I fear the explanation requires some personal backstory about me. I ... almost don't want to tell the backstory, because the thing I've been upset about all year is that I thought a systematically-correct-reasoning community worthy of the brand name should be able to correct a _trivial_ philosophy-of-language error which has nothing to do with me, and it was pretty frustrating when some people seemed to ignore the literal content of my careful very narrowly-scoped knockdown philosophy-of-language argument, and dismiss me with, "Oh, you're just upset about your personal thing (which doesn't matter)." So part of me is afraid that such a person reading the parts of this post that are about the ways in which I _am_, in fact, _really upset_ about my personal thing (which I _don't_ expect anyone else to care about), might take it as vindication that they were correct to be dismissive of my explicit philosophical arguments (which I _did_ expect others to take seriously).
-But I shouldn't let that worry control what I write in _this_ post, because _this_ post isn't about making arguments that might convince anyone of anything: I _already_ made my arguments, and it _didn't work_. _This_ post is about telling the story about that, so that I can finish grieving for the systematically-correct-reasoning community that I _thought_ I had, and make peace with the world I _actually_ live in.
+But I shouldn't let that worry control what I write in _this_ post, because _this_ post isn't about making arguments that might convince anyone of anything: I _already_ made my arguments, and it _mostly didn't work_. _This_ post is about telling the story about that, so that I can finish grieving for the systematically-correct-reasoning community that I _thought_ I had, and make peace with the world I _actually_ live in.
So, some backstory about me. Ever since I was thirteen years old—
The beautiful pure sacred self-identity thing doesn't _feel_ explicitly erotic.
-http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2016/07/concerns/
+[section: some sort of causal relationship between self-identity and erotic thing, but I assumed it was just my weird thing, not "trans", which I had heard of; never had any reason to formulate the hypothesis, "dysphoria"]
+[section: another thing about me: my psychological sex differences denialism]
-Now, of course I had _heard of_ there being such a thing as transsexualism.
+[section: Overcoming Bias rewrites my personality over the internet; gradually getting over sex differences denialism: my reactions to "Failed Utopia 4-2" and "Changing Emotions"]
-[...]
+[section: moving to Berkeley, realized that my thing wasn't different; seemed like something that a systematically-correct-reasoning community would be interested in getting right (maybe the 30% of the ones with penises are actually women thing does fit here after all? (I was going to omit it)]
+
+[section: had a lot of private conversations with people, and they weren't converging with me]
-(I'm avoiding naming anyone in this post even when linking to their public writings, in order to try to keep the _rhetorical emphasis_ on "true tale of personal heartbreak, coupled with sober analysis of the sociopolitical factors leading thereto" even while I'm expressing disappointment with people's performance. This isn't supposed to be character/reputation attack on my friends and intellectual heroes—I just _need to tell the story_ about why I've been crazy all year so that I can stop grieving and _move on_.)
+[section: flipped out on Facebook; those discussions ended up containing a lot of appeal-to-arbitrariness conversation halters, appeal to "Categories Were Made"]
[...]
[...]
-A friend tells me that I'm delusional to expect so much from "the community", that the original vision _never_ included tackling politically sensitive subjects. (I remember this friend recommending Paul Graham's ["What You Can't Say"](http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html) back in 'aught-nine, with the suggestion to take Graham's advice to figure out what you can't say, and then don't say it.)
+[section: started a pseudonymous secret blog; one of the things I focused on was the philosophy-of-language thing, because that seemed _really_ nailed down: "...To Make Predictions", "Reply on Adult Human Females". And that was going OK ...]
+
+[section: hill of meaning in defense of validity, and I _flipped the fuck out_]
+
+In the English language as it is spoken today,
+
+[...]
+
+A friend tells me that I'm delusional to expect so much from "the community", that the original vision _never_ included tackling politically sensitive subjects. (I remember this friend recommending Paul Graham's ["What You Can't Say"](http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html) back in 'aught-nine, with the suggestion to take Graham's advice to figure out what you can't say, and then _don't say it_.)
-Perhaps so. But back in 2009, we did not realize that _whether or not I should cut my dick off_ would _become_ a politicized issue.
+Perhaps so. But back in 2009, we did not anticipate that _whether or not I should cut my dick off_ would _become_ a politicized issue.
-To be fair, it's not obvious that I _shouldn't_ cut my dick off! A lot of people seem to be doing it nowadays, and a lot of them seem to be pretty happy. But in order to _decide_ whether to join them, I need _accurate information_. I need an _honest_ accounting of the costs and benefits of transition, so that I can cut my dick off in the possible worlds where that's a good idea, and not cut my dick off in the possible worlds where it's not a good idea.
+Like, it's not obvious that I _shouldn't_ cut my dick off! A lot of people seem to be doing it nowadays, and a lot of them seem to be pretty happy. But in order to _decide_ whether to join them, I need _accurate information_. I need an _honest_ accounting of the costs and benefits of transition, so that I can cut my dick off in the possible worlds where that's a good idea, and not cut my dick off in the possible worlds where it's not a good idea.
And if the community whose marketing literature says they're all about systematically correct reasoning, is not only not going to be helpful at producing accurate information, but is furthermore going _actively manufacture fake rationality lessons_ that have been optimized to _confuse me into cutting my dick off_ independently of whether or not we live in one of the possible worlds where cutting my dick off is a good idea, then that community is _fraudulent_. It needs to either _rebrand_—or failing that, _disband_—or failing that, _be destroyed_.
+
+[section: the community is politically constrained]
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / blobdiff