Intro

[you can skip this section if you don’t need context and just want to know how I could believe such a crazy thing]

In my chat community: “Open Play” dropped, a book that says there’s no physical difference between men and women so there shouldn’t be separate sports leagues. Boston Globe says their argument is compelling. Discourse happens, which is mostly a bunch of people saying “lololololol great trolling, what idiot believes such obvious nonsense?”

I urge my friends to be compassionate to those sharing this. Because “until I was 38 I thought Men's World Cup team vs Women's World Cup team would be a fair match and couldn't figure out why they didn't just play each other to resolve the big pay dispute.” This is the one-line summary of a recent personal world-shattering I describe in a lot more detail here (link).

I’ve had multiple people express disbelief that this is possible. Here is how it is possible.

Who Are You Going To Believe? Everything Everyone Says Plus Everything You See, or Some Science-Illiterate Jerks?

As I talk about frequently on this blog¹, autistic people have a natural tendency to believe that when other people say things they are trying to truthfully communicate what they actually believe. Because otherwise what’s the point?? Several friends say “Yes ok, but you have eyes, right? You can see things yourself?”

Can I? What is it I saw, when I looked around?

I grew up in a suburb of a small Blue city in the 90s. I did not see men fighting women. My time was spent in school where teachers interact via words and chalkboards. My peers were children and their strength was proportional to what grade they were in, not their sex. My siblings were younger than me, so weaker. My babysitter was older than me, so she was stronger. All adults were functionally infinitely strong.

At recess I read books. I opted out of gym as much as possible, it was humiliating and vulgar. The only post-puberty phys ed class I was forced to take was sex segregated so I wouldn't have had any opportunity to see differences. In earlier gym classes I didn’t look around much. Why would I? Are people comparing themselves to see how many jumping jacks they can do? I just wanted it to be done with.

I didn’t watch sports, but even when I was exposed to them they were already sex-segregated, so how could I have observed that women are having a hard time against men? Mostly I just no...

Epistemic Luck

Blog posts

See also

Epistemic Luck

Blog posts

See also