political correctness gone mad

[Ab]

Fucked if I know, but I bet it's going to be more and more of a thing in years to come. In NZ, because colonialism, the people running institutions with money tend to be urban white professionals. A lot of urban white professionals have increasingly weird ideas about identity and group membership. Remember when all those pakeha activists started protesting about tree removals in Auckland on the basis of their whakapapa, reciting their pepeha documenting the airline flights they arrived on before they bought their investment properties? Imagine the children of those people demanding preferential access to scholarships and grants and healthcare because they grew sunflowers at their student flat last autumn and thus feel tangata whenua because of their deep connection to the land.

[DrTiTus]

I've never been given a Maori scholarship, but I'm officially Maori according to the electoral roll, and never had to go into detail or provide a family tree. Tick, write "Ngapuhi". Done. Probably just declared at birth or some tick along the way that stayed with me.

A general scholarship is a bit of a weird case - they can discriminate because it's some private individual's endowment with their own wishes that are respected by the executor of the scholarship fund. You can say it's money reserved only for women over 40, or white men with a single parent, or disabled people, or great athletes, and these are all OK. No one is entitled to a scholarship.

Maori scholarships I imagine are funded by iwi, so it's really up to them to decide. You can't argue that you are entitled to free money, and I doubt there is much oversight. If they're happy to give it out, then by all means lie. If they challenge you, be prepared to get bummed out.

[Ab]

The iwi of which I'm a member, Ngai Tahu and Ngati Whakaue, are quite anal about documenting descent for membership. Ngai Tahu in particular had me jump through lots of hoops with birth and death and marriage certificates to prove who I am and who I'm descended from.

That opens up another can of worms though. Large numbers of my family members remained on or near that which had been iwi land before it was stolen. There are marae in the Bay of Plenty and Canterbury and Otago that I can walk on to and give a mihi and be welcomed like I live there because people to whom I'm related have stayed living there. But there are urban and ex-pat Maori who have absolutely no connections to any given place. Their ancestors lost access to land entirely and their grandparents moved to the city and now their parents are dead and they don't know their whakapapa and they can't prove shit. What do we do for those brothers and sisters? How do we accommodate a world in which Whitey McWhiteface from Parnell can claim uncontestable "indigeneity" because zhe knows the magic wipipo words to use when announcing zheir identity to the scholarship panel, but an illiterate brown primary-school dropout in South Auckland or Brisbane can't?

Originally Posted by DrTiTus

Maori scholarships I imagine are funded by iwi, so it's really up to them to decide.

Can't wait for unsuccessful Whitey McWhiteface to demand an iwi be cancelled for its refusal to acknowledge zheir identity.

[DrTiTus]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

Or we could address inequality so there weren't all these battles going on for access to resources or fairness. Or at least they wouldn't need be so pitched.

Yeah, nah, tho right?

You're welcome to hold this view. However, life is not fair. Darwinism (science, because you love science) says that evolution is survival of the fittest. There is always competition for resources. That's just how it goes. In a job interview, we are competing for limited positions. In the housing market, we are competing for a particular residence. Even our supermarkets are competitive in the sense that there are limited goods, and we have to either be early to get the bargains, or rich enough to afford what's left. The dating scene is a competition to attract attention so you can potentially fertilize the egg of the woman [highly competitive] or man with a womb [you can have him bro]. Music - we have charts. Movies have box office hits, and flops. Cars get raced for engineering status or market share. People fight each other to show dominance either for sport or for violent takeovers of territory.

You might not like it, but being philosophical about it is not a strength. It actually makes you weaker, and the weak will get stomped. Sure, it's not fair, and your feelings might be hurt by my revelation, but hey, I never made the rules. We all play by them. Even "alternative communities" (eg hippy communes) naturally become hierarchical, with leaders and newcomers, and some end up with rights and power that others don't have. It's the natural order. Trying to organize things some other way is against nature. Some might even call it perverse. Again, not my rules. Argue with the creator of all things.

[Cyberbob]

Originally Posted by DrTiTus

Darwinism (science, because you love science) says that evolution is survival of the fittest.

I'll be that guy and point out that natural selection is survival of the fittest, not evolution.

[fixed_truth]

Originally Posted by DrTiTus

A general scholarship is a bit of a weird case - they can discriminate because it's some private individual's endowment with their own wishes that are respected by the executor of the scholarship fund. You can say it's money reserved only for women over 40, or white men with a single parent, or disabled people, or great athletes, and these are all OK. No one is entitled to a scholarship.

Maori scholarships I imagine are funded by iwi, so it's really up to them to decide. You can't argue that you are entitled to free money, and I doubt there is much oversight. If they're happy to give it out, then by all means lie. If they challenge you, be prepared to get bummed out.

