Relying on Facebook or some other company to serve up targeted news stories is ill-advised. Google or Facebook's intent may not be nefarious--I'm assuming their intent is merely mercenary--but the effect of getting only what you ask for, filtered by formula, is limiting more than the convenience is worth.

But then, Newspapers (thinking of the New York Times) don't really print all the news, all the news that's fit to print, or all the news that everyone collectively might like. They gather what they can afford to gather, and publish what they think is relevant to a 'responsible paid-up readership'. I've been reading the New York Times every day for... I don't know, maybe a decade. Before I bought an on-line subscription I always bought and read at least the printed Tuesday Times--that's when the weekly Science Times section appeared.

I am frankly getting tired of the NYT editors' ideas of what's relevant and important. I used to read the Washington Post. I stopped when they imposed a pay wall, and I didn't want to pay for two newspapers. I'm thinking of dropping the NYT and coughing up the much higher fee for the Wall Street Journal. (The NYT costs about $90 a year, at the low, low rate they gave me to keep me subscribed.) The WSJ charges more like $250 a year. I don't like their editorial positions, and a lot of their news is narrower than I would like, but their general interest articles are excellent.

Ideally, I would subscribe to the LA Times, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and a Canadian paper. I would keep my sub to the London Guardian, and I'd like to read a French or German paper. I don't have time to read all that, don't know German at all and don't read French very well.

I have also subscribed to several magazines (Monthly Review, In These Times, Progressive, Dissent, and The Nation in the past, but have found these sources to be very predictable and limited. Like, these magazines cover labor and leftist events, but they are SO predictable in what they will cover and what they will say.

So, my news is narrowed to my preferences too, though not as much as it would be if I were depending on Facebook.

Interesting link, thanks, but... So? He was an academic theologian, not a candidate for sainthood. And as a non-candidate for sainthood, sexual adventurism (aka adultery) doesn't invalidate what he had to say about God being the ground of being. Maybe he had that useful insight during theological pillow talk with a paramour.

You, for instance, might end up committing adultery, and that won't invalidate what you have had to say about various topics (except your comments on your immunity to adultery. those might then go down the drain).

psychiatrists and psychologists — Agustino

A word on behalf of psychiatry...

Psychiatrists are, first of all, doctors who get paid through the bossy bureaucracies of insurance companies (at least in the US). How much they get paid per patient, and how much time they can reasonably spend on each patient visit is governed not by their employer, a clinic or a hospital, but by Amalgamated Medicine Corporation, or some such insurance company. The time per patient might be as short as 10 or 12 minutes.

Some psychiatrists see patients for longer periods of time, (30 minutes per visit), and they can do so because they are in private practice. They may not take Medicare or Medicaid patients though, because Medicare payments are a bit too low.

Visits to psychiatrists tend to be medication checks. How are you feeling? Do you need a new Rx? See you next month. They literally, and really, don't have time to discuss your life--as much as they might think it appropriate--thanks to Amalgamated Medical.

General family practices are caught in exactly the same squeeze. Patient time is metered by the minute, and doctors generally don't have a long time to discuss your vague medical problems. They want you to get to the point, show them your throbbing foot, quick diagnosis, Rx, and NEXT!

Good therapy takes time. An exceptional clinic I received therapy from did long-term counseling lasting for years, if need be, with 50 minute sessions. Patients who were unable to pay received the same treatment as paying customers. How did they pull that off? An endowment and enough paying customers to balance the books. Plus, they were a training program for PhD-level therapists who worked as interns. Were they any good? They were very good.

So, how do psychiatrists live with themselves? For one, they tend to have a lot of debt and it has to get paid off. They work according to the terms of the workplace. Two, some of them see patients on psychiatric wards, where they can treat first class insanity. Three, psychiatrists are as likely as the next guy to live a life of quiet desperation.

