Funny events in anti-woke world
- Thread starter Agema
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TLDR: Japan's first HSR(High-speed rail) train cost 200 billion dollars in the budgeting process at first, then it went up to 400 billion and it was worth it for the anti-pollution, and later carbon emissions reductions due to it. And you know me I hate giving credit to China, Europe, and somewhat Japan for public policy, but they are right to call out us Americans. I hated this video at first, but it won me over. Fast trains and their tracks cost gobs of money, but it's worth it. Even if the SoCal train costs lots of money, even if it goes above the <250% cost overrun, it would still be worth it, and I know some people here live there, and hated driving on the I5 highway that runs across the west coast.
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TLDR: Japan's first HSR(High-speed rail) train cost 200 billion dollars in the budgeting process at first, then it went up to 400 billion and it was worth it for the anti-pollution, and later carbon emissions reductions due to it. And you know me I hate giving credit to China, Europe, and somewhat Japan for public policy, but they are right to call out us Americans. I hated this video at first, but it won me over. Fast trains and their tracks cost gobs of money, but it's worth it. Even if the SoCal train costs lots of money, even if it goes above the <250% cost overrun, it would still be worth it, and I know some people here live there, and hated driving on the I5 highway that runs across the west coast.
I don't think it is the past though.
Like, to critique myself here, I think I'm affecting a position that only really makes sense in opposition to a relatively extreme antithetical position like the one represented by tstorm. The reality is that I don't think that "social constructs" are necessarily a problem. I think any perception of reality is going to be made up of learned concepts that don't possess objective physical existence. Pointing out that sex isn't "real" doesn't actually mean that it's not a useful concept. What that criticism is meant to do is to open up the possibility to think about sex in different ways, in ways that are less harmful, biased or which are less likely to lead to faulty conclusions.
And I think that position makes less sense in relation to you because you already are thinking about sex differently. Your understanding of sex is far more rationalized. Correct me if I'm wrong, for example, but I suspect that you understand that the adoption of an identity based on the appearance of your genitals is actually a social and cultural process rather than one that proceeds organically from the shape of the body. You know that cisgender people still have gender identities, and that these identities, while bound up in the sense of belonging to a physical sex, are not actually part of sex at all, hence the name. I suspect you understand, intuitively if nothing else, that the line between sex and gender is permeable, that people can and frequently do confuse one for the other and that the two concepts are not intrinsically opposed but often operate together.
What I would still argue, and what I think it is always important to be aware of, is that sex comes to us with a lot of ideological baggage. It's a concept that requires intense vigilance because it can so easily conceal ideological meaning. When we define sex in terms of reproduction, for example, are we saying that reproduction has some intrinsic value, that a way of living that leads to reproduction is "better" or more "normal" than one that doesn't. Sex, after all, is the most important social quality a human being possesses. Before ultrasound, assigning a child's sex was typically the first thing to happen to it after it was born. Nowadays people burn down forests in order to "announce" the sex of their unborn child. Sex is far too socially important not to carry social meaning, and the social meaning it carries (whether you view that as intrinsic to the concept or not) can be deeply harmful.
I'm not so sure of that.
The point is not that sex is bad because at one point it was based on magic. The point is actually that at the point it stopped being based on magic, many of the fundamental assumptions didn't actually change. Sex and gender were never meant to function as separate concepts, and as such they are far more permeable than we might like to pretend.
Because we still live in a world where intersexed children are liable to be surgically "corrected", let me point out an example. When determining the sex of an intersexed child, more weight is given to the ability of someone assigned female to hypothetically reproduce than to someone assigned male. There are many reasons for this, not all of which are obviously gender-biased (for example a female reproductive system is intrinsically harder to remove) but at the core of it is the assumption that a woman's quality of life is more heavily dictated by her ability to reproduce than a man's quality of life. Conversely, a great deal of weight for men is given to the ability of the body to "perform" as a man, whether sexually or in other contexts. The possession of a "functioning" penis (a penis of sufficient size to qualify as a "real" penis) carries far more weight than whatever is going on in the reproductive system. The assumption is that a man's quality of life is intrinsically tied to his ability to have intercourse (and do other things, like the all important stand-up peeing) while a woman's quality of life is intrinsically tied to her ability to reproduce. After all, this is what "normal" men and women care about, right?
