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How can we have a proper debate when we no longer speak the same language?

richarddawkins.substack.com

81–90 of 130 posts

Re: How can we have a proper debate when we no longer speak the same language?

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was trying to draw a comparison in my question so that you could see the similarity, from my point of view.

Since you chose not to make an argument I'll leave you with this: having beliefs doesn't mean you have religion. I have an extreme belief that I have a lovely cat. It's not my religion.

I addressed your cat when I addressed Toyota lovers. I'm in agreement, your belief that your cat is awesome is not a religious belief. What about the belief that you have to kill or sterilize the majority of humans to save Gaia the earth mother? Or that a man can will himself into being a woman? Are these beliefs that have the characterizations of a religion? Why or why not? Or the behavior demonstrated that if someone doesn't agree with them they are an evil person worthy of prison time or ostracization? Is ostracization not a core characteristic of cults and religions?

Re: How can we have a proper debate when we no longer speak the same language?

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you chose not to make an argument I'll leave you with this: having beliefs doesn't mean you have religion. I have an extreme belief that I have a lovely cat. It's not my religion.

I addressed your cat when I addressed Toyota lovers. I'm in agreement, your belief that your cat is awesome is not a religious belief. What about the belief that you have to kill or sterilize the majority of humans to save Gaia the earth mother? Or that a man can will himself into being a woman? Are these beliefs that have the characterizations of a religion? Why or why not? Or the behavior demonstrated that if someo…

You made it pretty clear from the phrasing of the questions that they were not in good faith.

>Sealioning is the name given to a specific, pervasive form of aggressive cluelessness, that masquerades as a sincere desire to understand.

>A Sealion is a person who, when confronted with a fact that they don't care to acknowledge, say, the persistence of systemic racism in America, will ask endlessly for "proof" and insist that it is the other person's job to stop everything they are doing and address the issue to their satisfaction.

Well shoot that's your playbook to a T.

Re: How can we have a proper debate when we no longer speak the same language?

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This problem goes beyond Twitter. You simply can't have a reasoned discussion on this topic, anywhere.

Again, I disagree. Trans folks are not unreasoned. They are open to the immense challenging reality that is their identity. It's different. Go in with humility. Listen. Learn. Ask questions. Be open. All will be well.

In most spaces that I tried to ask questions about this topic, when first wondering about the contradictions in this ideology, I was pilloried and sometimes even banned from the space. These were typically leftist political spaces where I was already a participant.

So I listened and learned, and ended up realising that all of this is built upon unfalsifiable beliefs that I have no obligation to accept. Like, a man who calls himself a woman is a woman? Nope, not affirming that nonsense.

Re: How can we have a proper debate when we no longer speak the same language?

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I addressed your cat when I addressed Toyota lovers. I'm in agreement, your belief that your cat is awesome is not a religious belief. What about the belief that you have to kill or sterilize the majority of humans to save Gaia the earth mother? Or that a man can will himself into being a woman? Are these beliefs that have the characterizations of a religion? Why or why not? Or the behavior demonstrated that if someo…

You made it pretty clear from the phrasing of the questions that they were not in good faith. >Sealioning is the name given to a specific, pervasive form of aggressive cluelessness, that masquerades as a sincere desire to understand. >A Sealion is a person who, when confronted with a fact that they don't care to acknowledge, say, the persistence of systemic racism in America, will ask endlessly for "proof" and insist…

I'm not asking for proof, just your perspective. And I've seen no clear facts even stated. And I'm not clueless, I have a very clear position here. And I'm not expecting satisfaction, you haven't even tried. Would you answer my questions?

Re: How can we have a proper debate when we no longer speak the same language?

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This problem goes beyond Twitter. You simply can't have a reasoned discussion on this topic, anywhere.

Again, I disagree. Trans folks are not unreasoned. They are open to the immense challenging reality that is their identity. It's different. Go in with humility. Listen. Learn. Ask questions. Be open. All will be well.

I have. Of every trans person I've had conversations with about this, only one ever had a real conversation with me. The rest just didn't want to hear my viewpoints or get asked any substantiative questions because they made them feel bad. Most of my interactions I've been called names, many they just didn't want to have the conversation. I have never, anywhere on the internet or in real life, seen an example of a clear headed discussion on this topic between two people that disagree fundamentally about all this.

Re: How can we have a proper debate when we no longer speak the same language?

#87
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it frustrating when people claim to be upholding science but then make simple, unscientific claims that suggest they actually have the minds of Greek philosophers. Some women do have penises. Some men have XX chromosomes. Some women have XY chromosomes. Some people have XX and XY chromosomes. Science tells us that. This has nothing to do with transgender people. But it does suggest "sex" might not be as simple…

According to Wikipedia 1.7% is the upper bound of all intersex variations in the population. It is important to acknowledge and accommodate these people. However their existence more often used as a weapon in discourse on adjacent topics like gender and identity but not necessarily specifically intersex. As an example, about 9% of population is left-handed. When was the last time someone mentioned violence when talki…

> However their existence more often used as a weapon in discourse on adjacent topics like gender and identity but not necessarily specifically intersex.

Morally speaking, which is worse: weaponizing the fictional non-existence of intersex people to attack transgender people, some of whom are intersex; or weaponizing the actual existence of intersex people to defend transgender people, some of whom are intersex?

> When was the last time someone mentioned violence when talking about handedness?

