“transgender” people aren’t: they’re just crazy. Whittling doesn’t change the wiring of the brain, or the chromosomes. But in principle, such a transformation is possible. It would be an example of real, deep biological change – not the the tinkering at the margins we’re actually on the verge of.
When you think about full metamorphosis in insects, taking a caterpillar into a butterfly, it’s pretty impressive. You wouldn’t guess that a caterpillar and a butterfly were even related – they’re really different. If we hadn’t seen it happen, nobody would believe it possible. Although there are comparable transformations in other species. Sacculina, basically a barnacle, crawls along the body of its host crab until it finds a joint – whereupon it sheds its carapace and injects a microscopic sluglike essence into the crab. It then develops a root system of tendrils , which infiltrate the crab’s nervous system (taking command) and extract nourishment from the crab’s intestine and stomach. The crab is reprogrammed – it looks like and acts like a female crab, but but focuses is efforts into caring for Sacculina’s eggs.
Such natural examples show that really advanced biological engineering is possible, even though we don’t know enough to pull it off yet.
But someday we will. Or any rate we will unless we destroy civilization first, which seems more likely.
Changing sexes (in humans) is not as complicated as turning into a butterfly, but it would seem to require undoing and re-developing a fair amount of brain circuitry. Also changing / redeveloping genitalia, skeleton, muscles, etc. The fact that butterflies can remember some things that they learned as caterpillars suggest this process would be compatible with continuity of identity – so afterwards you would still be ‘you’. Kinda sorta.
Given this kind of capability, changing sex seems fairly trivial. Why not turn into a butterfly? Or considering the square-cube law, a centaur, or a merperson?
Eventually, people would be able to easily transform into a physical form that reflected their true inner nature. I think it’s pretty obvious what that would be for most individuals.
West Hunter 
Simpler to transform the part of the brain which is the source of the delusion, but this is all hopeful stuff.
Simpler to transform the part of the brain which is the source of the delusion that this is a delusion, you bigot.
I kid, of course, but you know that this is where it will go.
Simpler to transform the part of the brain which is the source of the delusion, but this is all hopeful stuff.
Bingo.
Well look who surfaced. Good to see you’re around, because the world could really use you at this moment…
Right, making people happy with their bodies would seem to be far more humane and sensible than subjecting them to hormones and plastic surgery.
And yes, glad to see you back.
The technology to make people happy with their bodies would probably be able to make them happy with anything.
Its creation would represent the end of humanity, either through species-level extinction or possibly cultural development into something we would reject as human.
I can think of cases in which people have been freed of various delusions just by removing a brain tumor, or by forcibly drying them out. That’s bad, right?
Apples and oranges. Making people content with a specific thing != removing specific causes of general cognitive dysfunction.
It is certainly possible for a brain tumor to cause a very specific cognitive dysfunction.
Brain tumors as a category cannot. You can’t give someone a gliosarcoma and make them believe that a celebrity is in love with them. Even with today’s relatively advanced imaging, and increased knowledge, individual differences in physiology mean we can’t cause desired neurological deficits when we wish to.
But a hypothetical technology capable of causing people to become content with a specific thing? That’s instant 1984 – without all of that wasteful oppression.
“Eventually, people would be able to easily transform into a physical form that reflected their true inner nature. I think itās pretty obvious what that would be for most individuals.”
Don’t be so coy.
Assuming that this biological engineering is both possible and feasible, it still wouldn’t make these people happy. It would mean that some people would require advanced medical procedures in order to attain their proper identity. Therefore, it would “privilege” those who are “naturally” born into their correct bodies. We can’t have that because it would mean that human equality is “socially constructed.”
Thus, some oppression must be going on! Clearly the “cis-bodied” have allowed themselves to be brain-washed by the hateriarchy. They must be enlightened and made to know that they, too, need this advanced biological engineering whether they will or nil. Pump these ideas into the schools, songs, and television shows, and it would catch on.
So actually you wouldn’t need advanced technology to transform people into physical forms that reflect their true inner nature. A frontal lobotomy would do just nicely.
I’m thinking of a Twilight Zone episode …
I don’t think I want to live in a world where most people actually look like assholes.
I was fishing for “giant cockroaches” but I think I like your idea better.
kafka’s always good.
And here I was betting it’d be a member of the bovidae, or perhaps a mollusc.
Harrison Bergeron without the weights and concentration camps….
O/T: is there a good textbook that is basically “population genetics for physicists”? i.e. for someone comfortable with math.
Crow and Kimura, Falconer and MacKay, Gillespie, Charlesworth and Charlesworth.
cheers
2nd that for Crow and Kimura (though out of print) for classic (read: Wright, Fisher, Haldane, Kimura), no-hidden-math, equations-in-text pop gen.
Also 2nd that for Charlesworthx2, with slightly more hidden math, but covers a broader range of more up-to-date topics.
Sean Rice’s “Evolutionary theory” book is also good, and more didactic in my opinion. Strays more from the classic pop gen stuff into evo game theory.
For evolution in social contexts (not strictly pop gen), as well as a superb didactic “how-to” book on simple evolutionary models, see McElreath and Boyd’s Mathematical Models of Social Evolution. It assumes lower math skills, but teaches the basics of “how to build a dynamical evolutionary model” from scratch. Skips fewer steps in derivations.
Finally, Otto and Day’s A Biologist’s Guide to Mathematical Modeling in Ecology and Evolution is a good introductory general methods book for dynamical modeling, if you need it. Focus on methods, not particular theory.
I guess I should include this disclosure: one of the authors of the McElreath and Boyd book was my graduate advisor.
autogynephilia is forbidden to be thought of, but once you’ve read the theory, it seems to apply to a lot of the transgender people you encounter in real life.
Who does the forbidding? There are sources for changes in opinion, but they’re obscure. Back in the day, it was sometimes easy to understand: the Comintern spoke and all the puppets jerked. Or was it the other way around? Ultimately it all boiled down to Uncle Joe.
The media do the leg work of a) warning everyone that transgender is a new thing they can lose their job over and b) making some high profile examples e.g. Curt Schilling.
Although how and why they all seemed to collectively decide it was a thing is a mystery.
It’s like they have a list: “okay same sex marriage is done – transgender next.”
By “meet in real life” do you mean “see on the news”? Because I do meet them in real life and it applies much more to the celebrities I see on the news.
In my experience, the trans activism party line is the exact opposite of “forbidding”: the diagnostic criteria for “autogynephilia” are allegedly lax enough that they apply to a substantial portion of cis women too, and what’s going on would thus be just one part of a more general tradition of pathologization of women’s sexuality.
“Such natural examples show that really advanced biological engineering is possible, even though we donāt know enough to pull it off yet. But someday we will. Or any rate we will unless we destroy civilization first, which seems more likely.”
I honestly don’t know which I would prefer anymore. Lately I’ve started to feel like Ted Kaczynski was right. Imagining Sacculina-level biotechnology in the hands of the current elites makes nuclear armageddon look rosy in comparison.
Fortunately the vertebrate adaptive immune system makes a Sacculina-like parasite of humans difficult to implement. Not to mention that the existence of something like that would create a huge market for countermeasures — and while the benevolence of the elites cannot be trusted, like other organisms, they’re perfectly willing to betray their own kind if they can get enough personal benefit by doing so.
