Sam Smith comes out as genderqueer

October 28, 2017

7 hours ago, StrawberryBlond said:

I'm not interested in talking about the technical aspects behind our brains. The point is, you can be as unbiased and objective as you can possibly be. NORMAL people don't think about stuff this indepth. I feel like you're on a mission to just prove that you're smarter than me with all your big words and technicalities. It's like artists who correct people who say that black and white are colours, clarifying that they are tones. That kind of indepth stuff just doesn't go down well in real life, especially among non-scientists. Talk to me on my level.

I never said that I wasn't basing all this on my own experience. In fact, I do use the phrase "in my own experience" an awful lot. When someone is stating their opinion, assuming that they are referring to their own experiences is pretty much a given in my book, I don't think it needs to be said. When I say that people need to just go out into the world to see what I'm talking about, that is a way of providing a citation of sorts. It's like saying: "If you do this, perhaps you'll start to share the experience I'm talking about."

Your first question involves a group that doesn't exist, as you say "aliens with superior complexity to human beings." How am I supposed to imagine such a possibility in reality? You can't pull out ridiculous theories like that and then expect them to be taken seriously. I operate under this current reality, not a mythical, potentially far-off reality where we can communicate with aliens. Medicine is different to humans - it is inanimate, it cannot think, it cannot breathe, it cannot do anything a human can. Complexity has a different context when we're talking about medicine. Yes, the study of humans is possible, no psychology and sociology are not quack sciences (I actually studied sociology briefly at university and psychology was actually something I considered). I just believe in studying humans in a case by case basis, individualism and suchlike. You can obviously talk in more generalised terms when referring to those with the same political affiliation, so long as you don't throw around statements like "all." Yes, I have reasons why I believe certain avenues of study cannot yield informative results but they will differ depending on what we're talking about. Put it this way, I always roll my eyes when I see ads for foundation that claim that 87% of women said it matched their skin tone and then says in the small print at the bottom that it was tested on 1000 women and over 800 said it worked. That is nowhere near big enough. Maybe 1 million women would be a bit more reliable, considering how many varieties of skin tone there are. And during the build-up to the Scottish referendum, there were always polls being released claiming that so much percentage of the population where going to vote yes and so many were going to vote no. And every time, all I could think was: "I'm no, my entire family bar one is no, yet none of us have ever taken part in this poll, which means there must be many more just like us, therefore, that no percentage should be way higher. We're only a population of 5 million, this poll needs to be bigger." Yes, we all have to have standards in which to evaluate research but yes, they do have to change between disciplines because there are different standards within those disciplines.

Hmm, I don't know if it was just a general statement. Very strange that you said it, addressed to no one in particular just before you said this to me. And you don't have to tell me about gradually learning something when you see it over and over again, I know of that very well. Just because you're being indirect about it doesn't mean it wasn't aimed at me. I could maybe go into a few indirect statements about you, but let's not go there.

I don't recall him saying when he was 17. I don't go back and read every tiny minute part of an article. Just like I'm sure a lot of other people don't. You don't have to hold me to an incredibly high standard that you don't do for others who you allow to make mistakes.

Who are you to say I don't support LGBT? You barely know me. I believe this is just the first time we've spoken. You don't know enough about me to make that judgement. I respect sexual orientations that are scientifically sound and make sense. I don't just mindlessly accept whatever bizarre self-diagnosis as the real deal. And don't try to tell me that I can't write lengthy posts just because you disagree with them. I am a lot more open minded than you give me credit for but you'll never know that as you're not taking the time to get to know me. How do you know I'm not nice? You're just seeing me wound up about a topic that I feel passionately about, it happens. Now, when I provide this link to you, I don't know how you're going to go about it but please do not attempt to hack into these people's accounts or harass them. They are within their rights to use their right to free speech and shouldn't be threatened with jail time. People also write slanderous things about Gaga online and I never report them. Most people don't even look up articles when they're more than a day old anyway, so don't worry, most people won't even have seen it. The second comment got deleted (whether by the poster or the site, I'm unsure, but the other one is still there - go to the comments section, click on "Best Rated" and look at the comment 13 down from the top): http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-5009139/Sam-Smith-discusses-cross-dressing-past-time.html#comments

I'm not saying that Gaga was the first to ever speak about being bi but she was the first to do it right from the beginning, she never covered it up for a short while, like most other singers do. Most of them only wait until they've achieved a certain level of fame and success before admitting that stuff, but Gaga was honest from the beginning. Also, she was one of the new generation of popstars to state that she had a gay fanbase and say how much she loved them. Up until that point, plenty of the biggest names in pop never even acknowledged their gay fans, now they do it as a matter of course.

The problem is, "sex" and "gender" are still used in the same sense throughout life, so it understandably gets many confused. Honestly, it wasn't until recently that I even looked up this distinction and was shocked because all my life, I've been taught that they're the same thing. I think back to all the forms I've ever filled in where sex/gender is asked and when it comes to word choice, it's a 50/50 split between "sex" and "gender." I've always just seen it as "some people don't say the word 'sex' because it makes some people laugh." It's just a matter of which word you prefer. That's what I've seen all throughout life, even in biology textbooks.

The thing is, gender and personality are 2 different things. How you want to dress, talk, express yourself, etc. won't change your gender. Those things are personality differences. Even I myself, who identifies as a woman, do not feel 100% female all the time, but that doesn't make me feel like I want to identify as anything else. It just means that my personality is going in a certain direction one day. You're allowed to be express masculine and feminine traits without having to change your gender identity. It just seems to limited and outdated to think, for example: "You display 'masculine' personality traits, therefore, you must identify as male on some level" and vice versa. And who decides what is "male" and "female" behaviour anyway? For such a supposedly open minded theory, it's all about applying labels and championing social constructs instead of just letting people be truly free.

NORMAL?!

October 28, 2017

11 hours ago, StrawberryBlond said:

I'm not interested in talking about the technical aspects behind our brains. The point is, you can be as unbiased and objective as you can possibly be. Normal people don't think about stuff this indepth. I feel like you're on a mission to just prove that you're smarter than me with all your big words and technicalities. It's like artists who correct people who say that black and white are colours, clarifying that they are tones. That kind of indepth stuff just doesn't go down well in real life, especially among non-scientists. Talk to me on my level.

I never said that I wasn't basing all this on my own experience. In fact, I do use the phrase "in my own experience" an awful lot. When someone is stating their opinion, assuming that they are referring to their own experiences is pretty much a given in my book, I don't think it needs to be said. When I say that people need to just go out into the world to see what I'm talking about, that is a way of providing a citation of sorts. It's like saying: "If you do this, perhaps you'll start to share the experience I'm talking about."

Your first question involves a group that doesn't exist, as you say "aliens with superior complexity to human beings." How am I supposed to imagine such a possibility in reality? You can't pull out ridiculous theories like that and then expect them to be taken seriously. I operate under this current reality, not a mythical, potentially far-off reality where we can communicate with aliens. Medicine is different to humans - it is inanimate, it cannot think, it cannot breathe, it cannot do anything a human can. Complexity has a different context when we're talking about medicine. Yes, the study of humans is possible, no psychology and sociology are not quack sciences (I actually studied sociology briefly at university and psychology was actually something I considered). I just believe in studying humans in a case by case basis, individualism and suchlike. You can obviously talk in more generalised terms when referring to those with the same political affiliation, so long as you don't throw around statements like "all." Yes, I have reasons why I believe certain avenues of study cannot yield informative results but they will differ depending on what we're talking about. Put it this way, I always roll my eyes when I see ads for foundation that claim that 87% of women said it matched their skin tone and then says in the small print at the bottom that it was tested on 1000 women and over 800 said it worked. That is nowhere near big enough. Maybe 1 million women would be a bit more reliable, considering how many varieties of skin tone there are. And during the build-up to the Scottish referendum, there were always polls being released claiming that so much percentage of the population where going to vote yes and so many were going to vote no. And every time, all I could think was: "I'm no, my entire family bar one is no, yet none of us have ever taken part in this poll, which means there must be many more just like us, therefore, that no percentage should be way higher. We're only a population of 5 million, this poll needs to be bigger." Yes, we all have to have standards in which to evaluate research but yes, they do have to change between disciplines because there are different standards within those disciplines.

Hmm, I don't know if it was just a general statement. Very strange that you said it, addressed to no one in particular just before you said this to me. And you don't have to tell me about gradually learning something when you see it over and over again, I know of that very well. Just because you're being indirect about it doesn't mean it wasn't aimed at me. I could maybe go into a few indirect statements about you, but let's not go there.

I don't recall him saying when he was 17. I don't go back and read every tiny minute part of an article. Just like I'm sure a lot of other people don't. You don't have to hold me to an incredibly high standard that you don't do for others who you allow to make mistakes.