True.

I also have no problem with University given scholarships or preferential access to med school for example. If they deem value in more Maori doctors then it's a more practical method than having a compulsory tikanga maori paper prerequisite. Especially where there's so many dimensions to being a doctor and high grades at 18 doesn't necessarily make a good one.

[fixed_truth]

Originally Posted by DrTiTus

You're welcome to hold this view. However, life is not fair. Darwinism ........

Pseudo-scientific social Darwinism, scarcity myth, both appeal to nature and appeal to heaven fallacies!?! Bingo.

What if I told you that society is merely a social construct that is made and accepted by people.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by fixed_truth

...given scholarships or preferential access to med school for example. If they deem value in more Maori doctors...

Where Maori is an identity that can be claimed by any urban white person who knows the right magic words to use?

[fixed_truth]

I don't think that's how it works

[Ab]

Watch this space.

[fixed_truth]

I hope it goes more they way of using a genealogical DNA test.

[DrTiTus]

Originally Posted by fixed_truth

What if I told you that society is merely a social construct that is made and accepted by people.

What if I told you that matter is mostly empty space, the material world is an illusion conjured up by your brain - only a fraction of what exists is perceived, consciousness is mysterious and hard to define, and no one asked to be born.

We've both made statements which allow us to question the nature of reality - and that's cool, I like philosophy too - but that doesn't mean I get to sleep with your wife and live on your land and expect to be fed. I mean marriage, ownership and work are just social constructs right, we can just ignore them?

[Ab]

Turns out that political correctness going mad can be quite lucrative, especially if you do your cancellations specifically to appeal to platform algorithms.

[fixed_truth]

Originally Posted by DrTitus

We've both made statements which allow us to question the nature of reality - and that's cool, I like philosophy too - but that doesn't mean I get to sleep with your wife and live on your land and expect to be fed. I mean marriage, ownership and work are just social constructs right, we can just ignore them?

What's that got to do with your claim that people struggling to survive in society is just some kind of unavoidable natural phenomena that we should just ignore?

[StN]

Originally Posted by Ab

Where Maori is an identity that can be claimed by any urban white person who knows the right magic words to use?

I posited this to the kids over dinner - and they were aghast that I could suggest such a thought experiment. They were both disturbed that someone would use such a ruse which would deny a needful recipient, and wanted to establish their eligibility on their terms. They also pulled me up on my appalling Te Reo pronunciation. I'll think they'll make good doctors.

[DrTiTus]

Originally Posted by fixed_truth

What's that got to do with your claim that people struggling to survive in society is just some kind of unavoidable natural phenomena that we should just ignore?

Because life isn't fair, and people ARE all competing for resources. Naturally, the greater the population, the more fierce the competition becomes. It's obvious from first principles, but there are people like yourself who argue that scarcity is a "myth". It's true that the resources might EXIST, but the resources need to be extracted, gathered, processed, distributed, etc. That all requires work and effort and organization. It's very Animal Farm, where the ideal is corrupted by selfishness.

You suggest that the hierarchies which have formed, with those at the top having more than those at the bottom, are just "social constructs", as though we could choose to restructure society any time we wanted. Technically, we can - that's called a revolution, but I didn't see any sign of strength or backbone in the last test of our rights and freedoms. I saw a bunch of science devotees doing as they were told, and in denial when their precious science was useless. So, while technically true, in practice, not going to happen.

You can postulate and talk about "social constructs", but ultimately you're up against everyone else, and everyone is acting in their own self interest. The same social constructs I pointed out are very much artificial - animals don't necessarily have marriage, land ownership and jobs - but they do defend their right to their mate, territory and their food. What you label "social constructs" are our organizing principles, and these principles have survived because they are superior to other organizing principles.

I'm obviously on the side of the status quo - what is your proposed solution to the inequality and unfairness in the world today?

[Lightspeed]

Naturally, the greater the population, the more fierce the competition becomes.

This is plainly not true. Our post-industrial age populations enable cooperation and coordination to achieve massive scale infrastructure projects allowing huge numbers of people to exist in concentrations that historically would be deadly.

Our economies literally fear a drop in population.

The incentive for ensuring the most people are able to thrive in our communities is this maximises the exploitation of existing infrastructure and the production of even more complex and robust infrastructure.

The solutions are what already works. Access to education, healthcare, justice.

[fixed_truth]

Exactly. What we’re doing now in mixed economies but a step further. A higher level of wealth distribution, increased investment in things like education, healthcare, justice, technology. Improving political democracy is important also.

