whole, even the lowest decile US citizens are extremely privileged in terms of economic state. Even if you live on food bank, you're still much more privileged than most humans.
So either all western people can't complain at all without being hypocrite, or we need to accept that one can be privileged in one way but vulnerable in another way.
It's not unthinkable, but in practise there's usually strong pressure in play: sunk cost fallacy, children to support, the threat of social ostracism. This is mostly true for wives rather than husbands because of female socialisation (this is sadly where gender actually becomes relevant!).
As the author himself says:
"It turns out that I like women so much I’d like to be one of them"
That's not how sex works. I like women a lot too: liking them a lot doesn't mean you want to be one, that's called autogynephilia and can be treated with talking therapy.
However if it's a true expression of his attitudes and preferences then perhaps if his wife decided to masculinise her appearance e.g. injecting testosterone to deeper her voice, cause male-associated health growth, have elective surgical interventions like a double mastectomy, he wouldn't receive it as well as his wife seems to have. That's definitely speculation on my part of course!
To answer your original question about how it's supposed to be meant: it won't matter one jot what any investors he once met may think or not think about his lifestyle choices if he's trying to impose a fantasy on his wife.
Autogynephilia is a long-discredited theory, though I suspect from the content of your posts that you would deride any more recent work as being politically or socially biased.
Let's assume it isn't, though. The inventor of the concept, Ray Blanchard, spent decades helping people transition. He didn't use talk therapy to talk them out of it! He developed one of the first protocols for figuring out whether a trans woman needed hormones! From his Wikipedia page:
> Blanchard supports public funding of sex reassignment surgery as an appropriate treatment for transsexual people, as he believes the available evidence supports that the surgery helps them live more comfortably and happily, with high satisfaction rates.
Even Blanchard would absolutely not describe a trans person as just "liking women a lot" and leave it at that. The premise that a trans woman is "just living a fantasy" isn't true and was widely recognized as not true even by previous generations of investigators on the topic. I don't understand why you insist on it.
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We're also speaking in another thread, but that thread got flagged (not by me), so I'll put my reply to it here.
All of this sort of handwaves past my point, though. Maybe you are right about the actual number of intersex people. My point is that it's a small but non-zero number. We can just talk about the number of "ambiguous" people, e. g. people where you can't immediately discern their physical biology from the way they present themselves to you. Would you agree that number is at least 1%?
> As to your question as to why does "woman" have to mean "adult human female" - because that's the dictionary definition.
But the dictionary definition can change, and in fact, has. Oxford, Merriam-Webster, and Cambridge have all made adjustments to the term to encompass the idea of transition, gender fluidity, etc. Your original term is the primary definition but not at all the only one.
Putting cards on the table: I don't believe that if the dictionary changed its definition, you would change yours. It seems to me you'd deride them for "being political" or "bowing to pressure" or somesuch. I think you are using your definitions for "woman" and "female" because you prefer them, not because you believe the dictionary is an arbitrator of truth.
> Notice that arguments about the treatment of "intersex" people (those with disorders/differences of sexual development) are used to buttress the position of people who feel like they're the other sex, but are otherwise biologically completely normal.
Trans people aren't always or often biologically "completely normal"; numerous studies have revealed potential biological bases for gender dysphoria, related to issues with hormones and other development in the womb. They only look normal to you, which goes to my next point:
> I totally agree with you that there are some people whose sex is hard to judge immediately, often, but not always, because they've gone out of their way to make it ambiguous. Everyone else can be clocked at 100 feet in a dark alley - we're evolved that way. [...]
> A few awkward social faux pas over people who look or act androgynous - for whatever reason - doesn't justify exploding a category that works and serves everyone well almost all of the time. I don't feel guilty over my use of sexed pronouns even if I occasionally get it wrong and this insistence that I should... isn't convincing.
If you saw this person walking towards you, and you thought they were a man, and then later found out they were actually transmasculine, would you feel guilty for not referring to them with she/her? Would you correct yourself to referring to them as she/her afterwards, even in conversation with them? Why or why not?
This is a really thorough reply to what I said and very thoughtful, thanks.
Regarding "liking woman a lot", I was quoting the original author - it seemed like an autogynophilic statement to me, the idea that you are sexually attracted to something so much you want to become it. Maybe I'm misunderstanding!
Yeah it's interesting what you say about Blanchard... the fascinating thing for me about Blanchard is the measurement of groin blood pressure to test for arousal in response (rather than relying on self-reporting), I think his solutions were sexist and backwards and a great example of how blinkered medical professionals can be.
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If we expand the dictionary definition of woman to include some men, we then need a new term to describe... well, actual women. I know a lot of people want to adopt the term "cis woman" for this, but I'm going to stick with "woman". If this is just my personal aesthetic judgement that's fine, the burden of proof is on others to expand it and I don't think the justifications are very good.
Regarding the actress you mentioned, Brian, I can totally see I might mistake her for a man as she's gone out of her way to masculinise her appearance.
I wouldn't feel guilt if I used male pronouns then later realised that was incorrect (according to my own rules) - perhaps surprise?
I wouldn't even feel temporary embarrassment because she's gone to lengths to look male.
I would correct myself to use she/her - even in direct conversation. That might be awkward but it's fine.
If I was in a country, organisation or situation where my livelihood was at risk for using sexed pronouns, I would avoid using pronouns entirely as regrettable prudence. This isn't hypothetical: parts of my social life overlap with these kinds of people and I steer through it, often by saying less, but I won't lie to someone directly.
I don't feel guilty about saying I don't believe in god/heaven to a catholic priest, even if the logical implication is that, from my perspective, they've wasted their life and chances of a happy love and sex life. It's unfortunate but really has nothing to do with me, it's all based on a set of attitudes and beliefs I don't participate in (and personally find regressive).
> Regarding "liking woman a lot", I was quoting the original author - it seemed like an autogynophilic statement to me, the idea that you are sexually attracted to something so much you want to become it. Maybe I'm misunderstanding!
> Yeah it's interesting what you say about Blanchard... the fascinating thing for me about Blanchard is the measurement of groin blood pressure to test for arousal in response (rather than relying on self-reporting), I think his solutions were sexist and backwards and a great example of how blinkered medical professionals can be.
To be clear, I don't agree with Blanchard's typography or think it is correct to modern science. But it was never as simple as how it's typically portrayed. I suspect the author of the original post was being sort of ironic/humerous, though it reads as "this is the Blanchardian sense of why I want to transition."
The main thing I want to stress though is that Blanchard was never in the "every person with sperm must use he/him and be masculine and every person with eggs must use she/her and be feminine" camp. He definitely was (is) sexist and backwards, but I think at the time, he was genuinely trying to help people. Ego seems to have gotten in the way of his updating his views and ideas to match reality as science evolved.
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> Regarding the actress you mentioned, Brian, I can totally see I might mistake her for a man as she's gone out of her way to masculinise her appearance. I wouldn't feel guilt if I used male pronouns then later realised that was incorrect (according to my own rules) - perhaps surprise? I wouldn't even feel temporary embarrassment because she's gone to lengths to look male. I would correct myself to use she/her - even in direct conversation. That might be awkward but it's fine.
> If I was in a country, organization or situation where my livelihood was at risk for using sexed pronouns, I would avoid using pronouns entirely as regrettable prudence. This isn't hypothetical: parts of my social life overlap with these kinds of people and I steer through it, often by saying less, but I won't lie to someone directly.
This goes to what I've been saying in the other threads. It's hard for me to comprehend why this is so important. I can understand easily the arguments about sexual assault, participation in sports, and so on - whether I agree with them or not. But needing to use pronouns that are equivalent to someone's genitalia or sperm/egg creation status so stringently that you'd go out of your way to correct yourself to that (and probably offend Brian and people around them quite a bit, in the process), and that you feel uncomfortable being around people who do what you consider to be the wrong thing... it's hard for me to grok. Code-switching into the terminology that's comfortable for the environment you're in and people you're with is incredibly common and ordinary, we do it all the time.
Why is that particular thing so fundamental and important?
The Catholic priest example doesn't make sense to me. You might tell the priest that if he asked, but if you were having a friendly conversation with the priest and he said "have a blessed day!", would you stop and go "Actually, God's not real, and I won't call you Father, Dave, because I don't believe in Catholicism"? I'm Jewish, and I'd probably call a priest Father and the pope Your Holiness, because it's polite in that context. It's not an admission that I accept Jesus, at least, not to me.
A woman is an adult human female, or a person who identifies as such.
In other words, there is biological definition. Then there is malleable social terminology. We can acknowledge biology while also accommodating who choose to - or need to - identify differently.
If we can't accept that, then my next question would be: what do you expect someone who is gender dysphoric to do? What do you believe the appropriate course of action is for someone in that situation? What would you expect or appreciate if you were a person in that situation?
The odd thing is that I don't recall pronouns being much of an issue before recent (2016-onward) political tribalism on transgender matters. Transgender people are not new, they existed previously and people by and large seemed to be able to refer to them by their preferred pronouns without all of this digging-in-of-heels around "I WILL REFER TO YOU BY THE PRONOUNS ASSOCIATED WITH YOUR BIOLOGICAL SEX".
How should I treat someone with body dysmorphia who believes they are 130 kg when they're closer to 50? Should I agree with them and affirm them as fat as they believe they are? Or should I - if it's my place - implore them to go to talking therapy and refuse to be drawn into their self-hating fantasy?
1) Someone’s body dysmorphia is not - generally - affirmed or denied by ordinary everyday passing social interactions. In polite society, you simply don’t comment on someone’s body composition. Gender is an entirely different matter as it is a constant differentiator in day to day life. Also, in my experience, body dysmorphia has nothing to do with other people’s affirmations. We’ve all seen examples of people getting repeated surgeries to change their appearance because they simply cannot see what everyone else is seeing when they look in the mirror.
2) I think in determining “how to handle it” from the perspective of psychotherapy, we should consider what treatment is considered effective. Psychotherapy is simply not effective at changing someone’s gender identity or ameliorating gender dysphoria. The established treatment for gender dysphoria is to align the person’s gender identity and gender expression.
To me, this makes sense when applied to your own life. Therapy might be able to help me realize that my perception of the size of my nose is not accurate, but therapy is not going to be effective at changing my gender identity. Do you feel that your gender identity could be changed using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy?
3) Refer back to the questions that I think should be asked if you find it too difficult to accommodate pronouns:
>What do you expect someone who is gender dysphoric to do? What do you believe the appropriate course of action is for someone in that situation? What would you expect or appreciate if you were a person in that situation?
Your description of getting surgeries based on a distorted view of what they see in the mirror sounds exactly like gender dysphoria to me.
I have a big nose like you and even having had romantic partners compliment me on it hasn't stopped me feeling bad about it, but I agree it's definitely more trivial than believing you ought to be the other sex, somehow. They usually say "it's handsome" rather than try to convince me it's a normal size, which is perhaps a more merciful lie!
I don't know about CBT, but I know that people can be convinced by others that they should be the other sex: it happens all the time on youtube, tiktok, tumblr and across the web. That's how this became so wide spread in the first place.
So I absolutely believe people can be helped to accept the truth of themselves and their real body and not require hormonal or surgical interventions. Here I'm mostly talking about insecure young people - the very different cohort of older men where there's a sexual element involved might be boned (pardon the pun!) but that's all the more reason not to have the rest of society change laws and social mores to facilitate it.
If I was gender dysphoric (unable to accept the truth and be comfortable in my own body) AND believing in gender identity then I'm sure I would expect people to affirm my delusion and I'd viscerally dislike those that didn't.
If I was later cured, I'd hope I'd appreciate those who stuck to their guns and didn't lie to me.
Maybe it's impossible to fully accept yourself (like our big noses) and one just has to live with it and cope with it as healthily as they can.
I would consider getting my nose carved down to size (regardless of how big it really is) a failure for everyone involved.
It sounds like we have established that body dysmorphia and gender dysphoria are not really the same thing? Two conditions can have a similar thread but not be the same or even related, nor require the same approach or treatment.
In terms of "people being convinced by others", I think this is a relatively recent phenomenon. I think it's possible to be simultaneously concerned about social contagion and social influences, especially among young people who don't have a fully developed understanding of themselves, hasty treatments without due diligence on behalf of medical providers, commercial incentives in the medical community, etc, etc... while also acknowledging that some people simply do suffer from legitimate, intractable gender dysphoria.
There is no evidence that I can find that reparative therapy is effective. A teenager being lured into something on social media for social clout is simply not the same thing as a person who genuinely, intractably believes that they were born in the wrong body.
> If I was gender dysphoric (unable to accept the truth and be comfortable in my own body)
One thing I find interesting about this framing ("unable to accept the truth", "affirm my delusion") is that it seems to ignore any kind of biological/chemical occurrences in the body and brain that could explain gender dysphoria and instead casts it purely in a judgemental "these trans people are just nuts" light, which seems odd given that this is a topic on which we clearly don't have all the answers.
I agree with absolutely everything you've said here!
Just my alternative conclusion is: you can't fix anything by compelling people to play along with someone else's delusion, whether the source is social, psychological, biochemical, sexual, whatever.
A "delusion" would be looking down and seeing a penis where a vagina exists. There is nothing delusional about understanding and acknowledging a difference between your identity and biological sex and seeking alignment between the two, in fact, it's a pretty rational approach versus the alternative of living in permanent misery.
Just because we cannot see the physical manifestation of suffering or understand someone's experience when put through the lens of our own experience does not mean that their suffering does not exist or is irrational or delusional. Many chronic pain sufferers understand this.
One thing I can't understand is the assertion that simply respecting another person, usually by doing nothing other than accommodating some alternative pronoun use is such an incredible burden so as to cause apparent extreme mental anguish among the people being asked for this accommodation.
If I have an acquaintance who is transgender, using their preferred pronouns that match their outward appearance and identity is:
1) Not difficult - what is more difficult and socially strange is referring to a person who is trying to present as a woman a "man" or a person who is trying to present as a man a "woman".
2) Not a self-delusion - or any kind of determination at all, really - about their biological sex. I have encountered non-transgender people in my life who are androgynous. You either make a mistake with their pronouns, or ask. There is no way of knowing what their biological makeup is, and I don't experience any kind of internal consternation over it. You take what they say at face value and move on.
3) Is simply offering a modicum of respect.
So much of all of this is tied up in the fact that a lot of people, for whatever reason, just really want to be mean. It seems their default is to be sneering, judgemental, and offer behavior that is more indicative of the worst instincts of high school students rather than well-adjusted adults.
What is "gender identity"? What is the evidence that "gender identity" exists, outside of my identity as a sexed being (ie the influence of hormones on my brain and psychological development, the knowledge of my own body)? If such a phenomena as "gender identity" exists outside of biological sex, why redefine words like "she" and "woman", which have always referred to biological sex, instead of coming up with new words to refer to gender identity?
I'm a bit confused as to why you are pretending that the word "gender" and the concept of gender either doesn't exist or is part of some very recent flimsy social construct. The concept of gender being used to categorize things as male/female/masculine/feminine is not new, and the concept of gender roles being used for general (not rigid) categorization of male and female traits is not new, either.
> I'm a bit confused as to why you are pretending that the word "gender" and the concept of gender either doesn't exist or is part of some very recent flimsy social construct. The concept of gender being used to categorize things as male/female/masculine/feminine is not new, and the concept of gender roles being used for general (not rigid) categorization of male and female traits is not new, either.
I said 'gender identity' not 'gender'.
Up until the early 1900s, the word "gender" did not apply to people. It applied to words. The word "libro" has a masculine gender, but obviously the object itself has no gender or sex. Rarely, "gender" was a synonym for sex, but this was generally considered to be informal or a mistake. As Henry Watson Fowler, a teacher of English usage, wrote in 1926:
> "Gender...is a grammatical term only. To talk of persons...of the masculine or feminine gender, meaning of the male or female sex, is either a jocularity (permissible or not according to context) or a blunder."
Then in middle-1900s academics began defining gender in various new ways. Money used it as a word to describe the way a person presents their sex. Other academics invented the term "gender role" to describe the things a culture associates with men and women. These academics did not believe that "gender" was some innate characteristic of a person's mind. In fact, many of them were arguing there was no difference between men and women in the head, and "gender" roles were social constructions. Even here, though, the concept of gender applied to things, not to people (eg the gender of pink clothes is feminine).
At the same, time the word "sex" began to more commonly be used to refer to coitus, and so normal, non-academics started using gender more commonly as a synonym for biological sex to avoid using the word "sex."
Then in the last thirty years, the term "gender identity" has arisen to describe one's own internal sense of being a boy/man or woman/girl in one's own mind (see the genderbread person), and furthermore the claim is that this is immutable and if there is a conflict between your "gender identity" and biology or how society sees you, it is your biology and/or society that should change. It is only in the last thirty years that people are considered to have something called "gender" that is different than biological sex.
Interestingly this new sense of "gender" almost seems to be a mutant child of the two, completely separate previous definitions of the word gender (gender as biological sex, a property of a person, man or woman and gender as ones presentation and expression more masculine or feminine).
I do not believe that "gender identity" is a meaningful concept. It is an anti-concept, it mashes together unlike things and makes it harder to think and reason about the underlying phenomena. I do not believe that someone has a fixed gender identity that can be distinguished from their biological sex. I do not believe believe that "gender" (as opposed to biological sex) is a property of a person.
"I am a woman, but I don't always like to act or dress as a stereotypical woman, my self-expression is fluid" is a banal and unobjectionable statement.
"I don't like to act or dress as a stereotypical woman, therefore I am not a woman, my gender identity is genderqueer/non-binary" does not make any sense. It is making a mishmash of concepts.
If you believe the modern idea of "gender identity" is real and valuable then you need to properly define it, explain why it is useful, and what is your evidence that it really exists.
It doesn't cause extreme mental anguish, I just... don't have to play along with childish games like pretending someone can be the opposite sex. I just don't! However easy or respectful you think it would be for me to play make believe, or even just pay two-faced lip service.
That seems to really wind people up but since the executive order today (I'm not American incidentally), everyone is going to have to get used to it.
I don't sneer, by the way. Never have, never will! I'm more of a smirker. ;)
> It doesn't cause extreme mental anguish, I just... don't have to play along with childish games like pretending someone can be the opposite sex.
See, this is where you guys get it twisted. This is not a matter of playing along, it's not a game. It's a matter of social practicality. Example:
If you meet a new person who clearly appears to be a woman, do you use female pronouns with that person? What if that person is biologically male and has transitioned, and you simply don't know that? Presumably you don't do genital inspections on every new person you meet to ensure that you are not "playing along with childish games", right?
I do not advocate routine genital check for office workers. The crucial questions for me are the following:
1) should institutions that have female only spaces or events be allowed to exclude pre-op transwomen? Post-op? For example, the women's only nude spa in Seattle that got in trouble for excluding a transwoman -- https://www.courthousenews.com/after-banning-trans-women-was...
2) If a coworker of mine who I know to be a biological male (he has sired children, etc.) socially transitions (no surgery), should I be forced to call him "she" and say that he is a woman? What if he makes almost zero effort to pass as a woman? What if he medically transitions?
3) Should I be able to make an argument on social media (Reddit etc.) such as "Men cannot get pregant" or "trans women are not real women" without getting banned for hateful conduct?
All three of these things are really happening, and are the real issues getting me freaked out (also, that and transitioning kids who very obviously are not "girls in a boys body")
> 1) should institutions that have female only spaces or events be allowed to exclude pre-op transwomen? Post-op? For example, the women's only nude spa in Seattle that got in trouble for excluding a transwoman
I'm not sure how such a thing is strictly enforceable. Even in states that have banned trans people from using the bathroom that they prefer, it seems to operate mostly on the honor system.
> If a coworker of mine who I know to be a biological male (he has sired children, etc.) socially transitions (no surgery), should I be forced to call him "she"
What does "forced" mean? The reality is that if you cannot make this basic accommodation that most people consider to be a matter of social etiquette in 2025, other people may not perceive you in a positive way and that can have unintended consequences.
You mentioned in another reply that you feel its important to respect cultural norms and expectations when it comes to things like what you are expected to wear. Well, basic respect of pronouns and not antagonizing transgender people are increasingly a 'cultural norm'.
> Should I be able to make an argument on social media (Reddit etc.) such as "Men cannot get pregant" or "trans women are not real women" without getting banned for hateful conduct?
People seem to make comments like this on reddit without getting banned now? A search of reddit for that term brings up many results.
There seems to be a resurgence and re-normalization of plain LGBTQ+ hate and antagonization these days. Twitter/X is full of people thrilled that "gay" and "retarded" are acceptable adjectives for them to use again.
So, in January 2025 I am not really buying any arguments about "I'm not allowed to even discuss basic issues around gender" because those discussions are absolutely happening and the rules seem less restrictive than they have in a long time.
Exhibit A: Mark Zuckerberg's latest announcement that you are allowed to post vile garbage about LGBTQ people without restriction.
Psychotherapy is simply not effective at changing someone’s gender identity or ameliorating gender dysphoria. The established treatment for gender dysphoria is to align the person’s gender identity and gender expression.
Can you find a randomized controlled study where the "affirmative" approach of aligning gender expression with identity has been compared to a "reparative" approach of aligning identity with biology? I have read a lot of studies on this and what you are saying simply is not backed by the evidence. Whenever I read a study that has been referenced on NPR or such, I read the details and the details do not support what the people citing the study say it supports.
In all other cases, if someone's mental conception of themselves was not aligned with the biological reality of their self, we would say the default is that the person should try to adjust their mental conception. A treatment that involved all of society changing, or even more extreme -- actual removal of body parts -- would need to pass a very high burden of experimental evidence. From what I have read, that burden of proof has not ever been close to being met. There are no studies that say that aligning gender expression works better than helping the person cope with or get over their dysphoria. If I have missed such a study, I would like to read it.
Do you feel that your gender identity could be changed using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy?
I do not have a gender identity and I do not have a gender. I a sex and I have an identity as a sexed being. I have a brain that has developed under the influence of testosterone, I have the knowledge of having a penis, I have the knowledge that society sees me as a male and penis-haver and all that entails. I have the knowledge that if I used a woman's locker room and exposed my penis, women would freak out, and so I do not do that. Etc. etc. I wear the clothes that I do because that is what society expects of me. There are all sorts of clothes and outfits from other cultures that I prefer aesthetically but I don't wear because they do not align with the norms of my current culture.
It's actually really difficult for me to understand how a person's fundamental well-being is intrinsically and immalleably tied to names and clothing.
Of all the possible forms of clothing humans have worn in the last ten-thousand years, only a tiny sliver of those clothing are socially acceptable for me to wear. And yet we all deal with that.
If someone were to intentionally call me the wrong name, while everyone else gets called the name they have asked to be called, that would bother me, but only because that is a power move that singles me out. If I were to, say, join a fraternity, where everyone had to have a name assigned to them, that would not bother me, and I would be fine being called that name while hanging out in the fraternity.
If someone were to call me a "woman" I would be upset because it is the reality of my biology that I am a man. Furthermore, saying you are a "woman" is usually saying, "You lack the positive qualities we usually associate with being a man -- you are weak, you are cowardly, you are whiny, etc."
The RCTs that validate your assertion (or mine) when comparing reparative therapy and affirmation do not exist. All that we have to rely on now is the overwhelming consensus among medical and mental health professionals, and that consensus appears to exist among major reputable bodies worldwide, and is based on their many decades of collective clinical experience and research.
I understand your perspective - in a different world without ethical qualms or risk of harm we could conduct those studies and maybe have better, more conclusive answers. What I am suggesting is that we have the data and research that we have. While you have chosen to draw a line at requiring randomized controlled trials to convince you that a certain outcome is the right one, there is an abundance of research and clinical data that does exist endorsing affirmation of gender identity, and we can explore some of it, if you like.
> In all other cases, if someone's mental conception of themselves was not aligned with the biological reality of their self, we would say the default is that the person should try to adjust their mental conception.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by "other cases" that are directly comparable with gender dysphoria, and can you find some studies that support the effectiveness of this approach? Gender dysphoria seems pretty unique from a clinical perspective despite a common thread it may have with other conditions.
> I do not have a gender identity and I do not have a gender. I a sex and I have an identity as a sexed being.
I think it's great that you are very clear on your role in society when it comes to what side of the biological sex binary you are on. It's a luxury to not have to be concerned with it, but not everyone has that luxury.
> It's actually really difficult for me to understand how a person's fundamental well-being is intrinsically and immalleably tied to names and clothing.
What you are saying here is that "this is my experience and I do not understand why everyone else does not have the same experience". Do you not see a problem with that? You can have your opinion and that's fine. Other people do not have to share your opinion or approach the world in the same way.
You appear to start from your biology and work backwards, as if the mind does not exist. Others would suggest that you and your biology do not even exist without the conscious mind making them real. Thus, the power of the conscious mind is actually more critical to this whole equation than whatever your biology is.
Stop thinking about your own experience for 5 minutes and think about the experiences of other people and where they might be coming from based on their own perception, experience and biological realities - including the biology of what goes on in the brain!
The RCTs that validate your assertion (or mine) when comparing reparative therapy and affirmation do not exist. All that we have to rely on now is the overwhelming consensus among medical and mental health professionals, and that consensus appears to exist among major reputable bodies worldwide, and is based on their many decades of collective clinical experience and research.
If medical bodies are changing guidelines without basing on it solid studies and evidence, then those medical bodies should be considered compromised and corrupt. Especially when that treatments involving treatments that will permanently sterilize minors. If they are not following the evidence, then they are not "experts" or "scientists" they are ideological fanatics wearing the skin-suit of science.
In following the transgender issue, what I have noticed is that doctors who take the common sense approach, "Your child has a penis, he is a boy, you need to reinforce that and he will get over it" don't make any money. They do not open "gender identity clinics" because there is no money in dispensing common sense. The doctors who tell parents to "let the child explore their gender" and "let's help solidify their transgender identity" prolong the problem and create a recurring revenue stream for themselves. Then, because these doctors are the "head of a gender identity clinic serving thousands of children" these same doctors are the one's who are put in charge of writing the standard of care and the guidelines. It is totally perverse set of incentives.
I'd recommend reading up on how the sausage is made in coming up with the "consensus":
Can you elaborate on what you mean by "other cases" that are directly comparable with gender dysphoria, and can you find some studies that support the effectiveness of this approach?
If someone was too short, or too tall, or thought they were black (even though they were unambiguously white),
You appear to start from your biology and work backwards, as if the mind does not exist.
No, I don't believe that mind and body exist as wholly separate entities. This is very obvious in the case of sex where the hormones emitted by my testicles very clearly have all kinds of effects on my mind.
> It's actually really difficult for me to understand how a person's fundamental well-being is intrinsically and immalleably tied to names and clothing.
>
> > What you are saying here is that "this is my experience and I do not understand why everyone else does not have the same experience".
No, what I'm saying it is difficult to even see how an immalleabile tie between well-being and wearing a dress could have possibly evolved, when clothing has been so different throughout human history and people are thus obviously very flexible in the type of clothes they can wear.
What you are saying here is that "this is my experience and I do not understand why everyone else does not have the same experience". Do you not see a problem with that?
Until a mind reading machine exists, that is all that any of us can do. I have read various accounts of trans-people's experiences and I am not convinced that there is some immalleable preference in their mind that makes them female internally. Certainly some men have a very strong desire to act out the role of female, but that is different there actually being female in the brain. But because of the way various medical guidelines works, and the law works, there is incentive to lie about this.
I am well aware of the current concerns around the incentives that exist in the medical industry when it comes to the treatment of gender dysphoric people. Some of it we should absolutely be concerned about, particularly when it comes to treatment of children.
Where the current public discourse on these issues goes off the rails is that we conclude that, because these concerns around improper incentives and improper treatment exists, or because there are some issues around social influence of children on social media, that "gender dysphoria" broadly is either not real or not a legitimate problem that people deal with.
> If someone was too short, or too tall, or thought they were black (even though they were unambiguously white)
If someone was 5'8" and underwent leg-lengthening therapy to become 6'1", would we not call that person "tall", or would we jump through strange mental hoops to justify antagonizing them based on their genetic makeup?
> Until a mind reading machine exists
Again, the problem here is that you are concluding that unless you can rationalize and validate someone else's thought process or mental condition through the lens of your own experience, then their experience is irrelevant to you, not real, and that they are worthy of mockery and derision instead of respect and consideration.
We don't need a mind reading machine to understand what gender dysphoria is, because gender dysphoric people tell us what they are thinking and feeling, not to mention they tend to know what will reduce their feelings of dysphoria.
We don't need a mind reading machine to understand what gender dysphoria is, because gender dysphoric people tell us what they are thinking and feeling
It's not this simple. For one, lots of people are all kinds of confused. There are people who think they are dysphoric, transition, then realize they totally messed up. There are people who say, "I went through a period when I was a kid where I was a tom-boy or told my parents I was the other sex -- thank goodness this kind of ideology wasn't around then because I could have been trannsed. I'm perfectly happy in my biological sex right now." If you read a lot of stories they aren't necessarily "dysphoric" they just think it will benefit them someway to transition, in the same way a weightlifter who goes on steroids is not "dysphoric" about his body, he just might think he is happier to be muscled up.
Because we do not actually have the technology to turn a man into a female (or vice versa), I think the most honest and best course is to tell that person, "Sorry, you are not a woman, and the surgery you are asking for will not actually get you want you want. Cross-dressing and wearing lipstick does not make you a woman. But if you learn to accept who you are, you can live a happy life." To be convinced that this common sense approach is not the best approach, I would need very strong evidence -- at minimum multiple randomized controlled trials by honest researchers.
> There are people who think they are dysphoric, transition, then realize they totally messed up.
Some people start businesses, it doesn't go well, they then realized they messed up and totally regret it. Does this mean that all entrepreneurship should be banned?
The logical failure in your argument is that you are saying that because there are problems with current approaches to transgender care, that gender dysphoria is not real and does not need to be taken seriously or treated or accommodated.
> I think the most honest and best course is to tell that person, "Sorry, you are not a woman, and the surgery you are asking for will not actually get you want you want. Cross-dressing and wearing lipstick does not make you a woman. But if you learn to accept who you are, you can live a happy life."
There is zero evidence that your "common sense approach" works at all, and there is zero evidence that reparative or conversion therapy works at all for those with legitimate gender dysphoria.
There is zero evidence that your "common sense approach" works at all, and there is zero evidence that reparative or conversion therapy works at all for those with legitimate gender dysphoria.
Every random comment on Reddit that "I suffered from dysphoria and then started lifting and doing masculine things and got completely over it" is evidence that reparative therapy works.
It's not gold standard evidence, it's not proof-beyond-a-reasonable doubt, but it is evidence. But the "evidence" for "affirmation" and "medical transition" do not meet this gold standard either.
With medicine, the burden of proof is on the person doing the intervention. "First do no harm." Social transition and medical transition are both MAJOR interventions, the burden of proof is on the proponents. "You have to give people this drug, no we have never done a controlled clinical trial on it, but you have no evidence that NOT giving them the treatment works." What? You need to do a RCT before promoting a new treatment as the standard of care. "Affirmation" has never proved itself in an RCT so "Sorry, you are a man" should be the default.
> Clinical psychologists Kenneth Zucker's work in getting the majority of his patients over their dysphoria is "evidence" that reparative therapy works
You are conflating social trends among young people to identify as gender non-confirming for social clout, with adults who have intractable gender dysphoria. It is disingenuous to point to children who were likely not genuinely gender dysphoric to begin with, claim that they were 'cured' and conclude that this solution is then viable for all people with gender dysphoria. There is an incredible amount of nuance to the situation that you are simply ignoring.
One of two things is true:
1) You genuinely do not understand the 'separation of concerns' when it comes to these issues surround gender, biological sex and gender dysphoria, current social trends, and sensational political headlines.
2) You are being intentionally misleading.
I'm going to assume you are arguing in good faith and that #1 is true. In that case, I recommend you take a step back and try to recalibrate your understanding of the issue. I don't know the best way to accomplish that - maybe do some research and read some stories of transgender people published prior to 2015 before it became the political fight du jour.
>Every random comment on Reddit that "I suffered from dysphoria and then started lifting and doing masculine things and got completely over it" is evidence that reparative therapy works.
You've gone from demanding randomized controlled trials to referring to random comments from anonymous users on Reddit about how lifting weights cures gender dysphoria?
I think it's safe to say that the conversation has gone off the rails, although maybe that happened a few replies ago.
You are conflating social trends among young people to identify as gender non-confirming for social clout, with adults who have intractable gender dysphoria.
It's not just me who is conflating them, the official medical establishment doesn't treat children much differently these days. Zucker was canceled, "watchful waiting" or "reparative therapy" is officially condemned by the APA. "Intractable gender dysphoria" is not something that can be reliably or objectively diagnosed a priori. A relative of mine who has transitioned their son, partly based on medical advice, partly on the advice of adult trans friends, seems to repeating arguments about it being a fixed property and affirmative care being the only approach. Now, I personally do not think this boy has dysphoria at all, he sees a perfectly normal boy to me, he just liked Elsa and princess dresses as a kid because Elsa is a super-stimuli character. But that's not what the medical people say.
You can't separate the kids and adults issue because the most powerful activists who are making policy and getting people canceled are not making a proper distinction themselves.
You can't separate the kids and adults issue because there was a direct road from redefining the words "man" and "woman" to the medical "experts" like Diane Ehrensaft, cited by NPR and NY Times telling parents to not tell their four-year-old things like: "you have a penis, you can never grow up to be a woman or get pregnant, you will grow up to be a man, you are a boy."
I don't know the best way to accomplish that - maybe do some research and read some stories of transgender people published prior to 2015 before it became the political fight du jour.
I have, but you need to re-calibrate your understand for the recent situation. The people who transitioning now are not exhibiting the same types of life stories as those who did thirty years ago. It seems like a different phenomena, and I am much more concerned with the phenomena now, when if afflicts so many people, including parents I know who are transitioning their kids, than I am about the phenomena 30 years ago.
You've gone from demanding randomized controlled trials to referring to random comments from anonymous users on Reddit about how lifting weights cures gender dysphoria?
Yes, once you have anecdotal evidence of something working on a n=1 approach, the thing to do is expand it to an n=many RCT. That hasn't been done. It should have been done. Also, comments on niche subreddits inhabited by relatively normal people are some of the best anecdotal evidence you can find. Anecdotes from friend groups are limited in their own way. Popular memoirs and newspaper stories are both highly selected and filtered by publishers for preferred narratives, and the person writing them understands that a lot is at stake and they have to be careful about how they narrate their story. Random commenters on niche forums have much less incentive to lie (this doesn't apply to big forums where people will lie to get rise out of people, and the comments that reach visibility are selected).
I see this argument all the time and I have so, so many questions about it. It just does not make a lot of sense to me. Please know that while we have fundamental disagreements, I am also genuinely trying to understand this worldview.
According to your definition, what is an intersex person? How should one refer to one? There are intersex people who who look like women but have penises, and vice versa. You can simply Google "example of intersex person" to see plenty of them, and they have always existed. Most intersex people do not have either reproduction strategy, and are wholly infertile. Even amongst those who are not, the strategy they have often does not line up with how they look, act, or feel. They are a small subset of society, but so are trans people - on a cursory search, about 1-2% of the population is intersex, and about 1-2% is trans.
The thing I don't understand is, if your answer is anything other than "I have no way to refer to such a person and could not use pronouns to refer to them," (or using the ze/zir neopronouns which I suspect nearly none of them have ever heard of) then it would stand to reason your decision about using "she" or "he" for someone is based at least partially on how they read to you culturally, and not your definition as laid out here.
And even if that isn't true, why does "adult human female" have to map to "woman", and vice versa? Who says, other than you, and what more authority do you have than anyone? I know a lot of trans people - MTF and FTM - who are not distinguishable from your definition unless you interrogate their genitalia, or in some cases, their genetics. If you see such a person, and use the "wrong" pronouns according to your definition for them, would you then feel guilty for not using the "right" ones? If not, why not?
All of this is to say that I don't see how your reduce-it-to-biology-and-never-waver definition is workable in society, and I don't understand why folks - yourself included, it seems - are so insistent on it.
The vast majority of people with some kind of intersex disorder are still very clearly either male or female. Hermaphrodites, that is, people whose primary sex organs developed in a way that make them truly ambiguous, are vanishingly rare. And in that case it would be acceptable for them to identify as whatever sex they feel is the closest.
My problem is not that I'm never willing to be generous and charitable with people who are genuinely edge cases. My problem is corporate and government policies that require me to lie about non-edge cases.
* I know a lot of trans people - MTF and FTM - who are not distinguishable from your definition unless you interrogate their genitalia, or in some cases, their genetics. If you see such a person, and use the "wrong" pronouns according to your definition for them, would you then feel guilty for not using the "right" ones? If not, why not?*
Again, my problem is required being to lie. If I have a coworker who I know is a man, he has always called himself a man, he has the secondary sexual characteristics of a man, he is six foot with a beard, he has sired a child -- and then one day he comes into the office wearing a dress and long-hair and insist on being called a "she" and insist on going into the woman's locker room at the gym, I would find that intolerable because I know the coworker is not a woman. I am being told to lie.
If my boss says "There are four marbles in this box" and I have never seen inside the box, I will say, "Ok, got it, I have no reason to accuse you of lying, there are four marbles in the box." But if I see with my own eyes that there are two marbles in the box, and my boss says, "There are four marbles in the box, say it say 'there are four marbles' it or you are fired" that is dystopian and intolerable.
Now, let's say I have a coworker who always presented as female, the coworker maybe had a bit of an uncanny valley thing at times, but I have never asked about it and have always called the coworker "she." One day, there is a work-family outing to a water park, and in the locker room the coworker is naked and exposes zis penis in view of my wife and daughter and they tell me about it. I would not feel guilty about calling the coworker "she" but I would feel angry with the coworker for lying about his sex.
And even if that isn't true, why does "adult human female" have to map to "woman", and vice versa?
The entire point of language is to "cut reality at the joints", we create words in order to group natural kinds together in a way that allow for common understanding and decision-making. If society wants to redefine "woman" as meaning something else, we would still want a word to mean "adult human female" because it is a natural kind. When we redefine woman, we see all the contortions people go . All of science, all of human knowledge relies on being better and better at organizing and recognizing and create common language around finding patterns in nature.
All of this is to say that I don't see how your reduce-it-to-biology-and-never-waver definition is workable in society, and I don't understand why folks - yourself included, it seems - are so insistent on it.
For all the reasons we make distinctions between men and women, or divide up men and women -- from locker rooms to sports to prisons, to assigning rooms during multi-family vacations, or assigning rooms at college, to single-sex schools, to certain dress standards, to sexual harassment litigation, to etiquette and social norms around inviting people to do activities -- it all comes down to biology. It all comes down to massive physical disparities between men and women (eg, a punch from an average man does to a woman does approximately 1000% the damage a punch from a woman does to a man), and the male potentiality to impregnate women, and all the physical and biological differences that have evolved as a result of reality. The reason historically cultures have clothing and appearance cues to distinguish sex is because the biology is very important, we want to know it as soon we meet someone, but we don't want to look at their genitalia, so cultures have arbitrary conventions (pronouns, male & female names, pink versus blue) etc. to indicate biological sex at first meeting. Destroying these distinctions and saying, "it's all what a person wants to be" is completely novel in history and the burden of proof is on those who want to change the status quo, and after following this issue for 15 years I only become more convinced that burden-of-proof has not been met and that it really does all come down to biology.
I don't understand the focus on someone, in your view, lying to you - I suspect we agree that in the scenario you described, it seeming that the person has lied to you about what's in their pants is much less important than the fact that they whipped it out in front of your family. It wouldn't be any better if a man who identified as such snuck into the changing room and did the same thing. I think focusing on criminal behavior is similarly focusing on an edge case, given that the vast majority of trans people, and people in general, are not criminals who expose themselves to children.
What about this more likely scenario: If this co-worker never did such a thing, they were a perfectly pleasant and normal person to work with, and you only found out they were trans after you or they had left the company and you no longer worked together, would you still be angry they had lied to you - why or why not? Would whether they'd ever gone into a changing room in your presence affect that anger?
What if this person was someone like the photo I used in the other thread, and they looked something like this: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRO1Vem... - the next time you saw them, would you start referring to them as "she" and call them a liar?
I don't fundamentally agree that dressing, acting, or wanting to be referred to a certain way equates to lying to someone about what's in their pants. Even if it did, I also just don't fundamentally understand why it matters if someone does lie to you about that, in average everyday situations.
I can understand that there are circumstances where it does matter. I'm not saying it couldn't ever. But I don't understand why the default position is rejection and anger.
> The entire point of language is to "cut reality at the joints", we create words in order to group natural kinds together in a way that allow for common understanding and decision-making. If society wants to redefine "woman" as meaning something else, we would still want a word to mean "adult human female" because it is a natural kind. When we redefine woman, we see all the contortions people go . All of science, all of human knowledge relies on being better and better at organizing and recognizing and create common language around finding patterns in nature.
That seems like a solvable problem to me. Our initial attempts at solving it have been awkward, but we'll get there. I think I'm more concerned about what path society agrees on going forward than the specifics of how we do it, for now.
> Destroying these distinctions and saying, "it's all what a person wants to be" is completely novel in history
This also is not true. There are numerous well-documented cases of trans people throughout history, and there are long-standing concepts of "third genders" and others dating back thousands of years (see e. g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender#Old_World).
I don't understand the focus on someone, in your view, lying to you - I suspect we agree that in the scenario you described, it seeming that the person has lied to you about what's in their pants is much less important than the fact that they whipped it out in front of your family. It wouldn't be any better if a man who identified as such snuck into the changing room and did the same thing. I think focusing on criminal behavior is similarly focusing on an edge case
What about this more likely scenario: If this co-worker never did such a thing, they were a perfectly pleasant and normal person to work with, and you only found out they were trans after you or they had left the company and you no longer worked together, would you still be angry they had lied to you - why or why not? Would whether they'd ever gone into a changing room in your presence affect that anger?
Imagine I had a co-worker "Mike" who said they were married, told stories about stuff their wife does around the house, etc. I sometimes asked them about their wife, I told other people, "Oh, Mike, yeah, he's married." Then after he leaves I find out beyond a reasonable a doubt that he was not married, he had been living alone the entire time, etc.
I wouldn't exactly be angry with Mike, I may even have some pity for him, but I would be wary of him going forward. If I met him, I would be polite, and I would neither affirm anything he said about his wife nor would I make a stink about it, and I would try to limit my interactions because I simply could not understand his mind. Was he lying? Delusional? A story-teller? I don't know but it's not really worth it to me to find out.
So it would be the same with the trans person I meet later on. I would simply not use the person's pronouns, I would be polite and neither affirm nor deny their status. I would be wary and limit my interactions because I would, charitably speaking, lack of a theory of that person's mind, and it would simply not be worth by time, energy, and risk for me to try to navigate the situation without getting myself in trouble.
This also is not true. There are numerous well-documented cases of trans people throughout history, and there are long-standing concepts of "third genders" and others dating back thousands of years (see e. g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender#Old_World).
There is a big difference between a third gender and a man saying, "I'm a woman because I say so" or "transwomen are women." Eunuchs, eg, were not women, and were not considered to be so. If we want to say that cross-dressing men are a "third gender" that is more acceptable to me than saying they are women and entitled to all the rights and privileges of women and you are fired or cancelled if you say otherwise.
I also should have qualified, as saying "novel in the history of successful societies." Societies in their late stages of decadence and decline have done all sorts of crazy things. Emperor Elagabalus was perhaps "trans" but that was always considered as crazy and bad behavior.
The way you wrote your example, I didn't read it as "the person happened to be naked near my wife and child," I read it as "the person purposefully exposed themselves to my wife and child intending them to see it." It's not normal changing room etiquette to present your genitalia to people forcefully or purposefully and it could be a crime of assault even if the person had the same genitalia as the offender. Did I misunderstand you?
Assuming you actually meant "a person was incidentally naked around my wife and child and a penis was visible for a moment," I am having a much harder time finding that objectionable in the same way as I found what I understood the scenario to be. I'm not saying I'm for it, maybe there needs to be some third solution so people aren't uncomfortable, but I'm not seeing it as harmful in the same way an open sexual assault would be. Is the concern that trans people will commit assault, or is it that they will be present at all?
> So it would be the same with the trans person I meet later on. I would simply not use the person's pronouns, I would be polite and neither affirm nor deny their status. I would be wary and limit my interactions because I would, charitably speaking, lack of a theory of that person's mind, and it would simply not be worth by time, energy, and risk for me to try to navigate the situation without getting myself in trouble.
