Great piece, Lisa. I love your relentless quest for pluralistic dialogue, and I share your experience of getting flak from both sides on a range of issues.
On the trans issue, I have to admit that after learning everything I could about this topic, I don't see much of a middle ground anymore. While I don't share the attitude of some on the gender critical side that all heterosexual trans-identified men are disgusting fetishists to be reviled, and I obviously think the people who have been caught up in that belief system and have irrevocably altered their bodies must be treated with compassion, and that adults should be free to believe themselves to be whatever they want, I do not think that there should be any forced societal participation in their beliefs - i.e. no access for males to female spaces, no teaching in schools about "gender identity", no insurance coverage for "gender affirming" interventions. No social pressure to pretend that "being trans" is an innate condition rather than a coping mechanism for other issues. So where is the middle ground to be found?
The problem with viewpoint diversity around the trans issue is that it is inherently at odds with a live-and-let-live approach, because nobody can "be trans" without societal endorsement of and participation in their belief system. Saying "sure, you can believe that you are really a woman even if you were born with a male body, but I won't pretend that is true" to a trans-identified person equals violence to them, the erasure of their very existence. Due to their belief's fundamental dependence of social affirmation, they will never agree to disagree, and allow you to view their belief as a creed as valid as the faith in the Trinity or the Immaculate Conception, which they are free to hold while you do not partake. They NEED us all to partake, and so viewpoint diversity on this issue is fundamentally impossible due to the inherent demands of the belief system itself.
Yes, exactly. Religious believers have various attitudes about conversion—some believe that failure to convert might affect us in the afterlife—but the trans activists insist on our collective belief during this life and in all areas of society. Forced conversion, in a way.
The problem is that it's not only the trans activists. Trans-identified people themselves, and their allies, demand our conversion, because without that, their beliefs cannot be practiced. Like my sister, who is furious that I won't consider her daughter's boyfriend a woman, use the pronouns (from afar, since he lives in a different country), and believe that he is a "true trans" person like those that have "existed for thousands of years" - rather than a confused young man caught up in a social contagion, probably driven by a political agenda, and possibly also by autogynephilic experience (which I'm not even judging as morally problematic in and of itself).
Great piece, as usual, Lisa. Also, your including that detail of the "help" from ChatGTP (a person I know refers to it as "ChatAGP," BTW) is a good reminder to the rest of us that "garbage in; garbage out" definitely applies to LLMs, which anyone who's attempted to get an AI Chatbot to apply logic to its regurgitated trans narrative-fueled pronouncements quickly discovers.
Lisa's piece is particularly timely for me, as I am reeling a bit after listening to most of an interview with Katy Faust on the Genspect youtube channel . . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwZtluOB11Q
Things are complicated and we're all guilty of imagining silver bullets to solve intractable problems whenever we practice the selective attention that our limited cognitions require. We all need a lot of exposure to our philosophical and political opponents' worldviews to at least reduce the number of hard realities we're doomed to blunder into as flawed and myopic human beings. As a kid experiencing Barnum and Bailey for the first time, I remember the frustration of having to miss out on large parts of the show because of the three-ring format. Considering the infinite-ringed circus nature of Life, it's only reasonable to remember how much we actually do need constant reports from the vantage points of many others who are living theirs under very different conditions and in very different places.
pushing back against the garbage AI produces can get the AI to deliver better results.
I've had rather lengthy bouts of repeatedly refining my questions to AI and asking pointedly about specific new research and so forth that forced the AI to provide better answers.
Then I asked why it didn't provide the better answers from the start & the AI told me that this research and POV it generated at the end of my questioning was new and lesser known.
Do LLMs assume the "masses" or "majority" is always right? When AI takes over we are all in for some probably major difficulties. Maybe a new breed will emerge, like the Amish, but resistant to the world-as-generated-by-AI
Three thoughts. First, I would like to see less attribution to "the right". I am a center-right conservative and was a member of the Republican party for more than 50 years. (I'm a registered independent now.) I'm still part of "the right" but I share virtually none of the views - economic, foreign policy, or cultural - of many current members of "the right" or the Republican party. It seems to me that everyone (and progressives especially) needs to start clarifying who they're talking about and to. For example, I react negatively most of the time to NYT pieces that refer to "the right" because they use that terminology primarily to manipulate their readers and disparage all conservatives by association. Not helpful.
Second, respectfully, I believe care is needed when abortion and trans issues are discussed in the same writing, for the same reason. The practice of trying to impose “their own narrow normal on the rest of us” is widely spread across the political spectrum. I found the implication distracting.
Finally, I experienced a similar LLM rabbit hole when I asked about desistance. I thought I knew what it meant, but I wasn't sure. The response accurately defined it but significantly discounted it, based on references to WPATH and similar entities. The LLM has been trained to consider WPATH as determinative.
