Are you a teenager?

You can say the same for ‘race’. There is one human race yet the term can be used in a more general manner. ‘Gender’ can mean ‘sex’ and it can mean something else.

Man and woman are markers for ‘sex’ and used as ‘gender’. The problem is how language is put together over time - meaning how people USE the terms.

People adhering to more hard and fast rules will have issue with saying that ‘gender’ is anything but ‘sex’. The general social shifts recently don’t make this at all surprising.

All I know for sure is that a trans woman is a not a woman (that is why the term trans woman exists!), yet I have no issue with referring to a trans woman as she/her because it makes perfect sense to do so. If said person was to tell me they are a woman through and through and insisted that I except they are a woman … well, they cannot do this. It is impossible to make someone agree with you about anything. People can be presented with arguments and evidence, but really it is down to them to make the change or not.

I find all identity politics to be quite vile and oppressive. It is not really too surprising that something like this has surfaced in societies today given that everyone on the planet can more easily than ever before made their voice heard somewhere, find like minds somewhere and be exposed to things they would never normally be exposed to.

All the categories given as examples are in themselves ‘institutional facts’. There is a speck of black within white and vice versa. If not then there would be no possible distinction. Identity politics operates under the guise of ‘liberation’ but really it is about drawing starker and starker lines between people … which some people like either because they feel more ‘the same’ or ‘more different’ (ironically!).

We all die anyway so it doesn’t matter that much :D

Anarchy means to question/oppose authority.

‘Total Freedom’ meaning what?

By the same logic how about someone you is a nazi. That’s diversity!

That is a slippery slope. For instance if someone is perfectly good at their job yet holds some racist views/opinions then does the employer have the right to fire them based only on said views/opinions? I would say no.

In the real world people can just make up another excuse and ‘let them go’ so that is a ‘social consequence’ of not adhering to what most people regard as reasonable social behaviour.

The reason it is a ‘slippery slope’ (more so than my example) is that MANY people have differing views about what is and isn’t a proper manner to speak and behave. Some people can view merely raising a topic as a ‘micro aggression’.

Going back to day-to-day life if you talk to someone with ill intent and ridicule and belittle them THEN act uppity when they punch you in the face … well, you suffer the ‘social consequence’ of your behaviour. The legality of such things is irrelevant too. People act as they see fit to act NOT by some rulebook written by a group of others.

Free speech allows everyone to see where others stand (to a degree) and treat them accordingly. Being ‘fired’ directly for holding opposing views to someone that doesn’t relate to the workload is illegal surely? I am not saying they should not ‘fire’ them only that they should not be allowed to ‘fire’ someone for expressing an opinion about something that doesn’t effect their work. Preaching and politicking … I think that is an area where the employee should be warned to keep such things out of the workplace rather than just fired outright.

This thread needs its own category!

I wouldn’t know where to start with this. All I know is everywhere I look and everything I think about is a messy mess of a mess. Nothing makes ‘sense’ and people seem to just be doing stuff unconsciously all the time … and why this is part of my day-to-day life (this ‘view’) is in and of itself an absurdity.

Ironically (considering your apparent stance) I call the whole thing ‘religious’. Meaning that all ‘facts’ are at different layers of resolution relative to our experiencing self and how we ‘constitute’ ourselves as ‘among’ and ‘apart’ - the intentionality.

A book is not a book, and a tree is not a tree. Things we experience (or imagine) make up our world. How we ‘feel’ about things matters more than we seem to let on to ourselves. The possession of items or the experiences of items are one and the same yet we split them into distinct categories.

There is a a coffee cup on the table and a glass of chilled water … everything about them is spectacular to observe and contemplate … where did they come from? Who made them? Who designed them? Why that design? Was it given much though? The dried froth around the rim of the cup of coffee I recently finished. How now can I look at this items as merely ‘a glass of water’ and ‘an empty cup of coffee’. I have imbued them with emotional content and for those reading this maybe you too will now look at something near you and imbue thoughts and feelings into items that were previously mundane and never really worthy of note.

There is no end to this. It is horrifically beautiful! It is neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’.