Who are you to say I don't support LGBT? You barely know me. I believe this is just the first time we've spoken. You don't know enough about me to make that judgement. I respect sexual orientations that are scientifically sound and make sense. I don't just mindlessly accept whatever bizarre self-diagnosis as the real deal. And don't try to tell me that I can't write lengthy posts just because you disagree with them. I am a lot more open minded than you give me credit for but you'll never know that as you're not taking the time to get to know me. How do you know I'm not nice? You're just seeing me wound up about a topic that I feel passionately about, it happens. Now, when I provide this link to you, I don't know how you're going to go about it but please do not attempt to hack into these people's accounts or harass them. They are within their rights to use their right to free speech and shouldn't be threatened with jail time. People also write slanderous things about Gaga online and I never report them. Most people don't even look up articles when they're more than a day old anyway, so don't worry, most people won't even have seen it. The second comment got deleted (whether by the poster or the site, I'm unsure, but the other one is still there - go to the comments section, click on "Best Rated" and look at the comment 13 down from the top): http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-5009139/Sam-Smith-discusses-cross-dressing-past-time.html#comments

I'm not saying that Gaga was the first to ever speak about being bi but she was the first to do it right from the beginning, she never covered it up for a short while, like most other singers do. Most of them only wait until they've achieved a certain level of fame and success before admitting that stuff, but Gaga was honest from the beginning. Also, she was one of the new generation of popstars to state that she had a gay fanbase and say how much she loved them. Up until that point, plenty of the biggest names in pop never even acknowledged their gay fans, now they do it as a matter of course.

The problem is, "sex" and "gender" are still used in the same sense throughout life, so it understandably gets many confused. Honestly, it wasn't until recently that I even looked up this distinction and was shocked because all my life, I've been taught that they're the same thing. I think back to all the forms I've ever filled in where sex/gender is asked and when it comes to word choice, it's a 50/50 split between "sex" and "gender." I've always just seen it as "some people don't say the word 'sex' because it makes some people laugh." It's just a matter of which word you prefer. That's what I've seen all throughout life, even in biology textbooks.

The thing is, gender and personality are 2 different things. How you want to dress, talk, express yourself, etc. won't change your gender. Those things are personality differences. Even I myself, who identifies as a woman, do not feel 100% female all the time, but that doesn't make me feel like I want to identify as anything else. It just means that my personality is going in a certain direction one day. You're allowed to be express masculine and feminine traits without having to change your gender identity. It just seems to limited and outdated to think, for example: "You display 'masculine' personality traits, therefore, you must identify as male on some level" and vice versa. And who decides what is "male" and "female" behaviour anyway? For such a supposedly open minded theory, it's all about applying labels and championing social constructs instead of just letting people be truly free.

Don't worry, I know youre busy, shame that one of the 2 people got deleted. Ill ask the mail about it The other one I did find. The said that the girls had to wear kilts?? I thought it was Scottish people that wore kilts. You'd know that being Scottish. In fact at Sam's school in Herts the girls wore skirts and when Sam moved to do his A levels in film there was no uniform as such.

Referring to a daily mail comment is bad enough, let alone the other one missing let alone the post is factually incorrect and liable. Ill keep you posted.

October 28, 2017

12 hours ago, StrawberryBlond said:

The thing is, gender and personality are 2 different things. How you want to dress, talk, express yourself, etc. won't change your gender. Those things are personality differences. Even I myself, who identifies as a woman, do not feel 100% female all the time, but that doesn't make me feel like I want to identify as anything else. It just means that my personality is going in a certain direction one day. You're allowed to be express masculine and feminine traits without having to change your gender identity. It just seems to limited and outdated to think, for example: "You display 'masculine' personality traits, therefore, you must identify as male on some level" and vice versa. And who decides what is "male" and "female" behaviour anyway? For such a supposedly open minded theory, it's all about applying labels and championing social constructs instead of just letting people be truly free.

Finally someone who gets it

October 28, 2017

Oh I see where youre coming from. Its not like that at all. Not in the slightest. Imagine having really vivid nightmares that you are stuck in someone elses body over and over again and being terrified you are stuck in it and have to change back??? That's transsexual. You cant help the physical form you were born into and you have to get rid of it because its driving you crazy!

Youd go round the twist right?? It must be awful!! Then imagine that other people give you grief on top??! No wonder so many commit suicide. Its tragic we cant embrace them and say its OK, its your life, I love you just the same'. Instead they go onto forums to find friends that can maybe not see them and still read horrid remarks.

They deserve love like everybody does.

October 28, 2017

Wanna see his heels

October 28, 2017

23 hours ago, Saint Laurent said:

That's the whole point entirely sex = biology at birth, gender = how you identify (i.e. how you feel)...

I don't really know what you're talking about at this point, gender is in no way connected to your body (unless, of course, you choose it to be by undergoing physical changes).

Clearly you haven't taken the time to read even a small piece of anything that I've written...

That's the only reason I'm saying "sex." I would usually say "gender." The terms are interchangeable for me, as they are for most people and it's all about which one you feel comfortable with. It's never been hammered home to us that the terms mean something different. And while, yes, there could be many expressions of gender, that's exactly it - expressions of gender. Not gender, full stop.

I'm trying to say that you can be either sex yet express yourself however you want, you don't have to put a label on yourself or confuse people by saying you're a different gender. It just screams "look at me, I'm different, I want to be special, so unlike everyone else who just calls themselves male or female." We're in a world where being like everyone else is boring and we want to stand out and make people notice us. And let's not pretend that some aren't doing this in the hope of gaining sympathy and oppression points.

I have read what you're written and I'm just saying that I don't agree with it.

18 hours ago, rpggal said:

But why would you not be interested in talking about the technical aspects of our brains when that is the very thing we use to think? It would be the very same thing as having a discussion about a study or poll you've cited and saying "I'm not interested in discussing the technical aspects of how this poll was conducted," when someone points out its limitations and that your conclusions fall outside its limitations. You are citing your brain as a source and I'm pointing out that it has limitations and those limitations prevent it from generating valid conclusions of the kind you've put forward, without data analysis. "Being as objective as we possibly can be" means being systematic. There is no way, as I've said before, to just turn off the biases and partiality in our brains. Looking at things holistically, without putting in the work to be systematic, will be equally biased all the time, because that's how our brains are wired and we can't re-wire them. We can learn to not fail into certain logical traps and heuristics, but the biases never change. For biases all we can do is rely on external systems of analysis like statistics, controlling of variables, etc. because those controls cannot come from within us but must be constrained upon us.

All that I'm trying to do is get you to understand that, when there are very clear ways to be systematic about a given topic, e.g. it is a quantifiable data set, the best approach is to be systematic and find the answer within a margin of confidence by experiment. If that's not possible then next best is to make a hypothesis and retain a degree of skepticism about it. The worst is to insist that it can be known without doing the analysis at all. That's it. Your painting analogy would only hold if the artist were correcting someone using this inaccurate view of black and white as the premise of some conclusion that no longer holds when the inaccuracy is corrected. It's not a technicality if it completely invalidates an entire way of gaining knowledge about the world that you previously believed was legitimate. And again, just because "normal people don't think this in depth" doesn't mean that rational thought and legitimate ways of gaining knowledge about the world aren't worth educating people about. By that logic, normal liberals (in your view) don't cite sources, so why are you trying to get them to, that doesn't fly in those groups, talk to them on their level, etc. etc.

Why would I waste my time trying to prove I'm smart to strangers on the internet? The only reason I'm even talking to you about this is because you're the one that brought up citations and burdens of proof, and very often refer to your arguments as rational, evidence-based and in contrast to other users who you characterize as feelings based or irrational. So clearly it is a topic (ability, task, whatever you want to call critical thought) you either care about or at the very least care to have the appearance of being good at. Generally, when people care about being good at a task, they like to know ways they can improve, which I have tried to provide you. Why be so averse to new information entirely relevant to something you put on the air of caring about?

