Trans Women are not Women

[JoeMorgue]

None of any of this thread served any purpose. Group A is upset at Group B because Group C might hypothetically do Actions D or E to Group A. Everything else is just an attempt by various posters to justify their preferred course of action by appealing to various sciences of varying degrees of softness or hardness.

I suggest nothing can be achieved until everybody skips the crap and just states what their best solution is, and then people can agree or not on the actual action suggested rather than debate literally everything else except actual action. Policy is always action taken, it's not viewpoint however erudite.

I think everyone understands that this whole discussion is about 90% baggage or proxy debates about other topics.

Most everyone thinks they deserve a safe space where "X" is not allowed. The problem is who is "X" is a very hot button topic because we have a discussion where "personal identity" is being treated as an objective fact.

 

[theprestige]

If all your needs are met why would you need a job at all? Jobs are work done in order to gain means to meet your needs. If there's no work necessary then there's nothing to be done, and even if there were work there's no point in doing it if you have no needs unfulfilled. There'd be no need to do anything except enjoy yourself, which may take the same form of activity that used to be work but it wouldn't actually be work since it wouldn't be necessary.

Because I think human needs don't work that way. Because I think there's a gap between need and desire that can't be closed by fulfilling needs with machinelike accuracy. Because I think that if you need real human contact, I can get a sense of satisfaction in giving you human contact, that no amount of machine coddling could give me. And I think that if you really needed human contact, you'd figure out something to give me in return that no machine could provide. Even if it's just the approval of another human being, gratitude for a human-human interaction.

Maybe I wouldn't call it a job. Maybe I'd call it a hobby or a caper. Or maybe I'd call it a job anyway. Why not?

There's a series of crime caper novels about a character named Parker. This guy doesn't have a job. He just robs a bank or an armored car or a payroll office or some other cash repository, a couple times a year, and then vacations on the proceeds. Of course, it actually is a job. It takes a lot of work, an investment of labor and cash, a lot of risk, to get paid. Most of the time, the risk is so great, he'd be better off getting a "real" job - that is, a legal one. But that's just not the way he's wired.

Parker is a fictional character, but plenty of real people are wired that way. Organized crime is a real job, in every practical sense. You have to put in hours, meet productivity targets, even pay taxes. All that investment of labor and money, and you don't even get the benefits of rule of law and the state's blessing. For that much work, why not just get into a legal business instead? Because some people are just wired that way.

And to tell truth, I think almost everyone is wired that way a little bit. I think that no matter how much of Maslow's pyramid you try to build up with machines, there will always be a capstone of human desires that no machine can fulfill.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Because I think human needs don't work that way. Because I think there's a gap between need and desire that can't be closed by fulfilling needs with machinelike accuracy. Because I think that if you need real human contact, I can get a sense of satisfaction in giving you human contact, that no amount of machine coddling could give me. And I think that if you really needed human contact, you'd figure out something to give me in return that no machine could provide. Even if it's just the approval of another human being, gratitude for a human-human interaction.

Maybe I wouldn't call it a job. Maybe I'd call it a hobby or a caper. Or maybe I'd call it a job anyway. Why not?

There's a series of crime caper novels about a character named Parker. This guy doesn't have a job. He just robs a bank or an armored car or a payroll office or some other cash repository, a couple times a year, and then vacations on the proceeds. Of course, it actually is a job. It takes a lot of work, an investment of labor and cash, a lot of risk, to get paid. Most of the time, the risk is so great, he'd be better off getting a "real" job - that is, a legal one. But that's just not the way he's wired.

Parker is a fictional character, but plenty of real people are wired that way. Organized crime is a real job, in every practical sense. You have to put in hours, meet productivity targets, even pay taxes. All that investment of labor and money, and you don't even get the benefits of rule of law and the state's blessing. For that much work, why not just get into a legal business instead? Because some people just wired that way.

And to tell truth, I think almost everyone is wired that way a little bit. I think that no matter how much of Maslow's pyramid you try to build up with machines, there will always be a capstone of human desires that no machine can fulfill.

I don't know why you assume a technological paradise would result in minimal human contact. On the contrary, everyone would have far more free time to be social.

 

[theprestige]

Or take black markets in the Soviet Union. Folks living behind the iron curtain didn't strictly *need* western pop music. The state provided plenty of music, much of it of good quality, for its citizens. It's reasonable to argue that their musical needs were already met. But there was still a black market for rock and roll. That's what people *wanted*. They didn't give a **** about the state meeting their needs. What they really wanted was a market that promised to fulfill their desires.

The entire tragic history of the Soviet Union is a history of trying to force a population to stop wanting to fulfill their desires, and be satisfied with a mere meeting of their needs. I don't think that automating this goal will work much better. Ultimately you'll end up with automated gulags full of profoundly unhappy people whose every need is met. But they'd give it all up in a moment, barter away everything including their very soul, to someone who could break them out of that prison.

