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"Gender Dysphoria" is not a mental illness. Unless being gay is a mental illness too, which I guess it is by your definition...

Wrong on both counts. It is classified as a mental illness so that insurance companies pay out on gender reassignment surgery, the same cannot be said for homosexuality. I'm afraid you can't just say "I want the money but without the negative connotation".

That is, ultimately, what this is about. They want Gender Dysphoria to be in some sort of weird quantum state of illness and identity, where they can pick either one based on what is most beneficial to them at any given time.

Want to pick and choose what treatment you get? Then it's identity, and you don't "need" dysphoria to have it.

Want to get a shared insurance fund to pay for your SRS and Transitioning? Then it's a mental illness and coverage is required by law.

It's a form of the Motte and Bailey post-modernist fallacy, the same one that brings us "crybullying" -- aka, "I'm so oppressed that I'm going to ruin your life for upsetting me."

Obligatory article.

When the "Make America Great Again Neighborhood Block Councils" are formed, their CNC will be Reddit and 4chan. They won't be wearing brown shirts, but more "classy" officially licensed Trump clothing.

Continuing to cry wolf isn't going to help.

About 60 million people voted for Trump. Do you think there are 60 million white nationalists in the US?

You should read this if you still think there's EBIL RAYCISTS EVERYWHERE!!!!

This is among the reasons you lost, and if you don't fix it you're going to keep losing. To win, you must know your enemy and know yourself. You do not know your enemy.

And there it is. It's the uneducated angry white guy who voted the con-artist into office because they were too stupid to think for themselves, not to mention the white supremacists.

Stereotype much? And you wonder why she lost Michigan and co.

I'll just leave this here.

The problem here is authoritarianism, not partisan name calling. If the federal government couldn't run your life for you, you wouldn't have to worry about that in the first place. But let's look at the list in detail, shall we? I'll come back to it at the end, but this is a good summary about why this is 'crying wolf' that sums up a lot of what I'm trying to point out here.

> The cult of tradition

It's not clear how this makes anyone bad. Is it wrong to enjoy Thanksgiving with your family? Or just because we label anything we dislike as a "cult." Usually the problem with cults is that they go out and, say, cause violence or such, which we'll discuss below.

> The rejection of modernism

Luddism is a problem, but declaring "this is new, it must be better" isn't exactly logical and is funny to contrast with "action for action's sake." If you want Luddites, just look at the email between Hillary & Colin Powell and their rejection of operational security.

> The cult of action for action’s sake

This is really weak. For one, Trump's actions were purposeful--he won by spending far less than Hillary did. For another, we're calling people fascist for what? Working too hard? It's true that Trump held a lot of political rallies and Hillary held very few, but she might not have done so badly if she hadn't assumed the "blue firewall" would magically hold and had actually cared what those people wanted.

This is also fluff. You could apply it to lots of politicians (businesses, etc.) that most people wouldn't label as "fascist."

> Disagreement is treason

Finally we get somewhere! Sure, that's bad. Two minute hates? We've seen plenty about Donald (every other Slashdot story on Trump?). So long as we declare someone the bad guy, though, it's okay, right? I mean, just look at all that violence at the rallies! Oh, wait, the Democrats staged that. Maybe the intolerance of gays? Err, wait, it's the Advocate that decided Peter Thiel wasn't really gay any more because he backed Trump. And Trump was up there holding the gay pride flag. But it was upside-down! Because the most important thing about the gay flag is its orientation, right? :)

Oh! He complained about the media too!

You know, the CNN that told us it was illegal to read wikileaks (a lie from a CNN lawyer who should know better) so we wouldn't find out that they rigged the debates as we can establish from DKIM-authenticated emails that cover the body & body hash. And we have Google's signature on it as well as Hillary's email server. Or how they sold donors access to the Washington Post's party while appearing to go behind their own lawyers' backs?

So, uhh, remind me why it's fascist to complain about people rigging debates again? Or why 2 minute hates are bad... unless the press holds them? :)

> Fear of difference

That's odd to hear given how many sites like Reddit are all for censoring the opinions they don't like. It's their site, of course, but I'm allowed to criticize them for it. And I'm far more afraid of these people who would attack someone for voting the wrong way. Feel free to check that on Snopes. They'll say the truth is "mixed" because they feel it very important to know that there was a fender bender just prior to the g

You should read this.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2016...

