J.K. Rowling returns human rights award amid criticism from organization

[robkelk]

Might as well start this one here...

AP: J.K. Rowling returns human rights award amid criticism from organization

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling says she is returning an award from a human rights group linked to the Kennedy family after the president of the organization criticized her comments about transgender issues.

Rowling's decision comes after Kerry Kennedy, the president of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights nonprofit and the late American senator's daughter, published a statement expressing her "profound disappointment" with the author's comments.

"The statement incorrectly implied that I was transphobic, and that I am responsible for harm to trans people," Rowling said on her website.

I have to side with JKR on this one. Her statements were obviously taken out of context by somebody who has an agenda.

[SilverFang01]

Do not be so quick to dismiss the grievances that the trans community has against J.K. Rowling.

This is just the latest chapter in a much longer story.

Here is a transgender woman explaining the situation from her point of view:

[robkelk]

I didn't say I was dismissing grievances. I said that I sided with her on this one.

[Labster]

There are legitimate questions on the degree to which feminists can support and include trans women.  A person could have received all of the benefits of being a white male as they grow up, and establish their career, and then transition into being a trans woman.  Should they then get the additional benefits reserved for women, like affirmative action, given that they still continue to benefit from wealth and contact networks built up as man?  Okay, what about black trans women, who never really got those benefits?

It's a fundamental question of fairness between people who have been discriminated against at birth, and people who join the discriminated group later in life.  And if the later joining group faces additional discrimination (and violence) or if it does not.  If we could all not be such assholes about race and gender in the first place this would be much easier, but the world is what it is.  It would also be nice if things like this weren't taken as attacks, but moments to teach and ask questions; it would be nice if they weren't used as attacks, either.

Some of the stuff Rowling is asking for is about the balance of fairness.  Other things like the bathroom stuff veer a little into homophobia.  Supporting someone's freedom from prosecution is tolerant, but not necessarily inclusive.  I agree with both points of view even though they are obviously in conflict.  Lame, huh.

[hazard]

The question of 'do we support this person even though they are now part of our group but were previously not' is stupid. The question is not 'how harmed by discrimination are they', because that question divides groups that are being harmed for a game of misery poker. The questions are 'are they being harmed by discrimination right now, or still dealing with the consequences of previously done harm' and 'what is the most resource efficient way of addressing the harm done.'

And don't forget that those connections and other resources trans people build up before they transition or become open about being transgender? Those can be quite useful, if you can convince them that it's worthwhile to support you. That's a whole lot easier when you support them right back.

[LynnInDenver]

Yeah, and there's the added problem with the argument of "but they had the privilege beforehand" and "but they were socialized as male", and that is that it disregards the fact that being socialized as someone you're not is inherently traumatic.

I do agree that the misery poker should not be a thing because it's so damned divisive... I tend to avoid people who play that game. There are women issues I've finally become aware of since I started my transition, but it doesn't disqualify my own experiences of dealing with trying to live as something I'm inherently not (my first hint of having the issue was in 1979 at five years old, which should give you some idea of how inherent it is), nor does it make my experiences worse then theirs. I just have a different set of experiences with how life is for those who are not the complete combination of White, Male, Straight and Cis.

There's a term used for the sort of feminist who insists that being assigned male at birth is an automatic "no" vote for anything other than still being lumped in with the "assigned and is" male population... TERF, an acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist. There is a studied ignorance of the overlap of issues with regards to how society treats gender involved in the view that trans women can't be considered women at all, and that studied ignorance is in the fact that trans women are being harmed by many of the same structures and attitudes that also harm women, abetted by the fact that from the outside it looks like we're making a choice while disregarding that many times that choice is between "do I remain miserable to the point of active self harm, bad coping strategies and maybe suicide" and "living as who I am regardless of how many people that might want to scream in my face that who I am is not compatible with their views of who I should have been, and at least be capable of looking in the bathroom mirror and not hating what I see every damned day."

