Posts categorized under: other

Interlude XXI

"Obviously I socially gender him as male as per his preference."

"I wouldn't call it a preference exactly—"

"I gender him male as per his philosophical commitments."

Link: "Unnatural Categories Are Optimized for Deception"

Sorry for the off-topic linkpost, but I want to point to a fascinating new mathematical philosophy-of-language post on Less Wrong (alternative viewer)! You really have to admire thinkers who can devote so much energy to probing the intricacies of such abstract topics without having any kind of pragmatic ulterior motive …

Survey Data on Cis and Trans Women Among Haskell Programmers

Stereotypically, computer programming is both a predominantly male profession and the quintessential profession of non-exclusively-androphilic trans women. Stereotypically, these demographic trends are even more pronounced in communities around "niche" or academic technologies (e.g., Haskell), rather than those with more established mainstream use (e.g., JavaScript).

But stereotypes can be …

Nixon on Forbidden Hypotheses

I listened with great interest to this segment of a 1971 recording of a conversation between President Richard Nixon and Daniel Patrick Moynihan (starting at the 56 second mark). You really wonder more generally what things powerful people think in private that they can't say in public.

NIXON: I read …

Link: "Can WNBA Players Take Down a U.S. Senator?"

From Julie Kliegman for Sports Illustrated, a story on the conflict between social-justice-activist WNBA players and Atlanta Dream half-owner Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R–Georgia). (Archived.)

The dispute seems to have been sparked by Loeffler's non-support for the Black Lives Matter movement—see also ESPN's coverage from August (archived)—but the …

Link: "Wells for Boys"

Can I just say that this Saturday Night Live sketch is, somehow, on-theme?!

Interlude XIX

(16 July 2017)

"Tomorrow! No coffee, no Facebook, no food—well, maybe some Soylent because the medication for my birth defect says to take with food, some kind of bioavailability thing—no low-quality internet reading, no TV ... just writing! The demons that haunt us are only powerful to the extent …

Teleology

"I mean, if that explanation actually makes you feel happier, then fine."

"Feeling happier isn't what explanations are for. Explanations are for predicting our observations.

"Emotions, too, are functional: happiness measures whether things in your life are going well or going poorly, but does not constitute things going well, much …

Peering Through Reverent Fingers

Any evolutionary advantage must come from a feature affecting our behavior. Thus, there is no evolutionary advantage to simply having a belief about our identity. Self-identity can matter and could have mattered only if it affects behavior, in which case it is really a process of self-identification. Moreover, it is …

The Reverse Murray Rule

In the notes to his Real Education, Charles Murray proposes a convention for third-person singular pronouns where the sex of the referent is unknown or irrelevant—

As always, I adhere to the Murray Rule for dealing with third-person singular pronouns, which prescribes using the gender of the author or principal …

Don't Read the Comments??

Historically, The Scintillating But Ultimately Untrue Thought has not provided a comment section. There were two reasons for this.

First, technical limitations, downstream of technical æsthetics. There are standard out-of-the-box blogging hosts—your WordPress, your Medium, &c.—that are easy for anyone to use, at the cost of taking control …

Cloud Vision

Google reportedly recently sent out an email to their Cloud Vision API customers, notifying them that the service will stop returning "woman" or "man" labels for people in photos. Being charitable (as one does), I can think of reasons why I might defend or support such a decision. Detecting the …

If in Some Smothering Dreams You Too Could Pace

[...] and this is a war, and we are soldiers.

Fighting a Total Culture War to prevent your neurotype-demographic from becoming permanent mind-slaves of the Blue Egregore is no excuse for being a jerk.

I mean, it's an explanation, but that's different from an excuse: being a jerk has consequences, and …

More Schelling

(Previously.)

[A mediator] can influence the other players' expectations on his own initiative, in a manner that both parties cannot help mutually recognizing. When there is no apparent focal point for agreement, he can create one by his power to make a dramatic suggestion. [...]

The white line down the center …

Comp

(-romise, -ensation)

(epistemic status: shitposting)

Some radical feminists complain that males body-modding to become facsimiles of women is appropriation. They're obviously correct, but the claim doesn't seem strong enough to override the right to bodily autonomy. The Law in its majesty finds a precedent in the archives of copyright law …

Promises I Can Keep

"I think if you show any indications of being an egg, you need to marry someone who's OK with you eventually transitioning. Not because you necessarily will want to transition, but because it's likely enough that you need to plan for it."

"I probably don't actually disagree. Keeping promises is …

"I Want to Be the One"

This life is not to last and it awaits apotheosis
And the passerby all sipping on their Monday coffee know this
Their stumbling through their week
Contrasts the path by which I seek
A practical ambition
For a special type of girl
I want to be the one who writes …

Political Science Epigrams

If your policy is, "We don't negotiate with terrorists, but we do appease bears", then from the perspective of a third party fighting a war against the bears, you look like a productive asset being farmed by the bears, and thus, a legitimate military target.

If your behavior is optimized …

"A Love That Is Out of Anyone's Control"

(Attention conservation notice: Diary-like navel-gazing today. If you're here for the Actual Philosophy, come back the week after next.)

ROSE: [...] we can't both exist. I'm going to become half of you. And I need you to know that every moment you love being yourself, that's me, loving you, and loving …

The Source of Our Power

"I really don't think you're rationally considering how to maximize your contribution to rationality pedagogy and deciding it runs through freaking out about transgender and maybe abandoning the movement in disgust."

"Almost no one's optimal contribution to rationality pedagogy runs through freaking out about transgender; I just think it's plausible …