No harder than a Guinea worm>. Possible.
yes, we’re not changing some deep re-wiring of the brain, which can be mis-wired early on by genes/exogenous chemicals/maternal stress: nel.edu/22_6/NEL220601R02_Dorner_.pdf
This altered wiring has been noted in various specific forms in a number of studies: http://aebrain.blogspot.com/p/transsexual-and-intersex-gender-identity.html
I believe that having a brain that expects one hormonal/chemical state but gets another is likely to produce a bit of crazy. My working guess as to the continued high suicide rates post transition is an untreated cortisol/DHEA ratio (noted in the first link above) which effects the response to stress, outside of the altered brain wiring that’s produced wrt gender.
I put zero faith in Dorner, and for that matter in those other studies you cite. When Ioannidis said that ‘most’ published research findings are false, he wasn’t talking about sex research. Closer to ‘all’.
Well, I’m not sure I’m equipped to argue with “I don’t believe this research”. I’m generally skeptical of media presentation of research, and to a lesser extent, social science research itself, but a lot of this is the discussion of actual biological mechanisms. Do you believe Dorner actively reported something wrong or just conceptualized it wrong? Does he have a history of this? CAH genes are known for their association with intersex disorders as aebrain describes in herself. I’m not sure why I shouldn’t believe Dorner’s paper and the idea that these genes (or chemicals known to have similar properties) could cause the brain to be wired improperly early on.
Sex research is pretty bad. Most sex research consists of studies using small and unrepresentative samples (often college students). Even when the studies have larger samples, they tend to be drawn from internet surveys and hence are self-selected. And biggest of all, sex research relies almost exclusively on self-report, with no form of corroboration from other sources. Apparently, sex researchers by and large fail to take in the wisdom of one Dr. Gregory House on that one…
I’m aware of the problems with recent social science research, such as the stereotype threat problems. The research I linked to above includes more than a little actual biology and if you’re lumping them together, I’m not convinced that’s appropriate. It’s probably obvious, but the bar to convince me is, admittedly, high, I’d like to think I’m not “just crazy” š
If Stereotype Threat is real, the researchers in social “science” are perfect candidates to be its victims: if they were aware of the low opinion that others have of them, it would get them off the hook for their lousy work.
Capitalist Beast, you’re citing work from a man who thinks he’s a woman and has a legitimate adrenal gland problem.
The Maternal Immune Hypothesis was also pitched for the ‘feminization’ of gay brains, as well. That never panned out. So to see sex researchers pitch the same lines is a disappointment. More so for you. And you are talking to biologists, remember.
All this recent concern with transgenderism is not what it seems.
When I was a sprout I came west to San Francisco. I lived in the Tenderloin near Union Square. That’s where I first heard someone speak in tongues. That’s where I first saw transgendered men. The easy ones to spot were black men over six feet tall with heavy beards. They wore tight dresses and high heels. Quite a sight for a lad from the suburbs. But after a while I ignored them.
All America ignored them. Men who look like men but feel that they are somehow a woman are not a medical mystery. The whole story is in Wikipedia and has been for decades.
It is not the case that transgendered men are oppressed – rather the opposite. If you are a man who dates in the Bay Area you learn to beware of ‘girls’ you meet online who are really guys. Lots of transgenders like to fool normal men. I’m tall and I like tall women. I particularly like girls over six feet but that height cohort is rotten with men masquerading as women.
The majority is being oppressed by this tiny minority.
Personally, I would love to hear more from Pat on his experiences and thoughts.
I wonder if they aren’t more common than we’ve believed, specifically, more coming out due to the crazy being encouraged to let their freak flag fly.
I lived about 35 years before seeing one of these in the wild, and then I saw 2 (in suburbia) in 3 years.
Many of the lesbians despise this group and much of it seems to center around the sexual aggressiveness, perhaps with deception, of the trannies. The first one I saw truly frightened me as he was so obviously crazy and entered my personal space; I believe he was being deceptive and just trying to get close.
Agnostic did a good post, theorizing about crypto-trannies:
http://akinokure.blogspot.com/2015/06/new-horizons-on-dissection-of-deviance.html
Could you explain what you meant in your reference to the square-cube law? I’m not understanding where it becomes relevant.
It’s not easy being an 180-lb butterfly.
That would have made a good title for this post.
You mean like this?
A human turning into a human-sized butterfly would have some difficulties breathing and moving, let alone flying.
I can see the cause of Gregor Samsa’s distress. Turn-of-the-century existential angst plus respiratory problems.
Those giant bug movies from the 1950s are scientifically inaccurate. If you took a grasshopper and scaled it to the size of a building, it would just collapse into a puddle of goo.
The 50 foot woman would immediately have all her clothes tear apart at the seams (they’d weigh as much as circus tents), and then she’d black out and die from cerebral hypoxia. No way could her heart pump blood to her brain. Her fall would shatter nearly every bone in her body.
Smaug must have antigravity wings to be able to fly. Don’t get me started on the really big Tolkenien dragons, like Ancalagon the Black.
Darcy Wentworth Thompson (no relation) On growth and form.
Pre-2e AD&D, D&D dragons have tiny amounts of hit points for their size, and die very easily – they must be basically big hollow-boned birds. This is why it makes sense to send St George to go kill one (you don’t send an army because they’ll just get breathed on and die).
Obviously later, post-Gygax editions of D&D screwed this up, but it actually works very well and makes good (for fantasy) sense.
Judging by comments, I may be one of the few commenters whose mental wellbeing is not threatened by the public existence and recognition of people who like to act and look like the opposite sex. Mostly I don’t care. I certainly don’t feel “oppressed,” as one commenter put it. I also fail to see how this relates to Harrison Bergeron, as another commenter put it. Maybe I am naive.
So you don’t care, and don’t think it’s important. Yet apparently our most powerful institutions: big corporations, the media, academia, etc. do think it’s important–you can tell because they’re pushing mandatory acceptance of transvestites rather than ignoring it. The fact that these institutions are now so senile they think this is worth pushing seems notable in itself.
But if you really don’t care, why comment? Just eager to prove you aren’t a crimethinker?
re the actions of big corporations, etc, fair enough: it’s a big deal because some powerful people say it’s a big deal. I do find it annoying that a non-negligible amount of people think it’s beyond question that a transgender person should be able to use the bathroom of his/her choice, and that some businesses are so concerned with being PC that they don’t dare question such folk. But I also dislike the moral majority that considers transgenderism a necessary evil. So, meh.
I commented because I thought it would be fun to tick off socially conservative internet curmudgeons. They are easily bothered – like SJW’s. I also find it annoying when a bunch of people basically repeat the comment “yeah dude, i totally agree with this political view, we are the best, everyone else is dumb. here’s some sarcasm.” So there.
So no, I didn’t comment to convince a bunch of internet strangers that I am PC. I was just trying to insult people.
My feeling is that offering washroom choice will result in abuse by peeping Tom types. I bet they’re more common. I would avoid a “you choose” washroom unless desperate.
Not just you, buddy.
Weird people with a rare disorder make use of well-established social mechanisms to stop themselves being picked on for being weird. People who like to get loudly outraged about things get loudly outraged, lawyers lawyer, doctors try to treat a really weird disorder as best they can, and – unless you are trying to find a tall girl in San Franscisco, apparently – it affects you not in the slightest.
But apparently they’re not transgender, they’re just crazy! Wow, does that work on everything? They’re not schizophrenic, they’re just crazy! Shit, we’ll have all neurological disorders cured in no time at this rate.
doctors try to treat a really weird disorder as best they can
They aren’t trying as best they can. There is already evidence that their treatments, (opposite-sex hormones, drugs that block normal endocrine function, and genital removal/mutilation) don’t cause the patients to be happier. Suicide rates actually increase at each level of therapeutic intervention.
