@DaringSprinter But even though the astronaut knows gravity is a constant experience no matter where you are, they still say "there is no gravity" to other astronauts meaning "gravity" is a margin of intensity of a force that starts once you're inside orbit. Gravity to an astronaut and gravity to a quantum physicist are two different things. The same way breathing is a different experience to a mammal than it is to a fish but, technically, they're still breathing the same gasses. You said yourself...there is no escaping bias which means there is no objective truth.
And I see what you mean and don't agree that being an ally can be that simple. I'm sorry but "treating people how they want to be treated" is flawed logic. It is clear, specifically, that trans women's rights are infringing upon women's rights via many avenues(most notably sports competition). The "treat people how they want to be treated" notion can be adopted to support both trans people and women but, in this particular scenario, you have to decide who's right to be treated 'right' is more important because you clearly can't have both. Which means the notion isn't complicated enough to serve as a prerequisite for support for trans people or women.
@zerocantaloupe I believe sex and gender are two different things and I'm still critical of certain aspects of the movement. Amazingly, there are trans individuals and allies who operate as if sex and gender are the same thing which is the opposite of what one would expect.
@slowblink: Confusing words with the reality behind them is easy. But it'll just confuse you.
Gravity to an astronaut and gravity to a quantum physicist are two different things.
They define the word in two different ways, yes. They use the same word to describe two different (albeit related) things. The objective truth is in the things; not in the word.
It is clear, specifically, that trans women's rights are infringing upon women's rights via many avenues(most notably sports competition).
This sentence is flawed. Imagine if someone said "black women's rights are infringing upon women's right"—you see the issue there, yes?
And black women do keep getting accused of not being female enough. Especially in sports (click this sentence). What world is better for women: one in which they occasionally lose to stronger women, or one in which they have to have their bodies thoroughly examined and declared weak enough to be allowed to compete?
No. Just treat people how they want to be treated and there you are: a trans ally.
@DaringSprinter Through this exchange, I've manifested a great amount of respect for you but I've realized that our definitions for certain words differ and they would need to align to continue the debate in any meaningful way. In a way, this is poetic, as it proves my previous points. The words are the same but our definitions differ and is almost certainly a product of our relative experiences to those words differing as well. If objective truth existed, we could continue this conversation in a productive manner but that is not the case. Also, no offense, but citing non-empirical data points to support your argument isn't very convincing.
@slowblink: Ah, well, you didn't link any data at all to support your claim that trans women are a threat to cis women in sports (so threatening that it's better for them to have their bodies inspected instead). Now that's unconvincing!
I can understand wanting to end the exchange here, though. I think we've both laid our points out pretty clearly.
Can we go back to what would happen to Cypher if his real, physical body and brain got crushed into goo during real-world fighting around his capsule?
I suspect he'd stop feeling anything, virtual or otherwise.
"Threat" is not a word I would use but, either way, with all due respect, I don't think I need to link any data to support that claim. The fact that Women's and Men's sports are separated clearly shows that, as a society, we've decided that certain physical characteristics that align with sex result in discrepancies in performance that warrant segregation. We either stick with that paradigm or get rid of it entirely and make all sports include all sexes. Many Women and Trans Women don't want the latter but the former is not an equitable situation for anyone if we are acknowledging that pre-transition Trans Women were born biologically male and are likely to have inherent advantages over the biologically female competition.
@DaringSprinter Well what Cypher would feel when his brain got crushed into goo is a question wars have been fought over. I can't even tell you what I personally think would happen as I am agnostic.
@slowblink: Ah. So in order to continue thinking "this is reality" after his brain was mushed into paste, he'd need to exist in some way no one can prove anyone ever has.
Edit: In essence, his experience of the Matrix would be snuffed out—just as gone as his brain. Real brain-mushing 1, fantasy unmushed brain 0.
I've always had trouble seeing how implying a thing is better than saying it outright. If group A's rights are infringing on group B's rights, are group B's rights not threatened?
Anyhow, sports aren't fair.
We all know that: look at Michael Phelps. Should he be allowed to swim against folks who don't have his long arms and torso, short lower body, large palms and feet, low lactic acid production, etc? It's blatantly unfair... and I do mean blatantly. Just look at this guy's win-loss ratio.