That's not 200 years ago, that's still going on today. It's part of the technical process of determining a person's sex, and while it might seem fairly abstract and only relevant to a handful of intersexed people, think of how prevalent (and socially harmful) those underlying assumptions are. Like it or not, that is still part of what sex means for many people. Discourse around the different "capabilities" of human bodies still ends up at a bunch of assumptions about what the purpose of those bodies is and how the people inhabiting them "should" behave.
We are also talking about social identities though.
Again, sex is considered one of the most important pieces of information about a person, and one of the first pieces of information to be determined about them. It will utterly determine the trajectory of the rest of their life, and a person who rejects their assigned sex will face profound social consequences for doing so. It is one of the first pieces of information about a person recorded in government records. At no point in this process is their "reproduction capacity" ever involved or even known.
You can argue that that's not "really" what sex is, but the vast, vast majority of the human population disagree with you.
Sexual reproduction refers to the process of reproducing by the recombination of DNA from two gametes which are different from one another in a way that makes them compatible. Beyond that, it's actually very difficult to generalize because sexual reproduction is not limited to humans or even mammals. The gametes involved in sexual reproduction don't actually have to come from individuals with distinct sexual characteristics. Most flowering plants, for example, reproduce sexually despite producing both sets of gametes and having identical sexual characteristics. In fact, some plants are capable of reproducing sexually with themselves via self-pollination. Something a farmer would also, in all likelihood, be aware of since the majority of grain crops grown globally are self-pollinated.
The alpha science bro goes anti-science.
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Dr. Lucky Tran :verified: (@[email protected])
Attached: 2 images Turning Twitter into a full-blown anti-vax site is a sure way to put $44 billion down the drain #Twitter #Vaccines #PublicHealth
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Yes, I do understand all that. But here's the rub: if you remove "sex" as a concept referring to physical categories, then "cisgender" loses all meaning. In fact, the entire above paragraph cannot function without acknowledgement (on some level) of the existence of sex.
If your statement of position only works in opposition to someone else, then I don't really think it's very robust.
Sure. Yet it existed before we as a kingdom of life even had the capacity to conceive of that baggage. And there's zero contradiction in recognising it while eschewing all that baggage. The baggage isn't fundamental-- and everything in human society has baggage.
"Means for some people", yes. Nothing fundamental or intrinsic here. All of these ideological associations developed several billion years after the advent of male and female sexes.
It doesn't matter if people have false associations. Lots of people around the world still base medical decisions on superstitious bunkum. And a lot of our own medical understandings grew directly out of ideological baggage. None of this invalidates the fact that medicine is real.
The majority of the human population believes in some kind of magical creator or spirit, too.
As soon as you start talking about assigned/socially understood identities and roles, you ain't talking about sex.
But to extrapolate from this that it doesn't exist is misplaced and unnecessary.
That "in a way that makes them compatible" bit refers directly and definitively to sex.
Self-pollinators produce both sets of sexual equipment, both male and female. And there's zero contradiction in a hermaphroditic (edit: or monecious) organism, because there's nothing to do with identity here: an organism does not need to be able to have a single sex in order for sex to exist in that species. The sperm-analogue can only interact with the egg-analogue. There is still distinct sexual equipment-- which we can categorise for function and utility. No identities or baggage required: the process would go on with or without us watching.
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This is the most laughable weak sauce way to try to get out of a fuck up. "It's not my fault I'm quitting! I said I'd quit if that's how the vote went" <rigs poll>.
So I'm less "valuable" than someone who has kids, then-- even though we as a species have plenty of kids whether or not I do?
Always nice to be reminded that I don't fit into your bleak, proscriptive world.
Environmentally you're more valuable. (That is not a slight on those who choose to have children or end up with them in some other way, it isn't a factor on which judgements of 'value' should be considered.)
I'm of two minds regarding this Elon Musk "Am I really great?!" poll. One on hand he does truly believe the mythology around him. He does believe he's the smartest man in history and he can do no wrong and everything word he says is a blessing on our fragile lesser-born ears and we should be grateful for every warm splash of piss he gives us on our faces. And the poll 100% got out of hand, didn't give him the adulation he wanted, he's going to claim it was hacked by bots, and refuse to step down.
The other thought. This poll was 100% staged as an out for Elon. Sorry conservative trolls, I'd love to stay but democracy, so hands tied. A way to inoculate himself from responsibility and blame the inevitable fall on Twitter on the Twitter users themselves.
And Im not sure if he's stupid enough to try the former, or smart enough to pull off the later.
