Gender Roles

[Jarhyn]

Women don't "need" to feel feminine (whatever that means, which is part of the problem), do they?

I think there is a wide gap between need to and simply feels. A need implies a desire towards an end where as feels is about observation of a sensory input.

Well, for most trans women, it's expressed as a felt need, an itch they have to scratch, and if they don't life just feels worse.

I think we could do a really good job of getting to grips on sex, gender, biases on such, etc... by programming a male and female robot.

I think you could do a really good job of explicitly identifying sexist stereotypes that way.

Some people exist as "sexist stereotypes". Some effects of nature create "sexist stereotypes". More often I would.probably seek to randomize the connections in such a system, to create a very strong, deterministic noise around that to select a random "point" in the "space of ways gender can be aligned, and then some noise on top of that" because I like the results of such chaos.

Who knows what the result of that would be "called". Insane and in some strange way more "people" than any concept of "male" or"female" or "man" or "woman"?

A fantastic mess! Perhaps a "wizard". Who knows.

Some may be feminine. Some may identify as "women" or "men" or be identified as "toxically masculine" or "toxically feminine". Some may seek more to construct a robot, or some may seek to order a new one from a proper company and do things "the right way" whatever that means.

Oh, the world we shall see!

 

[Emily Lake]

deterministic randomness

Alrighty then

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Women don't "need" to feel feminine (whatever that means, which is part of the problem), do they?

I think there is a wide gap between need to and simply feels. A need implies a desire towards an end where as feels is about observation of a sensory input.

Well, for most trans women, it's expressed as a felt need, an itch they have to scratch, and if they don't life just feels worse.

I think we could do a really good job of getting to grips on sex, gender, biases on such, etc... by programming a male and female robot.

I think you could do a really good job of explicitly identifying sexist stereotypes that way.

We could a lot more than that.

 

[Jarhyn]

deterministic randomness

Alrighty then

The concept of pseudorandomness, or selection of a chaotic result are very much concepts in math and software.

For instance, if I select an AES1024 encryption key, and select via that schema whatever value it produces as the result of some string, it will produce a deterministic result that is suitably uncorrelated to the signal But existing in and across its problem space.

You can create all sorts of noise patterns in deterministic ways in this fashion. As long as whatever is going in is not correlated to the signal of interest, it is noise.

To create this noise, you would want to have the noise be uncorrelated to the output space, but determined in some uniform way, such as adding deltas that put the output result in nearby modes or extents of some mode associated with some delta created by the noise.

This entire job I'm in though right now is all about noise, and understanding what exactly is meant when someone says "noise" on a technical level.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It's not just awful for sensitivity issues but also for technical reasons. Copiers are designed. At some point there are product specifications and intended use in the design process. Users expect the thing to operate according to the design. Emily has been sneakily inserting design into arguments by reifying biology and evolution. Like so: biology made man and woman. But evolution relies on diversity through "errors" and so a fifty thousand foo tview is bugs are features. It's how it works. When we go into a more microscopic view in a narrow context we might call such an evolutionary feature an error. It isn't a necessary term except in the narrow contexts where it relates to an unexpected event.

The problem is in assigning a negative connotation to "error". Everything about us is bugs-that-are-features, errors are the only way we improve (until the point we can start deliberately rewriting DNA.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If there wasn't a man OS and woman OS then there would be no possibility of a gender mismatch and the whole trans issue wouldn't exist.

I disagree with your premise.

Honestly, the whole notion of "man OS" and "woman OS" might sound like it's all very noble and caring to you, it lets people be who they wish to be. But they can be whoever they wish to be without trying to force the notion of a naturalistic behavioral profile onto everyone else. Adults can dress however they like - a male should be free to wear lace and heels and skirts and makeup to their heart's content - Prince pulled it off pretty well. If a female wants to wear steel toed boots or wingtips and have a buzz cut, she should feel free to do so. The external trappings of our socially enforced codes are bullshit, and I happily encourage everyone to ignore them!

Those expressions and presentations aren't innate, they're not an inherited attribute. They're learned behaviors. And they vary significantly by culture and era.

The disagreement I have with "woman OS" is that it does NOT lessen those social barriers, it reinforces them. It entrenches socially created gender roles, and it does it by bringing back the naturalistic argument that "women are just naturally more docile" and "men are just naturally better decision makers". It might even be a bit worse, at least to me. In the past, we've seen enforcement of social barriers and behaviors. We've seen social condition that boys aren't allowed to cry, they've got to be tough. We've seen that paired with language like "suck it up and be a man!" and as a result we've had entire generations of men who have suppressed their feelings and who have had no recourse to support when they're depressed or sad. Now, however, we're actively teaching young boys that if they feel sensitive and emotional, then they're experiencing femininity... and that means that they're actually a girl and not a boy. We pair this with messaging that tells these children that in order to be the girl they actually are because they feel emotions... they should take drugs that interrupt their puberty and development, they should take drugs that make irreversible changes to their bodies, and they should consider surgeries that remove perfectly healthy tissue and organs. All so that they can try to be more of what we told them they must be because of social stereotypes.

