joyously acknowledging that yes, your data is cherry-picked, does not address the fallacy in any way. — Jabberwock

What fallacy? You've still not explained how my data selection in this instance is a fallacy. Throwing a Wikipedia article at it isn't an argument. How has my data selection process lead to my conclusion being less sound in a way that yours isn't? You've not given me any mechanism connecting these data selection processes with the truth.

I have already wrote that: by challenging your view by reflecting on it from a different point of view. — Jabberwock

'Challenging' it? 'Reflecting' on it? These are just amorphous terms that don't have any distinct meaning. What exactly is the nature of Freedom House's 'challenge'? What exactly am I supposed to show to demonstrate having 'reflected' on it?

You have flatly refused to look at other evidence. Could that be the reason for why we were looking just at one? — Jabberwock

You have no reason at all to believe I've not looked at any other evidence, and in fact the most cursory glance back through this very thread would have shown that assumption to be wrong, but it's not your interest to actually get that assessment right, is it?

Anchoring cannot be 'implied', if we are looking at several indices without rejecting any of them beforehand. 'Let us look at all the indices and average them' is not 'anchoring'. — Jabberwock

... he says, going on to produce a textbook example of anchoring...

If someone objects to slavery and someone proposes to significantly increase religious freedom of the slaves then yes, it would be a nice improvement of their index, but it would still not address the problem, i.e. slavery. — Jabberwock

... I can only assume that was deliberate?

Your claim that the resolution of the conflict in Ukraine requires overthrowing of tyranny — Jabberwock

And I made such a ridiculous claim where, exactly?

The question is not 'Can we make Russians happier?' but 'Can we make Russians stop subjugating other countries?' — Jabberwock

... and goes on to provide a further text book example of framing. Perfect.

I have given you the facts, how you assess their influence on the probability is up to you. — Jabberwock

Have you ever written an argument? Have any of your teachers ever given you high grades for your 'list of facts' with the conclusion 'put them together however you want, that's up to you'? I presume you've at least had education past the level at which you're taught how to construct arguments. If you want to present an argument that your facts lead to a high probability, you must make that case (and do so persuasively). It's not 'list the facts and then roll your eyes if others don't reach the same conclusion you did' That's what persuasive arguments are for - to get others to see what you see connecting the facts to the conclusion.

, the performative behaviour of the person whose gender it is is restricted on pain of counting as what they (feel they) are. So if you were to say "You're a woman! Not a man" to a trans man, because they were wearing a dress, what's restricted in that moment is the violence of your assertion — fdrake

Yes. I see that and wouldn't advocate such a violent assertion, but we're not merely talking about assertion. If I'm asked to use the term 'she' in a way I wouldn't normally use it, then it wasn't a violent assertion (my previous use) its was just a performative commitment to my narrative (that 'she' is something I say to refer to females). What I mean by the asymmetry is that there's behavioural commitments attached to all of our narratives. Asking to be treated a certain way is a request that others modify their public behaviour in ways that might not accord with their understanding of the world. That's all well and good when it's a good spirited request as part of a cooperative attempt to reach some compromise among clashing worldviews, but it's less of a reasonable request as it becomes demand... becomes assault (not to)... and finally demands it become hate crime (not to). That's not a co-operative attempt at compromise.

I think this is why the debate get pushed toward identity. The strength of the 'misgendering' argument relies on there being a truth which is denied, not a request which is negotiated. But as @Moliere can attest to, we can't even concretely pin down what identity is, let alone use it as truth so universal that its denial is only and always abusive.

As far as my world-view is concerned, trans people simply want to be treated as if they were members of one of the available social groupings which to which membership has traditionally been denied on the basis of biological traits. That might be expressed as 'identity', but I no more believe that an accurate expression than I would if someone told me they were 'Libran', or had a powerful 'aura'.

The request itself is innocuous, but in some contexts we apply our responses (including speech acts) to other groupings (not social roles) because the context is different. Unfortunately because of the vagaries of language, these other groupings share the same terms ('women', 'men'). A little reasonable care and this ceases to be a problem, we'll muddle through, but in this highly politicised and polemic environment and we haven't a chance.

Great, so you finally did some reading. — Jabberwock

There ought to be a fallacy for treating a joke as if it were an argument - argumentum a gravitate perhaps...

Seriously, you're going to get a lot more out of this conversation if you drop the pretence that you're playing teacher, it just makes you sound silly.

is using a single outlier to support your argument is a fallacy or not? — Jabberwock

No. I've already explained that...

If the accusation is "there's no evidence for X" then cherry-picked evidence disproves that claim. There has to exist evidence for X in order that I can cherry pick it, it therefore disproves the claim that there is no evidence in favour of X. — Isaac

Was there something there you didn't understand?

it is easier to overcome one's confirmation bias by seeking many sources, both confirming and countering his thesis. — Jabberwock

Is it? How? You keep falling back on these lazy clichés as if they were self-evident. I don't think it is easier to overcome one's confirmation bias by seeking many sources, both confirming and countering one's thesis. I think overcoming confirmation bias has far more to do with social roles, confidence, and the payoff from doing so. It has very little to do with quantity of sources, as 'quantity' here is difficult to pin down and is easily dismissed as confirmation bias itself (as well as group think, conformity bias etc.). It might be that a volume of opinion with something detached like mathematics would be persuasive, but not with politics, economics, sociology... These are far more likely to reflect popular or less popular idealogical positions.

People have ideological biases and mostly these run in dominant and alternative (or fringe) paradigms, if you follow a more fringe paradigm it's self-evident that there's going to be a majority who assess data differently, seeing that isn't going to change your paradigm. For example, supporters of a Marxist interpretation of history are not persuaded by the fact that most historians do not view things that way, they expect that to be the case as part of their analysis.

I have proposed to review as many indices as possible, including yours, with no particular weights attached to any of them, so there would be no anchoring and no preferential treatment whatsoever. You object to that because you realize that putting them all together would indicate your source is an outlier. How exactly is that framing? — Jabberwock

For a start we've looked only at two indices in detail, that's not 'as many as possible', not even close, but putting that aside, the anchoring is implied in what you expect to see. You already have Russia as descending into something, your frame of reference, so the quality of any assessment in anchored to that metric, things either deviate from it (and so require justification), or they do not (and therefore require no justification). Likewise your 'framing' of human freedom means that deviations are what require justification, but adherences do not.

that is not what is generally meant by the term — Jabberwock

It is...