I don't agree that this example with Mike is an apples-to-apples comparison. You have a mapping in your head of "wears dresses and skirts and makeup and long hair, must have a vagina," and I just don't consider that mapping to be valid. Here's a counter-example that I think is more accurate to the situation:
Your colleague Mike wears a ring on his ring finger. He has many photos on his desk of himself with a woman about his age, in which they are hugging or in funny poses together. He refers to her as "Alice" and he mentions her frequently. You assume that Mike is married, and Alice is his wife. For years you and Mike talk about Alice together and he never quite says anything to dispel this, nor do you ask.
Years after you work together, you find out that Alice is Mike's sister, and the ring is a family heirloom. Mike is not and has never been married and is confused and maybe grossed out at someone's suggestion that he's married to Alice.
Did Mike lie to you, or did you just make an assumption about him that wasn't accurate?
There seems to be this fundamental expectation that people will organize and present themselves in a way that allows you to map them into the categories you have in your head. When people don't fall neatly into those categories, it seems like you treat them as incomprehensible at best, purposeful liars at worse, when the reality is that all assumptions are just assumptions and there's no reason not to just be like "oh, I made a wrong assumption" and then move on.
> There is a big difference between a third gender and a man saying, "I'm a woman because I say so" or "transwomen are women." Eunuchs, eg, were not women, and were not considered to be so. If we want to say that cross-dressing men are a "third gender" that is more acceptable to me than saying they are women and entitled to all the rights and privileges of women and you are fired or cancelled if you say otherwise.
I think you should look into concepts like "nonbinary" and "genderfluid"; all of these things exist along a spectrum of "trans" identity and they're not as distinct from each other as you consider them to be. The "third gender" example is only one that I supplied for convenience. There are plenty of others. The point is that gender is not an immutable concept.
Honestly, if I had to sum up one overall point over these comments, it feels like I'm saying "gender is not immutable and doesn't need to be" and you're saying "yes it is and when people try to make it otherwise it's disturbing." I'm having a lot of trouble understanding that perspective.
I am having a much harder time finding that objectionable in the same way as I found what I understood the scenario to be. I'm not saying I'm for it, maybe there needs to be some third solution so people aren't uncomfortable,
Part of the question is -- do you think society needs to distinguish between male and female? Should we have any single sex environments? Should all gym showers be coed like Starship Troopers? Should all prisons be co-ed? Should college freshmen being assigned roommates be assigned male and female pairings? If I, a man, tell my wife, "I made a new friend and we are going out for drinks tomorrow", should my wife care if this new friend is male or female?
And if you say yes, society does need to distinguish these things, is the essential matter for needing to make the distinction "how this person identifies" or "the person's actual biology"?
The transgender stuff is downstream of the modern trend to downplay all distinctions between sexes and eliminate sex segregated spaces.
I think you should look into concepts like "nonbinary" and "genderfluid"
I have. Perhaps my Mike example was bad, because I agree that most transgender people in 2024 are not lying or crazy.
I think the entire concept of "gender" being separate from "sex" is an anti-concept. I think nonbinary and genderfluid are anti-concepts. The purpose of words and concepts in a languages is to group natural kinds together for the purpose of common knowledge and communication. An anti-concept is something that groups unlike things together, that confuses and makes it harder to think and communicate about the underlying natural kinds.
Claiming to be "gender fluid" is pure nothingness, it communicates nothing real to me. I wouldn't actually care too much if "gender fluid" was created as a new concept with its own name, but it is a problem that "gender fluid" overrides and eliminates the concept of biological male and female, which I do care about.
Part of the problem is the word "gender" which originally was purely a grammatical term but since has been given about a half-dozen different directions.
If "gender" refers to the degree that someone acts and presents according to societal stereotypes as masculine or feminine, obviously we are all "gender fluid."
If "gender" is simply a synonym for biological sex, which is its most common use (I blame Austin Powers for ruining our ability to use the word "sex" on questionnaires), then "gender fluidity" is obviously false --there is no such thing in humans or mammals as being fluid in biological sex.
Either way, then, someone declaring themselves "gender fluid" is just nonsense, depending on the definition of "gender" it is either false or it applies to everyone.
It also matters when being "gender fluid" is not just some personal oddity that I can joke about, like someone being into astrology, but is treated as something I must respect and if I don't, I get fired or banned from events for code-of-conduct violations.
Going back to my Mike example, perhaps a better example would be, imagine my co-worker Mike has a picture of a girl on his desk, and talks about being a "dad" and has a "girl dad" t-shirt and when I'm talking about being a dad, he chips in with "ah, in my experience as a dad blah blah blah" ... And then I find out that the "child" he is a dad of is one of these "adopt a child" charities where he has never met her and sends her $30 a month to this girl in a foreign country and writes a letter once a year. OK, that's nice and all, but you aren't really a dad. Now Mike may not be lying or delusional. Be is participating in a campaign to redefine the word and concept of "dad" in a way that confuses rather then clarifies. He also is to some extent "stealing valor." And I object to that and I would object being forced to participate in that.
Genuinely, how hard for you is it to call a person what they want to be called. What difference does gender make in the workplace even?
I understand it's hard for you to use different pronouns, but it's probably much harder for the person who feels like they don't identify with their gender assigned at birth.
> Requiring me to call someone who was born with a penis, and who has sired children a "she" is telling me to say that 2 + 2 = 5.
It's more like someone telling you to call them John and you call them Tyler instead. It's literally just a word.
It's more like someone telling you to call them John and you call them Tyler instead. It's literally just a word.
That's an absurd comparison. Names are something that have always been personally chosen. "He" and "she", "man" and "woman" are words that create common knowledge about the nature of reality.
------------
Zhao Gao was contemplating treason but was afraid the other officials would not heed his commands, so he decided to test them first. He brought a deer and presented it to the Second Emperor but called it a horse. The Second Emperor laughed and said, "Is the chancellor perhaps mistaken, calling a deer a horse?" Then the emperor questioned those around him. Some remained silent, while some, hoping to ingratiate themselves with Zhao Gao, said it was a horse, and others said it was a deer. Zhao Gao secretly arranged for all those who said it was a deer to be brought before the law and had them executed instantly. Thereafter the officials were all terrified of Zhao Gao. Zhao Gao gained military power as a result of that.
---
How hard would it be for you to call a "deer" a "horse"? It's just words.
Must be hard to have to deal with that, I'm so sorry you have to use a different word when referring to someone.
It's obviously much harder for you to use a different pronoun than for them to have their entire gender identity invalidated. Would you like for people to misgender you constantly and purposefully?
Your life must be so hard. I feel bad for you to have to use a different word to refer to someone. Maybe have some basic decency and respect for others?
Why did you change the words that I used? I said "strategy" for a reason. True intersex conditions (where the strategy is ambiguous) are vanishingly rare.
With humans, there is only male, female, and for lack of a better term, very rare birth defects. We say that arachnids are "8 legged species" even if due to birth defect a spider is occasionally born with 7 legs. We say a coin flip is a binary "heads" or "tails" even if there is a vanishingly rare chance it could land on its side.
This whole "what about people with intersex disorders" is total sophistry. If it was just people with intersex disorders, this would not be an issue. The issue is people who are very clearly one sex demanding to be treated as the other sex. The issue is publicly teaching children that it is possible to change sex.
> True intersex conditions (where the strategy is ambiguous) are vanishingly rare.
More common than gold, more common than most things I professionally deal with in geophysical exploration.
In most countries they form a real number of real actual people. There are also a much larger number of not true intersex people who are also not exactly male or female.
> With humans, there is only male, female, an
You've already conceded this isn't true.
> This whole "what about people born with a leg missing" is total sophistry.
No, it isn't, It's something that actually happens and something that public policy that gives a damn about human dignity has to deal with.
Why is it you don't care about some humans? Do they lack a soul, or something, in your eyes?
There are two key aspects here: the nature of work and a critique of woke narratives, which some argue deny recent developments by framing them as a simple desire for acceptance. Specifically, transgender individuals are seen as being elevated through diversity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, with accusations that these efforts sometimes prioritize activism over qualifications and invade female only spaces that are there for a reason.
While I understand the personal challenges you’re navigating regarding identity and humanity, it’s important to maintain boundaries between personal matters and professional life. In Silicon Valley, the focus is on achieving ambitious goals that deliver exceptional results, similar to the performance expected in professional sports. Success depends on everyone concentrating on their work, regardless of personal beliefs or identities. Therefore, keeping personal issues like sexuality and the woke religion separate from the workplace ensures a productive and diverse viewpoint inclusive environment where all qualified individuals can contribute effectively and help companies thrive against odds.
Paul most definitely explained what he thinks "wokeness" means in a coherent way. The author has an malformed opinion on a piece he claimed to not read in its entirety.
Interesting contrast. This essay is self-indulgent and the subtext is "I'm important". Paul Graham's essays are economical and the subtext is "the reader is important".
I'll just say it must suck being precisely in the crosshairs of a political proxy battle. The truth is, neither the left nor the right really give a shit about transgenders but use them to rile up their bases.
First, the brief "woke" movement which was soon taken by the right and extrapolated to the extreme. It's the same tactic used by the right for any issue - when I was a kid it was "if gays can marry, then they will want to marry their pets."
They take whatever social progress has been made and push it until the concept annoys >50% of people then say "that's what the left wants."
But I can't get behind the left's approach of highlighting and siloing every sub-group. It just simplifies division and is counter to all the American "melting pot" concepts that actually worked over many decades to integrate immigrants and normalize differences.
I don't know where all of this leads, but it certainly doesn't feel like progress is ever made or even really desired, only a cycling of hot button issues to distract everyone.
I dont think transgender are in the crosshairs of a political proxy battle. The issues is that many people feel disgust and hate over the idea of transgender. And whenever they become visible, they lash out and react.
It's more the behavior of trans activists that gets people riled up.
There's really no need for men who say they're women to be going around conquering everything that's for women and then admonishing people as bigots or transphobic when they object to this.
Instead they could, you know, just live their lives peacefully without launching attack after attack on women's rights. It'd be better for everyone.
I never interpreted "taking a dump in a toilette" as conquering.
> Instead they could, you know, just live their lives peacefully without launching attack after attack on women's rights. It'd be better for everyone.
Obvious issue here is that the same groups who hate trans also tend to be pretty misogynistic. So, I do not believe this is about womens rights at all.
The irony is I too dislike nagging, hollow, corporate DEI exercises. In the abstract I was glad they existed[3] but the insincerity was palpable
Footnote [3] is: A small minority of people really do need to be taught how to be kind.
The author thinks probably thinks that fairly obvious fact is some harmless premise, but I suspect he knows well enough having been through YC and in the community of American business that this is not an accurate description of how DEI was implemented in parts of corporate America and beyond. In many companies, colleges, and government agencies, DEI initiatives were implemented in a way that assumed everyone had to be taught how to be kind, were differentially guilty or prone to be guilty by (sometimes externally assumed) group association of their birth or early childhood of certain offenses, and were preferentially treated to work placements, promotions, etc.
It was more than just "hollow" in many instances. It was blatant witch hunting that ruined careers and personal lives via internet virality. If PG's greatest offense in fighting back against this was an obtusely chosen word like "woke", that's pretty minor.
>I’m certain he wouldn’t be rude to my face, but he might quietly discriminate against me, say no thanks. He might not even think of it as discrimination, only that I don’t have what it takes.
>I’m better at my job than most. I’d be a better startup founder today than I was in 2015. None of that will matter.
IMHO, jumping to conclusions just like this is a big reason why 'going woke' isn't a healthy mindset for someone to hold. Stating that none of it matters is exactly the same thing as saying "I can't do it"
> IMHO, jumping to conclusions just like this is a big reason why 'going woke' isn't a healthy mindset for someone to hold
This is not unique to "wokeness" and is in fact much more clearly expressed by people who are "anti-woke". Many folks just can't handle things that don't fit neatly into their (unexamined) categories about the world.
They'd rather destroy that person or thing rather than reflect and improve their understanding of the world.
This feels like a pretty shallow reading of the article and you've fallen into the trap - described in the article itself - that "woke" is "some left-wing thing that I don't like". Whatever your views on trans issues, I think this article deserves a more thoughtful answer.
My reading of the author's viewpoint is that there are a lot of people in leadership positions in the tech world who would have previously recognized the author's talent and supported them, but would now form a negative opinion of them, regardless of their experience. These people would no longer give them the opportunity they gave them previously.
I think good leaders recognize people like the author simply have an additional life burden that they both choose and need to fight against and uphill. Additionally, those fights will ebb and flow unpredictably, possibly becoming too much of a burden for them at unpredictable times. If this is what you mean by negative opinion, then I agree. But I really don't think good leaders will take it out on them personally or hold them back to the point where they choose fighting inner trans issues over their business and success.
"I really don't think good leaders will take it out on them personally"
This feels like the beginning of a "no true scotsman" fallacy. The question is not what a "good leader" does, the question is what this person's experience will be with the people they actually encounter.
It's hard to prove that this happens to any given individual, because employers aren't mandated to announce why any person was "overlooked". One might be quick to blame "structural oppression", racism, sexism, or any other -ism or -phobia, but that doesn't necessarily make it true.
I agree with this somewhat, however, facing structural oppression is very different from deciding if a journey simply isn't worth starting. The mindset and disposition you speak of is or is not inclusive of assuming oppression will fully control one's overall success and happiness at a company?
Yup but still a poor attitude to have. I feel this way often times as a white male in tech, that they would rather hire literally anyone else if they can add some much desired "diversity" but I'm sure you would disagree that this is the case. Better for me to try anyways and have the best possible outlook even if I believe the cards are stacked against me.
He’s saying, for people who take Zuckerberg, Trump, and Paul Graham’s statements as permission to discriminate against trans folks, their experience doesn’t matter. The author is not giving up, they’re saying that essays like Paul’s make the world worse for them, for no good reason.
I’m also a transgender woman and while I agree with the author on many points (like sharing washrooms with the sex slave caste) I think we can rely on YC to find talent and support it regardless of what race or gender it’s associated with and in defiance of possibly sexist or racist VCs.
"why go out of your way to remove them"
in principle, it's fine to have them. But really, they are just a symbol of the fake performative substance free dei culture. A reminder of it. Transgender employees should not be discriminated against, should have all the protections and respect like any other employees. But do we really need tampons in mens' bathrooms, really?
how many people like this did meta have who had this issue and also had no access to a tampon, so that having it in mens' bathroom specifically was really important? what if I am a forgetful guy and I have socks with holes in them and I forget to buy new socks. Should meta bathrooms stock those socks? at some point this just becomes a bit absurd, no?
It seems similarly performative to remove them, especially in the context of the election/Zuckerberg's signalling. Yes, adding tampons to men's bathrooms was largely performative and less substantial, but the same applies to removing them.
I’ve always been baffled about people who care about it. Just for a hot second sit down, and think how many times you’ve even talked to a trans person in your life. Like it’s such a tiny percentage of people that extreme majority of people will literally never have a conversation with one in their entire lives. But for whatever reason it occupies the minds of a good chunk of people throughout entire political spectrum.
Even as a person who has a lot of gay friends, I’ve only known one trans woman. And as far as I know she’s kind and decent. I think you’re all outraged by invisible humans and arguments that never happen in the real world. Then it somehow occupies a good chunk of space in your brain.
They're not as rare as you think. In a class of 100 students I have 1 or 2 trans students every semester. My pharmacist is trans. You have probably interacted with trans people before without even knowing.
That is… very rare? 2% of college students, and a… pharmacist?
Don’t get me wrong, I definitely interacted with them probably hundreds of times through similar venues. But again, it’s just such a tiny percentage of people. And from what I know from my gay circles, trans people tend to live in areas where they feel safer. Just like the gays did until recent times.
My general moral guideline has been to judge people by their actions. And trying to stick to it without thinking whether a person is straight or whatever. I just never cared, and hope others don’t either. If someone is just an awful person, I exclude them from my life for their actions, rather than who they didn’t choose to be.
1% is not rare. That's 1 in 100 people. In a customer-facing service role, at that frequency you'll encounter multiple trans people daily. Something that happens daily to people everywhere is not "rare".
> My general moral guideline has been to judge people by their actions.
That's really great, I mean it. But in the year 2025 when it's being mandated from the highest office in the land that trans people don't exist under the eyes of the law, your friends and family who are trans are depending on your affirmative support more now than ever. It's going to be very easy for you to deny their existence, and what would that action say about you as a person?
And before you say "I have no friends or family who are trans", I would respond "that you know of". At the very least, if you work in the tech sector, you likely have several trans coworkers, as trans are overrepresented in tech.
In my social and professional circles I personally know several individuals who have a trans identity. Getting to know them a bit was actually what shattered the gender identity illusion for me.
If you consider the issue as a whole from a women's rights perspective, it should hopefully be less baffling.
Honestly, I literally never think about it until it comes up on Twitter or HN and I get reminded of it. It's totally ok to not to have opinions about things that are very much not relevant and have zero consequences to yourself and people around you.
It's complicated isn't it? A business doesn't care about you. It doesn't because it can't. Business doesn't have thoughts and feelings, business is clinical. Business is nothing more than the collection of processed and systems crafted to work together, facilitating the exchange of value between 2 parties. The problem is with the 2 parties part. The 2 parties part, that part very much does have thoughts, feelings, and emotions, those two parties are made up of humans. Bobby Sue just wants the alternator working on the car so they can go to a family funeral and mourn. Jerry in accounting at alternator inc's going through a momentous life shift, spiraling his whole world into a new framing, changing everything. Sally in design is just trying to feed her kids. And while these things matter none to the business technically, they matter deeply to the humans involved. It's complicated because business doesn't, shouldn't, and can't have feelings, however, business activity is indeed made up of people, and they most certainly do. There is always a risk of being too cold and focusing only on the bottom line, or becoming so caught up in individual needs and emotions that you lose sight of the basic structure that keeps a business functioning. Booby Sue needs to mourn, and Jerry needs stability for his life change, Sally has kids. And so, there is some empathy to be found for people deciding fundamental things for their businesses, it's not easy to know when to be clinical in look at the business, especially knowing it's comprised of a collections of humans, organized, into a company. Care too much about the outside, the business fails, care too much about the inside, the business fails. These are not easy things, the trick is to avoid hostage situations, and so rationality and intellectual honesty is key when framing these discussions. I expanded these thoughts here: https://b.h4x.zip/dei/
I disagree with your axiom that businesses shouldn’t have feelings. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a business that feels it should treat its workforce kindly and ethically and recruit a diverse set of people.
How can a business feel that? You mean a founder? a ceo? the investors? The laywers? People who are running business at $500MM+ arr have 4 things to consider distinctly, with their own lenses and frames: The business- It's model, it's operations, defined processes etc, every monday this report comes in, it is read by this functional area, it's converted into this insight, the insight is used, the consumer is delighted, more money comes in, the cycle continues. The humans involved are relevant so much as they must be able to do the task, who the literally are doesn't particularly matter, it's just a resource to allow a cog to spin. The company - the people inside the business. The organizations - how the people are assemble continually. The market - customers etc.
If you observe the business "feeling" - done correctly, what you're observing the outcome of an evaluation process that decided it functioned more competitively in a different mode. (The best world class employees are in Spain, lets make our HR more diverse in it's language) A business cannot, should not, and does not, have feelings. The only place ethics technically come into play are in the context of law.
It's nuanced, but it's important, without being fully fleshed in your framings, things get muddy. Businesses are systems and processes that fairly and adequately serve the parties involved while hedging out individual humans.
Why did this person write an essay about an essay, condemning it with a lot of serious accusations about potential future harm, while also stating they didn't fully read it?
He does some throat-clearing that help address some of these complaints.
It is a very bad essay that says "I am unfamiliar with the target of this essay, but I felt strong emotions when I read bits of it, which qualifies me to pontificate and condemn".
In the long run I think realizations like the authors are healthy ones.
PG is not a hero. He's just a guy. A guy who entered into business transactions with a number of people, many of whom benefitted greatly (as did Paul himself). I'm not saying any of that as a negative! Just that we have a habit of attributing superhuman characteristics to folks (Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize comes to mind) and ending up disappointed.
I'm not an affected group by any means but I still share the disappointment in the world we see today vs the possibilities I felt tech would allow when I was younger. The tech CEOs I previously viewed as visionaries now just look like a new generation of socially regressive robber barons. I wanted to be one of those CEOs, these days I'm still not quite sure what I want to be. My only consolation is knowing that I'm seeing the world more accurately than I once did.
> socially regressive robber barons
At least we got some good universities (and a somewhat functional transcontinental rail system) out of the 19th century iteration.
> In 1975 the student body of Stanford University voted to use "Robber Barons" as the nickname for their sports teams. However, school administrators disallowed it, saying it was disrespectful to the school's founder, Leland Stanford [1]
It's a shame that the school's administrators (perhaps fearing the wrath of alumni and donors) were so humorless – "Stealin' Landford" would have been a highly entertaining mascot, and one oddly appropriate for the gridiron.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist)
The “Robber Barons” name is used now for the sketch comedy group on campus: https://youtube.com/@stanfordrobberbarons
And 2509 libraries.
Indeed – Carnegie Libraries may be one of the best results.
I would like to see our modern robber barons and philanthropists (and society in general) put some effort into creating a usable digital library system; we actually have things like Google Books, which scanned many university collections, but it will likely remain unusable as an actual digital library unless some sort of copyright reform can be enacted.
>Indeed – Carnegie Libraries may be one of the best results.
how much of this "the 19th century Robber barons at least did one thing right" idea is all down to Andrew Carnegie, I sometimes wonder.
The scale of the Carnegie library program is pretty incredible. My dad’s library as a kid was a Carnegie library in central Iowa. The libraries near where I live in Dublin, Ireland are Carnegie libraries.
Same thing in my small WV hometown. Gorgeous building, too.
these thing will come, after it's too late.
robber Barons also destroyed nature and communities. only in their old age they tried to be remembered by universities and libraries.
only question is if musk and Zuckerberg will build their 2080 ouvres still in the USA or elsewhere. remember most Barrons made their fortunes living in the North East and ended up on the West. the world is more global today. the Musk University might as well end up in Shenzhen.
The current crop of tech billionaires seems fond of New Zealand and have been building bunkers there to escape from nuclear war or global warming or a peasant revolt or whatever. Maybe they'll build a university there as well?
https://www.vice.com/en/article/billionaires-are-building-lu...
Yeah.
Other than the ability to search the worlds knowledge at our fingertips, having a 1990s supercomputer in our pocket, being able to video call most people in the developed world, having fairly cheap usable computers for most people in the developed world, having high speed internet available around the world, being able to discuss things online with people all over the world, being able to play incredible computer games and having the cost of launching something in space reduced by a factor of about ten have have we got out of having a few hundred billionaires ?
Just think though, some of them might disagree with some our of politics.
nice try. The billionaires gave us none of the above. Sincerly, an old programmer who was actually there when these things were funded, often at the public expense in many nations.
Computer games are pan-et-circenses, IMO, but I also don't recall any billionaires having created any.
Your John Galt story is trite and untruthful.
the tech billionaires didn't give us any of that (though you might have a case with the iPhone and SpaceX); they're just the ones who monetized it
It's like Carnegie setting up 2500 libraries but charging access to them and becoming an even greater billionaire in the process
Making these things make money is hard and it's really valuable. Without that people won't get to use them.
There is a list of defunct spaceflight companies :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Defunct_spaceflight_c...
Here is a very small list of just a few of the defunct internet companies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Defunct_online_compan...
It's also worth considering how many millionaires were made by the companies that the billionaires started.
like I said, you might have a case with SpaceX (though how much does that help humanity? not so sure)
internet companies become defunct because some other company puts them out of business - if we had never had Facebook we would still have had a way to keep in touch online
> It's also worth considering how many millionaires were made by the companies that the billionaires started.
who cares? the world doesn't need more millionaires or billionaires
The point is that the 'billionaires' were not exploiting their workforce. The workforce that made Google, MS and many other companies were also highly paid.
The consumer surplus of all these things is the bigger thing.
And getting to that is really not easy.
The developers that made Google and Facebook and such were highly paid. The people who were hired for a dollar an hour to train the anti-CP models most certainly were not and have instead suffered horrible trauma.
Externalities are so easily ignored if they don't happen in SF (and even the ones that do. For instance, take a look at the pricing out of affordable housing for all the cooks, dish washers, janitors etc who cater to that highly paid workforce but now have to commute hours each way).
Mate, I'm nowhere near San Francisco.
Just because San Francisco is disastrously run despite staggering riches and has horribly magnified problems does not mean it's the fault of people who started companies in San Jose.
You don't see a connection between tech CEOs who hoard vast wealth, and a public sphere starved of real investment?
The US government spends 10 trillion dollars year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending_in_the_Uni...
That's larger than the GDP of all but two countries in the world.
That is not starving.
On top of that, tech CEOs and highly paid tech workers pay a lot of tax. Far more than they cost the country.
and a lot of it is directly funneled to crony's of the current king...
I doubt DOGE will recommend cuts to SpaceX funding.
I need to remind you that Mush has invented nothing nor is he an engineer. His vast personal wealth is extracted, and at least part of it's vastness is due to corruption. Mush's personal views expressed on his own-media-trumpet Xitter, have hampered more technological innovation than he has ever enabled or paid for.
BTW what's SpaceX carbon footprint like? This 'man' also just paid for a slice of the US presidency that just pulled the US out of a global treaty to attempt to address human-caused climate crises that are unfolding in front of our face on a daily basis as predicted. Mush has done net harm to Earth, not good.
Each Tesla sold in the USA gets a $7500 subsidy. That is the company's entire profit and more.
SpaceX has received $15 billion in government contracts.
I don't think either company would exist without government support.
sure it is. "mature" markets are only interesting for large moneyed entities to try to tweak things and squeeze .01% more profit out of a service/process/product.
innovation is risky and rewards accordingly.
Ycombinator app-startups are low-hanging-fruit with marginal innovation and marginal risk => it ain't hardware, and it's just webservices and a few React devs...
SpaceX and DARPA and ARPA = our tax dollars.
I was going to grant this, but then thought of how VC hit rations work.
Is it really ‘hard’ to make tech firms profitable, or is it more a function of survival?
Many of the companies which enter are bought out, or acqui-hired, adding to the leaders. Tech often rewards those who survive long enough to consolidate.
And finally, enshittification is a way to make MORE money, but it’s not hard.
>And finally, enshittification is a way to make MORE money, but it’s not hard.
maybe it's medium difficulty? There must be some enshittification that makes significantly less money, up to shutting down companies.
hahaha. yeah I was struggling to articulate this and the idea of levels came to mind.
Extracting money out of people, because you can price it better, and competition isn't going to stop you, means theres a race to the bottom.
This is on top of being vastly profitable already.
So its not hard, its just following a script.
The internet was a government project. It's laughable to even imagine that if these billionaires didn't exist then nobody else would have invented video chat...
It's not the invention it's the delivery.
Consumer goods are delivered by businesses. Delivering new, high tech ones is hard.
no, creating the actual technical standards and the internet is/was hard. monetizing it and walling off sections of it is STEALING FROM THE PUBLIC that which we already PAID for and selling it back to us!
Zoom!? WebRTC! Proprietary XYZ? Standards!
Discovery (basic research) is usually costlier than applied research (bundling, development, delivery) in labor costs.
> At least we got some good universities out of the 19th century iteration.
You mean the ones that turned around and produced the current market fundamentalist and elite-run culture we have today?
What a coincidence.
And the modern generation of tech industrialists? Probably not a coincidence either.
Though technically universities are more than just their endowments, business schools, engineering schools, sports teams, etc. They often have pretty good libraries, for example. Many universities also provide a variety of educational and course materials for free over the internet. Some train physicians and operate hospitals. And many universities have at least some minimal diversity of opinion on politics and policies.
The idea that elite universities produce elite university graduates is probably not controversial, and many of them were founded with the idea of producing "leaders", which they have arguably done.
> The idea that elite universities produce elite university graduates is probably not controversial…
Isn’t it?
No, it's a statement of fact, akin to "universities produce graduates".
well this
{elite universities} produce {elite university} graduates
is of course tautological
but this
elite universities produce university graduates who are elite (meaning better than others)
is debatable.
Most people who say "elite universities produce elite university graduates" mean the second and then don't provide any especially great arguments for the opinion.
The only thing elite universities provide is, possibly, “elite” connections. The education is the same, you get out of it what you put into it.
The state schools of the US aren’t worse than Stanford or Harvard, you pay extra to hang out with people who can also afford to pay extra.
The college education system in the US is second only to the healthcare system in terms of “how fucked this system truly is” metric.
And polio is largely cured from this generation, and vaccines now exist that prevent diseases that once killed infants, and we have cheap and fast internet everywhere, ...
This generation of "robber barons" has very clearly done more good for society than any other group of people of the same size, and I can't imagine how anybody who works in tech can not know of the specific good things they have done or be so confused about the bad to believe they are outweighed.
> This generation of "robber barons" has very clearly done more good for society than any other group of people
By what metric?
Almost any? Counterfactual human suffering if they didn't exist, number of lives saved, GDP, mean happiness, mean of bottom 5% happiness, etc
You attribute all of that exclusively to a small group of tech ceos?
That's completely absurd, but let's see the data on that.
This is a list of proposed metrics, not things attributed
'proposed metrics'? LOL
Is that a way of saying 'I don't actually have any data or numbers backing my absurd claims'?
No, read the comment I was responding to
It doesn't contain anything that would either back or excuse your claims.
It asked for a metric and I suggested a list of metrics. It's like if I said "whales are the biggest animal" and another asked "by what metric", then I said "weight". By saying "weight", I haven't specified how heavy the animal is, I only clarified what I meant by "biggest"
It asked for specific metrics backing your claim.
Your claim was that tech billionaires contributed more towards the good of society than any other group.
You provided a list of metrics that are in no way exclusively attributable to tech billionaires, and no actual data/number on how and how much these are attributable to tech billionaires.
Your analogy is completely unrelated too.
It's more like if you said 'whales are the best animal' and then gave me a bunch of random metrics about the state of the world.
What does it mean for a metric to be "attributable" to somebody? For example, is length attributable to me? Is weight attributable to the whale?
What are you talking about?
Now you're playing games around the semantics of the word 'attributable'? Lmao
I also love how all of your analogies/examples immediately switched from amazing societal improvements to measurements of physical object characteristics. Truly amusing stuff.
Let's take one of the metrics you suggested - 'number of lives saved' - go ahead and tell me how tech billionaires have saved more lives than any other group.
Or maybe just admit that you're talking out of your ass.
I'm trying to simplify it so it's easier to understand. It's not semantics, it's a different category of thing.
Yes the billionaire I listed have saved more lives than 99.999% of humans. They do this by paying for specific individuals to be treated for specific fatal diseases, and by funding research that has led to cures and preventative vaccines that have already saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people
You don't seem to understand that your own personal feelings of love towards the 'benevolent billionaire' and their vanity projects do not in any way support your claims. Especially when you're quantifying your claims in such extreme and absurd ways.
You also don't seem to understand that if a team of scientists discovered a cure - that doesn't automatically get 100% attributed to whatever billionaire funded the building the scientists were working in at the time.
Yes I'm willing to concede that Bill Gates did not single handedly cure polio. Would you agree that he has done more good for the world than most people?
I have no way of measuring how much good Bill Gates had done for the world. He has certainly done a lot of evil as well. I literally have have no way of objectively quantifying either, and neither do you, which is why your claims cannot possibly be objectively supported by any rational means.
Ok but then would you agree that you also can't say Salk did any good for the world?
No, I wouldn't agree with that at all.
Also big difference between saying 'X did this good thing' and 'X did more good than everyone else combined'.
And the onus is on you here - you made the absurd claims - now either back them up or walk them back :)
> This generation of "robber barons" has very clearly done more good for society than any other group of people of the same size
I'd take Jonas Salk, Norman Borlaug, and Marie Curie over Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Benzos.
Well i meant "group" as in an actual group of people who are all doing roughly the same thing at the same time, like the previous generation of robber barons.
But even in this case, I could make a pretty strong case that Salk was less important for the eradication of Polio than Gates, and that Curie will likely be less important in the long run than Zuckerberg on healthcare and biosciences, and a weaker but reasonable case that Borlaug will be less impactful on human survivability with increasing population than Musk.
You can't make a case for any of that. But go ahead and try.
no. just NO. look at maps of polio proliferation before/after Jonas Salk, the frikkin guy who DISCOVERED/CREATED the polio vaccine, and then look at maps related to Gates work, which, while admirable, bears no comparison from the night-vs-day world of pre-polio-vaccine vs post-vaccine. Wards of people in iron-lung machines staring at mirrors on the ceiling. It was before your time, but this is no excuse for spouting total nonsense.
You might be right. It is possible that Gates is merely one of the most positively impactful human beings, rather than the absolute most positively impactful.
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Which robber baron do you consider to be responsible for curing polio?
Bill Gates, who contributed around 30% of the total money spent on the world eradication effort so far
So he didn't create the vaccine, and he didn't provide most of the money spent on eradication, but he did sit down for a nice long dinner with an administration that is now pulling funding from the WHO and other international health organizations.
In the meanwhile, the technocrat administration we just got is putting the anti-vaccine activist RFK Jr up as Secretary of Health and Human Services. The progress we have made on eliminating Polio is at risk directly because of actions taken by this crop of billionaires. That is more on Musk and Zuckerberg than Gates, but these people cannot be trusted to use the power and influence they have for anything other than self-enrichment.
Which do you think is more likely, that Bill Gates sat down with the administration to try to convince Trump to keep funding Gate's life work, or that Gates talked to Trump to end polio funding?
Trump bad, has nothing to do with Gates or Zuck. If you blame them for trying to prevent Trump from doing bad things, you should look into what they will benefit from and how they spend their money
> And polio is largely cured from this generation, and vaccines now exist that prevent diseases that once killed infants
Well, that depends if RFKjr and his lunatics get control of the HHS[0][1]
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/13/rfk-jr-aaron...
[1] https://www.protectourcare.org/experts-say-deadly-samoan-mea...
WHAT??? Jonas Salk GAVE the IP for the Polio Vaccine TO THE WORLD FOR FREE!
how dare you say that Billionaires gave us these things. you are telling lies.
Bill Gates also gave billions of dollars to the world for free, it's just a question of which one is more praiseworthy. I could be convinced Gates was not more impactful than Salk, but he's definitely in the running for top 100 best overall human beings in terms of positive impact on the world, in stark contrast to the claim that tech billionaire have contributed nothing
Where did Bill Gates get these billions that he 'gave to the world' ?
Did he generate them purely from his genius and benevolence?
Why is "gave" in scare quotes? Did he not give the money away?
And yes, mostly genius and not benevolence.
'gave to the world' implies the world didn't have this money before gates came along. Which is obviously not true and quite literally impossible.
In fact the world didn't have this money before. Maybe this is the first time you've encountered the idea that the economy is "positive sum" so think of it like this:
Is the value of everything in the world higher or lower than it was 1000 years ago? If it's higher, how did it go up?
Maybe you need to do a quick Google on monetary policy 101 and how money is created. You seem to not understand the basics here.
While you're at it, consider what portion of MS success is directly attributable to Bill Gates and not the many thousands of other people involved in the company and code it literally copied from open source projects. Not to mention the extreme anti-competitveness of MS and their aggressiveness in suing and shutting down other companies, and other negative externalities they generated.
Ok let's compare the year 1000 with the year 1500. Do you believe the value of everything in the world increased in those 500 years? There was no monetary policy yet so that isn't the explanation
The explanation is the entire human race working diligently to produce, create and grow. Not because king Bobbert the 7th gave some artist some money, and not because king Jeffrey got rich by enslaving/conquering/exploring someone else.
The classic Cantrill bit about not anthropormphizing Larry Ellison applies to a lot of tech CEOs.
Thing is Larry Ellison doesn't write blog posts acting like he's a philosopher. Some tech CEOs really position themselves as arbiters of culture and it just feels more and more like trying to transfer their tech/business positioning into a cultural one. I do not like it!
This is it, this is the best comment.
They’re all a bunch of aspiring lawnmowers, some of them just try to ride whatever the latest wave of popular opinion is to cynically accumulate some social currency.
"Tech billionaires are really just a bunch of aspiring lawnmowers"
^^ I am totally behind this proposition even though its a 2nd effect allusion
I feel like the best advice is to take the ideas, even principles you like from folks and run with that. That's it.
I still like a lot of what Steve Jobs had to say at times. I do not pretend to know what he was like IRL or if I would even like him ... doesn't matter.
Truth be told folks who take those ideas and principles from others and not carry the weight of those folks as idols, might even do better with them.
I was there, 1986-2006 and by and far what he said internally at company meetings was completely apolitical. He didn’t moralize, he pushed groups to create better products for customers and that’s what we as engineers were exposed to.
The one time I remember something different was around 2003 when he was asked at an all hands meeting, a question that came down to “how do we work with all this chaos, war, blaming ethnic and religious minorities”, etc. The person that asked it was almost in tears. Jobs response was to look seriously non-plussed and he answered “if you can’t do anything else, vote for the democrats” and then moved on to the next question. He may have had deeper opinions- but they were not part of his public discourse when he was ceo.
TY for the story.
I dunno about even that. Forgive my example (though I love bringing it up, since so few people seemed to have grokked it in the time since initial release): in the video game Bioshock: Infinite, one of the later levels sees you transported into the far future of 1984. The game's setting, a flying city named Columbia, which was characterized by its almost cartoonish levels of capital-A capital-P American Patriotism, had featured in its original Gilded Age incarnation many of the ills of turn-of-the-century American society, including racism, an exploited working class, religion-driven insularity, and a predilection for violence. However, it had also presented an enthusiasm for the new and curious, an ambition for high living standards, and other cultural accoutrements that are usually associated with forward-thinking societies.
By this late-game level, however, the city has descended into dystopia. Why? Well, a three-quarter century game of telephone. The ideals of the city's original founder, already imperfect, were further transmitted imperfectly to his successor and her charges, whose personal traumas further warped their interpretation of Columbia's intended values, and the actions taken in their name. That repentant successor, having lost control of the city's populace to a revolutionary fever, sends you back to the past just as Columbia's weapons begin to level New York City (a caricature of America destroying its real-life historical "center").
It's a metaphor, of course.
It's easy for the soul of an idea to get lost in translation. It's easy for principles of one era to be an ill fit for another. It's easy for the original ideas and principles to be fundamentally flawed in ways that no one could or was willing to admit to.
"Running with it" can be dangerous. (Ask us how well Cold War politicking has worked out for us post-9/11.)
I think, at all turns, you must be asking yourself why you're doing what you're doing, and if it's actually effective. If it's actually good. I don't know that Jobs ever predicted that the bicycle for the mind would be beholden to OTA updates or have a commensurate attack surface exposure, but we have to deal with that reality, regardless.
>My only consolation is knowing that I'm seeing the world more accurately than I used to.
also known as growing older ;-)
For sure. I almost included something in my comment about "I guess this is what getting old is like", losing your idealism as you age. But equally, maybe not. If I'd grown up in, I dunno the 60s? I would have witnessed enormous leaps in technological possibility and enormous increases in standards of living, personal freedoms, yadda yadda. In my youth it felt like there was a viable future where tech enabled radical positive changes in society. Instead we concentrated wealth at the top of society at historically unprecedented levels.
I wouldn't call it "losing my idealism," but, rather "understanding that everything is a lot more complex than my simple young mind could deal with."
I'm probably more "idealistic" than I have ever been; it's just that I no longer have the silly "Let's just do this one simple thing" attitude. I've just found that getting places is always a lot more difficult than we think. Usually, it's people, and all their messy personal issues, that gum up the works.
The good news is, is that I am actually accomplishing more than I did, when I was younger. I'm devoting less energy, and it is often more frustrating, but shit gets done. A big reason, is that I understand myself, and the people around me, a lot better than I used to. They are no longer "NPCs" in my Game of Life.
As to the article, I seriously feel for the author, but I am not exactly in their shoes. I don't have anything against them, but their cause is not my cause. I don't have a dog in this race. I have nothing at all against trans folks. Many of my friends are varying types of LGBTQI+ folks. If I'm not going to bed with them, then who they love, and what they do, when I'm not around, isn't my concern. I'd usually like them to be happy, and support their choices, as long as they don't interfere with my life. I'm even willing to go out of my way, in some cases, to support them (that's what friends do).
The one thing that is almost guaranteed to make our cause to go floop, is insisting that everyone else is either with us, or against us. This is especially annoying, when our cause is important to only a small minority of stakeholders.
For some reason, almost everyone in our life ends up in the "against" column, and many of them started as people that actually supported us, but weren't willing to go much farther than that. So now, they are actively working against us, as we declared them to be "enemy combatants." The "woke" stuff caused exactly this reaction. It's not just left-leaning stuff, either. Activists of every stripe, do the same thing, and then act all puzzled, as to why everyone seems to be against them.
As Dr. Phil might say, "So...how's that working out for you?"
> The good news is, is that I am actually accomplishing more than I did, when I was younger.
How are you making that happen?
This is an honest question.
As I've gotten older, and developed a deeper understanding of the intractability of the world's problems, this change in perspective has cratered my motivation. It was one thing to give my all toward what seemed like it mattered, back when the scope for possible change still appeared to be great enough that one could imagine living in a better world: but knowing now that no matter what I do it's just going to be more of the same old bullshit, with maybe - at best, and this unlikely - one or another of the rougher edges on the great, awful machine of exploitation and suffering which powers our civilization slightly filed down, so that maybe a couple of people here and there don't get hurt quite as badly as they otherwise might have, while the core of the process continues crushing the life and beauty out of the world, unchanged... it's difficult to muster up any real energy to do anything about it. I still go through the motions, when it seems like I must, for conscience's sake; but I don't believe in it anymore. The source of my past effort is all gone.
I miss that past self, but I can't imagine how to believe that any possible accomplishment would actually matter anymore, enough to justify putting my back into it. What's your secret?
Well, speaking only for myself, I'm a lifelong member of a benevolent organization that provides many ways to do good works.
I can assure you that the work I do, makes a pretty big difference in some lives. We're not out to change the world. We're only trying to police our own area*.
Being older and more experienced, means that the work I do is much more effective, and much more economical (we don't have a lot of means). It also means that I work well with others, and am much better at team stuff.
*> “I was in the Air Force a while and they had what they call “policing the area.” And I think that’s a pretty good thing to go by. If everyone just takes care of their own area then we won’t have any problems. Be here. Be present. Wherever you are, be there. And look around you and see what needs to be changed.”
-Willie Nelson
> The one thing that is almost guaranteed to make our cause to go floop, is insisting that everyone else is either with us, or against us. This is especially annoying, when our cause is important to only a small minority of stakeholders.
Masterfully said, I'd love this to be the pull quote here.
"The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally — not a 20 percent traitor."
- Ronald Reagan, 1972
There are a lot of ways of being supportive without being like a full blown activist.
I get that there are some 'purity test' type people out there, and they're annoying, but they're a small minority in most things.
The real trouble starts when regular people allow the "purity test" type people to have any sort of power or influence instead of laughing and ignoring them like we should. This can result in a destructive purity spiral, even over seemingly trivial issues.
https://unherd.com/2020/01/cast-out-how-knitting-fell-into-a...
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the US government coming after people because of who they are is a lot more worrying than some knitters in terms of "people getting access to power".
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To demonstrate that you're in the "in group", it is not enough to simply support most of what they are into. You must take a potentially expensive position that demonstrates your absolute support.
That's exactly what you're doing with your own rhetoric, you know.
No, I definitely don't know that.
My "rhetoric" about the issue which Donald J. Trump spent something like 1/4 of his ad spend on. I didn't pick it to sound extreme. I picked it because it was very important to how politics will play out for the next 4 years.
If you don't like what Trump does now, you can thank Kamala's attempts to ingratiate herself to trans activists back in 2019.
This is genuinely absurd. 99.99% of the time the issue of 'where do female identify rapists belong' is brought up, it's because someone who disagrees with the broader point is trying to create some kind of gotcha.
It happens constantly online. Leftist A will say something about respecting gender self-identification and then rightwinger B will manipulate the conversation so that the leftist is now trying to defend putting biological men in women's prisons [1]
It's incredibly disengenous and bad faith.
[1] regardless of your moral position on this issue, there's a fuckload of other awful things about american prisons that these type of people are rarely concerned about.
You're missing the point because you're too wrapped up in left-right. The comment above about virtue signaling devolving into extremism could easily be re-written for the social issues relevant to 1500s Europe, 1790s France, or any other time and still be true.
Don't assume bad faith where it doesn't exist.
As I clearly think, given what I said above, most of what trans people want is obviously fair and just. To go through life, being treated as their preferred gender, and not facing discrimination of various kinds for that choice.
But that isn't where we are. Instead we are in a world where Kamala Harris was, completely unforced, recorded talking about protecting trans rights in prisons back in 2019. Trump ran ads showing those clips with the tagline, "Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you." And now Trump is President.
Is it being brought up now as a gotcha? Absolutely! But back when Kamala was running the first time for President, SHE brought up her support for the policy. Unforced. Because it was how to signal her support for that issue. And now we're all paying the price for how activist extremism creates backlash.
