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I Met Paul Graham Once

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Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#771

Post by brandon272 »

chlodwig wrote: post #748
brandon272 wrote: post #723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dif…

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 guideline…

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.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#772

Post by jsrcout »

relistan wrote: post #672
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#773

Post by next_xibalba »

ModernMech wrote: post #763
next_xibalba wrote: post #701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

> 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 experie…

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".

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#774

Post by countarthur »

brandon272 wrote: post #770
countarthur wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

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. ;)

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#775

Post by chairmansteve »

probablybetter wrote: post #682
sien wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#776

Post by archagon »

echelon wrote: post #481
jhp123 wrote: post #282

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…

> 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.

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.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#777

Post by archagon »

julianeon wrote: post #593
rchaud wrote: post #127

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…

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.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#778

Post by utbabya »

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…

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.

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#779

Post by mkaic »

phillmv wrote: post #453
mkaic wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 comforta…

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 :)

Re: I Met Paul Graham Once

#780

Post by ethbr1 »

redcobra762 wrote: post #693
ethbr1 wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 emb…

> 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?

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