Meaning of tyranny in English
tyranny
noun [ U ]
uk
/ˈtɪr.ən.i/ us
/ˈtɪr.ən.i/
Add to word list
government by a ruler or small group of people who have unlimited power over the people in their country or state and use it unfairly and cruelly:
This, the president promised us, was a war against tyranny.
a situation in which someone or something controls how you are able to live, in an unfair way: — https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/tyranny

So 'framing' this as a misuse of 'tyranny' (notwithstanding the fact that I only mentioned tyranny a few times), is a straw man. There are two definitions given by the dictionary, you have chosen the one which provides you with a means to an easy counter argument rather than use the one that was intended. It's literally the definition of straw-manning.

If you reject historical probabilism, then you cannot argue that the US provoked the war: if history is wholly undetermined and future inscrutable, then nobody could predict any course of events, therefore they are blameless. — Jabberwock

Firstly, blame is about mens rea, not actus reus, so predictability isn't important. But I'm quite content with probabilism., it's just that you've not given any probabilities, you've just slung together a load of facts and said "see, these make it more probable". I don't see. I'm unconvinced that those facts lead to the probabilities you suggest and you've not presented anything at all to argue that they do. Their mere existence as facts is not sufficient.

If you say "the defendant was most likely to have stolen the bag - he was tall and wore a hat" it's not an argument. You have to show how being tall and wearing a hat affect the likelihood of the defendant stealing the bag.

You've provided lots of facts about Russia's past but you've not provided any argument to show that they have the effect on the probability of this movement in the direction of human freedom that you're claiming they do.

Maybe you have read many sources, but you engage with only one. — Jabberwock

And yet you still cannot tell me what 'engaging' is...

The problem here is that your priming bias makes the argument you have seen seem more strong than the arguments you read here. So confirmation bias leads you to see the supporting evidence for that as leading more strongly to that conclusion.

Your belief bias gets in the way of a dispassionate assessment of the logic in the counterarguments and your overconfidence in your ability to assess those arguments logically, leads to several non-sequitur arguments.

As your anchoring bias sets you up to see your preferred indices as centre points from which to measure deviation, you use framing to shore up the evidence in favour of your preferred theories.

Treating 'tyranny' and 'democracy' as if they were non-scalar terms is a suppressed correlative, something is not removed from either camp simply by relative position, and repeatedly arguing against that tighter definition you now have rather than those I'm using is a straw man.

Your assumption that historical conditions must, simply by existing cause the current states is an historical fallacy, and reliance on it results in retrospective determinism, and as a result the majority of your assessment of Russia's current state from it's historical roots is just post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Your repeated insistence that I 'enagage with' only one source despite having no information on how many sources I have read is an attempt at proof by assertion, not to mention the Bulverism.

---

Finally, using Wikipedia to make your arguments for you is an appeal to authority.

I don't ask my teenager for explanations, because he's not a research subject. — Srap Tasmaner

Now you're just making me look bad. In my defence I changed the names before publishing...

Because men and women and all the others can and do wear dresses -- and women also don't wear dresses. That is, the behavior doesn't define the identity, nor do traits. Whatever identity is, it's not those (though some identities identify with those). There are some roles which are slotted for the genders which people are attached to, but people also overcome these along with traits-based views while maintaining their gender identity: Think here not of trans but of cis -- how many cis people have you known who undergo physical and occupational changes which don't align with their self-picture, but still manage to identify as their gender? Does a man cease to be a man if he doesn't have a job? Does a man cease to be a man if he has erectile dysfunction? Does a man cease to be a man if he has feminine feelings? — Moliere

I agree, but my point is that this is currently one way. Does a woman cease to be a woman if they're referred to as 'he'? No. Do they cease to be a woman if they use a bathroom labelled 'men'? No. But these matters are not treated with the same degree of unimportance to gender.

If the performances do not define your gender, then why do the responses? Why have I 'misgendered' the trans woman by using 'he'? It's like you want to say that gender is not defined by the individual's part to play, but society has to confirm to a set of behaviours in response. I'm asking why it's only society that has the mandated role to play, why is my responsive behaviour socially restricted along gender lines, but not the performative behaviour of the actual person whose gender it is?

The trouble I have is that I want to get there by seeing those expressions as performance, but the people using these expressions keep talking like they're supposed to be taken as incontrovertible fact, or as witness -- however you do that you're opening yourself to the same types of skepticism and critique as any other expression. — Srap Tasmaner

Exactly.

No one would consider 'racist' an identity worthy of the same deference. Why gender specifically? — Srap Tasmaner

My take on this is relatively simple, but in it's simplicity it denies lots of wishy-washy stuff about 'feelings' so may not be overly popular...

There a socially constructed role (character in our collective story) for which we use the word 'woman'. Some people like the look of that role and want to play it, some of these people are born male (sex, not gender). So these people ask to be treated as playing the role 'woman' despite the lack of traditionally qualifying features (mostly around reproductive organs). Group A

There are also a group of people who who dislike the role, would rather step outside of it some (or all) of the time. Some of these people are born female (sex) and resent being pushed into the role just because they have the traditionally qualifying features. Group B

The simple solution to this is that we say no matter what your qualifying features, you just say what role you want and we'll all just agree to treat you that way (socially understood badges are useful here like dresses, hairstyles, and make-up). Or if you want neither role, that's cool too, but you might get some surprising responses from people because we can't mind-read (if there's no public script we can wing it, but aren't always successful).

There are then three problems which get us from that utopia to here

1. Toxic masculinity (for want of a better term). There are a lot of people who really like those roles to be filled only by those with the traditionally qualifying features. They might be willing to make exceptions for injury, or medical oddity, but are less comfortable doing so because of a free choice. So they push back. This is just boring conservatism, probably has a lot to do with our stifling neuroses about sex, and is rather uninteresting as a social phenomena.

2. We have a victim culture, a means of assuaging western wealth-guilt by taking on the victim role, the poor clearly deserve, for some reason other than poverty. To be a victim one needs an immutable condition, (choosing to live on the streets instead of your suburban semi doesn't make you a victim of homelessness). So there's an attraction to making the preference more like an affliction, it gains social capital and avoids guilt. And there's some merit to this - maybe I can't avoid my preference for tea over coffee, maybe it's innate.

