The Deluge of Absurdity, Ignorance, and Bad Posts

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

memphis is a Great Person.

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All ad hominems. Zero rebuttal. I'm ever so surprised

Ad hominems are the rebuttal, since the way your awful personal character shines through bright as any diamond is what's absurd, ignorant, and bad about your posts.

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memphis, quite apart from your usual horrible comments about trans women, the fact that you're looking at this through a rubric of 'fun' versus 'uptight' or some approximately equivalent adjective speaks volumes. Volumes.

'I have nothing to stand on except a personal dislike for you' isn't actually what that post meant, but whatever.

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If fascism is palingenetic ultranationalism, then at least a few strands of radical thought in Islam could be described as palingenetic ultrareligiosity. I myself wouldn't make the comparison and would caution against it for a whole host of reasons (the concept of 'Islamofascism', as if the content of the belief systems was comparable in either a theoretical or a historical sense, is bizarre, wrongheaded, and dangerous, and I think politicus's post veered dangerously close to that without necessarily in fact diving in), but I don't think it's prima facie absurd.

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I've always felt uncomfortable about forum members posting photos of non-member friends.

Why? These pics are not of anything illegal or embarassing and are all on facebook anyway. They're not internet virgins.

Facebook =/= all of this forum.

Most people expect that their Facebook photos will stay within their circle. (Of course the photos  don't stay there, but should you really spread them around?)

Yea pretty much. When I put photos on facebook I certainly don't expect them to end up on an internet forum unless I put them there.

Well, please let me welcome you to reality. What goes on facebook does not stay on facebook. Don't like it? Don't go on facebook.

I don't think it's something one should enable.

And yet, it makes perfect sense that he would hold this view.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

All the great trilogies have three parts:

I'm actually fairly popular with women who don't have penises. They're a much friendlier and relaxed bunch than the ones that do. Most of them don't needlessly view their lives through the constant prism of oppression.

Hey, Memphis, here's an idea. Maybe trans* women are more likely to point out the challenges inherent in being a women because they have experienced the difference first-hand.

This is not true at all. They know what it is like to be a trans person, and that probably is a difficult thing. Projecting that experience onto actually being a woman is not accurate. They have no more experience being a woman than I do.

For me, personally, I came out and transitioned in between high school and college, which means that everyone I know except family never knew me when I was living as male. I present female now and the way I look nobody guesses that I'm trans. I do tell my close friends, but other than that nobody. Point being that people in the world treat me the same way they would treat any other woman. So when I say "society tells women x", I'm certain I have more credibility than you do, given that you have probably never been perceived or treated as female in your life.

Perception is not the same thing as reality. You can put on all the dresses and take all the hormones you want. It sincerely doesn't offend or affect me. You can also wear high heeled shoes and make people think that you are taller than you really are too. If it makes you feel better about yourself, go for it. However, you're still a guy and your experiences and perceptions are drastically different than those who grew up and continue to be female without the trans trauma. Not there there is a universal female experience, obviously.

I'm actually fairly popular with women who don't have penises. They're a much friendlier and relaxed bunch than the ones that do. Most of them don't needlessly view their lives through the constant prism of oppression.

Hey, Memphis, here's an idea. Maybe trans* women are more likely to point out the challenges inherent in being a women because they have experienced the difference first-hand.

This is not true at all. They know what it is like to be a trans person, and that probably is a difficult thing. Projecting that experience onto actually being a woman is not accurate. They have no more experience being a woman than I do.

For me, personally, I came out and transitioned in between high school and college, which means that everyone I know except family never knew me when I was living as male. I present female now and the way I look nobody guesses that I'm trans. I do tell my close friends, but other than that nobody. Point being that people in the world treat me the same way they would treat any other woman. So when I say "society tells women x", I'm certain I have more credibility than you do, given that you have probably never been perceived or treated as female in your life.