@baker The OP is asking what one should do. If you have no answer you have no answer I guess.

If you have an answer then that would be a ‘good life’ of a sorts right? Is a ‘sort of good life’ better than a ‘no sort of good life’? If so and your response is it doesn’t matter because we suffer anyway, then you have not made any meaningful distinction between the two.

So there is no ‘good life’.

I am against antinatalism and, in part, against buddhism.

I have no wish to say much more than that on those topics in this thread.

Me too. The only other one I listen to regularly is Mindscape (my first love was physics after all!)

I reckon there are several points Becker makes where we would be fairly understanding to each other’s attitudes and ideas. I have not read him myself but hope to soon. In terms of existential stuff Camus and absurdism is more my kinda thing.

Do you listen to podcasts? Philosophize This is a really nice series. Well presented and gives a nice overlay of different philosophical thoughts and works.

And the obviousness of ‘feeling/believing’ you are a man ‘trapped’ in a woman’s body (or vice versa) is acknowledging that you do not physically possess a penis and testicles.

The rest is kind of a true Scotsman argument. Someone born in Spain can be considered ‘Scottish’ if they grew up in Scotland in their early years I would say. I would argue against someone who has spent their entire life living in Spain without speaking a word of English suddenly moving to Scotland in their 20’s and declaring they are ‘Scottish’ to be somewhat delusional. The exception would be if they said, I know I Spanish but my whole life I have felt out of place and tried many things to feel at ease in my own skin. Then I visited many countries around the world and to my surprise found that ‘Scotland’ felt like home to me.

For the purpose of social acceptance immigrants are more readily treated as members of their adopted nations with far less resistance. I would imagine those resistant to accepting foreigners as fellow citizens are the ones with an ‘illness’ of a sort. I think it is called ‘tribalism’ :D

Note: Joke! I do not view ‘tribalism’ as an ‘illness’.

In terms of self awareness, simply posing a question to ourselves in our head could be considered ‘a prayer’ as we ask ourselves what to do. Often answers come to us when our thoughts are redirected towards other items.

It is does not take much to see that there is a connection between asking a question (or crying our for an answer) and said question/call being answered by some unseen force within.

A human’s sense of authorship shifts and changes quite a lot. Some people even believe we are just ‘passengers’ of a sort and that the claim to authorship is lain on after the said events.

Morality is absolutely ridiculous and silly. End of story :D

@schopenhauer1 What do you make of Ernst Becker?

And my point here was that the person was quite aware that he had a leg - not delusional. He ‘felt like’ the limb was not his own (and said so) and ‘knew’ that physically it was his limb but still wanted it removed.

The ‘logic’ used by the other person you mentioned claimed that ‘feeling’ is equivalent to ‘knowing/thinking’ something to be a true physical fact hence why I not responding to them for about a month - a little rule I have here that works well for me.

“model”

Bye bye (that means you get a response from me for around a month).

Have fun :)

The link I provided you numb nut :D

From a dictionary:

“A 'dogma' is defined as a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority and held to be incontrovertibly true.”

Truth is not directly what science is about. Science is concerned with how things work by refining proposed rules and laws and making observations.

Dogmatic attitudes have existed amongst science-based persons. Yet when evidence is brought forward they DO NOT deny the evidence. Evidence is taken into account and minds are changed. There is no ‘god’s word’ or ‘scripture’ that cannot be changed.

This is basic stuff.

Note: I am NOT saying that all religious people are aligned with such dogma but enough are to cause problems.

Cannot read it because not willing to give details.

It is obvious to me that people have plenty to offer on subjects they are not experienced in. It is daft to suggest that men cannot talk about women’s rights or that non-jews cannot comment about the holocaust.

If the article addresses why these idea have grown more of late (if they have) then what does it say?

It is nonsense to say only x can talk aboud x is what I meant. Busy atm … will read later …

In the OP

No. That is not the definition I was using at all. It is one plied by religious dogmatic types to justify labelling science as ‘dogmatic’.

