Elon Musk is a nice chap

[wraper]

Man = someone who identifies as male.

Woman = someone who identifies as female.

That's it.  That's literally the definition.

That not a definition by any reasonable standard but something that woke shitheads invented recently.
And then rapists who identify as a woman get into woman prisons where rape more women.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/oct/11/karen-white-how-manipulative-and-controlling-offender-attacked-again-transgender-prison
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/seven-sex-attacks-in-womens-jails-by-transgender-convicts-cx9m8zqpg
https://nypost.com/2022/04/25/transgender-rikers-inmate-gets-7-years-for-raping-female-prisoner/

If what you think about yourself is the objective reality, then what if a grown male identifies as a 5 year old girl and wants to get into kindergarten?

[james_s]

True, especially given many people can no longer define basic words such as man and woman.

Oh come on, you can't be serious about this crap. 

Man = someone who identifies as male.

Woman = someone who identifies as female.

That's it.  That's literally the definition.

Identifies as what? How do I know I'm a man and not: a woman, non-binary, fluid, pan gender etc.? What's the objective reality?

Chromosomes. XY = man, XX = woman, basic biology it really is that simple. If a person wants to live as something else I don't have a problem with that, but the idea that one can pick their gender and it makes them literally that gender is nonsense. Scientists can look at skeletal remains or DNA of a person that died thousands of years ago and determine their sex, it is permanently ingrained into every cell in our body.

[james_s]

You can censor things that go against objective fact, though, and pretending that there isn't such a thing as objective fact is farcical.   No one rational believes that 5G causes COVID but that's an example of where the disinformation line lies.  If you don't have any policy on misinfo then you get nutters burning down 5G towers.  Realistically, advertisers won't tolerate their content being shown alongside such dribble, so they'll pull out if platforms do nothing about this.

The solution to this is a feature called Brand Safety which is something that all of the social networking platforms support in their advertising. A client can provide a list of keywords to include or exclude, their ads will not be served with content that matches any of the exclude keywords.

[tom66]

Identifies as what? How do I know I'm a man and not: a woman, non-binary, fluid, pan gender etc.? What's the objective reality?

Do you think you're a man?  Then you're a man.  But for some, simple male = man, female = woman breaks down.  By assuming that, you don't account for transgender people,  but even if you want to ignore that group, which I assume you do because that's the thing a lot of people with your type of opinion do,  then you still need to handle intersex and no biological sex (around 1% of all people - similar to transgender rates in fact).  Gender has only strongly correlated with sex, it's not equal to sex.

I don't see the problem with saying you're whatever you want, provided it's not something like saying you're a nazi or whatever, because that's outright offensive to large numbers of people.   I know a trans person well enough to accept them for what they want to be, and I would hope one day you could do the same, just like society learned to accept that being gay was OK.  A couple of years ago I would have been a lot more like yourself, but it's pretty clear from the research and studies that acceptance is one of the best routes to dealing with gender dysphoria.  There is really very little debate on this matter, even if some other matters about transgender people are still debated.

We still need the distinction of biological sex for sports for example, because there's clearly a difference between biologically male and biologically female athletes, but in most areas, it's completely OK to say you're whatever you want to be.  And who does it hurt? 

[james_s]

And Elon wonders why advertisers are pulling out?

So far he does not give a squat about it. Check your facts.

He should, if he wants the service to be profitable, advertising is responsible for the bulk of the income and likely always will be. He is of course free to ignore this and keep pumping his own money into the thing to keep it going or find some other source of income, but I don't think it's likely other sources will match the $5 Billion or whatever they were taking in from advertising. The advertisers are the customer, you the user are the product, that is true of all social networking platforms. Anyone who knows anything about the business knows this.

[wraper]

Identifies as what? How do I know I'm a man and not: a woman, non-binary, fluid, pan gender etc.? What's the objective reality?

Do you think you're a man?  Then you're a man.  But for some, simple male = man, female = woman breaks down.  By assuming that, you don't account for transgender people,  but even if you want to ignore that group, which I assume you do because that's the thing a lot of people with your type of opinion do,  then you still need to handle intersex and no biological sex (around 1% of all people - similar to transgender rates in fact).  Gender has only strongly correlated with sex, it's not equal to sex.

I don't see the problem with saying you're whatever you want, provided it's not something like saying you're a nazi or whatever, because that's outright offensive to large numbers of people.   I know a trans person well enough to accept them for what they want to be, and I would hope one day you could do the same, just like society learned to accept that being gay was OK.  A couple of years ago I would have been a lot more like yourself, but it's pretty clear from the research and studies that acceptance is one of the best routes to dealing with gender dysphoria.  There is really very little debate on this matter, even if some other matters about transgender people are still debated.