So now you're arguing that it's all kamala harris and those darn leftist's fault for bringing up trans rights and if they had just shut up, everything would be peachy keen?
Like, I'm genuinely not trying to create a strawman, I'm just rephrasing literally what you said.
I'm reminded of MLK's quote about white moderates here...
It's not a left versus right issue, not really. Most of the feminists arguing against gender self-id are on the left.
This isn't a gotcha either. When the horrific outcomes of males being transferred into women's prisons is brought up, it's typically being done to explain why gender self-id policy is so harmful to women.
Often, the person advocating for gender self-id hasn't spent any time considering this impact at all. The detriment to women and girls isn't even on their radar. So it's worth explaining.
It changes views, too. I've personally witnessed several people rapidly undoing their support for gender self-id when they see evidence of the deleterious consequences. Though more in real life than online.
Conversations like those are the reason why support for policy that prioritizes gender identity over sex is dropping like a stone.
> It's not a left versus right issue, not really. Most of the feminists arguing against gender self-id are on the left.
In the sense that the vast majority of all feminists of any kind are on the left? Is there such a thing as a rightwing feminist? JK Rowling?
> This isn't a gotcha either. When the horrific outcomes of males being transferred into women's prisons is brought up, it's typically being done to explain why gender self-id policy is so harmful to women.
This is literally the point I was trying to make about these types of conversations. It's extremely tempting to argue with your blanket assertions of 'detriment to [other] women and girls', but now instead of talking about the person in the article's very real concern about being discriminated against while working or even being attacked while socializing, we're talking about some extreme hypothetical about women's prisons.
Also, it's weird how often people are completely silent about the treatment of female prisoners... until it's related to transgender issues. Or female athletes for that matter. If you were actually worried about it, there are probably bigger fish to fry.
> In the sense that the vast majority of all feminists of any kind are on the left? Is there such a thing as a rightwing feminist? JK Rowling?
There are some feminists who reject the left-right divide and don't place themselves anywhere on it, as a response to the male-dominated political system. It's not a very popular view but it exists.
JK Rowling isn't one of them, she has left-wing views and describes herself as such.
> instead of talking about the person in the article's very real concern about being discriminated against while working or even being attacked while socializing, we're talking about some extreme hypothetical about women's prisons.
Sadly it is not hypothetical.
If you believe that supporting gender self-id positively addresses the concerns of males like the blog author, then you should also be willing to consider the documented and evidenced harms to women and girls.
And certainly if you wish to understand why there is such significant opposition to policy that prioritizes gender identity over sex.
> Also, it's weird how often people are completely silent about the treatment of female prisoners... until it's related to transgender issues. Or female athletes for that matter. If you were actually worried about it, there are probably bigger fish to fry.
One might also wonder why policymakers haven't fried these bigger fish that would improve conditions for female prisoners and female athletes, and instead have chosen to introduce gender self-id policy which demonstrably harms women and girls while privileging males.
> One might also wonder why policymakers haven't fried these bigger fish that would improve conditions for female prisoners and female athletes, and instead have chosen to introduce gender self-id policy which demonstrably harms women and girls while privileging males.
If you keep repeating this, maybe you'll convince some people who desperately want to believe it.
And I don't really need to wonder why. Because they obviously don't care except when they can invoke "won't somebody think of [the women]" as a convenient excuse to achieve political power.
It's exactly as dishonest and intellectually bankrupt as "advocating for the unborn".
> If you keep repeating this, maybe you'll convince some people
I have helped some people understand the full impact of such policy, yes.
In my experience, it depends on whether the person I'm talking to has an interest in the wellbeing of women and girls, and is even slightly open to challenging their current understanding with new information.
> dishonest and intellectually bankrupt
Evidence-based and built upon feminist principles, actually.
"I saw a dead head sticker on a Cadillac."
"His hair was perfect"
Yeah. I'm clinging to the hope the hacker revolution might not be over just yet :P
maybe it just got hijaked for a bit.
That might be true, for a while. But I bet many of us have parents that are old enough that are, in uncontroversial, non-political ways, losing their ability to view the world accurately. It's not all that easy to convince them that yes, they are in cognitive decline, and we are doing their best to consider how the version of themselves 20 years before would like us to tackle the decline.
Even in less obvious cases that don't involve old age, we often call something growth, when we should just say change. Sometimes we are all just more set our ways. Others, our "learning" is just abandoning principles so that we can follow random emotional fancies. Knowing when we are actually seeing the world more accurately, instead of being wrong in a different way, is quite challenging. We all want to think we are getting better, which is precisely whi we are blind to the ways in which we aren't. The convenient story often defeats what is actually true, but inconvenient.
At the end of the essay he says "I’d be a better startup founder today than I was in 2015" and my thought was, yea but YC is biased towards college kids. And then I saw your comment and I think something clicked for me. But maybe the ignorance and pliability of youth really is required to make the crazy bet on the startup dream.
The youth has energy and are naive and will take a bad deal. They will work hard while others will make money off their work. Also, the author is not a man.
She. She says she prefers to go by she or they in her essay.
> pliability of youth
Not entirely dissimilar to the exploitation of eg college athletes.
The federation judged that even a college athlete who gets a major concussion cannot be offered a bottle of water for free, “because it could be assimilated to a wage”. No, really, college athletes are worse than unpaid.
Absolutely. I made my choice, and it was startups > athletics.
> I'm not an affected group by any means but I still share the disappointment in the world we see today vs the possibilities I felt tech would allow when I was younger. The tech CEOs I previously viewed as visionaries now just look like a new generation of socially regressive robber barons. I wanted to be one of those CEOs, these days I'm still not quite sure what I want to be.
Upvoted because I couldn't describe better how I feel if I tried. There were so many of these tech leaders who I looked at with such awe, and a lot of it was because they did have a set of skills that I didn't and that I really envied (namely an incredible perseverance, amount of energy, and ability to thrive under pressure, while I was often the reverse). So it's hard to overstate how disappointed I am with people (and really, myself for idolizing them) whom I used to look at with such admiration, who now I often look at with something that varies between dissatisfaction and disgust.
But I realized 2 important things: the same qualities that allowed these leaders to get ahead also figures in to why I don't like them now. That is, if you care too much about other people and what they think, it will be paralyzing in the tech/startup world - you do have to "break some eggs" when you're doing big things or trying to make changes. At the same time, this empathy deficit is a fundamental reason I think of a lot of these guys and gals (it's usually guys but not always, e.g. Carly Fiorina) as high school-level douchebags now. Second, it's allowed me to have a higher, more compassionate vision of myself. I used to feel bad that I wasn't as "successful" as I wanted to be, and while I do have some regrets, I'd much rather be someone who cares deeply about my friends and family and really wants to do some good in the world, as opposed to someone I see as just trying to vacuum up power and money under the false guise of "changing the world".
I think the issue is not being disappointed, it's being scared. Because PG yields influence. OP describes the mechanism by which PGs words can create a dangerous world for them, personally. Yes they are disappointed, but mainly afraid.
The very powerful just affirmed a reversal of "wokeness" this may become performative just as much as their acceptance of the "other" became performative by their admirers and corporate copycats. This will result in tangible harm to people. I think OP did a great job in explaining this.
He's very smart, but there's no need to idolize or politicize anyone on this earth. Both instincts are counterproductive to your personal health and success.
You want to look at a person and identify what they are very good at -- and then study what they know, say and do specifically in that area, maybe take it on faith a bit that they know something you don't in those spheres. You can safely ignore everything else from them.
So let's look at some people, with Mark Zuckerberg for instance, I would say here's a guy who seems to have some good instincts for doing aggressive and invasive viral marketing, and he also seemed to be a pretty prolific PHP hacker in his early days. I don't need much else from him.
With PG, high level Lisp hacker, good systems thinker, good at getting businesses going (if I'm being cynical I'd say in environments where there's not much competition, but a guy like PG might wisely argue finding those is part of the skill). I want to absorb everything I can from him on programming language design, startup thinking and then I want to move on.
With Donald Trump, here's a guy who is literally the best in the world at parlaying negative social media attention into power. And being fueled by rage at Sith Lord levels at an age when most people have thrown in the towel and are just waiting to die. Again, all I really need to hear from him is how he does that stuff, then it's best I just ignore the rest.
Well, before CEOs, we wanted to be hackers. Watching CCC 24 reminded me of what that felt like.
sclerosis happens with time
> He's just a guy. A guy who entered into business transactions with a number of people
Unfortunately, that's not true. He is also a well-read and influential essayist. He wields power and influence through his words as well as his money.
He also frames himself, accurately I believe, with his essays and the enabling-of-others nature of his successive accomplishments, as someone who genuinely values winning by helping others win.
But frustration can over simplify issues for all of us, at some point.
And power dulls sensitivity to those with less of it.
Money dulls your senses.
Not mutually exclusive.
The word "just" in the GP implies that the author did intend for them to be mutually exclusive.
No, the word "just" in "He's not a hero. He's just a guy" indicates that he's not a hero. "Just" applies to the "just a guy" part, not to the "entered business transactions" part.
In conversational English, the phrase "He's just a guy" carries an idiomatic meaning along the lines of, "This person is no different from anyone else. He has no special power or influence or insight." And that might be true with respect to insight, but it is clearly not true with respect to power and influence. And that is why, when PG says something tone-deaf, it can hurt more than when some rando does it.
I agree in general, but not in this specific case. "He's not a hero. He's just a guy" makes it such that "he's just a guy" is applying specifically to the "he's not a hero" bit. I didn't take it as anything more than that, and I don't think the author intended it to mean they believe Graham is just an average person with an average amount of money, power, or influence.
Even if your essays win you a Nobel price (Paul Grahams certainly didn't) the writer isn't protected from becoming a bullshit-dispenser.
This is why I respect authors that publish a consistent level of quality more than those who hit and miss as if they were throwing darts at a map. And the stuff I have read from Paul Graham is definitly not in the former category.
I don't feel he is intellectually honest, either with himself (bad) or with his readers (worse). But if the past decade of the Internet has shown anything, it is that honesty and consistency isn't required to get insecure people to follow you blindly.
Would love to hear a few of the consistently-high-quality writers you're thinking about.
I have a pet theory that volume is required for quality, but would love to be wrong so that I can feel less bad about how much I publish!
You are not wrong that volume is required for quality. But it does not necessarily mean all of that volume has to be published. E.g. in music there are bands where every single recording on every single release they did is good and not just a slight variation of another thing that worked.
Mow on the other side you have musicians who have two releases a year and every other of them has a track on it that is really cool.
I am not saying the latter is wrong, I just say the former has more of my respect, because you know that even the rejected stuff of the first band is probably stellar.
Keeping a thought to oneself that isn't fully fleshed out is a virtue.
The Eagles and the Beatles basically took that approach.
it is that honesty and consistency isn't required to get insecure people to follow you blindly.
I’m going to use this. Well stated.
Is he well-read? His essay on the origins of wokeness was pure vibes, with hardly any historical accuracy or understanding of sociology. Many here on HN explained it as him not being well-read.
I assume OP meant that pg is read by many people.
Yes, exactly. (Maybe I should have said "widely read".)
Does this matter if the "vibe" is correct?
Let's all just take a moment to remember that today is inauguration day.
I have enjoyed most of Paul Graham's essays, and even been slightly influenced by a few of them, but let's not overstate his influence. We're in a real echo chamber here. Outside of a tiny tech industry bubble no one in positions of power reads those essays and they have virtually zero influence.
Sure, but at this point, YC is a pretty big echo chamber. And for an individual inside the echo chamber, Paul's words can hurt more than most.
Sama onstage with Trump and $500 billion says otherwise.
The "business of tech" is and has always been politically expedient.
A counter here would be well written essays offering the humanist perspective.
I don't think PG is particularly well read in the area of "wokeness" anyway since he has fallen for the traditional conservative trap of redefinition.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke
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> Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize comes to mind
Ha well that a particular bad joke.
Most are not so egregious.
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PG is not a hero. He's just a guy.
The downgrading of exceptional individuals like PG to mediocrities is no healthier than placing them on pedestals.
>The downgrading of exceptional individuals like PG to mediocrities is no healthier than placing them on pedestals.
Recognizing that we're all just people is certainly healthier than placing people on pedestals.
It's obvious he's a person, the parent comment implies that's the extent of his achievements.
I don't think that extent of achievements equals heroism. History is filled with enormously productive people we judge very poorly for theirs.
He is just a guy, even if he is exceptionally good at business.
Great, cohesive, and clear essay! Hear hear.
One thing that I think is underappreciated in our current times, that gets lost on both the left and the right sides -- an individual is more important than their identity.
- A specific trans person can also be an asshole.
- A specific white man can also be a saint.
Extremists on both political sides will scream about the reasons one or the other of those statements is wrong, but doing so lumps all possible individuals of an identity into a "them" category to which blanket statements, positive or negative, can be applied.
That reductionism feels incredibly insulting to our shared, innate humanity.
Are there all kinds of subconscious and societal biases that seriously influence our perceptions of others on the basis of their identity? Sure!
But it doesn't change the goal of treating the person standing in front of you, first and foremost and always, as an individual person.
Be curious. Be courteous and respectful. Be a normal, nice goddamn human to human across the table from you.
(And maybe, if you feel so inclined, have some compassion about what they did to get to that table)
Good thought. The only change I'd make, to make your neutrality explicit, is to say
- A specific trans person can be an an asshole. A specific trans person can be a saint.
- A specific white man can be an asshole. A specific white man can be a saint.
Yes, the also implies that there is a default.
Be curious. Be courteous and respectful. Be a normal, nice goddamn human to human across the table from you.
In general I wholeheartedly agree. But if the person in front of you has done or advocated for things that cause harm or is themself a horrible person then I disagree.
>In general I wholeheartedly agree. But if the person in front of you has done or advocated for things that cause harm or is themself a horrible person then I disagree.
I feel like the parent comment is pretending to be deep and meaningful but is really just rehashing the 'both sides are the same' argument with a side of 'everyone is entitled to their own opinion'. It's nice to say that we should judge everyone for who they are, but if who they are is a vocal member of a group that wants to hurt other people, that's all we need to know to judge them. Pretending otherwise is silly.
The difference is between judging an individual for what they themselves say vs what identities you associate with them (or even those they associate with themselves).
>or even those they associate with themselves
I see no problem judging someone for the identities that they choose to associate themselves with.
Over and above their works and words?
Their associations are their works and words. You can't just handwave that stuff away as being irrelevant because you like the parts of their works and words that don't touch on anything you deem to be an association.
I know people of the political party I tend to disagree with who are saints and dedicate the majority of their time to others.
I know people of the political party I tend to agree with who are insufferable selfish pricks and treat others terribly.
Works and words aren't always associations.
>I know people of the political party I tend to disagree with who are saints and dedicate the majority of their time to others.
Except for the part of the time that they are devoting to supporting a political party that is actively harming you and people you love.. you can't just wave that off as not being important just because they are nice the rest of the time.
>I know people of the political party I tend to agree with who are insufferable selfish pricks and treat others terribly.
And they should be negatively judged for the latter behavior.
Both examples should be negatively judged for their behavior, you're just choosing to ignore some of the behavior of the first person.
I'd say what a person chooses to put their time and energy into is more important than their political affiliation.
Otherwise, all we'd have to do to be good in life would be to support political parties on internet forums. ;)
> But if the person in front of you has done or advocated for things that cause harm or is themself a horrible person then I disagree.
the current conflict in the middle east shows why this doesn't work in the long run.
despite what a generation that grew up consuming Marvel films was led to believe, not every conflict is a clearly defined superhero-vs-supervillain, good-vs-evil affair. eventually, you will be the one who, according to some, is advocating for things that cause harm and is considered a horrible person.
Very underrated comment. Right and wrong are largely a function of culture, not universal law.
I dunno man.. When someone advocates for treating another person as "not human" or wants to deny them basic human rights, that's universally wrong in my book.
I think talking about whether it is universally wrong or not is a distraction. It is sufficient to simply _not like it_ without having to get the universe (which almost certainly doesn't care, at least not enough to step in and do something about it) involved.
Personally, I am a moral skeptic - I don't really believe that moral truths exist in the same way that physical truths exist. For me, the only questions are what kind of world do I want to live and and what power do I have to make the world that way?
dehumanization of the other side is one of the most used tools of war propaganda of all sides. Just look at people in the west joking about orcs
But if someone acts inhuman then it’s justified. Russia’s war crimes are well documented and they started the war. When you are the baddies then expect to be called so.
Wait are we still in the thread discussing that it's childish to call one side baddies?
It’s not childish to call bad people bad.
But that's still too simplistic. It's certainly not fair to say that every single Russian (or non-Russian!) soldier who is or has been in Ukraine is a "baddie". Some are trapped by their circumstances to fight in a war they don't believe in and don't agree with.
It's easy to say, "well then they should refuse to fight", but you are not that person, and you don't know their struggles or what they feel they are capable of doing.
I think it's reasonable to say that Putin and his war-mongering crones are baddies, but you just said "Russia" and "they started the war". Lumping all people together like that is how we dehumanize people and fail to find common ground that can improve everyone's situation.
OK, but in practice what sort of common ground do you think we can find here? Because it sure seems like the only possible solution is to give Ukraine enough advanced weapons to exterminate all the orcs. If you have a feasible alternative then I'm sure we'd all love to hear it. The real world is an ugly place and sometimes there is no win-win solution.
Are we solving the Russian-Ukraine war in this thread? ;)
- Realistically no amount of weapons the west supplies Ukraine is going to enable them to push the Russians out of Ukraine.
- Putin doesn't seem to care about the number of Russians lost in this war.
- Direct involvement by western armies could lead to a nuclear escalation. NATO could easily push Russia out of Ukraine in a conventional war. Too big of a gamble.
- This is just part of a larger geopolitical struggle between the different powers. Russia. China. India.
We don't really know what Putin wants here but if some sort of end to the war can be negotiated that includes territorial adjustments in Ukraine I think that's the best win the west can hope for right now. The cold war wasn't won on the battlefield, it was won mostly economically. Doubling down right now on a military solution in Ukraine doesn't feel like the right path forward. Stopping the hot war and switching to a colder war is probably the path of least pain for everyone. Even if it seems like a temporary win for Putin. If the west helped Ukraine more in the early days maybe we'd have a different outcome but the west made some bad choices and here we are.
That said if Putin wants to keep fighting then the war will continue. I don't think he does but who knows.
My take anyways.
> Realistically no amount of weapons the west supplies Ukraine is going to enable them to push the Russians out of Ukraine.
OK, general. I wasn’t aware of your military credentials. Russia is about 12 months away from completely exhausting all of its Soviet stockpiles of (tens of thousands of) vehicles and artillery, and their war economy is already unable to sustain production at replacement rates.
On the contrary, it’s only a matter of time.
Source? I thought it was the west that couldn't ramp up and is running out of stockpiles. I'll admit I'm an armchair general but I did serve so I have at least some minimal idea of what war looks like.
EDIT: Also not clear how long the US is going to keep supporting Ukraine now that Trump is in power so that's another factor.
>I thought it was the west that couldn't ramp up and is running out of stockpiles.
It's worth pointing out that Russia's "production" claims generally include refurbishment. When they say they produced 4 million artillery shells, that sometimes means they produced 400,000 artillery shells and refurbished 3.6 million artillery shells from deep storage.
I hope that the Trump administration will continue supporting Ukraine and not try to force them into an unfavorable temporary peace settlement, but the US isn't essential. Other NATO and EU countries are fully capable of keeping Ukraine in the fight, if they want to make it a priority. They might have to cut back some of their social spending and agricultural subsidies to afford it.
https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-s...
Russia will never completely run out of materiel, but they have already exhausted most of their stockpiles of good stuff. At this point they've been reduced to using refurbished armored vehicles built in the 1950s and modified civilian cars along parts of the front.
https://www.youtube.com/@CovertCabal/videos
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/01/19/russias-btr...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/12/24/a-pink-comp...
You can track Russia’s stockpiles through open source satellite imagery, here’s a recent video overview: https://youtu.be/TzR8BacYS6U
Ukraine benefits from being on defense, as the attrition rates are significantly in their favor. I’m not sure what will happen after Trump does whatever it is he’s going to do, but it is clear that Russia’s current trajectory is not sustainable beyond a year or so
I agree Ukraine benefits from being on the defense. The question is what are their chances of retaking their lost territory where they need to be on the offense? Russia has higher attrition rates but also has a larger population to recruit from.
I'm not seeing Russia just crumble away under Ukrainian assault. If that's the case how does Ukraine benefit from the continuation of the war?
I would love to see Ukraine kicking Russia out as an outcome but it seems incredibly unrealistic.
Ukraine can't achieve a battlefield victory but with foreign military aid they might be able to slow down the Russian advance long enough for the Russian economy to collapse. Russia is only able to keep their economy somewhat functional through fossil fuel exports. We can give Ukraine long-range missiles/drones and targeting assistance to wreck Russia's key export infrastructure (ports, pipelines, refineries, storage depots). And we can choke off much of Russia's shipping through sanctions and interference with their tanker "shadow fleet". There are also still billions in assets owned by Russian government entities, corporations, and citizens but held in Western countries so we can just straight up steal it all and hand everything over to Ukraine. There are no guarantees but as long as Ukraine is willing to keep fighting it's worth a try.
Ukraine doesn’t necessarily need to retake its lost territories by force. They only need to keep bleeding Russia out until the war becomes untenable for them. Russia loses like 1500+ soldiers and 100+ vehicles per day, just to move a line on a map a few meters. Their economy is hitting double digit inflation despite a 21% interest rate. Their recruitment efforts are running dry and they may have to resort to mobilization soon to continue to fill their ranks with more cannon fodder.
At a certain point they may have to come to the negotiating table, and the longer this drags out the less favorable their position will be.
> it is clear that Russia’s current trajectory is not sustainable beyond a year or so
Those cheering for Ukraine have been saying this from the start. They have been lying again, and again, about everything... The Russian MoD has been on point, again and again. Why should I trust anything camp NATO/Ukraine says?
The reality on the battlefield is that NATO/Ukraine loses badly, while spending much/much/much more money. Donated money.
Sorry bro: it's a lost cause. The russians will be victorious again, fixing Europe's nazi problem again.
Everyone who teaches their kid "Bandera is my papa, Ukraine is my momma" is a nazi to me. And according to my research, that's a lot of the Ukrainian speaking Ukrainians.
> The reality on the battlefield is that NATO/Ukraine loses badly,
NATO isn't even on the battlefield.
> while spending much/much/much more money.
Yes, western labor has more value per hour, so the $ value of the smaller share of western effort devoted to the support of Ukraine is much higher than the $ value of the much larger share of Russian effort.
> Donated money.
See, you have to decide on your narrative. If your narrative is that NATO is who your Russian buddies are fighting on the battlefield, then it isn't donated money. If your narrative is "donated money", then you have to drop the "NATO/Ukraine" description of the belligerent opposing Russia.
> The Russian MoD has been on point, again and again
lol, lmao even
You're still in the goodies-vs-baddies mindset. Western media pushes people into that way of thinking but it's the Marvel level view and is wrong. Also, look at all the people who think Russia is the baddies for starting that war, but Israel is the baddies despite not starting its war. That's an arbitrary standard people invented to justify their simply goodie-baddie view. If you apply a different standard to every war, then it's not really a standard, is it?
It’s mostly about willful acts of violence against innocents. This might be a nuance that is too subtle though. Bad acts and bad actors should be called out. Russia is the bad actor in the Ukrainian invasion. Hamas and IDF are bad actors in their conflict.
But then everyone is a bad actor. All the countries supplying arms to Ukraine are perpetuating the war and causing more deaths, so they're bad actors. As is Ukraine itself of course. You can't actually define that in way that has any use. It's ultimately just whatever your cultural influences led you to believe.
People should just be honest and admit they're nationalists, other kinds of ideologists, or just trying to fit in when it comes to opinions about war, because that's really all it is. If it was really unambiguous who was a bad actor, it wouldn't be a war in the first place because everyone would agree.
I think it makes much more sense, and is more productive, to reason about good and bad acts, than people.
Especially with regard to conglomerates of people, like whole nations, or whole governments. Having said that, some people and some groups do fall heavily on one side or the other. But most groups are a dynamic mix of players and situations, not good or bad in any rational or stable way.
Ukraine has also bombed civilians and engages in random/statistical attacks against Russian cities - technically a war crime. We can even stretch out the definition of innocents to include Russians or North Koreans that are forced to fight and have no options. Should Ukraine surrender and let the Russians take over? Clearly the path of least violence against innocents on both sides? All I'm saying is things aren't as clear/simple as you try to present them.
Sometimes violence is unavoidable and often it will impact innocents as well.
I agree bad acts need to be called out but you're casting too wide of a net and that just leads to a loss of clarity/nuance. Is there any war action that doesn't fall under "willful acts of violence against innocents"? Are we talking about "collateral" damage? Are we talking about the Geneva Convention?
Why is Russia a bad actor? Because they invaded? They claim to have legitimate reasons, security concerns, treatment of ethnic Russians or separatists in Ukraine? What if we side with them on the legitimacy of starting the war, does that change anything?
Can you provide specific evidence that Ukraine is intentionally targeting civilians, and not (for instance) flying a drone that gets affected by GPS jamming and hits a building unintentionally?
If you know the Russians are jamming GPS then what's the difference at this point?
There are some examples here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attacks_in_Russia_during_the_R...
or how about:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/18/russia-says-uk...
Just to be clear I'm not claiming the Russians are the good guys and the Ukranians are the bad guys. I'm just pointing out it's not as simple as someone did something bad in a war. You need to look at the totality of evidence and circumstances, challenge your own viewpoints and listen to people arguing the opposite of what you think, reach some conclusions and always be open to adjust to new evidence. Be aware of who is trying to manipulate you and why, what are the biases of the various sources of information etc. Again not that I think Russia are the good guys but things are never black and white. The west did meddle in Ukraine which in my world view is a good thing but unsurprisingly Putin perceived as aggression/attack on Russia's sphere of influence. To me it boils down to Putin being a force against western values that I'm aligned with.
>If you know the Russians are jamming GPS then what's the difference at this point?
"Why even bother if the chance of success is less than 100%"
Ukrainian attacks are very frequently successful despite GPS jamming and air defense. And vice versa.
>Just to be clear I'm not claiming the Russians are the good guys and the Ukranians are the bad guys. I'm just pointing out it's not as simple as someone did something bad in a war.
I have yet to see any videos of Ukrainian soldiers filming themselves laughing while using a knife to slowly decapitate a live prisoner. Or cut their balls off. Or put their decapitated heads on spikes. Or execute a dozen Russian POWs at a time
Ukrainian TV channels don't expound on the need to kill "as many as 2 million civilians" to denazify their opponent the way that Russian TV does fairly regularly. I've not seen any Ukrainians wave around the skull of a Russian killed in Russia live on stage at a metal concert.
I haven't seen those videos which is probably a good thing. Russians are known for their brutality. Doubtless there is brutality on the Ukrainian side as well. Both side have exchanged many prisoners so clearly it's not a matter of policy to execute them. Many Russians have family in Ukraine and vice versa.
It's pretty much a bloody mess. It's also complicated. For me it boils down to the fight between freedom and democracy and oppression and totalitarianism. Putin wants the world to be a worse place for all of us and is willing to have hundreds of thousands of people die for that.
> If you know the Russians are jamming GPS then what's the difference at this point?
Intent?
By the way, one could just as well argue that Russia is putting its civilians in harm’s way by jamming GPS and causing drones to strike off-target.
I won't argue that, but there are cultures out there that disagree - so how can it be universal?
I see lots of people getting hung up on the word "universally" so maybe that was the wrong choice (and also the least relevant part of my sentence but whatever).
I should have just said "wrong", plain and simple.
What "culture" says it's okay to treat humans as if they are animals?
Whoever it is you think is out there doing it and promoting it. That's why we have phrases like "a culture of harassment", "a culture if lies", etc.
The point is things that appear as universal absolutes are not the same for everyone.
MAGA culture. Often frames people they don't like as "vermin", and it sets up a permission structure to cause violence against them by labeling them as diseased or inherently criminal.
You're already doing it.
There are legitimate arguments on both sides of these issues.
Couching the Outgroup's opinion on X as "erasing" or "killing" or "dehumanising" just precludes understanding.
Religious conservatives do this with abortion for instance. Is it constructive to say that Freedom of Choice advocates actually "support murdering babies"? Does it help, or is it just in-group signalling?
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> Right and wrong are largely a function of culture, not universal law.
Sure, but then you're handwaving away questions about why cultures align along similar axioms.
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according to gedpeck, nearly everyone in Africa and Asia, and every single practicing Muslim, is a horrible person...
I said no such thing.
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Care to point out where I said this or implied this? I’m opposed to gay marriage.
EDIT: I’m not really opposed to gay marriage. But I never said anything about my views on gay marriage or anything inconsistent with the view that gay marriage is wrong.
EDIT: I don’t consider people who oppose gay marriage to be bad people. I consider people who support and vote for a known felon, rapist, theif, and bribe taker to be terrible.
Do they? Different cultures have widely different axioms. E.g. compare Islam and Christianity. Not to begin with cultures far away geographically from each other.
Most definitely. Each person decides for themselves where the lines are drawn.
It only “doesn’t work” if your goal is to appear morally impeccable to everyone.
If instead of this worrying you
> you will be the one who, according to some, is advocating for things that cause harm and is considered a horrible person.
you have a set of morals that centers something more or different than theoretical other people’s opinions, your example of the current “conflict in the Middle East” is still a good example just not for the reason you stated. It is a perfectly valid ethical position to think that genocide is bad and that people that advocate for genocide are also bad. To pivot to “actually the Really Bad Thing would be if you said that and someone somewhere disagreed with you” is weird and hollow.
“The truly wise know that everything is morally equivalent, except for the pursuit of unbounded approval which is Good for some reason, and believing otherwise is the same thing as getting your morals from comic book movies” isn’t a coherent or defensible moral position. The Marvel movie comparison is a thought terminating cliche.
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You can't attack other users here, no matter how wrong they are or you feel they are.
You've been posting flamewar-style comments in other places too. That's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for, and we end up having to ban this sort of account, so please stop.
Actually I did ban you, but I reversed that after posting a warning to the other user. It seemed fairer to either ban both of you or neither.
If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
Also—please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. It will eventually get your main account banned as well.
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Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait, and being aggressive with other users? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
We've already had to ask you this several times. If you keep doing it, we're going to end up having to ban the account.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
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> There is no ethical requirement, upon seeing something happen in the real world, to entertain a series of hypotheticals so tedious and exhaustive that you have to throw your hands up and declare all things to be equally good and bad. That’s a weird habit!
Yeah, and this is the crux of many philosophies, most notably small-l libertarianism, where it seems like the chief appeal is that it's a simple set of axioms that can be followed to their logical conclusions for any moral question with minimal thought and maximal aesthetic "symmetry" and therefore beauty. It's easy to reason about, and therefore it's good.
It extends quite trivially from that to the so-called effective altruism, which relies on a fundamental assumption that a unit of good done to strangers on the other side of the globe is morally equivalent to a unit of good done to your neighbors. It's beautiful and therefore it's good.
It's the moral equivalent of imagining a spherical cow.
Morality is what you do in practice, not what you invent in your head. Treating him only as a literary figure, the reason Jesus is appealing to so many is not because he said "do unto others" and stopped. It's because he actually fed the poor, advocated for social justice, lifted up the injured, spoke truth to power, and gave his life for others.
No it's because genocide is too simple and poorly defined a concept to apply appropriately to every situation. It's just the result of people trying to generalize from a few specific events that happened in the past which they already decided were bad for some other reason and ended up creating the label genocide to describe them.
Look at the disagreement people have over whether Israel or Hamas committed genocide in this current war. People can't even agree on the meaning of the word as it applies there. It's a novel situation that doesn't fit the mold of what this word was invented for. Are civilians really civilians if they're complicit in the fighting as in Gaza? Are they really civilians if they've done or are still doing compulsory military service as in Israel? It's just an attempt to draw a line in the sand so people will agree what's bad.
> People can't even agree on the meaning of the word as it applies there.
The fact that your average Joe can't explain it is as material as your average Joe being unable to write a Bash script is to computer science not being a real thing.
Essentially everyone on Earth except Israelis and religious sycophants agree what Israel has done is genocide. It is ludicrous to suggest Hamas has conducted a genocide against Israel because then you'd have to say that slaves in the US conducted a genocide against slave owners.
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Then you don't agree at all. Every single adult in the world has "done or advocated for things that cause harm". It's inescapable.
Great harm then? I’m not morally obligated to to treat Putin with respect. Most people agree that there are people who are so reprehensible that they don’t deserve respect.
There are obvious bad/evil actors in the world. When people talk about engaging with other humans respectfully, they're generally not referring to the Putins of the world.
And it's pretty rare to have so much clarity about a person to know they're in the "obviously reprehensible" bucket.
I'm not saying this is what you're doing, but I often see people argue like this:
1. There are obviously bad actors in the world
2. Nobody would argue those bad actors should be given respect
3. So I won't respect people I come across who disagree with me
The fallacy is in the jump from 2 to 3, and the assumption that the existence of bad actors means the person I'm interacting with right now is one of them. The vast majority of people aren't Putin, nor can they be judged so quickly/clearly. And setting aside whether or not someone like that deserves respect, there's also a clear difference between respecting someone for who they are vs. behaving in a respectful manner out of self-preservation. The latter may ultimately keep you alive.
No, I don't really think you're right about this.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. That's a right I wouldn't take away form them even if I could.
They are not entitled to me being nice to them. Fuck that; if they advocate for something that I think is harmful, then I'm not going to be "respectful" to them.
My grandmother in no uncertain terms said that my wife should be deported. She doesn't have any power deport my wife, so she wouldn't fall into the "bad actor" in your definition, but she's made her opinion clear on that.
I could swallow my pride, roll my eyes, and ignore the horrible racist shit she says, but why exactly? The whole point of free speech is the ability to criticize bad ideas, and sometimes that's going to involve hurting a Republican's feelings.
Herein lies the crux of the matter in my view. The jump from 2 to 3. When Bob Dole ran for President I wholeheartedly agreed with the position about being respectful to those you disagree with. Politics was still normal in the U.S. at that time. But now we in the U.S. elected a known rapist. A felon and a con man. He can’t run a charity in New York due to his misdeeds. He lusts after his own daughter. We have entered into an era where supporters of one party’s President deserve the assumption of being terrible people.
Now obviously there are many people who disagree with the above. But this is how I see things and I act accordingly. The call for civility comes from those who hold terrible beliefs. We are well into the Paradox of Tolerance situation in the U.S.
To me, the issue boils down to pragmatism and utility.
It’s just human psychology; people tend not to change their minds when someone screams at them and otherwise disrespects them. If the goal is to move society in any particular direction, that requires some degree of successful communication, and throwing respect out the window directly counteracts the goal. If the goal is just to hold some moral high ground for the sake of it, that’s a pointless goal if it doesn’t lead to any underlying change.
Collectively, we don’t need to change the minds of obviously evil people, but we do need to influence the population that can vote them into or out of power. I just don’t see that ever happening if your outlook on life is this extreme:
> We have entered into an era where supporters of one party’s President deserve the assumption of being terrible people
I know many people have convinced themselves that this is true, but this ultimately boils down to the question: so what then is the goal? To push these people deeper into their bubbles?
At some point one has to ask how much of the problem is being directly created by this “they’re all terrible people so I won’t even talk to them” mindset.
My personal view is as follows. American society has reached a point of no return. Something has to give before a new equilibrium has been found. As an extreme example look to Nazi Germany. The repugnant views that were normal in 1939 Germany weren’t normal in 1960 Germany. A similar (though far less extreme) change will happen in the U.S.
I have no desire to change anyone’s mind about their political views. Anyone who supports a known rapist and felon and who openly takes bribes can not be convinced of anything. I don’t engage in political discussions with such people. There is no consistency in their beliefs so no meaningful discusion can be had.
For me, my desire is secession. The country needs to beak up. This is an extreme view but will likely be increasingly held by people with similar political beliefs as mine.
> For me, my desire is secession. The country needs to beak up. This is an extreme view but will likely be increasingly held by people with similar political beliefs as mine.
So, you envision an enormous red country plus about forty or so small nation-states, virtually none of whom can support themselves and would be defeated by the red state's military and agricultural output in days?
Secession is unworkable. Whoever secedes from the most militarily powerful nation in history gets wiped off the map in twelve hours.
I'm going to be pedantic for a second, as a sort of dark coping mechanism:
>Anyone who supports a known rapist and felon and who openly takes bribes can not be convinced of anything
Clearly, they can be convinced of something, just not anything you or I might consider good.
In all seriousness, I think the truly disturbing thing about this whole sorry situation is just how many people don't actually hold any durable ethics or morality, just rank self-interest. Pearl clutching over the death of American dreams like economic mobility is a sideshow to the death knell of American idealism. America is not the shining city on a hill we thought it was, and honestly, it never was.
Clearly, they can be convinced of something, just not anything you or I might consider good.
Yeah. I should have been more precise.
The country deserves what is going to happen.
Why is the comparison always Nazi Germany?
By the way, the jury explicitly rejected the rape allegation. So you're just making stuff up from your high-horse:
https://apnews.com/article/trump-rape-carroll-trial-fe68259a...
The colloquial definition of rape includes using your fingers, which is what he did. The fact that the specific NY law defines digital violation as a separate offense from "rape" doesn't make using the term improper for the non-NY-lawyers among us.
The judge said that Trump was guilty of rape, as it is commonly defined.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/19/trump-car...
> “The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,’ ” Kaplan wrote.
He added: “Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”
Kaplan said New York’s legal definition of “rape” is “far narrower” than the word is understood in “common modern parlance.”
The former requires forcible, unconsented-to penetration with one’s penis. But he said that the conduct the jury effectively found Trump liable for — forced digital penetration — meets a more common definition of rape. He cited definitions offered by the American Psychological Association and the Justice Department, which in 2012 expanded its definition of rape to include penetration “with any body part or object.”
I didn’t compare anything to Nazi Germany. I gave Nazi Germany as an example of how what is socially acceptable can drastically change in a short period of time.
I apologize. He was found liable for sexual abuse, battery and defamation. These distinctions are extremely important. He’s not quite as bad as I made him out to be. What about him calling his daughter a nice piece of ass? The other stuff?
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I didn’t call anyone a Nazi. Trump is not a Nazi. Most of his supporters aren’t either. I did use Nazi Germany as an example of societal views changing to the extreme.
Though Elon did just do a Nazi salute live on stage ;)
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> The call for civility comes from those who hold terrible beliefs.
Oof, that's a lot of assumption.
"over 50% of the country i live in are irredeemably terrible people" is obviously hyperbole -- if it were true, the onus would be on you to start taking action against those terrible people. but my guess is you don't actually think they're so terrible, because you're still working your 9-5 for your terrible-person boss, getting paid like every other schmuck, and you're happy to let those irredeemably terrible people deliver your DoorDash, teach your children at public school, and keep your electricity and water running.
> my guess is you don't actually think they're so terrible, because you're still working your 9-5 for your terrible-person boss
"You continue to labor in order to feed yourself rather than suicide-bombing your neighbors, so therefore you're lying" is a HELL of a take.
"over 50% of the country i live in are irredeemably terrible people"
A large majority of the people did not vote for Donald Trump.
but my guess is you don't actually think they're so terrible,
People who support Donald Trump are, in general, terrible people. They aren’t evil people doing evil things so why would I have an obligation to take action against them?
It is a fact of life that we all must live amongst people who we think are terrible human beings. Of course I haven’t the slightest idea what a person’s views are for almost everyone I interact with. I give everyone the assumption that they deserve respect until proven otherwise.
Given the context of the thread it’s ironic that you don’t seem to understand what it means to give the assumption of respect to people. I think you edited your disparaging remarks to me. It was hilarious to read those remarks given the context of the discussion at hand. Feel free to put them back. I don’t mind them.
> People who support Donald Trump are, in general, terrible people
This is not true, and that shows your narrow mindset. To give you the benefits of the doubt, can you explain why Trump supporters are not only wrong, but generally "terrible people"?
I have no desire to change anyone’s mind about their political views. Anyone who supports a known rapist and felon and who openly takes bribes can not be convinced of anything. I don’t engage in political discussions with such people. There is no consistency in their beliefs so no meaningful discusion can be had.
Do you not see how you're part of the problem? You're applying cherry-picked standards that just happen to match what Trump did because you'd already been brainwashed to hate him and his supporters. What if you judge presidents by how many deaths they cause in wars instead of what dirty jokes they made? Wouldn't that be more meaningful measure of badness? No because you're cherry-picking to support your pre-existing hatred that you were driven to by the news and social media.
Cherry picked facts? Ha. Being a rapist is a cherry picked fact?
The difference between me and you is that I consistently apply my morals and ethics. I don’t support rapists and bribe takers for President. I didn’t support Clinton when it became clear what he did and I don’t support Trump. Have a higher standard for yourself. Don’t support bad people.
I do judge George W. Bush for the deaths he caused. Obama too.
Fair enough, they're all bad. Maybe except Biden?
As far as I know, Trump wasn't convicted of rape, so it's maybe a bit of stretch to call him a rapist.
Do you realize the exact same things can be said about the President we had for the last four years?
It's really hard to worry about your own guy being a scumbag, when the opposition supports a scumbag too (and then lies about it).
Biden hasn’t been convicted of felonies. He’s not an adjudicated rapist. He doesn’t refer to his daughter as a nice piece of ass. He isn’t banned from running a charity. He hasn’t bribed any porn stars. He hasn’t accepted $30 billion in bribes. He hasn’t taken secret documents to illegally keep in his bathroom. He hasn’t met with Putin alone without an interpreter or any other U.S. official present. He hasn’t made fun of a reporter’s disability. He didn’t appoint his son-in-law to be an advisor who then accepted bribes from Saudi Arabia. He hasn’t engaged in Twitter feuds with 15 year old kids from Sweden. He didn’t threaten to withhold disaster aid to states that didn’t vote for him.
Nothing I’ve said against Trump is about his politics. He, as a person, is narcissistic, self centered, selfish, boorish, infantile, incurious, lustful, and greedy. He’s a despicable person and those who support him are terrible people.
"If you want to discuss Biden then start another thread. This one is about Donald Trump."
You cannot talk about Trump without putting him in context. The fact is, the reason why we have Trump for President again, is because the person who replaced him was so horrible, that Trump looked better in comparison.
And what's more, conisdering what I said -- and what you are responding to -- I have to bring up Biden, because my entire point is "both sides do it". If you want to bring back honor and decency to the White House, you have to do it with an honorable and decent person. Neither Biden nor Harris fit that bill.
"Harris’ moral and ethical failings are nothing compared to Trump. You can do what I did and not vote and not support either candidate. Stand up for truth and righteousness and stop trying to justify your support for a person as shitty as Trump. It’s a choice to defend shitty behavior. When you do so you end up smelling like shit."
She implicitly supported Biden. She was complicit in all the lies that were pushed about Biden, particularly those about his fitness for the position. She endorsed going after political enemies with the legal system -- and then had the gall to claim that Trump would do just that himself.
And then to go on and claim that if you supported a crappy candidate, then those people are crappy too, you have basically condemned the 95% or so who voted for one or the other -- for motivations that are well beyond either yours or my understanding -- this attitude right here is why politics is so toxic these days.
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You cannot talk about Trump without putting him in context.
I can. I did. It doesn’t need context. It’s well documented the things he did.
The fact is, the reason why we have Trump for President again…
This is not an established fact.
… Harris fit that bill.
Harris’ moral and ethical failings are nothing compared to Trump. You can do what I did and not vote and not support either candidate. Stand up for truth and righteousness and stop trying to justify your support for a person as shitty as Trump. It’s a choice to defend shitty behavior. When you do so you end up smelling like shit.
You aren't aware of what was found on Hunter's laptop, or in Ashley's diary (she had to choose her showering times carefully to make sure her father wouldn't join her), or Tara Reed's allegations. To say Biden hasn't accepted $30 billion in bribes, in particular, is laughably funny, and he was caught having secret documents kept illegally in his garage. He is on record threatening aid from Ukraine unless they fired a particular prosecutor who was investigating his son. He has, for all intents and purposes, withheld disaster aid from North Carolina, who didn't vote for him. He has plagiarized speeches several times over the years -- indeed, this is what derailed his first attempt to run for President, back in the 1980s. And he hasn't been particularly nice to reporters, and considering what he is on record saying to constituents, I can confidentially say that the only reason he doesn't engage in Twitter feuds is because he's too senile to be allowed near Twitter.
Biden, as a person, is narcissistic, self centered, selfish, boorish, infantile, incurious, lustful, and greedy. He’s a despicable person and those who support him are terrible people.
