otde

Why does the consequence have to be deportation? Can we imagine a form of deterrence that doesn’t necessitate the cruelty of familial separation? Do we at least agree that what is happening right now, to this family and to others, is deeply unjust?

Why is a) bad? Have you considered d) pass a different law? Why are you pretending the law is some immutable thing that we always need to follow, regardless of the situations an unjust law might place someone in if followed?

The point OP is making (and it ‘s one that I agree with) is that Graham’s particular usage of the word “woke” as written in his essay functions as a shibboleth for a collection of reactionary beliefs and impulses — not merely that he uses the word, but that he does so in a poorly-defined and pejorative way that is characteristic of the word’s usage in various right-leaning circles.

> If someone hates trans people, they can, and you can't stop them. The whole "war on hate" thing was a bad idea; you can't forbid hatred. It predictably didn't work, and it's good that we're turning away from it.

It is disingenuous to suggest that anti-discrimination laws for trans people are attempting to legislate away the hatred held in people’s hearts, instead of access to healthcare, public facilities, protections against workplace discrimination — things you describe as having “real questions,” but which are, in fact, the parts of a full and dignified life that bigots would deny to trans people in particular. If you pretend like it’s trying to legislate “thoughtcrime,” it’s much easier to distinguish anti-discrimination laws for trans people from rulings like Obergefell or Brown v. Board — far easier to say “look, those were good, but this particular civil rights legislation is simply unreasonable.”

To platform these beliefs is to afford them a legitimacy they do not deserve. To suggest that bigotry, when amplified, will be in some way countered or reduced is naïve beyond belief. Instead, it becomes easier for bigotry to find an audience of receptive listeners and willing conduits for further transmission.

which begs the question: why spend any time at all including an ai image as part of the cover if it’s a negative signal for some people?

I don't think the issue is whether GP lives next to neighbors with these kind of lawns, but more that the relative proportion of bird-hostile yards is outpacing any individual attempt to counterbalance. Moving only solves the problem if the only thing you care about is the extent to which you, personally, are forced to see one of the causes of this population drop in your daily life. It doesn't address the problem itself, which is kind of also GP's point.

Very smart people usually take the time to understand the historical context behind the problems they're attempting to solve, IMO. (Especially if solving that problem requires proof that P=NP.) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's pretty complicated! I'd say it's a little bit of a lot of things, and the amounts of those things depends on the person. There's some people who feel like they wish they could have transitioned but didn't, and direct a pretty intense resentment towards people they see as having undeserved happiness (the "rotten egg" theory). Some people believe in a strict natural "order" in the world that they see trans people as subverting in ways they see as disgusting. Some people are scared parents who believe trans people will indoctrinate their children and turn them into unrecognizable, traumatized, uncontrollable shells of their former selves through surgeries and hormone treatments.

Shared amongst all these lines of thinking is an intense belief that the world would be a better place if the idea of being trans (and trans people in general) simply didn't exist, and that to move to that world, we should be detransitioned first, invisible second, and dead otherwise.

> Nope, you're asking for a special treatment in an environment where 99.9% of people don't care how you want to be called. Not because they hate you -- it's because they're not there to fight for your rights.

You are framing this as "special treatment" precisely because of your ideas of what gender means to you. Honestly, I empathize hard with what you describe as "pissing into the wind." I'm misgendered on a daily basis -- if I spent every ounce of energy I had correcting people, I'd end each day exhausted. More often than not, I don't push back, usually because it's a service worker who's forced to be deferential as part of their job ("sir"/"ma'am"/etc). I don't begrudge that kind of attempt at politeness. Even outside that, it's never a huge deal in isolation, but it adds up, because I have to do a little bit of mental calculus each time: is this person going to make a whole thing about it or go "my bad" and move on? do I have the energy to bring it up? are they trying to be rude or is it an honest mistake? etc. In professional and personal circles, I'm generally more likely to correct people, because I'm signalling a way to be polite to me, and I've been polite to them, and it's how we establish mutual respect, not "special treatment."

Usually, when people get frustrated at misgendering, it's because a person is ignoring really obvious tells about how a person wants to be addressed (clothing, etc.) in favor of their own personal philosophy about what being "right" means. In the exact same way, for example, you might feel frustrated if someone intentionally decided to use a semi-mocking pronunciation of your name. In both cases, it signals that a person has decided to be cruel to you for petty and unknowable reasons.

I guess my big takeaway is that you deserve as much dignity and respect in the way people pronounce your name as I do for my pronouns, and I hope you can find some understanding/empathy in the parallels between our experiences.

The sibling comment actually does a pretty good job articulating why we as trans people (surprise! I’m one of them) receive the reactions we do. It’s a fundamental disgust at the concept of a trans person existing, full stop. In an ideal world for these people, we simply would not exist. We challenge their expectations by asking to be addressed in a way that goes against their ideas of what gender, at its core, means to them. It’s a belief that the world works in a specific and rigid way, and that respecting the way another person chooses to be addressed is “feeding into a delusion.” This also feeds into a larger bit of discourse around trans kids that is tinged with the usual “think of the children” moral panics that show up whenever a kid is some flavor of LGBTQ+. It does not make for a great time on the internet (or on Hacker News, specifically).

I guess I just can’t think of a better way to describe some of the stuff people say about trans people. It’s rooted in a deep hatred that warrants the suffix, IMO. I don’t think “disagreement” adequately describes the severity. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I can’t help but wonder if reducing the possibility space of opinions one might have about Star Citizen’s development process to “sweaty misogynist nerd (the bad kind of nerd)” and “magnanimous rich nerd (the good kind of nerd)” is maybe showing your hand a bit here. This isn’t to say I don’t believe you with respect to the employee death threats, nor do I think they’re a good thing — internet hate machines formed out of the froth of fermented gamer rage are unambiguously bad and steps should always be taken to reduce or eliminate the damage they cause. I also think there’s a pretty wide array of acceptably minimal and non-bigoted ways to express curiosity, scrutiny, or even displeasure with Star Citizen’s development process. Your lumping of that spectrum of thought into a single uncharitable bucket is probably why you’re being read as combative here.

I’m not sure I like the implicit association here between a job’s income level and some vague metric of “usefulness to society,” to say nothing of the dismissiveness that comes with the “barista science” label.