My point of those questions wasn't to actually have you answer them here, but to get you to think about whether you can specifically explain (to yourself or on here, it doesn't matter, but it would take a much longer post to really fully answer them) what *specifically* is the standard you have for statistical significance. So far you seem to be saying you use some kind of holistic "does it feel like enough people?" approach, because you have not provided a formula that has an input of certain variables (which based on your previous comment should include complexity as one of them (which by the way is also how you would answer the alien question, I was trying to get you to provide a general formula since all that was provided were unkowns) and an output of necessary sample size. Instead you gave some specific examples and what you would think about them, rather than a general, systematic standard. Of course, if you don't have a background in statistics coming up with a general formula would be difficult so I was hoping you would take the opportunity to look up what formulas statistians actually use, and see if and how complexity enters to equation. Of course different fields will have different standards, but they will not be ARBITRARILY different. There will have to be some logical way of going from the subject matter being different to specifically how the calculations are different. You gave some answers of why you believe human psychology and medicine are different (animate vs. inanimate), but it's not immediately obvious to me how you get from that to the need to have different standards in statistical significance. Maybe that is true, but it would definitely take some working out to get from one to the other. But again, my whole point in those very difficult questions is to get you to question what the basis is for your much higher skepticism for studies of human thought and behavior than you have for their biology, which is much more complex. The fact that these questions are so very difficult to sufficiently answer should I would hope get you to be a little more critical of how you are approaching science (even the social sciences) and whether or not you are truly being "as objective as possible," or whether you're letting biases, heuristics, and logical fallacies get you to see irrelevant details as relevant and vice versa. I understand you see this at nit picking, but if you genuinely value having legitimate methods of coming to accurate conclusions about the world, it is necessary to question our own ability to question, and try to get better.

Because it all gets a bit too indepth, a bit too scientific. Most people aren't here for that. Scientific technicalities are just irritating to the average person. Of course I realise that our brains are wired to think a certain way, generate automatic responses, even play tricks on us. But to say that there's certain biases that we will never overcome (and different people have different biases anyway, are you suggesting we all have the same ones?) is quite insulting to humans and the way we have evolved. We are born blank slates as regards our views of people and the world around us but we gain biases as we get older and learn them from others. I never claimed to be completely unbiased, by the way. I've got my biases, but suffice to say, they all come from a place of bad experience and the bad experiences of others. I don't just dislike someone because they're different to me. Biases towards people who could be harmful to you is actually what keeps us safe. If you're walking alone at night and someone comes up behind you in a hoodie and baseball cap completely obscuring their features, you don't ignore your bias that they're a bad person, right? That's a classic example of biases actually being essential to survival. And you say that we can't completely trust our brains? Well, through our eyes, we actually see everything upside down, but our brain corrects it to reality. Our brains also snap us back to reality to tell us we're dreaming, tells our bodies what are good and bad chemical changes and you know, controls all our limbs and bodily functions. Clearly, we can trust it quite a lot.

Note that I didn't say "all" or "most" liberals, I just said there are quite a few. That's hardly a outrageous statement and it suggests I don't have concrete data to say anything more substantial than that. I hardly think you need statistical data to merely state a trend that you've experienced throughout your life. I gave the painting analogy to make the point that it's all very well to talk like a professional in your given field where appropriate but when you're outside this realm, it's best to be more casual and adopt a more practical view of the world where not everyone knows what you know. I remember when studying philosophy, this idea even came up in our teachings, referring to that annoying know-it-all in every group who just has to correct someone making the casual adage: "is the sky is blue?" about why the sky, scientifically speaking, is not blue, instead of just accepting it as a casual saying and nothing more. Basically, no one likes being lectured to when they're just being casual. And my point in trying to get liberals to cite sources is so that they can better themselves and give a better name to liberals. We should always strive for self-improvement and not think we're always right.

Well, judging by your word choices, I'd say you're really trying to prove that your smart. Of course I care about being better at thinking about these issues but I'd rather that such a lecture was coming from someone who was neutral on the concept of these issues, as opposed to someone who thinks 76 genders exist. Basically, there might be confirmation bias going on. When you so desperately want something to be true, you might be more prepared to demand naysayers need to reevaluate their way of thinking. I mean, you called me a "common senser" in the same way as one might say "anti vaxxer." You made it sound like common sense is a completely useless way of working things out. It's hard to trust someone who thinks such a thing, if you don't mind me saying.

Depends what the statistical significance is. You can't have a general, systematic standard for every type of analysis you want to make. And no, I don't have a background in statistics, I just want to interpret them. And I'm terrible at math, so yeah. To look up what formula statistians actually use would be like watching paint dry. Obviously standards are different from animate vs inanimate because one is unpredictable, the other, predictable. Do I need to say much more or is it obvious? Don't get me wrong, I'm completely open to how I could approach these things better. I won't deny that I was never much of a scientist. I took biology at school because you had to pick a science and this one seemed like the most interesting, the most useful in day to day life, using the least scary chemicals, using no electricity and the least math. Can't say I was the world's best student but the part that I was good at was things relating to how humans function (I still make the joke that I forgot everything about biology except the sex stuff!) and it's the part that still interests me the most to this day and the only part that I still keep alive somewhat. And now, with all this multiple gender topic, it's coming back more than ever.

For the record, you've made a big deal out of something that most people would just brush off. I'm all for a basic disagreement but I don't think anyone's ever asked me what statistical proof I have for making a simple observation about things I've encountered in life. It's like saying to me that the things I've seen aren't true.

16 hours ago, scallywally said:

NORMAL?!

I think it was obvious what I meant by "normal" in this case. It's not always a bad word in some situations. I was referring to people who aren't scientists. Another way of saying "civilians with no background knowledge in this stuff." That's all.

13 hours ago, scallywally said:

Don't worry, I know youre busy, shame that one of the 2 people got deleted. Ill ask the mail about it The other one I did find. The said that the girls had to wear kilts?? I thought it was Scottish people that wore kilts. You'd know that being Scottish. In fact at Sam's school in Herts the girls wore skirts and when Sam moved to do his A levels in film there was no uniform as such.

Referring to a daily mail comment is bad enough, let alone the other one missing let alone the post is factually incorrect and liable. Ill keep you posted.

Sorry, the bit about the kilts really made me laugh. It's you who's misunderstood. A kilt is a broad term. It isn't just those things that men wear, those long skirts with a sporran accompanied by long socks and polished shoes. A kilt can be any skirt design with a tartan (plaid in the US) print. They're not just called kilts when men wear them. Because we think of skirts being worn by women, however, we tend to call any similar style worn by them to be a skirt as well. But in actual fact, it's just as much a kilt as it is a skirt. It's really only the older generation who insist on calling those Catholic schoolgirl skirts "kilts" but it is still a valid term. But ok, if he really did progress to somewhere where there was no uniform, perhaps it was the person who wrote the comment that misunderstood what he meant.

What does it matter what paper it's from? I don't judge people by what newspaper they read. If a comment's true, does it really matter where it came from? There's no need to be so snappy with me. You're blowing all this completely out of proportion. I hate to break it to you, but I daresay the publication won't care about your concern. After a certain amount of time (though I can't say how long), Daily Mail comments eventually all disappear anyway. I don't know why this is but it happens. I remember looking up articles from years back that I distinctly remember having comments and finding they were all gone. So it's not even like this "libelous" comment will be around until the end of time or anything. How many people are even going to be looking up this article in the future? It was hard enough finding it in a search - not even looking up "sam smith fur coat" was enough initially. So, relax and put things into perspective.

11 hours ago, scallywally said:

Oh I see where youre coming from. Its not like that at all. Not in the slightest. Imagine having really vivid nightmares that you are stuck in someone elses body over and over again and being terrified you are stuck in it and have to change back??? That's transsexual. You cant help the physical form you were born into and you have to get rid of it because its driving you crazy!

Youd go round the twist right?? It must be awful!! Then imagine that other people give you grief on top??! No wonder so many commit suicide. Its tragic we cant embrace them and say its OK, its your life, I love you just the same'. Instead they go onto forums to find friends that can maybe not see them and still read horrid remarks.

They deserve love like everybody does.

If you'd read my comments in full, you'd find that I made very clear that I fully support trans people, so I don't know where all this has suddenly come from. Being trans is a medically diagnosiable condition, so I'm cool with that. It's the (as of yet) scientifically and medically unproven claims of gender queer, gender fluid and the long list of other "genders" that I'm debating the validity of, not being trans.

October 29, 2017

5 hours ago, StrawberryBlond said:

That's the only reason I'm saying "sex." I would usually say "gender." The terms are interchangeable for me, as they are for most people and it's all about which one you feel comfortable with. It's never been hammered home to us that the terms mean something different. And while, yes, there could be many expressions of gender, that's exactly it - expressions of gender. Not gender, full stop.

I'm trying to say that you can be either sex yet express yourself however you want, you don't have to put a label on yourself or confuse people by saying you're a different gender. It just screams "look at me, I'm different, I want to be special, so unlike everyone else who just calls themselves male or female." We're in a world where being like everyone else is boring and we want to stand out and make people notice us. And let's not pretend that some aren't doing this in the hope of gaining sympathy and oppression points.

I have read what you're written and I'm just saying that I don't agree with it.