Either that, or they are just ignorant -- because the mainstream press has worked hard to hide these kinds of things from us. It is why trust in them has plummeted over the last few years.
Great. We are in agreement that a person who engages in odious behavior is not worthy of support. As such Donald Trump is not worthy of support.
If you want to discuss Biden then start another thread. This one is about Donald Trump.
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Which of the accusations are wrong? Do you deny these well documented things?
Rape, for one.
"The verdict was split: Jurors rejected Carroll’s claim that she was raped"
https://apnews.com/article/trump-rape-carroll-trial-fe68259a...
You are reciting points that are provably false. Low information voter, reason your party lost and will continue to. Normal people do not agree with your extremism.
>Low information voter, reason your party lost and will continue to
It's funny, in a sad way, that after so much discussion here about how silly it is to have this us vs. them, side vs. side mentality, that we end up with someone saying this.
Maybe they're not so much "low information" as not sticking their fingers in their ears over the subsequent legal ruling by the presiding judge that the jury's finding that Mr Trump "sexually abused" Ms. Carroll implicitly determined that he forcibly penetrated her digitally - in other words, that Mr Trump did in fact "rape" her as that term is commonly used and understood outside the context of New York Penal Law when tossing out Trump's countersuit https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.54...
I don't think it's "extremism" to suggest that a legal ruling that somebody forcibly penetrated their victim for sexual gratification might be a stain on their character.
Sure I can support that. The difficulty as always comes with the grey area in defining "great". There are truly reprehensible people in the world, but they're the exception not the norm. I see you did address that in your comment with "in general" so I was a bit strong in my wording, but I do believe the in general case covers >99.99% of people.
It’s like.. incredibly escapable. Nihilism makes for a weak argument
Moral hubris - where one believes all of one's positions are morally correct - is the shortest path to becoming a monster.
Stupid and vapid. Tech is already full to the brim with people with zero moral convictions aside from the things that get them paid. Those are the real monsters
At least someone being paid to make your life worse can often also be paid to stop. I'm more afraid of someone convinced that they're saving the world as they destroy it instead.
Why are you writing in the tone of a Christoper Nolan movie? These hypotheticals have literally nothing to do with real life.
My challenge is I can’t even tell if me and someone else are seeing the same facts. Take trump for example. Policies etc I may disagree on but I can see why someone else would support them.
As a person, looking at everything he says and does I can only conclude that he’s a narcissist that only cares about himself. But then there are a lot of trump supporters that are convinced he cares about them and the country. What am I missing that we can come to such dramatically different conclusions?
Fair, but in our current times using someone's identity as a justification to act like an asshole to them is a sith's whisper.
We all have our less enlightened moments. Better we not afford ourselves easy intellectual justifications for being our worst selves.
As the quip goes: the greatest evils are perpetrated by those most assured of their own righteousness.
Edit: Or in video form. Beginning summary: "brick suit guy" was apparently an extremely aggressive heckler of the media at Trump rallies. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fRSIv7alUZ8&t=95s
In normal times I would agree with you. At present in the U.S. I’d not agree with this sentiment. People who support electing a known racist, thief, con man, and felon are deserving of ridicule and ire. They don’t deserve respect in my opinion.
When the politics of a nation shift so far in one direction we get into a situation where supporters of that shift don’t deserve respect. Stalinist Soviet Union is an extreme example of this.
So what lengths do you think you're justified going to against individuals you disagree with?
And how do you feel about them feeling the same about you?
Mutual righteous hostility is why ethnic and religious wars simmer forever, because there's always a convenient justification for acting violently towards others (and them towards you).
… justified going to against individuals you disagree with?
I don’t do anything at this time. But I understand why there are those who do have vitriol for supporters of a rapist who lusts after his own daughter. There are times when a nation’s society fractures as the social cohesion evaporates. We are beginning to be in such a time in the U.S. Well, it appears that way to me. Only time will tell.
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The one who rapes and lusts after his daughter is the one who has issues. Well, him and the people who support him. Never thought I’d live to see Republicans, the so called party of family values, support such an asshole. You should get some ethics and apply them consistently.
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Adjudicated rapist:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/19/trump-car...
Sexual abuse. Not rape. The distinction is extremely important. Now that I know he is only a sexual abuser and not a rapist I support him. A sexual abuser who cheats charities, is a convicted felon, who accepts $30 billion dollar crypto coin bribes is worth supporting. But not a raping one. I retract my complaints against Trump.
I will enjoy the next 4 years. I voted for Trump in 2016. I want the one who will do the most damage to the U.S. to be in power. I won’t suffer. I’m well off.
What constitutes "harm"? Is hurting someone's feelings harm? Is misinformation harm? How do you determine intention? To what extent does intention matter? How do circumstances impact the answers to these questions?
When your creed is basically "I only hate bad people", you have given yourself permission to hate anyone and feel righteously justified about it. And you'll never feel the need to empathize because bad people always deserve whatever bad things happen to them.
You don't need to love everyone unconditionally, but clearly more neuance is needed.
What constitutes "harm"? Is hurting someone's feelings harm? Is misinformation harm? How do you determine intention? To what extent does intention matter? How do circumstances impact the answers to these questions?
I know the answers to these questions…for me. Each person decides for themselves where the lines are drawn. It has always been this way.
> Be curious. Be courteous and respectful. Be a normal, nice goddamn human to human across the table from you.
The unintuitive thing is that both this article and pg's essay are both advocating this! They're each complaining about another group being mean.
Paul Graham's essay doesn't mention anything about LGBT people or issues. It doesn't really say what specific events he may have in mind, but it complains that woke people are being intolerant, sometimes bullying or ostracizing people for their beliefs, and trying to enforce allegiance to their side over honesty.
The author of this essay is reading between the lines and assuming pg is a bigot who might discriminate against a trans person. They say actions like pg's are "mean", "unkind", and "malicious".
I think a lot of this has to do with people being polarized and viewing every political statement in terms of which team it supports: if someone says something against your team, that means they must be on the other team, and are therefore evil. But regardless of the reasons, these uncharitable assumptions (on both sides) cause way too much conflict between people with similar core values.
I don't think either author would discriminate against anyone based on their sexuality or gender. One can disagree with pg's criticisms without calling him a bigot.
I call it the "could I share this with my grandmother" test. I don't like things that are supposed to have a point or make a good argument but fail the grandmother test.
> gets lost on both the left and the right sides
It gets lost because of this black/white US perspective on politics. If you were multiparty system there will be less identities in politics.
> If you were multiparty system there will be less identities in politics.
If only it were that easy. I come from a country that is notorious for having political parties dissolve/new ones forming all the time, and politics are still all about identities and people still treat issues with a very black-or-white perspective.
As many have made the point before, I think this kind of discourse/attitude is more due to the social media echo chambers environment we now evolve in, and that modern societies can't escape it.
India? If so (or otherwise), what do you think a fix would be?
I went down a rabbit hole of Indian parliamentary party history and was fascinated at the level of machination over the decades.
Also, diffusing the bully pulpit and celebrity between a president, prime minister, and/or ceremonial royalty. Policy > popularity.
No, that just means the identities split into smaller groups that constantly fight for power within larger coalitions. Instead of Red vs Blue you get racial groupings and all sorts of subdivisions.
Lebanon is a good example of what happens when you try to enshrine smaller subdivisions than A vs B.
I'm so tired of hearing "both sides" though.
Focusing on the individual means dropping the notion of “sides”. Identifying people (or even arguments) by their alleged “side”, instead of taking them on their own merit, is where things go wrong.
Where things go wrong is that the "extremists on both sides" is used to distract from what people on one side do. It is just a shield designed to prevent analysis.
It's not, because there's a difference between 'extremist individuals in a side' and 'a side as monolith.'
It is currently en vogue to use the excesses of specific instances or individuals to tar entire identities, but that's statistically dishonest.
Most people are not extremists, in the sense of 'if you talk to them at 1:13pm on a random Tuesday.'
I would argue it's currently en vogue to incessantly repeat the argument that "Both Sides" have bad actors, thus commenting on the bad actors of one side is an incomplete argument.
It's tiring and non sequitur to hear such arguments however, as what the opposition to a position does is wholly unrelated to the arguments related to that position.
I'm not making a "both sides" argument: I'm making a "the individuals that support sides are more important than the sides" one.
Haha trying to get around pattern matching by lopping off the word “both” doesn’t really strengthen your argument.
The problem is that you’re pretending like the sides don’t exist now, yet they do.
In reality, the individuals that compose one side are different from the individuals that compose the other side in predictable and problematic ways. Yes, individuals matter, but so too does the trend those individuals embody.
> In reality, the individuals that compose one side are different from the individuals that compose the other side in predictable and problematic ways.
Predictable is where we disagree strongly.
I think there's more diversity than unanimity at the individual level in both parties.
In the sense of what people say they believe around a dinner table, not what they passively nod their heads to at a rally or while watching partisan news.
Which is ironic, given it's increasingly a trope on both sides that the other is sadly monolithic and all marching in lockstop to their leader's tune.
Republicans complain about Democrats being like this; Democrats complain about Republicans being like this.
PS: "Problematic" is a terrible non-word. Surely there's a more descriptive adjective to be used?
Okay, just so I understand, you're claiming there aren't ideological consistencies across members of a political group?
There is actual political program and actual laws being pushed on. That is the reality. And yes, that political program belongs to that side.
It is OK to blame republicans as such for what Trump or JD Vance does, because they made them big. It is ok to blame them for the for the supreme court politics too, because they knowingly put exactly those people there, knowing they will remove protection for abortion and lied about it.
It is OK to blame democrats for what Biden does.
For the both sides thing however, you need to attribute acts of people who Democratic party actively pushes away to that party ... and to pretend that people voting for republicans have zero to do with what that party does.
I think about it with different divisions.
For politicians (as opposed to people in other professions), they are obviously responsible for the policies their parties support, to the extent that they support their parties. Given not every politician votes in lockstep with their party.
BUT for individuals in the US, their personal positions are often more complex than the binary reductions the two-party system affords us.
Consequently, there are many (most?) dissenters on one issue or another in both parties.
If a person has thoughts on matters, it's therefore more interesting to me to discuss those thoughts, than to derive my interactions with them solely by their D or R label.
I think your point is what gets missed in this conversation.
Many people just want to go to work and do their job … and not have social topics or politics discussed at work.
That doesn’t mean they don’t care about those topics, they just don’t feel like work is the correct place for discourse.
And the sense I get from recent moves by tech execs is that they simply want employees to focus 100% on work (because obviously they want to get the most productivity out of their paid staff), and anything non-work related is viewed as a distraction. Regardless of what that non-work topic might be.
"I’m certain he wouldn’t be rude to my face, but he might quietly discriminate against me, say no thanks. He might not even think of it as discrimination, only that I don’t have what it takes."
This resonates pretty strongly (and depressingly) with me being an immigrant academic in Europe who came originally from a third-world country. Even though I am one of the most productive researchers in my department, even though I studied in the best university in my country (which is mind-blowingly better than the one I'm currently in), even if I say yes to almost everything, and even if I work easily 150% what an average native colleague does, none of this matter at all. Every morning I wake up there is a new knife on my back. Opportunities just vanish transparently; pressure amounts over pressure amounts pressure; there is always that quiet, mute side look that says (without words) "if you don't like it, why don't you leave?".
And what really makes this ten times worse is that the country I'm in has this almost ethereal reputation for begin some kind of paradise where everyone is super polite and calm and rational, so whenever I complain about anything it feels like I'm some kind of spoiled child. Half the time I even convince myself of that.
Do you happen to live in Switzerland?
I think it’s Sweden.
It can be any country in Europe. Fact is that the country inside looks different than in the movies in one’s home country. Another fact is that we like the others that look like us and not like the others. In other words racism and xenophobia are real. Some people can live with that and bite back when confronted, for others occasional reminder about their origin is too much.
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going to start introducing all my straw men with “according to the Internet” and closing all my arguments with “if you downvote me it’s because you’re triggered” now, thank you for this neat trick
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I worked as much as 200% more than some of my colleagues while having the lowest wage in the team. When I left, projects in my perimeter took 12x more time to develop (as assessed by a former colleague). I had a manager fired for failing to recruit me back.
You're wrong in assigning the injustice you're going through to discrimination based on your ethnicity, especially in an academic context where the vast majority is pro-immigration.
There is no concrete example of racism in his testimony. He describes universal situations of professional rivalry ("opportunities vanish," "pressure amounts") but interprets them as implicit racism without tangible evidence.
The intangibility of racism paradoxically makes it more powerful as an accusatory mechanism. Its very invisibility becomes proof of its omnipresence - the more impossible it is to prove, the more "obvious" it becomes. The vicious cycle is perfect: the absence of evidence strengthens the belief in a hidden evil.
This structure mirrors the logic of primitive sacredness: an absolute but elusive evil that demands even more victims precisely because it defies empirical verification. The accused can neither defend themselves (since denial is seen as proof of guilt) nor confess (as the evil is portrayed as unconscious).
Some relevant Proust:
>"Miss Vinteuil might not have thought evil was such a rare state, so extraordinary, so exotic, such a restful place to emigrate to, had she been able to discern in herself, as in everyone else, that indifference to the suffering we cause which, whatever other names we give it, is the terrible and permanent form of cruelty."
Once upon a time, not that long ago, within my lifetime in fact, being gay was targeted for public abuse the way that transgender people are being targeting now.
That has declined as people came to understand that being gay, lesbian, bi is part of how a person is made. Under public pressure, a gay person can act straight or at least act not gay. But it doesn't change who they are, doesn't help anyone around them, and makes them miserable. There is no point to it. Thankfully popular opinion and the law have adjusted to that reality.
Being transgender is the same way. A transgender person is not someone who dresses a certain way, takes hormones, or gets surgery. A transgender person is someone who is absolutely miserable when they are not permitted to express the gender they feel. It is part of who they are deep inside, how they feel every day of their life. Like gay people, they can hide it to avoid abuse. Like gay people, it's not fair to force them to do so. And it doesn't help anyone around them either.
It seems to me that prigs, as defined in pg's article, are just jumping on the transgender issue because it's an easy way for them to enforce rules. From my understanding, having read both articles, PG might say that the prigs have chosen to ride the lgbt movement. The problem is not with the lgbt movement itself.
Unfortunately, this gives the movement a bad reputation. Some prigs aren't lgbt people at all, but they speak on behalf of them, as they also speak on behalf of other groups that they aren't a part of. Some prigs might actually be a part of the minority they speak for, but I would hazard a guess, based on no data, and say that these are the minority of all prigs.
I think PG's problem is with the prigs, not the lgbt movement itself. Can these be separated?
Self-congratulatory, self-righteous prigs are all over the place within human society.
When people complain about them, the substantive content of their complaint is the context in which they issue it. For example pg is complaining about the prigs who nag everyone about transgender acceptance, but not the prigs who nag everyone to reject and abuse transgender people.
Matters of speech, manners, and decorum are convenient ways to launder the advocacy of a certain set of values. All you have to do is accuse your enemies of violation when they advocate, and stay silent when your allies apply the same tactics.
In order to consistently navigate politics, one needs to start with one's own values. That's why I posted my comment above. The core issue for me is whether transgender people can show up in their preferred gender. Not whether other people are annoying jerks when they talk about that question. There are plenty of annoying jerks on both sides of any value question, if one has the open eyes to see them.
> Self-congratulatory, self-righteous prigs are all over the place within human society.
They try to be. A given social movement will be judged on how well it deals with them - whether it embraces/encourages them (or, worse, makes them its leaders), or discourages them. Bullies, grifters, and sexual predators are everywhere, but "this organisation protects/doesn't do enough against its bullies/grifters/sexual predators" is a legitimate criticism (in cases where it's accurate); it's the same with prigs.
> The core issue for me is whether transgender people can show up in their preferred gender.
Break down what that means. Are you talking about whether these people act in a particular way? Or whether they demand that other people treat them in a particular way? Those are very different asks.
Are megachurches not still a thing? Traditional religion has had quite the assortment of bullies, grifters, and sexual predators.
Perfect example of what I'm talking about. People criticise traditional religions for that kind of thing (and criticise specific sects as handling it particularly badly, rather than just throwing up their hands and saying every community has bad actors) and they are right to do so.
Except many of the most vocal criticizers of progressive prigs come from reactionary prigs and their enablers, and many of the most vocal criticizers of the reactionary prigs come from progressive prigs and their enablers. There isn't really a lot of reflective self criticism - the whole dynamic looks more like a prig battle, with criticizing the current popular fashion myopically just used to attract otherwise disinterested people to the cause of enabling the next trend.
Maybe I've just gotten older and less worried about social consequences, but as priggishness goes the currently-passing fashion felt pretty tame. In the mainstream culture - thirty years ago it was "godlessness". Twenty years ago it was "support our troops". Ten years ago it was "gender". And today it's "woke". Within specific subcultures, "gender" will continue to be one, as "woke" has been for quite some time. When someone starts talking (or even preaching!) with any of these unquestionable assumptions, you just keep your mouth shut, and hold your real thoughts for your real friends with whom you can imperfectly express nuanced views in an environment of good faith rather than getting jumped on for social points.
> Except many of the most vocal criticizers of progressive prigs come from reactionary prigs and their enablers, and many of the most vocal criticizers of the reactionary prigs come from progressive prigs and their enablers.
I don't think that's true. I'm old enough to remember when priggishness was mostly right-coded, but at that point it looked like church ladies and curtain-twitchers complaining about boobs on the TV, which is not the group that's criticising leftist priggishness by any means. In political compass terms, it's something bottom-left attacks top-right and bottom-right attacks top-left for, because it's more of a top-bottom issue than a left-right one, and it's not really hypocrisy from one side or the other, it just looks like it when viewed through the left-right axis (of course there are some legitimate hypocrites who just cheer for their own left-or-right side and have e.g. flipped from being pro-free-speech when it was left-coded to being anti-free-speech now that it's right-coded).
> Maybe I've just gotten older and less worried about social consequences, but as priggishness goes the currently-passing fashion felt pretty tame. In the mainstream culture - thirty years ago it was "godlessness". Twenty years ago it was "support our troops". Ten years ago it was "gender". And today it's "woke".
The part that worries me is that this time we don't have the separation of personal and political (partly because feminism deliberately, explicitly tore it down) that ensures people don't have to fear for their livelihoods because of their views. It was illegal to fire people for godlessness (or its opposite) or gender, and that was an important protection that unions fought hard for. Wokeism is akin to religion in most of the ways that matter, but since it isn't recognised as such, people can be (and are!) fired (not to mention socially excluded etc.) because they were too woke or not woke enough, and we seemingly just accept that.
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Have you considered that using the term woke as a pejorative is priggish behavior? Because amongst my conservative friends it is used at least once every social setting.
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Well, I think "priggish" better describes how a person advocates for a belief, not the belief itself.
I do think the issue is more complex than just women's rights, in part because a lot of women are fine with trans women being around them, and in part because biological females can express a variety of genders, including male.
Women who say they find it acceptable for males to impose themselves on female spaces don't speak for all women and cannot consent to this intrusion for all women.
I think this is spot on. The confusion for me comes from the fact that, as far as I can tell, I've never met a prig in real life. And yet they seem to be the biggest political issue of our time. Is it because I live in Australia and it's more of a US thing? Or is it because I'm not online as much maybe? I find it really confusing.
What Graham means by "prig" is, say, an HR person who informs you that you need to use your coworker's preferred pronouns.
If you're calling a coworker something that they are uncomfortable with enough to get HR involved, HR may be the prigs but you're being an asshole.
Yes on a pragmatic basis, if the coworker is male and gets upset at being referred to by "he", but it goes against your own personal beliefs to refer to him as "she", it's best just to refer to him by name and practise wording your sentences to be pronounless. And, where possible and not disadvantageous, to avoid situations where he's involved in your own work.
With this approach, he's less likely to make a complaint to HR about you (though he might notice the careful lack of "she", but that's much more difficult to make a substantiated complaint about), and you still get to stick to your own beliefs.
It's still somewhat vexing to have to do this, but at least it prevents you from getting in the crosshairs of HR.
If it goes against your personal beliefs to call someone what they prefer to be called at no expense to yourself, then you need some new personal beliefs.
What about neopronouns? Can someone just make up a new set of words like zi / zim / zis and expect you to remember them whenever talking to or about that person?
You already remember what standard pronouns to use to refer to each person in your life. They're words you learned right from the start of learning the language. The same isn't true of "neopronouns".
You seem to be in agreement with my sentiment.
There is also additional work in remembering which pronoun to use with which NB person. With most people, you just automatically say the right thing.
I already have to remember people’s names, what’s the difference?
What have you done so far in cases where a coworker has asked you to refer to them only using a neopronoun?
As others have suggested I just avoid pronouns. This seems to be a common approach.
Seems like a practical solution. So what’s the problem?
Probably that gender ideology played a sizable role in getting Trump re-elected. It was the topic of his most popular ad, and IIRC the plurality of swing state voters said it was the most important issue for them.
So getting people to use preferred pronouns was a bit of a Pyrrhic victory in my book.
>IIRC the plurality of swing state voters said [gender ideology] was the most important issue for them.
I don't think that you RC. Citation very much needed here.
The issue of neopronouns is largely theoretical, since almost all users of neopronouns also accept the gender neutral 'they'. The Trump ads weren't about neopronouns, and I doubt that most Trump voters (or indeed most Democratic voters) could tell you what a neopronoun is.
Using people's preferred pronouns out of he/she/they is just common courtesy. It's essentially what everyone, social conservatives included, already does whenever they take someone's word regarding their gender rather than looking down their pants before talking about them in the third person.
Eh, ok. [1] I guess there must be another reason Trump's campaign spent hundreds of millions of dollars broadcasting that ad. It was way more than they spent on any other ad.
You're moving the goalpost here and pretending that neopronouns is not that big an issue. But it's obviously just part of the gender ideology issue, which was clearly part of the reason Trump won.
I can see that there are still people out there with their heads in the sand. I wonder who you'll help elect next time around?
1: https://www.megynkelly.com/2024/11/11/survey-finds-trans-iss...
You said ‘swing state voters’. The survey you indirectly link to is talking about ‘swing voters’:
>Our definition of swing voters includes those who are undecided in the presidential race, have changed their voting preference since 2020 (voting Democrat in one election and Republican in the other), or are independents who either indicate they split their votes between Democrats and Republicans, or who hold either favorable or unfavorable views of both Trump and Harris.
The sample of voters is weighted towards swing states, but judging by the numbers for 'All voters', gender wasn't the predominant issue for swing state voters in general.
I don't think that neopronouns are a big issue outside of hypothetical arguments on the internet. You can certainly link neopronouns to a broader issue that people care about. But this thread was just about neopronouns (starting from your question "What about neopronouns?") before you brought Trump into it!
Ok, well you're doing a great job of splitting hairs but have not brought any evidence. Good luck in 4 years, to us all!
Or you could just call people what they want to be called when it does not inconvenience you in the slightest.
Personally, agree with calling people what they want to be called. That said, here's a thought experiment: What if someone is inconvenienced? What if someone feels uncomfortable using pronouns that don't match the sex of the person? What about uncommon "neopronouns" like "zhe", "xe", or "fae"?
Whose comfort gets priority in this situation?
We expect people to say things that make them uncomfortable all the time. I don't feel comfortable telling my boss that I'm the one who wrote the buggy code that caused the incident, but I have a responsibility to do it regardless. I might be expected to thank everyone involved in a project, even if I don't feel personally grateful to them. And so on.
Obviously there's no easy way to reason these cases from first principles. As it is, I'm aware that being affirmed in their gender identity is recognized as therapeutically important for trans people. On the flip side, I'm not aware of any condition that causes people to suffer significant distress due to using a particular pronoun. So in this case, I feel like it's a pretty easy decision.
EDIT: The "neopronoun" question was added after I replied, or I missed it. I have never met a person who expected me to use them, nor have I ever encountered a workplace environment where policies required their use, so I haven't formed an opinion.
I've never met anybody who used neopronouns either, I've only heard about it online.
I wonder if there are any long term effects of forcing someone to say something that they consider to be untrue? Taken to its most hyperbolic extreme, it could be used as a form of psychological torture, like something out of 1984, where Winston is tortured for not accepting that four fingers being held up is five, or "Four Lights" from Star Trek.
To get one to renounce what they know to be true and accept whatever you say without question is probably the ultimate form of control and subjugation.
For emphasis: "taken to its most hyperbolic extreme".
edit: more realistically, you could say that transgender or gay people might feel like they are compelled to lie about who they are in order to fit in, or in certain circumstances. Surely, if we recognize this as psychologically damaging, then we should recognize all other types of forced lying to be similarly damaging.
I don't think so. If someone shows you their baby you say "how adorable, how beautiful" no matter how ugly the baby is. If you haven't learned to accept that by the time you're an adult you're going to live a miserable life.
Yes and by the same principle, vegans could just eat meat and dairy instead of adhering to their philosophical beliefs. That's your argument, right?
That analogy doesn't work. A closer analogy would be a vegan refusing to talk to a coworker who eats meat. That would be unacceptable to me, too.
The analogy in my comment was about adherence to philosophical beliefs, in response to what appeared to be a suggestion by you that such beliefs should be ignored if someone else finds them to be an inconvenience.
Could you explain why you think your analogy works, please?
A vegan doesn't eat tofu at you.
Your right to untrammeled adherence to your philosophical beliefs ends the moment that those beliefs result in conduct affecting other people. After that point, some form of balancing occurs.
Exactly, which is why the balanced and pragmatic solution described in my earlier comment works well in a conflict of philosophical beliefs over sex-based pronouns versus preferred pronouns.
Simply avoid using them at all if a colleague is likely to get upset and complain to HR should the colleague's sex be accurately described.
Noticeably treating a coworker differently because of your beliefs about their gender identity is not a balanced and pragmatic solution.
If treating this colleague the same as you'd treat anyone else is likely to cause a complaint about you to HR, but at the same time you don't want to compromise your own philosophical beliefs, then it's about the most pragmatic and balanced approach you can achieve given the circumstances.
Do you ask everyone you work with for a birth certificate so you can ensure you're referring to them using the terms you consider appropriate?
Yes absolutely, and I take a blood sample from each of them for karyotype testing while doing a thorough inspection of their genitals.
Any more daft questions?
You know we're people right?
Sorry to interrupt your slapfight about me, but you do know transgender people are... people... right?
Like we're not just abstract things for you to argue about on the internet. I have blood. And feelings. And goals. And dreams.
It's so bizarre to see people talk about people like me like this, like you've never actually interacted with one of us.
Like we're some kind of philosophical concept or something.
It's weird.
I don't expect compassion or self-reflection out of a green name on the orange site, but I felt the need to say this for some reason.
Have a nice rest of your argument.
So is it a problem to use the "wrong" pronouns for someone or not? You take people at their word on their gender every day. Why go out of your way to fret about what you call people only when they tell you they're trans?
That is just basic human decency, not being prig.
No, to the whole sibling thread. He’s talking about the “pledge of allegiance” required to get hired in a university or like company, circa 2020. Also posts that imply you’re a monster if you don’t conform.
Sticklers for rules are the traditional definition. I think most of us have met a tyrant before, ruler of a very small kingdom. Often in a government position.
Read his essay again, past the first two paragraphs. Look at the social movements he describes as priggish, woke, politically correct etc.
> There was at this time a great backlash against sexual harassment; the mid 1980s were the point when the definition of sexual harassment was expanded from explicit sexual advances to creating a "hostile environment."
> In the first phase of political correctness there were really only three things people got accused of: sexism, racism, and homophobia
Going by the examples pg gives, anyone willing to support women, or LGBT, is a prig. Don't let his abstract theory cloud the rest of the essay. He says it in black and white, his problem is with minorities standing up for themselves.
I don't think that's a fair reading of it.
Consider, for example, expanding the definition of sexual harassment to also include creating a "hostile environment".
I think that pg's point is that this expansion to include a "hostile environment" makes it fall under the "eye of the beholder", which makes it a lot more vague and arbitrary. Something being vague and arbitrary is the perfect playground for a prig, because they can essentially invent new rules and enforce them. For one example: Microagressions. What are they? They could be anything, really.
"Supporting women" and "enforcing arbitrary rules" are not necessarily the same thing. One can claim that they're doing the former when they're really just doing the latter.
If you were to make up a new rule and say that men need to bow to every woman within a 10ft radius in order to show respect, is that really "supporting women"? Is that what women want? This is an intentionally ridiculous hypothetical (in certain cultures), but I think it demonstrates the issue that an arbitrary rule is not necessarily "support".
Remember Donglegate? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5398681
Did this joke create a hostile environment? Did the shaming of these people make anything better, or did it make things worse? Was this an example of "supporting women", or was this just an example of punishing people for not following arbitrary rules?
>He says it in black and white, his problem is with minorities standing up for themselves.
Someone who acts priggishly may not be a part of the minority that they are 'standing up' for.
I agree with the definition pg gives in the first two paragraphs of what a prig with, which is why I suggested you reread past that section. As OP said, DEI initiatives are regularly hollow and performative. Re: dongle gate and the other hypotheticals, sure, not great, I agree enforcing arbitrary rules isn't good for society, and we really gain nothing.
Let's look at this essay critically, and let's not doing any legwork for PG. He has an opening statement about priggishness that, again I agree with, and then (eventually) dives into examples that we're discussing re: hostile environment. Does this example support his argument about what wokeness is?
You claim that the goal of this example is for PG to provide evidence
> that this expansion to include a "hostile environment" makes it fall under the "eye of the beholder", which makes it a lot more vague and arbitrary. ...
Which i agree is PGs point in introducing this example as he says so himself
>But the vagueness of this accusation allowed the radius of forbidden behavior to expand to include talking about heterodox ideas.
So we have this example, and we can clearly identify how PG /thinks/ it supports his argument. This is where I disagree, and like almost all of the examples in the essay, it does not support his argument.
Do you believe that, as PG says, in 1986 and the following few years, (not now, we'll save that for later, he specifically is talking about the 1980s) this title IX ruling that expanded the definition was misused in a priggish sense, to punish people arbitrarily, and that it did not support women? Talk to some women who were alive at that time, and you'll soon realize that yes, outside of direct sexual advances there are many things that professors would do or say to dehumanize female students. So by giving these students a mechanism to hold professor accountable for dehumanizing them, we are... supporting them!
Now maybe you believe that is the minority case, and that in general this was misused. Would you trust women in the 1980s to decide for themselves whether or not they were being sexually harassed by a professor in this expanded definition? Remember, the original definition was just when a professor/whoever would make a direct sexual advance. Ok, so say we trust women to know when they themselves are being sexually harassed. Do you think that men were going around in the 80s accusing professors of sexual harassment? Yea probably not. So who was misusing this? Basically no one. Who was benefiting from it? Women. So this is not priggish in any sense.
As far as today goes, I went to university within the past few years, at a very woke school even by my standards, and even with this expanded definition, I have not heard of any professors suffering from false accusations of sexual harassment. I have had quite literally dozens of friends tell me their experiences where professors dehumanized, belittled them, or have even blatantly asked for sexual favors or been assaulted by them. And of course these reports go through title IX, with this expanded definition, and even today rarely is a professor's career upended. So even today, not priggish.
You can rinse and repeat this for almost any example pg gives. His examples do not support his argument at all. So either his initial argument is wrong, or this essay is just plain bad. Either way it's worthless as a way to defend the argument we both agree on. OP explains why it's also harmful.
>Do you believe that, as PG says, in 1986 and the following few years, (not now, we'll save that for later, he specifically is talking about the 1980s) this title IX ruling that expanded the definition was misused in a priggish sense, to punish people arbitrarily, and that it did not support women? Talk to some women who were alive at that time, and you'll soon realize that yes, outside of direct sexual advances there are many things that professors would do or say to dehumanize female students. So by giving these students a mechanism to hold professor accountable for dehumanizing them, we are... supporting them!
I have no reason not to believe that Title IX in the 1980s was misused in a priggish sense, other than what you've told me just now.
He doesn't give any examples of how it was misused in the 1980s, but says "...but since for a professor merely being the subject of a sexual harassment complaint would be a disaster whether the complainant was reasonable or not..."
Did this mechanism support women? Perhaps. Was it also misused? Perhaps. Does it support his argument? I don't think I agree that he has an "argument", so much as he is merely telling a story that he believes to be true, and this bit of history is part of that story.
Even if this was never misused in the 1980s, it laid the groundwork for the future.
>Would you trust women in the 1980s to decide for themselves whether or not they were being sexually harassed by a professor in this expanded definition?
Well, I wouldn't trust anyone, in any time period, to have all the power of a judge, jury, and executioner. What I quoted above from footnote 5 indicates that. If there is any kind of accusation, it should be taken seriously, but it should also go through the proper procedure for determining guilt while presuming innocence.
Handing the female students of the 1980s virtually unlimited power to ruin the lives of others with just a word could be said to be "supporting" them, sure, but that comes at the cost of everyone else.
> So who was misusing this? Basically no one.
He gives no examples of this being misused in the 1980s, but he does give an example from the 21st century with Larry Summers.
> I have not heard of any professors suffering from false accusations of sexual harassment.
What can I say to your anecdotes, except... "Great!" Or perhaps it's not great that dozens of your friends have had such bad experiences with their professors.
First, let me say that your comment is thoughtful and makes many good points, and it lacks so many of the strawman arguments that some others have laid out.
Thank you for that.
That said…
> Do you think that men were going around in the 80s accusing professors of sexual harassment?
Yes.
I will be sure to tell my roommate from college that you don’t think he exists.
> So who was misusing this? Basically no one. Who was benefiting from it? Women. So this is not priggish in any sense.
I’ve been involved directly or indirectly with the academic world since the 80s.
The best I can tell, you weren’t alive then. I’m not sure who you got your information from, but it seems to be selective. There have been more than a few abusers of the “expanded definition”.
First, some real articles:
https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2018/12/17/harvard-zealots-...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_lacrosse_rape_hoax
These provide some well-documented examples of questionable title ix implementation. There are many more examples if you look for them.
> I have had quite literally dozens of friends tell me their experiences where professors dehumanized, belittled them
I’m a straight, white male (allegedly a privileged class in these situations), and this has happened to me more than a few times, usually from professors (usually older) who were known to have a bad attitude.
I imagine that a lot of these cases are not related to being a woman — it’s just general shithead behavior from the professor that should probably be addressed by the administration, but not under the umbrella of title ix or sexual harassment.
Of course, crossing the line of asking for sexual favors does fall under that umbrella.
As for anecdata, I know of:
- a professor who was investigated for sexual harassment and inappropriate touching for… wait for it… tapping students on the shoulder to get their attention in a silent way. I was the observer. I saw what he did. When I asked the accuser if this was the behavior she was referring to, she said yes. It was a total nothingburger, but it put a massive stress on his life unnecessarily. An appropriate complaint/suggestion would have been to ask him to speak softly from a distance, which is what he did moving forward. There was no reason to put this under the umbrella of sexual harassment.
- a k-12 teacher who was accused of sexual harassment for engaging in standard classroom safety procedures. Lost his job. Later found not guilty on the criminal side, and won a civil lawsuit for wrongful termination (and other things). In this case, it was the administration weaponizing title ix against a teacher while putting minors (the students) into the middle of it.
- a professor was accused of sexual harassment for… again… wait for it… sliding a handout across the table to a student in a small graduate seminar… after the student decided to sit as far as possible from everyone else in the seminar. This was her statement, and it was corroborated by other students, and the action was not seen as sexual or aggressive by anyone else. This student had accused every professor she had taken a class from with some sort of abuse, so the investigation was cursory. Again, why should someone like this be able to weaponize some of the powerful systems of title ix so frivolously?
Lest you believe that this is only a teacher/professor thing, similar examples exist in administration as well as the private sector. Often they aren’t spoken about publicly in order to avoid giving other bad actors ideas that they can work with.
I could go on, but I will spare you.
Let me be clear, I do believe that something needed to be done in the 80s to address callous behavior (both by educators and by the population at large), but I think that too many actions started to be categorized as sexual harassment that were probably better addressed in a different way (probably much lower key) and under a different label. Sexual harassment accusations end up being a scorched-earth approach to conflict resolution, and sometimes the best way to affect change of minor issues is with a deft touch.
Getting back to the original point, when I read pg’s essay, my experiences jibed with his interpretation of events during that time frame. It’s fine to disagree with him, but I hope that folks will at least take a charitable read of his interpretation of the zeitgeist of that time — at a minimum, it passes the sniff test for me.
Thats a good call out, I was definitely being hyperbolic re: no one was misusing the expanded title IX definitions, and I appreciate the anecdata, since you're right that I was not alive back then and so don't have a grasp of exactly what it was like. I trust you that it happened back then, and I have also seen similar situations happen now.
> I imagine that a lot of these cases are not related to being a woman — it’s just general shithead behavior
I agree, a lot of these cases are just shithead behavior, but a lot of them are not, and were overtly sexual in nature (though not direct, but maybe thats up to interpretation), or just overtly sexist. E.g. discussing sexual fantasies or their ongoing sexual escapades, commenting on bodies in a sexual manner that may not be an advance but instead negative in nature etc. But I would agree even within that, title IX may sometimes be overkill, and I've said that to friends and peers myself.
But this exchange touches upon why I still think PGs essay is not worth a charitable read, and just overall more or less harmful. We both have anecdata about correct and incorrect uses of title IX, ways that title IX could be better, etc. How society should treat this and other issues relating to class and abuses of power is an important discussion to have and should be ongoing. What PG is doing is claiming that changes to title IX (along with his other examples of wokeness/priggishness) are in conflict with "truth":
>Surely if truth should prevail anywhere, it should be in universities; that's supposed to be their specialty; but for decades starting in the late 1980s the politically correct tried to pretend this conflict didn't exist.
Which, given your anecdata, is sometimes a fair assessment, and given mine, sometimes unfair. But PG does not allow this nuance in his arguments, and completely disregards the problems any of his examples were trying to treat in the first place. In fact he claims that the thought process that leads to these changes causes disaster, and need to be stopped.
So PG is not directly arguing whether or not the 1980s title IX change was effective in its goals, but instead arguing that the type of thought that lead to that change (and others) simply needs to be stopped entirely. There is no allowance in his argument to affect change, with a deft touch or otherwise, to these societal issues. The only change he suggests are ways to stop or tune out those trying to solve these issues.
Contrast that with Adrienne maree brown's essay https://adriennemareebrown.net/2018/05/10/we-will-not-cancel... Although a different type of writing for a different crowd, it also acknowledges that cancel culture (or wokeness, priggishness, whatever) is harmful and must come to an end, but acknowledges that the problems that have spawned it are real and still need to be fixed.
> We must all do our work. Be accountable and go heal, simultaneously, continuously. It’s never too late.
All great points, and I think we more or less see eye to eye on most matters as they currently stand.
But getting back to pg’s essay and the zeitgeist of the late 80s and early 90s…
> But PG does not allow this nuance in his arguments, and completely disregards the problems any of his examples were trying to treat in the first place. In fact he claims that the thought process that leads to these changes causes disaster, and need to be stopped.
In the quote above my quote of you, pg was talking about how “political correctness” began to limit the ability to discuss heterodox ideas at universities. He was lamenting the fact that “the search for truth” had given way to “the search for ideas that generally do not offend” (my wording, not his).
He gives an example of Larry Summers discussing a theory of Darwin’s. Whether that theory is right or wrong is irrelevant — the mere discussion of it cost him his very high profile job because it made some people feel uncomfortable. Note that Larry Summers continued to have great jobs after being ousted as Harvard’s president (including remaining a professor at Harvard), so it’s not like anyone that mattered actually thought he did anything particularly heinous, it was just a forced and capricious move in the performative art of “social justice”.
This happened in many other lower profile examples, and it produced (and has continued to produce) a chilling effect on the discussion of ideas that might be offensive to certain groups (mainly the folks that pg is referring to in his essay — call them whatever you want).
So why is this important?
1. When ideas, especially controversial ones, can’t be discussed, then research areas tend to end up at local maxima. This is incredibly regressive and limiting for research fields. Note that this already exists by way of not being able to challenge the ideas of certain researchers while they are still active/alive, and limiting this by not being able to challenge ideas that certain groups might find offensive (even if backed up by data) is even more restrictive. I’m guessing this is one reason why pg regularly takes shots at the socials sciences — the discussion of ideas is often to limited to that which is fashionable/acceptable to a small group, and progress in the field languishes and is limited because of that.
2. Ideas that are important but controversial end up either being shelved or (at best) discussed behind closed doors rather than openly. As a simple example, when scientists realized that challenging certain aspects of the efficacy of covid vaccines (a completely normal and relatively banal topic in public health circles) was grounds for getting canceled, they just had to do it in secret. By limiting the pool of people who can discuss a matter, the ideas are either less finely honed or take longer to hone. In the case of Covid, this literally cost lives. There are many ideas out there that fall into this category, and what is happening is that these researchers are either researching in relative silence (loss for the world, imho) or they are just leaving academia and either going to the private sector (where research is sometimes not shared for competitive reasons) or just leave academia completely (thereby thinning the pool of talent, also a loss for the world and the search for truth, imho). As a former academic myself, I can just say… I have stories, and they sadden me.
To summarize, the chilling effect I mentioned has made a mockery of certain areas of academics and university life.
Are the benefits better than the losses. I think that’s an interesting discussion that is beyond the scope of a forum like this, but I would say that, as a whole, they are not. Many/most of the benefits that came out of the PC movement and the “woke” movement (as defined by pg) could have been accomplished without the massive amounts of collateral damage that they caused in other areas due to casting an unnecessarily wide net.
[edit: I think this is the crux of the issue. The pc/woke folks seem to take an approach of “at any cost”, while more moderate folks who support many of the same ideas of fairness and equality care deeply about potential collateral damage. IMHO, the pc/woke folks would gain much more support if they were willing to negotiate on this aspect rather than completely ignore it.]
I think that we will find an equilibrium at some point [1], but I think that the “woke” folks are going to find that some of their sacred cows get absolutely destroyed on the way there. Again, it will be an unnecessary over-correction to an unnecessarily extreme intervention. It didn’t have to be this way.
[1] Note that some of the best practitioners have pretty much already found this equilibrium, but much of their best work is (again) only discussed in limited circles. One of the most amazing people I’ve ever met was the head of dei (or some title like that) at a widely known gaming company. We discussed all of the hot-button topics in her field, and she gave answers that I think would be widely acknowledged (e.g., by both “liberals” and “conservatives”) as being actionable and incredibly reasonable. She was a prime example of knowing when to use the deft touch (e.g., someone just wasn’t socialized well) versus using the scorched earth approach (e.g., someone had deep-seated issues that made them a danger to those around them). I think that the “woke” community would win massive kudos from large swathes of the general population if they rallied behind folks like this woman, but the “behavior police” and the “ragers” (my term) would then have no cause celebre, so I doubt it will happen.
Again, thank you for your thoughtful and interesting comments. This exchange has caused me to exercise some rhetorical muscles that I haven’t had to use in a while.
Please continue your search for truth with passion and vigor — I’m certain that you will wield that knowledge and power constructively.
As it frequently happens, such interpretation says more about your own mindset than the piece itself, and sounds embattled.
That is, if you can’t consider complaints against folks who share your position but but took things too far.
>I think PG's problem is with the prigs, not the lgbt movement itself. Can these be separated?
You're essentially asking if the LGBT movement can be separated from the exact kind of activism that's enabled the advances in LGBT rights that we've seen since the 1960s. In a word, no, they can't be separated. The 'priggishness' of one or two decades ago is the moral truism of the present. Here, for example, is a spoof flyer in the British satirical magazine Private Eye published in 1969:
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_...
It's funny. But what's even funnier is many of the items in the list of obviously ridiculous demands (demands that surely signal that Political Correctness Has Gone Mad, etc. etc.) have turned out to be completely reasonable and, in time, uncontroversial.
Of course it can be separated. There is no inherent reason the two must be molded together. Zero.
History is a pretty good argument that they can't be separated.
As always with history, you can imagine how things might have happened differently. For example, you can imagine gay marriage having been legalized without people ever having put social pressure on others not to use homophobic language. The two things are certainly not inherently linked. But then, very few things are inherently linked in history and politics. It's not much of an argument against a certain form of activism to point out that its results could in principle have been obtained by other means.
Prigs really aren't that big of a deal. Like literally who cares what they are up to?
They lost the Dems the election. “She’s for them” was by far trumps most successful ad according to polling
Maybe the people who voted for Trump genuinely don't like trans people and the prigs have nothing to do with it.
I mean its really fucked up to vote for someone who will dehumanize and villainize a population NOT because you dislike that population but just because SOME OTHER people are speaking about it vehemently. Is this what you are suggesting happened?
Yes that is what I’m suggesting. Don’t ask don’t tell type policy would be acceptable to many voters where current dem policy is not. Fucked up but the voters were heard
One starts caring quickly when they are between you and employment.
