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Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

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Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#151

Post by ltrcola »

Idontagree wrote: post #118
ThrustVectoring wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a man or a woman is more than just your biological makeup. It makes a very significant difference in what behavior people expect from you and how they interpret what you do. In other words, there's very much a sense in which men are those who get seen and treated as men. And personally, I see no reason why having male genitals is necessary for getting seen and treated as a man. If you behave like you want to ge…

You're right, it's not your genitals, you could lop mine off, and I would still relate to you as a man. It is something much deeper within us, something we don't yet know how to change. Being gay or trans doesn't change that fundamental thing, it's a different approach, but it's still not different. You can put a trans-woman in front of me, and I promise you, I would relate to her as a man, on that intrinsic level wh…

I seriously doubt that's true. Chances are high that you've already interacted with a trans person and not even known about it. The point people are making is that that fundamental thing that you can't change is actually biologically based, but it's a brain thing, not dependent on genitalia or chromosomes.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#152

Post by lisper »

x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #100
lisper wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The subjective experience is merely an identity based on cultural stereotypes of "man-ness" and "woman-ness". No, it runs much deeper than that. Gender roles are cross-cultural, and fundamentally rooted in the fact that females can get pregnant and males can't. That's why the stereotypes exist, because they are rooted in biological facts. But those facts aren't absolute . Most people who have male genitalia also ha…

People absolutely can be wrong about their own subjective experiences: that's a big component to why religion exists. It's also why we have the concept of mental health. When people say they have spoken to god, reasonable people think they might be deluded or have some sort of mental health problem. I understand the desire to not hurt people feelings, but we do people a disservice by agreeing with their self-deceptio…

> People absolutely can be wrong about their own subjective experiences: that's a big component to why religion exists.

No, they can be wrong in their explanations of the cause of their subjective experiences, but they cannot be wrong about the experience. People who feel the presence of the Holy Spirit really do feel something. It's just that what they feel is most likely not caused by the Holy Spirit.

> we do people a disservice by agreeing with their self-deception.

And we do ourselves a disservice by dismissing spiritual experiences as mere delusion. See:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/n9y/is_spirituality_irrational/

particularly the resulting discussion.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#153

Post by lisper »

throwaway929388 wrote: post #114
lisper wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wtbob: I vouched for your comment to un-kill it so I can post this response here where it should be rather than in a descendent comment. First and foremost, I vehemently disagree with you. But I think you made your point in a civil manner and supported it with an argument, and for that reason alone you deserve to be heard and responded to with civil arguments rather than by censorship. I may not agree with what you s…

> You are wrong about this. It is both a biological circumstance (though not nearly as crisp a dichotomy as most people think) and a subjective experience, and some people have a mismatch between their biology and their subjective experience. It is simple human decency to defer to how someone chooses to self-identify even if it does not conform to your prejudices about how the world ought to be. You are dogmatic abou…

No, I'm not being dogmatic. Like it or not, subjective experience is part of reality. By dismissing someone's subjective experience as a consideration you are ignoring part of reality for no good reason.

Yes, Chelsea Manning has a Y chromosome. Yes, most (but not all) people with Y chromosomes self-identify as male. So what? Why should the fact that Chelsea has a Y chromosome prevent you from referring to her as "her" if that's how she self-identifies?

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#154

Post by brobinson »

smellf wrote: post #148
x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of virtue signalling going on here and it definitely detracts from the important topics that you point out.

> virtue signalling ?

"Saying you love or hate something to show off what a virtuous person you are, instead of actually trying to fix the problem."

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#155

Post by tree_of_item »

dragonwriter wrote: post #139
ythl wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Biological sex isn't binary For the vast, vast majority of people, it is. Which is what makes it a useful metric.

Most people may seem to fall tolerably close to one of two stereotypes, but that doesn't make biological sex binary, not does it make it sensible to ignore the fact that it is not in the case of those people who do not, and, surreptitiously enough, there's a significant overlay between people whose experienced gender doesn't match their socially ascribed gender and people whose biological sex-related traits other tha…

Male and female are not "stereotypes". Biological sex is the most binary thing since zero and one.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#156

Post by dragonwriter »

tree_of_item wrote: post #155
dragonwriter wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people may seem to fall tolerably close to one of two stereotypes, but that doesn't make biological sex binary, not does it make it sensible to ignore the fact that it is not in the case of those people who do not, and, surreptitiously enough, there's a significant overlay between people whose experienced gender doesn't match their socially ascribed gender and people whose biological sex-related traits other tha…

Male and female are not "stereotypes". Biological sex is the most binary thing since zero and one.