Thanks for your commentary on this issue. It is extremely helpful.
push back on the AI reliance on WPATH by asking it, hasn't WPATH suffered significant loss of credibility and legitimacy lately? The AI will be forced to admit that & then to "re-conceptualize" the topic.
I love the concepts of pluralism and viewpoint diversity—for things like city budgets, or literature, or aesthetics. But I’m not sure they’re as useful in some circumstances. Do we want such disagreement on basic concepts, such as killing is wrong? Of course there’s plenty of disagreement about what kind of killing is wrong and which is okay. But my point is that having moral certainty about an issue isn’t always a bad thing—it can be a good thing.
I love your jokes. I also share your pursuit of truth over belonging. Thank you for revealing what you suppressed in order to pursue what you needed to discover.
I love that woman who said you gave her a slap on the face. Seems to me that in that moment, tribe emerged between the two of you. You may enjoy the hinterlands, but you are human and, in my opinion, still need connection and resonance with others beyond your immediate family. Tribe can reach beneath red and blue, conservative and liberal. Food is a good example, music is another. And the gender fight has gifted so many of us with this beautiful and surprising expansion of our perspectives, I know it has for me. Besides this, there are also deep and wise human currents that can merge between different tribes--if she is a Christian (which seems likely, given the setting), one of her strongly held currents may be to place a check on her judgements of others, as Jesus called out hypocrites for not removing the plank out of their own eye while criticizing others. You were speaking words she understood, and she welcomed the chastisement as a course correction to becoming a better person.
DEFINITELY try stand-up. I did it for 3-4 years and it was one of the best (and often most uncomfortable) experiences of my life. But it was the kind of discomfort that makes life more interesting.
Ok, now I have read it and, as always, I appreciate your nuance and pluralism. Such wonderful and necessary traits. "The human is probably the only animal that can occupy the viewpoint of someone from a different tribe. This is the closest thing I have to a spiritual practice." I loved those lines. Thank you always for your dedication, drive and work.
When I told you I thought you would be a great stand-up (in Chicago), you absolutely shot me down! Now, I find it is actually in your dreams. Go for it. You are a natural . Ok, I will now go back and read what you wrote.
Great piece, Lisa. I love your relentless quest for pluralistic dialogue, and I share your experience of getting flak from both sides on a range of issues.
On the trans issue, I have to admit that after learning everything I could about this topic, I don't see much of a middle ground anymore. While I don't share the attitude of some on the gender critical side that all heterosexual trans-identified men are disgusting fetishists to be reviled, and I obviously think the people who have been caught up in that belief system and have irrevocably altered their bodies must be treated with compassion, and that adults should be free to believe themselves to be whatever they want, I do not think that there should be any forced societal participation in their beliefs - i.e. no access for males to female spaces, no teaching in schools about "gender identity", no insurance coverage for "gender affirming" interventions. No social pressure to pretend that "being trans" is an innate condition rather than a coping mechanism for other issues. So where is the middle ground to be found?
The problem with viewpoint diversity around the trans issue is that it is inherently at odds with a live-and-let-live approach, because nobody can "be trans" without societal endorsement of and participation in their belief system. Saying "sure, you can believe that you are really a woman even if you were born with a male body, but I won't pretend that is true" to a trans-identified person equals violence to them, the erasure of their very existence. Due to their belief's fundamental dependence of social affirmation, they will never agree to disagree, and allow you to view their belief as a creed as valid as the faith in the Trinity or the Immaculate Conception, which they are free to hold while you do not partake. They NEED us all to partake, and so viewpoint diversity on this issue is fundamentally impossible due to the inherent demands of the belief system itself.
Yes, exactly. Religious believers have various attitudes about conversion—some believe that failure to convert might affect us in the afterlife—but the trans activists insist on our collective belief during this life and in all areas of society. Forced conversion, in a way.
The problem is that it's not only the trans activists. Trans-identified people themselves, and their allies, demand our conversion, because without that, their beliefs cannot be practiced. Like my sister, who is furious that I won't consider her daughter's boyfriend a woman, use the pronouns (from afar, since he lives in a different country), and believe that he is a "true trans" person like those that have "existed for thousands of years" - rather than a confused young man caught up in a social contagion, probably driven by a political agenda, and possibly also by autogynephilic experience (which I'm not even judging as morally problematic in and of itself).
Great piece, as usual, Lisa. Also, your including that detail of the "help" from ChatGTP (a person I know refers to it as "ChatAGP," BTW) is a good reminder to the rest of us that "garbage in; garbage out" definitely applies to LLMs, which anyone who's attempted to get an AI Chatbot to apply logic to its regurgitated trans narrative-fueled pronouncements quickly discovers.