I’d like to see a study on treating transgenders with same-sex hormones.
I don’t actually have an opinion on the validity of treatments for rare disorders I know nothing about. If doctors are prescribing an invasive and ineffective treatment, that is bad. If I had any reason to spend a whole lot of time learning about this field of medicine, rest assured I would look into the evidence you have asserted the existence of, O random person on the Internet.
Cutting your johnson off seems a bit invasive. Like the massive doses of hormones and the implants. Wait, what was your point again?
English not your first language I take it? Since it is a very invasive treatment it would be especially bad if it were in fact ineffective.
Well since they are still depressed, marginalized by their own actions, and commit suicide like it’s an Olympic event. I don’t think the doc’s are very effective. They don’t think they are very effective.
So you’re saying that entertaining these delusions is very bad? Good, glad to see you’re finally making sense.
Let medical science know about your new psychotherapy that actually works, they’ll be happy to hear it. Till then, I’m out. Have fun storming the transarchy.
The acceptance of “transgender” disorder will inevitably lead to a cottage industry of grievance mongering on behalf of these poor, mentally confused individuals. Prepare for endless lawsuits, campus speech codes, onerous legislation targeting small businesses, etc. not to mention hairy, 6’2″ dudes invading the little girl’s room. You might think this is all innocuous, but I know better, and I actually have some relevant experience in this regard. (Hint: “Transgenders” are often vicious people, and they will not rest until all of society is forced to accept their delusion — including their potential sex partners.)
If you think you think it’s difficult today conducting (unbiased) research on “LGBT” matters, imagine how much harder it will be when the Caitlyn Jenners of the world are designated as a victim class, on par with blacks and blue-haired feminists. How on earth are these maladies ever going to be treated, or even cured? Academics were really moderate and tolerant toward Charles Murray when he published the Bell Curve, weren’t they? (NOT.) And he never even published anything that was hitherto unknown to psychological science.
And at least black people are real, instead of crazy white people who paint themselves with shoe polish, thinking that their white privilege will melt away… But that’s the subject of another post.
I feel the same. I’ll use their pronouns and names, if they’re a friend or someone I don’t want to offend. Doesn’t seem like a hill worth dying on.
If I had gender dysphoria I’d probably transition. I like to think I’d be realistic about it: “I realise I’m not actually a woman, I’m just making the best of a bad situation” but who knows. The brain is a rational tail wagged by an emotional dog, and in practice I’d probably have a tumblr with a “die cis scum” tag like all the rest.
You got a penis? Then stay out of the damn girls’ restrooms. Period. That’s really all we ignorant folk expect. Doesn’t seem like we’re asking for much. Further, we don’t need any damn ESPN execs acting like they’re saving the world because they won’t tolerate our “bigotry.” Jesus.
The problem is not playing along with people who adopt the persona of the opposite sex. The problem is having to assent to a proposition (i.e., that “gender” is determined subjectively) that one believes to be false. Particularly when assent is being enforced by the usual methods that leftists use to advance their social projects.
The issues you bring up are completely irrelevant. I’m surprised you don’t see this.
It’s the ultimate in black slate indoctrination: ovaries don’t exist, testosterone doesn’t exist etc. Lysenko on steroids.
Physically adult males claiming to be female and wanting to use the bath room your ten year old daughter uses?
People advocating children be reassigned before puberty – how can they possibly know before puberty?
I’m surprised there hasn’t been violence; I guess it’s the shock at the suddenness of it – and people coming to grips with the realization they really do live in a lunatic asylum.
“Or any rate we will unless we destroy civilization first, which seems more likely.”
I have a feeling you have a mechanism other than high-tech war in mind…
Well today it was announced that Harriet Tubman would replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. Now Jackson was no doubt a miserable bastard – he lived with a musket ball in his lung along with other lead fragments throughout his body. Ms.Tubman was no doubt a good woman with noble intentions (I know nothing about her, admittedly).
But Jackson of course organized the defense of New Orleans against the British in 1815 and in the succeeding battle soundly defeated them, a feat not often accomplished in those days. While it’s true a treaty ending the war had already been negotiated, it’s unlikely the British would have abandoned NO had they succeeded, and it’s certain their thrashing at the hands of slap-dash American forces at that battle informed their ambitions in the Americas in the aftermath.
David Frum today wondered why a Republican administration in 1928 would have honored Jackson with the $20 portrait – the idea that being a hero – winning one of the major battles in the country’s history – was something that at one time actually meant something to people did not occur to him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_War
Frum is a card-carrying member of the Axis of Evil.
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Destroy civilization? You said that was impossible because of encyclopedias. It may take some time but we’ll get right back to calling men women and deluding ourselves about whatever new races form in the interim.
Best case we gain the ability to shape people and create a whole raft of new species, centaurs, Tolkienish dwarves, elves, and hobbits, merpeople, etc. Then we destroy civilization leaving all the halfling species to make up their own origin stories.
Of course, with our new and improved biological engineering, we can make sure the metamorphosis breeds true.
not if everyone is too dumb to read
My understanding is that Sacculina’s tendrils are for absorbing nutrients from the body fluids of the crab; the effects on the body form and behavior of the host are done entirely via secreted hormones. (And since both the host and the parasite are arthropods, presumably the ancestor of Sacculina was already prepared to make hormones that would affect a crab.)
However, transgenderism is far more interesting scientifically that it first seems: For at least some people, their sense of gender identity comes from some inborn source and not: their hormonal status, the structure of their genitalia, or how everybody has always treated them. This is hardly what one would expect a priori. And it’s a strong counterexample to the liberal doctrine that temperament is acquired entirely by social experience. Compare this situation with what you describe in your previous post.
I don’t believe for a second that autogynephiles (overwhelmingly “lesbian”, i.e. heterosexual male) are born rather than made. It’s obviously an extreme form of the transvestite fetish. Fethishes are acquired. There’s no gene for thinking high-heeled shoes or lacy undergarments are sexy. It’s acquired via paired-stimulus.
On the other hand, there are transgenders who are basically effeminate homosexuals. They don’t fit male gender roles, but they still aren’t women, and don’t act like them. They display the same patterns of extreme behavior (drug use, unstable relationships, promiscuous sex) that are characteristic of gay males.
“Fethishes are acquired. Thereās no gene for thinking high-heeled shoes or lacy undergarments are sexy. Itās acquired via paired-stimulus.”
I guess someone is unfamiliar with the First Law of behavioral genetics.
In case JayMan’s obligatory self-referencing link wasn’t useful, here’s some nuance:
There isn’t a gene that necessarily causes a particular fetish. Nor is there a gene that causes you to just naturally know calculus. But there are genes that improve one’s ability to learn calculus (or anything else). And there are probably genes that increase your chance of “learning” a high heel fetish.
This is about as stupid as saying speaking Chinese is genetic rather than environmental, because technically you could have a gene that makes you completely mute or too stupid to learn any language.
Utterly trivial, obvious, and pedantic. But we all know he’s only here to spam us with links to his dull HBD blog.
My critics are usually idiots. Not always, but usually. That or they’re really good at faking it.
Let’s ask the question in a more illuminating way: where do fetishes come from? More to the point, why do some people have certain fetishes that other people don’t have?
For the record, I expect a stupid answer.