The "alt-right" racists seems to be a very small number according to actual statistics. And according to this article "Mostly online". Please note, I am not making excuses to the racists, I am questioning the left's fascination with everything "racist". The artcle I posted the author (not a Trump supporter) makes the same case I just did, calling attention to a dispossessed minority (aka Streisand Effect). More liberals are talking about "alt-right" than there are members of the "alt-right"

Of course, it is easy to simply say "They are hidden". And Streisanding them is helping your cause how?

See also: http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wolf/

They don't appear to realize that we just stopped listening after they lied so much. When CNN anchors lie and tell us it's illegal to look at Wikileaks and that we have to get all our info from them, we laugh. When they rig debates and still lose, we laugh. When Donna Brazille lies to us saying that the email was modified, even though it has not one but two DKIM signatures on it that cover the body and not just the headers, we just stop listening entirely.

MSM, your credibility is gone. When you tell us so many provable lies and you won't even come clean, we're simply not going to listen. Politico, WaPo, CNN, we're sick of being lied to. If you're that worried about competition from fake news outlets, why don't you go into the real news business instead?

It's funny, some people actually have a clue how silly this is: http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wolf/

But nobody listens to them.

I wonder how long before the left passes out from hyperventilating?

Anybody who had ignored all the evidence up to then was in the tank for Hillary and no additional evidence would change their minds.

What cost Clinton the election? Voter turnout. She was not Obama, so blacks stayed home. Trump's redneck voters were not expected to vote but did.

What drove that? Black racism and angry trailer parks. None of which were served by Hillary's campaign strategy. Blacks were taken for granted, trailer trash were called 'despicables'.

Nope.

Conclusion first because it's a long read:

Stop calling Trump voters racist. A metaphor: we have freedom of speech not because all speech is good, but because the temptation to ban speech is so great that, unless given a blanket prohibition, it would slide into universal censorship of any unpopular opinion. Likewise, I would recommend you stop calling Trump voters racist – not because none of them are, but because as soon as you give yourself that opportunity, it’s a slippery slope down to “anyone who disagrees with me on anything does so entirely out of raw seething hatred, and my entire outgroup is secret members of the KKK and so I am justified in considering them worthless human trash”. I’m not saying you’re teetering on the edge of that slope. I’m saying you’re way at the bottom, covered by dozens of feet of fallen rocks and snow. Also, I hear that accusing people of racism constantly for no reason is the best way to get them to vote for your candidate next time around. Assuming there is a next time.

It's from Slate, hardly a bastion of alt-right support:
You Are Still Crying Wolf

It does one helluva job destroying the idea that Trump won because of racism. Read it - that conclusion is supported by various bits of data - including the fact that Trump got a higher percentage of votes than Romney in all racial categories but one - whites.

I have a different perspective. Back in October 2015, I wrote that the picture of Trump as “the white power candidate” and “the first openly white supremacist candidate to have a shot at the Presidency in the modern era” was overblown. I said that “the media narrative that Trump is doing some kind of special appeal-to-white-voters voodoo is unsupported by any polling data”, and predicted that:

If Trump were the Republican nominee, he could probably count on equal or greater support from minorities as Romney or McCain before him.

...

Trump made gains among blacks. He made gains among Latinos. He made gains among Asians. The only major racial group where he didn’t get a gain of greater than 5% was white people. I want to repeat that: the group where Trump’s message resonated least over what we would predict from a generic Republican was the white population.

Nor was there some surge in white turnout. I don’t think we have official numbers yet, but by eyeballing what data we have it looks very much like whites turned out in equal or lesser numbers this year than in 2012, 2008, and so on.

I stick to my thesis from October 2015. There is no evidence that Donald Trump is more racist than any past Republican candidate (or any other 70 year old white guy, for that matter). All this stuff about how he’s “the candidate of the KKK” and “the vanguard of a new white supremacist movement” is made up. It’s a catastrophic distraction from the dozens of other undeniable problems with Trump that could have convinced voters to abandon him. That it came to dominate the election cycle should be considered a horrifying indictment of our political discourse, in the same way that it would be a horrifying indictment of our political discourse if the entire Republican campaign had been based around the theory that Hillary Clint

The difference is who came here legally and who didn't. Re: racism, look at this.

This piece may be of interest to you.

This opinion piece might be interesting to you. It's not nearly so clear-cut.

