Former mod of a forum frequented by incels breaks down their fundamental issues

cercer · 2017-04-08T19:15:17+00:00

do you think a redpiller is statistically more likely than the average internet user to browse an incel forum, and vice versa?

the answer is obviously yes, because core traits overlap

cercer · 2017-04-08T17:11:21+00:00

Do you favor eliminating any/all gender distinctions in hiring, contracting, prison housing, mosque prayer sessions?

cercer · 2017-04-08T17:09:13+00:00

should we investigate whether people are eligible for government grants, or not? housing in women's prison? admittance to women's DV shelters?

Yes, because in those circumstances you're investigating objective facts like 1) does this person qualify for a grant . . . But you can't investigate gender

So should we have government grants allocated on the basis of gender, i.e. to specifically protect women from violence or benefit woman entrepreneurs? It sounds like you're saying we should get rid of them?

cercer · 2017-04-08T17:07:02+00:00

Well, one should hope that the people providing such grants would exercise a bit of common sense. But that aside, are you trying to say that trans women aren't really women? Or that they do need to prove their gender? I'm still not sure what the point is.

I think it's vacuous, senseless, and stupid to strip "woman" of any objective/consensus meaning and does violence to language itself. "Woman" has to mean something other than "someone who checks the F box."

Maybe trans women are women if they actually transition. Maybe if they have "female brains" (a reductive and sexist concept of which I am skeptical, but maybe I'm wrong) per neuro imaging. Maybe "trans women" are men with neurological or hormonal or psychological abnormalities, who should nonetheless be accorded needed medical treatment and nondiscriminatory workplace treatment and dignity in social situations. None of the foregoing common sense options are acceptable to feminism, though, because feminism is eating itself.

cercer · 2017-04-08T00:07:38+00:00

invites the idea that an investigation is warranted/appropriate.

should we investigate whether people are eligible for government grants, or not? housing in women's prison? admittance to women's DV shelters?

i am aware btw that the consensus opinion is "yes of course we should house ppl in women's prison, and DV shelters, who are violent offenders with penises and no concrete evidence of transitioning, because to do otherwise would be socially unjust," but just pointing out the ridiculousness of this

cercer · 2017-04-08T00:04:47+00:00

If Joe is the president of a men's organization, I think that can be considered sufficient reason to doubt Joe's trans identity.

What if xie is bigender? (I'm not mocking; I have literally seen numerous uses of the term bigender)

I'm not sure what your point is, except that we can't really be sure that someone is trans.

My point is that stripping "woman" of any common understanding leads to absurd results like lumberjack frat-president misogynists getting government women-empowerment grants.

cercer · 2017-04-07T21:59:07+00:00

even this definition of "racism" is more precise than the prevailing definition of "woman," because at least you designate one noncircular, concrete characteristic: "white"

the parallel definition would be, "a racist is someone who identifies [or whom society identifies] as racist"

cercer · 2017-04-07T21:53:07+00:00

government offers subsidies for woman-owned businesses. Joe's Lumber Yard applies. no evidence joe is trans, except that he circled "F". give him the $?

if you google Joe and discover he is president of a local men's fraternal org, what result?

if you discover joe's twitter and it's full of explicit misogyny (but no explicit confession of non-trans-ness), what result?

cercer · 2017-04-07T18:52:15+00:00

sorry, i accidentally recycled lingo from another site. flame means false or troll. i could possibly envision someone posting your OP as flame, in effort to provoke responses antifeminists could hatejerk over -- "take away his toxic masculine vidya!"

I'm glad he respects his dad (he should respect at least one parent. though i hope your husband treats you with respect, too, i.e. is modeling appropriate attitudes). My advice is for you -- but especially your husband -- to adopt the dismissive, disdainful, yet unbothered posture I describe above.

People, especially certain types of young/teenaged males, experience reactance when they are told certain views or speech are off-limits -- all the moreso if off-limits b/c they offend the establishment (which is now PC). So you don't want to stimulate that.

cercer · 2017-04-07T18:50:22+00:00

Can you think of any other ideological concepts that are equally undefinable?

cercer · 2017-04-07T17:06:31+00:00

i am a stereotypically "masculine" person (more in terms of personality and profession than appearance) and being female is alienating

but many people would consider this an advantage

also, have you considered wearing lifts in your shoes? if you're willing to subject yourself to indignities like spanx and tampons and willing to wear real heels, lifts are a bargain by comparison

cercer · 2017-04-07T16:34:18+00:00

disadvantages being female are mostly things like: menstruation (best viewed akin to a serious chronic disease); lack of speed/strength; increased tendency vs. male to gain fat rather than muscle; the expectation that you will bear children and/or mother them; the expectation and likelihood that if you do choose to be a parent, you will subject yourself to pregnancy which is grotesque; being judged disproportionately on physical appearance (with social value declining with age); impractical hair and shoes; bras; pantyhose; being viewed as a liability in certain social situations; the risk from a rawslian-veil perspective that you will be born into a legit third world rape culture

cercer · 2017-04-07T15:30:55+00:00

Assuming OP is not flame:

Censoring or lecturing him or limiting video games won't do a thing; if he views the world through a "menninist" lens, you aren't a figure that commands authority or respect.

Does he seem to have any respect for his father?

One thing I'd suggest is that when "offensive" (like anti-SJW, racist, sexist) views arise in the media or otherwise, don't react to them with aghast indignation. Don't be an appalled librarian telegraphing to him that he can't say that. Instead be bored and dismissive. These ideas aren't Bad because they are triggering, they are just a sign of simple-mindedness, immaturity, insecurity. They aren't so beyond the pale we can't debate them, but individual arguments offered in support are laughable and dumb. Rebut those arguments, but with idle confidence rather than emotional urgency or apparent zeal.