A lot of it is learned behaviors. However, if the learned behaviors were all of it people would have no desire to modify their bodies.

But the reality is that they cannot actually change sex. A male cannot actually become female. A female cannot actually become male. We're feeding these kids a lie, all in an attempt to be compassionate and caring. A sensitive young male who likes sparkly things and dolls and dislikes sports, and who is gentle and soft-spoken (all of which are stereotypes mind you) can't actually transform into a female - they will never actually have a period or become pregnant or have any of the other experiences that are a result of our sex. It does a disservice to those children.

And nothing anyone can do will give me back the vision I was born with, let alone perfect vision. Doesn't mean the eye doc shouldn't give me the best vision she can. Is a surgeon wrong for doing boob jobs? (Or any other appearance-enhancement surgery.)

 

[bilby]

Everything about us is bugs-that-are-features, errors are the only way we improve (until the point we can choose to start deliberately rewriting DNA.)

FTFY.

We started deliberately rewriting DNA in the early 1970s. It's routine today, though for ethical reasons it's confined to non-human organisms.

 

[Bomb#20]

The concept of pseudorandomness, or selection of a chaotic result are very much concepts in math and software.

For instance, if I select an AES1024 encryption key,

You can encrypt with one of these?

AES1024-316 Atlas MaxTite AE Threaded Inserts

AES1024-316, Atlas MaxTite AE Threaded Inserts, 10-24 UNC-3B Thread Size, (0.266 - 0.316 Inch Grip), 100 Deg Countersunk Head, Steel Body, Cadmium Clear Chromate Finish

www.baysupply.com

If you're talking about

Advanced Encryption Standard - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

it comes with AES128, AES192 and AES256 encryption keys.

 

[Bomb#20]

Apparently you program a robot to be female by... giving it boobs, long hair, and eyelashes?

You program a robot to be female by giving her female interests, like going out in the wilderness to collect specimens for scientific research. I think Dr. Widnar is the only Futurama fembot that isn't a sexist stereotype.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Gonads can in fact be non-strict binary. They are more like the A and B of blood types, and some people do produce both for various reasons.

One ovary and one testicle? Or a gonad that makes both? (intersex gonad)

ETA: I should have read more.  Ovotestis - an intersex gonad, one that makes both sexes of gamete.

I had written a lengthy reply to this, but this got deleted when I put it on hold to respond to a different post. To summarize, it's probably best to use the term "germ cell" rather than "gamete." Both a sperm and an egg start out as primary germ cells (PGCs). In ovaries, there is some part of the process of oogenesis, and in testes, there is some part of the process of spermatogenesis where the PGCs go through transitional states of germ cells. Eventually, one state is haploid but immature and the last state is haploid and mature for both of these pathways. Some of the states in oogenesis include menstruation and fertilization and as discussed earlier one of the states in spermatogenesis involves the epididymis. As earlier, to review, the end state within the testes is round spermatids, not motile elongated sperm, but both are considered gametes. Oogenesis may be more complicated since a state in which one can call an oocyte a gamete may be more outside the ovary, i.e. include fertilization in the process as a whole. So, in short, if you want to compare ovotestes' outcomes to either/both the testis and ovary, you do not want to necessarily use the term gamete as an output.

Now, the problem, and this is why I had written a lengthy post before...when we then use the broad term "germ cell," we may be inadvertently overcorrecting for a contrast/comparison. This is because maybe all the states in oogenesis/spermatogenesis do not get generated in the ovotestis or at least that can be a perception or accusation that by changing the term you may be misleading. So, probably you want to document the transitional states for each of the ovotestes, ovaries, and testes in spermatogenesis and oogenesis...but also note that with fertility assistance/hormones, there can be a role in moving forward with ovotestes, at least some of the time.

 

[Jarhyn]

The concept of pseudorandomness, or selection of a chaotic result are very much concepts in math and software.

For instance, if I select an AES1024 encryption key,

You can encrypt with one of these?

AES1024-316 Atlas MaxTite AE Threaded Inserts

AES1024-316, Atlas MaxTite AE Threaded Inserts, 10-24 UNC-3B Thread Size, (0.266 - 0.316 Inch Grip), 100 Deg Countersunk Head, Steel Body, Cadmium Clear Chromate Finish

www.baysupply.com

If you're talking about

Advanced Encryption Standard - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

it comes with AES128, AES192 and AES256 encryption keys.

AES can in fact encrypt with any power-of-2 key size AFAIK, it just determines the key and output spaces.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Everything about us is bugs-that-are-features, errors are the only way we improve (until the point we can choose to start deliberately rewriting DNA.)

FTFY.

