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Zealous

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Mar 24, 2009
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the phobic said:
Zealous said:
Oh, I see. So they're not really Russian soldiers then? I mean, I have no way to disprove that they're Russian soldiers so I can't say for sure that they are Russian soldiers. So for right now I'll just assume that they're not Russian soldiers.

Got it.
Uh, evidence? Are you saying because there is a lot of evidence that Russian soldiers are in Ukraine that that is comparable to saying someone has fear or is discriminating because they disagree with you?

What you are lacking is any evidence that there is fear or discrimination.
I was referring to your sock account. Called "The Phobic".
 

Colour Scientist

Troll the Respawn, Jeremy!
Jul 15, 2009
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Lovely Mixture said:
this thread will actually be the primary source of salt for the next 400 years.

To me the best part is people finally admitting that acting like an asshole on twitter is not ok, but only once it comes from someone they don't like.

Zealous said:
Allowing this website to be the platform for misogyny and terrorism (which is what a politically motivated school shooting threat is you ignorant fucks)
the award for most hyperbole goes to....
You do realise that there have been threads about MovieBob's Twitter antics for years, right?

Long before this shit happened.

As an aside, I wish people would stop using the word salt in every bloody post.
 

mecegirl

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May 19, 2013
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Stewie Plisken said:
So, why exactly is this move fishy? Should new hirings only be on one side of the political spectrum? Wasn't the fact that so many of the old contributors leaned on only one side a problem in and on itself? Hell, if they weren't all politically identical in the first place, would the firings raise any alarms to begin with?
Its fishy because on top of his political leanings he hasn't seemed to have done any work on videogames before. No one has posted any personal blogs or video's that he has done in his spare time about videogames, or even movies and comics. His work is political in nature,his twitter comments are political in nature. He himself may like geeky things but so do us all. Do we all get a job at the Escapist now? Hell, there are most likely regular Escapist uses who have a larger backlog of videogame related content that they have done in their spare time than this guy.

What is this guy being hired for? What did he do, say, or write that showed the staff that he would contribute great content for this site? The folks here don't know and would probably like to know. In the meantime his politics are all that he has to talk about. You notice despite not knowing much about this Liz person that was also hired that no one is really talking about her, but that's because she doesn't have a history like this guy does. And from what folks have found that history includes openly deriding trans individuals.
 

Zealous

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Mar 24, 2009
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the phobic said:
Zealous said:
the phobic said:
I was referring to your sock account. Called "The Phobic".
Well, aren't you the master-debater.
It's not a debate if one side refuses to acknowledge information taken from credible sources and dismisses that information as "just your opinion, man".

I never accepted a debate. When an individual on the internet disagrees with you and one of you communicates with the other that is not an invitation to debate. It is a disagreement.

You made an account with the intent of pissing of people who agree with all of the medical (and sociological) community in saying that sex and gender are two different things and that these two subjects are far more complex than a simple unchangeable random binary assignment in utero. Congrats you got me pissed. Good for you.
 

Thaluikhain

Elite Member
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Jan 16, 2010
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the phobic said:
That is your opinion. Why should we consider appearance important at all let alone more important than DNA? I know about those genetic issues and I would like to move in the direction of embracing diversity rather than dogma and stereotypes.
How many people actually get DNA tested to find out their gender?

Transgender people suffer greatly at the hands of a society that likes to tell them they don't exist. It doesn't stop them from existing (beyond killing them), it just makes things much harder for them. Is it really too much to ask that we treat people will some basic respect? Does it matter to anyone else if someone is trans or cis gender?
 

the phobic

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Feb 22, 2015
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Zealous said:
the phobic said:
Zealous said:
the phobic said:
I was referring to your sock account. Called "The Phobic".
Well, aren't you the master-debater.
It's not a debate if one side refuses to acknowledge information taken from credible sources and dismisses that information as "just your opinion, man".

I never accepted a debate. When an individual on the internet disagrees with you and one of you communicates with the other that is not an invitation to debate. It is a disagreement.

You made an account with the intent of pissing of people who agree with all of the medical community in saying that sex and gender are two different things and that these two subjects are far more complex than a simple unchangeable random binary assignment in utero. Congrats you got me pissed. Good for you.
Where is your "information from credible sources" that I am a sock puppet?

I treat argument/debate as synonyms.

You are asserting that my motive was to piss people off. You are doing little other than asserting.

Gender and sex are defined as being two different things. I think gender is a bad concept.
 

the phobic

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Feb 22, 2015
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thaluikhain said:
How many people actually get DNA tested to find out their gender?

Transgender people suffer greatly at the hands of a society that likes to tell them they don't exist. It doesn't stop them from existing (beyond killing them), it just makes things much harder for them. Is it really too much to ask that we treat people will some basic respect? Does it matter to anyone else if someone is trans or cis gender?
Does society tell them they don't exist? Society may tell them that their definitions are disagreed with. Truth should not be determined by feelings.

