X-Git-Url: http://unremediatedgender.space/source?a=blobdiff_plain;f=content%2Fdrafts%2Fan-infovists-advisory-or-standing-athwart-history-yelling-wait-i-like-the-idea-but.md;h=2cd8b8c422cc16cb70c0fc87963130e354a8dc51;hb=a316bf7abcd0b9a6bbf63291452d85c2b568195e;hp=22b735779c721dcf9c0860f08bc36681882b2f3f;hpb=07d750af0d3ace17934c1574c42b17bad9db517a;p=Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git diff --git a/content/drafts/an-infovists-advisory-or-standing-athwart-history-yelling-wait-i-like-the-idea-but.md b/content/drafts/an-infovists-advisory-or-standing-athwart-history-yelling-wait-i-like-the-idea-but.md index 22b7357..2cd8b8c 100644 --- a/content/drafts/an-infovists-advisory-or-standing-athwart-history-yelling-wait-i-like-the-idea-but.md +++ b/content/drafts/an-infovists-advisory-or-standing-athwart-history-yelling-wait-i-like-the-idea-but.md @@ -4,8 +4,69 @@ Category: commentary Tags: epistemology Status: draft +> I said, "The truth is whatever you can get away with." +> +> "No, that's journalism. The truth is whatever you can't escape." +> +> —_Distress_ by Greg Egan + TODO OUTLINE OF POINTS TO HIT— - * \ No newline at end of file +POINTS FROM MY EMAIL TO BBL— + + * the current situation re MtF is crazy + * activists who want to change society are both incentivized and selected for self-delusion— + * incentivized because: ... ? (Exercise: what was I thinking when I said + this?) + * selected-for because: ... ? (Exercise) + * some kind of Goodheart's-law/Berkson's-paradox-like phenomenon?? + * Whichever activists happen to win get to write the history books, and so + most people end up with this Whig history view of the world where people in + the past were bad, bad men, but we're so much more progressive and + enlightened now. But evolutionarily speaking, there's no fact of the matter + as to what's better; there's only what won. + * A lot of intellectuals try to avoid politics: if your only choices are the "maximize the number of trans people" coalition vs. a "minimize the number of trans people" coalition, then it makes sense to sit it out + * But maybe there's a role for a more narrowly-targeted form of political + behavior (making friends and allies, trading favors, alienating people, + &c.), with the goal of just getting the correct theory (sexual dimorphism is + real, societies have gender roles, there are these two distinct classes of + motivation for why transitioning might seem like a good idea to someone) in + the standard sex-ed textbooks, but not trying to dictate what the social + norms of who should transition should be, who should pay for it, + &c. "Infovism" rather than activism. + + +NRx-inspired (sigh ... yes, unfortunately) points— + +(most of this should probably be split into a separate post even if I'm happening to do some outlining in this file; evil speculation shouldn't contaminate the solid "Infovism" idea/slogan)— + + * democracy is government by whichever memes happen to be the most virulent + * outcomes of the long run of a one-dimensional conflict can be classified, roughly something like: Left total victory, right total victory, mutually assured destruction, and program equilibrium + * program equilibrium isn't easy/possible for humans + * the key point here is that "grant this demand, deny all others" isn't a + defensible Schelling point; if you yield here, the _same algorithm_ is + going to be running the next time + * "Berkeley 2009 morality was just right, but this Berkeley 2017 bullshit has + gone _too far_!" + * If I were dictator, (Berkeley, 2009) could be made to work, but everyone has her own (city, year) pair + * for some reason I thought this was analogous to something from the + Coherent Extrapolated Volition document: Dennis thinks he should own + the world, but fairness requires that Dennis's name be erased from any + such request, and "some X should own the world" is underspecified" + * remember my conversation with a certain female bio-/psychologist studying at + Harvard who told me that "Trans women are men with a mental illness" made + more sense, but that she was afraid to even think that within the privacy of + her own head + * fucking _Harvard_ + * Moldbug, "The True Meaning of Diversity": "Certainly not every party member + is an [X]. Most of them, in fact, are not. Nor is it absolutely guaranteed + that every single [X] will be a party member. But most of them, in fact, + are"—thus, requiring representaiton of Xes benefits the party + * practice of deferring to designated-victim trans women _makes the trans + women worse people_: if you know that you can win a dispute by playing the + transphobia card, that incentive shapes your life (Moldbug: discussion of + "ignoble privilege" in "Gentle Introduction" pt. 3) + * kind of like how _the right to be sued_ is an important part of legal + personhood: the possibility of recourse is necessary for trust