The Gaming Den

Lich, you need to reread what he actually said.

He's not saying that people will never be accepted in leaopad bodies, but that specifically no one will ever treat you nicely if you tell them you have the soul of a leopard and that's why you have it.

He specifically called out the distinction between wanting to be a leopard because it's awesome vs you have soul of an X.

And besides that, yes, Science will go as far as he wants and stop, because as far as he wants is all the way to total knowledge. I get the feeling from Frank's last post, that he, like me, given an oppurtunity to have the entirety of our brains copied into electronic circuits/code would choose to have that occur, because being a super computer digital entity would be fucking awesome.

Since it's probably not going to get that far in our lifetime, that means for all practical purposes that we can never be upset about technology gone to far, only not far enough.

I am going to quote Sastra:

Sastra wrote:The funny thing here is that traditional religions will sometimes join with us to fight against pseudoscience and New Age nonsense -- except of course that they're not fighting with us at all, even when we're on the same political side. They're against homeopathy, astral projection, astrology, and woo in general because that sort of magic conflicts with their own sort of magic. There's not a skeptical bone in them. So, as far as we're concerned, there's not much to choose between many New Age, and mainstream religions.
This really surprised some local New Agers, who assumed that as an atheist I would of course be all in favor of alternative medicine and alien abduction-style beliefs. They knew I didn't like the 'Religious Right,' and thought that I didn't like them for the reason they didn't like them: they were being "judgmental" and telling people they were wrong. A freethinker lets in all beliefs, cherishes them all, embraces and approves of them all. Or so they assumed. It didn't seem to occur to them that there would be a conflict with science, and a secular humanist cares about such conflict, and no, we can not just redefine science around each individual, and what they think is good enough.
And no, this does not make us just like the fundamentalists. There is a huge difference between saying Tarot cards don't really predict the future, and Tarot cards do predict the future, but they're of the devil. There are more significant ways to classify beliefs than whether or not you find them threatening because they're not being supportive of your beliefs.

The Otherkin are against the Religious Right and so are rationalists. But the Otherkin are against the Religious Right because they believe in different kinds of magic. The rationalist believes in no kinds of magic.

While mechanistic transhumanists will find allies in rationalism, the Otherkin never will. For the same reason that Demonologists and Christian Scientists never will. The fact that the largest current branches of dogmatic religious madness denounce the Otherkin as being Satan Spawned does not make their claims any more acceptable to science.

-Username17

RobbyPants wrote:

Maj wrote:I'm not talking about defensible, I'm talking about what's actually out there. And I'm not trying to say it shouldn't be changed - I've repeatedly asked how to change it.

Time, really.

It's just going to take time for people to slowly get used to new social norms. Lago mentioned earlier that we might get more change as older generations die off.

Just take a look at what we consider normal now compared to decades past. It's a fairly natural progression, but it tends to happen slowly. It usually takes something big to make it happen faster.

Frank has handled the tranhumanism tangent pretty well, but I'd like to address this whole 'fairly natural progression' business.

Change doesn't just happen. The progression towards equal rights (whether LGBTQ rights, black civil rights or whatever) isn't 'natural' at all. It takes a tremendous amount of sustained effort to change society. It always has, it always will.

Yes, the Civil Rights movement took a long time to achieve its goals. Many of its goals remain unachieved today. It took over a hundred years to get from the Emancipation Proclamation to the the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act - but we never would have got there at all if we'd just waited for the bigots to die out.

Time doesn't change society at all. The intense struggle of organised people changes society, and this takes time.

There are many people who will not shed their bigoted opinions until they die, but until then we still have work to do.

Gnosticism wrote: It takes a tremendous amount of sustained effort to change society. It always has, it always will.

And it takes the death of all of the old bigots.

Let's face it, the only reason why the 1960's saw an explosion in civil rights was because it was almost two generations past the nadir of race relations in the country. They try that shit back when assheads like Wilson and Harding and Coolidge were running the joint and either there would've been a revolution (which would've gone very badly for the revolters) or said assheads would've just shot the protestors right in the fucking face.

Well, Wilson did want to support civil rights, and equal rights bills (from jim crow to federal action or just harsh words against lynching) died narrowly defeated by invoking cloture by the minority for a hundred years before Civil Rights were enacted in the 1960s.

I might point out that this year, this Republican Senate caucus has invoked cloture (filibuster without having to stand around) more time than was done for the previous thirty years by everyone, or more than had been done from 1850 to 1970 in total.