You are not arguing with me if you think we should treat people with basic respect. "Basic respect" is not forcing other's to accept your definitions.

EDIT: Many on your side seem to consider "basic respect" to consist of forcing everyone to agree with you at the barrel of a boycott/vilification/ostracism.
 

Areloch

It's that one guy
Dec 10, 2012
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JoJo said:
the phobic said:
If you define maleness/femaleness as based on genetics than by definition you are female and were born female. Considering it offensive to refer to people based on their genetics is a bad thing. I assume you had a "male" appearance right? I am for not considering it to be defined based on appearance.

Religion is bad because its not true. So much of what is required dogma these days is not even argued, but just asserted based on that it makes people happy. The argument about truth is not only neglected, anyone engaging in it is persecuted.

EDIT: But also you say you project the image you want to be "treated as". What does that mean to be "treated as" a woman?
The thing is, the genetics aren't as black and white as a lot of people think. There are in-fact rare cases of women with XY chromosomes [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrome], as a result of their cells failing to react to androgens in the womb, and rarer cases of men with XX chromosomes [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_men], where the male-determining SRY gene has by chance ended up being grafted onto the wrong chromosome. That's not even touching the more common XXY, XYY and X0 combinations, biological sex is not as clear cut as it might appear at first glance.

Ultimately if someone appears to be a woman and self-identifies as a woman, then that's a lot more important for all practical purposes than a few scraps of DNA in their cells. I mean, if you took a karotype test tomorrow and found out you have the opposite XY/XX as you expected, which has happened to people before, would you suddenly start identifying as the opposite gender to the one you have lived for the whole of your life so far?
I haven't read any of his tweets(outside the ones posted here), mostly because I don't waste my time with twitter, but would it be reasonable to say that he may have never heard of those rare, medical anomaly cases?

In school, you're generally taught "girls have blah, boys have blah" genetics. Obviously the higher you go in education the less simple it gets, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he had just never heard of those cases, given how rare they are.

Zealous said:
the phobic said:
Zealous said:
the phobic said:
I was referring to your sock account. Called "The Phobic".
Well, aren't you the master-debater.
It's not a debate if one side refuses to acknowledge information taken from credible sources and dismisses that information as "just your opinion, man".

I never accepted a debate. When an individual on the internet disagrees with you and one of you communicates with the other that is not an invitation to debate. It is a disagreement.

You made an account with the intent of pissing of people who agree with all of the medical community in saying that sex and gender are two different things and that these two subjects are far more complex than a simple unchangeable random binary assignment in utero. Congrats you got me pissed. Good for you.
Dude. It's a guy that's wrong about something on the internet. Not to tell you your business, but unless he's actually hurt people somehow, you should probably take a step back and calm down.
 

Thaluikhain

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Jan 16, 2010
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Areloch said:
Dude. It's a guy that's wrong about something on the internet. Not to tell you your business, but unless he's actually hurt people somehow, you should probably take a step back and calm down.
The view about transgender people that person is spouting hurts lots of people, though.
 

Akjosch

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Sep 12, 2014
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the phobic said:
That is your opinion. Why should we consider appearance important at all let alone more important than DNA? I know about those genetic issues and I would like to move in the direction of embracing diversity rather than dogma and stereotypes.
The way I see it, the DNA make-up of myself as well as someone else is only important when we want to have biological children with each other - and then it encompasses way more than just some simplistic XY/XX-testing. For example, if our consanguinity is 10% or more, it's a very, very bad idea no matter how biologically compatible and relatively free of genetically-transmitted diseases we are otherwise.

For the remaining billions of people out there, it just doesn't (and shouldn't) matter to me.

So then it just becomes a matter of common courtesy. My rule here is: I'll refer to everyone by the name and the grammatical pronoun they desire to be named with.
 

the phobic

New member
Feb 22, 2015
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Akjosch said:
The way I see it, the DNA make-up of myself as well as someone else is only important when we want to have biological children with each other - and then it encompasses way more than just some simplistic XY/XX-testing. For example, if our consanguinity is 10% or more, it's a very, very bad idea no matter how biologically compatible and relatively free of genetically-transmitted diseases we are otherwise.

For the remaining billions of people out there, it just doesn't (and shouldn't) matter to me.

So then it just becomes a matter of common courtesy. My rule here is: I'll refer to everyone by the name and the grammatical pronoun they desire to be named with.
I think the pronoun should represent important information rather than just being another pointless courtesy word. I think the DNA categorization was important and that was why the pronouns came into existence in the first place.
 