We still need the distinction of biological sex for sports for example, because there's clearly a difference between biologically male and biologically female athletes, but in most areas, it's completely OK to say you're whatever you want to be.  And who does it hurt?

Whatever you say is decided, is not decided even in Western world. Not to say the vast majority of Earth population will call it total bollocks. The problem is not with sayng what you identify with (about which I don't give a damn), but that they want mandating everyone to accept that as an objective reality and make it legally binding.
And then comes nonsense like "birthing parent" instead of mother.

[tom66]

Whatever you say is decided, is not decided even in Western world. Not to say the vast majority of Earth population will call it total bollocks. The problem is not with sayng what you identify with (abuot which I don't give a damn), but that they want mandating everyone to accept that as an objective reality and make it legally binding.

A substantial amount of the world believes it's OK to stone women for adultery, so I don't accept the idea that because people disagree, it's a bad idea.  30-40 years ago, the majority of the Western world would have opposed the idea of gay marriage, now it's widely accepted.  The same thing will eventually happen with gender, whether you accept it or not. 

[james_s]

Do you think you're a man?  Then you're a man.  But for some, simple male = man, female = woman breaks down.  By assuming that, you don't account for transgender people,  but even if you want to ignore that group, which I assume you do because that's the thing a lot of people with your type of opinion do,  then you still need to handle intersex and no biological sex (around 1% of all people - similar to transgender rates in fact).  Gender has only strongly correlated with sex, it's not equal to sex.

I don't see the problem with saying you're whatever you want, provided it's not something like saying you're a nazi or whatever, because that's outright offensive to large numbers of people.   I know a trans person well enough to accept them for what they want to be, and I would hope one day you could do the same, just like society learned to accept that being gay was OK.  A couple of years ago I would have been a lot more like yourself, but it's pretty clear from the research and studies that acceptance is one of the best routes to dealing with gender dysphoria.  There is really very little debate on this matter, even if some other matters about transgender people are still debated.

We still need the distinction of biological sex for sports for example, because there's clearly a difference between biologically male and biologically female athletes, but in most areas, it's completely OK to say you're whatever you want to be.  And who does it hurt?

For most of history gender was literally equivalent to sex, it is only very recent and arguably radical academic theory that gender is a social construct that is separate, 10 years ago I had never even heard of such nonsense and frankly for the vast majority of scenarios it is only sex, as in biological sex, not the act is all that is relevant. If a person needs medical treatment for example sex matters, not what they identify as.

Who does it hurt? Well in most cases nobody, if a person wants to live as the opposite sex or pretend they're a dolphin or whatever, that doesn't really bother me at all, but that doesn't mean they are literally the gender or species they prefer to be. Biological men competing against women in sports though definitely hurts the women in those leagues, there's a reason there are separate leagues in the first place, because men on average are significantly larger, stronger, faster, have much higher bone densities etc that gives them an unfair advantage. I don't know how often a man claims to be trans to go into a womens locker room or some such thing but I do think that's a valid concern that should not just be blown off as bigotry or transphobia. I think the vast majority of trans people are harmless but it only takes one weirdo to take advantage of a situation.

[james_s]

They pulled out as soon as Elon aquired twittter, way before he started changing anythyng.

Personally I thought that was kind of ridiculous, but they're gonna do what they're gonna do. Customers sometimes boycott businesses over similarly silly stuff. Is it fair? No, but it's reality. Like any business, you do what you can to keep your customers happy and hope for the best. I think a lot of advertisers that paused their ad spend will return if they perceive things as going well, otherwise they may not, it all depends on how everything pans out.

[wraper]

They pulled out as soon as Elon aquired twittter, way before he started changing anythyng.

Personally I thought that was kind of ridiculous, but they're gonna do what they're gonna do. Customers sometimes boycott businesses over similarly silly stuff. Is it fair? No, but it's reality. Like any business, you do what you can to keep your customers happy and hope for the best. I think a lot of advertisers that paused their ad spend will return if they perceive things as going well, otherwise they may not, it all depends on how everything pans out.

Real customers will boycot nothing unless it's some niche woke brand with woke customers. It's very loud activists which by now also largely infested HR in big tech companies to which they cave in.

[Zero999]

Identifies as what? How do I know I'm a man and not: a woman, non-binary, fluid, pan gender etc.? What's the objective reality?