Major depression and schizophrenia, say, should be treated just as cancer and heart disease are - as destructive, physically formed blemishes on an already fallen and frail human body. — Heister Eggcart

Allow me to associate myself with your observations. Anyone who has lived with and loved someone who is manic depressive with deep depression and mania which immediately heads off into psychosis, knows, feels, and has suffered the inability to help the afflicted person. Even with heavy duty major tranquilizers (anti-psychotics), it can take days to suppress the screaming and thrashing of a bad mania attack. Thorazine and a padded cell is entirely appropriate for such situations, crude as they seem. Until something better comes along...

You know that, understand it, and haven't thrown the baby out with the bath water in a fit of total scorn. On the other hand, my depression went away when my life got better.

total distrust and scorn — Agustino

I agree with a theme in your OP. Mental illness is mostly not a physical disease (except that experience is mediated by the physical structure of the brain, and if the physical structure goes haywire...) Much of what is called "depression" for instance, is just a consequence of the ghastliness of many people's everyday life. They need a better life, not better anti-depressants.

For most people (let's say 90%) the terms of their life are reasonably compatible with their basic personality. Part of us is given before birth, part of us is shaped in childhood, and a part is shaped later in life. For some people (the remaining 10%) who they are is incompatible with the kind of person which society attempts to shape and which they are expected to be.

Back in the 60s and 70s the rate of mental illness was calculated at about 10%. Seems reasonable. At sometime in their life, 1 out of 10 will require medical assistance in coping with mental illness. That's a lot, 30 million people in the US, but 290 million won't require medical assistance for mental illness.

Sometime in the 1980s the estimates started rising and reached 2 in 10; 20% of the population would need medical assistance for mental illness. My guess is that the estimation rose because there was now an at least somewhat effective drug treatment that could be prescribed. The responsibility of people is to buy the products which will fix them. Besides, somebody had to take the place of all those crazy homosexuals who weren't defined as "sick" anymore.

The homo's replacements were ordinary, miserable heterosexuals who were unhappy enough that they were becoming significantly less productive (always a problem) or they were acting out at work (even more of a problem), or they tried to kill themselves in a way which went beyond a snivelish "cry for help". Some of them shot presidents (Ronald Reagan) in an effort to impress movie actresses. Was John Hinkley insane? Or had he simply happened upon an ill-advised plan to impress the woman he loved (Jodie Foster)? I sort of regretted that part of the plan didn't succeed - I'm sure he and Ms. Foster would have made a fine couple.

I'm not normal. — Agustino

I'm not normal either, and abnormal children are all weird in different ways.

My central problem as a homosexual child is that my sexual interest existed in a vacuum of information. In 1958, 7th grade, living in a very small town, when I began looking for information, there was nothing available. I didn't ask, and looking back, this was a prudent choice, given the time and place. I had nothing to go on but some childhood play experiences with the neighbor boys, and imagination. But I had almost no fodder for even a solid erotic daydream.

Plus, I was nearly blind. I could read, watch movies, etc., but my vision was very poor, and that ruled out a lot of activities that boys in rural midwest small town did--like work on farms in the summer, drive around in their parents car, play sports, do well in phy ed classes (which was whatever sport was in season), and the like.

There are biographies of gay men my age (70) who grew up in New York City, for instance, and could become worldly wise, even if they all didn't. There are also a lot of guys like me whose bios tell of growing up in rural North Dakota, Kentucky, Texas, California... If one lacked natural gregarious with which to overcome isolation, one stayed isolated, or one got the hell out of Podunk and hightailed it to the nearest more urban city.

Homosexuality used to be defined as a mental illness. In one way, that made sense: A lot of homosexual men who reached adulthood before gay liberation hit the fan in 1970 were, in fact, kind of crazy because of their not-surprising maladaptation to being the only gay fish they knew in the heterosexual pond.

The overwhelming conventionality of small town life was another crazy-making element for young guys who were going to build their adult sex lives in a deviant very urban sub-culture. Yes, the wicked, strange, big city was L-I-B-E-R-A-T-I-N-G, but it was also disconcerting.

The Anna Karenina theory might apply here: All happy people are alike; each unhappy person is unhappy in his own way. It's similar to the Isaiah principle: All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turnéd every one to his own way. Except Isaiah is more pessimistic: Tolstoy apparently thinks life works out quite well for a lot of people, even if not everybody. Isaiah find us all wandering into the weeds for different reasons.

