From 72327487792b1a050ef30691a74477dd96ccb323 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "M. Taylor Saotome-Westlake" Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2019 22:56:05 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] =?utf8?q?"psychological"=20=E2=86=92=20"personality"?= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit --- ...f-reality-and-the-sheer-goddamned-pointlessness-of-reason.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/content/2019/the-social-construction-of-reality-and-the-sheer-goddamned-pointlessness-of-reason.md b/content/2019/the-social-construction-of-reality-and-the-sheer-goddamned-pointlessness-of-reason.md index af31ad0..19203b4 100644 --- a/content/2019/the-social-construction-of-reality-and-the-sheer-goddamned-pointlessness-of-reason.md +++ b/content/2019/the-social-construction-of-reality-and-the-sheer-goddamned-pointlessness-of-reason.md @@ -35,7 +35,7 @@ That incentive lasted about forty years. After its crowning victory in _Obergefe Sculpting "trans" into an interest group large enough to serve as a pawn (well, [bishop](https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2008/06/ol9-how-to-uninstall-cathedral/)) under the Blue Egregore's control required the LGBT sub-egregore to re-collapse the sex/gender distinction (pried apart at such painstaking cost by its feminist cousins two generations earlier)—in the _other_ direction: sex, having already been split into "sex" and "gender" (f.k.a. gender _roles_ f.k.a. _sex_ roles), must now give way entirely to the latter. In [Hoffman and Taylor's account of the precession of simulacra (following Baudrillard)](http://benjaminrosshoffman.com/excerpts-from-a-larger-discussion-about-simulacra/), medical transsexualism of the 20th-century West was a mixture of simulacrum levels 1 (to the extent that hormones and surgery constitute a successful [sex change](http://lesswrong.com/lw/xe/changing_emotions/)) and 2 (to the extent that they don't, and transitioning consists of [lying](http://benjaminrosshoffman.com/blatant-lies-best-kind/) about one's sex). -In contrast, post-_Obergefell_ gender theory belongs to simulacrum level 3: rather than having a non-circular truth condition, "gender" is just a free-floating Schelling point, a [role](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AqbWna2S85pFTsHH4/the-intelligent-social-web) or [costume](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PurelyAestheticGender) to be [symbolically identified](https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/the-thing-and-the-symbolic-representation-of-the-thing/) with, meaning no more (and no less) what one can predict that others will predict that others will predict ... _&c._ that it means. Biological sex would continue to be a decision-relevant variable if it were cognitively available (summarizing a variety of physical differences, who can get pregnant, various game-theoretic social consequences of who can get pregnant, [psychological differences to the tune of](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0029265) [Mahanalobis _D_](https://marcodgdotnet.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/delgiudice_2013_is-d_valid_ep.pdf) ≈ 2.7, _&c._)—but _no_ culture can provide all the concepts that _would be_ decision-relevant _if available_. Definitionally, you don't know what you're missing. ["The limits of my language are the limits of my world."](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein) Some claim to have [_seen through_](https://www.gwern.net/docs/philo/2012-sistery-tryingtoseethrough.html) to a world beneath the world, but without a way to _share_ what they've allegedly seen, to bring it within mutually-reinforcing consensus of the intersubjective, who's not to say that they only dreamed it? +In contrast, post-_Obergefell_ gender theory belongs to simulacrum level 3: rather than having a non-circular truth condition, "gender" is just a free-floating Schelling point, a [role](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AqbWna2S85pFTsHH4/the-intelligent-social-web) or [costume](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PurelyAestheticGender) to be [symbolically identified](https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/the-thing-and-the-symbolic-representation-of-the-thing/) with, meaning no more (and no less) what one can predict that others will predict that others will predict ... _&c._ that it means. Biological sex would continue to be a decision-relevant variable if it were cognitively available (summarizing a variety of physical differences, who can get pregnant, various game-theoretic social consequences of who can get pregnant, [personality differences to the tune of](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0029265) [Mahanalobis _D_](https://marcodgdotnet.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/delgiudice_2013_is-d_valid_ep.pdf) ≈ 2.7, _&c._)—but _no_ culture can provide all the concepts that _would be_ decision-relevant _if available_. Definitionally, you don't know what you're missing. ["The limits of my language are the limits of my world."](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein) Some claim to have [_seen through_](https://www.gwern.net/docs/philo/2012-sistery-tryingtoseethrough.html) to a world beneath the world, but without a way to _share_ what they've allegedly seen, to bring it within mutually-reinforcing consensus of the intersubjective, who's not to say that they only dreamed it? I have a recurring dream, a naïve dream that can't exist. It's a dream about the use of maps. In my dream, even people who—for example—[dislike psychological sex differences](/2017/Dec/theres-a-land-that-i-see-or-the-spirit-of-intervention/), have an interest in sex differences research being as accurate as possible, using the most precise concepts possible, because only a true understanding of the interplay between nature and nurture can be _used to design_ a more just Society that minimizes inequality, just as only a true map of the territory can help you plot your way across a dangerous terrain. And that is how it would work for a [singleton](https://nickbostrom.com/fut/singleton.html) God-Empress that could arrange human lives like pieces on a chess board, or the words in a novel. -- 2.17.1