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Meta: You might want to tag this as fiction so it is searchable later.
Short Story: Quarantine
June 2nd, 42 After Fall
Somewhere in the Colorado Mountains
They first caught sight of the man walking a few miles from the compound. At least it looked like a man. Faded jeans, white t-shirt, light jacket, rucksack. White skin, light brown hair. No obvious disabilities. No logos.
They kept him under surveillance as he approached. In other times they might have shot him on sight, but not now. They were painfully aware of the bounds of sustainable genetic diversity, so instead they drove over in a battered van, rifles loaded, industrial earmuffs in place. Once he was on his knees, they sent Javid the Unhearing over to bind and gag him, then bundled him into the van. No reason to risk exposure.
Javid had not always been deaf, but it was an honor. Some must sacrifice for the good of the others, and he was proud to defend the Sanctum at Rogers Ford.
Once back at the complex, they moved the man to a sound-proofed holding room and unbound him. An ancient PC sat on the desk, marked “Imp Association”. The people did not know who the Imp Association were, but they were grateful for it. Perhaps it was a gift from Olson. Praise be to Olson.
With little else to do, the man sat down and read the instructions on the screen. A series of words showed, and he was commanded to select left or right based on various different criteria. It was very confusing.
In a different room, watchers huddled around a tiny screen, looking at a series of numbers.
REP/DEM 0.0012 0.39 0.003
Good. That was a very good start.
FEM/MRA -0.0082 0.28 -0.029
SJW/NRX 0.0065 0.54 0.012
…
Eventually they passed the lines the catechism denoted “purge with fire and never speak thereof”, on to those merely marked as “highly dangerous”.
KO/PEP 0.1781 0.6 0.297
Not as good, but still within the proscribed tolerances. They would run the supplemental.
T_JCB/T_EWD -0.0008 1.2 -0.001
…
The test continued for some time, until eventually the cleric intoned, “The Trial by Fish is complete. He has passed the Snedecor Fish.” The people nodded as if they understood, then proceeded to the next stage.
This was more dangerous. This required a sacrifice.
She was young – just 15 years old. Fresh faced with long blond hair tied back, Sophia had a cute smile: she was perfect for the duty. Her family were told it was an honor to have their daughter selected.
Sophia entered the room, trepidation in her head, a smile on her face. Casually, she offered him a drink, “Hey, sorry you have to go through all this testin’. You must be hot! Would you like a co cuh?” Her relaxed intonation disguised the fact that these words were the proscribed words, passed down through generations, memorized and cherished as a ward against evil. He accepted the bottle of dark liquid and drank, before tossing the recyclable container in the bin.
In the other room, a box marked ‘ECO’ was ticked off.
“Oh, I’m sorry! I made a mistake – that’s pep-see. I’m so sorry!” she gushed in apology. He assured her it was fine.
In the other room, the cleric satisfied himself that the loyalty brand was burning at zero.
She moved on to the next proscribed question, with the ordained level of casualness, “Say, I know this is a silly question, but do you ever get a song stuck in your head?”
“Errr, what?”
“You know, like you just can’t stop singing it to yourself? Yeah?” Of course, she had no idea what this was like. She was alive.
“Ummm, sorry, no.”
She turned and left the room, relief filling her eyes.
…
After three more days of testing, the man was allowed into the compound. Despite the ravages of an evolution with a generational frequency a hundred times that of humanity, he had somehow preserved himself. He was clean of viral memetic payload. He was alive.
------
Cross-posted on my blog
Presumably most people would agree that there are people who are confused about their sexuality.
"Confused about their sexuality" is a particularly uncharitable characterization of a transgender person. Many are not confused, rather absolutely certain. Unless you're using the term "confused" as a polite way of indicating that you believe such a person to be mistaken or delusional, in which case you would be begging the question.
By the way, gender is not the same thing as sexuality.
It would only be a counterexample to that model if the student was correct, but whether or not the student is correct is precisely what we are discussing.