So, what characterizes happy people? Are there commonalities in the ways we go astray?

My theory is that happy, mentally healthy, successful people are presented with no confounding factors early in their lives that are greater than they can understand and overcome. Unhappy and mentally unhealthy people have, conversely, been presented with confounding factors which they could neither understand nor overcome. Intelligence explains little here, because no matter how intelligent child is, he is too undeveloped to have the insight and information required to grasp his difficult situation. That won't come along for another 20 years, perhaps. By adulthood the unfortunate child has had plenty of time to develop some crazy features.

this doesn't account for all craziness. People with major mental illnesses (like bi-polar disease) are screwed from the get go, however happy a family they had, and no matter how well they navigated the ingravescent inimicalities of childhood.

Some of us didn't socialize well as children. We didn't fit into "the group". We were outliers. We were deviants in various ways. Because of our outsider status, (not always outside, but outside often enough to be very familiar with the experience) we failed to develop both social knowledge (how society works) and social skills (being able to move smoothly through society.

People who are touched by outsider--outlier--deviant status, tend (a tendency, not a rule) to be propelled further outward. They aren't propelled so far that they are actually outside, though. They live altogether within society, but without the full set of skills that belongers, conformers, and central tendency folk have. The outsider--outlier--deviant experience much more social friction than most people do, and this further alienates them, and it might not occur to them what is happening to and around them. Again, this isn't about intelligence, it is about an insufficient skill set, insufficient insight based on poor experience, and the like.

The resulting stress, sturm and drang, anger, disappointment, unhappiness, job loss, broken relationships, frustration, sorrow, loneliness, et al produce a good share of what is classified and treated as "mental illness". These people aren't crazy, exactly; they're just not very successful at life. Do drugs help this sort of problem? Sure, they help in as much as many of the drugs used for depression have a tranquilizing effect, and the tranquilization of an antidepressant is possibly (but not invariably) safer than any one of several well mixed cocktails--old fashioned, manhattan, martini, gin and tonic, etc.

We can add chemical abuse, debt, long and taxing commutes, and a lot of other crap that tends to make people feel, if not act like they are, to use a shorthand term, crazy.

First of all, It's not the case that "fake news" is a new thing. (Why should you believe me?) A study of almost any historical period will reveal instances of political authorities inserting false information into the flow of conversation and printed information.

Yes, children should believe what their teachers tell them because their parents told them so.

First, the parents can select the teachers. If the parents believe in a 6 day creation, want their child to believe in a 6 day creation, they put them in a school that teaches 6 day creation (such things exist). If the parents want their children to learn about basic science, literature, and history they will put them in a normal sort of school which teaches basic science, literature, and history.

Are the parent's safe in telling their children to believe their teachers? Yes -- until some time in their children's adolescence, when the children's teachers (in normal schools) will themselves tell the children to be careful about what they believe.

What children in normal schools learn is basic science, literature, and history that more than a majority of people believe. Not everybody believes the earth is round, orbits the sun, and is part of a large galaxy, but most people do. Most people believe that fish have skeletons and extract oxygen from water. Most people believe that William Shakespeare wrote a whole bunch of plays over 400 years ago, and that Massachusetts was once a colony of England and was never a colony of Spain or France. They believe that the United States participated in WWI and WWII. Most people believe Auschwitz was really an industrial death factory. Etc.

Children learn basic facts in schools. They become acquainted with the general, over-all shape of their culture. It's up to parents to make sure their education continues after school: that children read well-written books, that they watch worthwhile television and movies, don't spend too much time playing games, soaking in social media, and surfing the net. Responsible parents model being informed of current events by consuming what they think are reliable news sources. They talk about current events with their children. They impart their own opinions about the world to their children -- not as LAW but as "this is what we think".

From all that, children are able to put together a reasonably reliable picture of basic reality. As the progress through life, they keep reading, keep talking with other people, keep getting more education, and gradually become their own information curators, their own reference librarians.