And then look at the black women—cis—who aren't allowed to compete because of their biological advantages.
If physical sex matters so much, where will you put the intersex athletes? Do you think there should be a whole third section in sports for people like Caster Semenya? What about the athletes with different intersex conditions, who have different advantages and disadvantages?
If it's okay for intersex women to compete with cis endosex women (since they have historically—can you find any evidence of women having their private parts and hormones and chromosomes looked at to filter out all the intersex ones?) then why isn't it okay for trans women to compete with cis women?
But this is all beside the point.
Just treat people how they want to be treated. If someone says, "Call me Heidi, and use she/her pronouns for me," call her Heidi. If someone calls her something else, correct them. Boom: trans ally.
It really is that simple.
So Cypher is a trans athlete?
@FunCartel: ...Having two different conversations at once is confusing.
@slowblink transsexuality was never a diagnosis in the DSM. It was called gender identity disorder. DSM-5 came out and renamed it as gender dysphasia to align with World Health Organization (because we are trying to create a global treatment of mental health standards and not based on Western bias) and thus treating the symptoms of depression associated, not treating the person as the ailment. This has happened several times with other disorders as well. We rename and reclassify and update the standard of care to fall in line with new research.
@slowblink I have a typo and don’t know how to edit my post.
*gender dysphoria
@Ophelia1617: There should be a little gear symbol at the top right of your post. If you click it, it'll let you edit.
i thought it was just epistemology, but then i had a movement
@DaringSprinter but he doesn't know its fantasy. The same way you can die while dreaming, you die in the matrix and you are still none the wiser which means, that was your reality. Reality simply isn't objective. When you and someone with schizophrenia sit in a car, you can't be sure that their experience of being in the car is the same as yours. Cars might trigger persistent and specific hallucinations for them. Now, for practicality, we assume it is and operate like it is because that's the only way to get things done but, conceptually, it is impossible.
@slowblink Why can't reality be objective and subjective? A book is made of paper and cardboard and ink, but it can be meaningful to the reader. So which is it? A bunch of material or a meaningful piece of work w useful information? Both!
@slowblink: He doesn't know, yet reality kills him anyway.
He didn't experience the crushing, didn't see what did it, the reality of what killed him was never acknowledged by him—yet his consciousness was snuffed out. His fantasy was ended by reality. He thought he was safe in a restaurant, maybe eating a steak... this didn't protect him.
His life ended because he didn't (couldn't, didn't even know he should) dodge. No more steak. No more Cypher. Reality ended him: so far as anyone can tell, in or out of the Matrix, he's gone. Dead.
Sounds pretty objective to me.
so far as anyone can tell objective
so far as anyone can tell
objective
@DaringSprinter The word "threat" carries a different connotation than "infring"; the former suggesting potential eradication while the latter suggest intrusion without the potential for eradication. The difference is important in a conversation like this.
I'm not saying physical sex matters(though I do agree that it matters). Society is saying that it matters and will be right up until we get rid of the segregation based on that parameter. It is unfortunate, but treating everyone how they want to be treated is impossible without an individual's desires existing in direct conflict with another's. This means, to appease the most people, we have to go with the majorities preferences. Intersex individuals are the minority the same way trans individuals are. Now, specifically, until we've reliably quantified how many women feel the equality of their sport is being infringed upon versus how many trans women want to compete, we can't really determine whose rights have the right of way. There is no data point for this unfortunately.
@zerocantaloupe: I have a habit of leaving space for highly unlikely possibilities. Just in case.
But let's be blunt—if a guy in VR dies in real life, he's gone from both real life and virtual reality. That's objectively true even if, I dunno, some non-tangible unverifiable aspect of "him" got zapped to the Twilight Zone or something.
@slowblink: Let society think whatever it thinks. If you, personally, treat people the way they want to be treated, you're a trans ally.
...And note that the standard for this is really, really low.
I'd love to be treated like Lord Ruler of the Universe; that's not where the bar is. Basic human decency, that's where we are. Call people what they want to be called. Correct people who get it wrong. Don't hurt them when they're not hurting anyone.
