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Lynn Conway has died
181–190 of 429 posts
Re: Lynn Conway has died
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A persons right to exist is not political I don't think anyone disagrees with that, I think the disagreement comes from the way that activists insist that the best solution for treating [gender dysphoria, etc] is to "socially and heavy handedly force everyone to complete the illusion by treating transgender individuals as indistinguishable from their biological counterparts in every way". That's not the only soluti…
> sports, etc Just going to keep pointing out that human beings have very little sexual dimorphism compared to the other great apes, and that any difference is any sport that does not actually employ the genitals is probably more down to food access and/or training disparities than actual “significant” biological factors.
> probably more down to food access and/or training disparities than actual “significant” biological factors.
I'm not really going to defend the other side here because sports are (by definition) fundamentally arbitrary, but is this really borne out by reality? To use an easy comparison, elite adult womens' track and field athletes might be competitive against high school boys, but not at any higher level. Compare, for example, the international womens' records [0] to the records from this random high school nationals track meet [1]. What food access and/or training advantage are high school kids going to have over the most capable athletes in their sport?
[0] https://trackandfieldnews.com/records/womens-world-records/
Re: Lynn Conway has died
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
omg is that what that is? all this time I thought the CSS was screwed up on my browser. I had assumed it all my anti-ad/privacy plugins.
Yep, loss of a prominent HN-relevant person.
and list of past black bars: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37018825
Re: Lynn Conway has died
#184For those of you who are inclined to say "HackerNews doesn't deal with politics", I hope that Lynn's story reminds you that any work you do is intertwined with politics. While I appreciate that it's a difficult line to walk, to have productive and relevant political discussion in a forum like this, politics and social acceptance are a part of every aspect of our lives. Brilliant, kind, impactful people are kept from…
> any work you do is intertwined with politics. That simply is not true. Apolitical topics do exist, and it is incredibly annoying when people try to force politics into an apolitical topic (looking at you, Rust community).
Open-source projects depend on their community and contributors, and community management is inherently political. No matter what "neutral" thing you do, some contributors will approve of that, and some will see it as a red flag.
Even saying "no politics!" will be seen by some people a political stance — as an approval of the status quo (which may be unfavorable to some groups of people), or even as a denial that certain social problems exist, and a red flag that you won't help them if someone discriminates against them.
Even in a "no politics" environment the you will end up having to decide what is "political" and what isn't, and that is a political stance! Someone will have a Bible quote in their email signature — is that neutral or political? Then is Quran okay too, or rainbow emoji? And when you tell people to stop this circus, the "no politics" policy itself will be questioned as a political stance against free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of association, etc.
Re: Lynn Conway has died
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A persons right to exist is not political I don't think anyone disagrees with that, I think the disagreement comes from the way that activists insist that the best solution for treating [gender dysphoria, etc] is to "socially and heavy handedly force everyone to complete the illusion by treating transgender individuals as indistinguishable from their biological counterparts in every way". That's not the only soluti…
> sports, etc Just going to keep pointing out that human beings have very little sexual dimorphism compared to the other great apes, and that any difference is any sport that does not actually employ the genitals is probably more down to food access and/or training disparities than actual “significant” biological factors.
> any difference is any sport ... is probably more down to food access and/or training disparities than actual “significant” biological factors.
Citation definitely needed. The gap is large, and consistent, across different nations and sports.
Re: Lynn Conway has died
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A persons right to exist is not political I don't think anyone disagrees with that, I think the disagreement comes from the way that activists insist that the best solution for treating [gender dysphoria, etc] is to "socially and heavy handedly force everyone to complete the illusion by treating transgender individuals as indistinguishable from their biological counterparts in every way". That's not the only soluti…
> sports, etc Just going to keep pointing out that human beings have very little sexual dimorphism compared to the other great apes, and that any difference is any sport that does not actually employ the genitals is probably more down to food access and/or training disparities than actual “significant” biological factors.
I'm sorry, but this is demonstrably not true.
We would not have this in the year 2024 otherwise: https://boysvswomen.com/
Re: Lynn Conway has died
#187Re: Lynn Conway has died
#188[flagged]
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Re: Lynn Conway has died
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
> any work you do is intertwined with politics. That simply is not true. Apolitical topics do exist, and it is incredibly annoying when people try to force politics into an apolitical topic (looking at you, Rust community).
Can you give an example of an apolitical topic? EDIT: unfortunately I can’t reply to the comments as I have been banned EDIT 2: I have been banned to reply to the commenter, dang told me EDIT 3: dang has now wiped all the upvotes on this message and given me 2 extra downvotes and suddenly another comment I made mentioning him in a totally different thread has been mass downvoted
I don't believe I told you that, because our software doesn't work that way.
Your account is rate-limited though. We rate limit accounts when they post too many low-quality comments and/or get involved in flamewars. That's probably what I told you.
Re: Lynn Conway has died
#190I never heard of her before today, despite having been interested and educated, and employed in computer science for so long.
What a truly impressive list of achievements, and achieving such great things before, during and after transition gender in the 60s of all things.
I can't imagine what they would have done without being hampered by the social stigma and discrimination they must have faced.
It saddens me that I have only learned of her existence now, at her passing. RIP.