They can hear about a pizza parlor that is supposedly a front for a child pornography ring that included the Clinton, Bush, and Trump families, and step back to consider: "Well it is possible that a pizza parlor could be owned by a child pornographer, but they probably weren't including kiddie porn in the pizza boxes. So, how would non-porn ring people know about it? if the Clinton, Bush, and Trump families were all involved, then either kiddie porn is more mainstream than I thought, or somebody would have squealed on them long before now. And besides, it's just not very likely that such visible people as Clintons, Bushes, and Trumps would be involved in something that dangerous to their reputations, particularly, not on the scale of a pizza joint."

They would conclude that that sample of "fake news" was, indeed, "fake".

Let's say a man works in a factory where he creates components for new computers. He would never want to create a new computer himself, but in the workplace he must adapt certain kind of ignorance or quit the job. — Kazuma

Our man working in the factory is subject to alienated labor. Whatever he makes as a worker in the factory, be it computers or condoms, belongs to the owner of the factory who determines what will be made, how it will be made, what the wholesale price will be, how much the workers will get paid, what he will do with the profits of the factory, and so on.

Alienation of labor cuts the worker off from the goods he makes, and relieves him of any necessity (or even the point) of thinking about the products his workplace produces. (He doesn't need to think about it because his thoughts on the matter are irrelevant.)

What the alienated worker needs to think about is how to change his relationship to production, from being an unthinking cog in the works, to directing the works himself (along with his fellow workers). Maybe they will continue to produce computers when the workers are in charge, maybe not. They need to think more deeply about this than the owners of capitalism have--which is to say, barely grazed the surface of the question.

"Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it" Karl Marx said. What the worker needs to delve into is how to humanize work and it's products, rather than to continue in an alienated and alienating regime.

IN a capitalist economy, the primary reason for technological innovation has to do with earning profit from manufacturing or from service. Innovative (not necessarily better) products are continuously needed to replace products which are presently being consumed. Style drives clothing purchases, for instance, among a large portion of the market. One can not be seen in clothes that represent last season's discards. Similarly, one is encouraged to think that one needs the latest smart phone. In fact, for most people, the $10 Trac Phone (which makes and receives calls) will be perfectly serviceable. Or, the $100 smart phone will serve where a $10 Tracphone will not.

The 'consumer' also needs to think about products, and whether they need to exist. Does one really need a smart light bulb? 99.999% of the population have no real need for a smart lightbulb, let alone a house full of smart lightbulbs, smart stoves, smart refrigerators, smart furnaces, smart rugs, smart toilets, and smart vacuum cleaners. Much of what we consumers buy has very little potential for increasing our sense of happiness.

You can't argue against facts bitter crank. — intrapersona

Of course I can argue against fact. With the election of Donald Trump, we have moved into the post factual era and truthiness is now old hat. A has been. A tired old hag. Get with the program, Intrapersona, reality is a crock. There are no facts, just opinions. And some opinions are more valuable than others, like yours, for instance. ;)

This refined woman is clearly more spiritual.

Jethro Tull – Hymn 43

Our father high in heaven-smile down upon your son.
Who's busy with his money games - his woman and his gun.
Oh Jesus save me!

And the unsung Western hero, killed an Indian or three,
And then he made his name in Hollywood
To set the white man free.
Oh Jesus save me!

If Jesus saves-well, He'd better save Himself
From the gory glory seekers who use His name in death.
Oh Jesus save me!

Well, I saw Him in the city and on the mountains of the moon -
His cross was rather bloody -
He could hardly roll His stone.
Oh Jesus save me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_LF9NFKPlo

Very good.

I thought it was short for Andrew Aguecheek of Twelfth Night by WS.

"Ague" means a shivering fit. He of the jiggling jowls, I suppose.

Stay out of the humanities, for sure. They are currently a swamp infested by malevolent spirits of female nonsensicalness. (Not that every English major of ages past was a hard-headed realist.)

I've never understood how a phaser blast (to the chest, in this case) can propagate throughout the body, causing disintegration. You would think the target would just collapse with a charred hole in the thoracic cavity.

Do you understand the physics of this?

