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I fought the PayPal and I won

jessesingal.substack.com

291–300 of 349 posts

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#291

When I originally opened my PayPal account many years ago, the terms and conditions were displayed in a textarea and thus completely editable. So I deleted them before I clicked the confirm button, and ran off a screenshot of the page. I always wondered what would have happened if I'd had any kind of dispute with them; would this have over-ridden the various "we're updating your terms and conditions" emails I receive…

> I always wondered what would have happened if I'd had any kind of dispute with them NAL, but a contract requires a "meeting of the minds"[1]. You altering the contract without the other party knowing makes it invalid. The process when modifying a contract is generally to have all parties initial next to each modification to indicate that they've read and agree with the change. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mee…

Right, but that's my point. I deleted the terms (contract). So what contract applies? There was clearly no meeting of minds on this. So, for example, I would speculate that I could not have been bound to arbitration in the event of a dispute. Usually the Ts&Cs also contain verbiage about how and when amendments to the terms must be accepted, hence I wonder if subsequent changes would automatically be binding without further notice (over simplified, but you know what I mean) in the way that they normally are.

I don't think it's as clear-cut as all that, though in practice I wouldn't much want to trust my weight to that rather flimsy hypothesis. I'd love to hear a real legal opinion on this though, just for shits & giggles.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#292

PayPal is such a weird company. I was a loyal customer for 20 years until I wanted to convert my account from business to personal (I closed the business) and the site refused to do so. after months of calls with support, it became clear that no one was able to do this (something locked the flow and no one was able to see what; I guess my account was so ancient, it has some db flags no longer used but still checked b…

> PayPal is such a weird company...

I disagree. ETSY and eBay appear just as weird, crazy, and up to various odd machinations. The Internet is littered with tales of people completely baffled and perplexed at having their accounts suspended without explanation, then getting the runaround or cold shoulder from customer service.

There is also speculation about some type of secretive blacklist that is floating around and used by various companies for preemptive actions.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#293
post #35

Quoted post unavailable.

Why do you find this offensive? Wright's key points regarding 'sex realism', as I understand them, are that sex is not a spectrum (as many people are claiming these days) but a male-female binary, and that sex is still an important characteristic in many circumstances, such that it cannot realistically be supplanted by 'gender identity' or similar. Seems like a reasonable viewpoint to me, and not one that would gener…

The trick here is that we're looking at dogwhistles.

To someone outside the theater of culture-war this takes place in, this looks like a series of perfectly ordinary statements. Of course sex is binary, and that statement doesn't sound like it conflicts with gender being a spectrum, because sex and gender are obviously separate.

However, to someone who has lived within this theater of culture-war--who have been dealing with this rhetoric as rhetoric, which is what it is--this is a red flag. "Sex is binary" is the opening salvo in a common rhetorical strategy, which goes "Sex is binary, you're either male or female" -> "I'm just stating a fact, no need to be defensive" -> "See, this is why I don't trust trans people" -> "This is why you shouldn't trust trans people, they contradict basic facts like sex being binary". Notice the magic trick here--by picking phrasing that's plausibly deniable, and then framing any reaction to it as "disagreeing with Science", this guy can make it look like he's disagreeing with trans people, and make it look like trans people are somehow in the wrong for this, without ever actually having to stop and explain why.

That's not even getting into the fact that, frankly, "sex is binary" isn't actually correct. There are plenty of examples of species that don't actually fit into a binary sex model correctly--species which can reproduce both sexually and asexually, species which can change sex in order to find mates more reliably, and even cases where more than two sexes can be observed (such as in bees, for whom "worker", "drone", and "queen" all have different sexual characteristics). This goes against what most of us were taught when we were young, but that's part of the rational approach to the world: sometimes the model that we were given when we were in elementary school is wrong, and a newer model is a more accurate description of what's going on.

And that's part of the goal, here. "Sex realism", here, has nothing to do with reality, just as "religious fundamentalism" rarely has anything to do with the fundamentals of whatever religion is involved. Rather, "sex realism" is a rhetorical strategy which uses the aesthetics of skepticism to make one's argument seem sensible, polite, and rational. It relies on the audience never actually questioning whether the "sex realist" is describing reality, or reading beyond the face value of what they are saying.

The especially insidious part of this tactic is the way it weaponizes the reactions of people who understand what the dogwhistle means. People like me, who have spent hours upon hours discussing these things, immediately recognize the tactic at play--and more often than not, react loudly and angrily. After all, I've seen this conversation play out over and over, and invariably the guy claiming to just be a sex realist turns out to be an asshole, just like how the guys who claim to be "race realists" inevitably start citing things like the 13/50 argument (which is a whole other can of bad-statistics worms). But that's part of the plan--when I or someone like me says "What the fuck, get out" in response to the initial statement, that's when the sex-realist turns to the audience and says, "See how upset this person is over these definitely true things I just said! Clearly, if they're losing their cool this badly, I must be right!" And this works, because it short-circuits past the part where the sex-realist's argument is evaluated. By framing things in this way, the sex-realist can convince members of the audience to trust him before evaluating his argument, which lets him avoid actual scrutiny of what he's claiming.