3. The word we use for this role is also used for the sex 'female' in different contexts. One of those contexts applies to female victims of male dominance and needs addressing to help that specific victim group. This wouldn't be a problem were it not for (1) and (2). As language users we're quite comfortable with words having different meanings in different contexts. But here, because of (1) there's an attraction to insisting the word means one and the same thing in all cases - it forces those with the qualifying features (sex) into the role like a linguistic crowbar. and because of (2) people don't want there to be any situation in which their 'womanhood' is treated differently because that makes it all look a little too choice-like and not enough affliction-like.

So we are where we are, with 'woman' being nebulously defined as an 'identity' which is here acting as a catch-all term just loose enough to avoid having to ever resolve the tension, maintaining the affliction-like status Group A(2) want but without denying the freedom Group B want to behave however they like. As such, the word becomes almost deliberately meaningless. Being a 'woman' now doesn't actually mean anything for any practical purposes, but if needed gives you an affliction-like need to be treated in accordance with a social role, like an ace up the sleeve.

It's a fudge. But an understandable one. No one wants to give in to 1s, no one wants to be harsh enough to tell 2s to snap out of it and stop their first-world whinging (I say no one, but...). And of course, no one wants to have to draw any kind of line which demarcates genuine psychological conditions from bandwagon jumping. Same is true of depression, was true of anorexia, and strangely becoming more true with dissociative disorders (watch this space - I'm predicting the next 'trans' issue).

I think we could do better but I think to do so we have to give up on this victim politics we've been sucked into. To do that we have to re-align ourselves to the proper measures of inequality (opportunity), but that involves a little too much self-criticism for most who these days probably are reliant on quite a lot of that inequality of opportunity for their psychological crutches.

Hey you got it right this time! Good for you. — Srap Tasmaner

I've been practising.

And that's the sticking point, the off-the-shelf narratives we bring with us to the discussion. Is there a process for rewriting those scripts, how does it work, what is required for that process, and how robust is it? — Srap Tasmaner

I think our summoned @Joshs answers that. As you rightly suggest he would rightly say. We build these things as we go. But the point here is that it can't be a one-way system where Bob has a fully formed narrative in his head which he'd like other people to act in accordance with, but in interacting with Bob, Alice's own narrative must be discarded. I just don't think that's how social constructions are supposed to work. I think the idea of them (insofar as there is an 'idea', daren't even whisper evo psych's name) is to aid co-operation - reduce surprise really, but we don't need to track all the way back there.

I don't think there's anything stopping us each having our own narratives and just thrashing it out when they clash. I just don't think it's a very good idea, and that requires a little stability, some predictability (oh God, I'm turning into a conservative... I may have to be put out of my misery)

No, cherry-picked support does not disprove anything — Jabberwock

Of course it does. If the accusation is "there's no evidence for X" then cherry-picked evidence disproves that claim. There has to exist evidence for X in order that I can cherry pick it, it therefore disproves the claim that there is no evidence in favour of X.

An argument based on a single cherry-picked point of support is fallacious — Jabberwock

It isn't. Just because some Wikipedia article says so, doesn't render it fact. There are multiple competing theories of epistemology. Googling a fallacy doesn't prove anything. If think you have a case, make it.

I have described many factors from the history of both Ukraine and Russia that make me believe what you propose is unlikely. — Jabberwock

Good. You go ahead and believe that then. That you believe something to be the case is not an argument that it is, in fact, the case.

Unlike me, you have not engaged with any of them. — Jabberwock

What would constitute 'engaging' with them? You keep throwing in this term, but it's so nebulous. If I read them, decide they're not meaningful, is that 'engagement'? What do want as a sign of engagement (short of just agreeing)? I don't believe those factors make it sufficiently unlikely - I am unconvinced. What more is there to say?

This is simply confirmation bias. You engage ONLY with the evidence that supports your claim. — Jabberwock

I believe only the evidence that supports my claim (is sufficiently weighty). But that's obvious. It's why I believe my claim. The same is true of you. All the evidence that supports your claim you believe is weighty enough, all the evidence which opposes it you don't. That's why you believe your claim.

You seem to think that there's some kind of number-crunching or mental kung-fu that can be done with all this competing theory, that you've carried out and I haven't, yet you can't actually describe what it is. You can list things that we agree are the case all day long, but nothing in that listing is going to magically spew out a theory that we're all then compelled to believe. The facts underdetermine the theory - a point that seems stubbornly impossible to drive home here for some reason.

The simple fact is that capability of some countries to move on the HFI by a certain amount has nothing to do with the likelihood of freeing of the whole of Russia from tyranny, which was your argument — Jabberwock

It does. The HFI is as good a measure of 'tyranny' as any. Short of you getting out your tyranny-o-meter, what could you possibly bring to bear to dispute that. I get that you don't like it, that for you tyranny is mostly about voting and political opposition, but for others, there's tyranny in lack of economic freedom, lack of opportunity... I agree with the weighting the HFI has applied. You don't. There isn't an answer to that, there isn't some way we can stare more at the data and the right opinion pops out.

So you are simply not telling the truth when you say that I have not provided a shred of evidence. — Jabberwock

What do you think you've provided evidence for? That Russia might not overthrow tyranny in eight years? Sure. But that's not the claim, the claim was that it will not. Or your later claim that it is more likely to not. Nothing you've provided has any probability assigned to it. It all simply might be the case.

All you've done is listed a load of facts and then said "see, they all add up to my theory". But facts don't just magically add up to theories, it's just a list of facts. They might seem to you to add up, but they don't seem to me to do so (not with the same degree of certainty). That difference is not resolvable - you can't just say "well, they ought to". Facts underdetermine theories.

And tell me, you do not believe that the HFI contradicts my claim that the peaceful fall of regime in Russia is unlikely. How can it then support the opposite thesis? — Jabberwock

Facts underdetermine theories. If you're having trouble with the notion, I'm sure I can dig out a Wikipedia article for your edification.

How could I tell if I am honest with myself or not? — Moliere

My twopenneth; if I make predictions using my model and they turn out relatively unsurprising. If they don't, I've been dishonest (I've told a story which doesn't really fit with the behaviour).

To keep this gender-based. If I wanted everyone to treat me as a woman, then there must exist some set of roles/behaviours/approaches which constitute being a woman (for me), otherwise what could it possibly be that I'm asking others to do? If I too follow those, then I'm honest. If I don't, then I'm not.