Do you think you're a man?  Then you're a man. 

I don't know. You tell me. What's do you mean by man? We can't discuss the matter, without clear definitions.

But for some, simple male = man, female = woman breaks down.  By assuming that, you don't account for transgender people,  but even if you want to ignore that group, which I assume you do because that's the thing a lot of people with your type of opinion do,  then you still need to handle intersex and no biological sex (around 1% of all people - similar to transgender rates in fact).  Gender has only strongly correlated with sex, it's not equal to sex.

No, it's much lower than 1%. Intersex is a physical abnormality. Their genes still are XY or XY, with a few vanishingly small number of exceptions. Anomaly doesn't invalidate the rule. Humans normally have four limbs, but someone with only one arm is still a human.

I don't see the problem with saying you're whatever you want, provided it's not something like saying you're a nazi or whatever, because that's outright offensive to large numbers of people.   I know a trans person well enough to accept them for what they want to be, and I would hope one day you could do the same, just like society learned to accept that being gay was OK.  A couple of years ago I would have been a lot more like yourself, but it's pretty clear from the research and studies that acceptance is one of the best routes to dealing with gender dysphoria.  There is really very little debate on this matter, even if some other matters about transgender people are still debated.

Oddly enough, I used to have your opinion, but have reversed it. Partly on listening to my brother who's gay, who raised the problems this ideology is causing for society. Incidentally, it's not the same thing as being gay, because it means being in denial of one's reality.

No long term studies have been done. The problem with affirmation is it invariably leads people down the path of irreversible medical treatments. It was reading the studies and applying critical thinking which made me change my mind. We don't affirm someone who wants a limb amputated or blinded, because they have transablism and sex shouldn't be any different.

We still need the distinction of biological sex for sports for example, because there's clearly a difference between biologically male and biologically female athletes, but in most areas, it's completely OK to say you're whatever you want to be.  And who does it hurt?

There have been instances of males competing in women's sports and winning because they have a biological advantage.

I don't have a problem with someone saying they're whatever they want. The problem I have is when they want me to believe them.

Whatever you say is decided, is not decided even in Western world. Not to say the vast majority of Earth population will call it total bollocks. The problem is not with sayng what you identify with (abuot which I don't give a damn), but that they want mandating everyone to accept that as an objective reality and make it legally binding.

A substantial amount of the world believes it's OK to stone women for adultery, so I don't accept the idea that because people disagree, it's a bad idea.  30-40 years ago, the majority of the Western world would have opposed the idea of gay marriage, now it's widely accepted.  The same thing will eventually happen with gender, whether you accept it or not. 

I repeat it's not the same thing as being gay.

And define gender? What does it mean?

[james_s]

And define gender? What does it mean?

IMHO its meaning is either synonymous with sex, or it is simply a label one chooses to apply to themselves, in which case it is biologically and scientifically irrelevant and is more or less equivalent to a nickname.

[SiliconWizard]

True, especially given many people can no longer define basic words such as man and woman.

Oh come on, you can't be serious about this crap. 

Man = someone who identifies as male.

Woman = someone who identifies as female.

That's it.  That's literally the definition.

Identifies as what? How do I know I'm a man and not: a woman, non-binary, fluid, pan gender etc.? What's the objective reality?

What if I want to identify as a cactus? Is this legit or not?

[coppice]

What if I want to identify as a cactus? Is this legit or not?

Now you are just trying to be prickly.

[TimFox]

What if I want to identify as a cactus? Is this legit or not?

Now you are just trying to be prickly.

It takes a pair to be prickly.

[Buriedcode]

If you watch his videos, you'll find he's a Democrat. He's said that many times before. He questions public health policy, not only that surrounding COVID, but also cancer, so it's no surprise you'll find many hit pieces on him.

Ok, the fact he's a "democrat" means nothing. Thats an American political party that presumably sits somewhere on a politcal spectrum - and brings nothing to this topic.
And whats the difference between a "Hit Piece" and legitimate criticism of opinions and views that aren't supported by evidence?  It is very easy for some to play the victim, and say "hey, I'm just asking questions" hiding behind being reasonable whilst clearly pushing against whatever the general concenous is just to stand out. 

Also, as he is a physician, surely the place to question "public health policy" (That is, American puclic health policy, since, you know, he's American) is in research, studies and papers?  That is generally how Science progresses.  Those who immediately rant on social media about how medicine is doing something wrong without providing anything in the way of evidence could - and should - be dismissed.