 

[theprestige]

I don't know why you assume a technological paradise would result in minimal human contact. On the contrary, everyone would have far more free time to be social.

Certainly. But there's a finite number of humans, and even in an automated post-scarcity world there's practical limits on how many humans can interact with other humans at a given place and time.

And some humans will be better at human interaction than others. Those humans will be in high demand for such services. If the best Broheem in the western hemisphere is booked out a year in advance for one-on-one X-Box'n'Chill sessions, there's no amount of automated need-meeting that will solve that problem for all the other people waiting in line for an afternoon with the guy.

If we all want a dozen more Real Neil Gaiman Novels, Really Written by the Real Human Neil Gaiman, and Personally Signed by Him, no amount of robot facsimiles will solve that problem.

I can't imagine why anyone would want any more GRR Martin thrones novels, but apparently many of them do. And apparently HBO ******** out a reasonable facsimile in a different medium doesn't satisfy. Hell, I dropped The West Wing when Sorkin left, because it just wasn't the same. And because even if if they'd managed to find a writer who could pass off Sorkin's idiom, it still wouldn't be the same. I came up with Sports Night. I feel a connection with Sorkin the man. I want his writing, not the writing of someone doing a fantastic job of pretending to be Sorkin.

Robots may one day be able to do a perfect simulation of Aaron Sorkin. But that won't satisfy anyone who wants the man himself. Sorkin will always have a job being Sorkin. The real question is, what could the machines pay him, to satisfy the desires of those who want more Sorkin? And what could the machines pay those people, to meet their needs, if Sorkin chooses not to?

 

[theprestige]

Or going back to ceramic bowls. Sure, there's millions of people with tons of free time on their hands. But how many of them are interested in hand-crafting ceramic bowls? How many of those are actually going to be any good at it - at least as good as the machines?

You might say, who needs a handcrafted bowl? The machines provide as many bowls as anyone actually needs (accurately and precisely calculated). But there's still the question of who wants a handcrafted bowl, and how many such bowls are actually being made.

 

[applecorped]

Soylent Green

 

[TragicMonkey]

Or going back to ceramic bowls. Sure, there's millions of people with tons of free time on their hands. But how many of them are interested in hand-crafting ceramic bowls? How many of those are actually going to be any good at it - at least as good as the machines?

You might say, who needs a handcrafted bowl? The machines provide as many bowls as anyone actually needs (accurately and precisely calculated). But there's still the question of who wants a handcrafted bowl, and how many such bowls are actually being made.

With all that free time the fine arts could be pursued by anybody with an interest. If your problem is that you desire a piece of fine art that nobody can make then that would be a project for you to attempt yourself.

 

[Belz...]

I don't know why you assume a technological paradise would result in minimal human contact.

Online contact, maybe.

 

[theprestige]

With all that free time the fine arts could be pursued by anybody with an interest. If your problem is that you desire a piece of fine art that nobody can make then that would be a project for you to attempt yourself.

Applied art. I don't want a bowl on display. I want a bowl that just looks and feels right in the hand, and where the knowledge that it was made by another human hand is part of that look and feel.

And I don't do it myself because I'm too busy hosting epic pool parties and movie nights for a select group of other humans who are into that sort of thing and are really good at making it fun for each other. In fact, hooking me up with one of his awesome rice bowls is how Joe got invited to my parties in the first place.

I can't invite as many people as I'd like, because large crowds burn me out pretty fast, and anyway once you have more than six people in a pool party it turns into two parties anyway, one better than the other. Better to keep it a little exclusive. The other five spots were mostly taken up by the DTF Twins, Guy Who Tells Really Good Stories, X-Box Bro, and Neil Gaiman. X-Box I invited in exchange for a session on his gaming couch next week. And Neil Gaiman has promised me a signed copy of his next novel, whenever he gets around to writing it. At least with automated post-scarcity healthcare, there's a good chance he'll live long enough to deliver. I just hope he doesn't run at poolside, slip, and crack his skull.

 

[theprestige]

Joe Bowl is the name of my Green Day cover band, incidentally.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Applied art. I don't want a bowl on display. I want a bowl that just looks and feels right in the hand, and where the knowledge that it was made by another human hand is part of that look and feel.

And I don't do it myself because I'm too busy hosting epic pool parties and movie nights for a select group of other humans who are into that sort of thing and are really good at making it fun for each other. In fact, hooking me up with one of his awesome rice bowls is how Joe got invited to my parties in the first place.