But the thing here is that the criteria are public. They have to be otherwise the request "treat me like a woman", makes no sense. The use of term 'she/her' for example. It's a public term, we agree on it as a way of treating women. If someone said "treat me like a woman", but then started listing a whole load of things I don't associate with women (like using the word 'he'), I might quite fairly say "No, that's treating you like a man, you've misunderstood"

So, if there's obligations, behaviourally, on me when interacting with someone who wants to be treated 'like a woman', I think it's perverse to suggest that their own behaviour/attitude has no public component. If the trans woman can say to me "use 'she' that's what you say to women", why I can't I say "wear a dress, that's what women wear". Either we each have our own ideas of what a woman is and everyone else better lump it, or we agree together what one is (in different contexts, of course), and if that's not you, you're not one; end of story.

It's better at building a relationship, — Moliere

Is it? I don't see it. It seems rather one way to me, which is not a good basis for a co-operative relationship. The problem is that these 'identities' are public entities. 'Woman' is something we all share in the creation of as a category, a role, a character in a story... We share that creation so that we can co-operate better, we all know what we're talking about, we all have a more predictable set of interactions which means we can plan together and maybe understand one another a bit better.

That all breaks down when people decide they're going to individually determine what these public entities are; then all we have is fights over the usage (as we have), everyone taking offence, no one co-operating because we've lost sight of the point of these public constructions.

what this has taught me also is that listening to another's story is better for learning more about the world and yourself -- otherwise it's very easy to get trapped in my little web of thoughts. — Moliere

Yes, totally, but to tell that story we have to understand each other, we have to have a shared set of meanings for the words we use, including 'woman'. Otherwise, I can't hear your story because I don't know what you mean by anything you say.

You have no other support to make the claim that a peaceful rebellion in Russia is likely in a reasonable time — Jabberwock

I need no other support. I'm defending against your accusation that the position has no support. One set of support disproves that claim.

flatly refuse to consider the vast evidence that says something else. — Jabberwock

There's no 'vastness' to the counter evidence other than in your mind. Some people disagree. I'd fully expect they do. My claim was not 'Russia can escape it's current state within eight years and nobody disagrees'

The simple fact is that, by some measures of freedom, it is perfectly possible for a nation to get from where Russia is now to where Ukraine is now in the space of eight years. It is also a fact that Russian occupation results in orders of magnitude fewer deaths and constraints than war.

Therefore, if the goal is Ukraine's current level of freedom, it is reasonable to believe that the least damaging route is to avoid war, but instead focus on the longer, but less damaging route of removing tyranny entirely.

Your absurd descent into truly execrable epistemology and speculation about my reading history, has failed to cover the fact that you've not provided a shred of evidence contradicting that claim.

And no "some other people think otherwise" does not contradict that claim, not even if your Delphic wisdom determines they're the ones telling The Truth™.

I accept the capitulation. — Jabberwock

There isn't one. You made an absurd comment somehow implying that you know exactly what I've read and what I haven't (despite the fact that the evidence to the contrary is on this very thread), then went on to proselytise about how you manage some kind of next level meta analysis of "all sources" which even the experts at Cato and Freedom House are incapable of, and expected anyone to believe that you arrive, by this at what just so happens to be the theory you prefer anyway.

Then you pretended that "most likely" and "likely" were the same thing, despite the fact that when comparing options they are literally the only difference we'd ever be talking about.

Then you catastrophically misunderstood an example explaining probability for an estimate of Putin's invasion chances.

Then you chuck in some throwaway comment that doesn't even make sense suggesting that somehow our payments to Ukraine are inevitable, yet paying Yemen would be a choice we don't have to make, apparently because I have a phone...

I gave it the response it deserved.

So the US are sending 75 billion to Yemen too? Good news. — Isaac


No Sudan Somalia CAR Afghanistan ...? — jorndoe

Exactly. We make a choice. A Ukrainian's freedom to vote is apparently more important that Afghan's freedom from starvation. Anyone who can ethically sustain that, feel free to lay it out. Apparently it's because @Jabberwock knows the Ukrainians better, but I'm not sure I really understood that argument... probably too next-level for my addled brain.

You mean one time in every ten thousand you act as if you're omniscient? — Isaac


Very possibly - doesn't everyone? — Vera Mont

No. I think you're on your own there. I can't recall a time where I became convinced that I know everything there is to know. But hey, next time it happens to you, perhaps have a crack at one of the millennium problems, could be your route to fame and fortune.

the simple fact that people will be better able to construct a story about themselves than strangers who know nothing about them. — Moliere

Better how?

As @Srap Tasmaner says...

It's not just the unvarnished truth. — Srap Tasmaner

... so not better as in more accurate. Better, as in, more honest? Doubt it, when was the last time you were honest with yourself? Better, as in more 'authentic'? Can't see why others who know us wouldn't have equally authentic accounts, behaviourally. More data? Maybe, but that depends on the quality of memory, it's perfectly plausible that some third party with a better memory than me remembers my behaviour more clearly than I do.

I'm totally on board with your idea of historical 'knowledge' (though I'd quibble over the term 'knowledge'), but the idea that there's a narrative which is not amenable to science is something I hold to as well. Something, for me, more like Quine's underdetermination, but it amounts to the same thing... We end up in a situation where all the evidence there is still doesn't choose between two interpretations, two stories of how things are.

All good. But to get to the place people want us to be with gender identity, we need that immutably sacred element. It's when our stories clash, create expectations of others, that it becomes an issue, because then you have to argue that being both subject and narrator of a story somehow gives you rights over another, because the issue here is not whether we're entitled to our own stories. The issue is whether we're entitled to, at any time, legally (or morally) demand that other people treat us, not as characters in their story, but as (the correct) protagonists of our own.

If, in my story, I'm 'the funny one', I'm the one who's always telling jokes, cheering everyone up with a bit of humour when the mood gets dark... I can well go through life with that identity, but others might just think me 'the fool', never taking anything seriously, undermining people's emotions by trivialising them... In their story, I'm the fool, in mine I'm the comic relief. Have I got any right to ask them to treat me like the comic relief, not the fool? Can I insist that it's rude not to laugh at my jokes because 'I'm the funny one'? Of course not. I'm the funny one in my story, but I'm someone else in theirs.

