Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 06:13:24 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Glinner: thread for backseat moderators and hand-wringing [split topic]

Started by QDRPHNC, June 20, 2020, 03:25:31 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

JaDanketies

People criticise echo chambers and bubbles, but really, why do I need Brietbart piped on to my phone? I feel like I've got a wideish understanding about a lot of things - for instance the hairdresser the other day was talking about Qanon and I knew quite a bit about it. Do I really need to actually watch Qanon videos? Can I not just read a Snopes article about it?

I mean imho Snopes is a reliable source and Qanon is not one. If I started engaging with Qanon or Brietbart to avoid echo chambers, whose to say I wouldn't potentially find it convincing and compelling? Is it really worth the risk?

Frankly, though, I feel like I am fully aware of the GC counter-arguments, and I find them devoid of substance.

Oz Oz Alice

People only criticise echo chambers when the conversation isn't going their way: they'd be incredibly happy if you just backed down and agreed with them. It's not the echo that's the problem, it's that they don't like the sound bouncing off the walls.

Blue Jam

Quote from: JaDanketies on July 26, 2020, 01:26:51 PM
People criticise echo chambers and bubbles, but really, why do I need Brietbart piped on to my phone?

It's been said many times before that FREEZE PEACH warriors already have the right to speak freely and what they're really demanding is the right to a platform. Some of them now seem to be going even further and demanding the right to pipe their words into the heads of people who would rather ignore them.

Perhaps there's a place for that- for example, trying to make people listen to what government scientific advisors have to say about coronavirus- but why should I be forced to read what a former MP with no experience of lab work thinks about Tim Hunt? Why should I care what a gay man who hates video games has to say about women's experiences of Gamergate? Why should I listen to what a sitcom writer says about trans issues?

I don't think I'm being wilfully ignorant in deciding that there is nothing of value I could learn from these people on these subjects. Ditto for not wanting to get my "facts" on the Trump presidency from an obvious propaganda outlet like Breitbart, or read about cancer-causing foods in the Daily Mail.

tao of wub

Quote from: Zetetic on July 26, 2020, 05:58:17 AM
This is an extremely stupid and very dangerous route to go down. It ultimately points towards denying people access to support with all sorts of issues - not just gender dysphoria - on the basis of gross neurology.

Why should this be?  It isn't phrenology?  I certainly was NOT advocating for abuse of science to deny people support etc..

You seem very upset by these ideas.  I agree that science is open to abuse, but it does not make it untrue.  Why should we seek to deny people anything?

If we look at very clearly observable body issues, like say an x-ray of a bone, we could observe that it is broken or not and give treatment or not.  There is more to observe in a brain.  This is not about denying, this is about giving a medical intervention if it is required and the patient wants it.  So is observing skeletal structure by x-ray a dangerous idea?

Your objections seem to be routed in possible abuses within a cultural context, imho.

I don't mind if you think otherwise, your brains structure IS you and your consciousness.  This doesn't mean the science should be used to oppress people.  Why should we even try and medically address something like being gay?

You might as well have said, "Sorry, your MRI results show you don't actually enjoy Mozart, please go to prison"

There is still a lot to learn in neurology, this is true.  You seem to advocate for closing the research down.

Sorry if my post was general in some parts, it was already too long.  This is a comedy forum, not a journal, so I was trying to open some ground for discussion and lay out the basic reasons for variation to those who might have no science background.

JaDanketies

I guess Sun headlines like 'Abortion Hope after Gay Gene found' could be another reason people are concerned.

I don't have any issues with a further understanding of gender dysphoria. I guess it would be more about how these scientific discoveries are put into practice. Like it's one thing to study nuclear fission reactions and it's another thing to drop a bomb over Hiroshima.

This makes me think about one aspect of this whole debate I'm not familiar with - the word 'truscum' might be used to refer to it. My understanding of transgender identity is that it stems from gender dysphoria, but I believe this might have be labelled 'truscum'. I guess I don't understand why someone would change their gender without feeling some dysphoria. Perhaps I should Google it in a spare moment.

Bernice

Genuine question this: did (online?) arguments always devolve into arguments about arguments or is that a fairly recent thing? My feeling is that it's only over the past few years a disagreement online is never two steps away from an "Oh you can't even express an opinion/ ask a question/ disavow the consensus without being pilloried!" With the result that the original opinion/question/disavowal under discussion is gradually emptied of all content and just becomes "a proposition" in the abstract. Somehow the argument becomes about epistemology, praxis and a battle for discourse itself and the actual subject gradually recedes in the rear view mirror.

tao of wub

Quote from: Zetetic on July 26, 2020, 06:03:38 AM
But that's quite different to arguing that someone's feelings and beliefs actually exist or not on the basis of a CT scan.)