Because it all gets a bit too indepth, a bit too scientific. Most people aren't here for that. Scientific technicalities are just irritating to the average person. Of course I realise that our brains are wired to think a certain way, generate automatic responses, even play tricks on us. But to say that there's certain biases that we will never overcome (and different people have different biases anyway, are you suggesting we all have the same ones?) is quite insulting to humans and the way we have evolved. We are born blank slates as regards our views of people and the world around us but we gain biases as we get older and learn them from others. I never claimed to be completely unbiased, by the way. I've got my biases, but suffice to say, they all come from a place of bad experience and the bad experiences of others. I don't just dislike someone because they're different to me. Biases towards people who could be harmful to you is actually what keeps us safe. If you're walking alone at night and someone comes up behind you in a hoodie and baseball cap completely obscuring their features, you don't ignore your bias that they're a bad person, right? That's a classic example of biases actually being essential to survival. And you say that we can't completely trust our brains? Well, through our eyes, we actually see everything upside down, but our brain corrects it to reality. Our brains also snap us back to reality to tell us we're dreaming, tells our bodies what are good and bad chemical changes and you know, controls all our limbs and bodily functions. Clearly, we can trust it quite a lot.

Note that I didn't say "all" or "most" liberals, I just said there are quite a few. That's hardly a outrageous statement and it suggests I don't have concrete data to say anything more substantial than that. I hardly think you need statistical data to merely state a trend that you've experienced throughout your life. I gave the painting analogy to make the point that it's all very well to talk like a professional in your given field where appropriate but when you're outside this realm, it's best to be more casual and adopt a more practical view of the world where not everyone knows what you know. I remember when studying philosophy, this idea even came up in our teachings, referring to that annoying know-it-all in every group who just has to correct someone making the casual adage: "is the sky is blue?" about why the sky, scientifically speaking, is not blue, instead of just accepting it as a casual saying and nothing more. Basically, no one likes being lectured to when they're just being casual. And my point in trying to get liberals to cite sources is so that they can better themselves and give a better name to liberals. We should always strive for self-improvement and not think we're always right.

Well, judging by your word choices, I'd say you're really trying to prove that your smart. Of course I care about being better at thinking about these issues but I'd rather that such a lecture was coming from someone who was neutral on the concept of these issues, as opposed to someone who thinks 76 genders exist. Basically, there might be confirmation bias going on. When you so desperately want something to be true, you might be more prepared to demand naysayers need to reevaluate their way of thinking. I mean, you called me a "common senser" in the same way as one might say "anti vaxxer." You made it sound like common sense is a completely useless way of working things out. It's hard to trust someone who thinks such a thing, if you don't mind me saying.

Depends what the statistical significance is. You can't have a general, systematic standard for every type of analysis you want to make. And no, I don't have a background in statistics, I just want to interpret them. And I'm terrible at math, so yeah. To look up what formula statistians actually use would be like watching paint dry. Obviously standards are different from animate vs inanimate because one is unpredictable, the other, predictable. Do I need to say much more or is it obvious? Don't get me wrong, I'm completely open to how I could approach these things better. I won't deny that I was never much of a scientist. I took biology at school because you had to pick a science and this one seemed like the most interesting, the most useful in day to day life, using the least scary chemicals, using no electricity and the least math. Can't say I was the world's best student but the part that I was good at was things relating to how humans function (I still make the joke that I forgot everything about biology except the sex stuff!) and it's the part that still interests me the most to this day and the only part that I still keep alive somewhat. And now, with all this multiple gender topic, it's coming back more than ever.

For the record, you've made a big deal out of something that most people would just brush off. I'm all for a basic disagreement but I don't think anyone's ever asked me what statistical proof I have for making a simple observation about things I've encountered in life. It's like saying to me that the things I've seen aren't true.

I think it was obvious what I meant by "normal" in this case. It's not always a bad word in some situations. I was referring to people who aren't scientists. Another way of saying "civilians with no background knowledge in this stuff." That's all.

Sorry, the bit about the kilts really made me laugh. It's you who's misunderstood. A kilt is a broad term. It isn't just those things that men wear, those long skirts with a sporran accompanied by long socks and polished shoes. A kilt can be any skirt design with a tartan (plaid in the US) print. They're not just called kilts when men wear them. Because we think of skirts being worn by women, however, we tend to call any similar style worn by them to be a skirt as well. But in actual fact, it's just as much a kilt as it is a skirt. It's really only the older generation who insist on calling those Catholic schoolgirl skirts "kilts" but it is still a valid term. But ok, if he really did progress to somewhere where there was no uniform, perhaps it was the person who wrote the comment that misunderstood what he meant.

What does it matter what paper it's from? I don't judge people by what newspaper they read. If a comment's true, does it really matter where it came from? There's no need to be so snappy with me. You're blowing all this completely out of proportion. I hate to break it to you, but I daresay the publication won't care about your concern. After a certain amount of time (though I can't say how long), Daily Mail comments eventually all disappear anyway. I don't know why this is but it happens. I remember looking up articles from years back that I distinctly remember having comments and finding they were all gone. So it's not even like this "libelous" comment will be around until the end of time or anything. How many people are even going to be looking up this article in the future? It was hard enough finding it in a search - not even looking up "sam smith fur coat" was enough initially. So, relax and put things into perspective.

If you'd read my comments in full, you'd find that I made very clear that I fully support trans people, so I don't know where all this has suddenly come from. Being trans is a medically diagnosiable condition, so I'm cool with that. It's the (as of yet) scientifically and medically unproven claims of gender queer, gender fluid and the long list of other "genders" that I'm debating the validity of, not being trans.

We are not born blank slates and yes we do all have a set of biases that can never be changed, they are called cognitive biases and they are directly wired into our brain from evolution, and are independent of experience. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biasesh

People of course will have other biases from their life experiences as well but I'm not talking about those. I'm sorry if you thought those were the ones I was talking about this whole time, but they're very very different. The ones from experience can change over time, cognitive biases cannot. Additionally my point was never that biases cannot be useful. On the contrary, for surviving in the wild they were essential that's why they evolved. However if we are concerned about truth rather than rules of thumb that got us through the wild, it is important to follow processes that will overcome these biases.

I'm using the words I'm using because they are the ones that are most precise and therefore say exactly what I mean. Trying to "translate" the precise terminology of epistemology and scientific study into lay man's terms is just asking for disaster, because nothing I'm saying will mean what I mean, everything will be less accurate and open to interpretation, and honestly the miscommunications would make this already fairly long conversation much, much longer because I would keep having to clarify exactly what I meant. I only get to come on here like once or twice a day because I'm busy so I'm not willing to drag it on longer just to probably end up translating the lay terminology back into precise terminology. This way saves us both time. When you use these terms in everyday life (which I do) it doesn't even make sense to use them here just to "try to sound smart," they're the default and it would take more work to accomplish less by translating. I'm not sure if the "76 genders" thing is referring to me (I don't believe I've ever said that) and if my comments are the "lecture" you're talking about, but of course every person that discusses any topic will be biased, that is why we must look at the merits of the arguments themselves and whether they are grounded in fact and logically consistent.

Moving on, "common sense" IS a completely useless way of working things out, that's my whole point! It literally means the opposite of critical thought, it means taking things as they appear on their face. It means "this seems like it's true so obviously it is." It is literally an appeal to "obviousness" and "self-evidence" by people that don't want to make an actual proof. Ask yourself, is "common sense" ever appealed to *alongside* a citation or argument, OR is it always used to say that a fact is given, and that citation or argument is not needed? It's a cop out. That's all it is. I called you a "common-senser" because you were making appeals to such vague thought processes as "living and observing," and did specifically mention common sense in one post. I did not mean it as an insult in the way probably everyone would consider anti-vaxxer, but more as a play on words with "critical thinker" just to set up a contrast between the two. I apologize if you took offense to that, it was an effort to get you to change your perception of appeals to common sense as actually undermining your credibility as a critical thinker. Obviously you can be critically thinking at some times and nevertheless have this misconception that common sense is also a legitimate source of knowledge, so I apologize for implying that you could never be considered critically minded just for believing in common sense. But ideally critical thinkers would avoid such appeals.

I'm really confused why you think inanimate means predictable and animate means unpredictable, which makes me question whether we are even using the same meaning of the words (again, the reason why I have been as precise as I can in these posts). Rather than go back and forth on that any longer though I'll just say that statisticians actually do use the same general processes for all the various fields. There are a few formulas for the different kinds of distribution the data follows and what is unknown versus known, and the threshold of significance itself may change between fields, but overall there is a standard analysis, which takes into consideration the same kinds of information, no matter the subject matter. I know you probably won't read it, and I don't blame you, but here's the page on statistical power, which basically says what goes into determining the necessary sample size for significance. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_power

I've never said that the things that you've seen aren't true, I've simply encouraged you to question the *conclusions* you've made based on what you've seen if those observations have not been through the filter of data analysis and controlling of variables/biases, especially when those observations are quantifiable and COULD rather easily be analyzed systematically instead. That's all.