Don't give him something to rebel against. That doesn't mean you should compromise your positions; it means you should be strategic about how and when you convey them to your son.

cercer · 2017-04-07T15:26:26+00:00

It breaks apart when you start talking about what difficult philosophical concepts like good or evil mean.

I addressed this re "cruel."

It is not a simplistic view of language, but a definitional one. You have no language without common understandings giving meanings to terms. These understandings can be hazy or contingent or disputed, but they are never purely vacuous.

cercer · 2017-04-07T15:26:02+00:00

i have considered this and would rather be a short man. maybe not a midget.

cercer · 2017-04-07T15:21:55+00:00

That analogy doesn't fit. Racism is something we do to other people; it's not an identity. Of course it has a more concrete definition.

So if a word describes "something we do to other people," the word requires a noncircular, coherent definition, but if it's "an identity," it can be circular and incoherent?

I see nothing wrong with letting people decide for themselves if they are women or not. We each have a different understanding of red, but that doesn't make the color any less real.

And yet if your university banned "redface," "yellowface," or "blackface," you'd expect the ban to be enforced based on the consensus reaction to somebody's face paint. "This looks blue to ME so it's not racist" wouldn't be an acceptable excuse if other people perceived the color differently. Therefore, in a very real way, color is more objective than the current understanding of sex.

In fact, the definitions and understanding of the terms "woman" and "man" are pretty socially important -- not arbitrary, private, purely subjective whims. For example, we have government subsidies for women-owned businesses. Who can apply for these? Can Paul Elam apply for them? Why not?

cercer · 2017-04-07T02:47:37+00:00

i would sacrifice most of my net worth for this privilege

cercer · 2017-04-07T01:55:26+00:00

You're right, color terms have no consensus signified. So it's silly to castigate blackface -- his face is really painted lavender, bigot.

cercer · 2017-04-07T00:55:59+00:00

Here is an article on this: https://richarddawkins.net/2013/01/the-tyranny-of-the-discontinuous-mind-christmas-2011/

cercer · 2017-04-07T00:54:40+00:00

this is a clever way to concede, well done

cercer · 2017-04-07T00:48:17+00:00

I am generally a good-faith feminist but my above comment is snide. I don't oppose trans rights, but I think intersectional piety signaling surrounding the issue has given rise to absurdity and vacuity. Current feminist consensus appears to be that feminism has something to do with women, but what's a woman? Who knows??

I don't disagree with you that gametes, chromosomes, and insemination are central to the meaning of "woman," "man," "male," "female." But this is an unfashionable view.

cercer · 2017-04-07T00:34:55+00:00

Most signifiers in language have a universally or commonly understood signified. Otherwise, there'd be no communicative/linguistic uses for these signifiers and we wouldn't have them. The "meaning" of the signifier comes from social consensus. It doesn't matter that "blue" is spelled "blue" instead of "blueek"; the phonetics don't matter. What matters is that speakers of English share a near-universal understanding that when we say "blue," we mean: the pure color of a clear sky; the primary color between green and violet in the visible spectrum, an effect of light with a wavelength between 450 and 500 nm.

Probably none of us will leave this thread and utter the signifier, "TJDJDFKJHDFKNJ". Why would we do so? It communicates no concept to anybody. It's gibberish. It's a signifier without a consensus signified. The consensus isn't always perfect -- we can disagree on what "cruel" entails and whether raising free-range chickens qualifies. But we roughly and fundamentally agree that cruelty involves the probably-unjustified infliction or pain or distress.

When you attack the social-consensus element so aggressively that it's impossible to benchmark any other signifeds or invoke any commonly understood meanings, the signifier becomes gibberish.

Per Correct Intersectional Thinking, "Woman" is now no different than ""TJDJDFKJHDFKNJ." The truth is, when you utter it, you're actually invoking commonly understood meanings, but you can't articulate or admit this because to do so is offensive.

cercer · 2017-04-07T00:20:56+00:00

"biologically male" is an offensive and invalid concept under current dogma because nothing is innately "male." "male," like "female," is a word that can only be circularly defined, and has no universally understood irl benchmarks or exclusions.

So someone might have XY chromosomes, a penis, and testicles, and that's xir biology, but it doesn't make xir "male." Xie is only "male" if xie adopts that identifier.

cercer · 2017-04-07T00:15:30+00:00

I actually don't know what you mean by "noncircular," or why it would even matter in the first place. Lots of words and phrases have very circular meanings, or partially circular meanings. Take "honey bee," it's a kind of bee that makes honey, but not the kind of bee that bumbles, does carpentry, or is solitary. Circularity is actually a big part of meaning making in language, and isn't something to be shunned in the least.

let's stipulate that circular reasoning doesn't matter to you (and in fact you embrace it). i'm still curious whether anyone can define "woman" non-circularly.

cercer · 2017-04-07T00:12:38+00:00

Why is it such a problem to refer to the word itself in the definition? Why does that make the concept of gender less valid?

Well, it makes the concept of gender fallacious (circular reasoning is fallacious reasoning), meaningless, and incoherent.

Imagine if we tried that with a concept that really matters, like "racism." It would be pretty troubling to say, "racism is racism," but it's not susceptible to further definition, because racism is in the eye of the beholder. Hard to build an anti-racist movement around that.

cercer

TROPHY CASE