Personal pronouns, gender, equality, etc.

MacMacMac

MacMacMac Mikas A lot of times it's being justified by "greater good" for society or some groups of it. And all you have to sacrifice is a bit of your own personal freedom.

Who judges what is the "greater good"?

And exactly why is free speech to be suppressed for some "greater good"?

In my view free speech itself is among the highest forms of the "greater

To Mikas: agreed. There was a time here when it was written that personal freedoms were seen as near infinite, too many to practically enumerate the entire scope but among them life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. In the present we are in a time when personal freedoms for rank & file citizens have been effectively reduced from all that it once was to what it is; a plastic-coated card - for wearing around your neck or carrying in wallet - detailing the extent of personal freedoms for a given citizen by a series of numbers that uniquely identifies your person as a human resource of a given age & ethnicity, consumer status IE. banking/credit accounts, health status & insurance provider, next of kin and if you are an organ donor.

To MacMacMac - agreed; ‘nuff said.

Random observations:

It's (at least) the directly Latin based and more distantly Latin based "Germanic" languages that make difference between male and female personal pronouns.

There are many languages that don't and those languages work just fine.

There's a thing called "gender dysphoria". Look it up. So, when people "almost correctly" say that sex is the chromosomes and gender is a choice that can give a wrong impression. It's not necessarily a choice. You don't choose that "From now on I'll start feeling like a man although I was born as a biological woman". (Just as you don't choose to be hetero/homo/bisexual.)

You can choose what to do about it and doing something about it involves psychiatric counceling, but not because you are crazy, but to make sure that for example hormone treatment and/or corrective surgery is really the right way to proceed. It may not always be.

A man is a man and a woman is a woman, but what qualifies as "man" or "woman"? It's ultimately up to the person themselves. Transitioning sometimes leads to very convincing results and at other times there's some "uncanny valley". But if we then feel "icky" it's our problem. And there are masculine women and feminine men -- just born that way -- even without transitioning with hormones and surgery. And our prerogative then is not to date and mate them if we don't wanna. And some people are just plain ugly for whatever reason, but ugly people are people too. 😉

There's a difference between "modern invention" and "modern discovery".

There's talk about "social constructs". Some of those may be "modern inventions" i.e. people making things up. I don't have any more specific opinions about that topic. I haven't bothered too much about the "woke" culture, Social Justice Warriors, safe spaces and trigger warnings, but enough to know that sometimes people are just silly and there apparently are some real problems e.g. in some universities.

Then there are "modern discoveries" where we learn about things that have already existed and hopefully change our behaviour accordingly. A lot of the sexual identity stuff probably belongs to this category, so it's fact, it's science and calling it a "modern invention" is just inability to accept new information that is against old personal beliefs, ideas and opinions. (Absorbed from the culture and social circles in which we grew up, so it's not really just an individual's own fault.)

Intentional misgendering is a thing. You might not have realized that somebody is trans, but once you do, you start calling a female "him" or a male "she" just to fight against something that you personally don't like. It happens.

Who defines the "greater good"? E.g. Sam Harris has written and talked about the topic of science vs. moral questions, but "well-being" can be a hard thing to define, quantify and measure. And cultural relativism can get in the way too: "Who are we to judge?" etc.

You could say that freedom of speech grants people the right to call you a "dickhead" but the other side is:

- Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences, so there can be some.

- It's not great for your personal well-being, so which one weighs more? Somebody else's freedom of speech or your personal well-being?

Just call a him a "him" and a she a "she".

But I don't know what to do with the "It's complicated" people. Treat them with respect, maybe(?)

ClothEaredNincompoop

That's a balanced and very well put view. I think I intuitively try to adhere to the same philosophy about that stuff, however I admit that on the surface, and especially when I am annoyed by extreme opinion and behavior on both sides, I will occasionally take some stance that does not necessarily reflect my internal view. I mean, I've argued fiercely with woke-people, as well as with extreme conservatives... Maybe I just like to argue 🤣 But yeah, I like what you expressed in that post 👍🏻

And whatever we say about these topics can always be experienced as a personal attack on personal views by someone. 😐

Hence I didn't specifically quote anyone.

And probably a lot of our behaviour (thoughts) considered "not ready for 2022" can be explained by evolution. The changes in society have been too fast for evolution to catch up. A sort of "stranger danger" could be one of those for example. Kinship plays a big role in evolutionary psychology. Stanford University has a lecture series about Human Behavioral Biology on their YouTube channel for anyone wanting to dive deeper into those things. 🤓

MacMacMac In my view free speech itself is among the highest forms of the "greater good".

Totally agree with that!