What causes weird fetishes to appear during certain times of the civilizational cycle–specifically the ages of decadence and of decline and collapse–and what suppresses them during the other times? It’s not genetic; there’s been no selection. It’s not that they always exist but hidden away; otherwise normal people simply go haywire.
So what is it?
“What causes weird fetishes to appear during certain times of the civilizational cycleāspecifically the ages of decadence and of decline and collapse”
Do they? Has anyone systematically studied that?
And even if they do, what causes civilizations to decline and collapse?
Some syndromes are much more common in some times and circumstances than others. Like anorexia.
“Itās not genetic; thereās been no selection.”
Not directly maybe but what if it’s partially a side effect of something that has been selected for like: reduce mechanism that blocks behavior A and unexpectedly you get behavior B, C and D as well.
Letās ask the question in a more illuminating way: where do fetishes come from? More to the point, why do some people have certain fetishes that other people donāt have?
Kid A grows up in an environment of total postmodern anomie, is watching HD porn from the age of 13, and winds up with a bunch of weird paraphilias invented 20 years ago in Japan. Kid B is his twin brother, he winds up adopted into a strict Amish family. Never sees a naked woman until his wedding night. He’s never even heard of the stuff Kid A is obsessed with. So yeah. Environment.
Pavlov’s dogs drooled when they heard the dinner bell. This is called learned behavior. Sure, if one of the dogs has a mutation that causes deafness, he does not drool. That does not make the behavior of salivating when hearing the dinner bell a genetic trait–except in the most trivial and irrelevant sense.
But go ahead and spam us with more links. Reeks a bit of desperation.
For the record, I expect a stupid answer.
Yes, for the record of the handful of HBD spergs who care what you have to say.
“Kid A grows up in an environment of total postmodern anomie, is watching HD porn from the age of 13, and winds up with a bunch of weird paraphilias invented 20 years ago in Japan. Kid B is his twin brother, he winds up adopted into a strict Amish family. Never sees a naked woman until his wedding night. Heās never even heard of the stuff Kid A is obsessed with”
Great story. Got any you know, real data on that?
Maybe you should look into what we actually find from studies of reared-apart twins and of adoptees. Particularly, you should learn about the Second Law of behavioral genetics.
How would such a stimulus come about though? Obviously being exposed to actual girls, or girl’s undergarments, or the lingerie section of the Sears catalogue wouldn’t do it. “I just happened to be wearing a dress and pretending to be a girl this one time when little Susie next door wanted to play doctor…” would stick out like a sore thumb in the patient histories. Instead we get “I was just hitting puberty and I found my sister’s underwear and instantly popped a huge boner….”
(Yeah, now I am actually curious.)
As I think Greg has said before, anything that strongly affects reproductive success gets driven to a very low occurrence, like 1/10,000 (and there seems to be some data about that, let me dig it up.)
So, it seems far more likely to me that the Sacculina-like organism that has its tendrils in all the important places in our society knows that people will do all sorts of crazy things to get into the in crowd, like cutting their tits or testicles off.
On the other hand, it could be that some people are trying to encourage the crazies to quickly remove their genes from the gene pool.
Some people can be convinced to do some absolutely crazy things:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skoptsy
I guess they were the transgendered people of olden times.
This paper: http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-021815-093034?journalCode=clinpsy
suggests (I only read the abstract) that 1/10,000 males and 1/30,000 females will experience gender dysphoria, but they indicate that estimates vary widely.
Look like selection has done its job, the rest are just highly suggestible crazies.
“people will do all sorts of crazy things to get into the in crowd”
Especially if they grew up “on the outside looking in.” Acculturation is not a gentle process.
My favorite item on the subject:
http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/2/2248/1.html
“Why call the first principle of a complex adaptive system “the conformity enforcer,” objected a well-meaning colleague. “Doesn’t the notion smack of a police state?” Yes. The conformity enforcers pressing perception, behavior and appearance into a common mold can be far more brutal than we might like to think. And they begin their work at a disturbingly early age.”
“The fact that butterflies can remember some things that they learned as caterpillars..”
I remember reading about that years ago in the NY Times, but when we started hearing about the epigenetic memories of smells a few years ago, I wondered how solid those caterpillar-butterfly studies were. Do you think the metamorphosis memory findings are pretty solid?
I think they’re probably ok, but it wouldn’t hurt to redo them.
Yes, they are probably correct, because no one has any real reason to lie about this, or have any significant unconscious bias about it. If “anti-morphism” ever becomes a thing, though…
If Harry Potter style magic actually existed, I think it would be interesting to try being a girl for a little while. And then maybe a bear. Or an eagle. Or an octopus. Or an ass.
The thing about magic though, is that you really change into the thing you are supposedly changing into, and you can actually change all the way back to what you were before. When a knife is involved, it’s a one way trip to an squalid destination…
Bears are awesome!
I’d be a bear.
I got to try being a girl for a while when I was 16 (non-coeducational secondary school and I got chosen to take the female lead in a school play – that irritated the hell out of me, but I decided if I had to do it, I might as well take it seriously and be the best girl I could be).
The trick is to make the walk, mannerisms, etc. understated. If you exaggerate them, you just look like a flaming queer. Understated, at 16 and with my naturally low amount of body hair, and just lightening my voice instead of trying for some dumb sounding falsetto, I was able to pull it off so well that my own grandmother didn’t recognise me.
It was fun for about 3 hours at a time (we gave three performances of the play, plus there were dress rehearsals, etc., so I spent a fair while in drag in 3-hour time windows), and then it got to feeling very old very quickly, and I very happily wiped off the make-up, took off the padded bra, suspender belt and stockings, and went back to being the heteronormative male that I have always known with certainty that I am, for as far back as I can remember. And I can remember pretty far back.
It was an interesting experience, in small doses, and my daughter still gets a laugh out of looking at the old photos of Dad in drag, but I have never felt tempted to try it again.
Are there any recordings?
I find that I can tell whether the speaker is biologically male or female just from the voice (this applies also to Chinese females who sing male roles, which I saw recently, and that weird thing on some popular Taiwanese show that dresses like a woman.)
However, I wonder if I could detect it in a sixteen year old boy.
I suspect it is due to the differences is the dimensions of the areas that produce the sounds humans make that make their voices decidedly different and they can simply not mask those differences when trying to do opposite sex depictions.
As an aside, I can usually tell whether the driver is an African American by looking at the car š (And, no, it’s not because they all drive Pontiacs, because they don’t.)
OK, I’ll bite. How can you tell about the cars? (I’m not really a car guy myself).
I’ve had this experience too, only in the opposite direction. I’m female, but I tried playing a male character once for a play because there were too few boys to take all of the male parts. I thought it would be fun to do it, and it was. I’ve always been somewhat more masculine than the average girl, so I didn’t think I’d have a whole lot of trouble looking convincing (beyond the unchangeable aspects like being a lot shorter than most men).
But I was wrong. It was very difficult to convincingly use male mannerisms. I never did manage to walk masculinely, though I did get better at hand gestures and my way of sitting. (And it was, of course, impossible for me to imitate a post-pubescent male voice.)
It really drove home just how different males and females are in behavior, and how hard it is to switch behavioral sets.
I was right that the experience would be fun, because I did enjoy trying it. But like you, I was happy to take off the opposite-sex trappings like the chest binder and fake facial hair when it was over.
No, no recordings, unfortunately.