Also, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralistic_ignorance
In his article, Graham said the following:
"Consumers have emphatically rejected brands that ventured too far into wokeness. The Bud Light brand may have been permanently damaged by it."
Bud Light sent promotional cans to a trans influencer. The content of the promo was completely anodyne, a joke about March Madness. For this, a boycott was led by social conservatives.
Aren't the people who led this boycott "prigs"? Why is Graham referring to them in a neutral-to-laudatory way if he's so opposed to priggishness? What "wokeness" does he think Bud Light was punished for?
The prigs are doing a motte-and-bailey thing, where if you're against them, then they will claim that you're against trans people or gays or minorities or whoever.
The author sums it up well: "It’s mean, and unkind. It’s malicious."
> A transgender person is someone who is absolutely miserable when they are not permitted to express the gender they feel.
Is that true of everyone who identifies as trans, though?
I get the impression there is a subset of trans folks for whom this is the case, and many others (perhaps a majority) who simply prefer to use different pronouns than the ones they started with.
I would love to have data that establishes whether that impression is correct or incorrect. There appears to be a puzzling conflation between folks who enjoy or prefer alternative gender expressions and folks whose survival depends on it, and it would be a great relief to know what's really going on.
Yeah, I don't think people understand what transgender person is. They understand being born like that, but not why someone chooses to change their gender. It simply is not in anyone's experience nor there is any analogous thing to bridge understanding. It is NOT like being GAY, because I know and read about gay animals, and say ok, this is not specific to humans. There isn't anything like that for TGs, because animals obviously don't dress. They just are.
I also understood one thing. Most people were paying lip service to TGs. This includes people like Mark and PG. And we like, good employees, are just following what HR says without rocking the boat. I now doubt head of HR knows or understands what this is about.
Also, there are not many people who are TG. Should society adjust itself for everyone on the margin is a question one should ask themselves? Does it adjust for everyone who has kidney disease, or other ailments? I know western countries do a good job of addressing handicapped people in several ways, but the last 1% is very hard and expensive to reach. And I feel we are paying the price. Is TG issue big enough to put Climate Change activism at risk, which it is now? I am not against TG, I am against not prioritizing what's more important.
This is self-evidently incorrect, for a multitude of reasons.
Reason 1: Gay men do not wait to 'realize' they are gay until their 30s, 40s, 50s, or 60s. "Trans" do.
Reason 2: Autogynephilia exists.
Reason 3: Orientation threatens (essentially) no one. But transgenderism directly attacks the sex-based rights that women have long fought for, undermining their rights to sex-segregated spaces (see Tickle vs Giggle or that crazy LA Spa case).
Reason 4: While homosexuality is trivial to define (same-sex attraction), transgenderism is not. Gender was defined as "performing" one's sex, per feminism. But if one "performs" the other sex, they are merely non-gender-conforming, not the other sex! This is why "what is a woman" has become such an infamous question, because trans activists cannot answer it in a way that actually makes sense to anyone.
I could go on. Downvote if you must, but we are post-peak-trans and reality is re-asserting itself; I am glad of it. Without wishing ill towards those caught up in the madness, I say: No. I shall not use pronouns that require me to lie about how I perceive the world, and I deny that the assertion of my right to speak truth is an act of hatred.
> Gay men do not wait to 'realize' they are gay until their 30s, 40s, 50s, or 60s.
That is patently false, there are many such cases.
I really doubt that. Coming out isn’t the same as “realizing.”
> But it doesn't change who they are
This is the part that we all don't really actually converse about. It's not an easy point to prove (genetically, after sequencing the entire human genome, there is not actually any proof that gay is something one "is" intrinsically), but it's also so personal and getting it wrong has such heavy consequences that most avoid the topic.
Graham says he thinks wokeness is a religion, which I think is silly, but ironically religion in the workplace is an effective model here. I don't have to believe in someone's religion to understand that I shouldn't challenge their beliefs in the workplace, nor should I whine that so-and-so took time off for their holiday, and so on. I've regularly seen people make "[holiday greeting] for those who celebrate" remarks in work chats for Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu holidays, and it would be pretty inappropriate to jump in and say (as an atheist myself) "by the way, your god doesn't exist".
Similarly, I don't need to have any particular belief about the nature of gender to respond to my coworkers asking me to use "she" or "he" or "they" to refer to them. It's not my business.
Even trans people don't have a single monolithic set of opinions about what it means to be trans, what gender is, etc. The bar for not offending most people is extremely low.
Your analogy is a good one. We can respect people's religious beliefs and understand that challenging them isn't appropriate in a work environment.
But this isn't about a work environment. There are many issues where LGBTQ identities and desires overlap with concerns society has about them. Religion is the same way. American society has chosen to give religions more leeway than most societies do. We are currently choosing that for LGBTQ rights, but it's often predicated on the idea that sexuality and gender identity are innate and immutable. Science doesn't actually back this up, and so the pendulum for us as a society to decide where the boundary between personal rights and societal wants / needs lie is up for debate, except we tend to avoid the topic. That's what I meant.
I agree with you about a transgender person who is 23, but not about anyone who is claiming to be transgender at 13. That is way too young to be sure of such things, and peer pressures/influences exist.
The current backlash is mostly caused by the hardcore activists pressuring for "the alternatives are either gender-affirming care or SUICIDE! SUICIDE! even for 13 y.o.'s"
This attitude is so hysterical that it cannot stand for long.
This does not feel like at all a good faith reading of the situation. Hardcore anti trans-activists on the right would like to make life so miserable for transpeople as to essentially eliminate them from public life entirely. That is the context in which these supposedly hysterical responses emerge. I say supposedly hysterical because transgender people of all ages do commit suicide at a higher rate than other groups. This should be considered a public health emergency but it largely isn't because transgender people are the most useful scapegoat of the day (even better than immigrants). Of course that doesn't mean that every child who questions their self identity should be given immediate medical intervention, but neither does it mean we should deny care for all.
"Hardcore anti trans-activists on the right would like to make life so miserable for transpeople as to essentially eliminate them from public life entirely."
You may be right, but the anti-trans backlash in the context of the anti-woke backlash is much wider than just a few hardcore anti-trans activists on the far right. And it mostly revolves around two issues:
a. Very young kids being treated in invasive or hard-to-revert ways on flimsy evidence.
b. People with male musculature competing in women's sports leagues.
If these two things go away, the popular reaction will significantly moderate itself, maybe into gay-marriage-like acceptance levels.
But these two things won't be broadly acceptable anywhere soon, if ever.
Those two things already barely exist. I’m skeptical it’s possible, in a nation of hundreds of millions, to get them much closer to not existing than they already are.
So if those are the parts really bothering people… it sure seems like a case of looking for something to be upset about, in which case attempting to address their grievances won’t help. Or, a case of being told by people who are exaggerating the situation that these are actually really big deals, then not bothering to check whether that’s true. And in that second scenario, I don’t think making reality even closer to what they prefer than it already is will convince them of anything, so again, why bother to try to address their concerns?
Their perception is out of phase with what’s actually going on, that needs to be fixed before any useful discussion about some nugget of a point they may hypothetically have or helpful nuance their perspective might provide can meaningfully be engaged with.
This is not how politics works. Politics is about spectacle, not facts. In order to turn people pro-trans the movement needs to come out emphatically against those two things. Make a spectacle out of it. “We’re just like you” consistently works
It is more like "outrageous things dominate the news cycle". It is not even a new thing; on a similar note, already in the 1990s, people started believing widely that child abduction from the street was a real danger in their own communities.
That said, the politicians meet the demand, sometimes to their own detriment. The Trump campaign could only deploy the "Trump is for you, Kamala is for they/them" slogan because Kamala herself, in 2020, felt the need to conform to then-prevailing winds and declare that she would fund gender-change surgeries for prisoners from taxpayers money.
Is that a thing? No, as far as we know, 0 prisoners asked for a taxpayer-funded gender change surgery before or after, and there was probably no risk for Kamala in 2020 if she brushed that question aside as marginal and irrelevant.
But she wanted to prove her progressive credentials on a thing that barely existed, and the thing that barely existed turned viciously against her four years later.
Maybe it would be better if politicians just didn't chase barely existing things in EITHER DIRECTION.
> The Trump campaign could only deploy the "Trump is for you, Kamala is for they/them" slogan because Kamala herself, in 2020, felt the need to conform to then-prevailing winds and declare that she would fund gender-change surgeries for prisoners from taxpayers money.
She was asked a question about it once by Fox, because Trump had brought it up, and answered that yes, she would follow the law and not deny medically necessary gender affirming care, and noted that the Trump administration had also followed the law in the same way. It was a response to an unfounded fact-free attack, prompted by a question from an unfriendly network. She didn’t bring it up again.
You have not found an example of a leftist politician chasing barely-existing things in this example—the opposite, in fact, she was playing defense to right wingers trying to make something out of nothing at all.
Do prominent democrats do this, on some topics? Probably! But they don’t have a media machine and strategy structured around that as a core activity.
[edit] I mean, they do this because it works, of course. Look at the thread on PG’s piece, and this one. It’s clearly working to get people riled up and shift the zeitgeist, reality be damned. “Welfare queens”, that was a fun one, and so successful that I bet 35+% of Americans who’ve heard the term still think it was an actual problem. Some fizzle (“they’re eating the pets!”) but they’re not punished for those instances, so why not endlessly throw out BS and see what sticks? Some of it does, and then we’re all talking about a bunch of basically-fake grievances instead of anything that matters, and they may even use the BS to advance positions that do affect things that matter. It’s so very tedious to deal with.
The ACLU had her fill out a form where she agreed to that position in 2020. That’s why it was a topic that Fox could ask about. This is absolutely a case of a tiny minority making a point of making the candidate take a fringe position, or be bullied by the activist class.
I don't get why is there so much energy wasted on these non issues:
> a. Very young kids being treated in invasive or hard-to-revert ways on flimsy evidence.
Leave it to the doctors/counsellors/psychologists and parents. They know best. If my kids wanted to change their gender I would sure appreciate if the state wasn't making it any more difficult.
> b. People with male musculature competing in women's sports leagues.
So a man won a boxing match with women. Who cares? Sports are entertainment. They have never been fair. Women boxers have a federation they can decide themselves who gets to play with who. No need for state to get involved.
> So a man won a boxing match with women
This should be stated hypothetically, because it hasn't happened (at least, not in any official, regulated match).
There are clearly broken experts addicted to the fact that SRS sterilize recipients. As much as I would support people with GID, there's something very broken about the field.
Just anecdata but my sister was encouraged to change her gender by multiple different therapists. She later “outgrew” that for lack of a better term and has emphatically told me that listening to them was a mistake. Sometimes parents know best idk.
Sports are more than just entertainment. There is no way for the state to avoid getting involved when the sports are run through publicly funded schools. And this impacts more than just boxing. At some point the state has to decide whether inclusion or fair play is more important. At least for sports that involve strength and speed we can't have it both ways. There are no easy answers here, and we can't just pretend the issue doesn't matter.
https://www.shewon.org/
It's not considered a public health emergency because the suicide claim is bullshit and is only trotted out by activists to try to manipulate others into accepting their demands.
Anyway it's better to listen to gender critical feminists on the left, rather than anti-trans reactionaries on the right, because the former have a principled and humane opposition to the ideology of trans, that is based on women's rights and safeguarding of children.
> Anyway it's better to listen to gender critical feminists on the left, rather than anti-trans reactionaries on the right, because the former have a principled and humane opposition to the ideology of trans, that is based on women's rights and safeguarding of children.
They don't and it isn't. On this issue terfs share policy goals with the far right almost exactly, to the point where self-identified white nationalists keep showing up to support them at their actions. They used to experience or feign discomfort about this but since 2022 or so they are openly allied in some regions, especially the UK.
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>Hardcore anti trans-activists on the right would like to make life so miserable for transpeople as to essentially eliminate them from public life entirely
Who are these hard core anti-trans activists? Are they mainstream? (Please dont say JK Rowling)
Stephen Miller just gave a speech last night saying that trans people don't exist, and the new President he advises is issuing an executive order to that effect.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-sex-gender-transgender-dei-...
Some states recently enacted laws requiring teachers to snitch on students who request unauthorized pronouns to the nanny state.
Hmm, the governor of Florida to start with. Criminal penalties for changing your gender marker on your driver's license.
There is a social movement that seeks the suppression of all transgender expression, including by fully informed adults. They led with “save the kids” for the emotional impact, as many other well-organized social movements have in the past.
It works because concerns about kids are real. But it’s important to see and understand the greater goals of the movement, and how it affects everyone. The essay at the top of this HN thread was written by an adult, expressing their adult concerns.
It is somewhat quaint, but the truth is often in the middle and compromises work the best.
Which is something that doesn't really resonate with the social network era, which rewards wild posturing and extreme views with attention and clicks.
I agree, and I hope you stand up for your sense of the middle. Because there is something going on that is way larger than kids. Look at how quickly this adult essay got flagged off the HN homepage. Look at what the president said in his inaugural address today.
I do try to do so.
Can we actually vouch for the entire essay to come back?
I know that people can vouch for flagged comments, but I am not sure about entire submissions.
I think being gay and having gender identity disorder are two things that are somewhat related culturally, but not that much as a condition.
Being gay has no negative consequences and when homosexuals are left to live how they want, they are happy and overall have no problems. Also, this identity doesn't change much during their lives.
In comparison with that, people who are delusional, are not feeling any better when they recognize their delusion. And it might actually be dangerous to affirm them in their delusion.
People with GID are somewhere on a spectrum between homosexuals and delusional people. Even the most affirming countries are clearly not enough. They still have a very high suicide rate. Plenty of them detransition, especially kids. There is statistically significant prevalence of mental disorders. 58% of people with GID have at least one psychiatric diagnosis (source https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6830528/).
Personally, I think that society is accepting gays for a good reason and not affirming people with GID for a good reason, too. It's not bigotry, it's a recognition of reality.
The highest risk of suicide for trans people is how the surrounding people treat them. Additionally, regret of transitions is lower than for most surgeries. There is no real reason that allowing trans people to live their lives as they please causes any harm to them, it's only moral panic.
https://whatweknow.inequality.cornell.edu/topics/lgbt-equali... and https://whatweknow.inequality.cornell.edu/topics/lgbt-equali...
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I'm not a target of tech's fascist turn, but my head is still spinning from the change of direction. When I entered this industry it was for hackers, nonconformists, weirdos, nerds, people who don't care about titles or clothes or what your genitals are.
What particularly stings is that the vipers at the top tricked people into giving away an enormous amount of intellectual property. Zuck is removing tampons from the men's room—will he also remove open source code written by queer people from his company? Of course not.
I feel like the way you describe it came from the people who came of age in the 70s and made so much of what we now see as “hacker culture.”
Now, the leadership is mostly people who came of age a couple of decades later, and got sandwiched between the elders’ ancient wisdom and a newly democratizing toxic online culture.
Some found the right path, many hung out with (or were) the sort of people who pretend to pretend to have heinous opinions on 4chan and are finally feeling comfortable enough to drop the facade.
Amazing what a little (a lot of) money and power can do to a culture. Some of our worst traits come out when we're all of a sudden in charge.
That hacker spirit is alive and well, and will be long after the fascists for one simple reason:
The same open minded creative attitude that fully and warmly welcomes people who are different, is also what makes us better able to solve science and tech problems in a creative way. The fascists need the hackers, but we don’t need them.
Authoritarianism is fundamentally culturally incompatible with innovation. Nazi cryptography was broken by an eccentric gay man, and so on- thousands of such examples.
operation paperclip would beg to differ WW2 ended because of sheer numbers
> operation paperclip would beg to differ
Operation paperclip? A huge number of scientists and engineers unable to accomplish much under an authoritarian regime, but then driving massive innovation and discovery when freed from it, is exactly my point. Even when employing brilliant creative people authoritarians will always setup a work culture and organization fundamentally incompatible with innovation where traits like creativity and honesty are seen as threats, and aggressively punished.
Even in the USA, you can see the effects of this- highly innovative research programs from Skunkworks to DARPA always have a radically anti-authoritarian work culture.
They did accomplish a lot you just don't hear about it because history is written by the victor. Think about the numbers it took to defeat them: USSR, USA, British Empire, French Empire, and China.
The reason the scientists were gobbled up by the US and USSR is precisely because of the knowledge they developed during and why everyone else was hanged.
One can argue a lot of the advancements made until the era of computers was made because of that horrible war
Not pro authoritarian regimes but logically if your life depended on creating something 9/10 you will
I do hear all about it because my wife is an obscure history buff interested in Ww2 and Soviet history, and I am particularly interested in foreign science and technology we don’t here about in the USA, and enjoy learning about soviet research and other science that still hasn’t made it back into mainstream western knowledge.
Authoritarianism does not fundamentally make it impossible to develop technology, it just stifles innovation and creativity to a degree that creates a noticeable disadvantage. Even US academic and government research institutions suffer from this to a substantial extent. Even being under stress for your life will be motivating but stifle your own creativity to an extent- and that physiological dynamic itself is very much central to how differently authoritarian organizations function, as they maintain a high stress environment to motivate and control people- which it does, but not in a way conducive to creative thought or risk taking. You also have the aspect of just giving individuals much less freedom and independence: needing to justify and seek approval up front for every little experiment, etc.
Just wanted to thank you and the commenter above for your thoughtful comment chain. It’s exceedingly rare to encounter such thoughtful nuanced conversation online.
I also wanted to add that although I chose a specific example from WWII, I agree with you that this dynamic I am taking about ended up not being a decisive factor in the war.
I would argue that this dynamic was one reason we got the bomb first- and that the leadership and culture of the Manhattan project was uniquely effective, and the culture persists today in the USA national labs to great effect, but the bomb also happened too late to be a factor.
It's time for tech to go back to its roots and starve the kings and 'noblemen' of our talent.
Stop working for billionaires.
Remains to be seen, but attention_is_all_you_need.pdf might put a kink in your plan.
> When I entered this industry it [... didn't] care about titles or clothes or what your genitals are.
Are we experiencing the same industry? Because as an LGBT person, I have experienced a tech industry so drunk and fixated on identity that it can't shut up about it. It's patronizing, insulting, and divisive.
I got online in about 98 and had many many friends in online games or on AIM / AOL and it took until many years, maybe even a decade, after FB for me to even discover what some of these people looked like. The standard "ASL?" and just chatting about life was what happened, so I agree with the comment you replying to.
Corporate isn't an AOL chatroom. I remember those childhood days, and you're right. But the corporate environment I worked in was nothing like that. From about 2014 or so, identity was front and center.
This post [1] mentions a couple of the most salient anecdotes about my experience, but I've got so many more.
I was told I couldn't hire or refer white people on numerous occasions, certain groups (mostly the "WomEng" group) were given nice lunches and off sites and I had to take their oncall or interviews, I was told to cover for the work of underperforming engineers for well over a year before anything was done about it (a couple of non-special friends were simply let go), we all had to sit and watch other engineers get awards for their race (exactly what it sounds like), we had our walls painted with caricatures of our special identity groups. Every bit of it felt like an HR gimmick.
And that's barely scratching the surface.
It was one of the weirdest things I've experienced. And it carried on for years.
I tried to participate. I was an early proponent of this stuff. But when it started turning into favoritism, inauthentic gestures, and began feeling more like policing than something uplifting, it demoralized me and made me feel shitty.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42687151
2014 is way past the "hackers, nonconformists, weirdos, nerds, people who don't care about titles or clothes or what your genitals are" period of the industry. I entered the industry in 2011 and it was already bland, corporate, and hyper-capitalist by that point.
My sense is that the term is alluding to the late 90's or even earlier.
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So a person you knew personally for years asked for your respect and understanding of an extremely difficult and personal decision, and you thought "Wow, I didn't care about this 5 minutes ago but now I've decided to get really bitter and vindictive about it"
Can you read?
I don't care what my coworkers wear or who they screw. Not my business.
When it bleeds over into forcing me to alter reality, yes, I have an issue.
If you have the time, this long personal story by Lynn Conway about her life might show another relevant perspective.
https://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/RetrospectiveT.html
This is also worth reading:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3170124
In summary, Conway and others conducted a years-long campaign of harassment against psychology professor J. Michael Bailey. This included several attempts to get him fired from his job, a series of vexatious complaints to his licensing board, and - most infamously of all - posting photos online of his children suggesting that he had raped them and asking if his young daughter was "a cock-starved exhibitionist".
It was highly vindictive, highly unhinged behavior. They disagreed with his published work and rather than attempt to refute it, attacked him personally and extensively.
The HR threats are execrable, but an old school hacker would be happy to call you whatever you want, man, woman, demonking42, 0x10c, …
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how did free speech become fascist? even in this ludicrous essay, which claims meta announced it will "increase the hate speech people like me receive". no, it announced reduced filtering of content.
what is more conformist than forcing people to adopt your speech and view points under threat? what you don't realize is the hackers and nonconformists _are_ taking the tech back, they're taking it back from this oppressive bureaucratic regime that stifles creativity and forces everyone to tiptoe within its absurd religion of rules and newspeak. they're taking it back from dei consultants and hr departments. make it about merit and hacking, not about dogmatic adherence to a (fundamentally incorrect and bad imo) social cause.
What “fascism” are we talking about here? A company pulling tampons from men’s rooms? Companies scaling down DEI departments that advocated (probably illegally) in favor of gender and race-based discrimination?
Or are you speaking more broadly about the U.S.? Is it fascist to revert to a sane border policy that’s aligned with what most U.S. citizens and legal immigrants want? Or an executive branch that’s actually run by a democratically-elected individual, instead a non-elected shadow government that governed on behalf of a dementia-afflicted president whose condition was hidden from the American public for years? The same government that censored the media? Or the tech companies that willingly obliged with the government censorship? The same tech companies that fired employees for expressing opinions that differed from those held by the liberal establishment?
Sorry, I’m getting very confused if we’re turning into the fascism or finally turning away from it.
It is fascism to create a false narrative that all of our problems are caused by people with a different skin color, country of origin, gender identity, etc., and that it justifies setting up an authoritarian government that unjustly persecutes those groups and anyone that disagrees or tries to stop them.
Immigrants are welcome in America, but we do not have an open border. We have an immigration process that must be followed, just like every other country on Earth.
Violating the immigration process is breaking the law. Enforcing our laws is not “unjustly persecuting” people.
If you can’t be intellectually honest and distinguish between illegal and legal immigration, or the fact that the U.S. does not have an open border and US citizens overwhelmingly do not want an open border with the rest of the world, there’s no basis for a conversation.
It is unreasonable to pretend this movement in the USA is even remotely content with strictly enforcing current immigration law, or welcoming to legal immigrants. The foundation of the movement is based on fundamentally dehumanizing and hating immigrants- with blatantly dishonest rhetoric like “they’re eating our pets” and discussion of how to revoke 100% legal full US citizenship by widespread denaturalization under dishonest and fabricated accusations. Just yesterday there was an unconstitutional executive order with a motivated misinterpretation of the law that aims to deny citizenship to US born children.
I am an academic scientist and many of my coworkers are foreign born and all here legally with green cards or visas. These are brilliant people with PhDs developing tech that is massively stimulating the US economy. Every single one of them knows they are unwanted by this current administration and political movement and is making family preparations for forced deportation. I noticed about half of our foreign postdocs suddenly needed to “visit home” this month, and I expect many are terrified and don’t plan to return. A similar terror to what trans people are facing, as discussed here. New hires have been refusing prestigious job offers for lesser offers in other countries.
The core of the movement is driven by hatred and dehumanization of specific groups of people- any particular immigration policy is only secondary and a first step.
Focusing on the immigrant aspect alone is also not appropriate here, when they are systematically implementing the entire philosophy and systems of fascism in all other aspects as well.
Is it fascist to vilify immigrants? Is the republican party full of bright young twenty year olds? Can you post "cis" on twitter?
Who “vilifies immigrants”? President Trump is married to an immigrant, as is Vice President Vance. And many of Trumps advisors are immigrants. And he has repeatedly said he wants America to attract the best people from around the world. You mean he vilified illegal immigrants specifically. That’s fair, he did. But he’s not obligated to speak kindly about people who flout our laws.
> Is the republican party full of bright young twenty year olds?
An absurd question, especially when outgoing Democratic president is a senile octogenarian. Twenty year olds traditionally favor Democrats, (although many shifted towards Trump in this election) but how is that evidence of fascism?
> Can you post “cis” on twitter?
Could you speak freely about Covid-19’s origins on Facebook? Is censorship only fascism when you don’t like it?
> Who “vilifies immigrants”? President Trump is married to an immigrant, as is Vice President Vance.
Misogynists, domestic abusers, patriarchs, etc. are also frequently married to women.
Such is the real world in which we live.
As points go that one doesn't carry weight.
He's not obligated to do anything, man, but I can point at what he does and call it fascism.
I know you may struggle with this because the American education system is awful, but if you pay a tiny fraction of attention to what American senators are like, you'll come to know that in a fistfight or a battle of the wits there is a non-zero number of senators that Biden could beat. This is not a Red vs Blue issue, as simple as that might be for you.
You're claiming America is "turning away from fascism" because of free-er speech. Citation needed. The Christian right is famously book-ban happy, my friend.
we've seen newly government getting from shadow to the front row on the inauguration. No need to hide anymore.
You should have finished reading PG's essay.
It's really quite narrowly scoped. There's no indication I could see that he doesn't still hold the same basically liberal politics (he included explicit disclaimers, for all the good that did); he might still be fine with transgender identity. He just wanted to talk about how the particular loudmouth brand of annoying leftist came to prominence. He even had a decent definition of them beyond "leftist I don't like", and put them in a broader context.
Even in the HN thread on the essay, it felt like hardly anyone actually read and understood it, just brought their own assumptions and intellectual allergies and let them run wild. It would be great if people could discuss these issues rationally, but the vast majority can't. Everyone is on a hair trigger.
It is not narrowly scoped, it states that we need to stop another "wave" of "social justice piggishness" which would include challenging the gender identity framework the author is using among other things. It also makes broad claims about social justice politics writ large.
Having read it carefully I found the hn thread interesting and it correctly criticized the essay's lazy reasoning.
Unless pg just now edited it out, you're making false quotes and misrepresenting his words.
I cannot find the quote "social justice piggishness" or the word "gender" in his essay. Every single mention of the word "wave" is attached to "wave of political correctness" or a close variation thereof.
Edit: OP meant "priggishness". Got it.
It's a typo. Paul's term is "priggish". And "political correctness" is a broad brush euphemism for, among other things, genderqueerness.
Thanks for this. I've always considered PC an entirely different thing, but after perusing the comments here, and given our new president's attitude toward the people affected, I can see your point.
Sorry my mistake I meant "priggishness"
I don't think pig and prig mean the same thing.
> It would be great if people could discuss these issues rationally, but the vast majority can't. Everyone is on a hair trigger.
If only we in the tech industry could blame social media on anyone but ourselves :(
Are you sure? How many of us in tech actually made decisions that made social media how it is? How many of us were even complicit in implementing it? I wasn't. Most of "tech" is not social media. Now how many of us were sounding the alarm and trying to build alternatives?
I don't think we should put all the blame on social media anyway.
My startup idea is a iPhone/Android virtual keyboard that detects the user is writing something toxic, and refuses to cooperate. Using AI. Who wants to fund me?
My other idea is a video/audio communication app that mutes the user if they become toxic.
Yes, I'm only joking. I wonder how many will be triggered and foam about "But who determines what is toxic!?!". That makes me think about the joke about feminists where the setup is "I have a joke about feminists..." and punchline is someone from the audience yelling "That's not funny!" straight away.
the buntings have recently changed, so you will want to update your pitch: s/toxic/woke/g
From the essay: "Consumers have emphatically rejected brands that ventured too far into wokeness. The Bud Light brand may have been permanently damaged by it."
What Bud Light did was hire an influencer to promote their product in an Instagram video (and then of course they later backtracked). The only thing "woke" about the video was that the influencer was a trans woman.
If Paul Graham would like to elaborate on this passage meant I welcome it, but my read was that supporting a trans woman falls under his definition of "wokeness".
Indeed. I mean, an article on censorious "priggishness" could have easily picked outrage mobs boycotting brands over deeming a trans person worthy of association as evidence that the "woke" people didn't have a monopoly on self righteousness and censoriousness.
Instead, he effectively endorsed the position that trans people were "woke" simply for existing and the consumers cancelling them had a point.
Better than endorsing Dylan Mulvaney's regressive and misogynistic "Days of Girlhood" act. A boycott was the right thing to do.
I read this less as "the Bud Light campaign was morally wrong because it was woke" and more as "the Bud Light campaign went disastrously badly for its brand and sales because it was woke". I have heard people call it "the gay beer", which is a pretty bad branding change when double-digit percentages of your (former) drinkers are homophobic and you sponsor NASCAR.
One of my personal beliefs is that paedophiles who never act on their inclinations and instead seek treatment are doing the right thing, but I sure as hell wouldn't market a beer using that belief.
How was the campaign "woke" unless you define "trans people exist and should be supported" as woke? If Graham dislikes prigs, shouldn't he be criticizing the censorious social conservatives that led the boycott?
I define "trying to market a beer that's commonly drunk by Republicans using a trans influencer" as woke because it's:
A) ineffective at marketing the beer, because it prioritises a social justice objective instead (making it a political stance)
B) ineffective at changing any Bud drinker's mind on trans people, because it prioritises aggressive performance (making it woke)
The problem is not "oh, trans people exist, that's so woke"; it's doing activism in a way that harms both your company, because your brand is now "the gay beer", and trans people, who have to put up with a public debate about the existence of Dylan Mulvaney as well as a damaging boycott that scares marketing departments and moves the Overton window rightward.
What social justice objective is being prioritized? By whom? Go watch the actual video — it's a flat joke about her not knowing what March Madness is but drinking Bud Lights anyway. It's completely unremarkable influencer #spon content. Her being trans isn't even mentioned.
The goal was not to change Bud drinkers' opinions. It was to expand the market for Bud Light to new demographics (women, younger people). We know this is true because the exec who spearheaded the overall campaign said as much before the boycott, and Mulvaney was just a small part of the strategy. I don't think most Bud drinkers were expected to even know about the campaign, since it wasn't directed at them in any way, and A-B chose one of the least confrontational trans influencers possible.
I'm not defending A-B here -- they ended up throwing Mulvaney and everyone involved under the bus in a shamefully craven display -- but I believe them when they say they hadn't actually intended to get involved in the culture war.
> B) ineffective at changing any Bud drinker's mind on trans people, because it prioritises aggressive performance (making it woke)
Really? Like seriously, this is your argument? I just watched the commercial and it was the most bland safe commercial possible.
The act of taking a beer with a strong existing brand that's popular among a mixed demographic that skews slightly Republican, and then marketing it with a "bland safe commercial" that intentionally uses a transwoman as the ambassador for said brand, is pure wishful thinking.
Okay, yes, you and I agree that we're not offended by the ad and it's not going to change our beer-drinking habits. We are not the only people on this earth.
The performance and aggression come from this silly dance where I say "if it caused impactful boycotts against the brand and made marketing departments afraid of using transpeople in ads, then despite my opinions it was neither bland nor safe" and then you say "but my opinion is that it should have been bland and safe". We don't live in that world. We should not stick our heads in the sand and pretend we live in that world, nor should we lash out at the world for failing us. We should learn from the failure of the campaign to achieve either commercial or activist success.
Is "please don't do activism when it's obviously going to be counterproductive" so ridiculous to you?
The promotion was not activism!
Jim Beam did an an actual ad campaign with Ru Paul's Drag Race at the same time. Travis Tritt (who supported the Bud Light boycott) tried to get people to go after them, too. It went nowhere, as had most attempts to protest LGBT marketing. Even Bud Light had done much more overt pro-LGBT campaigns before. The difference was that Ben Shapiro had Mulvaney in the crosshairs and A-B fumbled the response.
Again, the question isn't whether the ad campaign was good, but what it says about Graham's definition of "woke".
> Even in the HN thread on the essay, it felt like hardly anyone actually read and understood it, just brought their own assumptions and intellectual allergies and let them run wild. It would be great if people could discuss these issues rationally, but the vast majority can't. Everyone is on a hair trigger.
I think the essay was a rorschach test for readers. On its face, it has a very reasonable and measured tone. It also has some nods to the other side like the disclaimer you mentioned. However, it starts from some uncharitable premises (e.g., its definition of wokeness) and contains unnecessary gibes (e.g., against social sciences). More importantly, it takes the tone of a social sciences essay, a discipline that he mocks, without any of the rigor. There are not sources for his claims about the origins of wokeness or how universities operated from the 80's until today, you just have to take him at face value. It gives the illusion of being erudite without doing any of the actual work.
pg writing about non-tech topics has always rubbed up against Gell-Mann Amnesia.
I'm too lazy to search my comment history, but I wrote a comment on the original post about pg's essay that I did pretty much agree with what pg wrote, and so consequently I agree with most of what you wrote.
But that said, I definitely could not ignore the timing of pg's essay, and it felt plain gross to me. It felt like a lazy, convenient pile-on at that moment, even if pg's position had been largely consistent for a long time. I've seen all these tech leaders now lining up to point out the problems of the left (again, a lot of which I agree with), so where is the essay about the embarrassingly naked grift of the POTUS launching a ridiculous and useless meme coin just before his inauguration?
Also, there was nothing in that essay that I felt was particularly insightful or that I learned much from. It was, honestly, some bloviating pontification from someone who I now think holds his ideas in much higher regard than they deserve.
I can explain the "pile-on", because the climate has been unsafe for the last 10 years or so he might have gotten cancelled harder, with tangible business impact to his acquaintances. I know because I faced similar dilemmas as I commented on that article.
You know who you can't speak up against because they might feel upset, that your speech is mean, unkind or malicious? The privileged class. There has not been equality on social discourse for the last 10 years or so, at least for the intellectual crowd. I see this as a natural caused power balance cycle.
I can largely agree with this as well. There were plenty of interesting and valid critiques people could make of the content, if they actually read it. I'm seeing a few of them in the replies to my comment here, but more intellectual sneezes.
> embarrassingly naked grift of the POTUS launching a ridiculous and useless meme coin just before his inauguration
It appears to be a violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution.
The pile-on isn't a coincidence. Forgive me for the tin foil hat, but there was an absolutely massive amount of investment in Silicon Valley coming from Saudi Arabia in the last year, and reading the tea leaves from the public statements of all of the partners of these firms, those investments absolutely came with strings attached. Mark Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, who were both longtime democratic donors but only occasional-endorsers, suddenly announced their support for and endorsement of Trump almost simultaneously with an announcement of $40B from Saudi Arabia. That's just the tip of the iceberg...hundreds of VCs have received funding from SA in the last year, and many of them ended up helping Elon buy twitter and get out of a lawsuit for trying to back out of the twitter deal, and he didn't even have to sell his Tesla stock to do it. Conveniently all within the same month that Elon first met Putin, and first started echoing Putin's "plans" for Ukraine.
It is well known that Donald Trump's deal to sell jets to SA is what elevated Mohammad Bin Salman from Defense Minister to Crown Prince over Bin Nayef. It is also well known that Donald Trump ran political interference for MBS when he had international condemnation for the assassination of Khashoggi...he even was caught bragging about it. And from the best that I can see from the public record, Trump called in all his banked Saudi Arabian favors all at once and Silicon Valley, once the domain of establishment democrats, became the firm territory of MAGA nearly overnight. All it took was money.
Idk if it's just me, but I voted blue in the last 3 presidential elections and I'm way more pissed about the Democrats than the Republicans right now.
They failed the country, so hard, by making poor decisions which made them lose. They did this repeatedly, I think which decisions were the wrong ones is up for debate, but the surest one imo is Joe Biden running again instead of stepping aside and having a real primary.
Anyway, all that is to say that I feel like I understand choosing now as a time to talk about what things you despise most about the left, because a lot of people feel like they failed America and the entire world by losing so decisively for reasons that feel stupid.
That makes you "way more pissed" than DJT literally trying to steal the 2020 election? The Dems are bad, but let's keep things in perspective.
It's all about expectations. I expected very little of Trump and expected, something, of the Dems. When my expectations are far out of wack I get pissed.
Very much agree, but as I've found myself saying lately, "As much as I think the Democrats deserved to lose, I can't fathom thinking Trump deserved to win."
> Idk if it's just me
This is a widely held view amoung a lot of socialists and left-of-centre folks within America and globally. You could try "Chapo Trap House" podcast if you want to hear this point of view.
> “he might still be fine with transgender identity”
How extremely generous!
This is couched because he doesn't express a view, not because there's reason to doubt or to assume a level of acceptance.
Be charitable.
Thank you.
This one’s footnote #2 addresses PG’s definition of “woke”, which I agree is useless (I’d go further: that kind’s so inconsequential that it’s nonsense to bring it up unless you’re using those complaints to attack other actions that do maybe have some justification, using the definition as cover to retreat to if called out; if that’s actually the only part you’re complaining about, just don’t write the piece, everyone already dislikes that kind for the same reasons you do)
What is “that kind” referring to? That kind of essay? The first essay? The response essay? That kind of definition? The author? Which author? That kind of person who is aggressively performative? If by “that kind” you mean that last definition, then let’s take one example in that happened recently and address your claim that “that kind” is inconsequential.
Undemocratically, performatively, anointing behind closed doors a weak but social justice signaling candidate to run on the democratic ticket in the recent US election, seems to have been just a wee bit consequential.
> Undemocratically, performatively, anointing behind closed doors a weak but social justice signaling candidate to run on the democratic ticket
You’re just stringing together bingo-card words. I don’t think this is going to be a productive exchange, so I’ll leave things where they stand.
Yes - this is exactly how I felt about the "Wokeness" essay. I am constantly afraid that PG is gonna fall down the same strongly right rabbit hole so many of his colleagues have, and he hasn't so far, so seeing the title of the essay was worrying.
When I read it though, I realized he was just using "wokeness" to mean the dogmatic surface level understanding of the subject (IE, not that he was being surface level, but he's talking about people who engage with equality/identity issues in a surface level way). It's kind of a strawman idea, but people like that exist and are annoying. It makes me wonder how many people who are really centrists hate wokeness because they think the most annoying wing of it is representative of the whole movement.
Reading PGs article, I get the sense of someone who doesn't fully understand the thing he's criticising, so makes me hopeful he can learn. But again, I'm always a little afraid that the legit criticizisms of his article will get drowned out by people who reinforce what he says in it.
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This is exactly the thing the essay seems to be complaining about. It's not the ethics of equality being targeted, it's the moral hypocrisy.
People put on a false front with offensive messaging claiming support of these groups, but the whole purpose is to build clout or benefit themselves. They don't care about the message at all.
Messages like "I support lgbtq, and if you don't you're a bigot," are self-aggrandizement. "I support lgbtq," is all that's needed if you want people to know they are supported. No one needs to hear it at all if the discussion isn't relevant. Just try to treat everybody with respect.
Your argument is, "Don't say 'I believe X and if you disagree with me you're bad'. Just say, 'I believe X.'"
But then literally in the same sentence, you say, "If you do the thing I don't like (in this case, calling people bigots because they don't support lgbtq) *then you are self-aggrandizing."
"Nobody should be called a bigot for their views on lgbtq, but it's virtuous to call people self-aggrandizing for calling people bigots."
Either name-calling is okay or it's not. You can't have it both ways.
You can argue hypocrisy or about the way the argument is presented here, but it’s beside the point. Saying “there is only one correct opinion on this matter and if you disagree then you’re a bigot” is exactly what is driving people to oppose those opinions, regardless of whether they are correct. It’s just a really, really poor move, in terms of rhetorical strategy.
I agree that people don't like being called out for their views (on race, lgbtq, women, whatever). They would rather be left to believe what they believe in peace and not face the disapprobation of others.
Calling individuals may even further radicalize them, as you say. I am not convinced on this point, I sort of think their mind is not changing either way, but maybe I am wrong.
What I am sure of is, it is not the responsibility of people whose rights are being taken away to be polite to their oppressors for the sake of rhetorical strategy.
> What I am sure of is, it is not the responsibility of people whose rights are being taken away to be polite to their oppressors for the sake of rhetorical strategy.
This is very much the TERF line of thinking.
That term is considered to be a pejorative.
Re your last paragraph: I feel I'm quite left, but it feels like a lot of these activists are busy trying to make enemies out of everyone, which makes me think "I'll just shut the hell up" and, if I ever get confronted as being a part of the enemy class (I'm a heterosexual male, get the pitchforks!) , I'll just point out, "if you don't want me as your ally, then hey, no worries, I can be your enemy."...
Have you heard of or witnessed someone who was confronted as part of the enemy class just for being a straight male?
Where are you going that you need a contingency plan for this situation? Are you expecting this in a work situation, on a campus maybe, or just walking down the street?
During BLM, I've seen rhetoric that said "If you're silent, then you're part of the problem!". Sheesh! Luckily I don't live in that quasi-apartheid country and don't have to speak out and say how guilty I am for taking my privileges for granted.
I support their right to challenge the oppression, but please, don't make me the enemy if I'm minding my own business. Yes, I get that there's tremendous privilege of being able to not be enraged by the issues...
That's how I feel. Everyone always has to have an "us vs them" methodology. Like you have to take sides. No thank you, I'm apathetic to the situation. I'm not going to deliberately make life worse for anyone or support it.
The mere fact that pg takes the word “woke” seriously tells me he’s fallen for the right-wing doublespeak where they take a word vaguely related to left-wing ideals, pretend it means something else, apply to anyone center-right or leftward, and get the mainstream media and self-conscious centrists like Paul to accept their intentional distortions at face value.
This pattern happens again and again with words and phrases like “liberal”, “socialist”, “Black Lives Matter”, “critical race theory”, “woke”, and “DEI”. Anyone who can’t see through it is either okay with the distortion, or not as good an observer as they think.
It might be reasonable to disregard Mr. Graham if he were somehow abusing the term "woke", but it seems wrongheaded to disregard him due to "the mere fact that [he] takes the word "woke" seriously".
The point OP is making (and it ‘s one that I agree with) is that Graham’s particular usage of the word “woke” as written in his essay functions as a shibboleth for a collection of reactionary beliefs and impulses — not merely that he uses the word, but that he does so in a poorly-defined and pejorative way that is characteristic of the word’s usage in various right-leaning circles.
From the essay:
> This was not the original meaning of woke, but it's rarely used in the original sense now. Now the pejorative sense is the dominant one. What does it mean now?
It's early in the essay, too. Pretty near or above "the fold".
> He just wanted to talk about how the particular loudmouth brand of annoying leftist came to prominence.
Nah, this is just not true about that essay. This is sort of excessive "lets twist what people say with maximum leftist spin so that we can paint everyone who disagree with them as crazy". It is getting repetitive, tiresome and amounts to a massive amount of online gaslighting. Center and left are all supposed to pretend that everyone is leftist just concerned with some extremists, no matter how much it is clear it is not the case, unless someone actually supports nazi party ... and sometimes even longer.
That essay did not even cared about actual history of events either.
I appreciate the author and this article. As an immigrant and person of color, the author's concerns resonate with me. I don't think people like PG or Andreessen are evil bigots. But they are underestimating and enabling a movement that is cruel and exclusionary by design. A movement that they seek to tame and harness, but not understanding that the movement is fundamentally untameable.
I miss the days when the Republican party was led by a President like Bush, who told America that Islam is a religion of peace. And nominees like McCain, who told his supporters that Obama is a decent family man, and a natural-born American. I worry for the future, and my children's place in it.
> I miss the days when the Republican party was led by a President like Bush, who told America that Islam is a religion of peace
At the same time he also said that if you don't agree with him, you're with the terrorists. I do agree that Bush went out of his way to not stigmatize Muslims or Islam, but "don't be a flaming racist" is not that high of a bar to meet, and he was very much not a moderate open to nuanced views (on this topic, and various others). Never mind stuff like Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, torture. I'm not sure it really matters for the Guantanamo Bay whether Bush is or isn't prejudiced against their ethnicity or religion: they're still detained in a camp. Without trail. For years. Being tortured.
McCain defending Obama against vile racist attacks was also not that high of a bar to meet. McCain was also a standard GOP senator during the "obstruct whatever Obama does at all cost" years, never mind how he tried to appeal to the crazy Tea Party fanbase with Palin. I don't entirely dislike the man by the way – I'd say his legacy is mixed and complex.
I guess what I'm trying to say is: don't look at it the past too rose-coloured. The current mess didn't spontaneously come to exist out of nothing. People like Bush and McCain made a pig sty of things, and then were surprised pigs turned up to roll around in the mess. The old "gradually and then suddenly" quip applies not just to bankruptcy.
> I miss the days when the Republican party was led by a President like Bush, who told America that Islam is a religion of peace.
He said this as he invaded a majority muslim country causing the deaths of tens of thousands of muslims. It was perception management, not a genuine concern for muslims. Words are not more important than actions.
