In contrast, post-_Obergefell_ gender theory belongs to simulacrum level 3: rather than having a non-circular truth condition, "gender" is just a free-floating Schelling point, a [role](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AqbWna2S85pFTsHH4/the-intelligent-social-web) or [costume](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PurelyAestheticGender) to be [symbolically identified](https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/the-thing-and-the-symbolic-representation-of-the-thing/) with, meaning no more (and no less) what one can predict that others will predict that others will predict ... _&c._ that it means. Biological sex would continue to be a decision-relevant variable if it were cognitively available (summarizing a variety of physical differences, who can get pregnant, various game-theoretic social consequences of who can get pregnant, [personality differences to the tune of](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0029265) [Mahanalobis _D_](https://marcodgdotnet.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/delgiudice_2013_is-d_valid_ep.pdf) ≈ 2.7, _&c._)—but _no_ culture can provide all the concepts that _would be_ decision-relevant _if available_. Definitionally, you don't know what you're missing. ["The limits of my language are the limits of my world."](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein) Some claim to have [_seen through_](https://www.gwern.net/docs/philo/2012-sistery-tryingtoseethrough.html) to a world beneath the world, but without a way to _share_ what they've allegedly seen, to bring it within mutually-reinforcing consensus of the intersubjective, who's not to say that they only dreamed it?
-I have a recurring dream, a naïve dream that can't exist. It's a dream about the use of maps. In my dream, even people who—for example—[dislike psychological sex differences](/2017/Dec/theres-a-land-that-i-see-or-the-spirit-of-intervention/), have an interest in sex differences research being as accurate as possible, using the most precise concepts possible, because only a true understanding of the interplay between nature and nurture can be _used to design_ a more just Society that minimizes inequality, just as only a true map of the territory can help you plot your way across a dangerous terrain. And that is how it would work for a [singleton](https://nickbostrom.com/fut/singleton.html) God-Empress that could arrange human lives like pieces on a chess board, or the words in a novel.
+<a id="a-dream-about-the-use-of-maps"></a>I have a recurring dream, a naïve dream that can't exist. It's a dream about the use of maps. In my dream, even people who—for example—[dislike psychological sex differences](/2017/Dec/theres-a-land-that-i-see-or-the-spirit-of-intervention/), have an interest in sex differences research being as accurate as possible, using the most precise concepts possible, because only a true understanding of the interplay between nature and nurture can be _used to design_ a more just Society that minimizes inequality, just as only a true map of the territory can help you plot your way across a dangerous terrain. And that is how it would work for a [singleton](https://nickbostrom.com/fut/singleton.html) God-Empress that could arrange human lives like pieces on a chess board, or the words in a novel.
But humans don't use maps to navigate the territory. Humans _live in the map_. _Researching_ sex differences can only make them more salient in your culture. _Researching_ how to turn men into women could only draw attention to all the dimensions along which we don't know how to do the job. If you don't like what you see, then _remove your eyes_. I dream of things being otherwise—if only people _knew_ about the forces constructing their experience, if only they _knew_ about the empires competing to comprise them, maybe we could negotiate our way to the good outcome (whatever that turns out to be) _without_ the mindfucking?
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / blobdiff