We started deliberately rewriting DNA in the early 1970s. It's routine today, though for ethical reasons it's confined to non-human organisms.

But we can't realistically edit traits of the offspring other than by copying genes known to produce the desired outcome.

 

[Emily Lake]

A lot of it is learned behaviors. However, if the learned behaviors were all of it people would have no desire to modify their bodies.

Please explain the innate evolutionary trait that makes people desire to get tattoos, pierce their ears, and perform circumcisions.

 

[Jarhyn]

A lot of it is learned behaviors. However, if the learned behaviors were all of it people would have no desire to modify their bodies.

Please explain the innate evolutionary trait that makes people desire to get tattoos, pierce their ears, and perform circumcisions.

Your disingenuousness is shining through. He's talking about modifying their bodies with respect to hormones and hormonally driven phenotypes.

Though there IS an archetype of person, or set of archetypes, much more prone to this behavior.

Why it evolved (the explanation) is less important than the fact that it evolved and is here now.

Where do you think body modification starts? The meme had to come from somewhere.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I would guess tattooing was a combination of the evolutionary changes from pre-human to human that involved an increase in artistic expression, but, also, another major factor was the same as in animals: mating expression/availability. Early tattoos identified tribal affiliation, kinship, social and wealth status, and gender which seem to all relate to the idea of mating. But I think if you look at a lot of modern tattoos some are "girly" and some "manly" i.e., related to cultural identification of gender but some are not, and some are artistic...and so they all seem to have some roots in these two factors, perhaps going back a long time ago. It's just an hypothesis, but going along with it would mean, that these drivers historically developed differently into different forms or styles among different cultures but could have the same evolutionary basis. Maybe?

 

[Emily Lake]

A lot of it is learned behaviors. However, if the learned behaviors were all of it people would have no desire to modify their bodies.

Please explain the innate evolutionary trait that makes people desire to get tattoos, pierce their ears, and perform circumcisions.

Your disingenuousness is shining through. He's talking about modifying their bodies with respect to hormones and hormonally driven phenotypes.

Though there IS an archetype of person, or set of archetypes, much more prone to this behavior.

Why it evolved (the explanation) is less important than the fact that it evolved and is here now.

Where do you think body modification starts? The meme had to come from somewhere.

You're applying an artificial boundary set to this discussion. One that is uniquely specific to your own beliefs.

 

[Jarhyn]

A lot of it is learned behaviors. However, if the learned behaviors were all of it people would have no desire to modify their bodies.

Please explain the innate evolutionary trait that makes people desire to get tattoos, pierce their ears, and perform circumcisions.

Your disingenuousness is shining through. He's talking about modifying their bodies with respect to hormones and hormonally driven phenotypes.

Though there IS an archetype of person, or set of archetypes, much more prone to this behavior.

Why it evolved (the explanation) is less important than the fact that it evolved and is here now.

Where do you think body modification starts? The meme had to come from somewhere.

You're applying an artificial boundary set to this discussion. One that is uniquely specific to your own beliefs.

It's amazing how readily you just wave this away as if it weren't important (see bolded).

 

[Emily Lake]

A lot of it is learned behaviors. However, if the learned behaviors were all of it people would have no desire to modify their bodies.

Please explain the innate evolutionary trait that makes people desire to get tattoos, pierce their ears, and perform circumcisions.

Your disingenuousness is shining through. He's talking about modifying their bodies with respect to hormones and hormonally driven phenotypes.

Though there IS an archetype of person, or set of archetypes, much more prone to this behavior.

Why it evolved (the explanation) is less important than the fact that it evolved and is here now.

Where do you think body modification starts? The meme had to come from somewhere.

You're applying an artificial boundary set to this discussion. One that is uniquely specific to your own beliefs.

It's amazing how readily you just wave this away as if it weren't important (see bolded).

I dismiss it because it's a baseless assertion that you've made that has no scientific support. It's your personal speculation. It's an ideological belief you hold that some sort of mental archetype of "woman" and "man" exists and that this archetype is somehow the result of evolution. I think your belief is religious hogwash, and as a result I feel no obligation to address the errant notions that result from your religious premise.

 

[Jarhyn]

I dismiss it because it's a baseless assertion that you've made that has no scientific support

Where do you think body modification starts? The meme had to come from somewhere, and it was started by someone who obviously wanted to modify their body without anyone else apparently having done it, of we are going to study the emergent case.

Why this happened is not as important as that it happened. Since time immemorial people have been disliking having nuts and removing them to fix that situation. It seems pretty clearly comorbid with other forms of atypical behavior, seeing as you note that atypical folks are much more likely to be trans.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A lot of it is learned behaviors. However, if the learned behaviors were all of it people would have no desire to modify their bodies.

Please explain the innate evolutionary trait that makes people desire to get tattoos, pierce their ears, and perform circumcisions.

The stuff you list is for appearance. Gender surgery isn't really for an appearance because it's generally not seen.