first contiguous draft of "The Categories ..."

There are still a bunch of points to work in (that I'm keeping a list of
in the notesfile) and sections that should be reorganized for clarity,
but there are at least (I think) no major discontinuities that I need to
denote with "[...]". I could even publish this as-is and not die of
shame. But we can probably do better than that.

diff --git a/content/drafts/the-categories-were-made-for-man-to-make-predictions.md b/content/drafts/the-categories-were-made-for-man-to-make-predictions.md
index 558a3b2..f57da1d 100644 (file)
--- a/content/drafts/the-categories-were-made-for-man-to-make-predictions.md
+++ b/content/drafts/the-categories-were-made-for-man-to-make-predictions.md
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 Title: The Categories Were Made for Man to Make Predictions
 Date: 2018-03-01 5:00
 Category: commentary
-Tags: epistemology, Scott Alexander, sex differences, two-type taxonomy
+Tags: epistemology, Scott Alexander, sex differences, two-type taxonomy, whale metaphors
 Status: draft
 
 > I said, "The truth is whatever you can get away with."
@@ -90,14 +90,10 @@ This hypothesis is weaker than the autogynephilia theory, but still has implicat
 
 To this it might be objected that there are many different types of women. Clusters can internally have many subclusters: Pureto Rican women (or married women, or young women, or lesbians, _&c_.) don't have the _same_ distribution of traits as women as a whole, and yet are still women. Why should "trans" be different from any other adjective one might use to specify a subcategory of women?
 
-The problem is that—under the two-types hypothesis where gender dysphoria in non-exclusively-androphilic biological males is mostly not an intersex condition—most trans women aren't just not part of the female cluster in configuration space, displaced from it in some arbitrary direction. They're specifically part of the _male_ cluster (along most dimensions), which people _already_ have a concept for.
-
-[...]
+What makes this difficult is that—under the two-types hypothesis where gender dysphoria in non-exclusively-androphilic biological males is mostly not an intersex condition—most trans women aren't just not part of the female cluster in configuration space, displaced from its center in some arbitrary direction. They're specifically part of the _male_ cluster along most dimensions, which people _already_ have a concept for. 
 
 <a href="/images/genderspace_cluster_choice.png"><img src="/images/genderspace_cluster_choice.png" width="479" height="379" alt="genderspace cluster choice"></a>
 
-[...]
-
 In less tolerant places and decades, where MtF transsexuals were very rare and had to try very hard to pass as women out of dire necessity, their impact on the social order and how people think about gender was minimal—there were just too few trans people to make much of a difference. This is why experienced crossdressers often report it being easier to pass in rural or suburban areas rather than cities with a larger LGBT presence—not as a matter of tolerant social attitudes, but as a matter of _base rates_: it's harder to get [clocked](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=clocked&defid=4884301) by people who aren't aware that being trans is even a thing. (In [predictive processing](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-uncertainty/) terms: the prediction errors caused by observations of a trans woman failing to match the observer's generative model of (natal) women get silenced for lack of alternative hypotheses if "She's trans" isn't in the observer's hypothesis space.)
 
 Nowadays, in progressive enclaves of Western countries, transness is definitely known to be a thing—and in particular subcultures that form around [non-sex-balanced interests](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exaggerated-differences/), the numbers can be quite dramatic. For example, on the [2018 _Slate Star Codex_ reader survey](http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/03/ssc-survey-results-2018/), 9.4% of respondents selected _F (cisgender)_ for the gender question, compared to 1.4% of respondents selecting _F (transgender m → f)_. So, if trans women are women, _13.4%_ (!!) of women who read _Slate Star Codex_ are trans.
@@ -122,13 +118,25 @@ People should get what they want. We should have social norms that help people g
 
 People should get what they want. Social science is hard and I want to _try_ to avoid politics as much as I can (an unfortunately challenging goal when you're in the gender-blogging business). When different people's wants come into conflict, it's not for me to say what the optimal compromise is; it's too much for me to compute.
 
-What I can say is that _whatever_ the right thing to do is, we stand a better chance of getting there if we can be _honest_ with each other about the world we see, using the most precise categories we can, to construct maps that reflect the territory. My model of the universe doesn't stop at the boundary of your body, and yours shouldn't stop at mine. This is definitely compatible with transitioning. It is _not_, I claim, compatible with the ideology of gender-as-self-identification that is rapidly establishing a foothold in Society. Consider this display at at recent conference of the American Philosophical Association (note, the people whose _job_ it is to use careful conceptual distinctions to understand reality)—
+What I can say is that _whatever_ the right thing to do is, we stand a better chance of getting there if we can be _honest_ with each other about the world we see, using the most precise categories we can, to construct maps that reflect the territory. My model of the universe doesn't stop at the boundary of your body, and yours shouldn't stop at mine.
+
+This is definitely compatible with transitioning. It is _not_, I claim, compatible with the ideology of gender-as-self-identification that is rapidly establishing a foothold in Society. Consider this display at at recent conference of the American Philosophical Association (note, the people whose _job_ it is to use careful conceptual distinctions to understand reality)—
 