If you have the feeling then it exists. 

CT scan is not a fine enough tool really.  Functional MRI and the like are about gross features.  There is a long way to go.

I think though that I understand now.

You obviously are not pleased by the notion that consciousness, your whole vital you is essentially conjured out of a complex mass of membranes, chemical potentials, electrical potentials etc..

Some take comfort in religion, or notions of a vital unknown self that somehow transcends the physical bounds of their body.

To each their own.

Zetetic

Quote from: tao of wub on July 26, 2020, 02:29:24 PM
If we look at very clearly observable body issues, like say an x-ray of a bone, we could observe that it is broken or not and give treatment or not.  There is more to observe in a brain.
The relationship between mental states and brain states is not the same as functional states and physical states of a bone.

(This isn't an argument for mind-brain duality.)

QuoteThis is not about denying, this is about giving a medical intervention if it is required and the patient wants it.
No, you made it about whether people are "really women". Whether a trans person is lying or not, according to your account, depends on gross neuroanatomy.

QuoteYour objections seem to be routed in possible abuses within a cultural context, imho.
Yes, they're based on making sense of these claims in human society, correct.

QuoteI don't mind if you think otherwise, your brains structure IS you and your consciousness.
So, to be clear, if we can't find the right brain structure to support your claims about your identity, then you're a liar?

To go back to your earlier post:
Quotethere are some very good, hard science studies which support the case for transwomen being real women"
If we found no convincing sensitive and specific neuroanatomical markers of (true?) transgenderism, does this support the case the transwomen are all liars?

(We have, of course, found no such markers because that's not how complex states like "being transgender" actually work in humans.)


QuoteSorry if my post was general in some parts, it was already too long.
Please don't try to handwave making claims that are inaccurate in their details and hateful in their principles as being too clever for the rest of us.


Zetetic

Quote from: tao of wub on July 26, 2020, 02:41:07 PM
You obviously are not pleased by the notion that consciousness, your whole vital you is essentially conjured out of a complex mass of membranes, chemical potentials, electrical potentials etc..
This has never once been an issue for me.

Nothing I have said is, in any fashion, arguing for any kind of dualism.

tao of wub

Quote from: JaDanketies on July 26, 2020, 02:35:57 PM
I guess it would be more about how these scientific discoveries are put into practice. Like it's one thing to study nuclear fission reactions and it's another thing to drop a bomb over Hiroshima.

I totally agree.  All knowledge can lead to abuse of the power it yields.  It is not the reason to censor the striving for understanding though?  A functional society seeks to avoid h-bombing other nations or locking people up because they have this or that observable characteristic.

Understanding the nature of disease has lead to biological warfare being studied, but it has also brought many benefits to us.  I personally don't like the bio warriors, I did not set up their programs and fund their research.

People have been cunts without the need for science.  In the past people used their eyes to separate each other by skin colour, making some slaves and some masters.  No MRI machines required.

It would be better surely to try and address the sociological problems of bigotry and hate that lead to the abuses?

Just because society is full of cunts doesn't mean we shouldn't try and further our understanding of how complicated things work, saying it is too dangerous well, you might as well become a Jehovah's Witness.

Zetetic

Quote from: JaDanketies on July 26, 2020, 02:35:57 PM
I don't have any issues with a further understanding of gender dysphoria. I guess it would be more about how these scientific discoveries are put into practice. Like it's one thing to study nuclear fission reactions and it's another thing to drop a bomb over Hiroshima.

Sure. But "neuroanatomy can validate transgender people's claims about their gender" isn't a scientific position.

It's a philosophical one that chooses to privilege neuroanatomy as "hard" or "real" and people's beliefs, attitudes, experiences and feelings as fundamentally irrelevant.

Starting from these positions is fundamentally dangerous and horrible.

Zetetic

Quote from: tao of wub on July 26, 2020, 02:50:59 PM
Just because society is full of cunts doesn't mean we shouldn't try and further our understanding of how complicated things work, saying it is too dangerous well, you might as well become a Jehovah's Witness.
That's not what I've said though, is it?

Deciding that I don't need neuroanatomical markers of identity to take someone seriously isn't the same as wanting to avoid furthering understanding.

Arguably, this belief that complex persistent mental states can be readily reduced to neuroanatomical features and that only the latter provides "hard" evidence of the reality of the content of the former reflects both a determination to a) grossly oversimplify how humans actually work and b) avoid a serious engagement with mental states under physicalism in favour of some kind of half-hearted epiphenomenalism.

tao of wub

Quote from: Zetetic on July 26, 2020, 02:48:09 PM
T
Please don't try to handwave making claims that are inaccurate in their details and hateful in their principles as being too clever for the rest of us.