My mom was beaten for writing left-handed, and she's still alive. While that is no longer popular in the US, the tradition is alive in the world.

Re: How can we have a proper debate when we no longer speak the same language?

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The OP in question doesn't actually believe people worship wokeism, view it as god, ultimate reality, divinity, or whatever. Their use was purely pejorative and dismissive in nature. Are you referring to me? See sibling comment. It was not pejorative. And I do think wokeism is a form of worship. The sibling comment from "friend_and_foe" seems to reflect the point I was trying to make: > What about believing that yo…

>For example, the way some gender theorists would define "gender" as opposed to "sex" makes it look a lot like "gender" is the abstraction that corresponds to "sex" but on the transcendental plane. That's not their view, and the way you are modifying definitions here means participating in any discussions of philosophy makes you religious, which is absurd. Please note it's and not or . >supernatural, transcendental,…

Notice how these categories are all negative categories. They define themselves by what they're not: Supernatural means "related to the universe, but not merely the natural aspects of it", transcendental means "related to language or categories, but not merely referring to something material nor pure abstraction", spiritual means "related to what goes on inside of man, but not merely cognition or psychology".

They also imply that the speaker thinks of them positively, similar to how when you say "freedom fighter" you mean the same thing as someone else might mean when saying "terrorist", but you're saying that you think of them positively.

A materialist atheist thinks of all the things that might fall under the categories of the supernatural, transcendental, or spiritual as dumb superstition, while a religious person views them as useful planes of meaning-making and useful ways of motivating behaviour.

So, having thus defined "religion", maybe this is the way you would define "philosophy", and if you tell me how you would define "philosophy", maybe I might respond by saying "hey, that too kind of sounds like religion to me". This kind of debate would be neither original, nor surprising within the history of intellectual discourse, nor useful in any way.

The more fruitful debate is to be had around this: Why is this even such a hot-button issue? It seems to me like there are a lot of overtly religious people out there who are associated with the established religions, who are just unbelievably bad at it. They use these religious planes of meaning-making and religious ways of motivating behaviour to the effect of adopting insanely stupid beliefs and engaging in insanely counterproductive behaviours. As a result "religious" has become an insult.

If you go to a small town poetry slam, you're likely to hear some very bad poetry. But if you think this is what defines poetry, you would be mistaken. And if you never sought out poetry again in your life after coming across a particularly bad poet, you would miss out big time.

Finally, to close the loop to my other comment about how the rise and fall of religion is kind of cyclical in human experience: You can't ever get rid of the religious element in yourself, so the most productive thing you can do is get good at it. You can't ever get rid of the religious element in society, so the most productive thing you can do is get society to be good at it. -- The more you try to outright deny the religious in society (or yourself), the more it will re-emerge in transformed and hard-to-recognize ways and lead to regression where society is (or you are) just as religious as it was before, but it became less capable of doing religion well.

Re: How can we have a proper debate when we no longer speak the same language?

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, I disagree. Trans folks are not unreasoned. They are open to the immense challenging reality that is their identity. It's different. Go in with humility. Listen. Learn. Ask questions. Be open. All will be well.

I have. Of every trans person I've had conversations with about this, only one ever had a real conversation with me. The rest just didn't want to hear my viewpoints or get asked any substantiative questions because they made them feel bad. Most of my interactions I've been called names, many they just didn't want to have the conversation. I have never, anywhere on the internet or in real life, seen an example of a cl…

I recall that the subreddit "GCdebatesQT" had some quite clear-headed discussions about this, back in the day. Not all, just some. Unfortunately it was banned by Reddit's management a few years ago, along with all the other gender-critical subs. Which is a shame as it was one of the few forums where such discussion could be reasonably had.

(There's an archive here if you're interested in having a browse: https://www.itsafetish.org/archives/gcdebatesqt.)

On the other hand, the "ChangeMyView" subreddit also sometimes had constructive debate on this subject, but just a couple of days ago the moderators threw in the towel as it was getting too difficult to manage these discussions: https://old.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/16hxvf8/meta_.... Perhaps an indication that it's now too divisive a topic for reason to prevail.

Re: How can we have a proper debate when we no longer speak the same language?

#90
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does he want us to do? Are you waiting to be told what to do? The article is asking whether we're approaching Orwellian times. If police turn up at your work because of a satirical tweet you wrote last night, maybe that's something to write about and be concerned about. > Not criticize I believe his problem is when criticism bares teeth and is delivered as legal action, or some kind of penalty or strike action…

If the police showed up because of a satirical tweet, I would laugh. As should he. Come on. Have the police showed up to Richard Dawkins' home? No. He didn't describe any legal action. Youtube is a private company. Youtube is owned by a trash company. I don't get it.

He mentions police showing up at someone's work regarding a tweet reported as hate-speech. Not really a laughing matter. It's a waste of police resources for starters.

Dawkins is not compelling reading on this subject. But I did find it funny the connection he makes between 1984's "2+2=5" and "her penis"... I chuckled at that!

I read your other comments here. You are pushing for Dawkins to sit down and chat with more trans people and discuss all these things, rather than throw stones from a place that looks a bit like intolerance or out of touch. Nothing wrong with that idea. Bring on the debate! The difference is that instead of his usual atheism subject matter, where God literally can't join the debate, it's now possible for the subject of his complaints to step up and answer his questions and concerns. I agree I think it should happen.

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