some drafting for "There's a Land ..."

(When am I ever going to finish this? O searing pain of wretched humiliation)

diff --git a/content/drafts/theres-a-land-that-i-see-or-the-spirit-of-intervention.md b/content/drafts/theres-a-land-that-i-see-or-the-spirit-of-intervention.md
index 1319638..0d6abd0 100644 (file)
--- a/content/drafts/theres-a-land-that-i-see-or-the-spirit-of-intervention.md
+++ b/content/drafts/theres-a-land-that-i-see-or-the-spirit-of-intervention.md
@@ -19,25 +19,37 @@ Status: draft
 
 We socially-liberal individualist/feminist people—I _hope_ I'm still allowed to use the first person here, although the reader will ultimately judge that for herself—have this beautiful moral ideal, where we want all people to be free to maximize their potential, unencumbered by oppressive cultural institutions specifying roles and destinies in advance. We want everyone to be judged on her or his _own_ merits rather than treated as a representative of their race or sex. We believe that if a trait is virtuous in a man, it _has_ to be equally virtuous in a woman—as a matter of sheer logical _consistency_.
 
-And _because_ we care about the beautiful moral ideal, we tend to assume that psychological group differences don't exist, or are superficial, or are socially-constructed and will naturally dissipate after the revolution.
+And _because_ we care about the beautiful moral ideal, we tend to assume that psychological group differences don't exist, or are superficial, or are socially-constructed and will naturally dissipate after we muster the political will to achieve a more socially-just world.
 
 (... the scintillating but ultimately untrue thought.)
 
 But this is _so crazy_ on _multiple levels_.
 
-Firstly, philosophers since the days of D. Hume have recognized the distinction between _is_ and _ought_, and have identified the [naturalistic fallacy](TODO: linky) of direct inference from the former to the latter. [...]
+Firstly, philosophers since the days of D. Hume have recognized the distinction between _is_ and _ought_, and have identified the [naturalistic fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy) of direct inference from the former to the latter. That there exists a naturalistic explanation for the current state of affairs—and how could there _not_?—doesn't imply _anything_ about that state being good or just or worthy of being preserved.
+
+Secondly, not only does the nature _vs._ nurture dichotomy fail to hold up to basic scrutiny (the question has been compared to asking whether the area of a rectangle is caused more by its length or its width), it also isn't even adequate to the inferential work we tend to expect of it: [not everything biological is immuatable, and not everything social is easy to change.](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/10/society-is-fixed-biology-is-mutable/) (Consider the case of [spelling reform](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_spelling_reform): no one would suggest that the myriad quirks of English orthography are _genetically_ determined, and yet the entirely social difficulties of getting everyone to coordinate on more logical spellings seem insurmountable.)
+
+Because of these epistemological errors, adherents of the beautiful moral ideal
+
+that may put us at a competitive disadvantage to our ideological enemies
 
-Secondly, the nature _vs._ nurture dichotomy not only fails to hold up to basic scrutiny (everything is both; the question has been compared to asking whether the area of a rectangle is caused by its length or its width), it also isn't even adequate to doing the inferential work that people expect of it: [not everything biological is immuatable, and not everything social is easy to change.](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/10/society-is-fixed-biology-is-mutable/) (Consider the case of [spelling reform](TODO: linky): no one would suggest that the myriad quirks of English orthography are _genetically_ determined, and yet the entirely social difficulties of getting everyone to coordinate on more logical spellings seem insurmountable.)
 
-[...]
 
 I _want_ to believe that sex differences in personality and interests are small-to-nonexistent. I _want_ to believe that trans women are women. 
 
+
+
+
 out of the three women present—
 
 (or four if you believe in gender identities, because on that worldview, I'm obviously a trans woman in denial)
 
-—they're _all_ trans, and _none_ of them come _close_ to passing. And my suspension of disbelief shatters.
+—they're _all_ trans. (And none of them pass.)
+
+
+
+
+[...]
 
 Maybe [Good Is Dumb](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodIsDumb) doesn't _have_ to be [Truth in Television](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TruthInTelevision).
 
@@ -63,7 +75,3 @@ OUTLINE OF POINTS TO HIT—
    a tax on sanity
  * _be specific_ about what's gerrymandered and wrong about "sex diffs
    real/gender identity not"
-
-OTHER TODO—
-
- * coach points out that "after the revolution" could use rewording