There is this generally accepted principle in discussion that if you claim something, it is up to you to provide the evidence of the claim. Just pointing at the audience and shouting "you are all idiots for not looking this up yourselves" is not only not done, but it is in fact a pretty damn sure indication that whatever claim you are making is bogus. Your blustering, idiotic response about "learn how to use Google" clearly indicates your claim is without merit. If it had merit, you would have provided a link to one of those studies you claim exist.

Oh wait, you did. You linked to the well-known scientific journal The Guardian, known for only publishing the highest quality of peer-reviewed studies... Which itself links to a study that has neither been reviewed nor published, and uses a questionable methodology to make an extremely click-baity claim.

In particular, the entire claim seems to rest on the performance of the gender-neutral/outsider group, where women score slightly higher than men. The study does not make clear how it managed to divide the gender-neutral group into men and women, and in fact it can be argued that for anyone they could positively identify one way or the other, so can others, so that individual should no longer count as gender-neutral.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2016...

"See, now if you truly had free speech, nobody would ever be able to question you on this speech, because that would be impairing your free speech."

Wut? Further speech does not impair anyones initial speech.

I wasn't talking about initial, but a reply, namely one that questioned the foregoing.

As it stands, there are many people, who when challenged, object because their precious free speech is all important.

"And that example is actually about the Moral Majority side of things, not the dreaded SJW. At least be correct in your attributions."

Bullshit. It's the moral majority assholes AND the SJW assholes BOTH. They're two sides of the same authoritarian coin.

Authoritarian or whatever, the reasoning is quite different. You could come up with some authoritarian agenda for the SJW bogeyman if you wanted, but there's no reason to falsely attribute a sentiment.

No, in fact, you are wrong. But way to motte and bailey. Try reading some Dworkin to see just how lunatic your lunatic fringe actually is. Or try this radfem blog https://allecto.wordpress.com/ for one of my personal favorite batshit artistes.

I don't see any evidence showing my contention to be wrong. Not even sure why you're even attributing these persons who you find offensive to me, I'd have to work hard to find a connection to them myself. But really, all you seem to be showing is your distress towards a certain group, not disputing my words in any effective manner. I don't consider whatever you're trying to say very coherent, not the least because you linked to two random places, which I would simply say are poorly written themselves, and not directly applicable, so you're not even using your own words. You're just linking without a specific purpose to it, and certainly not disputing my own words.

You just seem to be aggrieved by a certain group of people, and so upset at them, that you're somehow think complaining to me about them is arguing with my words.

That would present something of a difficulty, as while you may think you're saying something important, I think you're babbling, and should probably stop, think about whatever you're trying to say, and realize why you're not effectively presenting yourself to me.

Of course, if you took free speech to a fevered pitch, you might just get irate at me instead, and give no thought to your own expressions. After all, I'm telling you to shut up.

"See, now if you truly had free speech, nobody would ever be able to question you on this speech, because that would be impairing your free speech."

Wut? Further speech does not impair anyones initial speech.

"And that example is actually about the Moral Majority side of things, not the dreaded SJW. At least be correct in your attributions."

Bullshit. It's the moral majority assholes AND the SJW assholes BOTH. They're two sides of the same authoritarian coin.

"The SJW who are against adult material are against the exploitation of individuals in the adult entertainment industry, a similar, but different priority."

No, in fact, you are wrong. But way to motte and bailey. Try reading some Dworkin to see just how lunatic your lunatic fringe actually is. Or try this radfem blog https://allecto.wordpress.com/ for one of my personal favorite batshit artistes.

Yeah, this looks like a classic example of the motte and bailey doctrine. They support, but cannot defend, the claim that all porn is bad and needs to be banned. When people assail this position, they retreat to their metaphorical motte (a well-defended tower where you could hole up and resist attackers) claim of "but we're trying to stop child porn! Child porn is terrible and you're evil if you don't want to stop it!" Of course, as soon as people agree that stopping child porn is good and righteous, they head back out to their metaphorical bailey (the valuable but indefensible land around a motte) and start campaigning against porn in general again.