ClothEaredNincompoop A man is a man and a woman is a woman, but what qualifies as "man" or "woman"? It's ultimately up to the person themselves.

Not really. It's for society to tell as much or even more so. Without society saying I'm a man or a woman would mean nothing at all.

Ultimately, when we use words such as "man" and "woman" we mean something with it, but whether we are understood by others or not depends on whether they assign the same meaning to those words.

I use these two particular words in the same way they were used by people from my grandparents generation, and if some people of today use them in a different way, then we will not understand each other. That's fine by me. May the better usage of the words win.

With only same sex couples, and no external help, humanity would disappear…

I don't think of any other kind of living being on Earth which acts that way. Yes, humans are the pinnacle of creation (I am a Christian, don't say it lightly). But sometimes I wonder if we are really the smarter ones. Also, no other living being is destroying our beloved planet as us do. And so on…

Let's play the piano, it does not hurt anyone! 🙏🏻

FWIW homosexual behaviour appears also in other species than Homo Sapiens. But always in a minority for obvious reasons stated above. 😀

ClothEaredNincompoop

This is a reply to everyone interested in the topics of this thread. This reply can certainly be accused of going OT but by the same token, isn’t this allowed, especially for a thread that’s already been separated from where it came so as to better facilitate wherever the conversations go?

This reply includes (under the break line below) a sequence of excerpts which i have taken from a larger interview which can be found at it’s (apparently) intact original (French, translated to English) whole at the link provided below. I do this based upon my observations coupled with opinion that the “statesmen” of this world, historically, are chief among those who get decide what is for “our greater good” (sic).

The interviewee here was/is Jacques Attali who, among other “accomplishments” was once counted among the “entourage” of “advisors” to Francois Mitterrand.

— — —

MICHEL SALOMON. – Why is an economist so passionately interested in medicine, in health…

JACQUES ATTALI – In studying the general economic problems of Western society, I have noticed that health costs are one of the essential factors in the economic crisis. The production of consumers and their maintenance is expensive, even more expensive than the production of goods themselves. People are produced by services they render to each other, especially in the field of health, whose economic productivity is not increasing very fast. “The productivity of machine production is increasing faster than the relative productivity of consumer production. This contradiction will be overcome by a transformation of the health and education system towards their commodification and industrialisation. 

Anyone who analyses economic history realises that our society is increasingly transforming craft activities into industrial activities and that a growing number of services rendered by people to others are increasingly becoming objects that are produced in machines.

The meeting of these two questions leads to the question: can medicine also be produced by machines that would replace the activity of the doctor?

M.S. – This question seems a bit academic, theoretical.

J.A. – Certainly, but it reflects the current crisis. If medicine, like education, were to be mass-produced, the economic crisis would be solved......

M.S. – Is it possible and desirable to live 120 years?

J. A. – Medically, I don’t know. I’ve always been told that it was possible. Is it desirable? I would answer in several stages. First of all, I believe that in the logic of the industrial system in which we find ourselves, the extension of life expectancy is no longer an objective desired by the logic of power. Because as long as it was a question of extending life expectancy in order to reach the maximum profitability threshold of the human machine, in terms of work, it was perfect.

But as soon as you go beyond 60/65, people live longer than they produce and they cost society dearly.........

As a socialist, I am objectively opposed to extending life because it is an illusion, a false problem. I believe that posing this type of problem allows us to avoid more essential questions such as the liberation of time actually lived in the present life. What is the point of living to 100 years if we gain 20 years of dictatorship?

M.S. – The world to come, whether “liberal” or “socialist”, will need a “biological” morality, to create an ethic of cloning or euthanasia for example.

J.A. – Euthanasia will be one of the essential instruments of our future societies in all cases. In a socialist logic, to begin with, the problem is as follows: socialist logic is freedom and fundamental freedom is suicide; consequently, the right to direct or indirect suicide is an absolute value in this type of society. In a capitalist society, killing machines, prostheses that will make it possible to eliminate life when it is too unbearable or economically too costly, will come into being and will be common practice. I therefore believe that euthanasia, whether it is a value of freedom or a commodity, will be one of the rules of future society....

M.S. – Do you see this forced normalisation governing all areas of life, including sexuality, since science today allows for the almost total dissociation of sexuality and conception?

J. A. – From an economic point of view, there are two reasons why I think we will go very far.

The first is that the production of men is not yet a market like any other. Following the logic of my general reasoning, it is impossible to see why procreation should not become an economic production like any other.

It is perfectly possible to imagine that the family or the woman is only one of the means of production of a particular object, the child.