October 29, 2017

@rpggal Id give up. Youre probably not 'normal' enough to communicate with them.

October 29, 2017

12 hours ago, rpggal said:

We are not born blank slates and yes we do all have a set of biases that can never be changed, they are called cognitive biases and they are directly wired into our brain from evolution, and are independent of experience. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biasesh

People of course will have other biases from their life experiences as well but I'm not talking about those. I'm sorry if you thought those were the ones I was talking about this whole time, but they're very very different. The ones from experience can change over time, cognitive biases cannot. Additionally my point was never that biases cannot be useful. On the contrary, for surviving in the wild they were essential that's why they evolved. However if we are concerned about truth rather than rules of thumb that got us through the wild, it is important to follow processes that will overcome these biases.

I'm using the words I'm using because they are the ones that are most precise and therefore say exactly what I mean. Trying to "translate" the precise terminology of epistemology and scientific study into lay man's terms is just asking for disaster, because nothing I'm saying will mean what I mean, everything will be less accurate and open to interpretation, and honestly the miscommunications would make this already fairly long conversation much, much longer because I would keep having to clarify exactly what I meant. I only get to come on here like once or twice a day because I'm busy so I'm not willing to drag it on longer just to probably end up translating the lay terminology back into precise terminology. This way saves us both time. When you use these terms in everyday life (which I do) it doesn't even make sense to use them here just to "try to sound smart," they're the default and it would take more work to accomplish less by translating. I'm not sure if the "76 genders" thing is referring to me (I don't believe I've ever said that) and if my comments are the "lecture" you're talking about, but of course every person that discusses any topic will be biased, that is why we must look at the merits of the arguments themselves and whether they are grounded in fact and logically consistent.

Moving on, "common sense" IS a completely useless way of working things out, that's my whole point! It literally means the opposite of critical thought, it means taking things as they appear on their face. It means "this seems like it's true so obviously it is." It is literally an appeal to "obviousness" and "self-evidence" by people that don't want to make an actual proof. Ask yourself, is "common sense" ever appealed to *alongside* a citation or argument, OR is it always used to say that a fact is given, and that citation or argument is not needed? It's a cop out. That's all it is. I called you a "common-senser" because you were making appeals to such vague thought processes as "living and observing," and did specifically mention common sense in one post. I did not mean it as an insult in the way probably everyone would consider anti-vaxxer, but more as a play on words with "critical thinker" just to set up a contrast between the two. I apologize if you took offense to that, it was an effort to get you to change your perception of appeals to common sense as actually undermining your credibility as a critical thinker. Obviously you can be critically thinking at some times and nevertheless have this misconception that common sense is also a legitimate source of knowledge, so I apologize for implying that you could never be considered critically minded just for believing in common sense. But ideally critical thinkers would avoid such appeals.

I'm really confused why you think inanimate means predictable and animate means unpredictable, which makes me question whether we are even using the same meaning of the words (again, the reason why I have been as precise as I can in these posts). Rather than go back and forth on that any longer though I'll just say that statisticians actually do use the same general processes for all the various fields. There are a few formulas for the different kinds of distribution the data follows and what is unknown versus known, and the threshold of significance itself may change between fields, but overall there is a standard analysis, which takes into consideration the same kinds of information, no matter the subject matter. I know you probably won't read it, and I don't blame you, but here's the page on statistical power, which basically says what goes into determining the necessary sample size for significance. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_power

I've never said that the things that you've seen aren't true, I've simply encouraged you to question the *conclusions* you've made based on what you've seen if those observations have not been through the filter of data analysis and controlling of variables/biases, especially when those observations are quantifiable and COULD rather easily be analyzed systematically instead. That's all.

Yes, there will be natural biases we have, though I'd prefer to say "preferences." But I'm trying to say that we aren't born racist, sexist, homophobic or in any way close minded. You'll notice that every time you see a black baby and a white baby link fingers and seem to be interested in one another, not seeing any difference. This happened on an episode of Good Morning Britain, which completely s**t all over this study carried out by a professor who claims that babies are born bigoted - Piers Morgan was laughing at him on the air still trying to defend himself with the evidence coming to him live on the screen beside him.

Wait a minute, are you for natural survival biases or not? At one point you say that they are essential but then the next, you say we should overcome them.

I understand you're busy and can't give too much of you time to this, so I'm trying to keep it shorter as well. I'm not necessarily asking you to explain each and every term you use, rather that you put down your entire thoughts in lay man's terms with (good) analogies. That's the way I talk to everyone so they can keep interested and feel like they're smart enough to respond. Ironically, by trying to use the big term to get the truly meaning across, the meaning gets lost because most of us can't understand it. Most of the words you use aren't ones that come up on a daily basis, so when we hear them, we go: "what does that word mean again?" I always stopped using university language when I was out of the building because it just sounded pretentious. Well, I actually don't know if you support 76 genders but as you supported gender queer and were trying to prove to me that there can be multiple genders, it seemed like a natural assumption. But this is what I do with arguments as well - when it comes to anything I believe in now, I actually look up studies or viewpoints that both support it and disagree with it, so I can weigh them up. And surprise, surprise, the ones that support what I think sounds grounded in fact and logically consistent is are the ones that most sit right with me. We have our feelings about things for a reason - it's not like we didn't believe in anything until a study informed of what to think. We can draw logic ourselves before we get that stuff, we're not stupid. Not to sound too pompous but so often, I've seen experts confirming stuff I already knew (please don't ask for my statistical proof on that). Because there are plenty of things in life that you don't need to be an expert on to draw the right conclusions. You are allowed to trust yourself and your own beliefs. You don't need to wait until someone else has confirmed it every single time.

Perhaps the word "common" in common sense is what is throwing you. It perhaps brings to mind negative connotations of "common people", i.e. the poor and uneducated. So, what use would the sense of common people be worth? But I really don't think that's what the term means, rather, it's saying that all humans have a base level of natural intelligence and can tap into it if necessary. It's common sense to not jump into water if you can't swim. It's common sense not to leave a fire unattended. It's common sense to eat when you're hungry. So, how can common sense be completely useless way of working things out? Some things don't need actual proof because we know them to be true, like the things I just mentioned. Common sense can be used on its own, but yes, putting a citation or argument beside it really helps your point considerably. I don't know what's so vague about processes such as "living and observing." How about: "Go outside your front door and converse with others who both agree and disagree with you to get a better sense of how people within certain groups think and operate?" And surely critical thinking is based on common sense? I'd argue that this was what led to words like "logic" and "reason."

I don't know how you can think we mean something different with animate vs inanitmate. Animate means "living" and therefore, means it has a brain, therefore, has some element of free will to express themselves however they choose, so we can't make blanket statements about such creatures. Inanimate means "not living" and therefore, it has no brain, therefore, has no element of free will and cannot make choices of its own, so we can make blanket statements about such things. For example, a rock rolls down a hill while a person rolls along beside it. What happens? The rock will keep rolling forward as long as the hill incline is steep enough, gravity will ensure it keeps rolling. It might be pushed in a slightly different direction by bouncing off a rut in the hill or rounding a bend, but it will just keep going until something makes it stop. A very predictable thing, rocks. But a person is unpredictable. They could run down the hill and suddenly decide to start skipping or jumping or doing a cartwheel. They could decide to stop running altogether and grind to a halt. Or they they could pick up the rolling rock beside them and chuck it into the sea. You never know what a living being will do, so they are unpredictable and should be held to a different analysis, giving room for the complexity of the human psyche. Yeah, I took one look at the link and moved away. I did mention earlier that I was terrible at math and equations, so no, I can't make head nor tail of this. I actually had to do a little bit of this as part of philosophy theory and I don't know how I passed that bit of the exam. I didn't understand it then and I still don't.

Rest assured, I do question my conclusions all the time and am critical of my own thought processes. I've given up on things I used to believe because I realise that they weren't based on anything substantial. I am open to my mind being changed by evidence. It's just that until some comes up, it won't convince me otherwise.

5 hours ago, scallywally said:

@rpggal Id give up. Youre probably not 'normal' enough to communicate with them.

Don't start with me. I give you a good reply and you won't reply because you're intimidated.

October 29, 2017

Imo, gender is not a social construct. Sex and gender are synonymous.

