Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: TrashMan on October 23, 2009, 03:15:03 am
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Violence in (almost) never the right answer. Good thing the legislation was made.
However, there are some things I never have, don't and never will consider normal, and personally feel they should never be encouraged (like transexuals).
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TrashMan, I gotta say right off the bat, I estimate a 0% chance of the inevitably ensuing debate going well for you.
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There is nothing to debate. There is no debate.
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You've stated your opinion. It's wrong.
Some people are born with the wrong equipment to go with their wiring.
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You have stated you oppinion. It's wrong(er).
Some people just have screwed up wiring. Sucks to be them I guess.
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Obviously transsexuality isn't normal just like having a heart defect isn't normal, and since it takes effort to fix both of those and there's hardly any net gain from having either, neither should be encouraged.
I guess I'll never really understand firstly the need to intentionally write empty statements containing only hints at well-known strawmen instead of what you actually think and secondly the need to intentionally only grab onto those hints instead of responding to what was actually said even if it means pointing out that actually nothing was said, like in this case.
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Thread split and given stupid name.
Next time try to stick to the topic. :p
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For ****'s Sake Trashman. Why?
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Why not?
I'm merely stating the obvious. Some people just...[jack_nicholson_voice] CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH! [/jack_nicholson_voice] :p
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Wow, just wow.
Yeah let's discourage and malign everyone who has birth traits that we don't like.
Do you have any evidence as to what makes these people less worthy then you? I mean real statistical facts not your tender sensibilities.
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Less worthy? Why do you say that?
It's like saying a guy with cancer is less worthy than me because of the cancer. Don't be preposterous!
Apparently, if I'm not actively encouraging someone, that automaticly means I'm booing and hissing and shunnign and hating him? :rolleyes:
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What's with the original post edit? I see no evidence of transexuality anymoar...
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Apparently, if I'm not actively encouraging someone, that automaticly means I'm booing and hissing and shunnign and hating him? :rolleyes:
Trashman what exactly is your point/position in this thread? Don't you think they can't help their condition? Wouldn't the right thing to do is to be supportive and understanding of those people with birth defects and help raise their self-esteem? Because discouraging them can only cause more damage.
Do you have birth defects? I'm assuming no, would you still hold your position when you put yourself in their shoes. Do you often tell yourself that you have a problem and it needs to be fixed? I bet it's hard, I KNOW it's hard... but you also know how easy it is to sit back and count how many "sins" other people have and how "easy" it would to fix. It's not that easy with birth defects, it has to be pretty confusing. But there is one thing we can't do and that's pretend they don't exist and 1say under our breath that it sucks to be them.
1Some people just have screwed up wiring. Sucks to be them I guess.
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So.... are you trying to discourage birth defects and the like? :confused:
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Y'know, I don't think transsexuality should even be considered a birth defect.
It should be an option open to all members of the population at any time they want.
It's a shame, though, TrashMan apparently wants to consign everyone born hermaphroditic to a moral rubbish bin, and he'd prefer that all the miserable women stuck with male parts (or vice versa) live their lives in misery and depression.
Unless you mean something else by 'not encouraging people to have sex changes...'
Also, I just want to warn you: this site has transsexual readers and their rights will be protected. Unless you clarify your position in such a way that you remove the implication that they're second-class citizens, you are on dangerous ground.
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I'm going to post this as a separate post because you usually glaze over things and then selectively respond.
Transsexualism is a condition in which an individual identifies with a physical sex different from the one they were born with. A medical diagnosis can be made if a person experiences discomfort as a result of a desire to be a member of the opposite sex,[1] or if a person experiences impaired functioning or distress as a result of that gender identification.
The birth state that leads people to become transsexual is natural. It occurs in nature, ergo, it is natural.
If you are saying that you do not want to increase the prevalence of this birth state, fine.
If you are saying that you wish to discourage people from expressing their gender or undertaking surgical options to correct the mismatch, then you are wrong, as I stated earlier.
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Time for some truths!
Someone, somewhere will always be offended
Some people can never finish a
No matter how good a website is, its' webmaster is guaranteed to get at least one e-mail which says "UR PAGE SUCKS".
Just because it's a "well known fact" doesn't mean it's true.
