Although they're not the only ones with an structural advantage: a social order whose gender convention was "Biological sex only; transsexualism isn't a thing; sucks to be you if you want people to believe that you're the sex that you aren't" would _also_ be a Schelling point. (Trans people's [developmental sex](http://unremediatedgender.space/2019/Sep/terminology-proposal-developmental-sex/) is not really in dispute.) It's the _moderates_ who want to be nice to trans people _without_ destroying the public concept of sex who are in trouble!
-Still, I think most people reading this post _are_ "moderates" in this sense. Schelling points are powerful. If we're _not_ culturally-genocidal extremists who want to exclude transsexuals from Society (and therefore reject the "pronouns = sex, no exceptions" Schelling point), isn't it reasonable that we end up at the self-identity Schelling point, at least for the trivial courtesy of pronouns?
+Still, I think most people reading this post _are_ "moderates" in this sense. Schelling points are powerful. If we're _not_ culturally-genocidal extremists who want to exclude transsexuals from Society (and therefore reject the "pronouns = sex, no exceptions" Schelling point), isn't it reasonable that we end up at the self-identity Schelling point—at least as far as the trivial courtesy of pronouns is concerned, even if some of the moderates want to bargain for the right to use natal-sex categories in some contexts?
-Sure. Yes. Indeed
+Sure. Yes. And indeed, I don't misgender people! (In public. Only rarely in private.) I'm not arguing that Yudkowsky should misgender people! The purpose of this post is not to argue with Yudkowsky's pronoun usage, but rather to argue with the offered usage _rationale_ that "the simplest and best protocol is, '"He" refers to the set of people who have asked us to use "he", with a default for those-who-haven't-asked that goes by gamete size' and to say that this just _is_ the normative definition."
-[...]
+As I have explained at length, this _rationale_ doesn't work and isn't true (even if better rationales, like the Schelling point argument, can end up recommending the same behavior). _No one_ actually believes that _she_ and _he_ aren't attached to gender in people's heads, and playing dumb about this to try to make it look like you're being apolitical is just disgraceful. How dumb do you think we are?!
-I guess for me, the issue is that this is a question where _I need the correct answer in order to decide whether or not to cut my dick off_. Let me explain.
+-----
-[TODO: people have an incentive to fight over pronouns insofar as it's a "wedge" for more substantive issues]
+[TODO: not the woke position—it's an incoherent position]
+
+-----
[TODO: "Can't imagine a sympathetic protagonist"—lies, imagine a rape victim]
-[TODO: I need the correct answer]
+-----
+
+[TODO: people have an incentive to fight over pronouns insofar as it's a "wedge" for more substantive issues]
+
+----
+
+I guess for me, the issue is that this is a question where _I need the correct answer in order to decide whether or not to cut my dick off_. Let me explain.
+
+
+
+-----
[TODO:
* "If there were unspeakable arguments against, we couldn't talk about them"—okay, then you and your rationalists are frauds
* work in the LambdaMOO anecdote where appropriate
* singular they for named individuals undermined indefinite singular 'they'
- • not the woke position—it's an incoherent position
* some people have complained that my writing is too long, but when your interlocutors will go to the absurd length of _denying that the association of "she" with females_
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / blobdiff