I don't see how being 'a woman' is any different (apart from the level of trauma that seems associated with needing to be accepted as one - I'll come back to that). You might be 'a woman' in your story, but you might be 'a man' in mine. As in the example above, what is there about your story being yours that now that compels me, ethically, to ignore you-in-my-story and replace the character with you-in-your-story? I appeared to be under absolutely no obligation to do so with the identity 'the funny one'.

So coming back to the trauma. All I can think of to answer my own question is that it appears to be really traumatic for people not to be treated as 'the woman' in other people's stories in way that not being treated as 'the funny one' doesn't bring. But I don't think there's anything philosophical here, it's psychology. It's partly the importance society places on these roles (and so the effect it has on one's life choices to be misgendered), and part affectation (you can flay me if you like, but there's a hell of a lot of faux offence going on - people love to be the victim and denying that is just naive). I don't think either of those issues are to do with identity. The first is to do with freedom (society seems hellish good at constraining people in ways they don't want to be), the second is to do with our victim culture right now, a lot of rich western guilt being foisted off by claiming victim-hood elsewhere. It's good that we tackle the former, it's not good that we indulge the latter. That's the line I'm trying to tread.

99.99% certain — Vera Mont

You mean one time in every ten thousand you act as if you're omniscient?

Go you!

Except you did not do what you now say you do. You have given one source (cherry-picked after your ahistorical claim that Ukraine turned around in a decade turned out indefensibie). — Jabberwock

You seem to know an awful lot about my reading habits. Are you stalking me?

I look at all sources — Jabberwock

Indeed; what can 'scape the eye Of God, all-seeing, or deceive His heart.

Are you saying that we have no reason to believe Putin threatening a war due to his perceived threat is likely to do that? — Jabberwock

'Likely', 'most likely'. Any idea as to the difference?

So 'willing to go to war', with which you have agreed, is now 2% chance? — Jabberwock

I don't think its actually possible for anyone to have misunderstood that more, well done.

We do not, so we do not. — Jabberwock

So the US are sending 75 billion to Yemen too? Good news.

I'd like it more if you aimed at the level of narratives instead of going all the ways down to words -- though I understand it looks like it's the use of individual words that's at stake, of course it isn't, they're pieces of a larger puzzle. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, you're right. The words here are category words and that matters more than I've given due. 'Woman' is not like 'cat' in this context. It's more like 'free-thinker', or 'entrepreneur', or 'layabout'... But it is like 'cat' in another. I think 'women's' bathroom just means 'bathroom for those who need to sit down to pee'. It doesn't mean 'bathroom for those who wear dresses, ride side-saddle, and get captured by dragons in Disney films'.

identity is always something you perform, rather than something that you are — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, that's the sort of thing I was aiming at. I suppose with my focus on words I was trying to get at the way in which, with these identities being largely public, off-the-shelf options, they've usually all got names... 'Woman' being one such.

and your ideas about yourself play a part in that performance but are also a reflective simplification of that performance. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, so in modeling terms, your higher level cortices affect the priors in the models below them. You're more likely to interpret some collection of neural happenings as, say, a 'womanly' sensation, or drive, if that's already a meta-level model of how those cortices cohere (of course, they don't actually cohere at all).

It's always about balance. Hundreds of thousands of lives, millions more at risk, for the sake of a few decimal place improvements on the human freedom measure is not balance, it's insanity. — Isaac


... instigated + ordered by the Kremlin. Do we have an insane government on our hands? :/ — jorndoe

Sure. And yes, without a doubt.

The question is what we do about it. It's no good tutting.

I consider all the facts known to me and draw conclusions from them. Like everyone else, I surely apply some bias, based on my previous opinions, but at least I try to challenge them. You consider only one fact, sorry, an opinion, that suits your conclusion and, not unexpectedly, confirms that your conclusion was right. — Jabberwock

I get it now. When I look at sources and conclude that one or more seem better than the others, I'm cherry picking opinions to match my theory. When you look at sources you're carrying out some next level rational analysis that for some reason the experts at each of the agencies concerned aren't even capable of, and the fact that the ones you choose just happen to support the theory you've been promoting all along is complete coincidence.

Does it explain that in your Wikipedia article?

It means that you are likely to shoot the deer: there are two factors that make it more likely than not, unless we know other facts. — Jabberwock

Good. So Ukraine being free and prosperous doesn't mean that Putin will invade it, it means he has a reason to invade it which he will weigh with all his other reasons to act or not. And yet...

most likely he would react by waging a war. — Jabberwock

...? Most likely? Where are you getting your probabilities from? All we've established is that it might well be one of his motivating factors. You've not even mentioned any others, let alone assigned any probabilities to them.

Unless you have good reasons why he would not, those two premises (with which you agree with) tell us that he would likely do that. — Jabberwock

I don't think you understand how probability works. If I have a 2% chance of invading if it's sunny and a 3% chance of invading if it's a Wednesday, it doesn't mean I'm definitely going to invade on a sunny Wednesday just because those are the only two motivating factors we have. Putin might well be inclined to invade if Ukraine is free and prosperous. He may well be inclined to threaten invasion if he's already got some territory from the last threat. But since we've no data at all on how strong either of those motivating forces are, we've equally no data at all on how likely such an action becomes when both are present.

The difference is that we have no right to demand they make that sacrifice from the comfort of our homes. — Jabberwock

But we do have a right to demand the Yemeni's make their sacrifice?

So you'd commit to error-theory, then? Or at least the analogy that all identity talk is as existentially important as talk of horoscopes? — Moliere

Yeah, that's right. Insofar as there's something immutable and sacred there. I mean, you made a really good showing, but you'd have to admit that your paragraph explaining what an identity is was hardly clear. I don't think it's beyond reason to think that the reason you're having trouble pinning it down is because there's nothing there to pin.

Let's say I ask you - what is your identity? How did you learn what word would do the job to explain to me what it is? Why 'Woman', or 'Man'? Why not 'cat'? How did you learn that 'Man' and 'Woman' were legitimate answers to that question, but 'cat', or 'the capital of France' didn't make any sense?

It's from you language community, right? So 'woman' has no meaning outside of what we use the word for -we, the language community. It can't mean only what you use the word for, that wouldn't make any sense, the word wouldn't do anything and you couldn't possibly know that you were using it to mean the same thing one day to the next (messy rehash of the private language argument).

