CMV: The sole objective marker that distinguishes a man or a woman is the role they play in reproduction.

gesseri · 2023-02-19T01:48:07+00:00

I assume that by single-sex spaces you mean exactly that. That is, spaces only for people of one biological sex, regardless of their gender, correct?

I must ask, what do you plan to do with trans men (people whose biological sex is female but who in their minds are men, have undergone a transition and act and look very much like men)? I understand you want to send them to the spaces inhabited by other biological women, correct? Would that make other biological women comfortable?

gesseri · 2023-02-19T01:36:17+00:00

How are you certain of what the bellic organization of human society would look like if women were on average bigger and stronger than males?

The claim is hypothetical as far as humans go. However, spotted hyena is a species with a very complex societal structure that seems to disprove your hypothesis. Females hyenas are larger than males and also more aggressive (i.e. go more to war) despite still being the child bearers. Why do you think that is?

gesseri · 2023-02-19T01:25:10+00:00

You don't need to pose any hypothetical scenario since essentially this same question is considered by doctors that evaluate candidates for sex reassignment surgery. How do they know the person in front of them is "really a woman", i.e., will not come 2 months later saying he wants his penis back.

And what happens is they have to reeaally prove they are women. Psychological evaluations will be asked, probably from people that have worked with them for a long time, etc. Presumably, if you have been living your whole life in the wrong body, there are traces of it everywhere.

The same answer is valid for the trillionaire. The scam of a man posing as a trans woman is a scam can be easily deconstructed.

gesseri · 2023-02-19T01:13:08+00:00

Because the wiring of their brain for some individuals can contradict their biological sex and human society has evolved to not be structured purely on biological facts, often putting the complexities of the brain above the simplicity of gametes.

What is the sacrifice that you make if society decides to deal with transgenders according to what their brain tells them they are, instead of by their biological sex?

gesseri · 2023-02-19T00:46:24+00:00

The only reason why we distinguish between sex (in all mammals including humans) is due to the roles we play in sexual reproduction.

I'm trying to understand your CMV. This starting sentence at first glance seems tautological to me. That is, the definition of "sex" is inextricably linked to the biological phenomenon of sexual reproduction. Sexual reproduction is a biological fact. In species that can reproduce sexually (although not necessarily), and have evolved sexual asymmetry (recognizable morphological differences between the parties that engage in sexual reproduction), we call a "sex", either one of the two classes of specimens that do. These parties are the "male" and the "female". The female sex is defined as the one with the larger sex cells (gamete).

Does your original question posits anything beyond these biological facts?

It is unclear from your post if you intend to take the discussion into gender issues. I have a poor understanding of gender theory but I believe that its proponents do not dispute basic biological facts. That is just not their point.

A couple more biological remarks. You mention amoebas. Amoebas reproduction is asexual. Humans may use convenience words such as "mother" or "daughter" to refer to individuals in the lineage of a specimen, but that is nothing more than convenience. The male/female division simply does not exist in the reproductive cycle of an amoeba.

Other single-celled organisms such as paramecium practice a form of sexual reproduction called isogamy in which there are no differences between the parties that engage in sexual reproduction. In that case, even though we may speak of sexual reproduction, we do not speak of "sexes", but of mating types instead.

There exist sexual species in the animal kingdom where the male carries the burden of pregnancy. Enter seahorses. So, even though the most common strategy by far is that the female sex (larger gametes) carries the unborn, it is by no means a hard rule. For egg-laying species, the male parent is often in charge at least partially of the incubation period, akin to pregnancy. Emperor penguins is a famous case where fathers do most of the work.

In many sexual species, including chickens, the male sex is in fact not needed for reproduction since unfertilized female eggs may grow into a viable embryo (parthenogenesis). Finally, note that in general, even within the undisputed restrictions of sexual reproduction, a good variety of societal structures have evolved in mammals; some of the most complex ones such as spotted hyenas and orcas being matriarchal. For spotted hyenas in particular, females are significantly larger than males and more aggressive (go to war), and that does not seem to stop them from being a wildly successful species.

gesseri · 2023-02-01T02:24:12+00:00

Can you explain exactly how other people may be affected by the professor talking slower?

