And as it happened, on 4 May 2019, Yudkowsky [re-Tweeted Colin Wright on the "univariate fallacy"](https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1124751630937681922)—the point that group differences aren't a matter of any single variable—which was _sort of_ like the clarification I had been asking for. (Empirically, it made me feel a lot less personally aggrieved.) Was I wrong to interpet this as another "concession" to me? (Again, notwithstanding that the whole mindset of extracting "concessions" was corrupt and not what our posse was trying to do.)
-Separately, I visited some friends' house on 30 April 2019 saying, essentially (and sincerely), "Oh man oh jeez, Ben and Michael want me to join in a rationalist civil war against the corrupt mainstream-rationality establishment, and I'd really rather not, and I don't like how they keep using scary hyperbolic words like 'cult' and 'war' and 'criminal', but on the other hand, they're _the only ones backing me up_ on this _incredibly basic philosophy thing_ and I don't feel like I have anywhere else to _go_." The ensuing group conversation made some progress, but was mostly pretty horrifying.
+Separately, on 30 April 2019, I visited the house where "Susan" and her husband Mike and Kelsey Piper and a few other people lived, which I'll call "Arcadia",[^named-houses] saying, essentially (and sincerely), Oh man oh jeez, Ben and Michael want me to join in a rationalist civil war against the corrupt mainstream-rationality establishment, and I'd really rather not, and I don't like how they keep using scary hyperbolic words like 'cult' and 'war' and 'criminal', but on the other hand, they're _the only ones backing me up_ on this _incredibly basic philosophy thing_ and I don't feel like I have anywhere else to _go_. The ensuing group conversation made some progress, but was mostly pretty horrifying.
-In an adorable twist, my friends' two-year-old son was reportedly saying the next day that Kelsey doesn't like his daddy, which was confusing until it was figured out he had heard Kelsey talking about why she doesn't like Michael _Vassar_.
+[^named-houses]: It was common practice in our subculture to name group houses. My apartment was "We'll Name It Later."
+
+In an adorable twist, Mike and "Susan"'s two-year-old son was reportedly saying the next day that Kelsey doesn't like his daddy, which was confusing until it was figured out he had heard Kelsey talking about why she doesn't like Michael _Vassar_.[^mike-pseudonym]
+
+[^mike-pseudonym]: I'm not giving Mike a pseudonym because his name is needed for this adorable anecdote to make sense.
And as it happened, on 7 May 2019, Kelsey wrote [a Facebook comment displaying evidence of understanding my point](/images/piper-spending_social_capital_on_talking_about_trans_issues.png).
-----
-While visiting Valinor on 7 August 2019, Merlin Blume (age 2¾ years) asked me, "Why are you a boy?"
+While visiting "Arcadia" on 7 August 2019, Mike and "Susan"'s son (age 2¾ years) asked me, "Why are you a boy?"
After a long pause, I said, "Yes," as if I had misheard the question as "Are you a boy?" I think it was a motivated mishearing: it was only after I answered that I consciously realized that's not what the kid asked.
--------
-[TODO: Somni? ("peek behind the fog of war" 6 Feb)
- * I had an interesting interaction with Somni (who was presumably out on bail at this time) on the 'lowquality' Discord server on 12 December (my username was "Carrie Zelda-Michelle Davis"; Somni's was helpimtrappedinausernamefactory)
- * I said, from a certain perspective, it's surprising that you spend so much time complaining about Kelsey/CfAR/&c., but I seem to get along fine with you, because "naïvely", one would think that my views are so much worse. Am I getting a pity pass because you think false consciousness is causing me to act against my own transfem class interests? Or what?