This is true, many males who excel in areas simply have a wider scope of skills and focus on the areas which matter. It's men after all who spend their free time on hobbies which have practical application, hot rodding cars to making game mods, men build additional skills for fun, and no pay, and these simply add the disparity seen between the sexes. There tends to be more self directed building of skills with men, people like Woz learned outside of school, women seem to only involve themselves in these areas as a practical consideration which probably accounts for much of the difference. People want to play at a role are simply not going to be good as people who live the role, and frankly as you said, have no choice but to thrive or fail. Women choose men with higher pay and education, the fundamental motivators simply aren't there for women on the same scale, so there is no benefit for them to sacrifice on the same level. An old woman who has thrown away her youth for a job title is simply not attractive as a young woman to any man, no amount of feminist complaining will change this, and the presumption one role is better than the other is again, without basis. Just look at the average shopping mall and one will see the signs of privilege, most of the shops cater to the leisure class, the leisure gender, that is the bargain women make, so it is ridiculous to complain about it without looking at the full picture. It's really obnoxious how these publications close comments so early, I saw the usual citation of the git-hub study claiming women's code was better. Study was pure junk science, not peer reviewed. http://slatestarcodex.com/2016... But i guess that's why they do it, it spreads a lie out there to be repeated, no different from this new article which conflates titles where the job description changes radically through the generations.

"change change change": motte
"outlaw some political speech": bailey

See also http://slatestarcodex.com/2014...

Except that IS exactly what they're doing by way of the scarlet letter, with the added hypocrisy of publicly admitting they're granting special treatment to the single most toxic subreddit on the entire website.

Your argument relies a fundamentally faulty premise..

Ultimately all knowledge is self-taught, from a certain point of view.

But if you want to seriously compare formal education versus self-education, you should start with some of the links from Scott Alexander's graduation speech

Even better is a study linked to by that page, point IV here:

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014...

The idea was to plan an experiment together, with both of them agreeing on every single tiny detail. They would then go to a laboratory and set it up, again both keeping close eyes on one another. Finally, they would conduct the experiment in a series of different batches. Half the batches (randomly assigned) would be conducted by Dr. Schlitz, the other half by Dr. Wiseman. Because the two authors had very carefully standardized the setting, apparatus and procedure beforehand, “conducted by” pretty much just meant greeting the participants, giving the experimental instructions, and doing the staring.

The results? Schlitz’s trials found strong evidence of psychic powers, Wiseman’s trials found no evidence whatsoever.

Take a second to reflect on how this makes no sense. Two experimenters in the same laboratory, using the same apparatus, having no contact with the subjects except to introduce themselves and flip a few switches – and whether one or the other was there that day completely altered the result. For a good time, watch the gymnastics they have to do to in the paper to make this sound sufficiently sensical to even get published. This is the only journal article I’ve ever read where, in the part of the Discussion section where you’re supposed to propose possible reasons for your findings, both authors suggest maybe their co-author hacked into the computer and altered the results.

There is a massive problem in the literature about bias in academia with ideologies of all sides pushing their agenda. This is connected to the amazing situation where nearly identical studies are getting nearly exactly the opposite results. See http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/15/trouble-walking-down-the-hallway/. The idea that everyone who is male is one side of this (complicated) ideological dispute and everyone on the other side is female is incredibly stupid.

A lot of patients slip slowly into worse and worse circumstances. The point where you have to be at a hospital to live may not be the point where your life is not worth living... but then you're trapped, slipping further and further into less lucidity and capability and surrounded by a health care system that prolongs an extraordinarily painful end.

For one doctor's take on it, consider: http://slatestarcodex.com/2013...

Doctors, who are most knowledgeable about the benefits of end of life life-sustaining treatment, by and large try to die without the intervention of medical care in extreme old age, peacefully and naturally.

Motte, meet baiiley

Read these two, one by a major female linux hacker and one by a mental health professional: http://www.linuxjournal.com/co... http://slatestarcodex.com/2015...

Fundamentally, it's Moloch: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014...

Society is a whole is not directed, but each constituent part acting on their own for their own interests creates and perpetuates and empowers a system that no individual person would desire on their own. Everyone in the government, dealer, and manufacturer sets have been and will continue acting in what they perceive as their own interests, and the result is monstrous.

In the 1950s, brave American scientists shunned by the climate establishment of the day discovered that the Earth was warming as a result of greenhouse gas emissions, leading to potentially devastating natural disasters that could destroy American agriculture and flood American cities. As a result, the country mobilized against the threat. Strong government action by the Bush administration outlawed the worst of these gases, and brilliant entrepreneurs were able to discover and manufacture new cleaner energy sources. As a result of these brave decisions, our emissions stabilized and are currently declining.

