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_.
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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.
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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.
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-
-[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.
-----
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-["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/
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+[leaning on "Travis" for social proof]
+
+----
+
+[on Failed-Utopia 4-2: lesiban trans women are essentially this in real life]
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projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / blobdiff