Disqus - Latest Comments for dtobias

Re: The PEN Awards and World Voices Festival Are on the Brink of Collapse

dtobias — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 12:53:47 -0000

Good for PEN, for continuing to stand for free speech for all instead of becoming yet another "progressive" group allowing no views but those of "woke" activists.

Re: PHP Version Check - Cold LAMPin' Your IT

dtobias — Sat, 17 Dec 2022 13:14:40 -0000

The "P" of it could be Perl or Python too.

Re: It’s 2020 and you’re in the future

dtobias — Fri, 27 May 2022 11:43:45 -0000

There is a new Wonder Years now, but they chose to set it in the '60s like the original, making it further behind the times (but with a black family instead of a white one).

Re: Irreversible Damage to the Trans Community: A Critical Review of Abigail Shrier’s book Irreversible Damage (Part One)

dtobias — Mon, 05 Jul 2021 15:42:46 -0000

It's not the job of science to take positions in social and political debates, but to provide facts, logical inferences, and experimental results that can be used to ground such debates in reality.

Re: Irreversible Damage to the Trans Community: A Critical Review of Abigail Shrier’s book Irreversible Damage (Part One)

dtobias — Mon, 05 Jul 2021 15:28:28 -0000

"Maybe science should focus less on the causes of identity and sexuality
variation, and more on challenging the discrimination and inequities
sexual and gender minorities face on a daily basis" -- In other words, science should stop focusing on science (the study of facts in an attempt to determine causes) and instead focus on activism.

Re: Social Media Censorship: A Necessary Evil?

dtobias — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 14:48:18 -0000

"Hate speech" has no constitutional definition. It is constantly being used by activists to refer to any speech that opposes their dogmatic ideologies. In other countries without the equivalent of the U.S. First Amendment, it has been used to prosecute people for "blasphemy" against religion, or, these days, against the trendy "social justice" religion. Laws against hate speech have no place in a free country.

Re: Harry Potter fan sites unite to condemn J.K. Rowling's trans stance, announce changes

dtobias — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 00:16:03 -0000

Not everybody shares the same definition of "woman". Demanding everybody use yours is "begging the question", in the proper logical use of this concept to mean the logical fallacy of assuming the proposition that is being aimed to be proved.

Re: Elton John calls gender-neutral Sam Smith 'he' at iHeart Living Room Concert and all hell breaks loose

dtobias — Tue, 31 Mar 2020 10:30:56 -0000

Calling oneself "they" is a political statement, and as such, everybody else has the right to support, oppose, ignore, or make fun of it.

Re: A Sick Giant

dtobias — Tue, 25 Feb 2020 12:37:51 -0000

And then what happens at the heat death of the universe?

Re: Political Disney World

dtobias — Thu, 26 Dec 2019 10:46:36 -0000

The concept of using a simplified model, and the associated questions about what parts of reality should properly be considered signal and what parts noise, and how there might be equally valid models that make different decisions in that regard, has been covered in somebody else's blog:

https://everythingstudies.com/2016/06/02/partial-derivatives-and-partial-narratives/

Re: Political Disney World

dtobias — Thu, 19 Dec 2019 09:24:30 -0000

I'm male because I have the body parts for that, and I can like whatever movies and music I want. There's no conflict in that.

Re: Political Disney World

dtobias — Thu, 19 Dec 2019 09:23:24 -0000

I agree with you on people liking things outside their gender stereotype (and I do like a lot of movies that get tagged as "chick flicks" myself). What I don't understand is why some people seem to think that having such unstereotypical interests somehow leads one to reject their birth sex and identify as a different gender.

Re: Political Disney World

dtobias — Wed, 18 Dec 2019 19:54:35 -0000

"a lot of them are more committed to free speech than to social justice"...You say that like it's a bad thing...

Re: Political Disney World

dtobias — Wed, 18 Dec 2019 19:51:24 -0000

If a man likes "chick flicks", does that make him "nonbinary" or "a transwoman", or does it just make him a man with preferences that don't always follow a stereotype some people have of what men ought to like?

Re: Political Disney World

dtobias — Wed, 18 Dec 2019 19:49:02 -0000

Because private entities have more leeway in this area than governments, that's where most of the actions regarding forced pronoun use have happened; see for instance the case of Monica Cellio being dismissed as moderator at Stack Exchannge and publicly badmouthed by their management, which she's contemplating a defamation suit over: https://www.gofundme.com/f/...