October 29, 2017

45 minutes ago, StrawberryBlond said:

Yes, there will be natural biases we have, though I'd prefer to say "preferences." But I'm trying to say that we aren't born racist, sexist, homophobic or in any way close minded. You'll notice that every time you see a black baby and a white baby link fingers and seem to be interested in one another, not seeing any difference. This happened on an episode of Good Morning Britain, which completely s**t all over this study carried out by a professor who claims that babies are born bigoted - Piers Morgan was laughing at him on the air still trying to defend himself with the evidence coming to him live on the screen beside him.

Wait a minute, are you for natural survival biases or not? At one point you say that they are essential but then the next, you say we should overcome them.

I understand you're busy and can't give too much of you time to this, so I'm trying to keep it shorter as well. I'm not necessarily asking you to explain each and every term you use, rather that you put down your entire thoughts in lay man's terms with (good) analogies. That's the way I talk to everyone so they can keep interested and feel like they're smart enough to respond. Ironically, by trying to use the big term to get the truly meaning across, the meaning gets lost because most of us can't understand it. Most of the words you use aren't ones that come up on a daily basis, so when we hear them, we go: "what does that word mean again?" I always stopped using university language when I was out of the building because it just sounded pretentious. Well, I actually don't know if you support 76 genders but as you supported gender queer and were trying to prove to me that there can be multiple genders, it seemed like a natural assumption. But this is what I do with arguments as well - when it comes to anything I believe in now, I actually look up studies or viewpoints that both support it and disagree with it, so I can weigh them up. And surprise, surprise, the ones that support what I think sounds grounded in fact and logically consistent is are the ones that most sit right with me. We have our feelings about things for a reason - it's not like we didn't believe in anything until a study informed of what to think. We can draw logic ourselves before we get that stuff, we're not stupid. Not to sound too pompous but so often, I've seen experts confirming stuff I already knew (please don't ask for my statistical proof on that). Because there are plenty of things in life that you don't need to be an expert on to draw the right conclusions. You are allowed to trust yourself and your own beliefs. You don't need to wait until someone else has confirmed it every single time.

Perhaps the word "common" in common sense is what is throwing you. It perhaps brings to mind negative connotations of "common people", i.e. the poor and uneducated. So, what use would the sense of common people be worth? But I really don't think that's what the term means, rather, it's saying that all humans have a base level of natural intelligence and can tap into it if necessary. It's common sense to not jump into water if you can't swim. It's common sense not to leave a fire unattended. It's common sense to eat when you're hungry. So, how can common sense be completely useless way of working things out? Some things don't need actual proof because we know them to be true, like the things I just mentioned. Common sense can be used on its own, but yes, putting a citation or argument beside it really helps your point considerably. I don't know what's so vague about processes such as "living and observing." How about: "Go outside your front door and converse with others who both agree and disagree with you to get a better sense of how people within certain groups think and operate?" And surely critical thinking is based on common sense? I'd argue that this was what led to words like "logic" and "reason."

I don't know how you can think we mean something different with animate vs inanitmate. Animate means "living" and therefore, means it has a brain, therefore, has some element of free will to express themselves however they choose, so we can't make blanket statements about such creatures. Inanimate means "not living" and therefore, it has no brain, therefore, has no element of free will and cannot make choices of its own, so we can make blanket statements about such things. For example, a rock rolls down a hill while a person rolls along beside it. What happens? The rock will keep rolling forward as long as the hill incline is steep enough, gravity will ensure it keeps rolling. It might be pushed in a slightly different direction by bouncing off a rut in the hill or rounding a bend, but it will just keep going until something makes it stop. A very predictable thing, rocks. But a person is unpredictable. They could run down the hill and suddenly decide to start skipping or jumping or doing a cartwheel. They could decide to stop running altogether and grind to a halt. Or they they could pick up the rolling rock beside them and chuck it into the sea. You never know what a living being will do, so they are unpredictable and should be held to a different analysis, giving room for the complexity of the human psyche. Yeah, I took one look at the link and moved away. I did mention earlier that I was terrible at math and equations, so no, I can't make head nor tail of this. I actually had to do a little bit of this as part of philosophy theory and I don't know how I passed that bit of the exam. I didn't understand it then and I still don't.

Rest assured, I do question my conclusions all the time and am critical of my own thought processes. I've given up on things I used to believe because I realise that they weren't based on anything substantial. I am open to my mind being changed by evidence. It's just that until some comes up, it won't convince me otherwise.

Don't start with me. I give you a good reply and you won't reply because you're intimidated.

Don't start with you? That's threatening language. To be intimidated by who? or what? I'm lost.

October 30, 2017

7 hours ago, StrawberryBlond said:

Yes, there will be natural biases we have, though I'd prefer to say "preferences." But I'm trying to say that we aren't born racist, sexist, homophobic or in any way close minded. You'll notice that every time you see a black baby and a white baby link fingers and seem to be interested in one another, not seeing any difference. This happened on an episode of Good Morning Britain, which completely s**t all over this study carried out by a professor who claims that babies are born bigoted - Piers Morgan was laughing at him on the air still trying to defend himself with the evidence coming to him live on the screen beside him.

Wait a minute, are you for natural survival biases or not? At one point you say that they are essential but then the next, you say we should overcome them.

I understand you're busy and can't give too much of you time to this, so I'm trying to keep it shorter as well. I'm not necessarily asking you to explain each and every term you use, rather that you put down your entire thoughts in lay man's terms with (good) analogies. That's the way I talk to everyone so they can keep interested and feel like they're smart enough to respond. Ironically, by trying to use the big term to get the truly meaning across, the meaning gets lost because most of us can't understand it. Most of the words you use aren't ones that come up on a daily basis, so when we hear them, we go: "what does that word mean again?" I always stopped using university language when I was out of the building because it just sounded pretentious. Well, I actually don't know if you support 76 genders but as you supported gender queer and were trying to prove to me that there can be multiple genders, it seemed like a natural assumption. But this is what I do with arguments as well - when it comes to anything I believe in now, I actually look up studies or viewpoints that both support it and disagree with it, so I can weigh them up. And surprise, surprise, the ones that support what I think sounds grounded in fact and logically consistent is are the ones that most sit right with me. We have our feelings about things for a reason - it's not like we didn't believe in anything until a study informed of what to think. We can draw logic ourselves before we get that stuff, we're not stupid. Not to sound too pompous but so often, I've seen experts confirming stuff I already knew (please don't ask for my statistical proof on that). Because there are plenty of things in life that you don't need to be an expert on to draw the right conclusions. You are allowed to trust yourself and your own beliefs. You don't need to wait until someone else has confirmed it every single time.

Perhaps the word "common" in common sense is what is throwing you. It perhaps brings to mind negative connotations of "common people", i.e. the poor and uneducated. So, what use would the sense of common people be worth? But I really don't think that's what the term means, rather, it's saying that all humans have a base level of natural intelligence and can tap into it if necessary. It's common sense to not jump into water if you can't swim. It's common sense not to leave a fire unattended. It's common sense to eat when you're hungry. So, how can common sense be completely useless way of working things out? Some things don't need actual proof because we know them to be true, like the things I just mentioned. Common sense can be used on its own, but yes, putting a citation or argument beside it really helps your point considerably. I don't know what's so vague about processes such as "living and observing." How about: "Go outside your front door and converse with others who both agree and disagree with you to get a better sense of how people within certain groups think and operate?" And surely critical thinking is based on common sense? I'd argue that this was what led to words like "logic" and "reason."

I don't know how you can think we mean something different with animate vs inanitmate. Animate means "living" and therefore, means it has a brain, therefore, has some element of free will to express themselves however they choose, so we can't make blanket statements about such creatures. Inanimate means "not living" and therefore, it has no brain, therefore, has no element of free will and cannot make choices of its own, so we can make blanket statements about such things. For example, a rock rolls down a hill while a person rolls along beside it. What happens? The rock will keep rolling forward as long as the hill incline is steep enough, gravity will ensure it keeps rolling. It might be pushed in a slightly different direction by bouncing off a rut in the hill or rounding a bend, but it will just keep going until something makes it stop. A very predictable thing, rocks. But a person is unpredictable. They could run down the hill and suddenly decide to start skipping or jumping or doing a cartwheel. They could decide to stop running altogether and grind to a halt. Or they they could pick up the rolling rock beside them and chuck it into the sea. You never know what a living being will do, so they are unpredictable and should be held to a different analysis, giving room for the complexity of the human psyche. Yeah, I took one look at the link and moved away. I did mention earlier that I was terrible at math and equations, so no, I can't make head nor tail of this. I actually had to do a little bit of this as part of philosophy theory and I don't know how I passed that bit of the exam. I didn't understand it then and I still don't.

Rest assured, I do question my conclusions all the time and am critical of my own thought processes. I've given up on things I used to believe because I realise that they weren't based on anything substantial. I am open to my mind being changed by evidence. It's just that until some comes up, it won't convince me otherwise.