Yes, getting the mannerisms down took a lot of practice. And yes, behaviour and body language really are very different. I had to ‘think’ myself into being female, if such a thing is possible. What was fun for a short time became stressful over a longer period, and it was a relief to stop.
These days male-to-female transsexuals can compete against women in the Olympics with only 1 year of HRT, which to me is insane. Its one thing to play along and pretend when nobody gets hurt, but imagine what could happen in a boxing, or wrestling match.
Yes, that and the pre-puberty thing may kill PC entirely – the blank slate’s last desperate throw of the dice.
Rhythmic gymnastics will get bloody next time around.
Eventually, people would be able to easily transform into a physical form that reflected their true inner nature
I really like have wings to fly on my own.
Good for exercise, of course.
Given all this hoohaa over transgenders the last couple of years, I actually have yet to see one here in the U.S. Their numbers must be truly miniscule to warrant all of this media attention. The only transgenders I’ve ever seen are the ladyboys of SEA, which are essentially unavoidable there.
Which suggests that we may soon see people being fired for expressing incorrect opinions about social groups that don’t exist at all. I look forward to it.
The smallest possible minority has no actual members, so this is the logical endpoint.
The null set has no one in it to complain they are discriminated against.
As most of us have a unique genome, most of us are genetic minorities of one.
The next time you miss out on a promotion, complain to your boss that he or she is biased against you genome!
Good point! Perhaps I should make a few of them up myself.
I put my money on leprechaun or something like that. Please let it be not only non-existent but fairytale magic as well!
“Hoohah over transgeners”
I see what you did there.
I’ve encountered two, both male-to-female: one is another employee at my large aerospace firm, the second was a presenter at a symposium. Pretty obvious both times; “man hands” seems to be a dead giveaway. The person at the symposium had a skirt on and nice legs though
I don’t work with the other employee, but have heard some discussion among those who are co-workers, and they seem to think that “she” still acts exactly like one of the guys. Lends credence to the autogynephilia hypothesis in my eyes.
I’ve met only one person who’s had reassignment surgery, also at a large aerospace company. The poor guy looked way less convincing than Jack Lemmon or Tony Curtis. And sad. Really sad.
I’ve met one female to male trans person. It was at a work related event (not technical work, creative). The person is very personable and friendly, clearly taking hormones as he had facial hair, though he also had long hair and was very short with very feminine hips. those physical characteristics with a clearly feminine method of movement created an odd impression of almost sexlessness. I wanted to get a chance to ask him why he decided to transition rather than live as a tomboy, but I didn’t have the chance in our brief encounter and now later having seen his Facebook posts I can see that would be a mistake. He is very touchy about the whole subject. You can’t know how another person feels, you can’t judge others for their feelings, while simultaneously judging others who don’t accept trans people.
There’s a large movement out there on tumblr and other various internet sources filling children’s heads with the idea that you can’t be cool or interesting as a “cis” person especially if you are the most hated “cis white male”. Being some flavor of queer is exalted, almost a necessity, leading many children to the idea that they should be experimenting sexually with all sexes, rather than be one of those boring straits. I’ve experienced this situation with my own children and had to explain that just because they didn’t have strong sexual feelings yet, it didn’t mean they were gay. The idea that people mature at different rates seems to escape most people. It may be that having quickly developing children in with slower ones puts the second group at risk of experiences they might regret, for a variety of reasons.
My experience has been that there is on average quite a lot of difference between men and women mentally but that there are also very masculine men (athletes might be a good example) and very feminine men (writers, artists, caregivers) likewise with women and whether one is gay has little to do with it. If this is in fact the case, and I think Simon Baren-Cohen’s work makes a good case that it is, then why do we care if a man who has more in common with women (talkative, conflict avoidant, emotionally expressive) wants to surgically alter himself to fit how he feels? Similarly why does it matter if a butch woman with a low voice and a penchant for fixing up machines decides she’d rather take T and live as a man?
As one of those expressive talkative males who grew up feeling out of place around herds of regular guys, I’d like to see a society where such in-sex differences were accepted rather than ridiculed… But I can see that’s unlikely to ever occur. Given that’s the case, with the absence of acceptance or even acknowledgement of in sex differences that don’t necessarily mean one is gay (I am Not gay, not even a little but that doesn’t stop people from labeling me gay, constantly) it doesn’t surprise me at all that people flip and decide they’d rather switch teams to the one they get along with rather than put up with the bullshit of being perceived as weird. It took me a long time to accept myself for who I am, that my gifts were not typically male ones but that I could (and do) get by just fine. Not everyone can do that though as not everyone is born with the absurd lack of anxiety I was.
So what’s the plan? Call people who feel different crazy and give them drugs or make them talk until they suddenly realize oh yeah they really are just like all the other joes and Jills? Seems absurd to me, if this variation represents genetic variation and not pathogens (which certainly is not impossible, I’ve never smiled wider than when I took biological anthropology and saw a description of “sneaky fucker” chimpanzee males) then what’s the purpose of pretending all men and women are and should be one way?
“why do we care if a man who has more in common with women (talkative, conflict avoidant, emotionally expressive) wants to surgically alter himself to fit how he feels? Similarly why does it matter if a butch woman with a low voice and a penchant for fixing up machines decides sheād rather take T and live as a man?”
If there’s a genetic gender binary then there will probably be people along the border line who get genetically mixed up but…
1) children cannot possibly know before puberty is complete – saying otherwise is taking the blank slate to the height of lunacy – and so talking about gender reassignment for young children is sick and criminal. I was already up for revolution before but if I wasn’t this would have been enough on its own
2) physical males who feel female in sports, especially physical contact sports will destroy the female competitors – in some cases literally. If they want to be a third gender in a third category then fine
3) at least some of this is just a sexual fetish. If you play online games you’ll know men online pretending to be lesbian or bisexual women has been a thing for years.
1) Absolutely, changing someone before puberty, before one’s secondary hormone flood even comes… Just seems to show an appalling lack of biological knowledge. Young people making big live long decisions for themselves before their brains have finished cooking is foolish in general and those who would abet such choices, likewise.
2) Yes, allowing this is pure stupidity but what do you expect when people can’t understand the two sexes are on average biologically different. I’m well aware that even though I’m talkative and silly, my normal level of testosterone makes it easy for me to out muscle the vast majority of the biologically female. I took martial arts for many years and the lengths we had to go to endure females in the classes didn’t get hurt were comical to say the least, yet they still did, a lot. And hey, why bother having a third extra gendered division, I say we drop the separate but equal female sports entirely and make all sports one league for all, may the best human win… Hehe.
3) See this comment here is precisely why I posted. Everyone assumes people who act atypically for their sex are necessarily into some fetish. I’m know that’s true sometimes I meet a lot of NY transvestites as an artist, but it’s also not true sometimes, I’m one of those second ones. I like women, I don’t dress like them, I don’t feel like one… But I am feeling oriented, talkative, and expressive and there’s nothing out there for guys who might be like me to figure out who they are… Except for the tumblr world of gender fluidity ad absurdity. That’s what worries me. It’s not ok to be a male artsy guy or a writer unless you do it in a manly way, according to everyone: having a more nuanced understanding of things, an interest in emotions and people, must mean you’re gay or should be a woman, or a dragon kin or whatever other nonsense people are spouting.
It sounds to me that you feel out of place for cultural rather than sexual or behavioral reasons.
There are many places where men are talkative, expressive and feeling oriented.. Italy or Greece, for instance, or even France.