Far be it from me to defend GWB, but in fairness he didn't invade them because they were muslim. There were many (poor) reasons for the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, but their primary religion was not among them. If it were, many other Middle Eastern countries would have also been invaded.
Words are not more important than actions. But words can inform us of the intentions behind the actions - which must be considered when casting judgement.
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I don't have exact numbers but my understanding is/was the US-led wars into Iraq and Afghanistan didn't cause millions of deaths but the insurrections against the governments established afterwards did. Iraqis killing other Iraqis, Afghans killing other Afghans.
Bush might have been the one who toppled the existing equilibrium of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, but most of the suffering was inflicted by the bloody civil wars (often fueled by third parties such as Iran).
You break it, you bought it. You get zero points for invading a country for no good reason and saying you’re going to bring freedom and democracy while having no realistic plan for actually doing it.
> Islam is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a religion of peace.
It is. The word Islam and Salaam are etymologically tied to the word "peace".
If your definition of peace is "never wages war", well there's no country or political regime in the world like that. Even India, which was liberated by the famous nonviolent philosopher Gandhi, did not last many years without needing to wage war and take territory.
Islam is the only remaining religion with a political element and an existing desire for statehood. You could argue for Judaism (but some of the Orthodox would disagree) also. Back when Christendom had aspirations of statehood, it was also not "peaceful" in the way most people imagine. But this isn't a feature of the religions. It's a feature of world politics. No one can be peaceful and engage meaningfully in world politics. Everyone is propped up by some army somewhere.
You can have many arguments against the social regime, views on gender, etc. Etc. of Islam, but to say it's not peaceful because it is a political entity is just not understanding politics or the world, imo
> Islam is the only remaining religion with a political element and an existing desire for statehood
What do you mean by this? There are several countries that declare themselves to be Islamic.
I'm reasonably sure the GP is referring to the fact that there are explicitly political aspects to Islam (wanting an Islamic state) that don't exist in other religions.
I'm not sure I agree though, as Judaism now has a state and Christianity had one and lost it.
it means danger to the non-believer
As POC I feel like equity movements in the US have, by far, become majority LGBT+ issues with a minority of racial or religious issues. Many POC cohorts in this election shifted toward Trump and I suspect it has to do with how much diversity initiatives have come to settle around White LGBT+ voices. I don't think I've seen the topic of Islam in America covered in any MSM article in years unless buried deep into an Opinion section.
I like to build bridges between minority groups but the current moment is really about mostly White gender minorities in the US. This is especially fraught right now because many POC communities tend to be more socially conservative than white communities, and LGBT+ acceptance is lower in POC communities than among the general American public.
That said I am not a fan of Trump and the modern MAGA movement's discriminatory politics, lack of respect for rule of law, denial of basic climate realities, and many many other things that I could list for days.
Kindly you're mistaken. I know it feels that way but polls say it isnt.
A solid majority of the US want mass deportation. This moment is about being white, make no mistake, the trans stuff is a side show.
I can't read minds of the POCs who went along with it but my guess is they essentially think they're white enough now and won't be swept up, but their white friends certainly don't see them that way. Likely over the next month (next week really) a lot of them who did vote for him are about to find out.
Either way this is gonna be a rocky 4 years. Time to buckle up eh.
While I understand the point you're making, I am surprised by the examples you chose.
What Bush's speechwriter wrote, did not stop Bush from authorizing torture stations across the world, murdering hundreds of thousands of Muslim civilians in two failed military occupations, while weakening America vis-a-vis Russia and China, a confrontation that has dominated the past several years. Do not mistake public statements as any indication of actual policy.
As for McCain, his words were "No Ma'am, he is not an Arab, he is a decent family man", which I suppose is addressing misinformation with a decisiveness Republicans wouldn't dream of today.
> As for McCain, his words were "No Ma'am, he is not an Arab, he is a decent family man", which I suppose is addressing misinformation with a decisiveness Republicans wouldn't dream of today.
To be precise: they'd oppose the misinformation if they felt it was to their benefit, embrace it if they felt it was to their benefit, or behave neutrally towards the misinformation when it was brought to their attention... if they felt that was to their benefit.
"who told America that Islam is a religion of peace"
This is something I considered a brazen lie in the interest of stability.
I believe in existence of individual peaceful Muslims, but I don't believe in inherent peacefulness of a religion founded by a warrior who converted Arabia by the sword and which had since seen an endless series of holy wars initiated in the name of Islam.
You can't really build societal understanding on a foundation of such misinformation.
To be clear, Christianity and Judaism aren't "religions of peace" either. Some explicitly anti-militaristic sects like the Amish maybe. But the Abrahamic faiths as such, no.
To pretend that every Muslim area in the world was converted by the sword is just totally unsupportable
I haven't said that every Muslim area in the world was converted by the sword.
But Muhammad led a lot of wars, in which thousands died. Which is fairly untypical among the founders of currently widespread religions, though the Old Testament heroes like Joshua can be categorized into a very similar slot.
Having read many of PG's essays from the 2000s and seeing how he communicates now, I can only reach one conclusion. Like Musk, Zuck and the others who got rich quick decades ago, they are too far removed from any kind of "hacker" ethos today, and see everything from 30,000 ft, almost literally. What kind of self-described hacker spends their days advising incubees on the best way to close "high-touch B2B sales"?
They concern themselves with accumulating power first, and maintaining their "innovator" image second. Any empathy or compassion they may have had for the concerns of ordinary people appear to be long gone, except perhaps for their personal friends who may be on the receiving end of state-sanctioned bigotry. Reagan for example ignored AIDS, seeing it as a "gays and minorities" issue, while in private he looked out for the care of his AIDS-afflicted gay actor friend Rock Hudson, who passed from complications in 1985.
Back to PG, see his essay from some years ago, "How People Get Rich Now"[0]. You would think it was ghost-written by an investment bank's IPO division. Every single line is another way of saying "raise money for speculative bet, then go public", ignoring his own decades of experience at YC indicating the overwhelming majority cannot achieve this, in the biggest VC market in the world. Much of the United States population has absolutely no entry point into Sand Hill Road.
A response to that essay from a software engineer provided a sobering perspective to counterbalance the winner-take-all world PG lives in. [1]
[0] https://paulgraham.com/richnow.html
[1] https://keenen.xyz/just-be-rich/ (HN discussion link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40962965)
tbf, "high touch B2B sales" is very much something a quite ordinary hacker doing quite ordinary B2B stuff is likely to want to figure out unless they're already quite good at it or know someone else that is, and I'm sure some of the suggestions are "hacky" in ways with both positive and negative connotations.
But yeah, he's always ultimately been an outspoken advocate for the most optimistic outcomes Silicon Valley ecosystem, because that's where his startup funnel leads. See also his article from 2004 in which he suggested that a startup was a way to work at a high intensity for four(!) years instead of forty[1]. Wonder what proportion of YC alumni retired happy after the four year work life?
I'm sure if you actually met PG in office hours he'd be realistic enough that your most realistic exit strategy almost certainly involved a lot more than four years of hard work and that yeah, your chances of success probably aren't high enough to impact the Gini coefficient, and I'm sure if you were trans he wouldn't take the side of people that send death threats to Budweiser for featuring people like you. But most of the essays are about positioning Silicon Valley. In a sense, he's a low touch, very high stakes B2B salesperson
[1]https://paulgraham.com/wealth.html
I think he's more of a content marketer, but otherwise agree. VCs are always talking their book, as they say.
As I remember PG took a bold stance on the Israeli-Palestine conflict within the past couple years. For context, you can think of me as an average dude who works at a tech company, and I can't imagine coming out with anything as fiery as he did on this topic (and no one reports to me). I saw other VC's, prominent ones, publicly condemn him for it. So I wouldn't say all his takes are bland.
It's easy to say whatever you want when you don't have a job to get fired from.
I really appreciate this article, and I would like the author to know that there are lots of people - yes, especially in tech - that support their happiness.
This was also my first thought -- a deep sadness over someone hurting and feeling threatened and persecuted. I'd also like them to know they're not alone in this.
I was genuinely afraid of this post hitting HN, but thank you for the kind words.
As someone pondering the exact same sentiment of "I like women so much that I kinda want to be one" but who hasn't fully committed to it yet, I really appreciated your vulnerability and lucid writing. I hope folks are kind here in the comments.
> It took me a while to remove my facial hair, I still haven’t trained my voice.
The facial hair removal really does take forever, it's so annoying :sob:. And I've found voice training (particularly around other people) to be really intimidating. I wish you the best of luck if you decide to pursue it!
Take care, OP.
Hi, thanks!
My unsolicited advice is: whether they realize it or not, _everyone transitions_ ;) http://okayfail.com/garden/everyone-transitions.html
I came out socially for most of a year before I committed to hormones, and it took me another year and a half to commit to removing my facial hair. At some point it really is a leap of faith. But you can do a lot of exploring and trying things out until you feel comfortable – or decide it's not really what you want.
Either way, good luck!
I seem to be going in the opposite order lol—I've been getting my facial hair removed for almost a year now, but am only barely starting to become comfortable with the idea of actually transitioning. And if I did transition, I think I'd likely only come out socially to a very small group of people until I'd also transitioned hormonally! Perhaps my priorities are all backwards...
I read your linked post and enjoyed it—I've heard vaguely similar sentiments expressed before by some of my trans friends. It's like that RuPaul quote: "We're all born naked, and the rest is drag."
I hope you have a nice day, and thank you for the well-wishes :)
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I found your post extremely touching and humanizing. We need more of these perspectives right now that highlight the complex feelings of lived experiences. This is literally what makes us human, and has the potential to reach people in ways that polemic does not (which is not to say polemic isn't important). Thanks for sharing.
Your piece is very very well said. Thank you so much for putting yourself out there.
I was terrified to look up through the comments after reading the article, but HN truly surprised me today.
This is a very important conversation to have right now. Thank you for your vulnerability in sharing it.
I feel nothing but support for you. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you live with ease.
Beautiful writing. I also read pg's essay and was also upset. Just know there are cis men like me who are on your side and hate where tech is going. The bigotry being out in the open is disturbing.
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I thought this was better than most essays in this vein.
I do fundamentally disagree with the author. People can think poorly of you for whatever reason they want. If someone hates trans people, they can, and you can't stop them. The whole "war on hate" thing was a bad idea; you can't forbid hatred. It predictably didn't work, and it's good that we're turning away from it.
Adding on, the trans issue isn't simple. There are real questions about bathrooms, women's sports, and when medical interventions are called for. Of course, there are also just bigots. The proper response to bigots is not to banish them, ban them, shadowban them, etc. That didn't work. The proper response is -- in the spirit of the new era of free speech -- to firmly state your opposition to their beliefs.
> The whole "war on hate" thing was a bad idea; you can't forbid hatred. It predictably didn't work, and it's good that we're turning away from it.
This is a myopic view. You are obviously correct that you cannot legislate that someone think in any particular way or otherwise force someone to change their minds, but the idea that collectively deciding that a viewpoint is not longer tolerated within the broader society and then making efforts to support that at all levels is ineffective and not worthwhile is absurd. Threats, physical violence, and murder have always been illegal, but used to occur with much higher frequency against many minority groups toward which society tolerated hatred and abuse. It's plainly obvious what changed is the idea that it would be brushed under the rug, that others would at worst turn a blind eye to the perpetrator if not support them, that there would be no real consequences whether legal or in social circles - this environment in which people act on impulse rather than thinking twice about what they're doing - went away. We must remember that progress isn't permanent, that civil rights must be maintained and won't protect themselves, and that there's probably someone out there that hates someone each of us loves and cares about for some arbitrary reason and would act on that if only society gave them permission.
> The whole "war on hate" thing was a bad idea; you can't forbid hatred. It predictably didn't work, and it's good that we're turning away from it.
I don't understand any of this. It feels like you live in a different information bubble than mine.
What was the "war on hate", and who is turning away from it?
What would it mean to say that the "war on hate" worked? That there was no more hate, or that the situation improved somehow? What does it mean to say that it didn't work?
I've literally never heard the phrase "war on hate" in my life.
> The proper response is -- in the spirit of the new era of free speech -- to firmly state your opposition to their beliefs.
This doesn't really work because social networks are designed to amplify the most "engaging" things, which often means "controversial". Reasoned debate is often drowned out - this happens even here on HN for particularly controversial topics.
If social media was just people following their friends and interacting with them (I remember when FB was basically like that), we maybe wouldn't be in this horrible polarised mess.
> If someone hates trans people, they can, and you can't stop them. The whole "war on hate" thing was a bad idea; you can't forbid hatred. It predictably didn't work, and it's good that we're turning away from it.
It is disingenuous to suggest that anti-discrimination laws for trans people are attempting to legislate away the hatred held in people’s hearts, instead of access to healthcare, public facilities, protections against workplace discrimination — things you describe as having “real questions,” but which are, in fact, the parts of a full and dignified life that bigots would deny to trans people in particular. If you pretend like it’s trying to legislate “thoughtcrime,” it’s much easier to distinguish anti-discrimination laws for trans people from rulings like Obergefell or Brown v. Board — far easier to say “look, those were good, but this particular civil rights legislation is simply unreasonable.”
To platform these beliefs is to afford them a legitimacy they do not deserve. To suggest that bigotry, when amplified, will be in some way countered or reduced is naïve beyond belief. Instead, it becomes easier for bigotry to find an audience of receptive listeners and willing conduits for further transmission.
>The whole "war on hate" thing was a bad idea; you can't forbid hatred
You can't forbid it but you can absolutely make it socially unacceptable. "Free speech" doesn't mean letting people spew hate and doing nothing; choosing not to hand them a megaphone, support their business, etc. is entirely valid.
It became so socially unacceptable that its proponents won the US presidency and took control of Congress and globally famous business leaders are bending the knee to them without repercussion? What definition of "can absolutely" are you using?
The popular vote does not determine what is right. The US elected an incredibly racist Richard Nixon by a Landslide in 1972, but that doesn't mean society couldn't make progress on making it unacceptable to use racial slurs in public.
I personally did not read the parent comment's saying of "can" as meaning "has been"
It is less socially acceptable in some cultures, more in others.
The fact that a gradient exists is proof that, under different circumstances, the social acceptableness of hatred can change.
There is a danger to hating something so much, that it goes underground. A major reason why President Trump won the first time around was because hatred against Trump and his supporters was so strong, that many people being polled were afraid to tell the pollsters who they were really voting for, for fear of being destroyed. This is a major reason why Trump outperformed his polling.
In the meantime, when people are lied to by every avenue of culture, they are convinced everyone else believes in the lies, so they feel alone and in the minority, even though they may very well be in the majority. So long as this spell can be maintaned, the dictator can hold his grip on power.
But what happens when that spell was broken? When something happens, and all of the sudden, everyone realizes they've been in the majority all along? This is how dictatorships topple -- and the toppling can happen very swiftly, as Ceausescu discovered in Romania.
Elon Musk acquiring Twitter and taking out the censorship is what initially cracked the spell this time; and when Trump was elected not just by Electoral College, but by the Popular Vote, the spell was broken completely. It's why we're seeing so much change now, and why it's so rapid.
I intended to include something that I now see I forgot: this phenomenon is called a "preference cascade", and it's a big reason why we see dramatic shifts in power in oppressive regimes.
> There are real questions about bathrooms, women's sports, and when medical interventions are called for.
Yes there are real questions, but there are also real answers. Currently, 99% of people asking questions have literally zero interest in answers. They do not care about what research say or whether there is harm or not. They ask questions to convince the audience about their political project.
They do not care about whether medical interventions are good, bad, safe or unsafe. They want to convince you that that they are unsafe. They want to stop the interventions regardless of their impact. They do not care about safety of bathrooms, they want you to punish transgender people in the wrong bathroom. They do not care about women sports either, in fact they are the same people arguing against women sports whereever it matters.
> People can think poorly of you for whatever reason they want.
And it should be my god give right to call them sexist and racists if they think of me poorly because of those reasons. But somehow that is supposed to be a taboo. We are all supposed to pretend there is no sexism, that there was no historical sexism, so that someone feels good about themselves. Again and again, sjws pointed out someone is sexist/racist, there was an outrage in response, they were painted crazy stupid exaggerating. And I actually believe the response, multiple times. Except that it turned out, multiple times, that they were right all along.
I would think that your claim about "99% of people asking questions have literally zero interest in answers" applies more to 'both sides' than one might initially think.
Is either side open to being told "no", or at least "wait, we need to be more cautious about this"? Or do both sides just want their demands to be accepted?
Would either side actually back down if the research said that what they were doing was harmful or ineffective?
> "wait, we need to be more cautious about this"? Or do both sides just want their demands to be accepted?
I think that yours "wait, we need to be more cautious about this" or is this just another "I do not care about answers, I just want to pretend so".
> Would either side actually back down if the research said that what they were doing was harmful or ineffective?
Research is there and it is saying current clinics were not harmful and were not ineffective. So yes, one side cares about research and the other is not.
>I think that yours "wait, we need to be more cautious about this" or is this just another "I do not care about answers, I just want to pretend so".
I don't know what you're referring to, but if you would like to get specific about it, many authoritative medical organizations, such as the one that presides over Sweden, have declared a halt on procedures such as prescribing puberty blockers to minors. This is an example of a "wait, we need to be more cautious about this", saying that the risks outweigh the benefits.
https://segm.org/Swedish-2022-trans-guidelines-youth-experim...
But here you are implying that the science is already "settled" and that there is no harm. So when you say that one side cares about the research and the other does not, are you completely sure about that?
I am completely sure about that, yes. Because even your "many authoritative medical organizations" thing cherry picks one organization saying maybe and ignores any positive results entirely.
You do not care about which procedures were actually done nor about what it took to get them. Puberty blockers for minors are not something new or done to transgender kids only. They have been used for years for non-transgender kids and they are not the only treatment constantly under attack.
If you cared about puberty blockers safety, you would care about also about when they work, you would care about accessibility when they do work ... and you would not act as if they were so easy to get in the first place.
And that last thing gives the game away.
It's not just Sweden, I could list other countries too, such as Denmark, Finland, England (outside of trials), Wales and Scotland. Norway calls it "experimental". All this information was found on the homepage of the same site I linked earlier.
But you don't seem to be open to discussion on this issue, and that's the double standard I'm pointing out. "They do not care about what research say or whether there is harm or not" is what you've said about others, and it seems like it applies equally to you as well.
And since you don't seem to be open to discussion on this issue, I'm going to leave it here. I think my point has been made.
Besides, the whole bathroom thing is so old hat. You know what I hate in a bathroom? Other people. Of any gender. Thankfully, stalls have doors.
I miss the days of Ally McBeal when unisex bathrooms were hip and the future.
In my local city there was conservative article about unisex bathroom putting framing it as transgender thing.
The bathroom was unisex when I was a kid, when trans were universally mocked. Bathroom is unisex, cause there is exactly one toilette in a small cafe in a super old building.
Unisex bathrooms mean women get to clean the bathrooms again because men can't be bothered to aim or sit.
You can file that one with the other bathroom myth: cleaning staff knows that the really, really filthy bathrooms are the women's bathrooms¹.
People are (and have) assholes. Hardly an argument against unisex bathrooms.
1: https://www.rsvplive.ie/life/womens-toilets-much-dirtier-men...
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You’re wrong that a so-called “war on hate” doesn’t work. More correctly, it doesn’t work in the US because of the first amendment and the few limitations on it.
Many other countries have robust anti-hate speech laws that are effective, although less so in the age of the internet.
People broadly conform to the society in which they live, and the rules of the society are broadly set by the laws they adhere to. So in countries where hate speech is disallowed, people conform to a less hateful viewpoint as a rule, and hateful people are the exception.
In the United States, it is clear that hatred is the norm as long as it is permitted by law and by leadership.
> People broadly conform to the society in which they live, and the rules of the society are broadly set by the laws they adhere to
Well this can work very differently from what you imagine I believe. Like late Soviet Union where certain things were said in public and other things were said in private or in "trusted environments". For years and years... From what I hear this is in part what goes on in large multinationals where the pressure to conform is quite tangible.
> it doesn’t work in the US because of the first amendment and the few limitations on it.
This isn't clear to me. For instance, Meta was free to forbid hate speech on their platforms, or not to promote it in their feed algorithms. I don't think first amendment would force them to authorize hate speech. They do it to align with power in place (freely or coerced, not clear), but it's not a legal enforcement.
> So in countries where hate speech is disallowed, people conform to a less hateful viewpoint as a rule, and hateful people are the exception.
There are hateful people in Europe too.
German woman given harsher sentence than rapist for calling him ‘pig’ : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/28/german-wom...
That's what "war on hate" slides to.
"Maja R was sentenced to a weekend in jail after her comments because she had a previous conviction for theft and had not attending the court hearing for the case."
Whatever you can say about the suspended sentences, merely "given harsher sentence than rapist for calling him ‘pig’" is not true by your own article.
Article is behind a paywall. I found another article
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/a-german-woman-said-she-was-...
> The court did find the two men guilty of wrongly making and distributing the sex video and fined them 1,350 euros ($1,500) each. But it reserved its gravest punishment for Lohfink, levying her a fine of 24,000 euros for falsely accusing the men.
If we're talking about the same story, it has nothing to do with "war on hate".
The author isn't talking about abstract "hatred" in the sense of people's internal, personal experiences. They are talking about hate speech, a specific concrete act with external material consequences.
> Adding on, the trans issue isn't simple.
It really kind of is though.
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Hatred is extremely infectious, especially in difficult times. If you do not extinguish it, you can end up in a country like Nazi Germany, where it even became encouraged.
How can you disagree with the author, they are doing exactly what you suggested, firmly stating their opposition to PG's beliefs.
It seems you didn't read their post. Also, yes, if someone hates you, you can definitely change their minds. The weapon in the war on hate is love. And there is a lot of love in the author's essay. Love for others in their position.
So you too can join the War on Hate by showing love to the author and letting PG know he is wrong, so very wrong.
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Do you think trans people should be allowed to exist in public society?
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I feel this a lot, not so much from the perspective of someone that belongs to a formerly "protected" group, but came into tech at the height of the tech revenge-of-the-nerds style "zeitgeist" in the early 2010's to 2015, around the same time he mentions being involved in startups. My first job was a startup, with a bunch of students and a professor at my alma mater. We failed miserably - not in the way I had envisioned, but because of just basic VC funded stuff. We were a $20 million company with half a dozen of us, which would have been great for any of us, even our founders - but the VC's wanted a $200 million company. Poof.
That put a bitter taste in my mouth that has gotten more bitter when the "promise" of a society led by technocrats has yielded a barrage of increasingly shitty and invasive products that don't provide any additional utility to anyone except the people who stand to profit from them. It's exhausting, extremely depressing, and if I had to do it again I probably would have avoided tech, as much as I like what I do - I feel a deep sense of shame sometimes at the state of how it's gone.
There are a lot of things that bother me these days. But particularly some things that are pervasive, unnecessary, habitual amplifiers of disagreement.
If someone is going to address extremists on an issue, don't just be anti-extremist. What empty courage is that?
Address extremists by pushing the dialog back to the real issue. In this case, treating people who have been denigrated for centuries better.
Otherwise, ungrounded one-sided criticism of extremists on one side of an issue, just gives tacit permission for the extremists on the other side. It can even be difficult to tell, whether they are not simply mirror extremists themselves. But either way, they just amplify the extremist vs. extremist narrative.
And completely distract from the real human level issues that are being hijacked.
Don't be anti-bad, while conspicuously avoiding acknowledging what would be good. How should we address discrimination against trans and other non-binary people? What changes are beneficial? What companies have DEI approaches that are good models?
PG, any thoughts?
Please, don't call out "your going too far!" - no matter how necessary or accurately - if you don't have the courage, insight, or a genuine desire to solve the underlying problem. And express "how far" you agree we should go.
Don't just poke a bear. Address the elephant!.
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One-sided viewpoints just make an easy sport, score trivial (dare I say, also performative?) points, out of something more serious.
I.e. don't make strong arguments for or against one side of the Israeli-Palestine situation, without acknowledging the strong points you do accept as valid from both sides.
I hope I don't offend anyone by suggesting that any intellectually honest discussion of divisive views cannot possibly boil down to one-sided criticisms of other people's one-sided views.
I agree with your premise that there is often an unproductive pendulum-like phenomenon in public debates where interpretations swing from one extreme to the other, making nuanced discussions difficult.
However I don't believe that PG's article meant to address the elephant, but rather was a meta-level thesis on how he sees debates being shut down by orthodoxy, and for that he does suggest what he thinks would be a possible solution.
Perhaps the thesis could have gained in being more balanced to as you say "avoid giving tacit permissions for the extremists on the other side"? On the other hand, does one always have to shield one's expressions with disclaimers and is one not free to share thoughts however raw in order to express, discuss and learn, update our beliefs?
There likely is a bigger responsibility when one has a larger audience to avoid misinterpretations, but ultimately I believe as long as there is a rational and nuanced discussion to take the good points and have a productive debate, it should be okay.
How can we create incentives to have a more nuanced discussion?
> does one always have to shield one's expressions with disclaimers and is one not free to share thoughts however raw in order to express, discuss and learn, update our beliefs?
The problem with one-sided criticism of extremism is:
1. It is indistinguishable from the default extreme-vs-extreme debate. So it amplifies stupidity all around.
2. The takeaway is unclear. Are all programs to counterbalance discrimination just evil things from the bottom up.
3. It ignores middle ground. Guess we better give up on being more fair, and benefiting more from societies outcasts, and more fairness in general? It must be anti-capitalist, -technology, -patriotic, or something?
None of that is helpful.
So yes, I would say quite strongly, addressing complex divisive issues requires wide situational awareness, nuance, intellectual humility, curiosity, honesty, and an aim to move discussion away from division and toward solutions.
Not more reactionary communiques.
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A completely different approach would be: these DEI programs are out of hand and creating new problems of their own. Not good. But the status quo they are meant to address isn't good either.
So, here are some thoughts on how we could systematically address harmful discrimination in a way that doesn't forget to be fair to everyone else... And fair to everyone is the point of all this, right?
If anyone might be a useful mentor here, it could be pg, if he steps back and thinks about things more. It fits with his general quest to help startups succeed on all fronts. Wisdom for handling side issues well, professionally, creatively, so they don't keep cropping up as distractions.
Does PG or YC have a sensible practical low-ideological view on ensuring hiring and employee treatment reflects and benefits from diversity, avoiding the pitfalls of unfair discrimination, without creating new ones, and defining diversity to mean ALL of us?
That might take more thought. But it would be well worth a PG post. It is also liable to hit more people FROM ALL SIDES or NO SIDES, as worthy of consideration.
You make a good point that no one else had, afaik: PG is strawmanning, and not steelmanning his opponents. This is craven.
So much said, with such fewer words ... :)
And giving voice to power vs. power, instead of to the less powerful. Reduced by both "sides" to pawns, their needs to playing cards.
> I.e. don't make strong arguments for or against one side of the Israeli-Palestine situation, without acknowledging the strong points you do accept as valid from both sides.
What Israel is doing to Palestinians last 77 years it exists is much worse than what Palestinians do to Israel on average from several perspectives by at least an order of magnitude or more (eg. amount of destruction and killing for sure, amount of subjugation, ...).
So wanting balance and giving one-sided defence to one side seems fair, regardless of any "strong points" on any side. If one has strong arguments, they should be used and voiced, because it's simply a numbers game in democracy.
Agreed. I do not suggest false equality. Or insipid "it takes two sides" type arguments.
Another advantage of fair arguments, they add credibility for calls to hold the more powerful in a situation to take more responsibility for solutions.
I really appreciate and am impressed by how thoughtful and genuine the responses here - including those not in support of the OP - are in general. I don't see nearly anyone giving the author crap for not blindly loving PG, I don't see nearly anyone purposefully using the wrong pronouns as an insult (and the few who are are mostly getting flagged). Even folks who clearly disagree are praising the author and being respectful of them.
Seeing this, though, just makes it even more perplexing to me how the same community that is so open to the experience of the author here is also so accepting of the changes that Meta and PG are describing because they're made under the banner of "free speech" or "allowing conversation." It seems clear that we as a community don't support, encourage, or permit people to throw slurs, insults, and harassment at others. Why are we okay with much larger and more powerful communities doing it in the name of these "freedoms" (in quotes because free speech is actually about the government, not private communities, policing speech).
I, too, found it refreshing.
>It seems clear that we as a community don't support, encourage, or permit people to throw slurs, insults, and harassment at others. Why are we okay with much larger and more powerful communities doing it in the name of these "freedoms"
Because the community uses the same freedoms to police those that throw slurs and does not feel it requires--that is the hope anyway--any other mandatory enforcement?
> Because the community uses the same freedoms to police those that throw slurs and does not feel it requires--that is the hope anyway--any other mandatory enforcement?
We don't, though. We have moderators (hi dang) who get rid of those people. It's the same thing Facebook used to do, just on a much smaller scale.
Hmm, I guess I misunderstood. But in that case, it's a bit of a mixed message.
You say:
> we as a community don't support, encourage, or permit people to throw slurs
then you say:
>We don't, though. We have moderators (hi dang) who get rid of those people.
In the first you consider moderators as part of the community. In the second you don't it seems. And the people who can downvote I think are probably so high enough in number as to be seen as normal users and not moderators.
The perception of the moderation in larger communities is that it is way more heavy handed and less accountable than the moderation that dang does. For example, in HN, I can see messages from dang warning a user they are repeating offences they have committed and I can easily see their past posts to verify whether that's true or not. And dang at least gives more than one-worded defenses or explanations about certain cases of moderation in the public forum itself and not restricted to private messages. HN even says you can email them regarding certain cases you feel strongly about. With Twitter, when an account is suspended you can't see the paper trail between the moderators and the user, or the past posts. And you need to get a hold of some hotshot acquaintence with a decent amount of followers to publically make your case to get the company big-wigs to notice.
In HN, even in cases of shadow-banning, though newbies might not be aware, you can even toggle the shadow-banning off and see all the posts unfiltered. In Twitter, that option does not exist I think.
It doesn't scale people say? Well, no one said it's easy...
> Are “identity politics” just a status game that economically advantaged elites play?
Yes. But it's a disgrace that we're throwing the baby (genuine progress, like the slow acceptance of non-binary people) out with the bathwater.
Huge pretending going on though that we are doing this. We are not throwing away the baby.
There is nuance and people are pretending there is not. I support trans people but also support safety for all people. There are some nuanced details when you get to reality, and we can’t just pretend those away.
The symptoms or pretending are things like not finishing the essay, or not even reading far enough to uncover PG’s definition near the beginning, so it had to become a footnote later when someone told them about it.
I appreciate this post, and that HN clearly isn't moderating it in a way outside of their stated policies.
It is really hard to see the backpedaling of big tech with regards to identity politics as something other than virtue conformance. The sad and natural question that gets drawn is, where does the real virtue start and the performance begin?
> where does the real virtue start and the performance begin
This reminds me of when people criticize other people for not simply being themselves. Maybe they are being themselves, and that's just not good enough for you?
The argument against "virtue signaling" is a judgement against doing something which the critic doesn't think is beneficial or necessary, and so they conclude it must be performative. But, the person doing it thinks it is beneficial or necessary.
Thus, the critic is failing to allow for a different view. Not that they have to accept the different view, but they should at least be able to recognize that someone else has a different view than their own. But, they can't or won't.
> He thought it was a decent enough idea, but the name, Appcanary, he wasn’t crazy about the name. He was very good at naming companies.
FWIW, he hated the name Reddit, and the mascot even more. He said if they have to keep the mascot, it should be on the bottom right where no one can see it.
PG is a smart guy, but you gotta trust your gut sometimes even when taking to experts.
These days I just feel sad for some of the richest people. First their wealth seem to have pulled them away from their humanity. Now I just see them lead troubled existence and inflict pain on others, amplified by the said wealth. All the money in the world and no humanity or peace at heart.
My guess is there are two possibilities as to what's going on:
* Many tech pioneers and leaders deep down felt an animosity towards supporting people who didn't fit the mold and finally feel free to express it (the worst-case outcome), and/or
* Many tech pioneers and leaders wish to continue supporting those who don't fit the mold but feel their own status threatened by figures with nearly infinite power[0] who disagree.
The former are simply the intolerant coming up for air. The latter exhibit a cowardice, though there's a subpoint to that second bullet: there could be some in this crowd who prefer to conform to but then dismantle the power structures enabling hatred from within, but these people likely won't be known for a while, and it'll be difficult to predict who's acting subversively in this way. Though given PG's narrowly scoped essay, there's a reasonable chance that this is his footing.
The best people can do is assume the least-worst case - the cowardice - and instead seek to either craft themselves as the people they wish to see... and/or protect oneself from the rising tides of hatred.
[0] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf
There's also a third type, that I consider to be the most likely reality given self-selected population of founders / successful leaders:
- People who will amorally play to the limits of the rules if it helps them win.
It doesn't matter what they personally feel, or even if they have feelings at all. They tack with whatever way the wind is blowing in order to derive the maximum benefit.
E.g. the million dollar inauguration contributions
That's not a lot of money for that sort of person. The point of kissing the ring is the visible action and the favor it curries, not because the kiss is dear.
This is lacking a lot of nuance though isn't it? You're basically saying hate the player not the game, and that isn't really useful. When you step up to the arena and decide to play a competitive sport, because of game dynamics you can only know so much about who you are playing against, so you should play. The whole philosophical theory behind capitalism is literally progress emerges from the conflict and tension created between it's functional systems. If you want to get down to blaming humans, you're going to hav to go over to Adam Smiths or Joseph Schumpeter.
I'm saying it's debatable judging the player if they stay inside the rules as enforced.
I definitely hate the game.
Yeah I don't know why I skipped this one, but given the relationships between CEOs and psychopathy I shouldn't be surprised.
> Many tech pioneers and leaders wish to continue supporting those who don't fit the mold but feel their own status threatened by figures with nearly infinite power[0] who disagree.
If only tech had some sort of rugged frontiersmen who weren't afraid of a bit of hardship. Davy Crockett types, pushing boundaries and standing firm under siege no matter the personal cost.
We could call them "pioneers" - if any existed.
Yeah, there’s probably some Pulling The Ladder up like my Irish immigrant ancestors did. At one point everyone in the discussion was a nerdy social outcast. Now that they can afford to hang out with the Beautiful People, time to be as agreeable as possible.
Or maybe the world is simply returning to the way it has been for pretty much all of recorded history. Wars, male dominance, two fixed genders, oligarchs and barons and racism is the norm for all human beings since forever. “Wokeness” is a very recent anomaly.
You probably need to read more history, and maybe challenge yourself to find sources, if you think those things were always widely true everywhere.
Even most of the world right now doesn’t care about wokeness and never has. India, the Middle East, Africa, China, Russia etc. never caught on to most woke stuff that came out of the west in the past 20 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke
This isn't a response to what I posted. You said that it's a recent concept without any presence in non-Western spaces. My link clearly demonstrates that's not the case.
goose comic Who has recorded that history?
I read the Paul Graham article mentioned here immediately before reading the Neil Gaiman exposé, and it left a sour taste in my mouth.
PG is an incredible writer and contributor to this community, but that doesn't mean he isn't human (as others have been saying). Open minded people who spend too much time with the same group of global elites (including tech-minded POCs and trans people etc.) end up thinking social justice has already been served and start wondering if those saying it has gone too far are correct.
Yeah, PG just seems completely out of touch and isolated in a bubble- not understanding the reality of what people different than him are facing day to day in terms of racism and discrimination. I am white but in a mixed race family- and see the racism black people face day to day: getting followed and watched when they shop in a store, being always accused and suspected first when something goes wrong at work, being seen as dangerous or violent if they ever get visibly upset, etc.
This is a really personal article and I'm really grateful the author shared it. I think too often conceptual terms like "wokeness" and "identity politics" get thrown around without really considering the people underlying those ideas.
It's easy to make snap judgements along the lines of "the world is too woke these days", but a lot harder to argue against peoples ability to live as they choose with basic dignity.
>We could get people to pay us hundreds of dollars per month, but not thousands
I find it interesting that they say their startup folded because they could only get people to pay hundreds a month. That sounds like success to me.
>That’s the death knell of a vc-backed b2b saas sales model. >We were too burnt out to pivot to another business idea, and we quietly folded.
I guess VC funding killed their successful startup and burned them out. It sounds like they didn't need funding in the first place, and it caused more harm than good in their case.
Can't help but OP might have been better engaging with PG's Wokeness article itself (it's full of holes, and probably one of the weakest he's written), than talking about what they think the article said made them feel.
Ironically the Wokeness article does what most people accuse "wokeness" of doing, predetermining its conclusion, and then shoehorning in a bunch of loosely connected facts and phenomena to support that assertion.
It's not a direct criticism of the PG article, the OP is examining a broader cultural phenomena right now. PGs scribbles were just one example.
OP wrote:
> A few days ago, Paul Graham published an essay on “Wokeness”. I skimmed it. I couldn’t finish reading it, it made me too upset...I’ve been feeling quite anxious ever since. It feels like the world is crumbling around me.
...as if this sort of mental fragility is something normal. This is the sort of mentality I've come to associate with woke and prig culture.
In my experience, the more "woke" a community is, the more these sort of hysterics are accepted, normalized, even celebrated - to the point of caricature. Part of it is that in those communities, the more "oppressed" you are, the higher status you are accorded, and the subconscious status-seeking primate part of your brain notices this, and molds your thoughts and feelings accordingly. While those on the right also play up their victimhood, it's not held in high status in their communities. You'd get outrage and compassion playing up victimhood in right-leaning communities, but in left-leaning communities you also get more moral weight when you're upset.
The result, I think, is that the American left is genuinely less happy with the world, and more likely to echo doomer sentiments.
> Ironically the Wokeness article does what most people accuse "wokeness" of doing, predetermining its conclusion, and then shoehorning in a bunch of loosely connected facts and phenomena to support that assertion.
This basic approach underpins the pop-business and some of the pop-science industry. Plus much of self-help. And a good chunk of popular political books, of course.
It’s a winning approach, lots of folks read that kind of thing and nod along, are glad they paid money for it, and recommend that others do the same.
Even the “good” books in those genres are often guilty of it :-/
Motivated reasoning, cheap rhetorical tricks, and half-fake but digestible and uncomplicated history/facts are how you “win” the war of ideas.
Earlier in my (now long) career, tech didn't feel political at all (just a bunch of nerds trying to figure shit out). Nowadays, it feels really weird to associate things like cryptocurrency with "tech bros on the right", etc. It all feels very unnecessary, but I suppose humans have a natural tendency to divide into camps as a survival characteristic. Whatever the case, The United States has certainly at a stage where it feels like tolerance for others is at a low point--at least as far as my historical memory serves--and the country seems far less welcoming than it has in the past to a variety of cohorts which will affect the makeup of the work force. The general politicization of the tech industry makes me less excited about continuing as an engineer, which is sad, because it's always been a discipline that I've really loved. It feels like "hate politics" are oozing out of everything these days, and I don't see how that represents progress of any kind.
There’s just more money in tech than in 2000s, so the most interest is mostly coming from financial incentives rather than general curiosity. That just puts extreme pressure for it to be politicized.
I met many people that met Paul Graham once. 2 > 1. right? Not sure Paul would ever have invested in my companies. But the world is smaller than you think.
What Mark and others are doing is performative. And PG seems to be projecting.
I read the second part of the essay, about the author choosing to transition and live their life identifying and presenting as female. If that makes them happier then I am all for it but I certainly think society’s norms are upstream of people’s decisions. I personally believe that society should be more accepting in general, of autism, tomboys, femboys and other ways of presenting, especially for children. If they were, then people wouldn’t feel so much pressure to conform to a specific stereotype.
Instead when it comes to kids they are often told how they should behave — eg ADHD is another thing that’s overdiagnosed and medicated — including with amphetamines. Notable progressive Thom Hartmann even wrote a book about this ADHD medication industry, with his theory of “hunters and farmers”, when his own son was put through the ringer. In the past, many girls would be called tomboys rather than encouraged to transition because they didn’t like to associate with “feminine” things or present as female. In Sweden, they even had gender-neutral “hen” pronouns for kids.
As far as their observation about trans women being programmers — I want to ask a risque thing on HN. Who are the top female developers that you know? I want to follow their work.
I have found that some of the people I have found to be really innovative female developers, such as the makers of Redbean server (Justine), or decentralized database technology such as Mauve Signweaver, are (I believe) in fact trans women.
What is it that leads to nearly everyone who does hardcore programming and abstract concepts being born as a biological male? In evolutionary psychology “just-so stories”, one could say men were used to long periods of silent stalking animals or building constructions instead of socializing in the cave or raising children. But I am not so sure about just-so stories and the effect size is just way too strong. Was programming really so much different when Ada Lovelace or Grace Hopper or Margaret Hamilton were doing it? Female programmers were more prevalent when it was punchcards. But then you look at, say, Apple and everyone’s a dude and Susan Kare is hired to design icons, rather than programming. Or when I worked at Bloomberg, practically all the developers were male and some of us would go to lunch with the people from the Sales department, because that’s where the females were.
I've noticed this as well in the compilers community. Essentially every woman I know in this area is MtF.
I can't back this up with science, but my feeling is that because neurodivergence/autism occur at higher rates in males than females, and ND brains are better at abstract reasoning inherent in programming, male born people are drawn to it. I also believe this accounts for the overrepresentation of MtF trans women, because there is definitely an intersection of autism and transgenderism.
Which is really ironic because Zuckerberg, Musk, and Gates are all definitely on the spectrum. The current tech power center was created almost entirely by queer autistic neurodivergent weirdos.
This is absolutely amazing, well done on the article!
If the OP struggles to reconcile their perception of PG before and after discovering his differing beliefs, that’s neither PG’s fault nor anyone else’s.
This reaction reflects a broader cultural issue that PG himself occasionally comments on. It’s an unfortunate symptom of our times to misattribute personal frustrations and resentments—born of an often unfriendly and unfair world—to solely external causes like a conspiracy of bigotry and malevolence.
In reality, such feelings often stem from an unrealistic internal denial of the natural (painful) "othering" of outlier behaviour or identity, something that can only be mitigated through education and maturity, and pragmatic reasonableness on both sides.
It cannot be solved by the hectoring, bullying, self-pitying, or other toxic behaviours rightly associated with the declining “woke” movement, which the OP seems to criticise PG for opposing.
> It cannot be solved by the hectoring, bullying, self-pitying, or other toxic behaviours rightly associated with the declining “woke” movement, which the OP seems to criticise PG for opposing.
This sounds like the criticisms of MLK, Jr. and other civil rights activists for always stirring things up. People who want change tend to stir things up.
That being said, I think you exaggerate about the toxic behaviors of the "woke" movement. Certainly, you must be referring to online, because I can't think of when I have ever experienced any of that offline. If you're talking about Twitter, then I guess I could believe it, because that place is toxic as hell.
But the Appcanary was not a bad idea, isn't website monitoring a lucrative market (see New Relic)? Too crowded?
It's interesting to see how tech bros are slowly sliding to the right. The first thing I ever read from Paul was his thing about lisp, and I almost instantly disliked him. There is an intense ego that radiates from his ilk. You see a similar thing with some small business owners. Owning and running a business gives them a feeling of superiority. They feel that they are affluent thanks solely to their own efforts (and perhaps some negligible work from their employees), and seeing that others are less wealthy they conclude themselves to be superior [1]. I think it's an inevitable fact of capitalism that the people who rise to the top are the ones who are greedy, who confuse profit with virtue. It's really no surprise that they are easily influenced by the winds of fashion; you don't get rich by taking a stand.
[1] Footnote 12, https://paulgraham.com/superlinear.html#f12n
You may enjoy “Dabblers and Blowhards” from IdleWords, if you’re not already familiar with it.
https://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm
Reading that helped me come to terms with how most of the time when I read PG essays I was a lot less impressed than everyone else seemed to be, and often (any time the topic wasn’t narrowly tech or maaaybe business) his writing struck me as actually bad—not well-reasoned, not convincing, and giving an impression of his being poorly-informed.
When I experience an author everyone else is praising that way, I wonder if I’m the moron. But, sometimes, maybe I’m not…
Thanks, a very good read. Made me chuckle a lot. I've always found Paul's obsession with being a "hacker" rather annoying.
> tech bros are slowly sliding to the right
I see many people confidently and incuriously throw this idea around, meanwhile many of the tech bros are saying “no, I haven’t shifted all that much , the left just went crazy”. [1] I’m not sure which claim is “correct”. Probably breaks one way or another on an individual basis. But it does seem like we should probably give people some credit for introspection versus mind reading.
[1] The following cartoon has been shared by many and distills the idea well: https://x.com/swipewright/status/1462114108535312388?s=46&t=...