Don't start with me. I give you a good reply and you won't reply because you're intimidated.

But I just said those are the biases I'm not talking about... Did you click on the link I gave you of cognitive biases? It has nothing to do with racism, sexism, and homophobia, those are learned. I've even said so in other threads, they're learned but learned at a young age. Cognitive biases affect the very way we think, regardless of the topic. They're literally just our evolutionary wiring to jump to conclusions because in the wild we would not have time to check and make sure the deductions are valid before getting eaten. That's why we have rules of thumb like "better safe than sorry." I said they are essential for surviving *in the wild*. In modern society we have lots of time to think about an issue before acting on it, without worrying about being eaten by a predator in the meantime. The only benefit of these biases was to save time and thereby save lives. If and when we find ourselves in life-threatening situations they become useful again, but the rest of the time it is more beneficial for us to just take the extra time to use evidence-based thinking, because the cost of being wrong (like for example in the vaccine issue like you brought up) generally outweighs the cost of the extra time it took you to look up the evidence and analyze it (or check if you agree with the analysis that was done).

You might be thinking, "well not everyone needs to do that, it's enough for the scientists to do it and for us to trust them," but actually it is imperative that the general public be able to analyze scientific results for themselves because there are oceans of pseudoscience out there that they must understand how to distinguish from real science, as well as tons of "science" journalism in which journalists with no scientific background come to all kinds of incorrect conclusions about a new paper, make exaggerated claims, causing lay people to walk away believing that science supports some new fact that it does not. We've spent hundreds of years perfecting scientific methodology to overcome biases as much as possible, in the hopes of getting closer to truth, and it's important that every member of our society at the very least be able to tell the difference between testable and untestable (empirical versus non-empirical), what biases are inherent in a project unless they have been specifically corrected for, how to correct for them, and what statistical significance is and whether it has been achieved (usually the paper explicitly says). If you're missing any of those skills you can't fully tell apart the good science from the bad (and there is a lot of bad science) from the straight up pseudoscience, without relying on your own biases and heuristics to tell you if it "feels" right. It may seem like a lot of work at first but it actually doesn't take that much time to learn them and once you have them you have them and can use them for life.

I think you're thinking of someone else because I've never made a comment on the gender issue in this thread, only on the issue of citation etc.

"We can draw logic ourselves before we get that stuff, we're not stupid... Because there are plenty of things in life that you don't need to be an expert on to draw the right conclusions. You are allowed to trust yourself and your own beliefs. You don't need to wait until someone else has confirmed it every single time." We are not stupid compared to other animals, but we are fundamentally not rational either. I would highly recommend the book "You Are Not So Smart" by David McRaney. It is 100% written in lay man's terms, and each cognitive bias has only a few pages that go over the evidence of each bias, demonstrating how irrational human beings actually are. It's not dry either, it's pretty entertaining. That's really been my whole point in this discussion so if at this point we still disagree on that basic concept that our brains are not reliable sources of information without the external systems of logic and science, I'm just going to refer you to that book. Secondly I never said you needed to be an expert to be right, just that you had to be systematic, which even a lay person can do. To be nitpicky on my own part, technically you could be right without being systematic, just like technically you could be right by writing down a bunch of random thoughts, putting them in a jar, and picking them at random. The issue is whether you are *likely* to be right from your process, and whether we can say you were right because of your process or in spite of it. Thirdly I never said you have to wait for confirmation to have a belief, in fact I specifically said you're allowed to have beliefs without evidence but you should maintain a degree of skepticism about them.

It's not the word "common" in common sense, it is the way the phrase is used, basically to mean "self-evident." Your examples seem to be more like "instinct," and if people use it in this way I have no problem with it. The problem is that more often people use it about empirical matters where testing truly is needed, such as psychology, sociology, politics, economics, biology, and medicine. There is literally nothing self-evident in those fields, no matter how obvious they may seem in their face. And this goes to your point above, that we could just know things without the testing, and that sometimes experts "prove things that didn't need proving." If it is empirical it does need proving. For every example where the result comes out exactly how you would expect, there are others where the reality was not what we expected at all. But belief in common sense relies on confirmation bias to conveniently ignore all the times science has proven common sense wrong to stick to this view that we can just have direct access to truth in the world without putting in the work of logic and experiment.

Ahhhh I see where the confusion has arisen. You believe life implies free will and therefore cannot be predicted. Unfortunately, there has never been any evidence of free will, and in fact there has been significant evidence to the contrary. Free will by its very nature would not be amenable to scientific inquiry if it existed, because scientific inquiry seeks to make predictions and when possible establish causality. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your perspective), the human brain has been very amenable to scientific inquiry and we have a very, very detailed, down to the molecular level and up to the psychological one, causal picture of the human brain and mind. There are a few gaps between the neuroscience and the psychology, but nothing yet to suggest that there is a free will element that will prevent us from soon filling in the rest of the gaps from neuroscience to psychology as a causal process.

I'm glad that you do use critical thought in your daily life. I would just hope that you will add to that arsenal a bit more knowledge about cognitive bias and skepticism about empirical conclusions made without data analysis.

October 30, 2017

On ‎2017‎-‎10‎-‎27 at 8:43 PM, Saint Laurent said:

It's difficult to engage with somebody who has little to offer in terms of intellect, to be perfectly honest with you.

There are two biological sexes - male and female. Sex is completely binary and nobody can be a sex that they are biologically not. That's what science offers us.

Gender is referenced when discussing social and cultural issues surrounding identity. Gender is a complete social construct and has absolutely nothing to do with what your anatomy was at birth, or indeed, what it is now. Science has no logical place in a debate concerning gender identity since it is as far removed from biology as is possible.

If you would have said 'there are only 2 sexes' you would have been totally correct, but there are actually a number of different genders and a persons gender is entirely chosen by themselves, or society.

Most of us are assigned a gender, for example, I was assigned the gender of a man. That is different to my biology - I am biologically man and also have been assigned/have chosen the gender of a man. Should I feel like I would rather be a woman, I would still be biologically male, but my gender would be female.

This is where the term 'transgender' has come from. If you are biologically male and your gender is female you are trans - gendered i.e. you exist across BOTH the male sex and the female gender.

That same principle can be applied to each and every individuals personal wishes or feelings - they may identify as whatever gender they feel they are, but their sex i.e. their biology is unchangeable.

This really isn't difficult to understand tbh and if you feel so aggressive about non-traditional gender roles that you feel the need to describe them as 'cancerous', someone really ought to have a word with you about respect for other people. In actual fact, you're wrong, people like YOU are the cancer of society, people who refuse to accept that people have an absolute right to express themselves exactly as they feel inside.

I suggest you talk to somebody about your anger towards freedom to express yourself as any gender you want. Use your privilege to become more educated and more understanding.

Just to reiterate, since you think I'm uneducated for some reason unbeknownst to me, I study gender, sexuality and the law as part of my law degree and am almost undoubtedly more educated in this subject than you so, actually, you...

Hide contents

An authoritative, academic book without pictures preferably, since the latter is clearly what you've been using to educate yourself with recently.

All of this crap written and you still dont understand what I said lmao... Please you act like you are above everyone else and cant see the fact that your 'proof' wasnt made by a scientist but by someone who's just interested in that topic - besides that all you have is your own words made up by yourself - no literal receipts... I understand that there are two sexes plus the transgender one so that makes three let's say...But what you fail to see is that the rest is bollocks - theres no such thing as 'socially constructed labelling' lmao please... Get a grip we all label ourselves everyday by choosing by being by thinking by being interested in. To summarize... 3 sexes and the rest is PREFERENCE AND PERSONALITY. As I said earlier.

Bye

''Just to reiterate, since you think I'm uneducated for some reason unbeknownst to me, I study gender, sexuality and the law as part of my law degree and am almost undoubtedly more educated in this subject than you so, actually, you...''

Lmao just what I thought you study bullshit, bullshit and law connected to the bullshit. Man you're so brainwashed it's sad...

October 30, 2017

18 hours ago, StrawberryBlond said:

Don't start with me. I give you a good reply and you won't reply because you're intimidated.

the only intimidating thing about starting with you is the wall of text my phone will have to load when i press "StrawberryBlond quoted you" and having to scroll to the bottom to see the reply

October 30, 2017

On 10/29/2017 at 7:08 PM, Chic said:

Imo, gender is not a social construct. Sex and gender are synonymous.