Are you suggesting that I was raised in one of those places? Because you’re incorrect. However as HBD chick would say: “where does culture come from?” And that would be genes… But then again I do not have any genetic heritage from Southern Europe. I am however a mix of Irish, English, German, and Polish… I’m told my facility with language and penchant for the absurd reminds people of my 100% Irish great grandfather, who was a successful entrepreneur in his day apparently. I do have a late uncle who like me had a top flight day job (he was an obstetrician, I am not) who also moonlighted as a comedian. Yet no one in my family chose to tell me about this until much later in my life because they were worried I might get a useless art degree. Also, as an aside: it turns out it’s not the art degree that’s useless per se, it’s the kind of people who usually get them and the reasons they do so.
No, I was actually suggesting that you would have been happier if raised in those places.
And you might be right about that but I’m not exactly unhappy. It was my childhood that was challenging more than anything but that’s over. Social proof changes everything, the weird kid nobody wanted to talk to sometimes becomes the guy everyone wants to meet.
Heh, I had a crackpot theory that gay dudes are a sneaker morph but it really isn’t workable.
You’re not the first, but it sure doesn’t work. They skip a vital step.
Agreed, it clearly doesn’t work. There’s too much variation among gay men among other things. The pathogen hypothesis makes more sense.
A pathogen hypothesis can take three related but distinct forms.
1/ Homosexuality harms you, but benefits the pathogen. Evolutionary arms race ensues. This is how I understood the theory when I first read about it, however it seems to have become unpopular.
2/ Homosexuality harms you, but is just an accidental byproduct of infection, of no interest to the pathogen. This seems to be the popular one nowadays. It has two sub-cases, for a total of three:
2/a/ The pathogen is a recent, evolutionarily novel problem for humans. We haven’t had enough time to counter the germ’s homosexualizing effect, but eventually will. This explanation doesn’t really imply a pathogen, the evolutionarily novel problem could be anything novel, e.g. agriculture and eating seeds.
2/b/ The pathogen has been with us for a looong time. We should have become robustly heterosexual in spite of infection, but it hasn’t happened. This implies a gay gene, which most proponents of a pathogen hypothesis reject.
In summary, we have one case that’s sound but unpopular, one that doesn’t really imply a pathogen, and one that implies a gay gene.
Which one do you subscribe to?
A pathogen could have been around for a long time as long as it’s hard to catch and there is no strong genetic susceptibility for it. Losing a few percent of people to reproduction per generation is sustainable, just as having some people eaten by leopards each generation is.
And in a time when marriages were arranged and children had economic value many sufferers probably reproduced even if they didn’t enjoy doing it. That’s probably still true in most of the world. People will do things they don’t like to survive.
Getting eaten by a leopard is good for the leopard, that’s case 1. Without a leopard, case 2/a. But these cases are different, so which is it?
I don’t see the evolutionary arms race. Avoiding predators and having a good immune system are both good. But for low level threats for which there is no genetic susceptibility you don’t get an arms race.
“The pathogen has been with us for a looong time. We should have become robustly heterosexual in spite of infection, but it hasnāt happened.”
If cultural prevention happened first i.e. trad morality was a form of quarantine, then we wouldn’t necessarily have adapted to it physically so when you remove the cultural quarantine it spreads rapidly.
Additionally if it’s a bug that tries to encourage promiscuity by removing limits on what people find attractive then in a more r-type environment it might be adaptive as women wouldn’t be a barrier. The same bug in a more K-type environment where K-type women were a barrier to promiscuity might become restricted to men.
So – based on very little except a couple of anecdotes through wifenet of soldiers acting differently after training missions in West Africa – if it’s a bug i think the answer to your question is it might not be harmful in a r-type environment hence no arms race.
#
“This implies a gay gene, which most proponents of a pathogen hypothesis reject.”
It implies a secondary factor of some kind. Personally I wonder if testosterone acts as a magnifier of “normal” male behavior so at high levels it counter acts any deviation from the main goal but at lower levels all kinds of paraphilias start increasing so when populations start selecting against one kind of male behavior (violence) they release a bunch of hidden ones.
“As one of those expressive talkative males who grew up feeling out of place around herds of regular guys, Iād like to see a society where such in-sex differences were accepted rather than ridiculedā¦ But I can see thatās unlikely to ever occur.”
I think it is helpful to understand that the cruelty is not just meaningless, but serves the social function of organizing society. It was not that long ago that many societies had to be rigorously militant to survive. The Huns, Mongols, Turks and unnumbered “barbarian” tribes had a lot to do with the shaping of our modern culture, to say nothing of millions of years of evolution.
We are in the process of trying to move away from that rigor, but I think it will prove to be a slow bloody process, there are still barbarians at the gate … and inside the walls.
http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/2/2248/1.html
“Says Harlow, “If they had not learned to cooperatively aggress, there would be no monkeys in the world….” In other words, Harlow felt that collective sadism was practice for the inter-group tournaments which pit monkeys against those who would like to dine on them or rival groups of their own species determined to do them harm. ”
“The instinctual exercise of cruelty thrusts non-conforming individuals to the periphery and sometimes expels them entirely, squeezing us into social units as automatically as the discomfort of termites at the sight of scattered feces compels them to turn excreta into architecture.”
We’re wearing the trousers and jackets of steppe nomads. Pretty good cultural influence.
No you’re quite right and I harbor no ill will as an adult. Though I’ve noticed this lack of animosity for one’s former tormentors is apparently quite rare, given how many movies and comics and books have plots that center around bullies getting shanked while weirdos receive their just reward. As they say, write what you know, and for most creative nuts it seems what they know is how to hold onto a grudge.
But I’ve often wondered if having a certain percentage of contrarians doesn’t have it’s own benefits. When the water hole dries up or the river shifts or the game move on, having someone who is compelled to try new things who doesn’t respect boundaries, can be an asset. Most people hate change, upheaval, I thrive in it.
“But Iāve often wondered if having a certain percentage of contrarians doesnāt have itās own benefits.”
No doubt. Nature keeps all sorts of different options open whether the individuals who carry them are “happy” in their present environment or not. I doubt that nature has as much of a “dislike” for psychopaths as we (most of us, anyway) do.
Environments do change.
ITT I learned:
Don’t try to hook up with tall girls online in San Fransisco.
People who take/prescribe hormone therapy don’t believe in testosterone or ovaries.
The government will force me to have sex with evil transsexuals, just like they force me to have sex with black women and gay men.
I must assent to the proposition that gender is subjective. Freedom of belief is going to be outlawed so that big hairy guys can use the little girl’s room! The thought police are coming!
Transsexuals are delusional; they don’t actually feel gender dysphoria, they just believe they feel it. We can totally tell that they have false beliefs about their own subjective experiences, because we are blessed with the power of telepathy.
A playful thread about changing human forms that mentions transsexuals will turn into a shitshow about transsexuals as blowhards and trolls (who me?) pile on. Okay, I already knew that one, and so did the OP.
Most of the guys that choose sex reassignment surgery have never shown any signs of ‘being a girl inside’. For example, most are not sexually interested in men, which is a clue in itself, yes? Although if you want to think that being a Navy Seal was just overcompensation, go ahead.
People make false statements about their inner beliefs all the time. Look for revealed preferences: judge them by their fruits.
Lies aren’t delusions. I guess they could have a delusion and lie about it, or something?