Since we are an evolved species like all other species and not one created by divine fiat, I suppose one can imagine an evolutionary basis for just about everything. There being an evolutionary basis, and we being able to precisely identify it, does not necessarily go together.

Could it be that women are "more religiously [or spiritually] oriented because it fits their material/maternal circumstances?

Women specialized in weaving early on because it was compatible with their reproductive role of bearing and raising children. Chopping, digging, hunting, hauling, butchering, and so on (male tasks) were much more dangerous to children than weaving, and a woman would have difficulty looking after children and cutting down trees at the same time.

Moving up to more recent times, perhaps possible could be women got interested in religion more than men because it was available for exploitation for their wants and needs. In other words, maybe it's not an inherent interest. Maybe it's constructed by circumstances. Why are so many gay men hairdressers (if that is even the case)? Because gay men are inherently interested in women's hair? No, because it was a niche that could be safely occupied.

When computerization became a major thing (back in the 60s-70s) a lot of gay men seemed to have gone into that area--not because gay men are inherently digitally oriented, but because a) they're guys and b) data processing was a niche that could be safely occupied. I've met more gay computer guys than gay hair guys.

In any case, men dominated the field of religion (as "men are naturally wont to do". Here, Miss, let us manage the church -- keep praying, just stay out of the important meetings. And don't get any big ideas either.

But I like to view women as angels, that's why I hate those who aren't ;) — Agustino

As Professor Loretta Lynn notes,

It wasn't god who made honky tonk angels
As you wrote in the words of you're song
Too many times married men think they're still single
That has caused many good girls to go wrong.

It's a shame that all the blame is on us women
It's not true that only you men feel the same
From the start most every heart that's ever been broken
Was because there always was a man to blame.

Say you're naked with other men. Why is small talk needed? — Agustino

I don't think this is really very complicated.

Men (or women, for that matter) who are comfortable in their own skin can be naked in semi-public situations (like locker rooms, nude beaches), and talking in a locker room isn't evidence of insecurity. But... a lot of men (sorry, don't have any stats for "a lot") are kind of touchy about their physical selves.

It isn't that there is anything wrong with the bodies they are; they may have exemplary bodies: well proportioned, appropriately muscled, handsome face, clear skin, hairy or not as each prefers, etc. But, they just don't feel comfortable being naked and exposed to other people. Like it or not, some people are a bit neurotic. You may have encountered neurotic people at some point in your life.

From my own experiences I have found excessively social people to be less trustworthy, more prone to lying and deceiving as well as egocentric and manipulative behaviour, coupled with hedonistic/trivial sex lives. — intrapersona

I don't want to get too personal, but maybe this reflects more about you than the alleged excessively social people you have encountered. We who are socially dull witted may find that the socially adept run circles around us, which is likely to seem like negative behavior. And, of course, your observations are going to be true, at least some of the time--because some people are liars, thieves, knaves, and scoundrels, whether they are socially skilled or not.

All talk is small talk. — Benkei

Exactly.

There are many categories of talk: philosophical talk, car talk, sports talk, religious talk, farmer talk, kitchen talk, pillow talk, construction talk, military talk, bar talk, political talk, interior decorating talk, yoga talk, lawn talk, work talk, queue talk, etc.

And can I know why we need to act like Machiavellian undercover manipulators? Does that make you feel good about yourself or what? You like being like that? — Agustino

"Cover" is a normal social thing. It's not the same as "undercover". There is nothing Machiavellian in what I said about cover. Another example: A bunch of straight guys in the YMCA shower and locker room can stand the forced naked proximity if they can "cover" the situation with small talk about sports, their work out, running shoes, and the like. Just standing there, silently, is a bit too "exposed". Maybe it's a way of keeping everybody's gaze pitched upward. "Hey, I'm up here." Gay men generally like the naked closeness of the YMCA, talk or no talk,, but a lot of straight guys don't.

Eleanor Roosevelt once said “small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas" — intrapersona

Shove it, Eleanor.