Just to point out how much in the minority and power the opinions of hating gays really is...

-Crissa

Gnosticism Is A Hoot wrote: There are many people who will not shed their bigoted opinions until they die, but until then we still have work to do.

I put it to you that we can make this happen - that would fall under the work we have to do.

Now, I'm not suggesting bloody slaughter of bigo- oh wait, that pretty much is what I'm suggesting. Never mind then.

Gnosticism Is A Hoot wrote:Frank has handled the tranhumanism tangent pretty well, but I'd like to address this whole 'fairly natural progression' business.

Change doesn't just happen. The progression towards equal rights (whether LGBTQ rights, black civil rights or whatever) isn't 'natural' at all. It takes a tremendous amount of sustained effort to change society. It always has, it always will.

I think you're right in that "natural" wasn't the best word for me to use. You're right in that it's an active process (people have to want the change), but it often takes a long time to set in.

Crissa wrote:Well, Wilson did want to support civil rights, and equal rights bills (from jim crow to federal action or just harsh words against lynching)

Please, kid, go home before you embarrass yourself.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:

Crissa wrote:Well, Wilson did want to support civil rights, and equal rights bills (from jim crow to federal action or just harsh words against lynching)

Please, kid, go home before you embarrass yourself.

Woodrow Pigfucking Wilson wrote: The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation … until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country.

Not a nice fellow, really.

FrankTrollman wrote:The Otherkin are against the Religious Right and so are rationalists. But the Otherkin are against the Religious Right because they believe in different kinds of magic. The rationalist believes in no kinds of magic.

While mechanistic transhumanists will find allies in rationalism, the Otherkin never will. For the same reason that Demonologists and Christian Scientists never will. The fact that the largest current branches of dogmatic religious madness denounce the Otherkin as being Satan Spawned does not make their claims any more acceptable to science.

-Username17

Understood and accepted. My point was that the Otherkin are only claiming magic because science has not yet granted them legitimacy by finding that this subset of people have some brain chemistry or developmental issue as it is (strongly suspected if not proven to be) the case in homosexual or transsexual people. Do not forget that it was only comparatively recently that science showed that homosexual brains were different. Prior to these discoveries there was no evidence that this difference existed and the claims of homosexuals had all the fervor and scientific backing of a religious belief. In other words, prior to legitimization by science (in 1991 depending on who you believe), homosexuals were in the the same limbo as Otherkin are now and could only argue from a metaphysical standpoint that they were "born that way"; there simply was no rigorous scientific proof to say otherwise. Over time, this proof materialized and now of course no homosexual person would say they are the result of anything but a product of natural development.

Given time, I argue that Otherkinism will go the same way; that science will find some rationale - be it genetics, alpha-wave patterns, whatever - that legitimizes the Otherkin claim. The moment this is announced, the claimants will abandon this metaphysical explanation in favor of the scientific one and something akin to the homosexual "I told you so" will echo 'round the furry conventions.

If I understand you correctly, you claim that science will never legitimize these claims. This is where we disagree; people are in the end machines that can be largely deconstructed and causal relationships established between exhibited behavior and underlying elctrochemical processes. I build upon this point to indicate that future society will be faced with accepting these legitimized Otherkin just as they do homosexuals and transsexuals and largely for the same reasons: because their natural bodies lead these people in the direction they are going and there is nothing "wrong", or "abnormal" in this any more than there is in homo or transsexuality. I further speculate that some here resist this argument because they find Otherkinism distasteful and do not see the hypocrisy in their position.

Lich Loved, you are retarded. Please stop being retarded.

No one cares if you want to be a tiger, and wanting to be a tiger is just as much brain chemistry as anything and everything else is. That's not the point under contention. It is just as much brain chemistry to want to be a tiger as it is to want to kill jews, and both are equally as "having to do with brain chemistry" as being homosexual, but easier to change with merely social pressure.

But no one at all is claiming that people who want to be tigers are bad people. I want to be a Tiger. Preferably to rip your throat out, along with all the other stupid people who keep bothering me.

But people who claim that they are born with the soul of a tiger are wrong. It doesn't matter why they think that, only that they are wrong, and not a single person who you are criticizing gives two shits that people will some day be tigers. It's not about vindicating people who want to be Tigers. It's about the fact that people who believe supernatural shit are always going to be wrong, and they are always going to believe supernatural shit.