I can't invite as many people as I'd like, because large crowds burn me out pretty fast, and anyway once you have more than six people in a pool party it turns into two parties anyway, one better than the other. Better to keep it a little exclusive. The other five spots were mostly taken up by the DTF Twins, Guy Who Tells Really Good Stories, X-Box Bro, and Neil Gaiman. X-Box I invited in exchange for a session on his gaming couch next week. And Neil Gaiman has promised me a signed copy of his next novel, whenever he gets around to writing it. At least with automated post-scarcity healthcare, there's a good chance he'll live long enough to deliver. I just hope he doesn't run at poolside, slip, and crack his skull.

The root of suffering is desire. If your desires are so overwhelming and unreasonable that you cannot be happy after having all your needs met in a technological paradise then your problem is a spiritual one. Luckily if all your needs were met you'd have free time to pursue enlightenment.

 

[Belz...]

The root of suffering is desire.

Say what?

 

[TragicMonkey]

Say what?

Buddhism. I can't claim credit. Also the Cynics of classical Greece.

 

[theprestige]

The root of suffering is desire. If your desires are so overwhelming and unreasonable that you cannot be happy after having all your needs met in a technological paradise then your problem is a spiritual one. Luckily if all your needs were met you'd have free time to pursue enlightenment.

Like I said, I don't think human needs work that way. I don't think you can get rid of human desires by meeting human needs. Either you cross your fingers and hope that your technological paradise will organically induce global Buddhism, or you end up seriously considering whether you should just try to force the issue, Communist-style.

But I think that as long as there are human desires, there will be scarcities that cannot be solved by a mere meeting of needs. People are more than the sum of their needs.

---

The way I see it, your vision is exactly Distracted1's idea of trying to make humans pretend to be machines.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Like I said, I don't think human needs work that way. I don't think you can get rid of human desires by meeting human needs. Either you cross your fingers and hope that your technological paradise will organically induce global Buddhism, or you end up seriously considering whether you should just try to force the issue, Communist-style.

But I think that as long as there are human desires, there will be scarcities that cannot be solved by a mere meeting of needs. People are more than the sum of their needs.

I don't think we'd get rid of desire, but we'd desire different things. If all our physical needs were met we'd be free to pursue intellectual and spiritual desires. Art has already been cited. People who didn't have to work could travel more. Heck, people could have more kids if they didn't have to work, and spend more time with them. All the time and energy we currently spend making a living coukd be spent elsewhere.

 

[theprestige]

Say what?

Buddhism. I can't claim credit. Also the Cynics of classical Greece.

To bring it back around to the topic of the thread, transwomen suffer because they desire to be treated as women, but society doesn't see them as women. The Atheist's solution seems to be that they should abandon this desire. This is good Buddhism, but I don't think people actually work that way. It seems clear that transsexuals, at least, do not work that way.

 

[TragicMonkey]

The way I see it, your vision is exactly Distracted1's idea of trying to make humans pretend to be machines.

Exactly the opposite. If technology reaches a point where our material needs are met we will be less like machines than we currently act. I don't work eight hours a day because I want to, I work because I have to. If I could afford not to work I'd spend that time doing things I'd enjoy doing instead. How on earth would that be more machine-like?

 

[TragicMonkey]

To bring it back around to the topic of the thread, transwomen suffer because they desire to be treated as women, but society doesn't see them as women. The Atheist's solution seems to be that they should abandon this desire. This is good Buddhism, but I don't think people actually work that way. It seems clear that transsexuals, at least, do not work that way.

You're forgetting the other side. They desire that transwomen not be considered women. If either side abandoned its desire for either outcome there would be no conflict.

 

[theprestige]

I don't think we'd get rid of desire, but we'd desire different things. If all our physical needs were met we'd be free to pursue intellectual and spiritual desires. Art has already been cited. People who didn't have to work could travel more. Heck, people could have more kids if they didn't have to work, and spend more time with them. All the time and energy we currently spend making a living coukd be spent elsewhere.

Agreed with all of this, 100%!

However.

Time and energy are still limited quantities. There's still only so many hours in a day. There's still only so much you can accomplish before you cannot even anymore, and need a nap.

BDSM play, for example. I don't want a robot that perfectly simulates a human enjoying a power exchange. I want to know there's another human on the other end of that exchange, who's having a real human experience, and who comes away from the encounter with a real human appreciation for what we did together.

Sure, your techparadise will make it easier for us to find each other and spend time with each other. But there's still a finite number of us, and a finite number of hours in the day, and a finite number of calories in our bodies. A really top-notch dom or sub is going to be in high demand. You can't just run around to all their customers (clients? friends? fellow enthusiasts? what do you call it when access to a person is a scarce commodity?) and tell them to stop desiring specialty sex play. Some sort of sermon about how all their needs are met, so if they are still unhappy about not finding a good BDSM partner that's their fault.

In your grim dark future, there is only mere meeting of needs, and kink-shaming. Lots of kink-shaming.