But 'woman' is not like 'cat', it seems to be used to do different things in different contexts. Sometimes pretty biological taxonomy, sometime social roles, sometime behaviours... but these thing all have one thing in common, the one thing all language does... the terms are publicly available. I can learn from you what 'woman' means in your language game, and you can learn the same from me. That way we can use language in our cooperative ventures.

It's my belief that when we describe aspects of ourselves, we're reaching for these publicly constructed models to best explain what are essentially just interocepted nerve signals, memory re-firing of past neural patterns, and no small amount of random noise.

What I don't believe for a moment, is that a) some constitution of this mental goings on is correct, immutable and sacred, and b) known only to you and not picked off the shelf of publicly available models associated with the word you choose.

I don't believe (a) because we see too much the same mental goings on interpreted as different constructions by the same people at different times. We're wildly unfaithful even to our own models and we've absolutely no better idea what's going on than the person sat next to us.

I don't believe (b) because we don't just pick random words to describe these 'identities', we pick words we've learnt, and we can only have learnt those words from a community of language users, who must, therefore, know what the word means, which means, by definition, you could be wrong.

I do not dismiss it — Jabberwock

Then what do you do with it? How has it affected your theory, what did you change about your belief in the light of it, and why?

it should be considered together with other sources and not in isolation. — Jabberwock

Yes. So you said. I'm asking how. What is this 'taking together' you think you're doing? Half way between the two? Biggest wins? What are you actually doing when you're 'taking together'?

If I argue that the global temperatures do not rise from year to year and carefully select data for only those places where it does not and ignore all others, are my conclusions as valid as the conclusion from the study where all data are considered and the results are just the opposite? — Jabberwock

No. That's not the situation here (nor your other examples). None of the indices are data. They are conclusions based on data. All groups had access to the same data. They disagree about the relative importance, value and meaning.

Importance, value and meaning are not facts to include in data harvesting, they're opinions one either is persuaded by or not.

I am astonished that I even have to explain this.

getting all their opinions together does equal out those issues — Jabberwock

How? Explain what you think happens. Cato make mistakes. Freedom House make mistakes. You put them together, then what? The mistakes magically pop out? What happens to the mistakes when you look at both reports? You see the differences. How do you know which ones are mistakes/biases? Majority rules? Magic bias detector?

Ukrainians in general were not more opressed economically and judicially according to your single source and the descent into draconian tyranny is still unaccounted for. — Jabberwock

It's not unaccounted for. Cato have come up with a unified score. The fact that you don't like their methodology because it doesn't come up with the score you think it ought to is not a point against it.

I am astonished that I even have to explain this.

You said 'yep' when I wrote that Putin is willing to go to war to defend against perceived threats and you agree that he sees free and prosperous Ukraine as a threat. The conclusion must be that he would go to war for that reason. — Jabberwock

If I'm willing to shoot deer that enter my garden, and a deer enters my garden, does that mean I'm going to shoot it, or meraly that I'm willing to shoot it?

I am astonished that I even have to explain this.

there is a strong unified global community committed to protection of its members which Ukraine could be a part of — Jabberwock

Possibly. I'm not sure what that's got to do with my mention of "strong unified global community committed to international law which Ukraine could be a part of".

Given your view that he sees free and prosperous Ukraine as a threat, it is very likely that he would ask for it. — Jabberwock

If he was some kind of robot with only a single factor to take into account in any decision, perhaps. But he isn't, he's an oligarch balancing several dozen objectives of which eliminating a free and prosperous Ukraine is only one.

People rarely act in accordance with a single objective.

I am astonished that I even have to explain this.

given that this hypothetical is quite likely on your proposed course of action, it seems this course of action would make the peaceful rebellion against Putin less likely. — Jabberwock

Yes. Indeed it would. Still trying to make an argument by looking only at one side I see?

for you people being jailed, beaten up, poisoned, shot and deprived of basic democratic freedoms is a few decimal places on your precious index. People actually involved might have a bit different opinion on that. — Jabberwock

They might. But since neither you nor I are, I'm not sure what difference that makes to this discussions. I'm sure someone in Yemen looking at their desperately hungry child might have a difference of opinion too.

Yes. That would certainly make everything confusing! You'd have to more or less ask the other person to make clear what we're talking about, and here I am saying "it's not clear, but it's not that -- you have to take people at their word" — Moliere

Do I? That seems to be begging the question. If there's such a thing as an 'identity' and it's as important as you claim, then yes, I'd obviously have to take people at their word on it, it'd be mean not to. But that's only if such a thing exists. If it doesn't, then taking people at their word on it would be saying that I have to buy into their model, but they don't have to buy into mine, ever. Is conversation not a two-way cooperation?

gender is one of those things which gets re-expressed in many different ways throughout various cultures. — Moliere

Gender as behaviour does. Gender as 'identity'...? I've seen no evidence for it.

I can classify societies by literally any loose set of characteristics, and because we tend to form sub-sets, it's not too hard to find some kind of statistically robust boundaries. Teenage culture, for example - emos, goths, sporty types, geeks.... Cultures have 'man' and woman' as ready-to-hand sub-types into which most people fit, with a lot of the behaviours and expression related to reproductive biology, but many not, just pure cultural affectation.

And sure - if a person with a beard and a deep voice etc. came up to me and said "I feel more like a woman", I don't for a moment imagine his beard, voice, or any other biology puts a lie to that. But it remains that all he's saying, in that instance, is that he wants to behave like that class we call 'women' (in this context). If he/she were to invoke some 'identity' as a thing with a fixed value, I can't see any evidence from his actions that there is such a thing.

So I see it as there being something very basic, which is hard to get at that underlies this re-expression (what I've referred to as a way-of-being, in contradistinction to both traits and behaviors). I'd say our identities exist, but maybe not in the same way, or at least the way we usually talk about existence doesn't seem to work here since it's neither traits nor behaviors. I'm not sure that identity is amenable to scientific analysis, though I think historical analysis works. I've been situating gender within culture, because I think that's what gives shape and meaning to gender identity.

But when I do that -- that's when I land on these notions which are far from the lock tight demonstrations. The concepts are fragile, half-formed, and morphing along the way. How does anyone describe a way of doing things? We can say, in general, Being-in-the-world -- but that's the ontological expression rather than an expression of identity.