Areloch

It's that one guy
Dec 10, 2012
623
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thaluikhain said:
Areloch said:
Dude. It's a guy that's wrong about something on the internet. Not to tell you your business, but unless he's actually hurt people somehow, you should probably take a step back and calm down.
The view about transgender people that person is spouting hurts lots of people, though.
So someone holding an incorrect opinion about trans people and genetics has DIRECTLY caused actual, physical harm to their wellbeing?

I'm fairly certain one's racist grandpa grumbling about the Mexicans taking everyone's jobs hasn't directly, explicitly lead to any Mexicans being hurt or killed, and it's no different here.

Is it an unsavory opinion? yes. Has their opinion alone lead to actual harm? No.
 

Akjosch

New member
Sep 12, 2014
155
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the phobic said:
Akjosch said:
The way I see it, the DNA make-up of myself as well as someone else is only important when we want to have biological children with each other - and then it encompasses way more than just some simplistic XY/XX-testing. For example, if our consanguinity is 10% or more, it's a very, very bad idea no matter how biologically compatible and relatively free of genetically-transmitted diseases we are otherwise.

For the remaining billions of people out there, it just doesn't (and shouldn't) matter to me.

So then it just becomes a matter of common courtesy. My rule here is: I'll refer to everyone by the name and the grammatical pronoun they desire to be named with.
I think the pronoun should represent important information rather than just being another pointless courtesy word. I think the DNA categorization was important and that was why the pronouns came into existence in the first place.
This is veering into linguistics. Fine!

Please explain languages without gendered pronouns then, like Hungarian or Turkish.

There are also (many, many) languages which don't have separate genders for "feminine" and "masculine", but for other aspects. Ganda is an interesting example - it has one gender (and pronoun) each for the concepts of "person", "long object", "animal", "miscellaneous object", "large object or liquid", "small object", "language", "pejorative", "infinitive" and "mass noun".

Seems to me like pronouns came into existence because people like to group things into categories to make them manageable. "Feminine" and "masculine" were just two of such categories, and they are far from universal. Making the jump from "how the genders were created" to "DNA!" - something which was only discovered many millennia after the creation of gendered pronouns - is a huge stretch.
 

the phobic

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Feb 22, 2015
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Akjosch said:
This is veering into linguistics. Fine!

Please explain languages without gendered pronouns then, like Hungarian or Turkish.

There are also (many, many) languages which don't have separate genders for "feminine" and "masculine", but for other aspects. Ganda is an interesting example - it has one gender (and pronoun) each for the concepts of "person", "long object", "animal", "miscellaneous object", "large object or liquid", "small object", "language", "pejorative", "infinitive" and "mass noun".

Seems to me like pronouns came into existence because people like to group things into categories to make them manageable. "Feminine" and "masculine" were just two of such categories, and they are far from universal. Making the jump from "how the genders were created" to "DNA!" - something which was only discovered many millennia after the creation of gendered pronouns - is a huge stretch.
I'm saying that if we are going to have a categorization system it should not be one that is pointless. The existence of "he" and "she" would be useful to people in knowing at all times who is a potential reproductive target. If we are to keep that system it should be used to represent something actually important that is inline with that. English societies have always used those pronouns to indicate reproductive role. Now we are officially putting the stereotypes that went along with the reproductive roles above the reproductive roles for some reason...
 

NinjaDeathSlap

Leaf on the wind
Feb 20, 2011
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James Nettum said:
well, this threads gone off the rails.
Yes, unfortunately this is going to mean an even smaller chance of actually getting staff engaged in this discussion than previously thought. :(
 

Zealous

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Mar 24, 2009
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Areloch said:
thaluikhain said:
Areloch said:
Dude. It's a guy that's wrong about something on the internet. Not to tell you your business, but unless he's actually hurt people somehow, you should probably take a step back and calm down.
The view about transgender people that person is spouting hurts lots of people, though.
So someone holding an incorrect opinion about trans people and genetics has DIRECTLY caused actual, physical harm to their wellbeing?

I'm fairly certain one's racist grandpa grumbling about the Mexicans taking everyone's jobs hasn't directly, explicitly lead to any Mexicans being hurt or killed, and it's no different here.

Is it an unsavory opinion? yes. Has their opinion alone lead to actual harm? No.
Jesus. Take a socio 101 course. Understand that attitudes and opinions in society can have negative -and sometimes subliminal- effects. Just because Morse isn't out there literally killing people who are transsexual doesn't mean that he isn't contributing to the alienation and discrimination transsexuals face in society.
 

Zealous

New member
Mar 24, 2009
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NinjaDeathSlap said:
James Nettum said:
well, this threads gone off the rails.
Yes, unfortunately this is going to mean an even smaller chance of actually getting staff engaged in this discussion than previously thought. :(
:( Sorry. You see people on the internet who were wrong and I had to correct them (sarcasm folks, calm down). But seriously, I would enjoy it if Archon could grace us with his divine presence.