What if public health policy is based on misinformation and is putting people in danger? How about all the misinformation exaggerating the risk of the virus? That was pretty harmful and could have lead to needless deaths.

Which is why these decisions are made by large groups of experts, and not a "lone wolf" contrarian doctor who fires off incedary tweets, a few youtube rants, then plugs his patreon page.  Nothing is risk-free, and everything is a weighed up against benefits and harms - thats what all medical interventions are, a risk/benefit analysis.  Offical recommendations can, and should, change based on updated evidence.  Again, simply saying " ahh but what if they're wrong!?" is no reason for complete inaction because you disagree with what has been decided. The US at one point was losing >3000 people a day.  Thats over 20k people a week - not really a time to sit on your hands whilst we wait for studies to finish that only serve to prove what we know from previous pandemics.

The problem with something new, such as a novel virus, is there are a many unknowns. The only the narrative accepted by the authorities was allowed on Twitter. The fact it's a private company  doesn't wash. It bowed to pressure from the government and implemented censorship to support their narrative. It's a big problem with Big Tech in general. Governments worry about the free flow of information and apply pressure on them, so they voluntarily censor themselves, though fear of more legislation.

Of course there are many unknowns, there was a frantic rush to find out what was happening in the early days and it was hard to filter out the noise to find actual helpful information. Rampant speculation - combined with some very loud conspiracy theoriests and contrarians only made matters worse.  Twitter isn't (or wasn't) going to allow a complete free for all - it has to abide by certain rules, and also to appease its advertising partners. 

No company is going to want to be assosciated with a company that freely allows racist, antisemetic, or comments intended to harm (or a call to harm).  So you can't expect those same companies to stick with twitter if it lets people post information that damages public trust on health authorities leading to more harm and lives lost.  This doesn't mean that government policies were right, or wrong - just that the censorship on social media debate has been raging for ages.  Honestly, it sounds like you either want there to be absolutely no censorship (in which case one could just acuse anyone of something, and calling others to burn their house down) or it's just you don't like it when the posts you agree with are censored?

There are objective facts, but more often than not there are so many unknowns and nuances, it's impossible for a single body to decide what's objectively true and what's not. There have been many times in history, when what was considered to be the objective fact, has later turned out to be false and those who've discovered it have been persecuted. Galileo is a classic example.

So, you're suggesting that unless there is clear and concise agreement and 100% certainty on what a situation is and how it should be handled, we should just sit and wait for it?  During a pandemic?  You can point out many examples of when conventional wisdom has been overturned, but that doesn't really mean anything.  There have also been many times when things that have been taken as fact - continue to be fact.  Simply saying "ahh well, sometimes people are wrong" doesn't actually help in any way. 

[tooki]

For most of history gender was literally equivalent to sex, it is only very recent and arguably radical academic theory that gender is a social construct that is separate, 10 years ago I had never even heard of such nonsense and frankly for the vast majority of scenarios it is only sex, as in biological sex, not the act is all that is relevant. If a person needs medical treatment for example sex matters, not what they identify as.

You may not have heard about it, but it’s actually something documented since antiquity. It’s absolutely, probably, not just something concocted in recent years. In many cultures it’s actually been integrated into core belief systems. (Like the “third sex” people in India, or Native American peoples.)

[vad]

Joke of the day. Founder of PayPal complains about unreasonably high fees. There is always a bigger fish, Elon.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63788437

Compared to Apple app store, Paypal fees are totally reasonable. You also need to take credit/debit card fees into account which are often more than half of what Paypal takes. If you send money from Paypal balance as "friends and family", then the fee is very low as in that case paypal does not offer protection and they dont need to pay payment card fee. But it's not really relevant to Elon since he sold his stake in paypal 20 years ago. Apple slaps 30% fee on app purchases and in-app transactions and does not allow even a slightest mention in the app you are able to pay eslewhere. Google play is similar, however there is a big difference. You can install apps manually without a store.

30% distribution margin is standard in software industry. If you are software giant and want technology distribution companies like Ingram Micro and Tech Data to market your software around the world - be prepared to cut 20%-40% percent margin to the distributors depending on the region.

[tszaboo]

No long term studies have been done. The problem with affirmation is it invariably leads people down the path of irreversible medical treatments. It was reading the studies and applying critical thinking which made me change my mind. We don't affirm someone who wants a limb amputated or blinded, because they have transablism and sex shouldn't be any different.