Unfortunately, even as we do our part, the authoritarian governments of Russia and China continue to industralize and militarize rapidly as part of their bid to challenge American supremacy. As a result, Communist China is now by far the world’s largest greenhouse gas producer, with the Russians close behind. Many analysts believe Putin secretly welcomes global warming as a way to gain access to frozen Siberian resources and weaken the more temperate United States at the same time. These countries blow off huge disgusting globs of toxic gas, which effortlessly cross American borders and disrupt the climate of the United States. Although we have asked them to stop several times, they refuse, perhaps egged on by major oil producers like Iran and Venezuela who have the most to gain by keeping the world dependent on the fossil fuels they produce and sell to prop up their dictatorships.

We need to take immediate action. While we cannot rule out the threat of military force, we should start by using our diplomatic muscle to push for firm action at top-level summits like the Kyoto Protocol. Second, we should fight back against the liberals who are trying to hold up this important work, from big government bureaucrats trying to regulate clean energy to celebrities accusing people who believe in global warming of being ‘racist’. Third, we need to continue working with American industries to set an example for the world by decreasing our own emissions in order to protect ourselves and our allies. Finally, we need to punish people and institutions who, instead of cleaning up their own carbon, try to parasitize off the rest of us and expect the federal government to do it for them.

Please join our brave men and women in uniform in pushing for an end to climate change now.

-- Five Case Studies on Politicization

When people bring up the risk of strong AI, it's not because they discount the more likely or even LESS likely scenarios:

Scenario: Strong AI is impossible (people have souls and computers do not, decisions are fundamentally quantum) - probability- very low.
Scenario: Strong AI is extremely hard (the people who will face the question of strong AI are hundreds or thousands of years in the future, and the knowledge/intelligence delta generated by strong AI in such a society will be much lower than it would be today)- probability- moderate
Scenario: Strong AI may be extremely hard or impossible BUT it may not matter because weaker AIs and lesser intelligent agents will slowly but surely offer more and more replacement of jobs, which could end very well or very poorly for civilization, but does not in any event involve a hostile computer intelligence- probability- seems highest

So when he brings this sort of thing up? He's basically saying "oh, by the way, in addition to the outcomes which are ok, there's ALSO the chance that the AI will disrupt society in such a fundamental way that our existence as humans will be effectively ended". Odds are low, but not remote!

And that's why it's AI risk. Yes, the chances are good that this is not a concern, but like other existential threats (engineered plague, out of control nanomachines), this is worth talking about, and it is ABSOLUTELY SHAMEFUL the way that this gets ridiculed in the press.

Relevant random bloggy guy:
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014...

That would be the motte in the motte-and-bailey doctrine. If you define feminism like that, it's extremely defensible.

But as soon as you're going out to do any actual good work in the name of feminism, you're going to need a broader definition, one that opens it up for criticism.

Retreating to the defensible but useless definition whenever your ideas are criticized, is dishonest.

My Ideas? WTF are you talking about? I am a feminist in exactly the sense of the definition posted. Nothing more, nothing less. Anything else is just you projecting.

That would be the motte in the motte-and-bailey doctrine. If you define feminism like that, it's extremely defensible.

But as soon as you're going out to do any actual good work in the name of feminism, you're going to need a broader definition, one that opens it up for criticism.

Retreating to the defensible but useless definition whenever your ideas are criticized, is dishonest.

Given that the neoreactionaries appear to be a helluva lot more knowledgeable about history than you are, I'd suggest that's not the best example. As for your presumption that the "whole count suffers" if it happens to disagree with, I suggest you get over yourself.

For most of human history people lived under the social systems these people are advocating. Enlightenment civilization, of which democracy and free markets are only two components, is less than 400 years old, and in that time we've seen a flowering of technological and cultural growth that dwarfs everything else that happened in the previous millennia of human civilization. Coincidence? Perhaps. But I think it more likely the neo-reactionaries are analogous to the cranks who write papers claiming to disprove quantum physics and then post them to the world using tools which depend upon those physics to function.

Science fiction author and Enlightenment champion David Brin has a blog post exploring some disadvantages of neo-feudalism. In that article he links to the Anti-reactionary FAQ with detailed criticisms of their arguments and goals.

Ummmm, http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/10/20/the-anti-reactionary-faq/ go to town, I really cannot outdo Alexander.