If one models gender as a boolean switch that can be set to either "male" or "female", and encounters an individual who has a combination of "male" and "female" characteristics, their model may not accommodate the new observation. I have watched people (who I previously considered fairly sane) break into a yelling fit when confronted with someone undergoing a gender transition, demanding to know their "real" gender and hurling insults when the response was not what they expected.
in which case you would be begging the question.
No, I am explaining how the appearance of transgender people is consistent with the conservative view: they are simply confused. I am not assuming anything.
I don't know the LessWrong-like answer, so I can only offer you the human, empathic answer.
Based on the phrasing of your question:
whether someone born a male but who identifies as female is indeed female
and the fact that you have posted it to LessWrong, I understand it to be a question about constructing a useful and consistent model of the human condition, rather than about respecting an actual or hypothetical human being. If so, I think you are asking the wrong question.
Your students want to learn from you, but on a more basic level, they want to feel safe with you. If you have a trans student, or a student with a trans friend/relative, she is likely to take your answer to this question very personally. Your choice boils down to whether you offer a personal welcome (by recognizing your student's identity) or a personal affront (by implying that you have more authority than she does to determine who she "really is").
I should add that it is a common failure mode for humans, when confronted with a counterexample to their existing model of the human condition, to insist that their model is correct and that the fellow human they are dealing with is a bad data point. As well as rude and demeaning, this approach is irrational and intellectually dishonest.
a counterexample to their existing model of the human condition
I'm not sure how this could be counted as a counterexample to anyone's model. Presumably most people would agree that there are people who are confused about their sexuality. It would only be a counterexample to that model if the student was correct, but whether or not the student is correct is precisely what we are discussing.
If James agreed with the student, this would not be a counterexample to his beliefs, and if he disagrees with the student, it he would not agree that they represented a counterexample to the model.
In response to
Stupid Questions May 2015
What does it mean to be female? It has to be something such that babies, animals and people in tribal cultures can be classified as female or not. Lets call this property, that baby girls, hens and women in hunter-gatherer tribes share, and baby boys etc. do not, property P. People who identify as female are presumably claiming they have property P, and presumably think this is a substantive claim.
Now, could P be something such that merely believing you had property P, made you have property P? Certainly there are some properties like this:
- X has P if and only if ( X has two x chromosomes OR X believes ( X has property P ) )
but I think this is clearly unsatisfactory. For example, it would mean that an ordinary young boy who, upon being taught about gender for the first time, was momentarily mistaken and thought he was female, would instantly become female. And it would mean that transwomen were asserting a disjunction of a falsehood and a weird recursive clause.
There are social-role based alternatives, along the lines of
- X has P if and only if ( X wishes to be treated in the typical manner of people with property P )
but this doesn't work for Tomboys, who wish to be treated broadly like boys but are nonetheless definitely girls. Nor does it work for extreme feminists, who do not wish women (including themselves) to be treated in the typical way women are treated.
Now, whether believing something is sufficient to make it true is of course a separate issue from what is politically prudent of you to say. My guess is that your students would ask you this question have a few motivations:
- If you say that the map is not the territory, they can safely reject you as an outdated and uncaring reactionary, and will reject what you say on other subjects.
- If you say that believing things makes them true, they can say "even our ultra-conservative republican lecturer agrees".
My advice to you is to say 'mu'. Ask your students what they mean by female, or why they are asking. Then you can respond in the correct manner according to their definition, pointing out that if they don't like the answer, maybe they didn't really mean that definition.
FWIW, I unsubbed from MR shortly after subscribing. It kind of felt like reading through someone else's RSS feed, with small amounts of commentary which often assumed more economic literacy than I actually have.
I think of it as outsourcing my RSS feed.
Obviously YMMV; I work in investment.
In response to
Who are your favourite rationalist bloggers?
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I don't suppose someone who knows lisp (?) could explain the comment someone made on reddit here ? Despite writing the original story, I don't understand their explanation!