I'd think this would be pretty obvious, but hurt comes in a range from lesser to greater and, for those who're paying attention, losing a race typically doesn't hurt nearly as badly as having your privacy invaded.
I know I'd rather lose a race I didn't have to strip for than win one I did.
@DaringSprinter Excuse me, do you have a moment to talk about our lord and savior relativism?
@Ophelia1617 Well said and good information. Thank you. I do wonder, however, why the standard treatment for ailments like Anorexia aren't liposuction but a viable treatment for gender dysphoria is gender reassignment surgery. Both ailments deal with an incongruence of one's metaphysical perception of their self relative to their physical selves. Why is a treatment for one physical and a treatment for the other isn't? Also why is it labeled "Gender reassignment surgery" if sex and gender are two different things. Gender is something you express...some are even gender fluid...so there is no need for surgery to 'reassign' it. It should be sex reassignment surgery, no?
@zerocantaloupe lol a religion with only one commandment: Everything is relative....even this....whatever this is.
@DaringSprinter Do you remember that moment in.....was it the second or third? I forget....in the trilogy where Neo was outside of the matrix and still stopped those Sentinels? Why do you think that happened? How do you think that was possible?
NEO: Tell me how I separated my mind from my body without jacking in. Tell me how I stopped four Sentinels by thinking it. Tell me just what the hell is happening to me. ORACLE: The power of the One extends beyond this world. It reaches from here all the way back to where it came from. NEO: Where? ORACLE: The Source. That's what you felt when you touched those Sentinels. But you weren't ready for it.
The Sentinels, the Matrix, and the powers of The One are made of the same stuff.
@cylee1180 yes but both the meaning and the experience of reading the book and interacting with the materials that make up the book is subjective. My whole position in this debate is predicated on the belief that is impossible to know something....one can only experience something and pretend that experience is the same as other's experience for the sake of practicality....and the experiences are close enough that that works out...and that is objective truth. Maybe the problem is with the word "truth". The same way "perfect" is not a subjective truth, so is the word "truth".
@zerocantaloupe: Ooh, sorry, I'm not interested. Could you take me off your list? (This is funny because it's the proper way to respond to JWs.)
@slowblink: The treatment for anorexia isn't liposuction because that doesn't work—anorexics feel fat no matter what they look like. In the same way, the treatment for gender dysphoria isn't conversion therapy because that doesn't work. Strange though it may seem, most doctors try to use treatments that work: that leave people less likely to die or kill themselves.
I agree it should be called sex reassignment surgery. Oh well; this is what happens when the meaning of words changes. Things are messy for a while.
Do you remember that moment in.....was it the second or third? I forget....in the trilogy where Neo was outside of the matrix and still stopped those Sentinels? Why do you think that happened? How do you think that was possible?
I suspect it was on account of the movie being a movie. Who doesn't enjoy a reality-warper fantasy every now and then? Not to mention the possibility of a follow-up on The Matrix inside another Matrix. That's a good avenue to have open. Two birds, one stone.
@DaringSprinter
I suspect it was on account of the movie being a movie.
But is it? 🤔
@zerocantaloupe
NEO: Tell me how I separated my mind from my body without jacking in. Tell me how I stopped four Sentinels by thinking it. Tell me just what the hell is happening to me. ORACLE: The power of the One extends beyond this world. It reaches from here all the way back to where it came from. NEO: Where? ORACLE: The Source. That's what you felt when you touched those Sentinels. But you weren't ready for it. The Sentinels, the Matrix, and the powers of The One are made of the same stuff.
Yes, but EVERYTHING is the same stuff. The matrix is like the internet and Neo's powers discovered wifi. Just like the matrix, the virtual reality of the internet can only exist by being manifested in a 'real world' the same way one can only have a dream(that they thought was real) if they're alive in the 'real world'. Dreams prove we can experience a completely false reality and have no way of discerning it as such without escaping it. This means we can't prove reality itself isn't a dream....and that dreams aren't dreams within dreams...so on and so forth...until and if we can escape it....ergo reality is subjective. Death, as we define it, could be us just escaping this dream. Brain explodes