This part of my post referred specifically to the bit about variation in genetics and nurture leading to variation in the individual, which is a very general statement of course.

I am not going to type out a library about a general and established idea am I?  Focussing on that to say I am 'handwaving' is arguing in bad faith imho.

It has nothing to do with trying to say, 'ha ha, I'm too clever for the rest of you, just listen to what I say'.

I have made no hateful statements or vouched support for hateful ideas.  I have not advocated for using functional MRI or the like to interrogate somebody and call them invalid or a liar.  You are worried about such.  I have no interest in abusing people like this.

Don't listen to what I say if you don't want to, it makes no diffence really.

Believe whatever you want to believe about what I have said.

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Bernice on July 26, 2020, 02:40:40 PM
Genuine question this: did (online?) arguments always devolve into arguments about arguments or is that a fairly recent thing? My feeling is that it's only over the past few years a disagreement online is never two steps away from an "Oh you can't even express an opinion/ ask a question/ disavow the consensus without being pilloried!" With the result that the original opinion/question/disavowal under discussion is gradually emptied of all content and just becomes "a proposition" in the abstract. Somehow the argument becomes about epistemology, praxis and a battle for discourse itself and the actual subject gradually recedes in the rear view mirror.
This is a thread specifically to keep those "arguments about arguments" away from another thread. And, I've been on here since 2005, and on forums more generally since the late 90s, and the style of argument hasn't changed much. I suspect there was never a golden age.

Zetetic

Quote from: tao of wub on July 26, 2020, 03:07:17 PM
a very general statement of course.
To the point of being meaningless. (In contrast to specific claims about particular causal routes and their relative significance.)

QuoteI have made no hateful statements or vouched support for hateful ideas.
You've said that people's beliefs about who they are[nb]Specifically with reference to gender.[/nb] can be undermined or vindicated by looking at the meat in our heads.

Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse

Quote from: Kryton on July 26, 2020, 12:28:10 PM
Yep. I'm not going to even bother listening now - It's really fucking annoyed me and generally not made me enthusiastic about even engaging with this anymore. Some extremely toxic people in this thread

SHUT UP, DON'T HAVE OPINIONS, IF YOU DO HAVE AN OPINION YOU'RE A SHIT-EATING, TRANSPHOBE WHO VOTES TORY. DON'T ASK QUESTIONS WE'RE BORED OF QUESTIONS.

Ffs - No wonder people are avoiding some subjects like the plague.

Is this what the modern left are turning into? Absolute state of this. I'm fucking tempted to leave tbh. People are right about this place turning into an echo chamber.

Cookdandbombd used to be a really good place, unique even - but it's just turning into Reddit/Twitter with that bullshit hive-mind, back-slapping bullying crowd that the modern internet seems to be. Seems like I'm not alone in this opinion either.
No. Stop. Come back.

Several people have attempted to explain to you, both patiently and impatiently, how gross it is for the "normals" to sit around debating exactly how freaky the "freaks" are and you're just not arsed trying to understand. And that's me assuming you really don't understand. You'd rather be Offended because that's what you like best. That's your preferred emotional state.

tao of wub

Quote from: Zetetic on July 26, 2020, 03:01:29 PM
That's not what I've said though, is it?

Arguably, this belief that complex persistent mental states can be readily reduced to neuroanatomical features

No, it was what I said.

We have a very large difference in opinion.  I believe that complex mental states can be reduced to neuroanatomical features, (and all the parameters of chemical/electrical potentials, which means all the positions of ions, solvents, proteins etc etc.).

The amount of data involved in describing a brain is large.  The tools are crude.

Other parts of science, such as psychology take a broader approach, as you well know.

I suspect that at some point, we will see a simple animal brain synthesised from individual parts.

If you could arrange all the chemicals found making up a more complex human brain just so, then you would have created that person, their memories and personality, in my opinion.

This kind of thing is never going to be achievable, but it is not an idea that is hateful.

The problem is in society not in the science.

Zetetic

Quote from: tao of wub on July 26, 2020, 03:20:18 PM
If you could arrange all the chemicals found making up a more complex human brain just so, then you would have created that person, their memories and personality, in my opinion.
This isn't what is under discussion, please stop trying to derail this into "I am physicalist, you are religious nutter".

It comes back to:
If we have found no convincing sensitive and specific neuroanatomical markers of transgenderism, does this support the case the transwomen are all liars?

chveik

it's not a problem of not having enough data, it's a question of perspective

you're probably not hateful but this

Quote from: tao of wub on July 26, 2020, 02:41:07 PM
You obviously are not pleased by the notion that consciousness, your whole vital you is essentially conjured out of a complex mass of membranes, chemical potentials, electrical potentials etc..

