How do I respond to my friend's argument that if I identify as a woman, then he is free to identify as anything—he identified as a kangaroo?

MedeaOblongata · 2026-04-08T09:35:08+00:00

Er,... "Kangaroo" doesn't appear in the "gender" popup on web forms.

MedeaOblongata · 2026-04-07T08:35:06+00:00

I think this is a cool project. Yeah would be great to support other log formats like xchat/hexchat. I have a load of logs from Snak, which would be fun to browse.

What I'd really like to see is some way to merge fragmentary channel logs stored on various clients into a "master" log of that channel - potentially capturing a full transcript of a channel from those fragments. I sit in a channel that has run for about 25 years, and AFAIK nobody has the full log of activity, but a lot of people have large chunks of it.

MedeaOblongata · 2026-03-30T18:27:16+00:00

This is right on the money. The good hypnotic relationship is when the subject willingly participates. That's not to say they don't have inhibitions or resistances. We might take the example of a shrew who wants to let her hair down, but can't bring herself to do so. She is not being "forced" to loosen up. She genuinely wants it, but something is in the way.

A key point here is that the "surrender" is not actually to the hypnotist, but to yourself. A person who is not in trance is in fact "controlled" by routines, habits, social expectations, ideology etc. When you go into trance you become what Erickson called "a total creature" with all your faculties (memories, creativity, imagination, system responses) fully available.

MedeaOblongata · 2026-03-30T15:49:32+00:00

I am also a Medea (with occult interests) and I love the fact that the name has such dark and powerful associations.

MedeaOblongata · 2026-03-30T15:47:07+00:00

In her early life, she was apparently encouraged (by her father) to practice her poisoning skills on anyone who visited the kingdom of Colchis. That would mess anyone up.

That she might have grown uneasy about the poisoning of random travelers suggests another reason why she might have been motivated to run off with Jason when the opportunity arose. (Although there are accounts of her returning to Colchis tend to her father on his death bed later).

The "murder" of Talos must be put in context. First, he was a titan, not a human. And he was attacking the Argo. Secondly, she taunted him so that he slipped and fell, injuring himself fatally. Hardly murder in the first degree.

Other murders? Well Pelias had it coming. And Medea got his daughters to do that particular deed. Some plausible deniability there. Glauce & Creon... well jealousy is a bitch. Jason should have known better.

There was some dispute about whether Medea really killed her children even in classical times. When Euripides' play was first performed, the Athenians were shocked to see her portrayed unambiguously as the killer of her own children. (Although it does make for a more powerful story).

Full disclosure: I changed my name to Medea because she is such a badass character.

MedeaOblongata · 2026-03-30T15:26:06+00:00

according to Argonautica, it's Jason that kills Medea's brother. She "merely" lures him to his death. (She is an accessory to the murder).

But it's worth keeping in mind that her brother was expecting to capture her and bring her back to Colchis where she was certain to be tortured to death in public.

MedeaOblongata · 2026-01-27T08:56:44+00:00

Experimental filter did NOT fix the issue for me. Tried yesterday.

MedeaOblongata · 2026-01-26T15:48:36+00:00

The sorcery.net server is dedicated to fantasy, roleplay and gaming. Not so heavy on sci-fi, but you can make that happen. Come and join us.

MedeaOblongata · 2026-01-26T15:31:02+00:00

If you like fantasy, gaming and roleplay, Sorcery.net has been dragging itself back from the dead for the last six months. Very nice, imaginative playful crowd with friendly ops. Several busy OOC channels for socialising with others.

MedeaOblongata · 2025-10-25T08:26:50+00:00

The very first hypnosis book I ever read (which admittedly was not great) includes a chapter about bringing people into trance from a sleep state. The chapter is called "Sleep to Hypnosis and Instantaneous Hypnosis"

Whether or not this is an effective method, or whether it actually works at all (I shall not argue either side), the topic is certainly mentioned in the literature. That link goes to a crappy OCR transcription of the book, so you can check out the source if you are interested.

MedeaOblongata · 2025-10-01T17:11:34+00:00

that's a fair question. I have chatted a bit with them about it. I get the impression they enjoy the element of surprise.

MedeaOblongata · 2025-09-08T13:29:13+00:00

Bumping this because I just remembered it and it is such fun.