Hazard has it right... I'm willing to support people who support me... those who insist I shouldn't get their support, I don't feel like wasting the energy to give them support.

[Labster]

Oh good, looks like I didn't offend Lynn... too much.

I think socialization is in general traumatic, but to greatly varying degrees. My pain can't compare to yours. But Middle School and High School? That was no fun. Almost everyone is expected by someone to be something they're not, and the pain is in finding the balance between getting along and discovering how to be oneself. And some people, they never escape high school, so long as they live. Terrifying.

I'm just glad we're finally at a place that Lynn can be herself.

[hazard]

Oh good, looks like I didn't offend Lynn... too much.

I think socialization is in general traumatic, but to greatly varying degrees.  My pain can't compare to yours.  But Middle School and High School?  That was no fun.  Almost everyone is expected by someone to be something they're not, and the pain is in finding the balance between getting along and discovering how to be oneself.  And some people, they never escape high school, so long as they live.  Terrifying.

I'm just glad we're finally at a place that Lynn can be herself.

I think your culture has a few issues to attend to in how it raises its kids and values people Labster, because to me?

That sounds like something is structurally broken.

[LynnInDenver]

Oh good, looks like I didn't offend Lynn... too much.

I think socialization is in general traumatic, but to greatly varying degrees.  My pain can't compare to yours.  But Middle School and High School?  That was no fun.  Almost everyone is expected by someone to be something they're not, and the pain is in finding the balance between getting along and discovering how to be oneself.  And some people, they never escape high school, so long as they live.  Terrifying.

I'm just glad we're finally at a place that Lynn can be herself.

Don't worry, I'm not offended, at least by you. TERFs, on the other hand, offend me on several levels, because they take pains to flagrantly ignore the overlap between women's issues and trans women's issues.

[Labster]

And some of the them aren't even real, they're just bots complaining about trans women.  But enough about astroTERFs.

@hazard: Something is fundamentally broken but I'm not sure if it's human nature that's broken or society.  Or rather, which is more broken.

[hazard]

And some of the them aren't even real, they're just bots complaining about trans women.  But enough about astroTERFs.

@hazard: Something is fundamentally broken but I'm not sure if it's human nature that's broken or society.  Or rather, which is more broken.

A false dichotomy.

It's not that either or both are broken. It's that they fit eachother poorly at best, and the one that is most able to bend is the one used to bludgeon the other into shape no matter the damage it does.

[Labster]

So, how do we change human nature to better match society and encourage eusocial behavior?

[hazard]

Labster, you are asking exactly the wrong question, that's the question that leads to society beating down human nature. That has led to human nature getting beat down until it breaks and people die of murder, suicide or murder suicide over the fact that they do not fit in. The USA has a long history of this, so I should not be surprised.

I'm not going to pretend it will be easy, but what you need to do is change society, because society changes a whole lot more easily than human nature. What you want is to create a society that encourages healthy behaviour and habits in people by pulling at the levers of human nature. You don't want to have to punish people for poor behaviour, that you need to is an indication of a failure state, you want to reward people for good behaviour in a way they respond well to and keep encouraging them so they propagate that behaviour.

Succeed, and you create a society that matches human nature and encourages its better qualities


As an aside, 'eusocial' is a very loaded term given its original meaning in biology. You may want to avoid using it.

[Bob Schroeck]

Hazard, I read that with an implicit wink and/or </SARCASM> markup. I think maybe you should have as well.

[hazard]

I am absolutely terrible at reading between the lines, not least of which because I try to be clear and unambiguous in my conversations and expect the same in return. It's part of why I try to make sure that when I am being sarcastic I mark a statement as such.

[robkelk]

...
As an aside, 'eusocial' is a very loaded term given its original meaning in biology. You may want to avoid using it.

I wasn't aware that it had any other meaning. (goes and looks) Merriam-Webster Online only gives the one meaning, as well.

[hazard]

...
As an aside, 'eusocial' is a very loaded term given its original meaning in biology. You may want to avoid using it.