Life being unfair doesn’t at all necessitate that we don’t do anything about making people's lives better, it’s a moral imperative. People are competing for resources because they’re being massively hoarded e.g. the top 0.01% richest individuals hold 11% of the world's wealth. This kind of power entrenchment enables survival of ‘organising principles’ rather than them being ‘superior’.

[Ab]

Ohio bill would allow pregnant people to sue men over unintended pregnancies

Um

[Lightspeed]

Pregnant Texas woman driving in HOV lane told police her unborn child counted as a passenger

[DrTiTus]

'Oh, no. It's got to be two people outside of the body.'

[Ab]

If you think that this isn’t about legitimising hatred of women, you’re not paying attention

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2022/07/0...vf-clinic-sex/

[fixed_truth]

A gay couple pissed off because the IVF clinic fucked up is about legitimising hatred of women?

[Lightspeed]

It makes sense there are those working hard to sell this narrative. Your middle aged man, the kind that's holding the lion's share of middle-class equity, grew up during a time when learning to respect women was still new and edgy. At that time it was too much to realise it wasn't simply women, but vulnerability that needed to be protected, rather than exploited.

Can you imagine the shock and dismay at just having learnt to respect women, with their delicate looks and fine smells, realising now everyone who is vulnerable has to be respected? Is there no one left to exploit? No one left to feel superior to?

Forces that are invested in exploitation have a strong incentive to sell this story to those with the most to lose. Surely if things continue as they are it will be the end of women! Maybe even sports!

[Ab]

Originally Posted by fixed_truth

A gay couple pissed off because the IVF clinic fucked up is about legitimising hatred of women?

Or, spun another way, two males wanted to make more males, but were forced by biology to involve an actual uterus, so they hired a company to provide them with one, and then when the uterus they rented grew them a female, they sued the company for failing to provide the service they wanted.

Jesus, just look at the language:

the fertility clinic “negligently, recklessly, and/or intentionally transferred a female embryo to the Sanigers’ gestational carrier”.

It reads like something out of A fucking Handmaid's Tale.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by Ab

The conservatives are winning because the progressives have themselves become religious nuts.

Perfect example. Check out this exchange between a conservative American lawmaker and a progressive American law professor. Watch how quickly that use of the word “women” by one escalates to bright-eyed smiley-voiced “transphobia, words are violence, suicidesuicide” glossolalia from the other. Apparently Senator Hawley is a staunch Christian conservative, but he’s not the one who comes across as the religious nut in this clip.

https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1546902849837322241

[ChaosWulf]

It's easy to see how it happened. It's natural for the underdogs to fight for other underdogs.
We fought for equality, for body autonomy, for gay marriage, for something close to equal pay, and we expected the fight to go on to the next generation for them to fight for more stuff.

And then the next generation fought for trans rights, for non-binary rights, for every single loud minority group; they fought for representation in media, for pronouns and for more labels to call themselves. And we backed them, because that's what you do. If it felt wrong, or shallow, we told ourselves it was because our ideas are outdated, and should be challenged.

And in the meantime, everything our generation and our mothers generation fought for start being stripped away and we're left blinking in a somewhat dull fashion - wondering how we went from being the strongest allies diversity could have, to being Karens, TERFs, and the great voiceless once more.

All this in the space of 15 years. Damn, but it's been a ride.

[Ab]

[ChaosWulf]

Perfect.

[fixed_truth]

Originally Posted by Ab

Perfect example. Check out this exchange between a conservative American lawmaker and a progressive American law professor. Watch how quickly that use of the word “women” by one escalates to bright-eyed smiley-voiced “transphobia, words are violence, suicidesuicide” glossolalia from the other. Apparently Senator Hawley is a staunch Christian conservative, but he’s not the one who comes across as the religious nut in this clip.

https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1546902849837322241

The guy getting his values from his interpretation of the bible is the religious nut.

You might not like what the Law professor says but she's not wrong. Not recognizing gender identity and asserting that you have to be female to be considered a woman does perpetuate hate & prejudice towards the trans community and this does contribute to their high suicide rate.

[Ab]

‘Have you recently had an abortion?’ Australian transiting through US questioned then deported

Madolline Gourley says she was on her way to Canada for a holiday when US immigration officials intervened. Gourley was held in a detention room, interrogated twice, patted down, fingerprinted and photographed.

[Ab]

Meanwhile, in the UK's war on women and girls:

https://twitter.com/post_liberal/sta...29597824077825

[Ab]

Originally Posted by Ab

Meanwhile, in the UK's war on women and girls:

https://twitter.com/post_liberal/sta...29597824077825

Seriously, read the article in the first tweet and imagine the effort it must have taken to write about girls being gang raped without using the words “girls” or “rape”.

