[ExI] Is the ExI email list slowly dying out? And if so, what can be done to reverse such an outcome?

[Giulio Prisco]

On Mon, Oct 19, 2020 at 10:26 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Oct 19, 2020 at 9:15 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat
> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> > On Sun, Oct 18, 2020 at 8:16 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat
> > <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> >> Thanks for bringing this up. I've been aghast at the treatment of
> >> gender issues here in particular, especially given that Extropianism
> >> is supposed to be about improving the human condition. To me, that
> >> would mean not embracing reactionary attitudes toward non-binary
> >> people. In fact, it should be seeing how technology and science can
> >> make all of us more flexible and open to experimentation -- even in
> >> social and gender roles.
> >
> > In a live-and-let-live spirit, I wish all the best to non-binary
> > people. But in the same spirit I'm very much against their current
> > political sponsors, namely the totalitarian, thought-policing,
> > identity-obsessed "woke" liberal left. Hearing from them that
> > non-binary people are saints and the rest of us are worthless pieces
> > of shit (and I do hear that all the time) is a deal-breaker.
>
> I don't think one should fall for package-dealing here. If elites you
> don't like believe X, that shouldn't mean that you must needs
> disbelieve X.
>
> Also, I don't see painting the 'rest of us' as 'worthless pieces of
> shit' happening much -- or not much among serious people. I do see
> people of a conservative bent, though, seeing any tolerance of
> non-binary or LGBTQIA people as worshipping them. This seems just like
> people who think saying 'Happy holidays!' is a war on Christmas. In
> these cases, it's like any deviation from their views shaping all
> public discourse is seen as an attack on all that's good in the world.
>
> And witness here how some really did take the view that athletes
> becomes trans merely to win contests or that males will use trans as a
> cover to invade women's rest rooms to commit rape.

But these things DO happen. Not as much as right-wing propaganda
suggests, but enough to worry. If any male rapist can use the womens'
restroom where my wife and daughter go, I will wait outside with a gun
(or even better, I will say that I am a woman and go inside with the
gun ;-)

> Add to this, non-binary people suffer all kinds of discrimination both
> socially and legally. Extropians should be among the forefront of
> people against such discrimination.
>
> > So since
> > I have mixed feelings I ignore the issue. I think this is a common
> > reaction.
>
> What's your mixed feeling here? Again, it seems like you're accepting
> package-dealing of these things. It might be a common reaction to have
> misgivings about non-binary gender, but it's also a common reaction to
> think life extension and cryonics are goofy and even crackpot. Should
> Extropians and transhumanists embrace the common take on things?

The package deal is forced on us. If you affirm the right of
non-binary people (or other minorities that have been discriminated
against) but refuse to condemn white-straight-male people as worthless
pieces of shit that are the roots of all evil, you are considered as
the enemy, mobbed online etc. This is the very toxic side of "woke"
identity politics, it forces everyone into package deals.

Have you noticed that more and more people are completely silent on
these issues? They don't speak. But they do vote when the time comes.
Forcing reasonable people underground radicalizes them and makes them
much less reasonable.

>
> Regards,
>
> Dan
>   Sample my Kindle books via:
> http://author.to/DanUst