I wasn't aware that it had any other meaning. (goes and looks) Merriam-Webster Online only gives the one meaning, as well.

For ease of reference from Merriam-Webster: living in a cooperative group in which usually one female and several males are reproductively active and the nonbreeding individuals care for the young or protect and provide for the group.


So, explain to me how you intend to select for reproductive activity?

Because this sounds remarkably fertile grounds for an eugenics campaign. Something which, when it comes to humans at least, has caused tremendous societal damage and killed millions.

[Labster]

Actually I wasn't being entirely sarcastic.  Playing a bit of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Brian Reynolds spends an awful lot of time trying to make you consider Chairman Yang's position.  He comes from a collectivist and authoritarian background, sure.  But there's a strong transhumanist element as well.  It's not eugenics per se, it's the idea is not to create better humans but to create something else entirely.  There were lots of great techs in that game like Mind-Machine Interface that suggest other ways you could do it.

Humans have flaws.  We have this dopamine reward loop thing where novelty is rewarded, this is ruthlessly exploited by Facebook and Twitter and Netflix.  Driving engagement is another word for hacking human weaknesses.  And it's not that we need to be more mindful or whatever -- these are designed to exploit flaws in a system designed for hunter-gatherers.  And, in general, we can't have nice things because some people choose to cheat.  Cheat to get more property, and thus be more successful.  Cheat to oppress and control others.  Cheat directly in reproduction through rape.  I specifically did mean eusocial in the biological sense, because reproductive suitability is a proxy for how much a species get along in general.

So, when you say we need to change one to fix the other, it was not immediately obvious why it was society should be the one that has to change.  You think society should change because that's your values.  They're my values too.

But also consider what a transhuman future could look like.  Maybe we push a button, a man gets hit with a V5 ray, and a sexy woman appears in their place.  Or maybe we could create full-body cyborgs that could let you switch apparent bodies.  Maybe people could become furries, whatever.  And maybe education becomes an entirely different thing if we're able to create an internet interface in the brain.  Do we even need to know most things when we can just look them up at any time with a thought?  Some of these things will happen, and humans themselves will change.

So yes, society needs to change to accommodate human nature.  But human nature will also be changed in the next century.  Human nature was changed in the last century, with a massive experiment we did called leaded gasoline; it turns out it increased violence in that period especially in the most polluted areas, but not enough to change the overall trend of society's downward pressure on violence.

[robkelk]

...
As an aside, 'eusocial' is a very loaded term given its original meaning in biology. You may want to avoid using it.

I wasn't aware that it had any other meaning. (goes and looks) Merriam-Webster Online only gives the one meaning, as well.

For ease of reference from Merriam-Webster: living in a cooperative group in which usually one female and several males are reproductively active and the nonbreeding individuals care for the young or protect and provide for the group.


So, explain to me how you intend to select for reproductive activity?

Because this sounds remarkably fertile grounds for an eugenics campaign. Something which, when it comes to humans at least, has caused tremendous societal damage and killed millions.

One female and many males. What makes you think I get a choice? It's her body.

[classicdrogn]

Somewhat relevant to the conversation.. and most of the material in the subform, to be honest. The surprizing part is who is singing it, to me at elast. I guess everyone gets more mellow eventually...

[hazard]

Actually I wasn't being entirely sarcastic.  Playing a bit of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Brian Reynolds spends an awful lot of time trying to make you consider Chairman Yang's position.  He comes from a collectivist and authoritarian background, sure.  But there's a strong transhumanist element as well.  It's not eugenics per se, it's the idea is not to create better humans but to create something else entirely.  There were lots of great techs in that game like Mind-Machine Interface that suggest other ways you could do it.

The Human Hive is a horror, if an understandable one. It's absolutely great when you are a talent, but when you are just one of its thousands of drones? Your entire existence is engineered to be the best slave you can be. Yang's the fellow who came up with the Genejack concept after all...

(Also, you have good taste in games.)