I find this idea to be honestly laughable, especially from an American. What's really happening here is pretty simple. You have a guy whose maybe an average amount bigoted, a little but not much. He spends years voting for the Democrat party and supporting Democrats because he is told that doing otherwise means he is bigoted. The issue he has is that he has the aforementioned bigoted views. When he expresses, say a general distrust of trans people, he is condemned as a bigot. So he is faced with two options: change his mind (hard) or deny reality (easy). So he claims that the left used to be distrustful of trans people like he is, but now has changed to be "woke" in accepting them. What really happened is that he discovered he had right-wing views on these matters and that the left did not. This fantasy that the whole world has moved around him, instead of him moving within it, is simply a way to rationalise his beliefs. He is right-wing, but embarrassed about it.
This is quite a common view throughout history. A good example would be the "moderate" white during the civil rights era, who wasn't racist but paradoxically opposed equal rights laws. The world is filled with people who wish to appear progressive, yet do not want to do the often difficult introspection required to embody that belief system. They would like to be seen as a tolerant person without having to let go of their intolerant views.
You need only read a few of this man's tweets to see that he has drifted to the right, along with much of America. Perhaps he always thought like this and just hid it better before. He is, for instance, advocating the abolition of trans healthcare for minors. The Democratic party has never held this view or anything approximating it, yet he claims with this comic it used to be a "centre left" position. Another great tweet that almost entirely disproves his narrative is one where he talks to the white nationalists in his replies. He obviously condemns them as trash, but fails to realise that being regularly exposed to white nationalists who support the same candidate as you is a definite sign of a political shift. It is clearly not something that would have happened to him before and is clearly not the left running away from him, but him running towards white nationalism. He frequently makes tweets mocking peer reviews papers, an anti-intellectual bent which I'm sure he would not have expressed before.
You can see his progress clear as day. He used to be "neutral" on the issue of trans rights (thinking both sides are bad), now he opposes trans rights. He is currently "neutral" on the issue of race (thinking both racists and anti-racists are bad because anti-racism acknowledges that black people deserve help in society which is racist), eventually he will be openly racist. This kinds of both-sides centrism is really just intellectual frailty. Instead of considering the points made, they just point out the aesthetics of the movements and use that to ignore them. "BLM has riots, racists have riots, therefore they are the same and I'm superior to both and they're both wrong." Of course, when you place yourself at the midpoint between people who want equality and people who are racist, you are a moderate racist and not a moderate civil rights activist.
Thank you for the breath of fresh air, and helping reduce the echo chamber that hn can be sometimes
My current way of thinking about it is that we should tolerate communities that we find weird. People who cross dress are to me as weird as the religious people or the overly enthusiastic magic the gathering players. Should I hate them or discriminate against them? No. Should I let them force their community rituals on me? No as well.
I don't like someone telling me "God bless you" as much as someone forcing me to pretend they're a different gender.
Wokism was a movement against discrimination, bullies, and such. Not a movement to force you to adhere to specific communities rules
> someone forcing me to pretend they're a different gender
What is it specifically which you don't want to do? Use their preferred pronoun?
In this scenario, who is forcing you and how?
Many examples of people losing jobs, becoming the object of online mobs, etc for refusing to use preferred pronouns.
Men participating in women’s sports.
Men entering women’s spaces like locker rooms and bath rooms.
Men imprisoned alongside women, with predictably horrible results.
We can treat trans people with compassion, but they are not entitled to change our culture and trample common sense without slow, careful examination. Now that we’re returning to sanity on that front, the data aren’t looking very good.
Legitimate question, according to you, this person should be going into the woman's room: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_Angel#/media/File:Buck_An...
How do you feel about that?
You seem to have ignored that all my examples were of biological men entering women's spaces and activities.
A biological female entering men's spaces and activities is far, far less problematic. I for one would have no problem with that person entering a men's restroom or locker room. But I think it's not unreasonable for others to object.
I think the pertinent question is, should a person who made the affirmative choice to transition their body via surgery, hormones, etc. have their preferences supersede those of others who were not involved in that choice? This question is a corollary of a deeper question, which is: should a person who insists that material, shared reality is incorrect have the right to force others to participate in their delusion? Should a schizophrenic experiencing visual hallucinations have the right to reorder society in order to accommodate their delusion? The answer is obviously "no". So why then do trans-people have the special right, in the minds of some, to reorder our language, customs, and culture to accommodate their delusions?
So, returning to your question, my answer would be, either Buck Angel should use a unisex restroom, or, if none is available, go elsewhere to find one.
Here is a sample of what I think are better questions to ask:
Should this person be imprisoned alongside biological women? [1]
Should these biological males be allowed to compete in women's cycling? [2]
Should this man have been imprisoned with women? [3]
Should this biological male have been given use of the girls' restroom at his high school? [4]
Should this biological male have been given use of womens' restroom? [5]
Should this person be imprisoned alongside biological women? [6]
Should this biological male have been given access to the girls locker room at his high school? [7]
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-67613441
[2] https://www.nationalreview.com/news/male-cyclists-take-gold-...
[3] https://www.nbcnewyork.com/investigations/man-posing-as-tran...
[4] https://apnews.com/article/loudoun-virginia-lawsuit-transgen...
[5] https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/transgender-woman-convicte...
[6] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-45825838
[7] https://wpde.com/news/nation-world/after-trans-woman-exposed...
> So, returning to your question, my answer would be, either Buck Angel should use a unisex restroom, or, if none is available, go elsewhere to find one.
So you are trading one form of dehumanization for another. I think if you want to implement this policy you need to mandate unisex restrooms. Otherwise you are excluding trans people from public life... but that's the point isn't it?
> Should a schizophrenic experiencing visual hallucinations have the right to reorder society in order to accommodate their delusion? The answer is obviously "no". So why then do trans-people have the special right, in the minds of some, to reorder our language, customs, and culture to accommodate their delusions?
We routinely set policy based on voices our representatives hear in their heads they believe to be the voice of God. George Bush is quoted saying God told him to invade Iraq. For thousands of years human history and law has been guided based on a bunch of people claiming an invisible sky wizard told them how to order society. Why do the voices in their head rank higher than a trans person's?
Once again, you ignore that all of my examples were of biological men entering women's spaces and activities.
> So you are trading one form of dehumanization for another
It's not even close to dehumanizing. Concentration camps are dehumanizing. War is dehumanizing. Genocide is dehumanizing. Requiring Angel to use an appropriate restroom is at most an inconvenience (for Angel).
Angel wasn't born this way. Angel's decision, motivated by desire and/or delusion, to undergo surgical and chemical alterations was made deliberately and affirmatively. And thus Angel should bear the consequences of those decisions. Angel doesn't have the right to reorder society's customs, culture, and rules as a result of those decisions. (And I would argue these kind of anatomical disfigurement is far more "dehumanizing" than being asked to use a unisex bathroom.)
I'll also note that it is telling that you've chosen as the trans exemplar in this discussion a pornographer and fetishist whose behaviors and values are wildly out of line with the mainstream of society.
> We routinely set policy based on voices our representatives hear in their heads they believe to be the voice of God
Straw man, and also, false. [1] It is obvious that no delusional person has the right to reorder society's customs, culture, and laws. Or are you arguing that we must take all delusional people seriously in order to placate trans-people?
-------------
[1] Bush had to follow the rules by going to Congress to make his case for war. The basis of the case presented to Congress was not "the voice of god".
Yeah. The answer is always: which one is the agreed default, and which one is community based
Some of the disagreement or confusion seems to stem from the definition of the word "woke" which means different things to different people?
Having read both essays I don't see them necessarily in disagreement. pg criticizes the performative and orthodox nature of some social justice activists' behavior, however it doesn't seem that the author's behavior here is performative at all.
Perhaps we should just avoid these terms like "woke" and just say what we mean to avoid this societal dissonance? I feel like decent rational people can talk past each other depending on how they have been exposed to the term.
If they’d named “wokeness” to be “kindness” or “considerate”, then there would be people who would still have found a way to be “anti-considerate”, and mean it as a “good” thing.
In some circles, someone being gay or trans will always be a sin, and non-whites seen as “lesser beings” (both their views not mine). As it stands, these people vote more consistently for the same party and in larger numbers.
We should hire the right people for the right job, but let’s be honest, in cultures where the majority perceive such minorities in disgust through lack of education and bigotry, they are unlikely to hire them regardless of whether they were better fit the job or not.
DEI should have been left at a reminder checking your own biases. Instead in many organizations it spiraled into minority preferential hiring, and that caused a backlash, and rightly so.
Where do we go from here? Who knows. My hope is that we find kindness and consideration for each other, but since the incoming administration has experienced such success from beating the anti-woke drum, I fear that it won’t be such a nice ending.
>If they’d named “wokeness” to be “kindness” or “considerate”, then there would be people who would still have found a way to be “anti-considerate”, and mean it as a “good” thing.
"If we name our religion the Religion of Peace..."
This line of illogic has been memed for years: https://imgflip.com/i/67qfsz
I actually had Monty Python's Life of Brian in my mind, but yes exactly.
Graham's essay refers to Bud Light sending a trans influencer promotional beer cans as "woke". I don't know how that's "performative and orthodox social justice activism".
I like the shape of your prose!
So I found the author to come across as a sincere and thoughtful individual, but when I went over to actually read PG's essay on wokeness, it didn't seem to have any resemblance to what was described. I wonder if the author actually read it, or just read enough to see that it was not pro-woke and decided that was all they needed to know?
I like the article, but one doesn't need to meet pg once to get to know what he is.
You can just read his tweets (x's?) and he, like many VCs or higher-ups in SV doesn't give a huge importance in how other humans feel, just in his kids/family/relatives.
So overall, he doesn't care about how you think or feel.
If he did, he wouldn't write an essay on a touchy topic without making a big disclaimer.
By reading him tweet for sometime you'd realize the kind of person he is, and he isn't somebody that is there to support others or something, or has threaded prejudice or huge issues in his life.
The deepest essay pg has written that touches the "They don't like me" point, from all I've read is his thoughts about nerds/geeks, after all we get bullied! You can't compare being a nerd to being transgender, or a victim of racism, or xenophobia. It's very different.
He just doesn't have studied, or suffered enough to understand the perspective of a "woke", then he wrote that article. AI engineers would say the problem with pg's llms didn't have enough training data ;-)
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I'm suprised that people are super-duper angry at pg's 2025 essay when it's substantially the same as his 2004 essay "what you can't say" - https://www.paulgraham.com/say.html other than using the word "woke".
It would have been better if he'd also called out some of the people who are prigs on the right (e.g. the people who are suddenly very very upset about the integrity women's sports, which thy don't watch anyway).
I think I have strong feelings about this because PG exploits people the same way cults exploit vulnerable people insecurities and uses them to build power and influence for the cult. If PG is now sharpening the lines (us vs them), in a way which benefits him - it's at the cost of the victims who didn't make it along the way.
One way to think of him is a wealthy person unaccustomed to hearing "no" that wants to say whatever they'd like regardless of the social collateral and writing an essay complaining about an empathy zeitgeist. Make no mistake, a person with thinking so fixed and undeservedly confident in ideas which he has a woefully limited understanding about will just as soon tell you to to rename your preferred pronouns as they would your company.
The industry has become very unsettling, mean, and malicious. For 20 years I have warned people about the old "we are changing the world" mantra and that the people leading that chant were "evil", and therefore "change" would not be aligned with good... and here we are. Remember kids. Change and progress are extremely subjective.
> I’d be a better startup founder today than I was in 2015
You should do a startup then. I think you'll be surprised how little most VCs and customers care about your personal life.
No doubt the vibes worldwide are taking a dark turn, but pg has been pretty reasonable and his essay in particular seems like an accurate read on what has happened.
My sympathies to the author. I’ve had more than a few moments of disillusionment myself.
But it’s always better to be aware and disillusioned than unaware and happy.
This made me unreasonably annoyed, not from the author though.
>The mentors applied a neat and very effective trick: they believed in you.
It's crazy to me that the LeetCode interview style is still such an aberration compared to other jobs that yield potentially much more money
Do you want to be a Software Engineer at this company? We don't trust you, the previous company could have let you in under the radar and you could secretly be a terrible engineer.
Do you want to run a SaaS and make us and yourself a bunch of money? Welcome aboard, we trust you completely once you're in. Just change your company name to fucking Oracle, ha ha ha.
This industry is such an imbalance of misplaced scrutiny, and certainly more so when they get into political stuff like wokeness.
If you're pg rich, just shut the fuck up.
> Moves like Mark’s, and essays like pg’s, create the permission structure for people to discriminate against me.
This is key. Many people might say, "come on, Mark's just doing the usual sucking up to the new President" or "Paul's just expressing his views and trying to bring things back into balance.", just like they defend Trump's famous denigration of a disabled person on the campaign trail -- he was just joking, playing to the crowd.
Words are real things, and when spoken by people in positions of great power, they can enable abhorrent behavior which the original speaker might never engage in (well, maybe Trump) but others will.
> the reason why conservative women are so mad about trans women is because they don’t want to share washrooms with the sex slave caste.
I would like to see more of the HN caste engage with the very notion of a caste system, but I can't immediately think of a way to do it that also accommodates the spirit of HN—which I value—that dictates we focus on technical subjects. Perhaps the techie workforce angle is the only good faith approach.
Are you the "ordinary people" he was referring to in a recent tweet @ Musk?
Link to the essay in question: https://paulgraham.com/woke.html
Hack for the game me
> I’m still not sure what pg thinks “Wokeness” means.2 I know for a fact, that for most people – including many of the people he hangs out with – it just means “left-wing thing I dislike”. I got the impression that he thinks it’s bad, and that companies should purge people who are too woke. Maybe I’m being unfair to him.
The funny thing is that Paul Graham has a framework for thinking about these sorts of things, which is explained very eloquently in "beating the averages". He calls it the "Blub paradox".
Blub is a hypothetical programming language that is roughly average in terms of expressive power and abstraction. The Blub programmer can recognize languages that are inferior to Blub because they lack some important feature that they would find it difficult to do without. On the other hand, they can't recognize the merits of more powerful languages very easily because the features are unfamiliar and seem like "a bunch of abstract nonsense invented by ivory-tower academics" that have limited real-life application.
I think the same thing works for social views. It's easy for someone somewhere on the spectrum from might-makes-right brutishness on one end and perfect wisdom, justice, and harmony on the other to know when they're looking down. But someone who is more "progressive" than they are will usually appear indistinguishable from someone trying to impress their friends with how "woke" they are.
I think this comes into play in elections. Voters in general seem to be more willing to vote for someone more conservative than they are than someone more liberal.
I have to say that this is a very well written piece. The story in the first half does a good job of showing the author's personality and making him seem very relatable, at least if you are a typical HN reader. And it's a good story and didn't have me thinking "get to the point", especially since the title doesn't make you expect anything more than a good story.
Then halfway down, he drops the words "I'm transgender now" and you start to realize what he/she is really writing about.
If the article started there it would have lost a lot of people. Instead with the first half it gets you invested and you stick around to read the rest of it.
PG's essay about wokeness, on the other hand, didn't really accomplish this. In fact it kind of did the opposite: came on strong and imprecise at the beginning and became more measured and precise towards the end. And thus it probably lost a lot of readers toward the more "woke" end of the spectrum like this author.
Hard agree, the writing here is exceptional.
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This take seems to project a massive amount (of negative falsehood) onto Paul Graham's essay. As I read his essay, Paul Graham does not care one wit about the gender (trans or otherwise) of an individual. He is explicitly criticising those who create arbitrary rules (e.g., the term LatinX) that don't actually serve society but instead serve as virtue signals.
If you are competent, you'll be able to find employment. Yes, discrimination exists, but if there is an abundance of talented trans people, someone is going to exploit that talent pool (by hiring) in an efficient market economy.
Frankly, the author seems a bit egotistical. Being transgender has nothing to do with being woke. People like Paul Graham criticising wokeness are not criticising transgenderism. His essay is not about you (and nobody reading his essay should interpret it in anyway as being against you).
The wokeness essay was long, hard to process, and still vexes me and makes me wonder if there were any specific triggers involved. One of the parts that most leapt out at me was the question of what would activists worry about after the Iron Curtain fell? Most of Europe both east and west have health care integrated with their social fabric, so that seems a likely target. And that subject is especially problematic since Romney put the Heritage Foundation market based universal health care access in place in Massachusetts which means that there is no longer any political or philosophical basis for fighting so called "socialized medicine". But instead of extending health care to all the problem is the wokeness which might lead us to conceive of such a thing in the first place?
I met PG once when we went to visit him for some office hours for my YC startup. I was a late cofounder so I hadn't been part of the program. During the conversation I said something, he looked and me and said "I have no idea what you just said", then turned back to my cofounder and kept chatting. o_O
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He doesn’t want to let people at a big NGO give their own opinion on J. K. Rowling: https://x.com/paulg/status/1866497580466942269 Says it's Orwellian.
So he also seems outspoken, by your standard. He couldn’t stop at “Hi! This is what I think about J. K. Rowling...”
A lot of this comes down to the difference between freedom of speech and platforming. I’m sure we’ll still be arguing about it in 2050.
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Didn't downvote you, but I'm not sure there is anyone in the American VC class that shared the harrowing plight of Palestinians as much as Kamala-voting pg did. Not to say he does it alot, but in the VC feeds that I normally check out once in a while it's virtually non-existent. Hell, Musk even attended and applauded Netanyahu's speech in Congress.
...By that metric that would make pg a radical leftist.
You know what wasn't on my bingo card for 2024? Paul Buchheit being red-pilled harder than Paul Graham.
> Kamala-voting pg
Oh! I didn't know he spoke out against Teump and endorsed Harris: https://x.com/paulg/status/1851200055220306378/photo/1
That's a pretty strong statement. Hats off!
Since then, PG seems to have gone silent on Trump. Instead he decided to post that essay about wokeness, right after major SV players publicly sucked up to Trump. Didn't he - or the people who read the draft - realized that it would make people believe he joined the MAGA camp? What happened there?
I think Musk called pg a retard and released the right-wings trolls on him by doing so after pg pushed back on Musk's UK interference when he shared a UK poll showing a dislike for Musk across party lines. He's stated his preference for Kamala over Trump on multiple occasions ("I don't agree with xyz, but on the whole Trump is worse." being the gist of it). Right-wing trolls also went after him after this anti-woke essay, claiming he was late to the party. though he had been consistent on that point for quite some as well.
> when he shared a UK poll showing a dislike for Musk across party lines.
Love it! But all of that doesn't really explain why he went silent on Trump and decided to publish that essay at probably the worst time possible. I know it is consistent with some of his past essays, but the optics are terrible. What was he thinking?
It’s infuriating how fast the masks have come off with the tech elites.
They were up on stage today with better seating and vantage points than the hard-working civil servants and diplomats who actually care about making the world a better and more peaceful place.
People like PG need regressive policies to keep the gravy train running because the hacking startup thing works less and less over time. Everything you can solve with a computer has been solved. All that’s left is oligarchs consolidating left and right.
Zuck, Cook, Musk, and the rest need to fuck right off.
PG is just another member of the .01% who is an exploiter of labor. His founders who grind and eat ramen to survive are just individual dice rolls for his portfolio.
I know which side of the class war I am on.
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In no universe is Musk a centrist.
Name a far right position that he holds
Nick Fuentes is celebrating the "Nazi salute" (his words) musk did on stage this week.
If you have actually neo Nazis saying you did a nazi salute, and you have leftists saying you did a Nazi salute...
Support for AfD, the German Neo Nazi party.
... and every other right wing movement in Europe. I would also say that supporting Trump is not exactly a centrist thing to do.
BTW: AfD are far right, but I wouldn't call them a Neo Nazi party (although some members certainly are). Examples for true Neo Nazi parties would be "Die Heimat" (formerly known as NPD) or "Freie Sachsen".
Nice bait :)
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If it's any comfort, I'm also an immigrant who was raised in a single parent household. When we last (it's a long story) moved to Canada, I had to share a bed with my dad for a while.
We were never actually poor, poor, at risk. I never skipped meals, or lacked for clothing, though certainly that was a living memory my grandparents had. It was never in question that I would attend university.
Privilege is intersectional blah blah, there are layers to things. I'm not of the dominant Anglo culture, I have an "ethnic" last name, I don't have the same connections people who grew up upper-middle class do. But people certainly see me as white, I'm smart, and I built my career as a bearded guy.
Living as a bearded white guy is just a lot easier, it presents a lot less friction, than being gender non-conforming. That's it, really.
But if you consider humanity as a whole, even the lowest decile US citizens are extremely privileged in terms of economic state. Even if you live on food bank, you're still much more privileged than most humans.
So either all western people can't complain at all without being hypocrite, or we need to accept that one can be privileged in one way but vulnerable in another way.
I think the only controversial thing there is your belief that privilege is a binary attribute, rather than multidimensional
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If it's not meant to be a snarky attack or insult, how is it supposed to be meant?
Is it so unthinkable to you that someone's spouse could support them transitioning? That reads like projection, maybe, to me.
It's not unthinkable, but in practise there's usually strong pressure in play: sunk cost fallacy, children to support, the threat of social ostracism. This is mostly true for wives rather than husbands because of female socialisation (this is sadly where gender actually becomes relevant!).
As the author himself says: "It turns out that I like women so much I’d like to be one of them"
That's not how sex works. I like women a lot too: liking them a lot doesn't mean you want to be one, that's called autogynephilia and can be treated with talking therapy.
However if it's a true expression of his attitudes and preferences then perhaps if his wife decided to masculinise her appearance e.g. injecting testosterone to deeper her voice, cause male-associated health growth, have elective surgical interventions like a double mastectomy, he wouldn't receive it as well as his wife seems to have. That's definitely speculation on my part of course!
To answer your original question about how it's supposed to be meant: it won't matter one jot what any investors he once met may think or not think about his lifestyle choices if he's trying to impose a fantasy on his wife.
Autogynephilia is a long-discredited theory, though I suspect from the content of your posts that you would deride any more recent work as being politically or socially biased.
Let's assume it isn't, though. The inventor of the concept, Ray Blanchard, spent decades helping people transition. He didn't use talk therapy to talk them out of it! He developed one of the first protocols for figuring out whether a trans woman needed hormones! From his Wikipedia page:
> Blanchard supports public funding of sex reassignment surgery as an appropriate treatment for transsexual people, as he believes the available evidence supports that the surgery helps them live more comfortably and happily, with high satisfaction rates.
Even Blanchard would absolutely not describe a trans person as just "liking women a lot" and leave it at that. The premise that a trans woman is "just living a fantasy" isn't true and was widely recognized as not true even by previous generations of investigators on the topic. I don't understand why you insist on it.
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We're also speaking in another thread, but that thread got flagged (not by me), so I'll put my reply to it here.
All of this sort of handwaves past my point, though. Maybe you are right about the actual number of intersex people. My point is that it's a small but non-zero number. We can just talk about the number of "ambiguous" people, e. g. people where you can't immediately discern their physical biology from the way they present themselves to you. Would you agree that number is at least 1%?
> As to your question as to why does "woman" have to mean "adult human female" - because that's the dictionary definition.
But the dictionary definition can change, and in fact, has. Oxford, Merriam-Webster, and Cambridge have all made adjustments to the term to encompass the idea of transition, gender fluidity, etc. Your original term is the primary definition but not at all the only one.
Putting cards on the table: I don't believe that if the dictionary changed its definition, you would change yours. It seems to me you'd deride them for "being political" or "bowing to pressure" or somesuch. I think you are using your definitions for "woman" and "female" because you prefer them, not because you believe the dictionary is an arbitrator of truth.
> Notice that arguments about the treatment of "intersex" people (those with disorders/differences of sexual development) are used to buttress the position of people who feel like they're the other sex, but are otherwise biologically completely normal.
Trans people aren't always or often biologically "completely normal"; numerous studies have revealed potential biological bases for gender dysphoria, related to issues with hormones and other development in the womb. They only look normal to you, which goes to my next point:
> I totally agree with you that there are some people whose sex is hard to judge immediately, often, but not always, because they've gone out of their way to make it ambiguous. Everyone else can be clocked at 100 feet in a dark alley - we're evolved that way. [...] > A few awkward social faux pas over people who look or act androgynous - for whatever reason - doesn't justify exploding a category that works and serves everyone well almost all of the time. I don't feel guilty over my use of sexed pronouns even if I occasionally get it wrong and this insistence that I should... isn't convincing.
I don't know that you completely understood the scenario I was suggesting. Here is an image of Brian Michael Smith, a transmasculine actor: https://ew.com/thmb/vJSjLdP7CReb9n_px75hvqj5yYI=/1500x0/filt...
If you saw this person walking towards you, and you thought they were a man, and then later found out they were actually transmasculine, would you feel guilty for not referring to them with she/her? Would you correct yourself to referring to them as she/her afterwards, even in conversation with them? Why or why not?
This is a really thorough reply to what I said and very thoughtful, thanks.
Regarding "liking woman a lot", I was quoting the original author - it seemed like an autogynophilic statement to me, the idea that you are sexually attracted to something so much you want to become it. Maybe I'm misunderstanding!
Yeah it's interesting what you say about Blanchard... the fascinating thing for me about Blanchard is the measurement of groin blood pressure to test for arousal in response (rather than relying on self-reporting), I think his solutions were sexist and backwards and a great example of how blinkered medical professionals can be.
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If we expand the dictionary definition of woman to include some men, we then need a new term to describe... well, actual women. I know a lot of people want to adopt the term "cis woman" for this, but I'm going to stick with "woman". If this is just my personal aesthetic judgement that's fine, the burden of proof is on others to expand it and I don't think the justifications are very good.
Regarding the actress you mentioned, Brian, I can totally see I might mistake her for a man as she's gone out of her way to masculinise her appearance. I wouldn't feel guilt if I used male pronouns then later realised that was incorrect (according to my own rules) - perhaps surprise? I wouldn't even feel temporary embarrassment because she's gone to lengths to look male. I would correct myself to use she/her - even in direct conversation. That might be awkward but it's fine.
If I was in a country, organisation or situation where my livelihood was at risk for using sexed pronouns, I would avoid using pronouns entirely as regrettable prudence. This isn't hypothetical: parts of my social life overlap with these kinds of people and I steer through it, often by saying less, but I won't lie to someone directly.
I don't feel guilty about saying I don't believe in god/heaven to a catholic priest, even if the logical implication is that, from my perspective, they've wasted their life and chances of a happy love and sex life. It's unfortunate but really has nothing to do with me, it's all based on a set of attitudes and beliefs I don't participate in (and personally find regressive).
> Regarding "liking woman a lot", I was quoting the original author - it seemed like an autogynophilic statement to me, the idea that you are sexually attracted to something so much you want to become it. Maybe I'm misunderstanding! > Yeah it's interesting what you say about Blanchard... the fascinating thing for me about Blanchard is the measurement of groin blood pressure to test for arousal in response (rather than relying on self-reporting), I think his solutions were sexist and backwards and a great example of how blinkered medical professionals can be.
To be clear, I don't agree with Blanchard's typography or think it is correct to modern science. But it was never as simple as how it's typically portrayed. I suspect the author of the original post was being sort of ironic/humerous, though it reads as "this is the Blanchardian sense of why I want to transition."
The main thing I want to stress though is that Blanchard was never in the "every person with sperm must use he/him and be masculine and every person with eggs must use she/her and be feminine" camp. He definitely was (is) sexist and backwards, but I think at the time, he was genuinely trying to help people. Ego seems to have gotten in the way of his updating his views and ideas to match reality as science evolved.
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> Regarding the actress you mentioned, Brian, I can totally see I might mistake her for a man as she's gone out of her way to masculinise her appearance. I wouldn't feel guilt if I used male pronouns then later realised that was incorrect (according to my own rules) - perhaps surprise? I wouldn't even feel temporary embarrassment because she's gone to lengths to look male. I would correct myself to use she/her - even in direct conversation. That might be awkward but it's fine.
> If I was in a country, organization or situation where my livelihood was at risk for using sexed pronouns, I would avoid using pronouns entirely as regrettable prudence. This isn't hypothetical: parts of my social life overlap with these kinds of people and I steer through it, often by saying less, but I won't lie to someone directly.
This goes to what I've been saying in the other threads. It's hard for me to comprehend why this is so important. I can understand easily the arguments about sexual assault, participation in sports, and so on - whether I agree with them or not. But needing to use pronouns that are equivalent to someone's genitalia or sperm/egg creation status so stringently that you'd go out of your way to correct yourself to that (and probably offend Brian and people around them quite a bit, in the process), and that you feel uncomfortable being around people who do what you consider to be the wrong thing... it's hard for me to grok. Code-switching into the terminology that's comfortable for the environment you're in and people you're with is incredibly common and ordinary, we do it all the time.
Why is that particular thing so fundamental and important?
The Catholic priest example doesn't make sense to me. You might tell the priest that if he asked, but if you were having a friendly conversation with the priest and he said "have a blessed day!", would you stop and go "Actually, God's not real, and I won't call you Father, Dave, because I don't believe in Catholicism"? I'm Jewish, and I'd probably call a priest Father and the pope Your Holiness, because it's polite in that context. It's not an admission that I accept Jesus, at least, not to me.
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A woman is an adult human female, or a person who identifies as such.
In other words, there is biological definition. Then there is malleable social terminology. We can acknowledge biology while also accommodating who choose to - or need to - identify differently.
If we can't accept that, then my next question would be: what do you expect someone who is gender dysphoric to do? What do you believe the appropriate course of action is for someone in that situation? What would you expect or appreciate if you were a person in that situation?
The odd thing is that I don't recall pronouns being much of an issue before recent (2016-onward) political tribalism on transgender matters. Transgender people are not new, they existed previously and people by and large seemed to be able to refer to them by their preferred pronouns without all of this digging-in-of-heels around "I WILL REFER TO YOU BY THE PRONOUNS ASSOCIATED WITH YOUR BIOLOGICAL SEX".
What does "such" mean here?
How should I treat someone with body dysmorphia who believes they are 130 kg when they're closer to 50? Should I agree with them and affirm them as fat as they believe they are? Or should I - if it's my place - implore them to go to talking therapy and refuse to be drawn into their self-hating fantasy?
I’ll say three things:
1) Someone’s body dysmorphia is not - generally - affirmed or denied by ordinary everyday passing social interactions. In polite society, you simply don’t comment on someone’s body composition. Gender is an entirely different matter as it is a constant differentiator in day to day life. Also, in my experience, body dysmorphia has nothing to do with other people’s affirmations. We’ve all seen examples of people getting repeated surgeries to change their appearance because they simply cannot see what everyone else is seeing when they look in the mirror.
2) I think in determining “how to handle it” from the perspective of psychotherapy, we should consider what treatment is considered effective. Psychotherapy is simply not effective at changing someone’s gender identity or ameliorating gender dysphoria. The established treatment for gender dysphoria is to align the person’s gender identity and gender expression.
To me, this makes sense when applied to your own life. Therapy might be able to help me realize that my perception of the size of my nose is not accurate, but therapy is not going to be effective at changing my gender identity. Do you feel that your gender identity could be changed using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy?
3) Refer back to the questions that I think should be asked if you find it too difficult to accommodate pronouns:
>What do you expect someone who is gender dysphoric to do? What do you believe the appropriate course of action is for someone in that situation? What would you expect or appreciate if you were a person in that situation?
These are good points and great questions!
Your description of getting surgeries based on a distorted view of what they see in the mirror sounds exactly like gender dysphoria to me.
I have a big nose like you and even having had romantic partners compliment me on it hasn't stopped me feeling bad about it, but I agree it's definitely more trivial than believing you ought to be the other sex, somehow. They usually say "it's handsome" rather than try to convince me it's a normal size, which is perhaps a more merciful lie!
I don't know about CBT, but I know that people can be convinced by others that they should be the other sex: it happens all the time on youtube, tiktok, tumblr and across the web. That's how this became so wide spread in the first place.
So I absolutely believe people can be helped to accept the truth of themselves and their real body and not require hormonal or surgical interventions. Here I'm mostly talking about insecure young people - the very different cohort of older men where there's a sexual element involved might be boned (pardon the pun!) but that's all the more reason not to have the rest of society change laws and social mores to facilitate it.
If I was gender dysphoric (unable to accept the truth and be comfortable in my own body) AND believing in gender identity then I'm sure I would expect people to affirm my delusion and I'd viscerally dislike those that didn't. If I was later cured, I'd hope I'd appreciate those who stuck to their guns and didn't lie to me. Maybe it's impossible to fully accept yourself (like our big noses) and one just has to live with it and cope with it as healthily as they can. I would consider getting my nose carved down to size (regardless of how big it really is) a failure for everyone involved.
It sounds like we have established that body dysmorphia and gender dysphoria are not really the same thing? Two conditions can have a similar thread but not be the same or even related, nor require the same approach or treatment.
In terms of "people being convinced by others", I think this is a relatively recent phenomenon. I think it's possible to be simultaneously concerned about social contagion and social influences, especially among young people who don't have a fully developed understanding of themselves, hasty treatments without due diligence on behalf of medical providers, commercial incentives in the medical community, etc, etc... while also acknowledging that some people simply do suffer from legitimate, intractable gender dysphoria.
There is no evidence that I can find that reparative therapy is effective. A teenager being lured into something on social media for social clout is simply not the same thing as a person who genuinely, intractably believes that they were born in the wrong body.
> If I was gender dysphoric (unable to accept the truth and be comfortable in my own body)
One thing I find interesting about this framing ("unable to accept the truth", "affirm my delusion") is that it seems to ignore any kind of biological/chemical occurrences in the body and brain that could explain gender dysphoria and instead casts it purely in a judgemental "these trans people are just nuts" light, which seems odd given that this is a topic on which we clearly don't have all the answers.
I agree with absolutely everything you've said here!
Just my alternative conclusion is: you can't fix anything by compelling people to play along with someone else's delusion, whether the source is social, psychological, biochemical, sexual, whatever.
A "delusion" would be looking down and seeing a penis where a vagina exists. There is nothing delusional about understanding and acknowledging a difference between your identity and biological sex and seeking alignment between the two, in fact, it's a pretty rational approach versus the alternative of living in permanent misery.
Just because we cannot see the physical manifestation of suffering or understand someone's experience when put through the lens of our own experience does not mean that their suffering does not exist or is irrational or delusional. Many chronic pain sufferers understand this.
One thing I can't understand is the assertion that simply respecting another person, usually by doing nothing other than accommodating some alternative pronoun use is such an incredible burden so as to cause apparent extreme mental anguish among the people being asked for this accommodation.
If I have an acquaintance who is transgender, using their preferred pronouns that match their outward appearance and identity is:
1) Not difficult - what is more difficult and socially strange is referring to a person who is trying to present as a woman a "man" or a person who is trying to present as a man a "woman".
2) Not a self-delusion - or any kind of determination at all, really - about their biological sex. I have encountered non-transgender people in my life who are androgynous. You either make a mistake with their pronouns, or ask. There is no way of knowing what their biological makeup is, and I don't experience any kind of internal consternation over it. You take what they say at face value and move on.
3) Is simply offering a modicum of respect.
So much of all of this is tied up in the fact that a lot of people, for whatever reason, just really want to be mean. It seems their default is to be sneering, judgemental, and offer behavior that is more indicative of the worst instincts of high school students rather than well-adjusted adults.
What is "gender identity"? What is the evidence that "gender identity" exists, outside of my identity as a sexed being (ie the influence of hormones on my brain and psychological development, the knowledge of my own body)? If such a phenomena as "gender identity" exists outside of biological sex, why redefine words like "she" and "woman", which have always referred to biological sex, instead of coming up with new words to refer to gender identity?
I'm a bit confused as to why you are pretending that the word "gender" and the concept of gender either doesn't exist or is part of some very recent flimsy social construct. The concept of gender being used to categorize things as male/female/masculine/feminine is not new, and the concept of gender roles being used for general (not rigid) categorization of male and female traits is not new, either.
> I'm a bit confused as to why you are pretending that the word "gender" and the concept of gender either doesn't exist or is part of some very recent flimsy social construct. The concept of gender being used to categorize things as male/female/masculine/feminine is not new, and the concept of gender roles being used for general (not rigid) categorization of male and female traits is not new, either.
I said 'gender identity' not 'gender'.
Up until the early 1900s, the word "gender" did not apply to people. It applied to words. The word "libro" has a masculine gender, but obviously the object itself has no gender or sex. Rarely, "gender" was a synonym for sex, but this was generally considered to be informal or a mistake. As Henry Watson Fowler, a teacher of English usage, wrote in 1926:
> "Gender...is a grammatical term only. To talk of persons...of the masculine or feminine gender, meaning of the male or female sex, is either a jocularity (permissible or not according to context) or a blunder."
Then in middle-1900s academics began defining gender in various new ways. Money used it as a word to describe the way a person presents their sex. Other academics invented the term "gender role" to describe the things a culture associates with men and women. These academics did not believe that "gender" was some innate characteristic of a person's mind. In fact, many of them were arguing there was no difference between men and women in the head, and "gender" roles were social constructions. Even here, though, the concept of gender applied to things, not to people (eg the gender of pink clothes is feminine).
At the same, time the word "sex" began to more commonly be used to refer to coitus, and so normal, non-academics started using gender more commonly as a synonym for biological sex to avoid using the word "sex."
Then in the last thirty years, the term "gender identity" has arisen to describe one's own internal sense of being a boy/man or woman/girl in one's own mind (see the genderbread person), and furthermore the claim is that this is immutable and if there is a conflict between your "gender identity" and biology or how society sees you, it is your biology and/or society that should change. It is only in the last thirty years that people are considered to have something called "gender" that is different than biological sex.
Interestingly this new sense of "gender" almost seems to be a mutant child of the two, completely separate previous definitions of the word gender (gender as biological sex, a property of a person, man or woman and gender as ones presentation and expression more masculine or feminine).
I do not believe that "gender identity" is a meaningful concept. It is an anti-concept, it mashes together unlike things and makes it harder to think and reason about the underlying phenomena. I do not believe that someone has a fixed gender identity that can be distinguished from their biological sex. I do not believe believe that "gender" (as opposed to biological sex) is a property of a person.
"I am a woman, but I don't always like to act or dress as a stereotypical woman, my self-expression is fluid" is a banal and unobjectionable statement.
"I don't like to act or dress as a stereotypical woman, therefore I am not a woman, my gender identity is genderqueer/non-binary" does not make any sense. It is making a mishmash of concepts.
If you believe the modern idea of "gender identity" is real and valuable then you need to properly define it, explain why it is useful, and what is your evidence that it really exists.
It doesn't cause extreme mental anguish, I just... don't have to play along with childish games like pretending someone can be the opposite sex. I just don't! However easy or respectful you think it would be for me to play make believe, or even just pay two-faced lip service.
That seems to really wind people up but since the executive order today (I'm not American incidentally), everyone is going to have to get used to it.
I don't sneer, by the way. Never have, never will! I'm more of a smirker. ;)
> It doesn't cause extreme mental anguish, I just... don't have to play along with childish games like pretending someone can be the opposite sex.
See, this is where you guys get it twisted. This is not a matter of playing along, it's not a game. It's a matter of social practicality. Example:
If you meet a new person who clearly appears to be a woman, do you use female pronouns with that person? What if that person is biologically male and has transitioned, and you simply don't know that? Presumably you don't do genital inspections on every new person you meet to ensure that you are not "playing along with childish games", right?
I do not advocate routine genital check for office workers. The crucial questions for me are the following:
1) should institutions that have female only spaces or events be allowed to exclude pre-op transwomen? Post-op? For example, the women's only nude spa in Seattle that got in trouble for excluding a transwoman -- https://www.courthousenews.com/after-banning-trans-women-was...
2) If a coworker of mine who I know to be a biological male (he has sired children, etc.) socially transitions (no surgery), should I be forced to call him "she" and say that he is a woman? What if he makes almost zero effort to pass as a woman? What if he medically transitions?
3) Should I be able to make an argument on social media (Reddit etc.) such as "Men cannot get pregant" or "trans women are not real women" without getting banned for hateful conduct?
All three of these things are really happening, and are the real issues getting me freaked out (also, that and transitioning kids who very obviously are not "girls in a boys body")
> 1) should institutions that have female only spaces or events be allowed to exclude pre-op transwomen? Post-op? For example, the women's only nude spa in Seattle that got in trouble for excluding a transwoman
I'm not sure how such a thing is strictly enforceable. Even in states that have banned trans people from using the bathroom that they prefer, it seems to operate mostly on the honor system.
> If a coworker of mine who I know to be a biological male (he has sired children, etc.) socially transitions (no surgery), should I be forced to call him "she"
What does "forced" mean? The reality is that if you cannot make this basic accommodation that most people consider to be a matter of social etiquette in 2025, other people may not perceive you in a positive way and that can have unintended consequences.
You mentioned in another reply that you feel its important to respect cultural norms and expectations when it comes to things like what you are expected to wear. Well, basic respect of pronouns and not antagonizing transgender people are increasingly a 'cultural norm'.
> Should I be able to make an argument on social media (Reddit etc.) such as "Men cannot get pregant" or "trans women are not real women" without getting banned for hateful conduct?
People seem to make comments like this on reddit without getting banned now? A search of reddit for that term brings up many results.
There seems to be a resurgence and re-normalization of plain LGBTQ+ hate and antagonization these days. Twitter/X is full of people thrilled that "gay" and "retarded" are acceptable adjectives for them to use again.
So, in January 2025 I am not really buying any arguments about "I'm not allowed to even discuss basic issues around gender" because those discussions are absolutely happening and the rules seem less restrictive than they have in a long time.
Exhibit A: Mark Zuckerberg's latest announcement that you are allowed to post vile garbage about LGBTQ people without restriction.
Psychotherapy is simply not effective at changing someone’s gender identity or ameliorating gender dysphoria. The established treatment for gender dysphoria is to align the person’s gender identity and gender expression.
Can you find a randomized controlled study where the "affirmative" approach of aligning gender expression with identity has been compared to a "reparative" approach of aligning identity with biology? I have read a lot of studies on this and what you are saying simply is not backed by the evidence. Whenever I read a study that has been referenced on NPR or such, I read the details and the details do not support what the people citing the study say it supports.
In all other cases, if someone's mental conception of themselves was not aligned with the biological reality of their self, we would say the default is that the person should try to adjust their mental conception. A treatment that involved all of society changing, or even more extreme -- actual removal of body parts -- would need to pass a very high burden of experimental evidence. From what I have read, that burden of proof has not ever been close to being met. There are no studies that say that aligning gender expression works better than helping the person cope with or get over their dysphoria. If I have missed such a study, I would like to read it.
Do you feel that your gender identity could be changed using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy?
I do not have a gender identity and I do not have a gender. I a sex and I have an identity as a sexed being. I have a brain that has developed under the influence of testosterone, I have the knowledge of having a penis, I have the knowledge that society sees me as a male and penis-haver and all that entails. I have the knowledge that if I used a woman's locker room and exposed my penis, women would freak out, and so I do not do that. Etc. etc. I wear the clothes that I do because that is what society expects of me. There are all sorts of clothes and outfits from other cultures that I prefer aesthetically but I don't wear because they do not align with the norms of my current culture.
It's actually really difficult for me to understand how a person's fundamental well-being is intrinsically and immalleably tied to names and clothing.
Of all the possible forms of clothing humans have worn in the last ten-thousand years, only a tiny sliver of those clothing are socially acceptable for me to wear. And yet we all deal with that.
If someone were to intentionally call me the wrong name, while everyone else gets called the name they have asked to be called, that would bother me, but only because that is a power move that singles me out. If I were to, say, join a fraternity, where everyone had to have a name assigned to them, that would not bother me, and I would be fine being called that name while hanging out in the fraternity.
If someone were to call me a "woman" I would be upset because it is the reality of my biology that I am a man. Furthermore, saying you are a "woman" is usually saying, "You lack the positive qualities we usually associate with being a man -- you are weak, you are cowardly, you are whiny, etc."
The RCTs that validate your assertion (or mine) when comparing reparative therapy and affirmation do not exist. All that we have to rely on now is the overwhelming consensus among medical and mental health professionals, and that consensus appears to exist among major reputable bodies worldwide, and is based on their many decades of collective clinical experience and research.
I understand your perspective - in a different world without ethical qualms or risk of harm we could conduct those studies and maybe have better, more conclusive answers. What I am suggesting is that we have the data and research that we have. While you have chosen to draw a line at requiring randomized controlled trials to convince you that a certain outcome is the right one, there is an abundance of research and clinical data that does exist endorsing affirmation of gender identity, and we can explore some of it, if you like.
> In all other cases, if someone's mental conception of themselves was not aligned with the biological reality of their self, we would say the default is that the person should try to adjust their mental conception.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by "other cases" that are directly comparable with gender dysphoria, and can you find some studies that support the effectiveness of this approach? Gender dysphoria seems pretty unique from a clinical perspective despite a common thread it may have with other conditions.
> I do not have a gender identity and I do not have a gender. I a sex and I have an identity as a sexed being.