The other thought. This poll was 100% staged as an out for Elon. Sorry conservative trolls, I'd love to stay but democracy, so hands tied. A way to inoculate himself from responsibility and blame the inevitable fall on Twitter on the Twitter users themselves.
And Im not sure if he's stupid enough to try the former, or smart enough to pull off the later.
The proletariat must seek unconventional options for making their voices heard...
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Only browse the replies to that if you enjoy wading in primordial piss brain soup.
A coronavirus conspiracy theorist has been found guilty of preparing a terrorist attack on communication masts and the M1 motorway to bring down Boris Johnson's government.
Oliver Lewin, 38, from Coalville, Leicestershire, believed the government was run by a Jewish elite that included Boris Johnson, then the prime minister, and Matt Hancock, the health secretary.
He also believed the coronavirus vaccine would cause mass deaths, the breakdown of society and the imposition of a Chinese-style communist system.
Lewin, was a member of a group on the Telegram app called The Resistance UK, which had 8,000 members.
Under the name, Crouching Hedgehog, he tried to recruit others to attack critical infrastructure in order to weaken the government, posting to the group: "We are at war people, make no mistake. You have to treat it like one.
"Peaceful marching has not and will not do anything. Marching in general will not do anything. You have to choose a better strategy."
Lewin claimed to be a former "forward observer" for the special forces but had actually been working for a company which maintained radio masts and was living at home with his mother.
He exaggerated his skills in order to persuade others that he would be a "credible and effective leader of terrorist attacks", Annabel Darlow KC, prosecuting, told Birmingham Crown Court.
He began writing the "Civilian Resistance Operations Manual", designed to train others to join his campaign.
In it, Lewin stated: "My ideal primary objective would be to topple the government and all within it, and install a civilian-led alternative that doesn't act for themselves and consider anybody below them mere scum."
Lewin advised potential recruits to carry a machete as "the very least" and wrote about a "core strategy" involving "severing major communications".
Image:The M1 (file pic)
His targets included masts that carried traffic for the BBC, the Airwave emergency services radio network, as well as internet traffic, in-car navigation systems and security cameras.
Lewin joined The Resistance UK on 25 July 2021 and was immediately put under surveillance - including by two undercover officers.
Exactly a month later he was arrested by members of the West Midlands Counter-Terrorism Unit.
Lewin said he was never going to act on his fears and likened his activity to fantasy LARP - live action role play - in which participants act out battle fantasies.
However, the court heard that in a message to one of the undercover officers on 6 August, Lewin said: "Attacking critical infrastructure works. We don't need guns for that. A pair of wire cutters is enough.
"As numbers build we can think seriously about taking the country."
Following his arrest, police discovered tools including pipe tube cutters, cable shears and cable strippers, that he had bought before the COVID outbreak.
They also found army surplus equipment including a jacket, backpack, groundsheet, rifle sling, rifle scope and an airgun silencer to fit the three airguns he had.
In his bedroom was a notebook containing handwritten notes that included a target list of "media, transport, infrastructure, power, comms, roads & rail".
In court, Lewin said he had been pretending to be from the special forces but was actually "a bit of a loser".
Andrew Hall KC, defending, said Lewin was "very odd" and described him as "opinionated, obsessive, without a sense of humour and lacking in any sense of self-worth".
He had lost his job and moved back in with his mother, his relationships had failed and he had few, if any, friends.
However, Ms Darlow told the jury: "The level of preparations and conduct far exceeded anything that might be commensurate with fantasy."
Looks like the fine print might be that he is just gonna kill twitter. Cool. So like I know people are thinking this is hurting Elon and all but, like, it isn't. Maybe now that we're at the point where people are so insanely wealthy they're willing to drop billions just to kill a website is a sign that we're fucked.
I mean ego-maniac spends a shit ton of money to shore up his own ego isn't exactly new. Musk may have taken it to the next level in terms of spending, but he's hardly the first dumb rich guy.
So I didn't really follow the saga closely so I might be miss remembering, but iirc he didn't personally buy it with 44 of his own billions, its more like he got a group of people to pony up the cash or something like that, no? If that's the case he probably can't just kill it, or maybe the other people who gave him cash were just really dumb and didn't attach string?
On the contrary, if reproduction has no intrinsic value, human beings must also have no intrinsic value. If I were to say reproduction has no intrinsic value, then I would be saying you have no intrinsic value.
And right on queue, someone came in after you to lay down the notion that people are only circumstantially valuable and there are those who should just not exist.