Considering that there are disorders of sexual development that make you partially feminized/masculinized, and this remarkably common one where you hook up with members of the same sex, the notion that these people actually have such a disorder is a heck of a lot more plausible than the theory that they are lying about their feelings because they are normal men who just really hate having a dick, because shit, who wants one of those?
Should a child ever have treatment for “transgender” before puberty is complete?
http://www.livescience.com/50755-transgender-kids-hormone-blocker-puberty.html
Re: hormone blocking. Probably young people who have not completed puberty should be able to access them. E.g. Female to Male transgenders who take testosterone as adults blend reasonably well as adult men, despite small stature, odd facial proportions. A teen Male to Female transgender who takes hormone blockers won’t blend less well if they change their mind and have to take testosterone as an adult. It’s probably better to err on the side of an androgynous appearance than one with overly masculinised or feminised bone structure. I don’t know more about the fertility side though (does fertility recover as an adult), which would be an important consideration
this whole sick business reminds me of the lobotomy fad in the 1930s
anyone treating children for transgender with drugs or surgery before
a) puberty is complete
and/or
b) age of consent / majority
is a criminal
and if a young boy is castrated before
– puberty is complete
– age of consent/majority
– chance to have children
i’d personally make that a capital offence.
You’re just engaged in histrionic strawmanning. I don’t really care if an adult transvestite wants to get a bunch of plastic surgeries. It’s ultimately his choice even if I think it’s unwise. I do care that they’re starting to give endocrine disrupting drugs to prepubescent children with Munchausen Moms.
Transsexuals are delusional; they donāt actually feel gender dysphoria, they just believe they feel it.
I believe anorexics feel dysphoric about their weight . They’re still delusional; they think they are fat when they’re severely underweight. If it’s possible for an 85 lb. wraith to look at herself in the mirror and see a fat person, why is it impossible for someone to be deluded about their gender? There are even people with “Body integrity identity disorder”, who insist they are meant to be amputees and feel dysphoric about their unwanted limbs. I doubt it’s a kindness to indulge them in these delusions.
Dude, people said all that stuff in this thread. Read it and facepalm.
A chick who thinks she’s supposed to be a man doesn’t see a man when she looks in the mirror – that’s what she’s unhappy about. Obviously this is some species of crazy, but delusion? Same, if you are unhappy about having limbs, that’s clearly crazy, but it does not appear to be a false belief.
I sure as hell wouldn’t want be deciding a 10-year-old tomboy is really a man inside either, mind you.
Transsexuals are delusional; they donāt actually feel gender dysphoria, they just believe they feel it. We know this because the more they transform themselves to female, the higher the suicide rate.
Anyone who is moderately successful at dealing with women knows that they do not want what they want, and they do want what they do not want. We should hardly be surprised therefore if some men are also confused about their own desires.
The normal libertarian assumption is that if someone thinks he wants X, he is better off with X. Sound economics, less sound when it comes to sex.
Evidence that transsexual transition increases suicide rates? (Not that they have a high suicide rate, but that the treatment increases it.) So far as I can find no one actually knows what the long-term effectiveness is.
Yes, but… uhm, There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy ???
In the autogynephilia book, there was an initial story of a very feminine-acting boy who the author considered more of a natural transsexual than the linebacker types.
Reading it made me wonder what would happen if he was put on a testosterone regime instead of an estrogen and knives one. I can’t remember that being discussed, but it has to be an option, right?
Yes, you’d think that would be an option but for some reason it isn’t.
Hormones during/after puberty don’t affect sexual orientation so the kid would be a faggot. Also I understand people with early onset GID (HSTS) are less receptive to hormones? (This I was told.)
Personally, on the transgender thing i’m not concerned with orientation – it’s the stealth sterilization part.
Non-effectual, as I understand it. In general, these people have ordinary hormone levels typical for their natal sex.
So that being the case, if you give testosterone supplements to males with normal testosterone levels, what happens is some combination of a) natural production shuts down and b) the testosterone converts into estrogen. Something like escalating e levels basically leads to breast development and infertility, while the extra t masculinising them in some ways at the same time. Uneven.
I’d regard that as a much more plausibly criminal course of action than estrogen treatment, let alone hormone blockers, since you’ve got all of the negative consequences (interfertility and breast development, etc. in those children that change their mind) and none of the positives (i.e. the changes the patient actually seems to want).
A bunch of commenters on PBS took a testosterone test, and the results were exactly what one would expect (all the males were well below the normal range) It seems likely to me that people who look and act low testosterone, are in fact low testosterone.
Autogynophiles look and act manly before their transition, and have high testosterone, often above the normal range.
Homosexuals look and act unmanly, and very femme homosexuals, the type that cut their dicks off and transition to fake female, look and act very unmanly, like the staff of PBS. It would be very surprising if they had higher testosterone levels than the staff of PBS.
In general professionals, scientists, corporate lawyers etc. have lower androgen levels. Athletes, actors, construction workers etc. have higher androgen levels.
It is interesting that while in primitive societies higher androgen levels are associated with higher status, in technologically advanced cultures the reverse seems to be true..
“It is interesting that while in primitive societies higher androgen levels are associated with higher status, in technologically advanced cultures the reverse seems to be true..”
If you think everything before 1950 was primitive, maybe. Putin seems mighty high testosterone.
I would say that the increasing emasculation of our elites is a modern phenomenon that did not really get going until 1972, and the primary focus is America. Australian elites, for example Tony Abbot, seem quite masculine. The further from Harvard, the more masculine the elite.
How do you think Putin would do in Yanomamo society?
It does not matter how Putin would do in Yanomamo society. He obviously has higher testosterone than most men, and that propelled him into power. And the same is true of Tony Abbot. Emasculated and cuckolded elites are a recent and local phenomenon. The further from Harvard, and the further from Harvard’s power, the manlier the elite.
In modern societies a guy with relatively low androgen levels may attain relatively high status as a lawyer, professor, accountant, etc. On the other hand manual workers with high androgen levels have low status. I wonder if in modern societies there is more discordance than in primitive societies between hormone levels and status level in the social heirarchy?. If so would this tend to make modern societies less stable?
For rising to the height of political power high androgen levels are probably still important at least in places like Russia. Contemporary US male politicians do seem rather unmasculine. There is one notable exception.
New research on the mostest importantest question evah:
http://nhv.us/content/16045684-evidence-proves-ashkenazi-jews-descended-predominately-four
That’s all wrong.
I once read here that hearing children of deaf parents don’t show any deficit in cognitive skills — does anyone have the source for this? Google and my university library have failed me.
Being deaf means you can’t hear. Deaf people don’t have a deficit in cognitive skills unless their deafness is the result of a larger problem or unless they were undiagnosed and denied sufficient stimulation while their brains were developing.
Context was that kids in low income areas score poorly because they have a verbal deficit growing up: their parents don’t speak a large vocabulary, don’t read to them, etc. Obviously this would imply that hearing children of deaf parents would score even worse, because they aren’t getting any verbal communication at all. I read here that it wasn’t true, but no source was given.
Oops meant to say: “score poorly supposedly because …”
I think if you filter for FLKs then maybe there’s no cognitive differences.
I recall Greg mentioning this fact in one of his past blogs.