Small talk serves several functions, as indicated. Society depends on it, because it enables us (sans telephone or keyboard) to stand in close proximity for a while. Between strangers, small talk is a cover for closer examination. (Close examination without a cover is a bit too intrusive, especially for Anglo Saxons who usually maintain at least an arm's length margin.)

Between friends, small talk allows for reaffirmation of the relationship, it's a friendly activity. Sharing a bit of food, a drink, is an extension of 'small talk'. It's small actions. Small actions can serve the same function as small talk.

Small talk is the way we groom each other. We could go through each others' hair looking for fleas, lice, detritus, and so on, but we gave that up a million years ago. Maybe we should have preserved the practice. We could be discussing Schopenhauer while we pick lint off each other's clothing.

Not everyone is academically, philosophically, scientifically... oriented. It requires a substantial commitment and preparation to succeed in those games, and most Americans (60%) do not have a degree, and even if they do, they might not be "big idea people", which is fine. Most educated people have to attend to the work of maintaining.

While "What is the purpose of our existence" is indubitably deeper than "The 21 bus is always late", the latter is a better opener than the former, if you don't know the other people at the bus stop.

I think we can use the term to apply to designer babies in a Capitalist setting, even though as you say it is speculative sci-fi at the moment. The term is possibly too shadowed by its history and should maybe be abandoned to your definition. — Nils Loc

Individuals selecting traits for their planned infant from a menu of genetic possibilities is certainly related to eugenics, but because it is directed by individual choice, doesn't have the same 'shadowing' as that practiced by states in the US or by Nazi Germany.

There are problems inherent in the market-driven designer baby scenario. We see the consequences in India, where for the last 30 years or so parents have used abortion, and infanticide, to obtain preferred male babies. The result is that there are now too many male babies and not enough female babies for the now-adult men to marry. If all the extra male babies were gay, that would be advantageous for all these forced bachelors, but they are straight, 9.7 times out of 10.

Were Americans, for instance, able to choose from a menu of features, i would expect to see a lot more tall, muscular, blond men with nice teeth and blue eyes. Fine by me; tall, muscular blue-eyed blonds with great teeth are nice to look at, but who will the surplus studs marry if there are too few females? Will the blonds form an elite caste? "No skinny, short, fat, black-haired, dusky skinned, gap toothed individuals need apply"?

You've seen the film, GATTACA, I'm sure, where citizens are discriminated against on the basis of whether they've undergone pre-birth genetic enhancement. — Nils Loc

No, didn't see Gattaca. I've added it to my list of "should see, must read, ought to do, over-due, deep doo doo if I don't do" list.

Just to keep people on track here... Eugenics isn't about what "you" want, it's about what the authorities have decreed. Eugenics is a plan for improvement which has nothing to do with your personal preferences. Of necessity, it has been, is, or would be decreed and enforced by centralized authority with enough power to coerce "you" into breeding or not breeding as directed.

The difference between genetic counseling and eugenics is that in the former case, individuals are informed of the genetic problems that may or will come with reproduction, but are left to finally decide what to do. In the latter case, individuals are ordered and/or coerced into breeding or not, according to the dictates of the state.

We are not close to being able to facilitate personal preferences, except to abort children who lack features we want -- like either male or female, for instance. Intelligence, shoe size, and so on can't be selected for at this point.

Why some things make sense when you are drunk should be self evident. Apparently you have not had enough to drink yet.

That reminds me of the joke... Plastic surgeon to patient: "I can't make you look any younger, but I can make you look like you've had a lot of expensive plastic surgery."

We already practice eugenics with regard to sexual preference and mate selection. — Nils Loc

I join with Agustino in disagreeing with this. Whatever it is that makes a breeding pair attractive to each other probably has nothing to do with non-obvious but serious genetic flaws.

And eugenics is a social plan, not personal preferences.

If you look at who most folks choose as their partners, it's people who are convenient for them - not for their kids. — Agustino

Human values and properties are too complex and multivariate to construct a eugenic plan for either the species or one's children. Our rate of offspring production is fast enough (too fast, in some cases) but the term of maturation is very long. Waiting 25 years to see how the kid turned out is an impractically long period of time to wait if one wants to personally breed better children.

