“Putting the same person in charge of both the IRS and SSA creates a conflict of interest when SSA wants access to legally protected taxpayer data,” Kaercher said.
Sure does. Really bad idea even if “CEO of IRS” was even a role that made sense in the first place.
some basis in reality
To be clear, these aren’t based in a physical reality. We’re not giving names to things that just naturally exist. These are based in social reality, like money or laws — things that exist only in the sense that we are able to cooperate in a shared make-believe space and maintain mutual understanding of what we’re talking about.
The appearance aspect is not that there is an intrinsic predetermined connection between “manly” traits and looking a certain way; it’s that we tend to look for communication across every available channel, so we will always tend to use appearance to try to convey some sense of our traits to others, since we know other people will tend to interpret whatever the appearance is.
Also, given the downvotes I’ve caught, maybe I should’ve tried harder to make it clear that I’m not making a moral claim about the creation of the concept of “manliness”?
Like, I’m not a fan. But it’s here. So what do we do about that? (Edit: To say something is useful is not to say that its creation was ethical or that it has only (or even net) positive effects. Fuck, generative AI is a case study for that.)
I think sometimes people think you can dismantle a social reality by boycotting it. That has never really worked, because social realities tend to persist because they help navigate some physical reality that people need to keep interacting with, and so they will keep that social reality alive as a side-effect until a new one comes along that offers an alternative.
You have to engage in the same kind of make-believe, and build a new construct that interacts with the old one in some way before it can really be dislodged.
Worthless social constructs
I wouldn’t say worthless.
Like many ancient cultural traditions that have survived to present day, they only lasted so long because they have some usefulness to them, despite their baggage. (The fact that they survived even with so much baggage should actually give a hint that there’s something useful there.)
It’s useful to be able to guess at some traits of a person based on appearance, or from knowledge of a few traits they have that tend to be correlated with others. (Yes, it’s reductive, and subjective, and the very definition of stereotype. But as long as there is a channel for potential communication, humans will make use of that channel — on both ends, even listening for meaning when there is none.)
Like how characters in team-based video games tend to generally fall into the categories of tank, dps, and healer, and their appearance and skills generally reinforce that categorization. It gives a shared landmark that the entire team can reference and allows you to navigate collective action problems more easily.
Constructs like “manliness” work in a similar way. A loose constellation of traits like strength, willingness to physically protect others, usually valuing rationality over emotionality, etc. along with some appearance tropes like facial hair that aren’t really intrinsically connected but help people identify each other more easily. (Note that I’m not making a value judgment here. I think it’s useful to have a bundle of traits with a name as a landmark. That does not mean I endorse all of the traits or the specific way they’re bundled.)
The problem, as you know, is… basically everything else.
That it’s tied to gender and hormones, implicitly asserts that this is the only valid (or at least the “best”) way to perform this gender, creates a rigid binary where there should be multiple mix-and-match options, promotes certain undesirable traits as “part of the package”…
…and the galaxy-sized elephant in the room: the fact that this construct doesn’t exist in isolation, but is deeply intertwined with patriarchy. It’s not simply a bundle of traits for easy shared reference points, it’s also a social currency with some very cult-ish or pyramid-scheme-like mechanics to it.
I don’t know if the concept of “manliness” can/will/should be saved. If/when it fades away, a large part of its current footprint will have faded away for the better. But I think some part of it is worthwhile.
Maybe we reclaim that territory by evolving the concept of “manliness”? Maybe we replace it completely, with 15 different, more nuanced and healthier concepts. But I think we do ourselves a disservice by acting as if there’s nothing worthwhile in there.
The ability to perform gender in a better way and reclaim that territory is kind of the essence of trans rights. If we want to build a verdant city on that land, we should acknowledge the land itself even as we criticize the ways it’s been misused.
Edit: Btw, if anyone’s wondering where all of this came from: this was right after I listened to a podcast about the concept of “common knowledge” and how it functions in linguistics, and it blew my mind, and this was the first concept I encountered afterwards and seeing it with new eyes was fascinating, so I had to write about it and now you get to enjoy the whale-carcass-sinking-in-the-ocean-depths that is me figuring out how to describe it in my own words.
Wormhole by Centerfleet
Or Tea Games
To be clear:
When you “make” a cairn, you’re reorganizing stuff that already exists. In fact, whenever we say “make”, we usually mean modifying something that already exists.
It’s reasonable to assume that a painting has a painter. We have experience with how paint behaves over time when left alone, and it doesn’t assemble itself into a painting by default.
We don’t have first-hand intuitive experience with how cosmic amounts of matter behave over time. But we do have measuring tools and mathematical models, which give us a pretty good view of how it does seem to assemble itself into Earth-like places and even the prerequisites for life itself.
And we also have a good enough understanding of Earth’s history to know why we’re missing the ability to measure some of the most interesting steps here on our planet.
Buuuut all of that is pointless to our question anyway. Because we’ve been talking about whether “makers” are necessary to reorganize matter over time. And you made a leap from that to “making” matter and time itself. That is something for which we do not have an analogous experience.
If “making” means taking raw materials in a “before” time and combining them into something else in an “after” time… how do you “make” the very concept of “making”, and “when” does that occur if it must be “before” the concept of a “before”?
They actually acquired Fyre.Festival.exe. Explorer just doesn’t show the extension by default.
I’m conflicted about this advice.
If we do end up in a civil war scenario, it’s important that gun ownership is not severely lopsided against vulnerable groups.
But in the meantime, gun ownership is a massive risk factor for suicide (attempts and fatalities), and trans folks are at a higher risk in the first place.
Also we’re supposed to sleep twice per 24-hour period
Shouldn’t it be parallel with the horizon?
Shit is a crucial part of the food web. Please don’t insult shit by comparing it to this fascist.
Lots of folks in the US don’t really have an understanding of religion as a separate thing from nationality.
They think of “being Christian” as “being like the other white people in my neighborhood growing up”. End of thought.
So drinking beer, watching football, and hating taxes are all “Christian things” to them.
So when they say “Christians — and only Christians — died for this country”, they’re 100% correct, according to their understanding of “being a Christian”. Cuz to them it basically just means “being an American”.
There’s really no way to convince them otherwise. It’s like telling someone that Velcro is really called “hook and loop”.
Yall have the ability to change your avatars?!
I agree, but please consider the Streisand Effect here…
Fedicon is just a protocol. You can give/attend a talk wherever/whenever you want. I went outside and gave a talk about peanuts to some crows. Best Fedicon ever.
No thanks, I don’t want to hear that creature’s voice
Among other cryptids
Gotta make war before you can make peace
NPM users: “…and?”