What I'm brought back to is that I think we all do this with respect to identity. How we relate to others isn't so much about the traits they hold, and is only partially dependent upon behaviors (consider how you can judge the same behavior as good or bad -- the perception of a person's overall reputation will guide how a perceiver judges a behavior). — Moliere

That all sounds perfectly reasonable, but I don't see things that way. What you're describing is more like a world view, it sounds vaguely Heideggerian, maybe? Fine. Not my cup of tea, but I'm not starting a crusade.

The point here is that it's not bigotry to disagree with the world-view you've just so carefully laid out. It's fine you think that way, but others don't. You can see, surely how those couple of paragraphs of nebulous uncertainty cannot drive even mandated social relations, let alone law. I can't justifiably be compelled to act in accordance with a notion you can even explain without resort to "hard to get at", "not sure that identity is amenable to scientific analysis", and "Being-in-the-world"...?

Why ought I believe someone who believes in the notion of 'identity', any more than I believe someone who believes in the notion of 'an eternal soul', or 'innate evil', or 'destiny'?

And because the whole point is to pick on those who are weaker. The stereotypical bully is a big guy who just takes advantage of his god-given advantage, with no effort. (Hence the way older brothers treat their younger siblings.) More important is the guy who's smart enough to spot people's weaknesses and manipulate them, bullying them through psychology. That's Trump, that's Finchy in The Office. — Srap Tasmaner

Yeah, that's it. It's like two different relationships with strength (above average) that define both how it was acquired and how it is used. If our stories are to be believed (and who's going to doubt such an authoritative text as The Lord of the Rings?), the brutes lose.

it's not just archetypes but your father that is your primary exemplar of manhood, so it's inevitable that you chose to emulate his example or reject it, and for most a mix of both they don't recognize until they're older. A child's first definition of woman is going to be "someone like my mom" and of man "someone like my dad". — Srap Tasmaner

Yeah - which comes back to my favourite neglected topic. Parenting. The aspect of socio-political strategy which is simultaneous the most important and the most ignored. Which is the stronger role model for abuse of power - the mansplaining work colleague with his outdated use of "bird", or the figure who can command an entire room to sit, stand, speak, and move exactly when told and has the power to determine your dress, your haircut, your speech, can imprison you on a whim, and against whom you have absolutely no say and recourse...?

(I'm not a big 'school' fan - if that comes across)

We have these superlatively draconian figures in every child's life five days a week, every term for their entire childhood, and when looking for reasons why children might grow up to abuse the power they have we're casting around for things like men spreading their legs when sitting down, or misusing some outdated terminology.

I'm not here saying that that stuff is fine. It's not fine, but it's the tools by which the bullying is done, it's not the reason why.

I certainly did not expect you to ignore all the data that contradict your thesis. — Jabberwock

You mean like...

If the tool you have provided does not indicate changes caused by draconian oppression, then it is not a good indicator of oppression, right? — Jabberwock

... where you dismiss the entire, well-respected, Human Freedom Index because it doesn't show the descent of Russia that you think it ought to?

As I asked before, if not dismiss them, what do you want me to do with them? Average them? Believe the exact centre? Add up all the experts they each used and divide by the total? Subtract the number I first thought of? What exactly do you think one should do with this other conflicting data?

People disagree. Experts disagree. I don't know what it is about you people that makes you think you alone can carry out some kind super-level of meta-analysis but the very experts you're citing for some reason didn't bother.

Assessing more data does not get you closer to truth than carefully selecting just the one that confirms your thesis? — Jabberwock

Yes. That's right. Unless you can give me a compelling (or any) mechanism whereby that occurs.

The truth is the way the world is. The experts at Cato have had their best shot at modelling the truth using their Human Freedom Index. The experts at Freedom House have taken their best shot using their own index.

Now. How do I make a better shot by putting the two together? Why is the average of the two more accurate a model than either one. And if it is, why didn't either team of experts just do that? What mechanism links the averaging process to the way the world is?

Considering that Russia's score in 2000 was 5.57 and it moved to 6.16 in 2008, i.e. (improvement of 0.59), and Ukraine made the progress of 0.83 from 2000 to 2008, which was the period you mentioned, then we have to conclude that both made about the same progress in those respective periods? — Jabberwock

Yes, if that's what the index shows (though 0.83 is quite a bit bigger than 0.59 and I prefer rankings for the reasons I've given). Your incredulity doesn't constitute an argument. You're implying doing exactly what you accuse me of doing, picking your index to match your theory. You already decided (theory) that Russia's descent into draconian tyranny must impact human freedom more than Ukraine's economic and judicial corruption, so you're now only prepared to believe evidence which agrees with that theory. Your implication that Cato's measure is suspicious is based entirely on the fact that it doesn't match your theory.

If yep, then Putin would still attack Ukraine if it had prospects for being free and prosperous, no matter whether it was in NATO or not. Conceding NATO membership would not stop the war, if Ukraine was to be free and prosperous, it would still be attacked. — Jabberwock

That's not what you asked. You said "threaten". Opposing nations threaten war, that's how the balance of power is maintained. The key is to threaten back an equal measure. As I said before, if there was a strong unified global community committed to international law which Ukraine could be a part of, then this situation would never have happened. We're here because there's no such community and rather than being protected Ukraine was dangled like bait on a line.

So if we conceded the whole Ukraine to Putin, as you propose — Jabberwock

I've nowhere proposed we do that. You asked a hypothetical. It's not the decision we have before us. But for the sake of your hypothetical situation...

we could not 'expect a likewise positive effect on pressure for change in Russia (including any stolen territories) from a free and prospering Ukraine next door', as there would be no free and prospering Ukraine next door. It pretty much would diminish the likelihood of the successful Russian revolt, would it not? — Jabberwock

Yes, that's right. If, in your hypothetical, we had to relinquish all of Ukraine to Russia, the number of free and prosperous neighbours would be less and so their effect less.

And you seem to care about well being of non-Ukrainians only if Ukraine can be blamed for its decrease, otherwise you are content with 'balance', as you wrote. — Jabberwock

It's always about balance. Hundreds of thousands of lives, millions more at risk, for the sake of a few decimal place improvements on the human freedom measure is not balance, it's insanity.

I'm not sure who "we" is supposed to be here. — Count Timothy von Icarus

A generic rhetorical device, nothing more. As in "what do we have here?"

