Title: Point Man
-Date: 2021-03-01
+Date: 2021-03-08
Category: commentary
-Tags: ideology, categorization, epistemology, language
+Tags: ideology, bullet-biting, epistemic horror
Status: draft
Chinese legend tells of a eunuch named Zhao Gao, a chancellor to the Second Emperor. The power-hungry Zhao Gao wanted to arrange a coup, but was worried that the other members of the imperial court wouldn't cooperate with his designs.
Later, Zhao Gao arranged for the execution of the courtiers who said it was a deer, or were silent.
-It was all a test: the courtiers who agreed with Zhao Gao, even though what he said was absurd—precisely _because_ it was absurd—proved their loyalty to him, whereas the ones who spoke the plain truth revealed themselves as untrustworthy for his purposes: to agree with a true claim would be compatible with either loyalty or mere honesty, but to agree with absurdity leaves [no ambiguity about one's motives](https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2020/12/15/motive-ambiguity/). From this story comes the Chinese [four-character idiom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu) _point deer make horse_, to deliberately misrepresent.
+It was all a test: the courtiers who agreed with Zhao Gao, even though what he said was absurd—[precisely _because_ it was absurd](https://spandrell.com/2015/06/03/the-purpose-of-absurdity/)—proved their loyalty to him, whereas the ones who spoke the plain truth revealed themselves as untrustworthy for his purposes: to agree with a true claim would be compatible with either loyalty or mere honesty, but to agree with absurdity leaves [no ambiguity about one's motives](https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2020/12/15/motive-ambiguity/). From this story comes the Chinese [four-character idiom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu) _point deer make horse_, to deliberately misrepresent.
I used to wonder: what was it like to be one of the courtiers who survived the test? Did they consciously think, "Well, I don't know _why_ Zhao Gao is calling this deer a horse, but he seems serious, so I'd better play along, too"—or did they trust Zhao Gao's words more than their own eyes, and manage to really believe themselves that it was a horse?
Almost like ... a loyalty test?
-And the less intuitive it is, the better it works _as_ a loyalty test: referring to an obviously male person as _he_ merely reflects conventional usage and reveals no information about one's motives, whereas refering to an obvious male as _she_—or using singular _they_ for a named individual whose sex is apparent—extracts a cognitive cost, however slight—a cost [allies are more willing to pay than non-allies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory).
+And the less intuitive it is, the better it works _as_ a loyalty test: referring to an obviously male person as _he_ merely reflects conventional usage and reveals no information about one's motives, whereas referring to an obvious male as _she_—or using singular _they_ for a named individual whose sex is apparent—extracts a cognitive cost, however slight—a cost [allies are more willing to pay than non-allies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory).
I'm not suggesting a conspiracy, of course; just the design signature of [cultural evolution](/2020/Jan/book-review-the-origins-of-unfairness/).
-In the begining, [Azathoth](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pLRogvJLPPg6Mrvg4/an-alien-god) created female and male, and the physical fact was called "sex", and the social recognition and implications thereof was called "gender"—the first day.
+In the beginning, [Azathoth](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pLRogvJLPPg6Mrvg4/an-alien-god) created female and male, and the physical fact was called "sex", and the social recognition and implications thereof was called "gender"—the first day.
As a very rare biological anomaly, there have always been an extreme right tail of very masculine lesbians who fit into Society better as men and very feminine gay men who fit into Society better as women, and twentieth-century doctors developed medical interventions to aid them in this transformation. This worked pretty well.
As a transhumanist, I believe that fantasies deserve to be fulfilled—but _actually_ fulfilled, fulfilled _for real_, not humored by everyone forcing everyone else to pretend in order to maintain the equilibrium in some idiot political game.
-I'm glad that sex reassignment exists for those who need it, or just _want_ it. But this new culture in which any attempt to talk about sex in the common language gets adversarially reinterpreted as a claim about some "gender" thing that has no particular truth conditions other than the individual's say-so, [_isn't helping those people_](https://sillyolme.wordpress.com/2019/04/08/oppressive-rituals-of-ceremoniously-announcing-one-gender-pronouns/). Relative to more honest alternatives that could be invented or rediscovered, I very much doubt it's helping those who enthusiastically advocate for and participate in it—if they only _knew_ in detail what they were selling and being sold. Selfishly, I resent the forced updates to my native language, which I still need to make sense of the world I see.
+I'm glad that sex reassignment exists for those who need it, or just _want_ it. (I would want it if the technology were better.) But this new culture in which any attempt to talk about sex in the common language gets adversarially reinterpreted as a claim about this mysterious "gender" thing that has no particular truth conditions other than the individual's say-so, [_isn't helping those people_](https://sillyolme.wordpress.com/2019/04/08/oppressive-rituals-of-ceremoniously-announcing-one-gender-pronouns/). Relative to more honest alternatives that could be invented or rediscovered, I very much doubt it's helping those who enthusiastically advocate for and participate in it—if they only _knew_ in detail what they were selling and being sold. Selfishly, I resent the forced updates to my native language, which I still need to make sense of the world I see.
And, and—that poor deer!
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