The two most common elements in the Universe are hydrogen and stupidity
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Also, I just want to warn you: this site has transsexual readers and their rights will be protected. Unless you clarify your position in such a way that you remove the implication that they're second-class citizens, you are on dangerous ground.
What rights do you think may be infringed here?
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That entirely depends on what Trashman's trying to say.
If he does not want to encourage the transsexual birth state, fine. It's a problematic state in that it generally requires corrective action for the individual to be happy. If fetuses received corrective treatment during pregnancy I'm sure everyone would be happier.
If he wants to discourage individuals from gender reassignment, then he is suggesting that individuals are morally prohibited from doing what is best for them, which propagates an attitude of fear and repression towards gender reassignment.
Individuals have the inalienable right to equal expression of their sexuality so long as this expression does no one harm. Forcing transgender individuals to suppress this expression as compared to cis individuals, by means of intimidation, implied immorality, or suggested social sanction, is a violation of this right and an abrogation of his duties to the community.
tl;dr: no one should have to be ashamed of what they are.
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It'd be kind of difficult to encourage transexualism anyway, it's a genetic thing, there's no choice involved, the problem is, some people give in to the inner primate, something different means a potential threat, so they enter 'Fight or Flight' mode, in other words, they are uneasy about it, and would prefer it destroyed.
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Yeah. And, historically, trans individuals have been ghettoized, persecuted, and - as you said - destroyed.
Special protections are required in order to secure the safety, equality, and well-being of trans individuals. The same may be true of any group whose membership is not choice-based.
Most of us are just lucky enough to belong to groups that do not require these protections; so far white males haven't had much to fear. I'm sure we can all imagine scenarios where we would request such special protection, however.
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Reminds me of an exercise in a college class where the teacher asked all the guys to describe what they do when they get their car at a parking lot at night. Which generally is summed up by "walk to car, get in car, drive away." She then asked the girls and it was like hearing an HRT team prepping for a raid on a meth lab full of fugitives. Makes you appreciate what it's like having to think about your safety when doing everyday things.
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I think the problem that needs surmounting is knowing when its the monkey talking, pretending that little stereotypes, prejudices and fears won't ever happen is, at least at this stage of our evolution, a pipe dream, however, I think the first step on that path is learning to realise when those prejudices are being powered by something that can, if watched, be controlled.
I'll admit, I am 'aware' of trans-sexual people when they are in the room, I cannot simply write them off as part of a crowd, the label 'different' will flag in my head, but I always try to view that opinion objectively, that it's actually just a kind of hyper-territorial behaviour.
Humans are far from free from the Tribal mindset, but it's all been confused by the sheer number of tribes, from family, to gender, to political belief, to religious belief, to sexuality etc, the list goes on, we are all members of several tribes, and sometimes the rituals and requirements of one clash with those of another, and the need to defend the tribal structure will often lead to quite violent cullings, expulsions and persecutions of people who were guilty of nothing more than being 'other'.
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However, there are some things I never have, don't and never will consider normal
There is absolutely no way you could be wrong.
(http://sinequanon.spleenville.com/archives/images/bell%20curve.gif)
And there is absolutely nothing anyone could do about it.
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Actually, there's always at least one person who could do something about it, but they have to want to ;) Never is a long time.
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Oy! :lol: Ahh...so much reading into things.
It's farely simple.
What I'd want is some genetic screening so we can get rid of all those nasty sickneses (like diabetes) and problems (like false gender/mindset..whatever)
For the second part..it's kinda hard to explain. I wish them no harm and I feel sorry for them and I wish them well.
But treating like it's the most normal thing in the world? no..cause it's simply not. Like I said...hard to explain. But doesn't matter anyway.
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It's farely simple.
Nice typo.
What I'd want is some genetic screening so we can get rid of all those nasty sickneses (like diabetes)
Good idea!
and problems (like false gender/mindset..whatever)
Way to make it seem like those two are at all related. :mad2:
For the second part..it's kinda hard to explain. I wish them no harm and I feel sorry for them and I wish them well.
They don't need to have people feel sorry for them.
But treating like it's the most normal thing in the world? no..cause it's simply not. Like I said...hard to explain. But doesn't matter anyway.
Nobody's asking you to treat it as normal. But abornmality is not wrong, and should not be treated as such.