Lisa's piece is particularly timely for me, as I am reeling a bit after listening to most of an interview with Katy Faust on the Genspect youtube channel . . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwZtluOB11Q
Things are complicated and we're all guilty of imagining silver bullets to solve intractable problems whenever we practice the selective attention that our limited cognitions require. We all need a lot of exposure to our philosophical and political opponents' worldviews to at least reduce the number of hard realities we're doomed to blunder into as flawed and myopic human beings. As a kid experiencing Barnum and Bailey for the first time, I remember the frustration of having to miss out on large parts of the show because of the three-ring format. Considering the infinite-ringed circus nature of Life, it's only reasonable to remember how much we actually do need constant reports from the vantage points of many others who are living theirs under very different conditions and in very different places.
About AI & Gender Affirming Care & Trans:
pushing back against the garbage AI produces can get the AI to deliver better results.
I've had rather lengthy bouts of repeatedly refining my questions to AI and asking pointedly about specific new research and so forth that forced the AI to provide better answers.
Then I asked why it didn't provide the better answers from the start & the AI told me that this research and POV it generated at the end of my questioning was new and lesser known.
Do LLMs assume the "masses" or "majority" is always right? When AI takes over we are all in for some probably major difficulties. Maybe a new breed will emerge, like the Amish, but resistant to the world-as-generated-by-AI
Three thoughts. First, I would like to see less attribution to "the right". I am a center-right conservative and was a member of the Republican party for more than 50 years. (I'm a registered independent now.) I'm still part of "the right" but I share virtually none of the views - economic, foreign policy, or cultural - of many current members of "the right" or the Republican party. It seems to me that everyone (and progressives especially) needs to start clarifying who they're talking about and to. For example, I react negatively most of the time to NYT pieces that refer to "the right" because they use that terminology primarily to manipulate their readers and disparage all conservatives by association. Not helpful.
Second, respectfully, I believe care is needed when abortion and trans issues are discussed in the same writing, for the same reason. The practice of trying to impose “their own narrow normal on the rest of us” is widely spread across the political spectrum. I found the implication distracting.
Finally, I experienced a similar LLM rabbit hole when I asked about desistance. I thought I knew what it meant, but I wasn't sure. The response accurately defined it but significantly discounted it, based on references to WPATH and similar entities. The LLM has been trained to consider WPATH as determinative.
Thanks for your commentary on this issue. It is extremely helpful.
push back on the AI reliance on WPATH by asking it, hasn't WPATH suffered significant loss of credibility and legitimacy lately? The AI will be forced to admit that & then to "re-conceptualize" the topic.
I love the concepts of pluralism and viewpoint diversity—for things like city budgets, or literature, or aesthetics. But I’m not sure they’re as useful in some circumstances. Do we want such disagreement on basic concepts, such as killing is wrong? Of course there’s plenty of disagreement about what kind of killing is wrong and which is okay. But my point is that having moral certainty about an issue isn’t always a bad thing—it can be a good thing.
I guess I’m wondering if moral relativism is a good thing or not.
I love your jokes. I also share your pursuit of truth over belonging. Thank you for revealing what you suppressed in order to pursue what you needed to discover.
I love that woman who said you gave her a slap on the face. Seems to me that in that moment, tribe emerged between the two of you. You may enjoy the hinterlands, but you are human and, in my opinion, still need connection and resonance with others beyond your immediate family. Tribe can reach beneath red and blue, conservative and liberal. Food is a good example, music is another. And the gender fight has gifted so many of us with this beautiful and surprising expansion of our perspectives, I know it has for me. Besides this, there are also deep and wise human currents that can merge between different tribes--if she is a Christian (which seems likely, given the setting), one of her strongly held currents may be to place a check on her judgements of others, as Jesus called out hypocrites for not removing the plank out of their own eye while criticizing others. You were speaking words she understood, and she welcomed the chastisement as a course correction to becoming a better person.
Such clear thinking. Thank you.
DEFINITELY try stand-up. I did it for 3-4 years and it was one of the best (and often most uncomfortable) experiences of my life. But it was the kind of discomfort that makes life more interesting.
Ok, now I have read it and, as always, I appreciate your nuance and pluralism. Such wonderful and necessary traits. "The human is probably the only animal that can occupy the viewpoint of someone from a different tribe. This is the closest thing I have to a spiritual practice." I loved those lines. Thank you always for your dedication, drive and work.
When I told you I thought you would be a great stand-up (in Chicago), you absolutely shot me down! Now, I find it is actually in your dreams. Go for it. You are a natural . Ok, I will now go back and read what you wrote.