Kaelik wrote:It's about the fact that people who believe supernatural shit are always going to be wrong, and they are always going to believe supernatural shit.

So prior to science showing that transsexual brains were different, you felt that anyone that said something like "I am a woman trapped in a man's body" was full of supernatural shit and worth of your scorn? I fail to see a meaningful difference between "I have the soul of a tiger and am trapped in a human body" and "I am a woman trapped in a man's body". Enlighten me as to the distinction you see there.

Kaelik wrote: It's about the fact that people who believe supernatural shit are always going to be wrong, and they are always going to believe supernatural shit.

You make angels cry.

God_of_Awesome wrote:

Kaelik wrote: It's about the fact that people who believe supernatural shit are always going to be wrong, and they are always going to believe supernatural shit.

You make angels cry.

Their tears taste like marzipan.

Lich Loved, no one will ever find scientific validation for people who believe that they are the reincarnated souls of Cloud from Final Fantasy VII from another universe. Because Cloud is fictional. And souls are fictional. And reincarnation is fictional. All of that shit is not real, and science will never "discover" it because it is fucking stupid. And everyone who believes in it is stupid.

And as science continues to march on, the people who believe that they are Na'Vi, or the reincarnations of bulldozers, or whatever the fuck will still be stupid. Scientology will never become "not reviled" by the rationalists. Because it is stupid. Otherkinism will never become "not reviled" by rationalists, because it is stupid.

People will advance cosmetic surgery and eventually even body transference. And then they will have access to all kinds of cool transhuman options. And that will be awesome. And some people will become tigers, and that will be awesome. And sometimes one of them will tell you that they became a tiger because they always had the soul of a tiger and got put into a human body by mistake of soul incarnation, and that will still be fucking stupid.

-Username17

Lich-Loved wrote:So prior to science showing that transsexual brains were different, you felt that anyone that said something like "I am a woman trapped in a man's body" was full of supernatural shit and worth of your scorn? I fail to see a meaningful difference between "I have the soul of a tiger and am trapped in a human body" and "I am a woman trapped in a man's body". Enlighten me as to the distinction you see there.

Fyi, I'm pretty sure the people whose brains they tested for that had been on estrogen for years, and so it's actually impossible to tell whether their brains were flat out different, or whether years of hormone therapy had changed the makeup of their brains.

So having said that, a couple points.

One, "I am a woman trapped in a man's body" is a gross simplification that trans people use to explain our feelings to people who have no idea what it's like to have their internal sense of self not match their external body.

There is no mention of a soul or other supernatural bullshit necessary to explain being trans. The matter comes down to gender identity and other stuff that most people have no idea even exist, because they have never experienced them as being in anything other than alignment.

Everyone has a gender identity. You don't get any say in what this is, though it can change somewhat over time. It usually, but not always, conforms to your assigned gender. If it doesn't, it causes extreme distress and dissonance as your internal perception of yourself is at odds with how everyone sees you, and, especially, with how you see yourself.

Trannsexuality is a legitimate condition because it causes consistent, noticeable, and debilitating problems for everyone who has it. It is a condition literally defined by the problems it creates for people in lieu of treatment. And the only treatment that has ever had a success rate above 0 is transitioning.


But what really gets me about your post is the inane idea that gay people need to justify their sexuality by saying they have no choice about it. That is completely fucking ridiculous. I mean sure, they don't have a choice on what genders they're attracted to, but even if they did, why the fuck should that matter? By saying that homosexuality is a "developmental issue" and that only by being such can it be legitimized, you're saying there's something intrinsically wrong with it.

There is no legitimate reason you could find for disparaging homosexuality. There is nothing wrong with liking men or women, and no possible reason why it would be wrong to like women if you are, yourself, a woman. You don't need to show that homosexuals have different brain chemistry or whatever bullshit you want to throw out, because who they're attracted to is completely their call, and you have no say in it. You never will have any say in it, and you never should have any say in it.

Likewise, you get no say in what someone identifies as. Absolutely zero. Nothing, nada, never. Your perception of someone will always come second to their perception of themselves, and if you ever think otherwise you're an egotistical asshole.