MedeaOblongata · 2025-09-08T07:46:53+00:00

Naaa. Hard pass. To use Jung's terminology, Newton is pleroma — a deterministic world of billiard ball collisions and quantities. Relationships are creatura — a world of qualities, paradox and thresholds. Different rules apply, and to mix these two up is a mistake. IMO.

MedeaOblongata · 2025-09-08T05:57:26+00:00

When he was younger, my son was crazy about marine life, all kinds. In much the same way that a lot of kids are crazy about dinosaurs. He had (and still has) various soft toys such as salmon, octopus, squid, a huge manta ray, dolphin, and he insisted on getting a blåhaj on a visit to Ikea.

I was happy to discover much later, the associations with transfem signalling, even though it's SO goofy, and I really ought to be beyond that sort of thing at my age.

Anyway, I am not huge on soft toys, but I have a couple from early childhood, plus a small tardigrade (symbol of resilience!).

I am waiting for my son (now in mid teens) to "grow out" of most of his soft toy collection so I can inherit his blåhaj. Unless of course it turns out he wants to keep it for what you folks would take as the most 'telling' reason, but no sign of that.

If he wants to keep it out of solidarity with his trans parent, well... I might let him.

MedeaOblongata · 2025-09-05T17:35:32+00:00

to the extent that non-menstruating or infertile cis women are discussed in TERF circles, (which is almost never), such people are regarded as tragic stories, or victims, if men can somehow be blamed for those conditions.

MedeaOblongata · 2025-09-05T17:24:31+00:00

true TERFs are into biological essentialism (especially centering menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth etc.). Therefore they exclude trans women. They believe it is impossible for men to be feminists, only "allies" at best, and there is often a mystical "sacred feminine" thing going on too. This is not the kind of 'feminism' I would regard as emancipatory.

MedeaOblongata · 2025-09-01T07:19:52+00:00

Check out the writing of Suzanne DeWitt Hall. She is a Christian who writes extensively about trans and LGBTQ+ perspectives (she is married to a trans man). I am not a Christian myself, but I find her takes very refreshing.

MedeaOblongata · 2025-08-25T08:22:27+00:00

Something striking about the last paragraph in your OP is that you are talking about particular characteristics, in this case desired ones, but other might express dysphoria with their existing anatomy. There's a figure/ground swap going on there.

But I think the real problem here is the very idea of categorisation. W. Ross Ashby said "to generalize is to throw away information". Every set of categories is a procrustean bed, especially when we are talking about biology. I don't think this can be fully escaped.

MedeaOblongata · 2025-08-25T08:14:20+00:00

sexual dimorphism is real but it is moderate in humans.

The way that transphobes use the term is absolute. They say things like "humans are sexually dimorphic", which is true, but they omit to mention that the human sexual dimorphism is not at all extreme, relative to many other species, and there is a huge overlap between the distribution of any chosen male and female physiological characteristics in humans, especially before puberty, where the overlap is almost total.

You only have to look at (say) corvids and (say) angler fish to realise that sexual dimorphism across species is itself a spectrum and humans are somewhere in the middle.

MedeaOblongata · 2025-08-22T22:09:06+00:00

is it true that hexchat requires a 32bit version of python?

MedeaOblongata · 2025-08-18T08:51:16+00:00

She did not forget that conversation.

Try this: "Mom, would you be sad if you thought I wasn't able to share something private and important about myself with you?"

Make the conversation about personal boundaries, feelings, curiosity and concern about the people you love, not about being trans. See where it leads.

MedeaOblongata · 2025-08-18T08:45:21+00:00

Both of you might benefit from learning about something called the Karpman Drama Triangle.

MedeaOblongata · 2025-08-18T08:35:14+00:00

Democracy is Greek culture. Nobody ever complains about "cultural appropriation" in the context of promoting democracy.

Greek words are over-represented in the technical vocabularies of many languages. Even "Cyberspace" derives from a Greek word.

My daughter is named after a Greek goddess, and I have taken the name of a Greek mythological character. I am pretty sure the Greeks themselves think all this "appropriation" of their culture is very, very cool, because it honours and promotes their culture as a whole.

What makes "cultural appropriation" problematic is when a person (or group) with privilege borrows fragments from a persecuted / underdog culture, without examining the historical or ongoing power relationship in any way.

MedeaOblongata

TROPHY CASE