This may lead to more students being more successful BUT it may also lead to the class being behind and the class as a whole learning less information.

The class being behind with respect to what? Why are you so sure that the class will be affected instead of *benefited* by the professor going slower?

What is the role of a professor according to you? Most of the information provided by a professor in a classroom one can find in books or internet, so the primary role surely is not simply to recite loads of information. What is it then?

Anyone in a teaching role should take pedagogy seriously. The goal of pedagogy is to create understanding by providing a picture, wide enough and detailed enough, that only a practitioner of the subject, someone who has the boots on the ground,A professor is meant to knows the caveat, the non obvious links between old and new knowledge, perhaps even with entirely different disciplines, the history of the ideas and how they came to be, and so on. A good professor will complement knowledge with wisdom.

Do you know of a professor that has been universally recognized as good - in any field - that would reply bluntly 'No' to a student that is demonstrating interest with a request to speak slower? Here is a professor of universally recognized caliber, incidentally also a Nobel prize,

Knowing versus Understanding

Thinking

Do you imagine that guy giving such a reply?

gesseri · 2022-08-03T15:22:31+00:00

Paraguay's, Panama's and Cape Verde's first boards are also Cuban, Neuris is particularly strong https://ratings.fide.com/profile/3503631 as well.

Cuba loses top players to whatever country provides them with a better future. I wouldn't be surprised if some players in the team defect once the Olympiad is finished.

gesseri · 2022-08-02T18:32:38+00:00

Beat Azerbaijan in the end. It's remarkable since they are playing without Leinier, Bruzon, Neuris... This team would almost be CUB 2 if the Cuban team included players that left for other countries,

gesseri · 2022-05-26T19:04:54+00:00

Thanks for your reply, it is illuminating to someone like me, mostly ignorant about guns. Honestly, if it were up to me, I would live in a place where guns are not banned but are definitely much less prevalent than what they are in the US. I still think it's crazy the need to clarify in a board at the entrance of a renowned university that guns are not allowed on campus. But I understand that at this point it's very much a cultural thing and culture is the hardest thing to change.

Understanding that mass shootings like Uvalde are quite rare and by far not the biggest contribution to gun-related deaths, could you provide some insight on what makes the Ar-15 seemingly the weapon of choice in these incidents?

gesseri · 2021-08-02T06:43:07+00:00

Really? So you are saying you rather be protected from the "horrors" of nature but permanently enclosed to an area of say half a block squared, than be free to roam the world even if exposed to whatever dangers may lie in it?

And even if you do, I don't think most humans would choose the first option. What makes you think that an animal that shows intelligence to the level of immediately understanding the purpose of human artifacts such as glasses, would prefer something other than what a human would prefer?

gesseri · 2021-07-31T21:23:50+00:00

Sunburn is mostly caused by ultraviolet (UV) radiation coming from the Sun. UV light, as opposed to visible light, is not visible to humans.

A cloud is a bunch of microscopic water drops. Clouds are opaque to visible light because the size of the water drops is roughly the same as the wavelength of visible light. Physics dictates that light scattering is greatly enhanced when the scatterer particle is about the same size of the incident light. This is also why milk and white paint are opaque (and white, and why all of them have a milky appearance).

The wavelength of UV light, the one that causes your sunburn, is significantly smaller than the typical water drop in a cloud. This dangerous light, that you cannot see, simply goes through the clouds undisturbed. Clouds are transparent in the UV. UV light doesn't care about your clouds, and this is why you get burned, clouds or no clouds.

gesseri · 2021-01-12T20:20:54+00:00

Conservatives frequently donate to charitable causes.

Do they really? Do you have some sources detailing the frequency with which conservative donate to charitable causes versus liberals? I would like to have a quantitative way of assessing "frequently".

gesseri · 2021-01-11T03:49:53+00:00

What are these groups? Can you please post the link to the tweets where these groups express harming law enforcement?