> Biological sex is the most binary thing since zero and one.

It is really not, though for most of human history a reasonably informed person could justifiably believe that; but even that hasn't been true for decades, at least.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#157

Post by arca_vorago »

phd514 wrote: post #141
arca_vorago wrote: post #56

For those people who are curious about the act of disseminating information like Manning did, allow me to summarize. When you get a clearance, and often even when just working with confidential documents, the DoD has you sign an SF312, which is a classified information non-disclosure. When you join the military, one of your first acts is to be sworn in, and you swear an oath, "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I w…

I agree with the distinctions you draw between what Snowden and Manning did and the fact that most politicians get away with leaking confidential information that benefits them. However, it wasn't Cheney who leaked Plame's employer and your attribution of intent to the people involved in those events says more about your political leanings than anything else.

"However, it wasn't Cheney who leaked Plame's employer "

Most context clues indicate it was indeed a leak from Cheney himself or Cheney's office (or some other WH source). Of course there hasn't been any concrete evidence, as the sources for the original publication story from Robert Novak have still been kept secret, even though he claimed the leak wasn't from the WH. Not to mention Scooter Libby, Cheney's cheif of freaking staff, was convicted of four of the five charges against him in the suit!

So while yes, you are right we can't definitively say it was Cheney himself, we can at least say it was Cheney's office, or people under his control, and I think it's very plausible with Cheney's history that at the very least he spoke to Libby about something he shouldn't have.

So I in no way accept your casual dismissal of my claim about Cheney or your attempt to claim it indicates my political leanings, of which you know very little.

Please keep in mind that this was a key component in the Iraq war saga, in that Plames husband was saying the yellowcake claims were fabricated. That's at least some of the motive Cheney or the WH in general could have had.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#158

Post by coldtea »

mikeyouse wrote: post #73
coldtea wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, like not wanting a gay black rights activist among black activism ranks in the fifties? I'd say the combined whistle blowing story make for an even better cause. Except if they only want to project domesticity (we're tame, accept us), not change.

Or how about not making a stand for civil rights on a young black woman who refused to move on a bus because she was a single mother? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudette_Colvin Optics matter, these things are political and need to be as close to bulletproof as possible to make an impact.

If anything your example reinforces my point.

People SHOULD have made an stand on civil rights on Claudette too -- not just Rosa.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#159

Post by diyorgasms »

brobinson wrote: post #154
smellf wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> virtue signalling ?

"Saying you love or hate something to show off what a virtuous person you are, instead of actually trying to fix the problem."

Funny enough, the phrase "virtue signaling" itself acts as "virtue signaling", as at this point it is used almost exclusively by members of online communities who are opposed to political correctness and are often outwardly intolerant of transpeople. I don't mean to imply anything about the GP, just to observe a particular irony around that phrase.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#160

Post by shkkmo »

x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #127
shkkmo wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When people say they have spoken to god, reasonable people think they might be deluded or have some sort of mental health problem. Self righteous people who think they know it all might assume that. Reasonable people will think "that person experienced something I don't understand". > we do people a disservice by agreeing with their self-deception We do people a disservice by assuming we know more about them than t…

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If such evidence cannot be provided, I see no reason to just accept someone's claim at face-value. I don't claim or believe I know it all, but I try to support any claims of knowledge with evidence. > We do people a disservice by assuming we know more about them than they know about themselves. Someone who knows more about human biology or human psychology than me…

> Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If such evidence cannot be provided, I see no reason to just accept someone's claim at face-value.

I didn't say you should accept their claim at face value. I said you should not assume that the cause the the experience is mental illness, but rather accept that they had an experience that you don't understand. Was it god? Was it some sort of neuralogical event? Was it the onset of paranoid delusions? You don't know and assuming you do is arrogant.

> Someone who knows more about human biology or human psychology than me may, in fact, know something more about myself than I do.

Just because someone is an expert, or has more knowledge, doesn't mean they can't be wrong. When you dismiss someone's subjective experience because you think you know better (rather than just taking it with a grain of salt) you do them and yourself a disservice.

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