Hence: “children groomed by gangs”

[fixed_truth]

Looking at the online responses to the Hawley & Bridges interaction it comes across as a is it a blue or gold dress situation.

It was plain as day to me that Hawley come across as smarmy & disingenuous (& condescending at the end) & got showed up by a calm, logical & eloquent speaking Bridges.

To others he's some truth seeking hero who's pushing back against a crazy lady.

I think the crux of it all is that one group is so ingrained with the old paradigm of female = woman & male = man that anything even slightly to the contrary seems like an alien concept.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by Ab

Seriously, read the article in the first tweet and imagine the effort it must have taken to write about girls being gang raped without using the words “girls” or “rape”.

Hence: “children groomed by gangs”

If you're a critical worker who treats rape trauma in NZ, you will have to go to extra lengths to justify a male rape victim receiving treatment than a women who endured similar trauma.

[Ab]

I'm sure that's a source of great solace to the thousands of girls raped by Muslim gangs in the UK and whose misery went unacknowledged because the police couldn't say "Muslim" and the media couldn't say "girls".

Well, other than the girls who got murdered after they were raped, I mean. They won't feel better.

[Lightspeed]

That's not that truth though. It's a great story, pulling together all these true things to create this less-than-true yet very compelling narrative.

The reality is that there are a great volume of people raped in Western communities, who are ignored, blamed even, maybe begrudgingly offered care. To facilitate any contradiction in beliefs we might encounter (e.g.: my community is safe) we come up with these cool stories about how if only this was slightly different or that was slightly different this subset of rapes wouldn't occur, so therefore it is this or that which is responsible (and certainly not the values I benefit from in our community, the target of blame conveniently aligning with certain agendas I might have, the rest of the rape going can be disregarded as it doesn't fit my story).

[DrTiTus]

Originally Posted by fixed_truth

I think the crux of it all is that one group is so ingrained with the old paradigm of female = woman & male = man that anything even slightly to the contrary seems like an alien concept.

Would you have come up with this idea all by yourself, or did it require hours and hours of reprogramming for you to come to this conclusion? Did you ever at one point think that female = woman, and male = man? What changed? Or have you always felt this way?

Because I won't judge you whoever you want to be. My half brother is gay, I have no problem with it. I accept people of all persuasions - it doesn't affect me. What does affect me though, is trying to flip the whole world upside down and redefine everything we know about nature, because some guy can't just come out and say he prefers the loving embrace of strong arms and the musky pheromones of other men.

If it's not about sexuality, what is it about? Is it typical for a woman to take testosterone so she can become a man and come out as a gay man? I wouldn't be surprised if someone has - some guy got surgery to become Korean, but exceptions aren't the rule. I assumed a woman that wants to be man just wants to take being a lesbian to the next level, and be a bit more comfortable being attracted to women.

Have we tortured gay people so much [we have], and made it so unacceptable [probably] that they need to mutilate their own bodies rather than just tell us that they aren't attracted to the opposite gender? I suspect this is more the case than "whoops, humans and animals have got it wrong since the beginning of time, and it took men dancing in glittery undies down the street telling us they like men for us to realize that there's no such thing as a man".

I'm genuinely asking, and I'm making assumptions, because it honestly makes no sense to me - not because I'm stuck in some "old paradigm", but because it's pretty obvious that female = woman and male = man, and I question the motivation - and benefits - of trying to claim otherwise. If it makes the homo community feel better, can't we just say it's OK to be a homo and wear a dress? Do we really need to add "and science proves that you're perfectly normal because look at this mutation"?

[fixed_truth]

Originally Posted by DrTiTus

Would you have come up with this idea all by yourself, or did it require hours and hours of reprogramming for you to come to this conclusion? Did you ever at one point think that female = woman, and male = man? What changed? Or have you always felt this way?

I grew up in NZ so yeah I did think that before I understood that male/female are biological categories and that man/woman are social categories that change over time and vary between cultures and also that gender identity is relevant to how we define these social categories.

Originally Posted by DrTiTus

I'm genuinely asking, and I'm making assumptions, because it honestly makes no sense to me - not because I'm stuck in some "old paradigm", but because it's pretty obvious that female = woman and male = man, and I question the motivation - and benefits - of trying to claim otherwise. If it makes the homo community feel better, can't we just say it's OK to be a homo and wear a dress? Do we really need to add "and science proves that you're perfectly normal because look at this mutation"?

'Making assumptions' and 'it's pretty obvious' aside; I've not come across any evidence that most transgender people are attracted to the same sex. I have in this thread came across claims that some lesbians feel pressured by some transwomen to date them.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by fixed_truth

Looking at the online responses to the Hawley & Bridges interaction it comes across as a is it a blue or gold dress situation.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...thinks-it-did/