90 karma · joined May 8, 2019
One issue that a lot of trans supporters don't realize is that similarly to how trans people could be offended when they are referred to by a gender not of their choice, so to could some speakers be offended if they are forced to refer to a person as a gender not of their (the speaker) choice.
This may be easier to understand by using a comparison. When I talk about the Muslim prophet I say Muhammad. However, many Muslims would say Muhammad pbuh (peace be upon him). This isn't that problematic, but let's say they the term was Muhammad ttp (the true prophet). Now I as a non Muslim believer would never use ttp because that would be insulting for whoever I believe in. If SE required that whenever I mention Muhammad that I append ttp, I would refuse as it would be extremely offensive to me.
Similarly by referring to a person with XX chromosomes [1] as she, is offensive to people who believe that genders cannot change. A reasonable compromise would be to let whoever is righting chose what they want, or even allow gender neutral pronouns. But what SE chose to do was to say that people who believe that XY is a guy are wrong and deserve no respect for their beliefs.
[1] someone corrected me and pointed out that there is a rare genetic condition where someone could have XX chromosomes but have many other male characteristics. So I would like to correct myself and say that for certain rare genetic conditions, I wouldn't mind being corrected. But for the vast majority of transgenders who are genetically similar to either males or females the above holds.
BTW, there is nothing wrong with intending to advertise. Op (and I) are looking for a call recording app, and you know if one that you can (hopefully) recommend. The fact that you profit if we use it doesn't make your suggestion that much worse
This may be easier to understand by using a comparison. When I talk about the Muslim prophet I say Muhammad. However, many Muslims would say Muhammad pbuh (peace be upon him). This isn't that problematic, but let's say they the term was Muhammad ttp (the true prophet). Now I as a non Muslim believer would never use ttp because that would be insulting for whoever I believe in. If SE required that whenever I mention Muhammad that I append ttp, I would refuse as it would be extremely offensive to me.
Similarly by referring to a person with XX chromosomes as she, is offensive to people who believe that genders cannot change. A reasonable compromise would be to let whoever is righting chose what they want, or even allow gender neutral pronouns. But what SE chose to do was to say that people who believe that XY is a guy are wrong and deserve no respect for their beliefs.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/07/justin-trudeau...
so close, but what does "fees" include? If that legislation required them to include tax _then_ I would be excited
(PS, just in case someone reads this wrong, I don't think it is good that China does any amount of forced organ harvesting.)
I agree that keeping children in cages is not good, but there are solutions. If ice had a bigger budget maybe it could have more beds, larger cells, better food. I don't see how removing enforcement is a solution.
The announcement of the Friday event does an injustice to Marvin Minsky:
“deceased AI ‘pioneer’ Marvin Minsky (who is accused of assaulting one of Epstein’s victims [2])”
The injustice is in the word “assaulting”. The term “sexual assault” is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading people to think of it as Y, which is much worse than X.
The accusation quoted is a clear example of inflation. The reference reports the claim that Minsky had sex with one of Epstein’s harem. (See https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/9/20798900/marvin-minsky-jef...) Let’s presume that was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it).
The word “assaulting” presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing. Only that they had sex.
We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates.
I’ve concluded from various examples of accusation inflation that it is absolutely wrong to use the term “sexual assault” in an accusation.
Whatever conduct you want to criticize, you should describe it with a specific term that avoids moral vagueness about the nature of the criticism.