Human beings haven't displayed convincing evidence that they can maintain difficult enterprises over the long run. Supervising our genetic future is a very long-term project.

Fortunately for those who breed by convenience rather than futuristic goals, genetic regression to the mean saves us all. (Over the long run, we tend to be average.)

Actually, we are practicing eugenics now, and it is a good thing in one particular way:

Individuals with known inheritable diseases are (or should be) counseled (not sterilized) on the advisability of their reproduction.

When forced eugenics was last national policy in the United States (and it was policy in many states) it was based on very crude assumptions -- not just crude by 21st century standards, but crude by early 20th century standards as well. If people seemed mentally dull and had inconvenienced the community by having children they couldn't support, they might be sterilized.

Mental retardation is a disability and unfortunate, of course, but it usually isn't a genetic disability. There are economic reasons to prevent the retarded from reproducing (by using vasectomy or birth control implants), and those are different than eugenic rationales.

If blue-eyed blond people want more blue-eyed blond people, or if darkest ebony people want more darkest ebony people, then they should breed with like kind. But there is nothing genetically superior about following such a course. One might merely like the aesthetics better. If we can't indulge in aesthetic flourishes, what does free will mean?

One wouldn't expect transgender patients to have uniformly excellent results from transgender therapy, including surgery.

Often, transgenders have experienced a lot of personal turmoil related to their sexual identity issues. Quite a few will have become alcoholic or drug addicted before finally dealing with identity issues. They may have poor employment histories. They may have experienced a great deal of familial or peer hostility.

Transgender therapy may help a great deal, but it can't erase a long troubled history, (This is true for anybody who seeks psychotherapy.) So, we find that things don't always work out well.

Unless a clinic is operating a surgery mill (which is possible, of course, even if unlikely) the transgender patient has four hurdles to leap before the process is complete. People don't just waltz into a surgeon's office and schedule some slicing and dicing.

1. Personality stability

Potentials don't need to be paragons of conventional life, but they need to have dealt with alcohol/drug addictions, for instance, and be well into recovery. The can't present with major mental illnesses and proceed forward. They need to present a cogent case for their desired transition.

2. Hormone therapy

Patients usually complete at least a year of hormone therapy (which continues for life) before surgery can be considered. For M ---> F transexuals, this means taking estrogen, F ---> M, testosterone. Over time significant physical changes occur; breasts develop, fat distribution changes, to some extent, (I don't know how much--probably varies from person to person) changes in sensuality. For F ---> M, hair starts to grow, they develop a beard, fat distribution changes, musculature may change noticeably (depending on age, fitness activity, etc.).

3. Wardrobe and grooming changes - Transgenders begin to publicly present as the sex opposite their chromosomal, birth, and anatomical sex. Learning to do this well takes time, and money.

4. Finally, if all has gone well, if the patient wishes and if the patient is a good candidate for surgery (in terms of overall health) surgical changes in organs are made. For M ---> F surgery means removal of the testicles, construction of a vaginal pouch and labia, re-arranging the urethra, and if possible, preserving the nerves serving the glans. For F ---> M, it means a hysterectomy, construction of a penis and scrotum (plastic testicles are available, sized in just pitiful to ox-balls), re-routing of the urethra, and preservation of clitoral nerves, if possible.

There are risks, of course, like infection following surgery is a possibility. Undesirable side effects of estrogen and testosterone therapy. Various difficulties in adjusting to new roles.

Here's a book that might be of interest:



I've got a backlog of reading on hand, but I think I'll make room for her book. This should be a very interesting read for partisans on either side in this thread.

When Faludi learned that her estranged and elderly father had undergone gender reassignment surgery, in 2004, it marked the resumption of a difficult relationship. Her father was violent and full of contradictions: a Hungarian Holocaust survivor and Leni Riefenstahl fanatic, he stabbed a man her mother was seeing and used the incident to avoid paying alimony. In this rich, arresting and ultimately generous memoir, Faludi — long known for her feminist journalism — tries to reconcile Steven, the overbearing patriarch her father once was, with Stefánie, the old woman she became. — New York Times - best books of 2016 list

Must we share our icky bodies on a pristine philosophy forum? Do we need to be reminded that we are gassy meat-bags? Let the anonymity of the internet leave us the illusion of perfect forms! :D — Real Gone Cat

No, sorry, my little cabbage pork roll :D. The Enterprise of Truth requires that your icky, gaseous, tubular meat-body in particular be dragged onto the stage and be subjected to your frank appraisal and final acceptance. No amount of platonic forms will redeem you, meat being. Umarme das Fleisch.