Like most of us, you view the words as synoymous. They've always been synoymous in society for as long as I can remember. I've heard scientists and doctors use them interchangeably. I've seen biology textbooks use them interchangeably. I've encountered most people throughout life use them interchangeably, it all comes down to which term sits more comfortably for you (for most of us, it's "gender," as it means that no one giggles when you say it). Now, if we're talking about gender roles, they are a social construct, at least to a certain extent. Gender expression is also a social construct. But everything else is a biological process that was put on this earth for a distinct reason. The genitialia you were born with is not a social construct. The fact that only biological women can menstruate is not a social construct. The fact that only biological men can impregnate biological women is not a social construct. The fact that only biological women can get pregnant and carry a child is not a social construct. If it all was a social construct, then why do trans people have to transition at all? If gender was just all in the mind and based on what society tells us, it wouldn't matter to them what was in their pants. Social constructs are ideas, they're invisible. Something solid that you can see (genitalia) is not a social construct, it's reality. There is so much to'ing and fro'ing with the rules of these new 76 genders. It's like Blaire White once said: "Why is it so common in the community to believe that gender is a social construct but also that trans people are born with the brains of the opposite gender? Those are 2 directly contradictory statements. Get it together."

On 10/29/2017 at 7:56 PM, scallywally said:

Don't start with you? That's threatening language. To be intimidated by who? or what? I'm lost.

I'm not intending it to be threatening. It's just a defensive statement. I'm saying that you're intimidated by my intelligence and that I might have caused you to second guess yourself. It happens all the time around here. I write a long, well-researched, logical reply to someone and they don't even respond or say they're done. Dropping the conversation when it's no longer going your way is a common route and I'm sick of it.

17 hours ago, rpggal said:

But I just said those are the biases I'm not talking about... Did you click on the link I gave you of cognitive biases? It has nothing to do with racism, sexism, and homophobia, those are learned. I've even said so in other threads, they're learned but learned at a young age. Cognitive biases affect the very way we think, regardless of the topic. They're literally just our evolutionary wiring to jump to conclusions because in the wild we would not have time to check and make sure the deductions are valid before getting eaten. That's why we have rules of thumb like "better safe than sorry." I said they are essential for surviving *in the wild*. In modern society we have lots of time to think about an issue before acting on it, without worrying about being eaten by a predator in the meantime. The only benefit of these biases was to save time and thereby save lives. If and when we find ourselves in life-threatening situations they become useful again, but the rest of the time it is more beneficial for us to just take the extra time to use evidence-based thinking, because the cost of being wrong (like for example in the vaccine issue like you brought up) generally outweighs the cost of the extra time it took you to look up the evidence and analyze it (or check if you agree with the analysis that was done).

You might be thinking, "well not everyone needs to do that, it's enough for the scientists to do it and for us to trust them," but actually it is imperative that the general public be able to analyze scientific results for themselves because there are oceans of pseudoscience out there that they must understand how to distinguish from real science, as well as tons of "science" journalism in which journalists with no scientific background come to all kinds of incorrect conclusions about a new paper, make exaggerated claims, causing lay people to walk away believing that science supports some new fact that it does not. We've spent hundreds of years perfecting scientific methodology to overcome biases as much as possible, in the hopes of getting closer to truth, and it's important that every member of our society at the very least be able to tell the difference between testable and untestable (empirical versus non-empirical), what biases are inherent in a project unless they have been specifically corrected for, how to correct for them, and what statistical significance is and whether it has been achieved (usually the paper explicitly says). If you're missing any of those skills you can't fully tell apart the good science from the bad (and there is a lot of bad science) from the straight up pseudoscience, without relying on your own biases and heuristics to tell you if it "feels" right. It may seem like a lot of work at first but it actually doesn't take that much time to learn them and once you have them you have them and can use them for life.

I think you're thinking of someone else because I've never made a comment on the gender issue in this thread, only on the issue of citation etc.

"We can draw logic ourselves before we get that stuff, we're not stupid... Because there are plenty of things in life that you don't need to be an expert on to draw the right conclusions. You are allowed to trust yourself and your own beliefs. You don't need to wait until someone else has confirmed it every single time." We are not stupid compared to other animals, but we are fundamentally not rational either. I would highly recommend the book "You Are Not So Smart" by David McRaney. It is 100% written in lay man's terms, and each cognitive bias has only a few pages that go over the evidence of each bias, demonstrating how irrational human beings actually are. It's not dry either, it's pretty entertaining. That's really been my whole point in this discussion so if at this point we still disagree on that basic concept that our brains are not reliable sources of information without the external systems of logic and science, I'm just going to refer you to that book. Secondly I never said you needed to be an expert to be right, just that you had to be systematic, which even a lay person can do. To be nitpicky on my own part, technically you could be right without being systematic, just like technically you could be right by writing down a bunch of random thoughts, putting them in a jar, and picking them at random. The issue is whether you are *likely* to be right from your process, and whether we can say you were right because of your process or in spite of it. Thirdly I never said you have to wait for confirmation to have a belief, in fact I specifically said you're allowed to have beliefs without evidence but you should maintain a degree of skepticism about them.

It's not the word "common" in common sense, it is the way the phrase is used, basically to mean "self-evident." Your examples seem to be more like "instinct," and if people use it in this way I have no problem with it. The problem is that more often people use it about empirical matters where testing truly is needed, such as psychology, sociology, politics, economics, biology, and medicine. There is literally nothing self-evident in those fields, no matter how obvious they may seem in their face. And this goes to your point above, that we could just know things without the testing, and that sometimes experts "prove things that didn't need proving." If it is empirical it does need proving. For every example where the result comes out exactly how you would expect, there are others where the reality was not what we expected at all. But belief in common sense relies on confirmation bias to conveniently ignore all the times science has proven common sense wrong to stick to this view that we can just have direct access to truth in the world without putting in the work of logic and experiment.

Ahhhh I see where the confusion has arisen. You believe life implies free will and therefore cannot be predicted. Unfortunately, there has never been any evidence of free will, and in fact there has been significant evidence to the contrary. Free will by its very nature would not be amenable to scientific inquiry if it existed, because scientific inquiry seeks to make predictions and when possible establish causality. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your perspective), the human brain has been very amenable to scientific inquiry and we have a very, very detailed, down to the molecular level and up to the psychological one, causal picture of the human brain and mind. There are a few gaps between the neuroscience and the psychology, but nothing yet to suggest that there is a free will element that will prevent us from soon filling in the rest of the gaps from neuroscience to psychology as a causal process.

I'm glad that you do use critical thought in your daily life. I would just hope that you will add to that arsenal a bit more knowledge about cognitive bias and skepticism about empirical conclusions made without data analysis.

Yes, I looked at the link of cognitive biases but I'm just expanding in case you were talking about even more biases than that. But nevertheless, I think even out of the wild, we still need these cognitive biases. We're still in danger while out in public or even in our own homes. And what if we don't have evidence at hand? I always think that common sense is the starting block, everything else will branch out from that.

Trust me, I understand how dangerous it is to trust pseudo science. I mean, part of my masochistic online research into the world of niche groups is the vegan community - pseudo science is powerful there and even other vegans warn against the dangers of it and the vegans who perpetuate it. At the end of of the day, you can search for evidence that supports just about anything you want to believe online. Though I sometimes wonder if the sheer amount of evidence in one direction is because the opposite direction is deliberately stifled by various highly influential organisations with the ability to control what pops up when we research our confirmation biases to ensure we get an overwhelming amount of support for their side.

Sorry, I think I was confusing you for the earlier people I argued with. You're just talking about my statement that liberals don't cite sources that much, right?

It's best to just point me to articles rather than books as I'm definitely more of a physical copy person (my Kindle is possessed and drains energy without me switching it on), so I would probably have to order the book online to get it and I'm big on the idea of not buying something unless you think there's a huge change you're going to like it. So, yeah, articles, are best for now. And yeah, I do maintain skepticism regarding what I believe. I sometimes fear something will come up one day that will completely shatter a world view I had for years. Personally, I never understood why we were told lies in school about certain things to do with animals, like "camels carry water in their humps" and "male seahorses get pregnant." Then you spout these things as an adult and look like a fool!

Maybe, just dropping the "common" bit would help as it's not really needed. But in any case, I was never claiming that I knew, beyond any doubt, that liberals rarely cite sources, without any proof to back it up. I was just speaking about an experience I've had. Nothing to read too much into. And every side lies and and has biases anyway - as you've said before, all humans have biases. It's just that I decided to focus criticism on liberals, a lot of whom these days seem to think to think they are immune to this stuff and that it's everyone else who needs educating.

6 hours ago, ryanripley said:

the only intimidating thing about starting with you is the wall of text my phone will have to load when i press "StrawberryBlond quoted you" and having to scroll to the bottom to see the reply

Very original. Not seen that one a couple or so times already. And as I can see from your like meter, people have a very basic level of humour around here.

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