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It's strange, because if there is one idea that always made my flesh crawl, it's the concept of designer babies and genetic purification, because the chances are we will be pouring Chlorine in the Gene-pool, take away the 'blips' and you may very well damage the entire mechanism that we use to evolve, and I couldn't even being to describe the possible impact on our immune systems and ability to adapt to diseases.
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Oy! :lol: Ahh...so much reading into things.
It's farely simple.
What I'd want is some genetic screening so we can get rid of all those nasty sickneses (like diabetes) and problems (like false gender/mindset..whatever)
For the second part..it's kinda hard to explain. I wish them no harm and I feel sorry for them and I wish them well.
But treating like it's the most normal thing in the world? no..cause it's simply not. Like I said...hard to explain. But doesn't matter anyway.
Eugenics FTL
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Thank you for the clarification, Trashman. That was much less awful than I'd feared.
If your screening program were ever implemented, fine, but I think people should also have access to another fundamental right: the ability to reassign their sex whenever they see fit.
I think it's problematic to treat transgender individuals as 'abnormal' or to feel sorry for them, because that implies looking down on them. They are born with a disadvantage, but often that turns them into remarkable people, and while their lives are more challenging than ours, they may turn out better as a result.
Trans individuals are statistically unlikely, yes. But I've lived alongside a transgender person in my dorm for the past four years. She (originally he) is no different from anybody else: she loves Baldur's Gate, Scrabble, food, entertainment, good books, a good night out. The only problem is that she has to deal with questions, stares, nervous titters, and the knowledge that she will always draw confusion and misperception. This makes her rather introverted, simply because dealing with people is kind of a pain in the ass.
There are many things that aren't 'normal' but which we accept joyfully and without skepticism. Transgender individuals should be the same.
However, there are some things I never have, don't and never will consider normal
There is absolutely no way you could be wrong.
(http://sinequanon.spleenville.com/archives/images/bell%20curve.gif)
And there is absolutely nothing anyone could do about it.
When 'normal' carries the connotation of 'normative' and 'normative' has always meant 'good', then yes, it's worth challenging.
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Coincidentally, I watched Gattaca last night! How relevant! :D
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For the second part..it's kinda hard to explain. I wish them no harm and I feel sorry for them and I wish them well.
But treating like it's the most normal thing in the world? no..cause it's simply not. Like I said...hard to explain. But doesn't matter anyway.
Hard to explain? Explaining your views is hard only if you don't really know what they are exactly. Unless you actually manage the explanation, it's quite a fair assumption that all you have is a vague fuzzy feeling.
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Reread my previous posts, thanks. Your question is answered there.
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@Gen Bat: What about the right of freedom of speech? That right will be infringed if Trashman gets into trouble for expressing his opinion?
Freedom of Speech? On a moderated forum? Does not exist. "There is no such thing as speech that is free. You gotta pay for everything that you say."
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As the old saying goes, 'Freedom of Speech ends when your fist reaches my nose', when someone starts saying that pregnant women should be screened for 'defects' such as gender-assignment, I do start to worry, because that's an incredibly slippery road.
For example, there's an easy way to get rid of the racism row in the US, you could adjust fertilised eggs so that all children born to any parent was white, that way, no race problem, but, not in a million years, would people consider the gains worth the cost. You need to stop and think very carefully before talking about screening children, some things, like hepititis etc have a direct impact on the persons ability to live a normal life, and, yes, I could accept defending against those, but others, like the existence of Transgenderism, racial characteristics etc, do not effect the person's ability to live a perfectly normal life depending on social acceptability, it's other people that are the problem.
There's a motto in Medicine, which states "Above all, do no harm", fixing transgenderism etc is not something which needs to be done for the person to be healthy, it is unneccesary surgery, and actually goes against the Hippocratic Oath.
Society is faced with two choices, either it can change and stop attacking the different, or it can force the different to conform, either socially or medically. One way is progress, the other is stagnation.
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:wtf:
Anyway, a misconception you labor under is that human beings are in control of their lives. The situation has a powerful impact on all of us, as does our genetic disposition. Many 'fat' people actually have a healthy weight that's simply high, and they can live long healthy lives at that weight.
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Yeah, but you're neglecting the power of the situation, which is neither genetic nor personally chosen.