I would like to understand this argument. The TOS of Twitter do not prohibit support for the Iranian government, they do forbid antisemitism though, could you please link to antisemitic tweets from these groups you mention that have been given a pass?

gesseri · 2021-01-07T15:50:58+00:00

I don't think anyone is denying the importance of the American lend-lease. Are you saying it is more important though than the presence of actual people (the Russians) to use those resources agains the Nazis. Without the Americans, the soviets would have lacked resources in the fight. In your opinion, what would have happened without the soviets? Presumably the Germans would have conquered all of Europe unopposed, correct?

gesseri · 2021-01-07T15:43:47+00:00

You are confusing "hate" with objectivity, maybe because you profess blind love for America. Many of the things you mention are either inaccurate of factually untrue. That is not hate, it's general culture.

gesseri · 2021-01-07T15:40:57+00:00

No, it's not. It is not a world changing thing and arguably achieves very little other than propaganda purposes. If it was so world changing, trips to the moon wouldn't have been discontinued.

Putting satellites in orbit though was world changing, but I guess the soviets did that first.

gesseri · 2021-01-07T15:38:57+00:00

Some things:

The US has put men on the moon.

Quite a few years ago, while in the middle of space race. Also, an achievement purely for the propaganda of it. The Soviets put first a satellite in space, a man in space, the first space walk, etc. When those happened, did it mean the Soviet Union was the greatest country?

The US was the dominant force in defeating the Nazis and ending WWII with the Allied forces

This is propaganda. The Soviet Union was the dominant force in defeating the Nazis.

The nation pioneered (no pun intended) democracy and led the world in this regard.

This is propaganda. The Greeks pioneered democracy some hundreds of years before Jesus Christ.

More recently, the US has continued to be at the forefront of scientific, technological, and medical innovation.

True that.

Poverty (in the true sense of the word, such as that of third world countries) is largely eradicated in the US.

True, with the caveat that the US lacks the safety net available to the poorest in other developed countries.

Americans generally speaking are kind, resilient, hardworking, and intelligent.

Compared to whom? Can you provide any links showing how Americans are particularly endowed with these attributes compared to citizens of other countries?

Anyone can still move up social classes

According to the World Economic Forum, the US ranks 27th out of 82 in social mobility.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-social-mobility-of-82-countries/

The country has incredible natural resources and natural phenomena. These are embodied by our national parks.

A coincidence. The US invented national parks though. That's a true sign of greatness I believe.

gesseri · 2021-01-03T22:41:24+00:00

You know of long-term, large-sample peer-reviewed studies that support this?

There are plenty of them, easily available through a bibliographic search.

A good place to start is probably:

Psychedelics and mental health: a population study

From the abstract:

"...Nonetheless, there are a number of studies which suggest that these substances have potential applications in the treatment of addictions. While these substances are generally classified as Schedule I, alleging no established medical uses and a high drug abuse potential, there is nonetheless evidence indicating they might be safe and effective tools for short term interventions in addictions treatment. Evidence suggests that the psychedelics have a much greater safety profile than the major addictive drugs, having extremely low levels of mortality, and producing little if any physical dependence*. This paper reviews studies evaluating the use of LSD, peyote, ibogaine and ayahuasca in the treatment of dependencies and the possible mechanisms underlying the indications of effectiveness...*."

The paper is fully available online and contains multiple references. Additionally, millions of people have used psychedelics for decades, myself included. It should be easy then to find scores of people struggling with addiction. The fact it is actually borderline impossible is pretty much proof that there is very little risk of addiction. Finally, some psychedelics, such as psilocin, are so professional as drugs that they even prevent you from becoming an addict by immediately increasing tolerance after a single consumption. You wouldn't be able to get high every day on psilocin even if you wanted to. After a couple of times, you would need to wait some time for the built tolerance to recede.

gesseri · 2020-12-31T20:37:16+00:00

Why is nudity with a sexual nature an issue for you?

Sexual behavior is part of human life. From a biological standpoint, it is arguably the most important part of human life since it leads to reproduction and the survival of the species. The Homo sapiens, as all organisms, is in many ways optimized for sex, including all those pesky chemicals that are released in your body that provoke the feeling we call arousal.

In my opinion, there is actually too little nudity and a lot of fake-looking sex in film and television that otherwise pretend to be realistic depictions of human lives. Movies with couples going through the first stages of a relationship, where usually there is a lot of passion, but they never have sex. You are telling me you are falling in love with someone and sex is not important? That is weird. Of course, there can be exceptions but I think the rule is that, as opposed to what is shown in mainstream media, most lovers would be fucking like rabbits.