- * I was privately modeling a lot of transmisogyny complaints as: A certain neurotype-cluster of non-dominant male is latching onto locally-ascendant social-justice ideology in which claims to victimhood can be leveraged into claims to power. Traditionally, men are moral agents but not patients; women are moral patients, but not agents. If weird non-dominant men aren't respected if identified as such (because low-ranking males aren't valuable allies, and don't have intrinsic moral patiency of women), but can get victimhood/moral-patiency points for identifying as oppressed transfems, that creates an incentive gradient for them to do so, and no one is allowed to notice this except me, because everyone prefers to stay on the good side of social-justice ideology unless they have Something to Protect that requires defying it.
- * (summarize Somni's remarks about me being victimized and not lying about my agenda)
- * my commentary to Anna: Somni (and Ziz) see themselves as being oppressed by people's hypocritical/manipulative social perceptions and behavior. Saying "Somni ... she" protects you against threats from the Political Correctness police, but it actually doesn't protect you against whatever threats might exist from them, as you can see from Somni's hostile disposition towards Kelsey ("linta", after her Discord username) and Scott. It's as if the mere fact that I'm not optimizing for PR ("arent lying about your agenda", as Somni says) is what makes me not-a-direct-enemy (but still a collaborator) in their eyes
-]
+I had an interesting interaction with Somni, one of the "Meeker Four"—presumably out on bail at this time?—on 12 December 2019.
+
+I told her, from a certain perspective, it's surprising that you spend so much time complaining about CfAR, Anna Salamon, Kelsey Piper, _&c._, but _I_ seemed to get along fine with her—because "naïvely", one would think that my views were _so much worse_. Was I getting a pity pass because she thought false consciousness was causing me to act against my own transfem class interests? Or what?
+
+To be absolutely clear about my terrible views, I said that I was privately modeling a lot of transmisogyny complaints as something like—a certain neurotype-cluster of non-dominant male is latching onto locally-ascendant social-justice ideology in which claims to victimhood can be leveraged into claims to power. Traditionally, men are moral agents, but not patients; women are moral patients, but not agents. If weird non-dominant men aren't respected if identified as such (because low-ranking males aren't valuable allies, and don't have intrinsic moral patiency of women), but _can_ get victimhood/moral-patiency points for identifying as oppressed transfems, that creates an incentive gradient for them to do so, and no one was allowed to notice this except me, because everyone prefers to stay on the good side of social-justice ideology unless they have Something to Protect that requires defying it.
+
+Somni said that it was because I was being victimized by the same forces of gaslighting, and that I wasn't lying about my agenda. Maybe she _should_ be complaining about me?—but I seemed to be following a somewhat earnest epistemic process, whereas Kelsey, Scott, and Anna were not. If I were to start going, "Here's my rationality org; rule #1: no transfems (except me); rule #2, no telling people about rule #1", then she would talk about it.
+
+I would later remark to Anna (Subject: "a peek behind the fog of war; and, [redacted]") that Somni and Ziz saw themselves as being oppressed by people's hypocritical and manipulative social perceptions and behavior.
+
+Merely using the appropriate language ("Somni ... she", _&c._) protected her against threats from the Political Correctness police, but it actually didn't protect against threats from _them_. It was as if the mere fact that I wasn't optimizing for PR (lying about my agenda, as Somni said) was what made me not a direct enemy (although still a collaborator) in their eyes.
--------
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-While visiting Valinor on 4 February 2020, I remember my nose dripping while I was holding Koios, the baby. Alicorn offered me a tissue. I asked if I shouldn't be holding the baby while my nose was dripping and I therefore plausibly had a cold. She said it was fine. On the topic of possible sickness, I said that I hoped the novel coronavirus people were talking about didn't go pandemic.
+While visiting "Arcadia" on 4 February 2020, I remember my nose dripping while I was holding the baby. Alicorn offered me a tissue. I asked if I shouldn't be holding the baby while my nose was dripping and I therefore plausibly had a cold. She said it was fine. On the topic of possible sickness, I said that I hoped the novel coronavirus people were talking about didn't go pandemic.
It did. The Berkeley rats took social distancing guidelines very seriously, so it would be a while before I could visit again.
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