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@trashman: While treating genetic disorders like cystic fibrosis and whatnot are good causes, when we start to "fix" people's brains we are going to start killing off our genius. Without geniuses, our current exponential progress will grind into something more linear until finally collapsing back in on itself after we've decided that everyone should have the same brain structure and be heterosexual and be nice to their parents. Can you imagine a future like that? Where everyone is normal? Not only would that be the most boring existence ever, we'd die out. There's a reason that nature invokes random genetic changes and promotes diversity, and that's because without diversity a species will get wiped out by a single environmental factor. Taking natural selection out of the equation, humans are able to problem solve so effectively because we can bring many unique minds to work on the same problem and thus are able to come up with a solution that none of those minds could have come up with on their own. The only reason we exist is because there are weirdos running around, so don't be so quick to say you want to "fix" weird people, because you have no idea what the consequences would be.
@High Max: Human beings may have control of their lives, but there's this cool thing called "Free Choice" that's also kind of significant. You can judge someone as much as you want, but that doesn't mean you're right.
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@trashman: While treating genetic disorders like cystic fibrosis and whatnot are good causes, when we start to "fix" people's brains we are going to start killing off our genius. Without geniuses, our current exponential progress will grind into something more linear until finally collapsing back in on itself after we've decided that everyone should have the same brain structure and be heterosexual and be nice to their parents. Can you imagine a future like that? Where everyone is normal? Not only would that be the most boring existence ever, we'd die out. There's a reason that nature invokes random genetic changes and promotes diversity, and that's because without diversity a species will get wiped out by a single environmental factor. Taking natural selection out of the equation, humans are able to problem solve so effectively because we can bring many unique minds to work on the same problem and thus are able to come up with a solution that none of those minds could have come up with on their own. The only reason we exist is because there are weirdos running around, so don't be so quick to say you want to "fix" weird people, because you have no idea what the consequences would be.
TrashMan seems to think that evolution is linear.
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The reason why nature 'invokes random genetic changes and promotes diversity' is exactly that - random, it's because of chance.
Any argument in opposition to 'fixing' Transsexual-ism based around natural selection is a bit bizarre, given that transsexuals require an awful lot of artificial, unnatural changes in order to pass on their genetics, if it is even possible for them to do so. Natural selection either condemns these people to live in a body they don't feel is the correct gender, presumably for a life of unhappiness, and allows them to pass on their genes, or causes them to be an evolutionary dead end if they switch genders.
I refuse to accept that humanity, or genius, would die out if transsexuals no longer existed, it's called the slippery slope fallacy for a reason.
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Ah, but the question is whether the gene complex that creates trans individuals is linked to something else. A single gene is generally responsible for a tremendous number of different things.
It's a worthwhile question.
I still think that prenatal correction of the state is fine, but all individuals should have the ability to alter their sex if they see fit.
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There as a million and one excuses for being overweight. But there are no excuses for not getting up and working it off. .
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Mmm, noooo, actually. Statistically, individuals almost always return to their genetic preset weight in the long run. Funnily enough, a lot of 'overweight' or 'obese' people who are actually at their healthy body weight do just fine.
This isn't to deprecate the value of exercise and a good diet - they're mandatory. But some people are just naturally fatter.
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There as a million and one excuses for being overweight. But there are no excuses for not getting up and working it off. .
When you can define "overweight" by anything other than completely abitrary benchmarks, we can make some progress.
Damn, ninja'd by Battuta.
EDIT: To make this post not a complete waste of space, I suggest anyone interested google the term "Set-point."
EDIT THE SECOND: I just realized that is a tennis term as well as what I was thinking of. The definition I was thinking of is "the body's tendency to maintain or return to a 'set' weight." Hence, set-point.
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Assuming they are happy at an "above average" natural weight i'll happily agree.
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You know as well as I do and anyone else here that "above average" means overweight, regardless of what a person's natural weight is.
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Not really, if the majority of natural builds was a bit bigger than the "norm" at present. Then would a current average be considered skinny? I'm putting thought into these replies, don't misread :p
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It all depends on who classes what is an average weight! For some people, the norm is higher than others, I am under weight, compared to the norm, am I to be disregarded the same way?
And if than we screen birth defect's during pregnancy then do we exclude people with neuro muscular dystrophy, such as Stephen Hawking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking)?
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^_^
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Max, this may come as a shock to your gentle sensibilities, but a whole hell of a lot of the time, genetics plays one of the biggest roles in determining weight (followed closely by upbringing).
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I must be doing somthing right.