Humans have flaws.  We have this dopamine reward loop thing where novelty is rewarded, this is ruthlessly exploited by Facebook and Twitter and Netflix.  Driving engagement is another word for hacking human weaknesses.  And it's not that we need to be more mindful or whatever -- these are designed to exploit flaws in a system designed for hunter-gatherers.  And, in general, we can't have nice things because some people choose to cheat.  Cheat to get more property, and thus be more successful.  Cheat to oppress and control others.  Cheat directly in reproduction through rape.

Those are not flaws and weaknesses Labster. Calling those flaws is like saying that the lock on your front door has a flaw. That being that there are keys that open it. You address an issue like that by restricting access to the keys, not by nailing the door shut.

As for those things you call cheats, those are not flaws of human nature, those are flaws of society in handling itself.

I specifically did mean eusocial in the biological sense, because reproductive suitability is a proxy for how much a species get along in general.

I do not agree that eusociality is a good indicator for reproductive suitability. Nor do I agree that reproductive suitability is a good proxy for how much a species gets along between its members in general.

But also consider what a transhuman future could look like.  Maybe we push a button, a man gets hit with a V5 ray, and a sexy woman appears in their place.  Or maybe we could create full-body cyborgs that could let you switch apparent bodies.  Maybe people could become furries, whatever.  And maybe education becomes an entirely different thing if we're able to create an internet interface in the brain.  Do we even need to know most things when we can just look them up at any time with a thought?  Some of these things will happen, and humans themselves will change.

I hear a lot of maybes and a distinct lack of concrete concerns. Transhumanism has the same problem as fusion power.

We'll have it. 50 years in the future. Just like we said for the last however many decades since we came up with the notion. We'll address it when it starts to become relevant, but right now? The closest we are getting is partial conversion cyborgs, and those are just flat out too expensive, limited and risky for anything other than assisting the permanently disabled.

So yes, society needs to change to accommodate human nature.  But human nature will also be changed in the next century.  Human nature was changed in the last century, with a massive experiment we did called leaded gasoline; it turns out it increased violence in that period especially in the most polluted areas, but not enough to change the overall trend of society's downward pressure on violence.

Human nature did not change substantially with leaded gasoline. It certainly expressed itself more violently, but it did not exactly change.

One female and many males. What makes you think I get a choice? It's her body.

It's your choice to pursue her or another. I mean, at birth the ratio of males to females for humanity is about 109 to 100. At age 18 it's about 100 to 100. And after that women outnumber the men in every age bracket, even in risk averse, low violence societies. If humanity is prone to eusocial behaviours it's more likely to manifest as multiple women contributing to the raising of the children of a single male-female breeding pair than multiple men doing the same.

Yet even that is not true; in societies where multiple women are involved with a single male, there's a few, it's very common for all the women to bear children and for the children to be raised communally to one extent or another. As a species humanity tends greatly towards serial polygyny, forming more or less stable family units centered around a single male, and multiple such family units forming a tribe.

[Labster]

I'm so glad I derailed this thread, this is way more interesting than talking about TERFs and transphobia and minority rights in general.  Sometimes it's worth it to take a step back and imagine what kind of society we want, and work backwards from there.

Actually I wasn't being entirely sarcastic.  Playing a bit of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Brian Reynolds spends an awful lot of time trying to make you consider Chairman Yang's position.  He comes from a collectivist and authoritarian background, sure.  But there's a strong transhumanist element as well.  It's not eugenics per se, it's the idea is not to create better humans but to create something else entirely.  There were lots of great techs in that game like Mind-Machine Interface that suggest other ways you could do it.

The Human Hive is a horror, if an understandable one. It's absolutely great when you are a talent, but when you are just one of its thousands of drones? Your entire existence is engineered to be the best slave you can be. Yang's the fellow who came up with the Genejack concept after all...

(Also, you have good taste in games.)