We can, in a way, imagine “rental matrices” which are already technically possible. This idea corresponds entirely to an economic evolution in the sense that the woman or the couple will become part of the division of labour and general production. Thus it will be possible to buy children in the same way as one buys “peanuts” or a television set....

https://straight2point.info/the-1981-michel-salomon-jacques-attali-interview/

Drew-r Socialists have always had difficulty understanding the concept of "humanity", but here is probably the clearest example I have ever seen of someone who has really not grasped that concept at all. He is one who would welcome the "Borg" with open arms. 😆

The funny thing is that he has not yet carried his thoughts far enough to realize that humanity itself, as consumers, could be made redundant and replaced by machines. I wonder what he'll think when it dawns upon him that the machines would need neither economists, nor socialists … 🤣

This Attali fellow advocates euthanasia? 🙁

You didn't say how long ago this interview took place. So I'm not certain whether we have a NEW proto-Hitler in our midst or an OLD one.

I’ve never considered myself a tub-thumping feminist, that’s for sure. But when I see men transition to female and then assert (or, more usually, others assert on their behalf) that they are just as much a woman as someone born female I start to feel quite cross about it.

It’s a man’s world. Less so than it once was but it’s still a man’s world. Women (born female) have to endure quite a lot. They have to fight hard to get on in male dominated environments such as the workplace. They have to endure overt and covert sexism a lot. Sleazy men making passes at them or putting them down for whatever reason. Born females undergo puberty and start to menstruate and often they will bear children. That is a unique lived experience for a born female. Women are better care givers and child carers - yes, there are exceptions and of course many men are very good at that stuff too. But women have a biological predisposition towards the care giving roles.

What I’m trying to say is that to be female involves some or all of what I’ve mentioned above. That is the 'lived experience' of a woman and for a man to simply ‘feel’ or ‘believe’ they are female, take hormones, have surgery and wear appropriate clothing and then claim to be just as female as a born woman I find offensive. It undermines what it is to be female and to have lived a female life.

We are now in a unique time in a socio-cultural sense. Liberal thinkers now need to 'pick a side' for the first time. Trans rights or feminism? Support Gay rights or oppose Islamophobia? Just two examples but there are many.

MacMacMac

Interviewer stated 1981 ….. which means this/that kind of “progressive thinking” has already benefited from 40+ years to further ferment, foment and otherwise grow/change “evolve” at the higher levels of global statism and of course, in the true Fabianist’s fashion, gradually creep into parts of our everyday worldwide lives “conventional wisdom” …. “pop culture” …. ad nauseum.

EssBrace

EssBrace It’s a man’s world. Less so than it once was but it’s still a man’s world. Women (born female) have to endure quite a lot. They have to fight hard to get on in male dominated environments such as the workplace.

…. and also such as high offices of global states ….Parliaments …..Congresses…. yada yada yada , but these days, we / you got’em, to wit, the perpetually sleep walking in a dream state “ working hard to re present the folks of Cali” that is (apparently) the good madame person Pelosi 😀

Cleopatra may have been an original (unelected) hidden hand …. “ deep-stater “ and all around soap-opera ‘esque drama queen extraordinaire ….. how many other women were officially and or unofficially pulling strings behind the scenes of the old-boy school er, um Roman Senate of that era?

MacMacMac Well, euthanasia is voluntary. Genocide and eugenics are forced upon, so there's at least that difference. Not that I like his thoughts.

And I see that we can't always divert all off-topic to a new dedicated thread unless we want nazi, Hitler, euthanasia, socialism and creation vs. evolution threads.

…on a piano forum. 😀

(And creation/God and evolution are only a dichotomy if Genesis is taken very literally. Just ask e.g. Francis Collins or Kenneth R. Miller. I guess I prefer the 70's Genesis and the Peter Gabriel era. 😉)

burkey mea culpa: I just discovered that I mistakenly praised the limeys for removing gender from English.

Turns out it was actually the Vikings that did it. I believe the local Brit women allowed this because they preferred Viking men. Apparently the Viking men bathed/washed more frequently than the British men of that era - so they stank less.

A hail king of the the Norse gods - and wisdom: Odin 😀

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odin

burkey P.S. we even have a weekly holy day named after him (I mean 'them'!):

Wōden's day

Wednesday

Gombessa "bird shit" in 1000 years of German history.

Holy cow. I knew there was always a lot of drama, but the Adult Beginners Forum really seems to have escalated lately!

I can't see any escalation 🙂 I merely used a formulation with the original words of the politician. To make clear which attitude is under the harmless cover of this party. Unfortunately, this choice of words now represents the political vernacular. One should not underestimate the dormant danger. (I say this not because I belong to the political left wing. I am also against radical left tendencies. 🙂 )

MBiG I was just making a poor joke 🙂