Yeah, you got genetically lucky. I didn't. I'm stuck at 210 after three days a week in the gym and marching band besides for the last four months. That means that by a BMI, I'm techincally obese. And there isn't a damn thing I can do about it, not in the long run.
I don't think you realize just how holier-than-thou you come off as when you spout this junk about lifestyles.
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He's just one of those "diet and exercise fix everything" loonies.
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Max, every single one of those ailments you mentioned have been conclusively linked to genetic disorders.
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I have a theory on why many people have certain ailments that run in their family and I think a lot of it might be damage accumulated in the genes by ancestors not living the best lifestyle and damage gets passed on from generation to generation and becomes worse in each generation if certain lifestyle practices continue to occur in those families.
*headdesk*
Someone else want to dig up the materials for this one? I needed something to do anyway.
New World Encyclopedia (http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Acquired_characteristics)
While the theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics was enormously popular during the early nineteenth century as an explanation for the complexity observed in living systems, after publication of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, the importance of individual efforts in the generation of adaptation was considerably diminished. Later, Mendelian genetics supplanted the notion of inheritance of acquired traits, eventually leading to the development of the modern evolutionary synthesis, and the general abandonment of the theory of inheritance of acquired characteristics in biology, although there are proponents for its working on the microbial level or in epigenetic inheritance
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I did not misunderstand you, and even highlighted the part that was wrong. "Damage accumulated in the genes" cannot really go by anything OTHER than "Inheritance of acquired characteristics," (and I'm not too sure on the possibility of enough to call it damage) unless you want to call it mutations which is entirely NOT what you were trying to say there.
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But how I live might to a certain extent repair the genes that are damaged or simply shut them off, thus building resistance to certain ailments or keeping them at bay from occuring.
*headdesk*
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Actually, epigenetic factors can modify gene expression...but High Max is still not particularly informed about gene/environment interactions.
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Mutagen's are bad, mkay?
Seriously though, aren't environmentally altered gene's being passed on a key part of evolution? Or did I really misunderstand that whole part of biology.
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Seriously though, aren't environmentally altered gene's being passed on a key part of evolution? Or did I really misunderstand that whole part of biology.
Apparently. :p
Natural selection, the key mechanism of evolution, has nothing to do with genes being "altered" over the course of an organism's lifetime. Rather, it has to do with the fact that organisms that are well-adapted to their environment tend to survive for longer than those that aren't, and so have a much greater opportunity to pass their significant genetic material, including said adaptations, on to their offspring. Over time, a particularly useful adaptation can wind up becoming the dominant trait amongst a population, simply because the members that exhibited it reproduced most effectively. One of the most visible signs of this process at work for Darwin was the finch population on the Galapagos Islands, which consisted of multiple species whose beaks were all shaped differently for handling different types of food. Darwin's theory on evolution via natural selection was a replacement for the older belief, known as Lamarckism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarckism), which stated that traits acquired during an organism's lifetime could be passed down to its offspring. I've usually heard the latter expressed by the example of a giraffe who stretches out its neck constantly, thereby granting its children longer necks as well. By that logic, the babies Schwarzenegger would come out of the womb completely stacked. :p
(Another driving force of evolution is genetic drift, which is the change in gene variant frequency over the course of time due to random sampling and simple chance, but that process has nothing to do with how effective certain gene variants prove to be.)
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Mutagen's are bad, mkay?
Seriously though, aren't environmentally altered gene's being passed on a key part of evolution? Or did I really misunderstand that whole part of biology.
Wow, yeah, no. Refer to the Mongoosepost.
The environment cannot alter genes. That was postulated by Lamarckian evolution, which was abandoned more than a century ago.
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Mutagen's are bad, mkay?
Seriously though, aren't environmentally altered gene's being passed on a key part of evolution? Or did I really misunderstand that whole part of biology.
Wow, yeah, no. Refer to the Mongoosepost.
The environment cannot alter genes. That was postulated by Lamarckian evolution, which was abandoned more than a century ago.
You can't "train" your genes, but surely mutations can be passed on.
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Indeed. A fair point - though only in germ cells, not somatic cells.
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Exactly what I'm saying. If there weren't mutations, then species would not have diversified, would they?
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I'll give a tentative 'yes' to that, yeah. Genetic drift is important too, but that presupposes multiple alleles.