 ![APA pronoun stickers]({filename}/images/apa_pronoun_stickers.jpg)
 
 (photograph by [Lucia A. Schwarz](https://twitter.com/Lucia_A_Schwarz/status/949315365842116608))
 
-[**TODO**: wrap section: sticker failure; this is not kindness; we're smarter than this]
+But this isn't how _anyone_ actually thinks about gender! 
+
+If you need a sticker to get people to gender you correctly, _your transition has failed_.
+
+In a free Society, everyone should have the right to express themselves, to modify their body and social presentation however they see fit. But having your best to present your true self, you can't—not even _shouldn't_, but _can't_—exert detailed control how other people percieve you.
+
+All you can do is incentivize them to lie.
+
+And when the laudable instinct to be kind gets corrupted into [universal socially-mandatory lies](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/23/kolmogorov-complicity-and-the-parable-of-lightning/)—when a man can where a sticker that says "SHE" and say, "Who are you going to believe, my sticker, or your lying eyes? There's no rule of rationality saying that you shouldn't believe the sticker, and there are plenty of rules of human decency saying that you should" and the _finest minds of my generation_ can permit themselves no other response than, "She's absolutely correct; the categories were made for man, not man for the categories."
+
+This is not rationality. This isn't even kindness. We're _smarter_ than this.
 
 -----
 
@@ -144,19 +152,21 @@ It was me, once. I had a couple [psychotic](/2017/Mar/fresh-princess/) [episodes
 
 I got better after a few nights of good sleep—but also with the help of friends who cared not just about my immediate happiness, but also my sanity, who didn't automatically dismiss everything I said as wrong, but who also _told me_ when I wasn't making sense.
 
-If the delusions had persisted—if I had _gone on_ thinking in terms of simulation hijinks and the literal transgender mafia, we could imagine my having friends who eventually decided to play along, hailing me as Gender Czar of our simulation. Maybe it would be fun for them or for me. Maybe it would be fascinating to read about. (Psychotic-me's worldview makes _great_ science fiction.) But I don't think it would be _helping_ me, because ultimately, I live in the real world.
+If the delusions had persisted—if I had _gone on_ thinking in terms of simulation hijinks and the literal transgender mafia, we could imagine my having friends who eventually decided to play along, hailing me as Gender Czar of our simulation. Maybe it would be fun for them or for me. Maybe it would be fascinating to read about. (Psychotic-me's worldview makes _great_ science fiction.) But I don't think it would be _helping_ me. Because ultimately, I live in the real world. Anything else [isn't there to be lived](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Litany_of_Gendlin).
+
+I want you to imagine yourself as a resident of 1870s San Francisco, someone who Norton trusts as one of his chief imperial advisors. One day, you encounter him at his favorite café looking very distressed.
 
-I want you to imagine yourself as a resident of 1870s San Francisco, someone who Emperor Norton trusts as one of his chief imperial advisors. One day, Norton 
+"What's wrong, Your Highness?" you inquire, pulling up a chair to his table.
 
-"What's wrong, Your Highness?"
+"Ah, my trusted—advisor. I've been noticing—things that don't seem to add up. Most of my subjects here in the city seem to treat me with proper respect. But the newspapers still talk about Congress and the President, even though I abolished those years ago. That seems like something I would _expect not to see_ if my reign were as secure if everyone tells me it is. What if, what if—" his voice drops to a terrified whisper, "what if I've been mad? What if I'm not actually Emperor, and people have just been playing along?"
 
-[...]
+"The categories were made for man, not man for the categories, Your Highness," you say. "An alternative categorization system is not an error. Category boundaries are drawn in specific ways to to capture trade-offs that we care about; they're not something that can be objectively _true_ or _false_. So if we value your identification as the Emperor—"
 
-"The categories were made for man, not man for the categories, Your Highness," you say. "An alternative categorization system is not an error, and category boundaries are drawn in specific ways to to capture trade-offs that we care about; they're not something that can be objectively _true_ or _false_. So if we care about your identification as the Emperor—"
+"_What?_" he exclaims. He looks at you like you're crazy—and with a hint of desperation, as if to communicate that he's trusting you to be sane, and doesn't know where he could turn should that trust be betrayed.
 
-"_What?_" he exclaims. He looks at you like you're crazy. And in that moment, caught in the old man's earnest, pleading gaze, you realize that you don't believe your own bullshit.
+And in that moment, caught in the old man's earnest, pleading gaze, you realize that you don't believe your own bullshit.
 
-"No, you're right," you say. "You're not actually Emperor. People around here have just been humoring you for the last decade because we thought it was funny."
+"No, you're right," you say. "You're not actually Emperor. People around here have just been humoring you for the last decade because we thought it was cute and it seemed to make you happy."
 
 A beat.