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I Met Paul Graham Once

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Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#371

Post by gedpeck »

itsoktocry wrote: post #356
gedpeck wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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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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.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#372

Post by jrflowers »

foxglacier wrote: post #331
jrflowers wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

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Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#373

Post by itsoktocry »

diffxx wrote: post #216
inglor_cz wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

>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)

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#374

Post by metabagel »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #167
andrewflnr wrote: post #10

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 defin…

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…

> 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.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#375

Post by vasilipupkin »

uwthrowaway wrote: post #332
vasilipupkin wrote: post #75

"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?

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.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#377

Post by metabagel »

jl6 wrote: post #260
jlebar wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

> 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: I Met Paul Graham Once

#378

Post by [deleted] »

axiomo wrote: post #248
tokioyoyo wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 spectru…

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.

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Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#379

Post by low_tech_love »

"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.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#380

Post by foldr »

coderc wrote: post #104
snowwrestler wrote: post #58

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…

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…

>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.

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