TLDR: Wright is framing a simplified, not-really-correct statement as absolute truth, and then framing the people he opposes as unreasonable and irrational, to take advantage of the fact that human beings use trust to save processing power and avoid having to actually evaluate arguments.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#294
post #17

The author of this article is a public defender in the pacific northwest. He sometimes writes for Jesse Singal, but he also has his own substack.[1] Many of his posts provide a unique window into the criminal justice system. If that sounds interesting to you, I strongly recommend reading more of his writing. In my opinion, his greatest hits are Eleven Magic Words [2] and Death of a Client [3]. 1. https://ymeskhout.su…

I just read "Eleven Magic Words" and I'm entirely baffled. Also what a writer, wow.

Eh, if he were a great writer, I'd understand the point of the story, specifically what was so powerful about the eleven-word incantation. Which I don't. I would like my 3 minutes back, Your Honor.

Apparently I'd have to be an attorney to get it, in which case I'd have presumably learned about this obscure legal hack in law school.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#295
post #17

The author of this article is a public defender in the pacific northwest. He sometimes writes for Jesse Singal, but he also has his own substack.[1] Many of his posts provide a unique window into the criminal justice system. If that sounds interesting to you, I strongly recommend reading more of his writing. In my opinion, his greatest hits are Eleven Magic Words [2] and Death of a Client [3]. 1. https://ymeskhout.su…

Only upon reading your comment did I realise that the Substack article I just read was not written by Jesse Singal.

I regularly read Singal-Minded and it still took me until "I am a lawyer" before I scrolled back up and checked the author name.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#296
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intersex people are living proof that it's not always a binary.

An “intersex” person (now usually described by doctors or biologists as a person with a disorder of sexual development, or DSD for short) is either male or female, just like any other human being. So to use the rather silly terminology under dispute, “binary”. The “disorder” is a non-typical development of sexual characteristics of the person’s sex: a disorder of male development in a male, or of female development i…

This sounds like you're conflating biological sex (i.e., having both breasts and a penis) with gender (i.e., person IDs as female). I understand why; they use almost the same terms. However, it is important to note that, if you are describing a person who was assigned female at birth, and continues to identify as female, that's entirely describing their gender, not the state of their biological sex characteristics.

In other words, if a person experiences DSD, but self-identifies as male or female, what you are describing is not proof that sex is a binary, but rather proof that a person with DSD can experience gender dysphoria.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just read "Eleven Magic Words" and I'm entirely baffled. Also what a writer, wow.

Eh, if he were a great writer, I'd understand the point of the story, specifically what was so powerful about the eleven-word incantation. Which I don't. I would like my 3 minutes back, Your Honor. Apparently I'd have to be an attorney to get it, in which case I'd have presumably learned about this obscure legal hack in law school.

You read all of that in 3 minutes?

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#298

I haven't been using PayPal since more than 5 years. For quick transfers I can use Revolut. For buying something I can use card. For easy payment integration with Web apps there are countless tools. So I am wondering what use cases PayPal still serves, use cases which aren't already better covered by better means. Why pay heavy commissions to PayPal?

With virtual cards and whatnot I don't use PayPal anymore to protect the card number from circulation. But I still find them useful for long therm subscriptions to provider. That why when I need to change the card I don't need to login to (and remember) all websites where I have an ongoing payment plan

No post body was provided.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#299
post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, if he were a great writer, I'd understand the point of the story, specifically what was so powerful about the eleven-word incantation. Which I don't. I would like my 3 minutes back, Your Honor. Apparently I'd have to be an attorney to get it, in which case I'd have presumably learned about this obscure legal hack in law school.

You read all of that in 3 minutes?

Altogether, it took more like seven or eight minutes, but because it was decently-written and had some legitimate educational and entertainment value, I'll settle for a partial refund.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An “intersex” person (now usually described by doctors or biologists as a person with a disorder of sexual development, or DSD for short) is either male or female, just like any other human being. So to use the rather silly terminology under dispute, “binary”. The “disorder” is a non-typical development of sexual characteristics of the person’s sex: a disorder of male development in a male, or of female development i…

This sounds like you're conflating biological sex (i.e., having both breasts and a penis) with gender (i.e., person IDs as female). I understand why; they use almost the same terms. However, it is important to note that, if you are describing a person who was assigned female at birth, and continues to identify as female, that's entirely describing their gender , not the state of their biological sex characteristics.…

I don’t see where I’ve conflated anything, nor do I understand your attempt to show where I have. “Biological sex” is redundant; sex is a biological classification. There isn’t any other kind.
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