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I Met Paul Graham Once

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Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#721

Post by mgraczyk »

probablybetter wrote: post #686
mgraczyk wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 reasonabl…

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…

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.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#722

Post by countarthur »

brandon272 wrote: post #705
countarthur wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ex…

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.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#723

Post by brandon272 »

chlodwig wrote: post #712
brandon272 wrote: post #705

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ex…

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?…

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!

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#724

Post by numpad0 »

yread wrote: post #295
inglor_cz wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

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 league…

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.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#725

Post by tokioyoyo »

ModernMech wrote: post #645
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…

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.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#726

Post by Xmd5a »

low_tech_love wrote: post #379

"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 tho…

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.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#727

Post by sbarre »

beardedwizard wrote: post #523
sbarre wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 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.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#728

Post by mindslight »

lmm wrote: post #591
mindslight wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#729

Post by gooosle »

mgraczyk wrote: post #718
gooosle wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'?

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#730

Post by gooosle »

mgraczyk wrote: post #721
probablybetter wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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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