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The problem is this. Ultimately, we all – trans, gay, lesbian, stoners, Sisypheans, Amish, the women of Cologne, all women in fact, ā only sleep soundly in our beds at night because rough men stand willing to do harm on our behalf. And among Westerners, the proportion of the population that is strong, young, rough and willing is dwindling, while the proportion that is old, LGTABCWXYZ, āmartially Amishā, or disaffected is rising. Worse, the Westās rulers constantly push a progressive agenda that denigrates the former while extolling the virtues of the latter, all while taking actions that further threaten public safety; pushing to let more sleep-disturbers out of jail, or cross the Thracian border into Europe, or the Mexican border into America. Every step along the progressive path; female soldiers, gay soldiers, trans soldiers, is a step toward that time when the rough men decide the rest are not worth defending. Then they form gangs of their own.
By the way, we cannot solve this problem with the new mercs: nerds with drones and robots. That only makes us more effeminate.
“while the proportion that is old, LGTABCWXYZ, āmartially Amishā, or disaffected is rising.”
Whoa, where do you guys get this shit (save a modest increase in the fraction of women claiming to be non-heterosexual)?
Instead of vulgarity and attacks, try refuting what I wrote. Throughout the West, the proportion of old people is rising. The proportion that identifies with the L-G-alphabet soup is rising. The proportion with Amish ideas about non-resistance to violence is rising (eg Dutch men in mini-skirts protesting New Yearās sex attacks). The proportion is rising who feel disaffected from the rough men they ultimately depend on for a sound sleep.
Actually, I believe those claims were yours to prove originally. Have any stats to back any of that up?
This is about me leading you, not following.
The interesting question is how things that no one dreamt of advocating have become widely accepted in the blink of an eye, even by the older generation. For instance, Hillary Clinton opposed gay marriage until 2013. Cultural metamorphosis is the most mysterious but everyone thinks they understand it.
They can change rapidly because they don’t actually matter to the vast majority of people. Gay marriage will not change a dollar in your bank account or a cost a minute of your time (outside of the actual weddings of course). Transsexuals are a miniscule minority, I’ve never knowingly met one. It’s all symbolism and coalition-building and abstract principle, so it can all flip easily enough.
They can change rapidly even when it’s suicidal. Nongqawuse.
Good point. Culture restoration rather than change was the intended outcome in that case, but yeah, clearly a culture can go completely off the deep end very quickly.
In this particular case I’d still argue that the hard work was already done by the gay rights movement (intertwined with other movements) and that the last bits are fairly trivial extensions.
The chief was the key figure in Xhosa cattle killing, which had obvious parallels with the Lakota before Wounded Knee, and indeed both led to hapless resistance against the Europeans.. The elders a societies, perhaps knowing deep down they were doomed, began to act strangely. I wonder if transexualism is coming to the fore as an Accelerationist Ghost Dance.
When we all start praising Cybele and chopping our dicks off to usher in the new age of peace in our feminine bodies, that would be a proper mania. This is just regular decadence.
Then there’s slow-motion suicide:
“Since 1960, the nationās Latino population has increased nearly ninefold, from 6.3 million then to 55.3 million by 2014. It is projected to grow to 119 million by 2060, according to the latest projections from the U.S. Census Bureau”
http://www.pewhispanic.org/2016/04/19/statistical-portrait-of-hispanics-in-the-united-states-key-charts/
Camille Paglia Calls Transgender ‘Mania’ A Symptom Of Cultural Collapse.
They can change rapidly because
a) the dominant power can and will destroy your livelihood if you publicly disagree
b) federal judges over rule democratic votes
so people give up – publicly at least.
There’s little public opposition to the transgender thing because after the gay marriage thing people know the current political and media class will destroy them unless they keep their mouth shut.
However going by my experience of human nature the way they are imposing media morality by decree should be destroying their legitimacy under the radar so I’m guessing Marie Antoinette will be making an appearance.
we’re in an electronic gulag with the media as the kommandant
if they (or their owners) decide something is heresy then as long as they all say it together then it becomes heresy.
Because of the progressivist agenda, fewer and fewer men who could make a difference see anything worth fighting for in the West. But still the neo-libertarians, too short-sighted to see how it hurts Western civilization and caring only about immediate, selfish effects cry, āIf I canāt see how the latest degeneracy hurts me personally, what’s wrong with it?ā
They will keep this up until they need someone to protect them from the ruin their attitude has permitted. They can hope someone capable and motivated is left.
This kind of points back to how idiotic the bathroom issue is (and how innumerate the progressive elites are), and especially as the abuses show up rather quickly everywhere this gets enacted.
Innumerate: the number of perverted “regular” men far, far exceeds the number of trans ppl. Even if 100% of trans ppl were into women (they’re not) and especially criminal (again) they’d be a problem, but not the problem.
In order to stop the killings of these giant, aggressive “lesbian” trans ppl by the Patriarchy inside the men’s bathrooms and putting them where they’d feel comfortable (so, so much more comfortable), they’re reducing protection for women against a real problem: regular ol’ pervy men.
Most women will never meet a lesbian trans person in their entire lives (lucky them), but regular pervy men are a dime a dozen. And most of us have at least one outrageous story of the depths one of them has gone to to try to get the girl.
Are there really a lot of dudes who like to sneak into women’s bathrooms?
I remember hearing of a case at a state fair… dare I finish this one?
Mmm… is it relevant Darren Naish says Tasmanian devils may become sequential hermaphrodites? I had thought it would be impossible in a mammal but they are true Therians so compared to wrasse and clownfish their biology should be very similar to our own? As far as I’m aware marsupial mammals share our sex chromosomes unlike the platypus.
”weāre in an electronic gulag with the media as the kommandant
if they (or their owners) decide something is heresy then as long as they all say it together then it becomes heresy.”’
In a nutshell… well said.
“But someday we will. Or any rate we will unless we destroy civilization first, which seems more likely.”
Demographic decline, both in number and quality (especially of the smart fraction), is what worries me. It took us a really long time to get where we are; we’re now losing the foundation.
There are some obvious tests of faith for any heterosexual man claiming that the surgeon’s scalpel and hormone injections are magic wands that can turn male into female.
And then there are those who want to be animals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otherkin Currently, these poor people submit to the surgeon’s scalpel (https://stream.org/man-became-woman-dragon/ ), but just imagine what might be done with genetic modification: eyes like an eagle, nose like a bloodhound, ears like an owl. To me, wanting these things doesn’t seem like mental illness–it seems like self-improvement.
Corporations (like the NBA) are a major source of anti majority pressure on this issue. They have a very strong intolerance of popular mobilisation, or anything that could lead to it. As articulated by Walter Lippmann, business acts in accordance with his view that ‘The public must be put in its place…so that each of us may live free of the trampling and the roar of a bewildered herd.’.
The Wiki page on Transgenders says:
However, it strikes me that if you are one of those people who fucking love science then there only male, female, and developmental abnormalities (and maybe pathogens).
If you want a truly strange psychological state, or delusion if you will, consider transvestism. There’s a noticeable number of men who prefer to wear women’s clothing, without having any interest in being female or even homosexual. Presumably that’s due to something in their brain wiring, because there seems to be no cultural/environmental impetus for it. But that would require that there was some brain circuitry that dealt with clothing and/or its symbolism, which is surprising in itself (as opposed to sex/gender, which one would expect to have its specific brain circuitry).
All human behavioral traits are heritable…
Going back to Greg’s original premise, it seems that such powerful technology would expand options beyond the sex-change. My intuition is that many trans-inclined men would choose a more conventional option ahead of the full larvae job: Transformation into a more awesome, or at least adequate, man. Legislation could take this on board in the form of some kind of rule that says Frank is not allowed to turn into Francine until he has tried being Fabio for a while.