I think it's great that you are very clear on your role in society when it comes to what side of the biological sex binary you are on. It's a luxury to not have to be concerned with it, but not everyone has that luxury.
> It's actually really difficult for me to understand how a person's fundamental well-being is intrinsically and immalleably tied to names and clothing.
What you are saying here is that "this is my experience and I do not understand why everyone else does not have the same experience". Do you not see a problem with that? You can have your opinion and that's fine. Other people do not have to share your opinion or approach the world in the same way.
You appear to start from your biology and work backwards, as if the mind does not exist. Others would suggest that you and your biology do not even exist without the conscious mind making them real. Thus, the power of the conscious mind is actually more critical to this whole equation than whatever your biology is.
Stop thinking about your own experience for 5 minutes and think about the experiences of other people and where they might be coming from based on their own perception, experience and biological realities - including the biology of what goes on in the brain!
The RCTs that validate your assertion (or mine) when comparing reparative therapy and affirmation do not exist. All that we have to rely on now is the overwhelming consensus among medical and mental health professionals, and that consensus appears to exist among major reputable bodies worldwide, and is based on their many decades of collective clinical experience and research.
If medical bodies are changing guidelines without basing on it solid studies and evidence, then those medical bodies should be considered compromised and corrupt. Especially when that treatments involving treatments that will permanently sterilize minors. If they are not following the evidence, then they are not "experts" or "scientists" they are ideological fanatics wearing the skin-suit of science.
In following the transgender issue, what I have noticed is that doctors who take the common sense approach, "Your child has a penis, he is a boy, you need to reinforce that and he will get over it" don't make any money. They do not open "gender identity clinics" because there is no money in dispensing common sense. The doctors who tell parents to "let the child explore their gender" and "let's help solidify their transgender identity" prolong the problem and create a recurring revenue stream for themselves. Then, because these doctors are the "head of a gender identity clinic serving thousands of children" these same doctors are the one's who are put in charge of writing the standard of care and the guidelines. It is totally perverse set of incentives.
I'd recommend reading up on how the sausage is made in coming up with the "consensus":
https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/gender-medicines-citatio...
https://www.nysun.com/article/leaked-files-from-influential-...
Can you elaborate on what you mean by "other cases" that are directly comparable with gender dysphoria, and can you find some studies that support the effectiveness of this approach?
If someone was too short, or too tall, or thought they were black (even though they were unambiguously white),
You appear to start from your biology and work backwards, as if the mind does not exist.
No, I don't believe that mind and body exist as wholly separate entities. This is very obvious in the case of sex where the hormones emitted by my testicles very clearly have all kinds of effects on my mind.
> It's actually really difficult for me to understand how a person's fundamental well-being is intrinsically and immalleably tied to names and clothing. > > > What you are saying here is that "this is my experience and I do not understand why everyone else does not have the same experience".
No, what I'm saying it is difficult to even see how an immalleabile tie between well-being and wearing a dress could have possibly evolved, when clothing has been so different throughout human history and people are thus obviously very flexible in the type of clothes they can wear.
What you are saying here is that "this is my experience and I do not understand why everyone else does not have the same experience". Do you not see a problem with that?
Until a mind reading machine exists, that is all that any of us can do. I have read various accounts of trans-people's experiences and I am not convinced that there is some immalleable preference in their mind that makes them female internally. Certainly some men have a very strong desire to act out the role of female, but that is different there actually being female in the brain. But because of the way various medical guidelines works, and the law works, there is incentive to lie about this.
I am well aware of the current concerns around the incentives that exist in the medical industry when it comes to the treatment of gender dysphoric people. Some of it we should absolutely be concerned about, particularly when it comes to treatment of children.
Where the current public discourse on these issues goes off the rails is that we conclude that, because these concerns around improper incentives and improper treatment exists, or because there are some issues around social influence of children on social media, that "gender dysphoria" broadly is either not real or not a legitimate problem that people deal with.
> If someone was too short, or too tall, or thought they were black (even though they were unambiguously white)
If someone was 5'8" and underwent leg-lengthening therapy to become 6'1", would we not call that person "tall", or would we jump through strange mental hoops to justify antagonizing them based on their genetic makeup?
> Until a mind reading machine exists
Again, the problem here is that you are concluding that unless you can rationalize and validate someone else's thought process or mental condition through the lens of your own experience, then their experience is irrelevant to you, not real, and that they are worthy of mockery and derision instead of respect and consideration.
We don't need a mind reading machine to understand what gender dysphoria is, because gender dysphoric people tell us what they are thinking and feeling, not to mention they tend to know what will reduce their feelings of dysphoria.
We don't need a mind reading machine to understand what gender dysphoria is, because gender dysphoric people tell us what they are thinking and feeling
It's not this simple. For one, lots of people are all kinds of confused. There are people who think they are dysphoric, transition, then realize they totally messed up. There are people who say, "I went through a period when I was a kid where I was a tom-boy or told my parents I was the other sex -- thank goodness this kind of ideology wasn't around then because I could have been trannsed. I'm perfectly happy in my biological sex right now." If you read a lot of stories they aren't necessarily "dysphoric" they just think it will benefit them someway to transition, in the same way a weightlifter who goes on steroids is not "dysphoric" about his body, he just might think he is happier to be muscled up.
And we also have people who later admit that they lied about the nature gender identity in order to get sex change drugs and trans people who admit there is substantial political pressure to make their personal testimonials about gender identity conform to a certain script: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trans-rights-biologi... https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-30/essays/on-liking-women/
Because we do not actually have the technology to turn a man into a female (or vice versa), I think the most honest and best course is to tell that person, "Sorry, you are not a woman, and the surgery you are asking for will not actually get you want you want. Cross-dressing and wearing lipstick does not make you a woman. But if you learn to accept who you are, you can live a happy life." To be convinced that this common sense approach is not the best approach, I would need very strong evidence -- at minimum multiple randomized controlled trials by honest researchers.
> There are people who think they are dysphoric, transition, then realize they totally messed up.
Some people start businesses, it doesn't go well, they then realized they messed up and totally regret it. Does this mean that all entrepreneurship should be banned?
The logical failure in your argument is that you are saying that because there are problems with current approaches to transgender care, that gender dysphoria is not real and does not need to be taken seriously or treated or accommodated.
> I think the most honest and best course is to tell that person, "Sorry, you are not a woman, and the surgery you are asking for will not actually get you want you want. Cross-dressing and wearing lipstick does not make you a woman. But if you learn to accept who you are, you can live a happy life."
There is zero evidence that your "common sense approach" works at all, and there is zero evidence that reparative or conversion therapy works at all for those with legitimate gender dysphoria.
There is zero evidence that your "common sense approach" works at all, and there is zero evidence that reparative or conversion therapy works at all for those with legitimate gender dysphoria.
Clinical psychologists Kenneth Zucker's work in getting the majority of his patients over their dysphoria is "evidence" that reparative therapy works -- https://www.thecut.com/2016/02/fight-over-trans-kids-got-a-r...
Every random comment on Reddit that "I suffered from dysphoria and then started lifting and doing masculine things and got completely over it" is evidence that reparative therapy works.
It's not gold standard evidence, it's not proof-beyond-a-reasonable doubt, but it is evidence. But the "evidence" for "affirmation" and "medical transition" do not meet this gold standard either.
With medicine, the burden of proof is on the person doing the intervention. "First do no harm." Social transition and medical transition are both MAJOR interventions, the burden of proof is on the proponents. "You have to give people this drug, no we have never done a controlled clinical trial on it, but you have no evidence that NOT giving them the treatment works." What? You need to do a RCT before promoting a new treatment as the standard of care. "Affirmation" has never proved itself in an RCT so "Sorry, you are a man" should be the default.
> Clinical psychologists Kenneth Zucker's work in getting the majority of his patients over their dysphoria is "evidence" that reparative therapy works
You are conflating social trends among young people to identify as gender non-confirming for social clout, with adults who have intractable gender dysphoria. It is disingenuous to point to children who were likely not genuinely gender dysphoric to begin with, claim that they were 'cured' and conclude that this solution is then viable for all people with gender dysphoria. There is an incredible amount of nuance to the situation that you are simply ignoring.
One of two things is true:
1) You genuinely do not understand the 'separation of concerns' when it comes to these issues surround gender, biological sex and gender dysphoria, current social trends, and sensational political headlines.
2) You are being intentionally misleading.
I'm going to assume you are arguing in good faith and that #1 is true. In that case, I recommend you take a step back and try to recalibrate your understanding of the issue. I don't know the best way to accomplish that - maybe do some research and read some stories of transgender people published prior to 2015 before it became the political fight du jour.
>Every random comment on Reddit that "I suffered from dysphoria and then started lifting and doing masculine things and got completely over it" is evidence that reparative therapy works.
You've gone from demanding randomized controlled trials to referring to random comments from anonymous users on Reddit about how lifting weights cures gender dysphoria?
I think it's safe to say that the conversation has gone off the rails, although maybe that happened a few replies ago.
You are conflating social trends among young people to identify as gender non-confirming for social clout, with adults who have intractable gender dysphoria.
It's not just me who is conflating them, the official medical establishment doesn't treat children much differently these days. Zucker was canceled, "watchful waiting" or "reparative therapy" is officially condemned by the APA. "Intractable gender dysphoria" is not something that can be reliably or objectively diagnosed a priori. A relative of mine who has transitioned their son, partly based on medical advice, partly on the advice of adult trans friends, seems to repeating arguments about it being a fixed property and affirmative care being the only approach. Now, I personally do not think this boy has dysphoria at all, he sees a perfectly normal boy to me, he just liked Elsa and princess dresses as a kid because Elsa is a super-stimuli character. But that's not what the medical people say.
You can't separate the kids and adults issue because the most powerful activists who are making policy and getting people canceled are not making a proper distinction themselves.
You can't separate the kids and adults issue because there was a direct road from redefining the words "man" and "woman" to the medical "experts" like Diane Ehrensaft, cited by NPR and NY Times telling parents to not tell their four-year-old things like: "you have a penis, you can never grow up to be a woman or get pregnant, you will grow up to be a man, you are a boy."
It's not the sensationalist headlines that is making me freak about this, it's seeing my own relatives sending a little boy down the path where "continuity of care" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0V0PXrezHM ) will lead to having his penis cut off like Jazz Jennings -- https://malcolmrichardclark.substack.com/p/the-truth-about-j... https://x.com/SJWilliams123/status/1654534161015635973
I don't know the best way to accomplish that - maybe do some research and read some stories of transgender people published prior to 2015 before it became the political fight du jour.
I have, but you need to re-calibrate your understand for the recent situation. The people who transitioning now are not exhibiting the same types of life stories as those who did thirty years ago. It seems like a different phenomena, and I am much more concerned with the phenomena now, when if afflicts so many people, including parents I know who are transitioning their kids, than I am about the phenomena 30 years ago.
You've gone from demanding randomized controlled trials to referring to random comments from anonymous users on Reddit about how lifting weights cures gender dysphoria?
Yes, once you have anecdotal evidence of something working on a n=1 approach, the thing to do is expand it to an n=many RCT. That hasn't been done. It should have been done. Also, comments on niche subreddits inhabited by relatively normal people are some of the best anecdotal evidence you can find. Anecdotes from friend groups are limited in their own way. Popular memoirs and newspaper stories are both highly selected and filtered by publishers for preferred narratives, and the person writing them understands that a lot is at stake and they have to be careful about how they narrate their story. Random commenters on niche forums have much less incentive to lie (this doesn't apply to big forums where people will lie to get rise out of people, and the comments that reach visibility are selected).
I see this argument all the time and I have so, so many questions about it. It just does not make a lot of sense to me. Please know that while we have fundamental disagreements, I am also genuinely trying to understand this worldview.
According to your definition, what is an intersex person? How should one refer to one? There are intersex people who who look like women but have penises, and vice versa. You can simply Google "example of intersex person" to see plenty of them, and they have always existed. Most intersex people do not have either reproduction strategy, and are wholly infertile. Even amongst those who are not, the strategy they have often does not line up with how they look, act, or feel. They are a small subset of society, but so are trans people - on a cursory search, about 1-2% of the population is intersex, and about 1-2% is trans.
The thing I don't understand is, if your answer is anything other than "I have no way to refer to such a person and could not use pronouns to refer to them," (or using the ze/zir neopronouns which I suspect nearly none of them have ever heard of) then it would stand to reason your decision about using "she" or "he" for someone is based at least partially on how they read to you culturally, and not your definition as laid out here.
And even if that isn't true, why does "adult human female" have to map to "woman", and vice versa? Who says, other than you, and what more authority do you have than anyone? I know a lot of trans people - MTF and FTM - who are not distinguishable from your definition unless you interrogate their genitalia, or in some cases, their genetics. If you see such a person, and use the "wrong" pronouns according to your definition for them, would you then feel guilty for not using the "right" ones? If not, why not?
All of this is to say that I don't see how your reduce-it-to-biology-and-never-waver definition is workable in society, and I don't understand why folks - yourself included, it seems - are so insistent on it.
The vast majority of people with some kind of intersex disorder are still very clearly either male or female. Hermaphrodites, that is, people whose primary sex organs developed in a way that make them truly ambiguous, are vanishingly rare. And in that case it would be acceptable for them to identify as whatever sex they feel is the closest.
My problem is not that I'm never willing to be generous and charitable with people who are genuinely edge cases. My problem is corporate and government policies that require me to lie about non-edge cases.
* I know a lot of trans people - MTF and FTM - who are not distinguishable from your definition unless you interrogate their genitalia, or in some cases, their genetics. If you see such a person, and use the "wrong" pronouns according to your definition for them, would you then feel guilty for not using the "right" ones? If not, why not?*
Again, my problem is required being to lie. If I have a coworker who I know is a man, he has always called himself a man, he has the secondary sexual characteristics of a man, he is six foot with a beard, he has sired a child -- and then one day he comes into the office wearing a dress and long-hair and insist on being called a "she" and insist on going into the woman's locker room at the gym, I would find that intolerable because I know the coworker is not a woman. I am being told to lie.
If my boss says "There are four marbles in this box" and I have never seen inside the box, I will say, "Ok, got it, I have no reason to accuse you of lying, there are four marbles in the box." But if I see with my own eyes that there are two marbles in the box, and my boss says, "There are four marbles in the box, say it say 'there are four marbles' it or you are fired" that is dystopian and intolerable.
Now, let's say I have a coworker who always presented as female, the coworker maybe had a bit of an uncanny valley thing at times, but I have never asked about it and have always called the coworker "she." One day, there is a work-family outing to a water park, and in the locker room the coworker is naked and exposes zis penis in view of my wife and daughter and they tell me about it. I would not feel guilty about calling the coworker "she" but I would feel angry with the coworker for lying about his sex.
And even if that isn't true, why does "adult human female" have to map to "woman", and vice versa?
The entire point of language is to "cut reality at the joints", we create words in order to group natural kinds together in a way that allow for common understanding and decision-making. If society wants to redefine "woman" as meaning something else, we would still want a word to mean "adult human female" because it is a natural kind. When we redefine woman, we see all the contortions people go . All of science, all of human knowledge relies on being better and better at organizing and recognizing and create common language around finding patterns in nature.
All of this is to say that I don't see how your reduce-it-to-biology-and-never-waver definition is workable in society, and I don't understand why folks - yourself included, it seems - are so insistent on it.
For all the reasons we make distinctions between men and women, or divide up men and women -- from locker rooms to sports to prisons, to assigning rooms during multi-family vacations, or assigning rooms at college, to single-sex schools, to certain dress standards, to sexual harassment litigation, to etiquette and social norms around inviting people to do activities -- it all comes down to biology. It all comes down to massive physical disparities between men and women (eg, a punch from an average man does to a woman does approximately 1000% the damage a punch from a woman does to a man), and the male potentiality to impregnate women, and all the physical and biological differences that have evolved as a result of reality. The reason historically cultures have clothing and appearance cues to distinguish sex is because the biology is very important, we want to know it as soon we meet someone, but we don't want to look at their genitalia, so cultures have arbitrary conventions (pronouns, male & female names, pink versus blue) etc. to indicate biological sex at first meeting. Destroying these distinctions and saying, "it's all what a person wants to be" is completely novel in history and the burden of proof is on those who want to change the status quo, and after following this issue for 15 years I only become more convinced that burden-of-proof has not been met and that it really does all come down to biology.
I don't understand the focus on someone, in your view, lying to you - I suspect we agree that in the scenario you described, it seeming that the person has lied to you about what's in their pants is much less important than the fact that they whipped it out in front of your family. It wouldn't be any better if a man who identified as such snuck into the changing room and did the same thing. I think focusing on criminal behavior is similarly focusing on an edge case, given that the vast majority of trans people, and people in general, are not criminals who expose themselves to children.
What about this more likely scenario: If this co-worker never did such a thing, they were a perfectly pleasant and normal person to work with, and you only found out they were trans after you or they had left the company and you no longer worked together, would you still be angry they had lied to you - why or why not? Would whether they'd ever gone into a changing room in your presence affect that anger?
What if this person was someone like the photo I used in the other thread, and they looked something like this: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRO1Vem... - the next time you saw them, would you start referring to them as "she" and call them a liar?
I don't fundamentally agree that dressing, acting, or wanting to be referred to a certain way equates to lying to someone about what's in their pants. Even if it did, I also just don't fundamentally understand why it matters if someone does lie to you about that, in average everyday situations.
I can understand that there are circumstances where it does matter. I'm not saying it couldn't ever. But I don't understand why the default position is rejection and anger.
> The entire point of language is to "cut reality at the joints", we create words in order to group natural kinds together in a way that allow for common understanding and decision-making. If society wants to redefine "woman" as meaning something else, we would still want a word to mean "adult human female" because it is a natural kind. When we redefine woman, we see all the contortions people go . All of science, all of human knowledge relies on being better and better at organizing and recognizing and create common language around finding patterns in nature.
That seems like a solvable problem to me. Our initial attempts at solving it have been awkward, but we'll get there. I think I'm more concerned about what path society agrees on going forward than the specifics of how we do it, for now.
> Destroying these distinctions and saying, "it's all what a person wants to be" is completely novel in history
This also is not true. There are numerous well-documented cases of trans people throughout history, and there are long-standing concepts of "third genders" and others dating back thousands of years (see e. g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender#Old_World).
I don't understand the focus on someone, in your view, lying to you - I suspect we agree that in the scenario you described, it seeming that the person has lied to you about what's in their pants is much less important than the fact that they whipped it out in front of your family. It wouldn't be any better if a man who identified as such snuck into the changing room and did the same thing. I think focusing on criminal behavior is similarly focusing on an edge case
No, under transgender ideology -- "transwomen are women" -- the MtF trans-woman being naked, penis-and-all in a locker room is not a crime. In fact, states that have fully adopted this ideology have made it illegal to expel that trans-woman from the locker room. It is this ideology that I reject. See for instance: https://reduxx.info/korean-womens-spa-forced-to-erase-biolog... https://www.courthousenews.com/after-banning-trans-women-was...
What about this more likely scenario: If this co-worker never did such a thing, they were a perfectly pleasant and normal person to work with, and you only found out they were trans after you or they had left the company and you no longer worked together, would you still be angry they had lied to you - why or why not? Would whether they'd ever gone into a changing room in your presence affect that anger?
Imagine I had a co-worker "Mike" who said they were married, told stories about stuff their wife does around the house, etc. I sometimes asked them about their wife, I told other people, "Oh, Mike, yeah, he's married." Then after he leaves I find out beyond a reasonable a doubt that he was not married, he had been living alone the entire time, etc.
I wouldn't exactly be angry with Mike, I may even have some pity for him, but I would be wary of him going forward. If I met him, I would be polite, and I would neither affirm anything he said about his wife nor would I make a stink about it, and I would try to limit my interactions because I simply could not understand his mind. Was he lying? Delusional? A story-teller? I don't know but it's not really worth it to me to find out.
So it would be the same with the trans person I meet later on. I would simply not use the person's pronouns, I would be polite and neither affirm nor deny their status. I would be wary and limit my interactions because I would, charitably speaking, lack of a theory of that person's mind, and it would simply not be worth by time, energy, and risk for me to try to navigate the situation without getting myself in trouble.
This also is not true. There are numerous well-documented cases of trans people throughout history, and there are long-standing concepts of "third genders" and others dating back thousands of years (see e. g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender#Old_World).
There is a big difference between a third gender and a man saying, "I'm a woman because I say so" or "transwomen are women." Eunuchs, eg, were not women, and were not considered to be so. If we want to say that cross-dressing men are a "third gender" that is more acceptable to me than saying they are women and entitled to all the rights and privileges of women and you are fired or cancelled if you say otherwise.
I also should have qualified, as saying "novel in the history of successful societies." Societies in their late stages of decadence and decline have done all sorts of crazy things. Emperor Elagabalus was perhaps "trans" but that was always considered as crazy and bad behavior.
> Societies in their late stages of decadence and decline have done all sorts of crazy things.
So we have you on record saying that traditional Native American societies like the Zuni were "in their late stages of decadence and decline"?
> No, under transgender ideology -- "transwomen are women" -- the MtF trans-woman being naked, penis-and-all in a locker room is not a crime. In fact, states that have fully adopted this ideology have made it illegal to expel that trans-woman from the locker room. It is this ideology that I reject. See for instance: https://reduxx.info/korean-womens-spa-forced-to-erase-biolog... https://www.courthousenews.com/after-banning-trans-women-was...
The way you wrote your example, I didn't read it as "the person happened to be naked near my wife and child," I read it as "the person purposefully exposed themselves to my wife and child intending them to see it." It's not normal changing room etiquette to present your genitalia to people forcefully or purposefully and it could be a crime of assault even if the person had the same genitalia as the offender. Did I misunderstand you?
Assuming you actually meant "a person was incidentally naked around my wife and child and a penis was visible for a moment," I am having a much harder time finding that objectionable in the same way as I found what I understood the scenario to be. I'm not saying I'm for it, maybe there needs to be some third solution so people aren't uncomfortable, but I'm not seeing it as harmful in the same way an open sexual assault would be. Is the concern that trans people will commit assault, or is it that they will be present at all?
> So it would be the same with the trans person I meet later on. I would simply not use the person's pronouns, I would be polite and neither affirm nor deny their status. I would be wary and limit my interactions because I would, charitably speaking, lack of a theory of that person's mind, and it would simply not be worth by time, energy, and risk for me to try to navigate the situation without getting myself in trouble.
I don't agree that this example with Mike is an apples-to-apples comparison. You have a mapping in your head of "wears dresses and skirts and makeup and long hair, must have a vagina," and I just don't consider that mapping to be valid. Here's a counter-example that I think is more accurate to the situation:
Your colleague Mike wears a ring on his ring finger. He has many photos on his desk of himself with a woman about his age, in which they are hugging or in funny poses together. He refers to her as "Alice" and he mentions her frequently. You assume that Mike is married, and Alice is his wife. For years you and Mike talk about Alice together and he never quite says anything to dispel this, nor do you ask.
Years after you work together, you find out that Alice is Mike's sister, and the ring is a family heirloom. Mike is not and has never been married and is confused and maybe grossed out at someone's suggestion that he's married to Alice.
Did Mike lie to you, or did you just make an assumption about him that wasn't accurate?
There seems to be this fundamental expectation that people will organize and present themselves in a way that allows you to map them into the categories you have in your head. When people don't fall neatly into those categories, it seems like you treat them as incomprehensible at best, purposeful liars at worse, when the reality is that all assumptions are just assumptions and there's no reason not to just be like "oh, I made a wrong assumption" and then move on.
> There is a big difference between a third gender and a man saying, "I'm a woman because I say so" or "transwomen are women." Eunuchs, eg, were not women, and were not considered to be so. If we want to say that cross-dressing men are a "third gender" that is more acceptable to me than saying they are women and entitled to all the rights and privileges of women and you are fired or cancelled if you say otherwise.
I think you should look into concepts like "nonbinary" and "genderfluid"; all of these things exist along a spectrum of "trans" identity and they're not as distinct from each other as you consider them to be. The "third gender" example is only one that I supplied for convenience. There are plenty of others. The point is that gender is not an immutable concept.
Honestly, if I had to sum up one overall point over these comments, it feels like I'm saying "gender is not immutable and doesn't need to be" and you're saying "yes it is and when people try to make it otherwise it's disturbing." I'm having a lot of trouble understanding that perspective.
I am having a much harder time finding that objectionable in the same way as I found what I understood the scenario to be. I'm not saying I'm for it, maybe there needs to be some third solution so people aren't uncomfortable,
Part of the question is -- do you think society needs to distinguish between male and female? Should we have any single sex environments? Should all gym showers be coed like Starship Troopers? Should all prisons be co-ed? Should college freshmen being assigned roommates be assigned male and female pairings? If I, a man, tell my wife, "I made a new friend and we are going out for drinks tomorrow", should my wife care if this new friend is male or female?
And if you say yes, society does need to distinguish these things, is the essential matter for needing to make the distinction "how this person identifies" or "the person's actual biology"?
The transgender stuff is downstream of the modern trend to downplay all distinctions between sexes and eliminate sex segregated spaces.
I think you should look into concepts like "nonbinary" and "genderfluid"
I have. Perhaps my Mike example was bad, because I agree that most transgender people in 2024 are not lying or crazy.
I think the entire concept of "gender" being separate from "sex" is an anti-concept. I think nonbinary and genderfluid are anti-concepts. The purpose of words and concepts in a languages is to group natural kinds together for the purpose of common knowledge and communication. An anti-concept is something that groups unlike things together, that confuses and makes it harder to think and communicate about the underlying natural kinds.
Claiming to be "gender fluid" is pure nothingness, it communicates nothing real to me. I wouldn't actually care too much if "gender fluid" was created as a new concept with its own name, but it is a problem that "gender fluid" overrides and eliminates the concept of biological male and female, which I do care about.
Part of the problem is the word "gender" which originally was purely a grammatical term but since has been given about a half-dozen different directions.
If "gender" refers to the degree that someone acts and presents according to societal stereotypes as masculine or feminine, obviously we are all "gender fluid."
If "gender" is simply a synonym for biological sex, which is its most common use (I blame Austin Powers for ruining our ability to use the word "sex" on questionnaires), then "gender fluidity" is obviously false --there is no such thing in humans or mammals as being fluid in biological sex.
Either way, then, someone declaring themselves "gender fluid" is just nonsense, depending on the definition of "gender" it is either false or it applies to everyone.
It also matters when being "gender fluid" is not just some personal oddity that I can joke about, like someone being into astrology, but is treated as something I must respect and if I don't, I get fired or banned from events for code-of-conduct violations.
Going back to my Mike example, perhaps a better example would be, imagine my co-worker Mike has a picture of a girl on his desk, and talks about being a "dad" and has a "girl dad" t-shirt and when I'm talking about being a dad, he chips in with "ah, in my experience as a dad blah blah blah" ... And then I find out that the "child" he is a dad of is one of these "adopt a child" charities where he has never met her and sends her $30 a month to this girl in a foreign country and writes a letter once a year. OK, that's nice and all, but you aren't really a dad. Now Mike may not be lying or delusional. Be is participating in a campaign to redefine the word and concept of "dad" in a way that confuses rather then clarifies. He also is to some extent "stealing valor." And I object to that and I would object being forced to participate in that.
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Genuinely, how hard for you is it to call a person what they want to be called. What difference does gender make in the workplace even?
I understand it's hard for you to use different pronouns, but it's probably much harder for the person who feels like they don't identify with their gender assigned at birth.
> Requiring me to call someone who was born with a penis, and who has sired children a "she" is telling me to say that 2 + 2 = 5.
It's more like someone telling you to call them John and you call them Tyler instead. It's literally just a word.
It's more like someone telling you to call them John and you call them Tyler instead. It's literally just a word.
That's an absurd comparison. Names are something that have always been personally chosen. "He" and "she", "man" and "woman" are words that create common knowledge about the nature of reality.
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Zhao Gao was contemplating treason but was afraid the other officials would not heed his commands, so he decided to test them first. He brought a deer and presented it to the Second Emperor but called it a horse. The Second Emperor laughed and said, "Is the chancellor perhaps mistaken, calling a deer a horse?" Then the emperor questioned those around him. Some remained silent, while some, hoping to ingratiate themselves with Zhao Gao, said it was a horse, and others said it was a deer. Zhao Gao secretly arranged for all those who said it was a deer to be brought before the law and had them executed instantly. Thereafter the officials were all terrified of Zhao Gao. Zhao Gao gained military power as a result of that.
---
How hard would it be for you to call a "deer" a "horse"? It's just words.
If it's just a word and makes no difference then there should be no issue with using "he" to refer to any and all individuals of the male sex.
Must be hard to have to deal with that, I'm so sorry you have to use a different word when referring to someone.
It's obviously much harder for you to use a different pronoun than for them to have their entire gender identity invalidated. Would you like for people to misgender you constantly and purposefully?
Your life must be so hard. I feel bad for you to have to use a different word to refer to someone. Maybe have some basic decency and respect for others?
Oh so it does make a difference now?
Well then, consider that it really is not my problem if these males are offended by the simple word "he".
Have you heard of the Stroop effect?
More to the point, I've no interest whatsoever in encouraging a man's fantasy "woman" identity, quite the opposite in fact.
Perhaps these men would consider giving women and girls the basic decency and respect of refraining from such misogynistic appropriation.
They could even pick another word to describe themselves, given that "woman" is already taken. What's so hard about using a different word?
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I disagree with your first and third bullet points, as explained in my previous comment.
> If I call you a fucking asshole
Well. Aren't neopronouns getting a bit extreme these days.
> the species is divided in two.
* reproductive egg carriers,
* reproductive sperm carriers
* and then there's all the others . . .
You do understand, I hope, that not all humans are born as {A} or {B}.
Why did you change the words that I used? I said "strategy" for a reason. True intersex conditions (where the strategy is ambiguous) are vanishingly rare.
With humans, there is only male, female, and for lack of a better term, very rare birth defects. We say that arachnids are "8 legged species" even if due to birth defect a spider is occasionally born with 7 legs. We say a coin flip is a binary "heads" or "tails" even if there is a vanishingly rare chance it could land on its side.
This whole "what about people with intersex disorders" is total sophistry. If it was just people with intersex disorders, this would not be an issue. The issue is people who are very clearly one sex demanding to be treated as the other sex. The issue is publicly teaching children that it is possible to change sex.
> True intersex conditions (where the strategy is ambiguous) are vanishingly rare.
More common than gold, more common than most things I professionally deal with in geophysical exploration.
In most countries they form a real number of real actual people. There are also a much larger number of not true intersex people who are also not exactly male or female.
> With humans, there is only male, female, an
You've already conceded this isn't true.
> This whole "what about people born with a leg missing" is total sophistry.
No, it isn't, It's something that actually happens and something that public policy that gives a damn about human dignity has to deal with.
Why is it you don't care about some humans? Do they lack a soul, or something, in your eyes?
There are two key aspects here: the nature of work and a critique of woke narratives, which some argue deny recent developments by framing them as a simple desire for acceptance. Specifically, transgender individuals are seen as being elevated through diversity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, with accusations that these efforts sometimes prioritize activism over qualifications and invade female only spaces that are there for a reason.
While I understand the personal challenges you’re navigating regarding identity and humanity, it’s important to maintain boundaries between personal matters and professional life. In Silicon Valley, the focus is on achieving ambitious goals that deliver exceptional results, similar to the performance expected in professional sports. Success depends on everyone concentrating on their work, regardless of personal beliefs or identities. Therefore, keeping personal issues like sexuality and the woke religion separate from the workplace ensures a productive and diverse viewpoint inclusive environment where all qualified individuals can contribute effectively and help companies thrive against odds.
>A few days ago, Paul Graham published an essay on “Wokeness”. I skimmed it. I couldn’t finish reading it, it made me too upset.
…
>I’m still not sure what pg thinks “Wokeness” means
Hmm
The point he’s making is that Paul did not explain what he thinks “wokeness” means in a coherent way. Which is true.
How could she know if she didn’t read it.
Paul most definitely explained what he thinks "wokeness" means in a coherent way. The author has an malformed opinion on a piece he claimed to not read in its entirety.
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>We returned something like 40 or 45 cents on the dollar to our investors.
>I’d be a better startup founder today than I was in 2015.
I wonder if that means he's better at losing money now?
Didn’t we agree no more politics on HN?
If Trump getting shot doesn’t make on HN, I don’t think Trump announcing his gender policy should.
Interesting contrast. This essay is self-indulgent and the subtext is "I'm important". Paul Graham's essays are economical and the subtext is "the reader is important".
> I’m still not sure what pg thinks “Wokeness” means.
So then what is it about his essay that you find so upsetting?
I'll just say it must suck being precisely in the crosshairs of a political proxy battle. The truth is, neither the left nor the right really give a shit about transgenders but use them to rile up their bases.
First, the brief "woke" movement which was soon taken by the right and extrapolated to the extreme. It's the same tactic used by the right for any issue - when I was a kid it was "if gays can marry, then they will want to marry their pets."
They take whatever social progress has been made and push it until the concept annoys >50% of people then say "that's what the left wants."
But I can't get behind the left's approach of highlighting and siloing every sub-group. It just simplifies division and is counter to all the American "melting pot" concepts that actually worked over many decades to integrate immigrants and normalize differences.
I don't know where all of this leads, but it certainly doesn't feel like progress is ever made or even really desired, only a cycling of hot button issues to distract everyone.
It’s not really a left- right issue, as far as I’m concerned. It’s people with empathy v those without.
I dont think transgender are in the crosshairs of a political proxy battle. The issues is that many people feel disgust and hate over the idea of transgender. And whenever they become visible, they lash out and react.
It's more the behavior of trans activists that gets people riled up.
There's really no need for men who say they're women to be going around conquering everything that's for women and then admonishing people as bigots or transphobic when they object to this.
Instead they could, you know, just live their lives peacefully without launching attack after attack on women's rights. It'd be better for everyone.
I never interpreted "taking a dump in a toilette" as conquering.
> Instead they could, you know, just live their lives peacefully without launching attack after attack on women's rights. It'd be better for everyone.
Obvious issue here is that the same groups who hate trans also tend to be pretty misogynistic. So, I do not believe this is about womens rights at all.
The irony is I too dislike nagging, hollow, corporate DEI exercises. In the abstract I was glad they existed[3] but the insincerity was palpable
Footnote [3] is: A small minority of people really do need to be taught how to be kind.
The author thinks probably thinks that fairly obvious fact is some harmless premise, but I suspect he knows well enough having been through YC and in the community of American business that this is not an accurate description of how DEI was implemented in parts of corporate America and beyond. In many companies, colleges, and government agencies, DEI initiatives were implemented in a way that assumed everyone had to be taught how to be kind, were differentially guilty or prone to be guilty by (sometimes externally assumed) group association of their birth or early childhood of certain offenses, and were preferentially treated to work placements, promotions, etc.
It was more than just "hollow" in many instances. It was blatant witch hunting that ruined careers and personal lives via internet virality. If PG's greatest offense in fighting back against this was an obtusely chosen word like "woke", that's pretty minor.
>I’m certain he wouldn’t be rude to my face, but he might quietly discriminate against me, say no thanks. He might not even think of it as discrimination, only that I don’t have what it takes.
>I’m better at my job than most. I’d be a better startup founder today than I was in 2015. None of that will matter.
IMHO, jumping to conclusions just like this is a big reason why 'going woke' isn't a healthy mindset for someone to hold. Stating that none of it matters is exactly the same thing as saying "I can't do it"
> IMHO, jumping to conclusions just like this is a big reason why 'going woke' isn't a healthy mindset for someone to hold
This is not unique to "wokeness" and is in fact much more clearly expressed by people who are "anti-woke". Many folks just can't handle things that don't fit neatly into their (unexamined) categories about the world.
They'd rather destroy that person or thing rather than reflect and improve their understanding of the world.
This feels like a pretty shallow reading of the article and you've fallen into the trap - described in the article itself - that "woke" is "some left-wing thing that I don't like". Whatever your views on trans issues, I think this article deserves a more thoughtful answer.
Will you agree with the author's viewpoint that "none of experience" matters if one is trans?
My reading of the author's viewpoint is that there are a lot of people in leadership positions in the tech world who would have previously recognized the author's talent and supported them, but would now form a negative opinion of them, regardless of their experience. These people would no longer give them the opportunity they gave them previously.
I think good leaders recognize people like the author simply have an additional life burden that they both choose and need to fight against and uphill. Additionally, those fights will ebb and flow unpredictably, possibly becoming too much of a burden for them at unpredictable times. If this is what you mean by negative opinion, then I agree. But I really don't think good leaders will take it out on them personally or hold them back to the point where they choose fighting inner trans issues over their business and success.
"I really don't think good leaders will take it out on them personally"
This feels like the beginning of a "no true scotsman" fallacy. The question is not what a "good leader" does, the question is what this person's experience will be with the people they actually encounter.
That’s what facing structural oppression feels like.
You can have the right skills and competency and mindset and disposition but will be looked over because you don’t fit the norm.
It's hard to prove that this happens to any given individual, because employers aren't mandated to announce why any person was "overlooked". One might be quick to blame "structural oppression", racism, sexism, or any other -ism or -phobia, but that doesn't necessarily make it true.
I agree with this somewhat, however, facing structural oppression is very different from deciding if a journey simply isn't worth starting. The mindset and disposition you speak of is or is not inclusive of assuming oppression will fully control one's overall success and happiness at a company?
Yup but still a poor attitude to have. I feel this way often times as a white male in tech, that they would rather hire literally anyone else if they can add some much desired "diversity" but I'm sure you would disagree that this is the case. Better for me to try anyways and have the best possible outlook even if I believe the cards are stacked against me.
>I feel this way often times as a white male in tech
Wait, you feel like you face structural oppression as a white man in tech?
Could you explain what challenges you face as a result of your gender identity and race?
The person you're replying to mentioned it in the post you quoted:
> "they would rather hire literally anyone else if they can add some much desired "diversity""
He feels like his applications are automatically deprioritized in favor of minorities.
I'm pretty sure the hiring numbers still show white men have it easier than all other groups. Even with "DEI" policies.
I'd be interested to see data that suggests otherwise.
He’s saying, for people who take Zuckerberg, Trump, and Paul Graham’s statements as permission to discriminate against trans folks, their experience doesn’t matter. The author is not giving up, they’re saying that essays like Paul’s make the world worse for them, for no good reason.
I’m also a transgender woman and while I agree with the author on many points (like sharing washrooms with the sex slave caste) I think we can rely on YC to find talent and support it regardless of what race or gender it’s associated with and in defiance of possibly sexist or racist VCs.
"why go out of your way to remove them" in principle, it's fine to have them. But really, they are just a symbol of the fake performative substance free dei culture. A reminder of it. Transgender employees should not be discriminated against, should have all the protections and respect like any other employees. But do we really need tampons in mens' bathrooms, really?
If someone was born biological any male and is transitioning and still has periods, it seems useful, so why not?
how many people like this did meta have who had this issue and also had no access to a tampon, so that having it in mens' bathroom specifically was really important? what if I am a forgetful guy and I have socks with holes in them and I forget to buy new socks. Should meta bathrooms stock those socks? at some point this just becomes a bit absurd, no?
It seems similarly performative to remove them, especially in the context of the election/Zuckerberg's signalling. Yes, adding tampons to men's bathrooms was largely performative and less substantial, but the same applies to removing them.
Agree. Zuckerberg is a really unpleasant weathervane in my personal opinion.
Why does it bothers you?
> But do we really need tampons in mens' bathrooms, really?
More to the point, do we really want men like the author in the women's bathrooms? Just because they desire to be women.
We all need to take a step towards respecting women's boundaries by collectively telling these men: No.
I’ve always been baffled about people who care about it. Just for a hot second sit down, and think how many times you’ve even talked to a trans person in your life. Like it’s such a tiny percentage of people that extreme majority of people will literally never have a conversation with one in their entire lives. But for whatever reason it occupies the minds of a good chunk of people throughout entire political spectrum.
Even as a person who has a lot of gay friends, I’ve only known one trans woman. And as far as I know she’s kind and decent. I think you’re all outraged by invisible humans and arguments that never happen in the real world. Then it somehow occupies a good chunk of space in your brain.
They're not as rare as you think. In a class of 100 students I have 1 or 2 trans students every semester. My pharmacist is trans. You have probably interacted with trans people before without even knowing.
That is… very rare? 2% of college students, and a… pharmacist?
Don’t get me wrong, I definitely interacted with them probably hundreds of times through similar venues. But again, it’s just such a tiny percentage of people. And from what I know from my gay circles, trans people tend to live in areas where they feel safer. Just like the gays did until recent times.
My general moral guideline has been to judge people by their actions. And trying to stick to it without thinking whether a person is straight or whatever. I just never cared, and hope others don’t either. If someone is just an awful person, I exclude them from my life for their actions, rather than who they didn’t choose to be.
1% is not rare. That's 1 in 100 people. In a customer-facing service role, at that frequency you'll encounter multiple trans people daily. Something that happens daily to people everywhere is not "rare".
> My general moral guideline has been to judge people by their actions.
That's really great, I mean it. But in the year 2025 when it's being mandated from the highest office in the land that trans people don't exist under the eyes of the law, your friends and family who are trans are depending on your affirmative support more now than ever. It's going to be very easy for you to deny their existence, and what would that action say about you as a person?
And before you say "I have no friends or family who are trans", I would respond "that you know of". At the very least, if you work in the tech sector, you likely have several trans coworkers, as trans are overrepresented in tech.
In my social and professional circles I personally know several individuals who have a trans identity. Getting to know them a bit was actually what shattered the gender identity illusion for me.
If you consider the issue as a whole from a women's rights perspective, it should hopefully be less baffling.
Honestly, I literally never think about it until it comes up on Twitter or HN and I get reminded of it. It's totally ok to not to have opinions about things that are very much not relevant and have zero consequences to yourself and people around you.
why? what did these trans people do to you? is it just disgust?
Proselytize their fundamentalist religion, Wokeness, in every nook and cranny they could find.
It's complicated isn't it? A business doesn't care about you. It doesn't because it can't. Business doesn't have thoughts and feelings, business is clinical. Business is nothing more than the collection of processed and systems crafted to work together, facilitating the exchange of value between 2 parties. The problem is with the 2 parties part. The 2 parties part, that part very much does have thoughts, feelings, and emotions, those two parties are made up of humans. Bobby Sue just wants the alternator working on the car so they can go to a family funeral and mourn. Jerry in accounting at alternator inc's going through a momentous life shift, spiraling his whole world into a new framing, changing everything. Sally in design is just trying to feed her kids. And while these things matter none to the business technically, they matter deeply to the humans involved. It's complicated because business doesn't, shouldn't, and can't have feelings, however, business activity is indeed made up of people, and they most certainly do. There is always a risk of being too cold and focusing only on the bottom line, or becoming so caught up in individual needs and emotions that you lose sight of the basic structure that keeps a business functioning. Booby Sue needs to mourn, and Jerry needs stability for his life change, Sally has kids. And so, there is some empathy to be found for people deciding fundamental things for their businesses, it's not easy to know when to be clinical in look at the business, especially knowing it's comprised of a collections of humans, organized, into a company. Care too much about the outside, the business fails, care too much about the inside, the business fails. These are not easy things, the trick is to avoid hostage situations, and so rationality and intellectual honesty is key when framing these discussions. I expanded these thoughts here: https://b.h4x.zip/dei/
I disagree with your axiom that businesses shouldn’t have feelings. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a business that feels it should treat its workforce kindly and ethically and recruit a diverse set of people.
How can a business feel that? You mean a founder? a ceo? the investors? The laywers? People who are running business at $500MM+ arr have 4 things to consider distinctly, with their own lenses and frames: The business- It's model, it's operations, defined processes etc, every monday this report comes in, it is read by this functional area, it's converted into this insight, the insight is used, the consumer is delighted, more money comes in, the cycle continues. The humans involved are relevant so much as they must be able to do the task, who the literally are doesn't particularly matter, it's just a resource to allow a cog to spin. The company - the people inside the business. The organizations - how the people are assemble continually. The market - customers etc.
If you observe the business "feeling" - done correctly, what you're observing the outcome of an evaluation process that decided it functioned more competitively in a different mode. (The best world class employees are in Spain, lets make our HR more diverse in it's language) A business cannot, should not, and does not, have feelings. The only place ethics technically come into play are in the context of law.
It's nuanced, but it's important, without being fully fleshed in your framings, things get muddy. Businesses are systems and processes that fairly and adequately serve the parties involved while hedging out individual humans.
Why did this person write an essay about an essay, condemning it with a lot of serious accusations about potential future harm, while also stating they didn't fully read it?
He does some throat-clearing that help address some of these complaints.
It is a very bad essay that says "I am unfamiliar with the target of this essay, but I felt strong emotions when I read bits of it, which qualifies me to pontificate and condemn".