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

[Dan TheBookMan]

On Tue, Oct 20, 2020 at 6:52 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> 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 ;-)

Oh, do you have statistics on this? I'm not saying it never happens
or, much harder, that it will never happen, but all I see are
hypotheticals at this point. Since NYC banned rest room discrimination
in 2002, if the horror scenarios were right, shouldn't there have been
a tidal wave of rest room assaults by men posing as transwomen? What
happened? (Basically, the NYC law allows people to use the restroom of
the gender they identify with.)

In fact, overall, if you're trans, you are much more likely to be the
victim of rape and other violence than if you're not. This kind of
mirrors false rape accusations: they tend to be much rarer than many
people think. (And conservatives tend to depict false rape accusations
and violence _by_ trans as overwhelming society while downplaying rape
and violence against trans people.)

> > 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.

You didn't comment on this. Is this because you disagree with the sentiment?

>>> 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.

I'm sure that does happen, but I rarely see it. And I'm not talking
about seeing something on TV. (TV isn't representative and one has to
be aware that a trending video clip in social media might not be
representative either. What's news is often what's unusual.) I mean in
my daily transactions.

> 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.

How is this any different from how anything might become socially
inappropriate -- like talking about bowel movements in public? Or
racism? Yes, when it becomes bad form to tell racial jokes and use
terms like the N-word, people used to using them will feel
marginalized and there might even be a backlash. But for generations
before, that kind of hostile environment was completely okay and now
it's become bad manners. That's kind of how social change works, no?
(And, true, some people are playing this up merely to appear morally
superior.)

I do agree, though, that one should be careful not to morally condemn
people who are merely mistaken versus those who are actually bigots
trying to push things in a more bigoted direction. (And social change
can go all ways. It can move in retrograde directions -- as can be
seen from the anti-science views blossoming around the world.)

Regards,

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