The fact that I can't _talk about the world I see_ in the simple language that comes naturally to me without it inevitably being construed as a reactionary political statement is a _problem_. And it's a _rationality_ problem insofar as the world I see is potentially a more accurate model of the real world, than the world I'm allowed to talk about.
-I can be polite in most circumstances, as the price of keeping the peace in Society. But it is a price, a cost—and it's a _cognitive_ cost, the cost of _destroying information_ that would make people uncomfortable. Systematically correct reasoners needn't _mention_ the cost in most circumstances (that would not be polite), but we should at least be able to refrain from indulging in clever not-technically-lying sophistry that tries to _make it look like there's no cost_.
+I can be polite in most circumstances, as the price of keeping the peace in Society. But it is a price, a cost—and it's a _cognitive_ cost, the cost of _destroying information_ that would make people uncomfortable. Systematically correct reasoners needn't _mention_ the cost in most circumstances (that would not be polite), but we should at least be able to refrain from indulging in clever [not-technically-lying](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PrXR66hQcaJXsgWsa/not-technically-lying) sophistry that tries to _make it look like there's no cost_.
-----
-If we _actually had_ the magical sex change technology described in "Changing Emotions", no one would even be _tempted_ to invent these category-gerrymandering mind games! People who wanted to change sex would just _do it_, and everyone would use corresponding language because it straightforwardly _described reality_—not as a political favor, or because of some exceedingly clever philosophy argument.
+If we _actually had_ the magical sex change technology described in "Changing Emotions", no one would even be _tempted_ to invent these clever category-gerrymandering mind games! People who wanted to change sex would just _do it_, and everyone would use corresponding language (pronouns and more) because it straightforwardly _described reality_—not as a political favor, or because of some exceedingly clever philosophy argument, but using the _same_ ordinary word-choice algorithms that they used for everything else. The fact that people keep inventing these clever category-gerrymandering mind games and refuse to engage when one of their peers spends thousands of words explaining why this is not how we do philosophy, is an indication that something fishy is going on here?[^motherfuckers]
+
+[^motherfuckers]: We had an entire Sequence about this! You lying motherfuckers!
+
+If we _actually had_ the magical sex change technology described in "Changing Emotions"—if it cost $200,000, I would take out a bank loan and _do it_, and live happily ever after.
+
+(Though I'd call myself a transwoman—one word, for the same reason the _verthandi_ in "Failed Utopia #4-2" got their own word. I currently write "trans woman", two words, as a strategic concession to the shibboleth-detectors of my target audience.[^two-words] I don't want to to _prematurely_ scare off progressive-socialized readers on account of mere orthography, when what I actually have to say is already disturbing enough.)
+
+[^two-words]: For the unfamiliar: the [doctrine here](https://medium.com/@cassiebrighter/please-write-trans-women-as-two-words-487f153444fb) is that "trans" is an adjective indicating a type of woman.
+
-If it cost $200K, I would just take out a bank loan and _do it_.
Not because I like my voice, but because
-[trans woman one word]
[maybe it woudl be a good idea ten years ago]
-----
I definitely don't want to call (say) my friend Irene a man. That would be crazy! Because **her transition _actually worked_.** Because it actually worked _on the merits_. _Not_ because I'm _redefining concepts in order to be nice to her_. When I look at her, whatever algorithm my brain _ordinarily_ uses to sort people into "woman"/"man"/"not sure" buckets, returns "woman."
-**If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, and you can model it as a duck without making any grevious prediction errors, then it makes sense to call it a "duck" in the range of circumstances that your model continues to be useful**, even if a pedant might point out that it's really an [Anatid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatidae)-[oid](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-oid#Suffix) robot, or that that species is technically a goose.
+**If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, and you can model it as a duck without making any grevious prediction errors, then it makes sense to call it a "duck" in the range of circumstances that your model continues to be useful**, even if a pedant might point out that it's really ("really") an [Anatid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatidae)-[oid](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-oid#Suffix) robot, or that that species is technically a goose.
-----
Note, **(3) is _entirely compatible_ with trans women being women**. The point is that if you want to claim that trans women are women, you need some sort of _argument_ for why that categorization makes sense in the context you want to use the word—why that map usefully reflects some relevant aspect of the territory. If you want to _argue_ that hormone replacement therapy constitutes an effective sex change, or that trans is a brain-intersex condition and the brain is the true referent of "gender", or that [coordination constraints on _shared_ categories](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/edEXi4SpkXfvaX42j/schelling-categories-and-simple-membership-tests) [support the self-identification criterion](/2019/Oct/self-identity-is-a-schelling-point/), that's fine, because those are _arguments_ that someone who initially disagreed with your categorization could _engage with on the merits_. In contrast, "I can define a word any way I want" can't be engaged with in the same way because it's a denial of the possibility of merits.
-----
-
-[trade arrangments: if that's the world we live in, fine]
-
------
[happy price, symmetry-breaking]
[lightning post assumes invicibility]
+https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/23/kolmogorov-complicity-and-the-parable-of-lightning/
+
+> And the more perceptive and truth-seeking these people are, the more likely they’ll speak, say “Hey, I think we’ve got the lightning thing wrong” and not shut up about it, and society will have to destroy them.
+
+Have to?!
+
The Popular Author obviously never wanted to be the center of a personality cult; it just happened to him anyway because he's better at writing than everyone else.
-----
-----
-["delusional perverts", no one understands me]
+If I sound angry, it's because I actually do feel a lot of anger, but I wish I knew how to more reliably convey its target. Some trans women I know
+
+[think I'm collaborating with the cis] [nor, by my own principles can I say they're wrong about me by self-declaration] [agree that scapegoating is real]
+
+acknowleding my complicity:
+/2017/Mar/interlude-ii/
+/2019/Feb/interlude-xviii/
+
+"notice when I succumb to anti-gender-variance social pressure in real life." /2019/Aug/a-love-that-is-out-of-anyones-control/
-----
----
+[leaning on "Travis" for social proof]
+
+----
+
+[on Failed-Utopia 4-2: lesiban trans women are essentially this in real life]
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