Vincent Kargatis

@ETVPod @FondOfBeetles @ClareCAIS "Identity" seems like a characterization of rich experiences filtered through some sort of essentialism. The latter strikes me as a net negative phenom, so regardless of the frequency of self-identity, it seems best to personally minimize its reach, a la paulgraham.com/identity.html

@Luan75937152 @Noahpinion Identitarianism is not a “good thing” which is what that “fighting” evolved into.

@Noahpinion What you mean by "'progressive"" ?? If you mean fighting for minorities groups like blacks, trans and womens, that's a good thing. But if by "progressive" you mean rent control ans no police you right.

The transformation of liberals into "progressives" since 2013 has seriously been the worst thing to happen to American culture in my lifetime. Just absolutely gutted so much of what was good about this country. End of a golden age.

@GlowSurfing @_ROB_29 There were some jazz albums I grew up with on 8-track that had longer songs split across tracks with the inevitable fades. It was a hilarious shock to hear them many years later on cd with no rude breaks. 😆

@_ROB_29 😆😆 Don’t forget 8 track

If people want to know why Gen X is always mad, it's because we had to replace our record collections with a tape collection and then replace that with a CD collection that we slowly replaced with an MP3 collection and now need a subscription to listen to music.

@Kyochi_Myogo @JimDMiller @NateSilver538 If you say “not understanding” is a crucial part of the definition, ok. I’m guessing the OP above was focusing on the “parroting” part, for which understanding may just be orthogonal.

@vkargatis @JimDMiller @NateSilver538 No, that would be a separate claim. I’m not a stochastic parrot because (at the very least) I associate words with qualia.

Since the technology is changing so fast, AI takes really expose who is able to think on the fly versus who is totally impervious to new evidence because they carved out some "brand" years ago.

@Kyochi_Myogo @JimDMiller @NateSilver538 You’re claiming that your qualia must impact your behavior and output?

@vkargatis @JimDMiller @NateSilver538 Of course they aren’t independent. If I can picture a tree, imagine how the bark feels, etc. and associate that with “tree” then by definition I am not a stochastic parrot.

@Kyochi_Myogo @JimDMiller @NateSilver538 Having qualia doesn’t inherently change any parroting going on, does it? They can be independent. Elephant and rider, etc

@JimDMiller @NateSilver538 You don’t have qualia? Are you a p-zombie?

@S___Elliott I looove the film, and it's more humanistic than the book. The book's characters are more jerky and waaaay more jerky in the sequel, which is a bit tiresome. There is one funny bit in the book that didn't get into the film, but regardless, film >> book.

@vkargatis Great movie! Never read the book. I really love that one.

Movies are that are better than the book: No Country For Old Men Goodfellas The Godfather Strangers On A Train

@dilanesper Frankly, the huge amount of TRAism centered around language - redefining woman/man and pronoun syntax - seems like primary evidence for my position!

@dilanesper Resolved no, but highly exacerbated, no question in my mind. Given your stated preferences, we obviously disagree strongly. But I think the “language matters” position remains easy to grasp.

I actually don't believe this. Indeed, I don't think the main concerns of EITHER trans activists OR gender crits and right wingers are about language. I think people argue about language because educated people LOVE arguing about language despite it being less important.

@dilanesper I take it though that repliers that simply employ sex-based pronouns but don’t involve “correction” are safe from blocking ?

If I do a thread about a trans woman and call her "her", and you come in my thread and "correct" me and say "you mean him", I'm probably going to block you. Beyond expressing prejudice, you are being immature and uninteresting. It adds nothing to go into threads and say that.

@ramendik @GeoffSchuler @Guinnessauric @jan_murray @Healthy_Control I think that's plausible in some far future CRISPR-type body-regrowth regime, but not in our lifetimes. Reliably "nullifying" sexual dimorphism in individuals is not practically a surgical regime.

@vkargatis @GeoffSchuler @Guinnessauric @jan_murray @Healthy_Control It's probably a transient debate simply beacuse body modification is likely to evolve enough to make the debate redundant in daily use outside legal and philosophical debates, barring major resource limitations or bans.

I recently found myself in a situation where an obvious male was publicly introduced - to a substantial number of people - as ‘she’. This caught me totally off guard. I hadn’t been warned - perhaps deliberately so. I feel quite sure everyone else was also thinking ‘WTF’. But of course nobody said anything. For reasons I cannot share here, it was not appropriate for me to say anything in the moment. Suffice to say, it gave me a sleepless night. Not just in terms of what to do next. But also because of the utter despair I felt about the situation. In particular, the sheer number of people who were compelled to participate in a lie. And the betrayal I felt - particularly - from other women, for allowing this to happen.

@ramendik @GeoffSchuler @Guinnessauric @jan_murray @Healthy_Control Nothing about liberalism suggests that one's self-conception obligates others. It's the opposite, in fact! Sex-based gendered pronoun use still obviously dominates in "the West". I predict changing one's descriptive references based on the referent's self-image is a minor fad.