But despite that, I can't find myself believing the claims otherkin make. They don't experience the horrific pain that comes with mismatched identities, they don't actually seek to go live their lives as tigers or whatever, they just romanticize the ideal of "being a tiger" and then wish they could live their fantasies. They're not comparable to trans people, they're comparable to the various men on the internet who go off on tangents about how they wish they could be the little girl because women have much better sex or whatever the fuck their reasoning is. Being an otherkin is not an identity; people don't commit suicide over not being able to live as a tiger.

Being trans isn't as fucking simple as "I wish to be the little girl." It's a constant, debilitating pain. It is something you literally cannot live with-in the majority of cases, it comes down to "transition or die", and a whole fucking lot of people end up picking "die." A lot of the time it's transition and die, because society makes it so fucking hard for trans people to live that they don't see another way out. Or because society just decides to beat us to death.

Trans people pursue transitioning, or we die trying. Otherkin whine on the internet about how they have the soul of a noble animal.

The day otherkin start showing behavior that is consistent with their claims is the day I can start believing them. But until then they're the equivalent of the asshole who uses "I'm a lesbian trapped in a man's body" as a pick-up line, and they can go fuck themselves.

Ceilingcat, you speak a great many truths here. However, on an unrelated note, what is the context of your sig?

Lich-Loved wrote:So prior to science showing that transsexual brains were different, you felt that anyone that said something like "I am a woman trapped in a man's body" was full of supernatural shit and worth of your scorn? I fail to see a meaningful difference between "I have the soul of a tiger and am trapped in a human body" and "I am a woman trapped in a man's body". Enlighten me as to the distinction you see there.

I have never been shown that transexual brains are different. However, I know they are because it is tautologically true that people who think X have brains that make them think X. I know you are a retard who believes in free will sometimes except when the brain makes you gay because science said so, but you are actually just wrong, because science actually says there is no damn free will and when someone believes they are a tiger reincarnated as human, they are actually forced to do so by their brain.

Now, a possible difference is that it's easier to change some peoples brains through social pressure, but I don't even care about that.

If a transexual says "I am a woman's soul in a man's body." They are wrong and stupid. If they say "I am a woman, not a man." They are still technically incorrect, but they are trying to talk about gender identity, and that's fine, whatever. If someone wants to be a woman because they are more comfortable as a woman, that's okay. And if someone wants to be a Tiger because for some reason that makes them feel better, fucking great.

There are continuums of both "how much does it hurt to not have what I want?" and "How good am I at judging what it actually is I want?"

And transexuals are, in general, on opposite sides of those spectrums from otherkin, but I don't even care.

If someone wants X Where X doesn't hurt others (or only hurts others who consent before hand in full knowledge), that's fucking fine and I don't care. I don't give a shit if it's even possible for them to live another way, even if all transexuals had a mild preference, and didn't often hurt themselves over it, I'd still be fine with letting them, and I'd still not be an asshat to them over what they want.

But when you base what you want on the demand that other people recognize your true soul, you will get nothing but scorn from me.

Koumei wrote:Ceilingcat, you speak a great many truths here. However, on an unrelated note, what is the context of your sig?

It's from "Fuck You, Penguin."

Another 2-cents I'd like to throw out:

People dislike stereotypes, or at least like to pretend they do. So when a gay man acts 'flaming,' it offends some people because it seems like he's encouraging stereotypes.

Uh, no, that's not it at all. People don't dislike stereotypes-they say they dislike stereotypes as a code word for "I dislike this minority." And no one is encouraging stereotypes by acting in one way-you encourage stereotypes by causing other people to act in that way.

People hate flaming gay men because they are gay. That is the only possible reason. If you hate someone for being obnoxious, you don't describe them as a "flaming gay man"-you describe them as an obnoxious fuck. Really, any time you describe your reason for hating someone as their acting like a stereotype of a minority you dislike, you are flat out saying your reason for hating them is that they're a member of that minority.

Well, the thing is, I used to be one of those people. I later realized it was retarded attitude but I seriously got irritated at nerdy asian people, black people being good at basketball and gay guys being flamboyants.

Then I stopped and went, "Wut."

Were you irritated by Swedes who insisted on being bisexual identical twins with big boobs?

Popular opinion almost opposes homosexuals serving openly in the military, in favor of lesbian and gay male soldiers.

Koumei wrote:Were you irritated by Swedes who insisted on being bisexual identical twins with big boobs?

I don't think that's a stereotype but if it was, it would have definitley made be realize how retarded I was alot sooner.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:Popular opinion almost opposes homosexuals serving openly in the military, in favor of lesbian and gay male soldiers.

How odd.