Perception is not the same thing as reality. You can put on all the dresses and take all the hormones you want. It sincerely doesn't offend or affect me. You can also wear high heeled shoes and make people think that you are taller than you really are too. If it makes you feel better about yourself, go for it. However, you're still a guy and your experiences and perceptions are drastically different than those who grew up and continue to be female without the trans trauma. Not there there is a universal female experience, obviously.

We are talking about how society treats drj101. Read her post again.

His perception of how society treats him is different than most women's perceptions of their own lives because of his circumstances. Read my post again.

Wait, Dr J is a female impersonator as well?

It's a harmless hobby. I don't hold it against him.

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Memphis, you only post that here because Nathan questioned you. Period.

Whether or not this is true has zero bearing on whether it belongs here.

Funnily enough, I agree verbatim.

1. 'Pro-religion' without further qualifiers is a really weird term.
2. There are good and bad types of control. Control of human shortsightedness through gazing fixedly at the promise and hope of the world to come=good. Control of people who aren't straight men by straight men using sexuality as an instrument of said control=bad. Do you see?
3. Have you ever even heard the phrase 'liberation theology'?

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For the good of everyone, I propose we have a ban on memphis-related posts (from both sides) in the deluge. This thing is already spilling over into way too many threads.

Agreed.

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That's your opinion, drj101, but perhaps you should look through their posting histories.

Somewhat prickly versus, frankly, insidious? I don't think this demonstrates what you wanted it to demonstrate.

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I'll say AynRandLand for another reason.  After religion is destroyed, greed by and large will be destroyed.  Most people are naturally benevolent, they need religion/superstition/junk science to feel they have a superior standing than others and therefore justify their greed.  Societies in which religion is powerful breed this type of thought.

...what?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'll say AynRandLand for another reason.  After religion is destroyed, greed by and large will be destroyed.  Most people are naturally benevolent, they need religion/superstition/junk science to feel they have a superior standing than others and therefore justify their greed.  Societies in which religion is powerful breed this type of thought.

...what?

It's absurd to think my belief system will save humanity?  You do the exact same!

no matter. 

It's not absurd to think that, say, secular humanism, or Marxism, or some sort of Bergsonian deal, or some other particular non-theistic belief system would save humanity (it would be incorrect and wrong-appointed in my view, but it's not absurd). You've intimated this about the first listed, secular humanism, and I don't think that's absurd. Thinking that atheism in itself or the end of 'religion' (which is some sort of monolithic mass apparently) in itself would be at all efficacious in such is absurd, because all atheism is is a lack of assent to a specific idea.  I think it's absurd to suggest that humanity would be saved by the lack of something, no matter how pernicious you might believe that thing to be. The sentence 'After religion is destroyed, greed by and large be destroyed' is one of the flat-out strangest and most nonsensical statements I've ever read.

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I debated for a long time whether or not this really belonged here (not whether I thought it was bad, but whether I wanted to publicly present it as such), but the phrase 'inherently better looking' pushed it over the top in the end.

Why are you people all so impatient too make the baby perfect before its born? We have education for a reason. And don't anyone say education could be eliminated with this. Education builds up intelligence, critical thinking, social skills, and you actually get to have a childhood.

I don't think this applies to what we are talking about. Nobody is talking about getting rid of education. You aren't making any sense. Genetic Engineering would solve problems that can't be fixed by "education".

We are talking about making people inherently smarter, inherently healthier, inherently better looking (and yes, that matters) and freeing people from genetic disorders. This is the next great leap in the human condition. Words like "ugly" or "stupid" to describe people will be a relic of the past.

I honestly think of people who would ban this the same way as people who supported slavery in the 1850's. The social conservatives on this issue would see people enslaved to their genes, enslaved to defects and disorders that didn't have to happen, and enslaved to not be the best they could be.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The equivalency to slavery over an issue that is still largely science fiction (Ernest explains why zapping chromosomes out of a fetus is not feasible) is my favorite part. Talk about jumpin' the gun.

Yeah, that's pretty special too. 'Inherently better looking' and that whole last paragraph there push it up out of the quotidian drudgery of simply being an ethical position with which I disagree.