Even more trivial is handwaving without proof.
1 Like
If you donât know what it means, how can you say you donât espouse it? Hereâs a good summary.
11 Likes
You do hold positions against things you go out of your way to admit no comprehension of, however, and thatâs plenty for me to know for now. Thanks for writing.
11 Likes
As I read this article I was facepalming⌠not because itâs a bad article but because I have known, and in fact worked for, people exactly like this.
Belief that ojectivity > subjectivity while believing that their own subjective views are objective: check.
Junk science + scientism = fail: check.
Getting burned by financial schemes as a result of overestimating their intelligence: check.
Belief that they can, and have the right to, manipulate women into sleeping with them: check.
Belief that successful people deserve their success and unsuccessful people must therefore be intrinsically inferior, while pretending not to be racist, sexist, classist, etc.: check.
Belief that the downtrodden secretly are ruling the lives of the priveleged: check.
People like that are embarrassing and uncomfortable to be around.
25 Likes
Marja, hi. You are male. You were born male. That is fine. You believe that your feelings of âbeing a womanâ make you female. YOU are âgender essentialistâ in that you believe that âgenderâ is so powerful as to override biological sex.
Now, the fact that you are male should not limit how you live your life and express yourself. You should be who you want to be. Have a nice life. Just stop demanding that women agree with your belief that your feeling of âbeing a womanâ makes you a woman.
Iâm related to people exactly like this. How do you think I turned out to be such a cranky ass? 
4 Likes
Iâm relieved to see someone else saw the hypocritical and convoluted points brought up here.
For the most part this article seems like some big ad hominem attack on non-âprogressiveâ, non-statist commenters online who all happen to have seen The Matrix and relate to one particular scene.
I think the heart of this âred pill movementâ is the political side effects of technology and an article discussing the ideas brought up by the techno-anarchist scene would have been more informative.
I know man-bashing is hip and trendy these days, guaranteeing boingboing some nice click traffic, but really the one-sided joke is getting old.
10 Likes
Youâre a good mansplainer. Just accept that term. Show us how itâs done.
(edited to add: sorry @crashproof, this wasnât supposed to be to you)
11 Likes
2 Likes
Hi, Cathy. Essentialism is the notion that our biological or genetic nature determines attributes essential to our identity; in this context, assumed or attributed biological characteristics as the basis of male and female gender.
I wonât speak for Jay, but as youâve written many things like âtransgender woman are in fact menâ and âtranswomen are men, what are you gonna do about it?â it seems reasonable for him to use a termâbiological essentialismâin wide use to describe that notion, even if you would prefer a different one.
36 Likes
I agree that itâs generalized, but the author is categorizing different (overlapping) groups according to common characteristics, not trying to say that theyâre part of the same self-identified movement.
And the common characteristics are definitely there. Spend time around young white men on the internet, youâll realize fairly quickly that wherever you are, bigoted, overprivileged, self-absorbed jerks make up a not insignificant portion of them, and i personally quite like the term âRedpillersâ to describe them. ^u^
7 Likes
I donât know, Iâm a woman, and Iâm of the belief that we should respect how others view themselves as individuals. If someone is more comfortable identifying as a woman, and then maybe or maybe not transitioning to a woman, Iâm okay with that. I donât get to decide for others just like they donât get to decide for me.
30 Likes
Are you talking to m? Because, um, I am a woman. You seem confused, like the author of this âarticle.â
1 Like
That sounds like a gross generalisation too.
I realise that bigoted, overprivileged, self-absorbed jerks are plentiful in white males. Theyâre also plentiful in black females, old asians, middle-aged middle-easterners, ancient aborigines and just about any âgroupâ you care to mention.
Nobody has the monopoly on that.
Iâve met all sorts of ages and nationalities whoâre lovely people too.
Maye youâre just hanging around the wrong places.
6 Likes
Yup, the anti-trans, gender essentialist, âwomyn born womynâ bullshit falls exactly along âred pillâ lines.
They claim that biological sex is binary and absolute (ignoring the fact that there are multiple sexual characteristics which can conflict or be ambigious in a nonzero number of cases). And simultaneously, they claim that gender is unimportant and beneath notice because it is subjective. And they claim that their opinion is authoritative because they have infallible, subjective science on their side.
21 Likes
What we have with transgender people is an area where established categories donât fit: people who have the biological characteristics associated with one gender but feel that they belong to the opposite gender and experience significant distress if prevented from living as a member of that gender.
Please explain why your desire for clear and unambiguous boundaries (people identified as male at birth must forever be considered male) should override the desires and experiences of the people directly harmed by those boundaries.
25 Likes
I think a lot of the confusion comes from somewhere completely different, specifically, the author. The group that the author describes contains both people on the political left and on the political right. For reasons of ideological convenience, the author lumps all of those together. In my view, this whole thing is primarily a split within the left, between a slightly more STEM / libertarian-leaning faction and a more humanities / moral-authoritarian one. This split is not new at all (Pinker, a self-described leftist, talks about it at length in âThe Blank Slateâ), but has recently heated up with the two-factions increasingly clashing online. The authorâs real problem is not with right-wingers, itâs with left-wingers that hold opinions he dislikes. In order to smear them, he identifies the bona-fide right wing elements associated with that group (e.g., neoreaction) and pretends that they are representative of the group as a whole: If you believe science is more important than politics or emotions, that makes you a right-winger.
The author would consider me a part of this ânew rightâ: Iâve got a technology job. I believe in the importance of individual rationality and the superiority of the scientific method as a method of truth generation. I think that a lot of ideas within âcultural marxismâ (i.e., Frankfurt school and its intellectual descendants) are bullshit and actively harmful, if just because of the opportunity cost of wasting cognitive elites on studying poetry that pretends to be science. I think that social justice is a project of huge importance, but that the modern social justice movement has some pretty harmful and toxic elements. I believe that the left has distinct anti-science tendencies when it comes to the influence of biology on behavior and that HBD is an important field of study. I think freedom to offend is more important than freedom from offense.
Yet: I support strong social safety nets. I think that affirmative action policies are often warranted, even though they are not a permanent solution. I believe in liberalization of immigration, free universal healthcare, strong government and in government programs to improve the lot of historically marginalized groups.
According to a Pew poll, 95% of Americans are more right-wing then me, yet according to the âculturally marxist leftâ (or whatever other term you wish to use), Iâm a reactionary, mansplaining, autistic, right-wing shitlord who opposes all progress and deserves to die a horrible death (or so Iâm told on reddit). Go figure.
10 Likes
Here now, I think Iâm better equipped to tell you what your gender is than you are.
32 Likes
I didnât get the impression that the author was talking about all rationalists or libertarians, just the ones that are part of the Redpill movement. (Which I assure you is an actual thing that some people self-identify as; spend any amount of time on the 'chans or the grubbier parts of Reddit and youâll run across them.)
4 Likes
Okay, maybe youâre the person to ask, or maybe not.
A. For those of us who took computer science in college: what do you think âCultural Marxismâ actually means? To you, and to people who would actually call themselves that, and maybe to right-wingers who would label people with it? âFrankfurt Schoolâ means nothing to me.
B. What are some examples of âtoxic and harmful elements in the modern social justice movement?â
4 Likes