@vkargatis @GeoffSchuler @Guinnessauric @jan_murray @Healthy_Control What I am saying is that there was social change in the West, a long march of Liberalism that broadly replaced a birth-based system with personal choices and rights. Divorce, same-sex marriage, sex change are all a part of it. IMO non-Western views don't matter in this context.

@ramendik @GeoffSchuler @Guinnessauric @jan_murray @Healthy_Control Your cap'ing IN THE PAST elides the very standard current usage the same as in the past. It reflects in an exceedingly well-established way the very large impact sex and sexual dimorphism have on human life and society. Another's self-conception doesn't change std word choice.

@vkargatis @GeoffSchuler @Guinnessauric @jan_murray @Healthy_Control The vast majority of the world considers being gay bad and consides marriage to be between a man and a woman (or a man and several women). So what?

@ramendik @GeoffSchuler @Guinnessauric @jan_murray @Healthy_Control And currently in the vast majority of speakers of gendered languages. The fraction of people that use gendered language to refer to purported psychological states of the referent is functionally minuscule, at the tiny cult level fractionally.

@vkargatis @GeoffSchuler @Guinnessauric @jan_murray @Healthy_Control used IN THE PAST to indicate the sex etc

@rcbg62 @DeseretStone Except the results instead indicated learning depth was already established one direction or another for the student population. Few "exploited" the pre-test in the way you indict. Probably because it's very hard to learn a substantive's test's worth in a day.

@DeseretStone That eliminates the need to retain anything else they have read, heard, or seen on the topic. Only those specific questions matter. No need to even understand them. Bad idea.

I had a high school science teacher with an unusual policy The day before any major test, he would do a pre-test The pre-test was *exactly the same* as the real test, which would be the next day This was long before camera phones, and the only rule was that you could not copy the test Students had zero excuses for not knowing what would be on the test and *exactly* what to study According to him, he had years of data to compare performance between normal testing and his fully-exposed pre-test And the score distributions were effectively identical You either cared and you were ready, or you didn’t and you never would be I did well enough in the class, and while I can’t remember chemistry to save my life, I still think about that policy

@datadriven_tdoc @SirSlender No. Valuing honesty and opposing “forced” misrepresentation are nearly universal values. One doesn’t have to have any moral view of another’s behavioral inclinations, to retain those values.

@SirSlender What I’m saying is your decision whether or not to be a “truth teller” is is inextricably linked to whether or not you’d morally disapprove of the conduct

No. One can accept biological reality, and still grant respect to trans woman by referring to them with their preferred pronouns By not doing so, you’re merely demonstrating your disapproval for a lifestyle you find immoral. Which is fine. You get to make those calls Just lead with it

@Kate_NoNumbers @Rob_ThaBuilder Forced/induced confessions are definitely already a thing, and I brought up state corruption earlier - one can imagine they already know “where the bodies are”. Applies to DNA evidence too.

@vkargatis @Rob_ThaBuilder What about when the ‘accused’ admits it and can tell authorities where the bodies are? There are cases where there is no doubt.

It is interesting how when you realize the truth on one issue, it can change have ripple effects on many of your other positions on issues. Up until about 3-4 years ago, I held pretty consensus liberal beliefs on just about every issue. I was comfortable in my tribalism. The trans issue shattered that comfort and it was the first issue that I "broke" on. The cognitive dissonance between what I was expected believe and my own values was too great. I still consider myself left-of-centre (altho I describe myself more of a "classical liberal" and at the moment have more in common with a moderate righty than a standard lib) but once you get to that headspace, where you can full throatedly reject something on your own side, it completely opens your mind on many other, unrelated ones. I guess once you identify the flaw in thinking on one issue, its much easier to identify it on other ones. I now think DEI is the primary cause if racial division in our society, that immigration policy is absolutely insane, that abortion is a complex issue involving competing rights (altho im still pro-choice, im more of an anti-abortion pro choice, if tbat makes sense) etc etc. And without even realizjng when this happened, Im now firmly in favor of the death penalty. I do think it should be saved for cases where tbere us absolutely no doubt of guilt, no remorse and no possibility for rehabilitation, but society desperately needs it. When you remove the rose-colored liberal goggles, you realize that civilozation and social order is both precious a d fragile, and some ppl are just irredeemably evil, and their presence in our society will constantly undermine order and public trust. We dont often notice these shifts in our thinking happening in real time, but its interesting once in a while when you take stock of what your beliefs are and realize they've changed quite a bit without you even noticing.

@GumboJawknee @Rob_ThaBuilder Going back to the OP - I claim this is a *liberal opinion*! I don't think the capital punishment divide is a typical "prog/con" question.

@GumboJawknee @Rob_ThaBuilder You say "should", but it seems like you're avoiding my question. What error rate are you comfortable with? I can honestly say "More terrible crimedoers _should_ be killed" while still opposing capital punishment. Why? Because I can't tolerate non-zero error rate.