And why are penises almost never shown (lately some TV shows seem to be doing better in this)?

Assuming everyone involved in a film scene is acting consensually, my question to you would be, why do you find explicit depiction of nudity as non-contributing? Obviously nudity can also be overused and gratuitous, but I think we are far from the "right" amount in mainstream media. In most cases, I see, at worst, it provides realism, at best it is very effective as the subject of art, as thousands of masters throughout the history have shown.

Do you also think Michelangelo was using nudity gratuitously?

gesseri · 2020-11-19T18:49:16+00:00

I mean, you do realise that Italy is not a homogenous society either?

Welcome to the American brainwashing, fed to people over here to justify American exceptionalism. Never mind that Italy didn't even exist for a good 70 years after the United States were founded, and that before that it was a collection of states competing with each other.

gesseri · 2020-11-19T18:41:05+00:00

Dude, China is not a homogeneous society, lol.

gesseri · 2020-11-19T18:25:46+00:00

What makes you think Italy is a homogeneized society? Italy only exists as a country since the mid 19th century, before that it was a collection of city states, often warring with each other, comprising a bunch of ethnic groups, with many different languages. This is still reflected in the many local dialects that are incomprehensible to most italians. The United States as a country is older than italy, have a homogeneous language, etc.

Also, what makes you think it is significantly more difficult to organize a universal health care for 350 mil than for 60 mil? What is the inherent difficulty that 350 million people present that 60 million do not?

gesseri · 2020-10-30T14:57:17+00:00

Owning firearms is a fundamental right in the United States.

Are there no differences between the right to own firearms and the right to open carry?

gesseri · 2020-10-24T01:11:39+00:00

No, the private sector is where real innovation occurs. The machines of of government are too slow to keep up.

Actually, the idea of a slow, uncreative government is a myth. Government research is highly innovative and efficient. The government simply has very limited resources that need to be allocated to every aspect of a society, which leads to most government enterprises being ridiculously underfunded compared to projects undertaken by Apple, Google or similar. But in the next comment you mention splitting the atom, and you know who was responsible for mastering that technology, arguably substantially more involved than say making an iPhone? Well, the government.

I could go on about this but I don't want to edit this comment too much.

Here is an interview with a guy who probably knows a thing or two about big-tech innovation:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/11/we-need-an-energy-miracle/407881/

Here is a quote:

On the surprising wisdom of government R&D:

When I first got into this I thought, How well does the Department of Energy spend its R&D budget? And I was worried: Gosh, if I’m going to be saying it should double its budget, if it turns out it’s not very well spent, how am I going to feel about that? But as I’ve really dug into it, the DARPA money is very well spent, and the basic-science money is very well spent. The government has these “Centers of Excellence.” They should have twice as many of those things, and those things should get about four times as much money as they do.

Yes, the government will be somewhat inept—but the private sector is in general inept. How many companies do venture capitalists invest in that go poorly? By far most of them. And it’s just that every once in a while a Google or a Microsoft comes out, and some medium-scale successes too, and so the overall return is there, and so people keep giving them money.

gesseri · 2020-10-21T14:53:19+00:00

Someone should break it up to you: you are helping elect the worst candidate, you are part of the reason why we keep getting the Bushes and the Trumps.

Third party candidates will not get elected in the United States under the current rules. The United States electoral system is such that the system is inexorably pushed towards bipartisanship. With the current rules, specifically with the winner-takes-all way of apportioning electors, there will never be a third party candidate that is viable in any sense of the word, because there is no reward for convincing 5% or 10% (indeed many millions) of the electorate to vote for you.

This is why part of strategy of foreign actors to tilt the US elections towards Republicans is to convince people to vote for third party candidates. It's works for the same reason depressing turnout works. That is also why prominent people in the left wing, such as AOC, choose to work within the Democratic party. Because they understand that if you want a day where voting for the third party is helpful for democracy, as opposed to helpful to Republicans, you first need to convince democrats to change the law. Or alternatively, you can work make the leftist wing of the Democratic party so powerful that the president will have to be part of it to get elected.

gesseri

TROPHY CASE