An impetus or a particular thing?
David Paisely is trying to understand (or claims he is).
I wonder what it was that made him decide to be gender uncritical. I wonder if there was a particular thing that drove him towards that mode of thinking.
(I don’t really. I think he’s just dumb and conformist, and there’s nothing more interesting than that about it.)
Hm. So it’s not believing in magic swappable gender that’s like god-belief. Interesting.
And how do we “seek to harm” trans people? By our wicked failure to “validate” them? By declining to take their absurd reality-denying claims at face value? Are we really classifying that as seeking to harm people now? Just, not believing other people’s fictions and fantasies?
Oh, I don’t think he thought that. I think he wanted to pick a fight.
And he failed, right there, when he brought up the idea that the gc stance is a hateful ideology that seeks to harm and exclude a minority group. Classic smarmy tactic.
I never decided to believe in internal man- or woman-souls, in much the same way that I never decided to believe in Jesus. But the question itself is probably in bad faith, as beliefs (or their absence) rarely come down to a single identifiable decision point. We follow the evidence and reasoning that seems good to us, whatever our stance on a matter.
Huh, Paisley gets blocked by a single person and that means… all gender critical people are lying when they say they want discussion. K.
“How did you decide to believe X” is not an invitation to a friendly discussion, regardless of what X is. (I’m excluding the instances in which it’s just a clumsy way of saying “tell me why you think X is true.”)
The implication is that X is not true, and so clearly so that it isn’t even the worth discussing the truth of X — instead, the questioner wants to discuss how you arrived at this obviously incorrect conclusion.
It can be worthwhile to discuss why people hold certain wrong beliefs, but don’t expect those people to be eager participants in that discussion.
Today’s Jesus and Mo is relevant — I would link it but the site seems to be down for me right now.
In that case…
Knee
I didn’t decide to be gender critical. That was thrust upon me by those who think that their magical gender trumps everything else in society.
I didn’t decide to fight against men intruding into women’s sports, that was thrust upon me by men intruding in women’s sports.
I didn’t decide to fight to protect women’s and girls’ safe spaces, that was thrust upon me by men intruding into women’s and girls’ safe spaces.
I did not decide to oppose the creeping elimination of the class woman from everyday life, I just continued my lifelong support for women’s rights.
Sealioning wanker
That’s a really messed up reversal, when you think about it. I’m not sure there’s a self-respecting epistemologist who believes in strict doxastic voluntarism. That is, we don’t have volitional control over our beliefs. Quick experiment: choose to believe that trans women are women. Did it work? Didn’t think so. Our beliefs are not things we choose or decide upon. Actual belief is involuntary.
What is voluntary is acceptance of religious doctrine and dogma. You don’t involuntarily believe that the Host becomes the Body of Christ, which is why you “just have to have faith”. Faith is the choice, the decision that you believe.
So this little nitwit is getting his analogy precisely, verifiably, objectively backward.
Like Pratchett’s demon, Crowley, I didn’t so much fall as saunter gently downwards. That is, I was reasonably happy with the idea of using preferred pronouns in social situations back when I thought that was being kind and protecting people from harm.
There were two problems. First, my viewpoint didn’t stand up to the slightest scrutiny. Second, see Roj@4.
It all unravelled more slowly than I, in retrospect, would prefer. I underestimated the extent to which institutions were being ideologically captured and the length of the tail wagging them. I was never fooled into thinking that men are women, but I was fooled into thinking nobody would be fooled into thinking that women are men. It’s inexcusable. The signs were all there. But in my defence, I think we were probably all guilty of assuming some adults would show up at some point, waaaaaay before it all became so breathtakingly batshit.
Why attack our David? He’s just asking questions. Leading questions, yes, and he’s misrepresenting the answers of course. And, is it even a relevant question, you ask? No, now that I think about it, it’s kind of a non-question, isn’t it? “You, sir, why did you decide to be odious?” “You, ma’am, why did you decide to be revolting?”
It’s a polite question, no slant involved at all. He’s genuinely curious as to whether you will assault him by showirng a picture of a purple, green, and white ribbon.
And he’s blocked many of those who would give him an answer, anyways.