Re: Political Disney World

dtobias — Wed, 18 Dec 2019 19:46:44 -0000

Apparently the New York City government has issued some directives regarding pronouns that create fineable offfenses in some cases, probably limited to speech connected with employment and public accommodations; any further would be against the First Amendment. Other countries such as the UK have less free speech protection, so there's more danger of "hate speech" laws being overapplied. A UK employment tribunal ruled today that the belief that biological sex should be what matters in distinguishing men from women was not a protected belief in the context of laws against discrimination by philosophical belief in employment because it was "against human dignity" of trans people.

Re: Political Disney World

dtobias — Wed, 18 Dec 2019 19:42:24 -0000

I'm certainly less "rabid" in that direction than I was in my younger years, as age tends to mellow you out. These days I'm more of an opinion that ideology in general, libertarian ideology included, is a fairly dangerous thing which can cause a lot of damage if taken too far in any direction, making me closer to a centrist, though I still retain a liking for individual liberty and a belief that a free market system is most compatible with it. Certainly capitalism can be abused, as can any other system, but it's still more productive and liberty-based than socialism, which is based on collectivism rather than individual rights.

Re: Political Disney World

dtobias — Wed, 18 Dec 2019 09:35:54 -0000

That's true as far as "live and let live" is concerned, regarding other people living their own lives without having to care what you or I think of it. The more libertarian the system is, the fewer things depend on others' approval and the more people can run their own life based on their inner beliefs, however crazy they may seem to others. But forcing others to go along with such beliefs seems a step too far; it's one thing to be polite and avoid openly challenging somebody on something meaningful to them that doesn't harm you (e.g., annoying atheists going out of their way to taunt Christians about their religion, or for that matter annoying Christians taunting atheists; even if you think somebody's beliefs are superstitious nonsense / will send them straight to hell, you don't have to SAY it to them if they're not doing anything to hurt you, and similarly you don't have to go out of the way to point out what gender YOU think somebody REALLY is, by your own belief which clashes with theirs); it's another to be compelled by law to affirmatively honor others' beliefs you don't share, like by getting fined if you don't use the proper pronouns.

Re: Political Disney World

dtobias — Wed, 18 Dec 2019 09:29:31 -0000

Of course, I have no desire myself to see anything through an "intersectional Marxist lens", being an individualist free-minds-and-free-markets libertarian.

Re: Political Disney World

dtobias — Wed, 18 Dec 2019 00:06:59 -0000

That ContraPoints video is pretty good; she has a flair for showmanship and a sense of humor, and enough of a tendency to think for herself that she has in fact come under attack several times from the more dogmatic of "her side" in the leftist pro-trans activist community.

However, the lesson of that video, as far as I can see it, is that there are multiple contradictory ideologies regarding gender, and none of them seem to make all that much sense when put under critical scrutiny; but then she turns away from the implications of this and retreats to a "Then ignore logic and do what makes trans people feel good instead" position, which doesn't make much sense to me.

Re: Twitch thinks this emote is “sexual content”

dtobias — Mon, 11 Nov 2019 15:20:19 -0000

I don't know if this creator has any Catalan roots, but Catalan culture includes the tradition of "caganers", Christmas ornaments consisting of sculptures of people pooping (including celebrities and politicians). (I'm not Catalan myself, but have been keeping up with their struggles with the Spanish government since visiting Barcelona a few years ago.)

Re: When Art Fought the Law and the Art Won

dtobias — Tue, 09 Apr 2019 09:01:43 -0000

Those were the days... when the left side of the culture wars was anti-censorship.

Re: Students Call on Harvard Administrators to Remove Winthrop Dean Sullivan From His Post

dtobias — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 09:10:30 -0000

These are law students; they should be aware of the bedrock principle of American jurisprudence that anyone accused of a crime, no matter how heinous, deserves a legal defense.

Re: Bobbins dot horse | Frisson to believe

dtobias — Mon, 31 Dec 2018 16:12:28 -0000

(Though perhaps by now they have a Nemulon-10 or Nemulon-11 that's more capable?)

Re: Bobbins dot horse | Frisson to believe

dtobias — Mon, 31 Dec 2018 09:50:23 -0000

Timelines have been messed up so badly that I think it's beyond even the ability of a government agency equipped with Nemulon-9 robots to untangle.