Based purely on that snippet it is nonsense. I will read later …

No. Religious institutes have attempted to combine ‘dogma’ and ‘doctrine’.

There is no dogma in science. There is dogma in religions.

There are dogmatic and non-dogmatic people in both.

Not by the APA certainly not in the UK nor would I imagine in most European Countries.

Where do you live in the world? UAE? Saudi Arabia?

Perhaps if you read the OP and the link you would see? If you have and don’t see what it has to do with the OP I can only suggest you try harder.

That makes no sense. There is no ‘dogma’ in science because science makes no claim of absolute truth.

Just because scientists can be ‘dogmatic’ it does not mean that science contains dogma … that is just plain wrong. Religious texts on the other hand are the very definition of dogma by claiming to be irrefutable truths.

English is a messy language, but it bothers me that people choose their own meanings and uses for words to suit their weird ideological views.

Where is this? In an African country or bible belt state. I don’t really regard either as an authority.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

Er, no. That is not stating that homosexuality is an illness.

Any more nonsense to offer?

No. Science is not dogma. Scientists can certainly be ‘dogmatic’ though with their beliefs and ideas.

There is a reason why scientific theories adapt and change over time and The Bible and Koran remain exactly the same - one is Dogma and the other is constantly changing.

Is homosexuality an ‘illness’ too? It was classed as such not so long ago.

So your argument boils down to complete nonsense.

There are instances where people FEEL something yet KNOW that they are not physically the case. The woman who has had a burning sensation on her left arm for decades KNOWS her arm is not burnt or burning.

She does not walk around waving her arm around saying ‘my arm is burnt’ because she knows it is not.

Are so out of touch with basic argumentation that you think that ‘think’ and ‘feel’ are the same thing? Utterly ridiculous. Bye bye

Read again? It doesn’t matter what the physical truth of the matter is if someone ‘feels’ a certain way they ‘feel’ that way. That is not the same as saying they truly believe they are that way … like with examples of people who ‘feel’ physical pain yet there is no physical reason for them to do so (phantom limbs etc.,.). We do not simply tell them ‘you don’t feel pain so stop complaining’ and they know the ‘pain’ is not coming from felt source of pain BUT it is still felt.

It is delusional when they say they ARE that way. It is not delusional to say you merely feel a certain way. Why is that so difficult to grasp?

No I don’t have the reference. Watched the documentary many years ago.

Knowing you are not x and feeling like you are x are entirely different things.

I remember watching a documentary about a guy who felt like his leg was not his leg. He had to go through several stages of psychological evaluation to have his leg amputated. Sounds very strange on the surface of it but when you listen to how it felt the only other option would have been to have brain surgery (not that they knew how to fix it) … needless to say losing a leg was the better option.

There is a rather large difference between a beaver and human than there is between a male human and a female human.

Like a fellow human being? :D

Seriously, I think the big problem some people have here is simply down to how in society men and women are different and due to these differences people tend to act in certain ways towards each other. Men interacting with men, men interacting with women, a man interacting with women, and so on and so forth …

For someone trans, that is CLEARLY trans, this simply does not fit into common social interactions for many people - unless you live in the Manila or some other place where trans people are clearly a visible part of day-to-day life.

So how should we interact is probably the wrong question. It is more about how can we interact more often so as for such questions to become background noise like ‘how should men interact with women, or …’

I imagine for a number of generations to come people will have little to no interaction with anyone trans. Once CRISPR does what it is going to do the whole conversation is going to shift dramatically … so we have a few generations to yet so I just suggest we accept people believe themselves to be such and such, just like we should accept that someone who feels like they are on fire when they are not and know they are not STILL feels like they are on fire!

I was hoping to steer away from that topic and address the OP. Looks like that is no going to happen.

@baker Anyway, I never said buddhism was nihilism. I asked what @schopenhauer1 thought about buddhism and nihilism.

As for the other response you gave I will say the same thing I said to Schopenhauer fellow here … ‘no’ is not a helpful answer for me if am I to understand your position. Why no?

No because …

Oh! My mistake :D Maybe I thought you were other person.

I didn’t.