Some take comfort in religion, or notions of a vital unknown self that somehow transcends the physical bounds of their body.

To each their own.

is Dawkins-tier cuntery

Endicott

Quote from: tao of wub on July 26, 2020, 03:20:18 PM
The amount of data involved in describing a brain is large.  The tools are crude.

You've just summed up Zet's original objection to what you said, but when you read his post containing that objection you chose to see it as evidence of him being spiritual. It was a weird take on your part and to be honest I'm still giggling about it.

Zetetic

Quote from: chveik on July 26, 2020, 03:25:00 PM
you're probably not hateful
It's perhaps worth noting that I've met trans people who take refuge in the neurobollocks as well.

I'm sure it's well-meaning to point at these differences in regional cortical thickness or structure volume[nb]With effect sizes of the order of d= 0.2 or something, unless you've got very lucky with your 13 or so subjects[/nb] as say "Look, you weren't full of shit all along!".

JaDanketies

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on July 26, 2020, 03:08:21 PM
This is a thread specifically to keep those "arguments about arguments" away from another thread. And, I've been on here since 2005, and on forums more generally since the late 90s, and the style of argument hasn't changed much. I suspect there was never a golden age.

It kinda evokes the 'political correctness gone mad' arguments of the late 90s and 00s, or, on the other side of the coin, the 'you being offended doesn't mean I'm wrong' arguments of the 00s 'new atheist' movement. Or the 'tone policing' arguments of 'social justice' types in the 2010s. Or 'triggered,' even. Always an attempt to derail the substance of the argument by complaining about various aspects of your detractors' arguments.

tao of wub

Quote from: Zetetic on July 26, 2020, 03:11:41 PM
You've said that people's beliefs about who they are[nb]Specifically with reference to gender.[/nb] can be undermined or vindicated by looking at the meat in our heads.

It doesn't have to be specific to gender.  I drew some attention to some studies.  They offended you.

People are what they are.  People are also made of 'meat'.  So what, get over it.  When you talk to somebody, you are effectively examining the meat in their heads through a few layers of abstraction.

Not interested in arguing, you consistently try and make my posts about something that they are not.

canadagoose

This thread is even more of a wild ride every time I click it. It's like the forum's concentrated torrent of irritation. I have to hand it to you all, it's a fantastic exhibit.

tao of wub

Quote from: Endicott on July 26, 2020, 03:27:30 PM
You've just summed up Zet's original objection to what you said, but when you read his post containing that objection you chose to see it as evidence of him being spiritual. It was a weird take on your part and to be honest I'm still giggling about it.

Glad I could make somebody laugh.  It is a comedy forum.

Not exactly spiritual.  My knowledge that we have a long way to go on understanding neurology, does not make me less sure that people are the sum of their physical parts.

Admitting it is a complex issue is fine.  Saying it is too complex and therefore wrong is a different argument.

Nice to see neurology written off as neurobollox or whatever.

In the early days of germ theory, perhaps there were people who called it germbollox?

Thursday

People always bemoan "echo chambers" like we're not all having to deal with people who don't agree with us every day.

I want to have a nice little corner of the internet where everyone basically agrees.

Zetetic

Quote from: Zetetic on July 26, 2020, 07:01:56 AM
Looking forward to the day when they take my meds away and charge me with a decade of fraud on the basis of an MRI.
And then I'll be told I need to be less not-exactly-spiritual about it.

Zetetic

Quote from: tao of wub on July 26, 2020, 03:40:19 PM
Nice to see neurology written off as neurobollox or whatever.

In the early days of germ theory, perhaps there were people who called it germbollox?
This is exactly like this, isn't it?




If we have found no convincing sensitive and specific neuroanatomical markers of transgenderism, does this support the case that trans people are all liars?

tao of wub

Quote from: Zetetic on July 26, 2020, 03:24:54 PM
This isn't what is under discussion, please stop trying to derail this into "I am physicalist, you are religious nutter".

It comes back to:
If we have found no convincing sensitive and specific neuroanatomical markers of transgenderism, does this support the case the transwomen are all liars?

It won't matter what I say so why bother?  I don't think transgenderism is people lying.

If I try and further explain my point, it won't matter as you disagree with the heart of it.  Not tried to derail anything.  Fruitless and boring at this point.  Believe what you want.

Endicott

Quote from: tao of wub on July 26, 2020, 03:40:19 PM
Not exactly spiritual. 

You tantamount accused him of being a Xian. No wonder he's pissed.

Quote
Admitting it is a complex issue is fine.  Saying it is too complex and therefore wrong is a different argument.

Too complex to of practical use (probably in our lifetimes, but he didn't say that last bit, that's me that is).

The way politics is going, these ideas will be picked up and abused, whether the science is fully fledged or not.