Yuck — Real Gone Cat

Why "yuck"?

Like how I'm tall and have a big nose? How does that matter to who I am really? Is being 6'2'' part and parcel of my character as an individual? — Heister Eggcart

Yes, it is part and parcel of who you are. It has to be. (And some people long for a larger nose so stop bitching about it.)

Robert Reich, an economist, Council of Economic Advisors, Secretary of Labor for 4 years (in Pres. William Clinton's cabinet) professor, lauded (but maybe not liked all that well) by the Wall Street Journal, etc. is only 4'11' tall. He's abnormally short and abnormally smart, as well as being abnormally witty and abnormally insightful. I would guess that adapting to being very short (especially for a man) helped make him who he is, just like your big nose and tallness influenced yours.

Body....and Soul....and Spirit...baby! — John

I sold all my stock in souls and spirits. Christians should remember that what they profess to believe is "resurrection of the body". Knowing what happens to the alleged spirit when the presumed soul and definite body parts is way above my pay grade.

So for instance, when I was young, my eyesight wasn't quite up to normal standards. I never knew this though, until it worsened in my teenage years. — Metaphysician Undercover

My vision was very poor from birth. It had numerous adverse consequences. Favorable compensations? A greater reliance on analyzing speech in place of visual signals, I suppose. People frequently reference the eyes as windows into the soul. Other people's eyes are not clearly visible to me, unless I am very close to someone's face. I have no idea how to evaluate others' eyes. I don't know what a "twinkling eye" is.

The point, is that being deficient in one way, may influence one to become more efficient in other ways. So if we are to judge the optimum body for the human species, how can we account for the fact that some minor deficiencies can inspire some individuals to become much stronger in other ways? — Metaphysician Undercover

All that is true.

What is optimum for a given individual varies. Very tall muscular people are not well suited to working in low--ceiling mines, for example. Low ceiling mines used to be a critical resource. Very tall people have more difficulty pulling weeds by hand. Better to be short for that work. Neither are very fat people suited to work in tight spaces. Very thin people, on the other hand, have no margin when it comes to famine. They are likely to be the first to go. People with excellent hearing are poorly suited to a lifetime of frequent attendance at extremely loud music venues. You might as well be deaf to start with. Very smart --even reasonably intelligent people have to put up with morons all the time. It might be better to be an idiot.

The point I am interested in with physical differences, sub-par to optimal, is that whatever one is physically, it is part and parcel of who we are as persons.

All that is fine and dandy as long as you have a god to arrange the affairs of deceased subroutines and pixilated persons.

I'm hesitant to equate survival of the fittest to survival of the perfect. In reality, survival of the fitter is what goes on in the world. Perhaps it is true that people take the transhumanist approach to Darwin's theory and really do think there is an attainable bodily perfection, but I don't buy it. — Heister Eggcart

I have zero interest in perfect beings, their existence or their survival. The 'perfect being' is a theological or philosophical concept, and even Jesus didn't want to get nailed with the label "perfect". "Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone." he said.

I'm not interested in "perfect specimens" either. The 'perfect specimen' is an imaginary body out there on the far tail end of the normal distribution. He doesn't exist either, and even if he did, he wouldn't be a 'perfect being'. The perfect specimen would be fully human and as such fully capable of human folly--maybe more so. He wouldn't be superman.

"Fittest to survive" for human beings requires some fairly difficult traits, most of them socially oriented, like "being able to get along with each other" -- something that we are hardly perfect at doing. It means "being able to live within one's means" which as a species we seem to be flunking, and certainly lots of individuals are flunking too. the list is long...