It's a horror because your values deem it a horror, not because people are actually unhappier in Yang's society.  I mean, the nerve stapling makes sure of that.  Miriam would think it equally a horror that people could change their sex to catgirls in violation of God's plan.  (Of course, as the canon story goes on, Miriam's enthusiasm for technology becomes less and less)

snip Lalist propaganda

I hear a lot of maybes and a distinct lack of concrete concerns. Transhumanism has the same problem as fusion power.

We'll have it. 50 years in the future. Just like we said for the last however many decades since we came up with the notion. We'll address it when it starts to become relevant, but right now? The closest we are getting is partial conversion cyborgs, and those are just flat out too expensive, limited and risky for anything other than assisting the permanently disabled.

Society changes slowly, then all at once.  Twenty years ago, did you think that everyone would willingly carry a microphone and camera around with them everywhere, even the bedroom?  And yet it has come to pass.  We all walked into the surveillance state willingly.

The human condition has changed, and it makes physical changes in our body and brain.  Tooth decay and obesity are almost unknown among ancient man, but they're widespread problems now because of vast changes to diet and habitat.  Addiction is a real problem, and there are so many things to get addicted to now.  Birthrate is falling, fast.  Our physical selves have been changed by society.  It started with the medical appliances: first eyeglasses, then hearing aids, then pacemakers and cochlear implants.  The process of becoming cyborgs began hundreds of years ago, but the pace is only increasing.

[hazard]

It's a horror because your values deem it a horror, not because people are actually unhappier in Yang's society.  I mean, the nerve stapling makes sure of that.  Miriam would think it equally a horror that people could change their sex to catgirls in violation of God's plan.  (Of course, as the canon story goes on, Miriam's enthusiasm for technology becomes less and less)

I wonder if the talents of Yang's Hive would consider nerve stapling a horror if they got strapped in and stapled? Or is it just a thing for the drones? I mean, the effect does turn people into compliant servants of the state, and kills their creative productivity in the process.

And yes, Miriam becomes less enthousiastic of technology over time given the moral implications of at least some of the higher level technologies she is not wrong to be careful. Zakharov on the other hand goes from dismissing the existence of gods to advocating for being a god, so... yeah.

Society changes slowly, then all at once.  Twenty years ago, did you think that everyone would willingly carry a microphone and camera around with them everywhere, even the bedroom?  And yet it has come to pass.  We all walked into the surveillance state willingly.

Lab, plenty of people had a telephone in their bedroom, that they'd place a microphone there is no surprise. And if they could carry a telephone with them at all times they'd probably do so because being able to connect with people across large distances at any one time is useful. There's a reason cellphones became so popular. The smartphone with the integrated camera and internet access? Just convenience that saw it replace the cellphone.

The human condition has changed, and it makes physical changes in our body and brain.  Tooth decay and obesity are almost unknown among ancient man, but they're widespread problems now because of vast changes to diet and habitat.  Addiction is a real problem, and there are so many things to get addicted to now.  Birthrate is falling, fast.  Our physical selves have been changed by society.  It started with the medical appliances: first eyeglasses, then hearing aids, then pacemakers and cochlear implants.  The process of becoming cyborgs began hundreds of years ago, but the pace is only increasing.

Yet human nature has not changed. Hell, addiction has always been a problem, that there is such a wide selection of things to get addicted to has not changed that. People were not less prone to get addicted in the past, they were much less likely to get recorded in history as addicts, if they were recorded at all.

[Labster]

Well, looks like one of the wildfires in California was started by a smoke cannon at a gender reveal party. Thanks a lot, trans people.

[Rajvik]

wouldn't that have been parents of a child, that is usually the way "Gender reveal parties" go in my experience, someone is having a kid and they throw a party when they learn what the physical gender is
edit:

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention (aka Cal Fire) has revealed that the El Dorado Fire—a massive fire burning in San Bernardino County—was started by a gender reveal party. According to a press release (via People), the fire was ignited on Saturday at 10:23 a.m. "by a smoke generating pyrotechnic device"—which can be used to release blue or pink smoke, thereby revealing the baby's gender.