Actually, there are long term studies, showing 40% attempted suicide rate by transgender people.
The same rate is 31% for people with gender dysphoria. Both is staggeringly high, and these people are not getting the help that they would actually need.

[RJSV]

   Sorry, to Dave Jones, about making too many 'snide' and unwelcome (political) remarks (re: Border crossers).
  No excuse, but the reasons that happen(s), we are stressed, extra, these days, (and overjoyed to have some kind, any kind of forum).
   Running a gigantic org, like EEvblog, HAS to have all kinds of unanticipated stresses, so, yes, message received, to exert more self-control, in any posts controversial.
Sorry about going too far, a bit.

[james_s]

Actually, there are long term studies, showing 40% attempted suicide rate by transgender people.
The same rate is 31% for people with gender dysphoria. Both is staggeringly high, and these people are not getting the help that they would actually need.

I'm not surprised. Some claim it is because the way they are treated by society but that is obviously nonsense, lots of other groups are treated poorly by society or have been in the past and do/did not have such sky high suicide rates. That doesn't mean it's ok to treat anyone poorly but I'm quite sure that itself is not the reason for the suicides. They have a serious mental illness and transitioning does not change that, the benefits are often transient. Anorexia is another body dysphoria disorder yet we don't advocate affirming care for that, if you told an anorexic "yeah, you are fat, let's get you on a diet" people would think you were crazy.

[james_s]

You may not have heard about it, but it’s actually something documented since antiquity. It’s absolutely, probably, not just something concocted in recent years. In many cultures it’s actually been integrated into core belief systems. (Like the “third sex” people in India, or Native American peoples.)

Ok so it's some exotic concept that has existed in the fringe for years, but in Western culture at least "gender" is synonymous with "biological sex" to the vast majority of people, at least English speaking people. When most people including myself refer to gender, they're actually referring to sex, not gender identity.

[coppice]

Actually, there are long term studies, showing 40% attempted suicide rate by transgender people.
The same rate is 31% for people with gender dysphoria. Both is staggeringly high, and these people are not getting the help that they would actually need.

I'm not surprised. Some claim it is because the way they are treated by society but that is obviously nonsense, lots of other groups are treated poorly by society or have been in the past and do/did not have such sky high suicide rates. That doesn't mean it's ok to treat anyone poorly but I'm quite sure that itself is not the reason for the suicides. They have a serious mental illness and transitioning does not change that, the benefits are often transient. Anorexia is another body dysphoria disorder yet we don't advocate affirming care for that, if you told an anorexic "yeah, you are fat, let's get you on a diet" people would think you were crazy.

Try looking at the work of V S Ramachandran on a variety of people whose mind and body are in discord. People whose nervous system tells their brain they lack a limb which it still there and fully functional. People who get constant agony in limbs long since amputated. People with strange forms of synesthesia, that result in a constantly conflicted mind. These people get so screwed up by their problems they will happily do things like amputate a working limb. These are people who very rarely get abused by society. Most people have enormous sympathy for their plight, and they are usually treated with great kindness. Still, many end up not wanting to live. Ramachandran has devised some brilliantly simple tricks to bring some people back into harmony, but many still suffer horribly, and want to die whatever is done for them.

[TimFox]

You may not have heard about it, but it’s actually something documented since antiquity. It’s absolutely, probably, not just something concocted in recent years. In many cultures it’s actually been integrated into core belief systems. (Like the “third sex” people in India, or Native American peoples.)

Ok so it's some exotic concept that has existed in the fringe for years, but in Western culture at least "gender" is synonymous with "biological sex" to the vast majority of people, at least English speaking people. When most people including myself refer to gender, they're actually referring to sex, not gender identity.

“Gender” is unambiguous but sometimes irrational in grammar, more important in non-English European languages.

[coppice]

You may not have heard about it, but it’s actually something documented since antiquity. It’s absolutely, probably, not just something concocted in recent years. In many cultures it’s actually been integrated into core belief systems. (Like the “third sex” people in India, or Native American peoples.)

Ok so it's some exotic concept that has existed in the fringe for years, but in Western culture at least "gender" is synonymous with "biological sex" to the vast majority of people, at least English speaking people. When most people including myself refer to gender, they're actually referring to sex, not gender identity.

“Gender” is unambiguous but sometimes irrational in grammar, more important in non-English European languages.

Is gender even a word most of us encountered before our first foreign language class for a language which uses the concept in wacky ways? My pronouns are 他, 他 and 他的, and will be so regardless of my sex or gender. If you are really nice to me, 佢, 佢 and 佢的 are acceptable, too.