Ukraine is far more than "halfway" in reducing Russia's supply of artillery systems — Count Timothy von Icarus

You talk like you don't know what bombs do. Ukraine is 'using up' Russian artillery at the expense of its own citizen's lives. It's like being shot in that arm and claiming a victory because I'm 'using up' your bullets. I'd rather you kept your bullets and I not get shot, as any sane person would.

I don't care how many artillery Russia has. I care about their propensity to use them on innocent people. Disarmament is a good way to de-plenish stocks, hospitals isn't.

given Russia just had a rebellion — Count Timothy von Icarus

It really didn't.

it seems possible that Russia is more than halfway to a defeat. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As I said above...

Funny how the solidity of Putin's grip on power seems to change depending on the purposes the argument is being put to.

Encourage more war - "Putin is weakening and could be overthrown any minute, just a few more bombs and we'll be there."

Encourage political action instead of war - "Putin is strong, it would take many decades to overthrow him"

Do get dizzy at all? — Isaac

Putin's grip on power seems remarkably fickle to you people. The slightest military blip and his head's on the block, but apparently no amount of political or popular uprising is going to harm so much as an eyebrow.

very likely Ukraine in NATO — Count Timothy von Icarus

What makes you say that? Everything I've been reading from NATO members seems to indicate the opposite.

But sure. Russia's security situation has been weakened. So? The question was an ethical one, not a geopolitical one. Is the outcome worth the cost? Is war the only route?

You say Mearsheimer...

... got basically every prediction about the post-Cold War era wrong. — Count Timothy von Icarus

... and I think you're broadly right there. But what exactly did he get wrong? He got wrong the power of peaceful disarmament, trade having more force than militarism, globalisation effects on diffusing military great power conflicts...

(that and the ongoing uni-polarity of US dominance, but he didn't so much get that wrong as simply have a theory that only applied in its absence)

In other words he made exactly the same mistake being made here - to assume military solutions just trump every other solution, and that great powers only respond to military force.

there are two problems with that: one is that there's some overlap I'm afraid with what people I don't like take as their ideal of being a "real man"; — Srap Tasmaner

So true. I'm glad you said it first.

there's no definably masculine "content" to the ideal -- what it's good for a man to do is generally good for a woman to do as well, so it's really more a matter of style, of a man's way of being good, of enacting the generic ideal, what it is to be good as a man. — Srap Tasmaner

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Not to get all Evolutionary Psychology (let's not go there), but men are different. We're a different toolset, so 'using' us to do good is going to involve a different set of behaviours from those which make use of a woman. Typically.

Returning to a favourite theme of mine (narratives), boys growing up need some narrative options that will suit them, and that requires a culture to have some archetypes, even if they don't apply to everyone. The various male-types are just that - or at least that's how they should work.

the left says they're obviously standing up to bullies -- racists and sexists and the rest -- and the right says they're standing up to the bullies on the left. — Srap Tasmaner

Yeah, both in a sense using the trope to lend authority to their political objectives which are more about group membership tokens than archetypes of the hero. It's like using the all the props from a story without playing out the actual story.

What's really uncomfortable about this whole analysis though is that it does accept that the world is divided into strong and weak, and while the good man stands with the weak as a matter of choice, he is with the bully as a matter of nature, being strong. That also means that as a matter of psychology, choosing to see yourself as a protector of the weak is choosing to see yourself as not one of them, but as strong. And that means unavoidably making strength a part of your self-image rather than incidental to it. The other famous superhero line fits here: with great power comes great responsibility. If you accept the responsibility, it's a way of seeing yourself as powerful. — Srap Tasmaner

That's really interesting. I know nothing about football, but in England we're notoriously shite at it (we never win the world cup), despite being absolutely passionate about it, as a nation. I've thought it odd, but the resolution I think, shows a difference which may separate the 'proper' man from the bully. To be a good footballer, one has to be dedicated to practice, but being a 'football fan' in our culture is opposed that sort of dedication as being indicative of something a bit too 'Germanic', all to organised and taking oneself far too seriously. So we're shit. I think your bully is like that compared to the 'real man' which stands up to bullies. It takes dedication and training to be the sort of person who can fight. A bully is never going to commit to that because if they were prepared to make that kind of self-sacrifice, they wouldn't need to bully. Does this actually play out in bigger social circles? Don't know. There's certainly plenty of bullies built like brickhouses, but none of them are Chang Caine.

being a good man is a man's way of being good -- if you recognize that your society has given men privileges and authority, and that includes you, then you ought to recognize you've been given power to act for the good. That power is situational, not inherent to you, but it's real. And it's not necessarily something you wanted, but you have it. — Srap Tasmaner

I think this is inevitable at some level even without society. One sex is generally stronger then the other, so the narratives for that sex are going to need to deal with that power imbalance. They can do so badly (ownership, control), or they can do so well (standing up when needed, stepping back when not), but what they can't do is not address it at all. Accumulated power is different in the sense that divesting oneself of it is an option, but even doing so is an act of power (those without don't get the chance to play the magnanimous ruler). I think a lot of what comes under masculinity is embedding the notion that it's one's job to unthinkingly help those weaker than one. The key here is unthinkingly, and that requires it be done even in circumstances where it's not needed. The point is to not think about it. The point is to take responsibility for being stronger. And that sometimes applies to men in relation to women.

There may also be something in the inherent differences in physical strength between men and women, on average, and using that relative strength responsibly too. — Srap Tasmaner

Ha!. You know how I confessed before to replying to posts one paragraph at a time without reading the whole thing first...? Still great minds....

Being a good man is an adaptive behavior, a way to be as good as you can given that the society you live in has given you unequal power, something like that. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes. Couldn't agree more.

trans people are targets because they are living counter-examples to the belief that one's identity is determined by one's trait-based biology. — Moliere

That makes sense, yes.

Women are the declared targets of this enforced gender binary, as the group which is born to be subservient to men. Trans individuals, as living counter-examples, are also objects of patriarchy. Trans men aren't really given any more credence than trans women by our hypothetical misogynist, and it's still a disgust, at least, born from this view -- not quite resentment, but disgust, another ugly emotion. — Moliere

Yeah. I can see that. I'm wary though of putting too much stock in 'that sounds plausible'. I've had too many theories that sounded plausible turn out not be the case on examination. But still, for what it's worth... that sounds plausible.

as soon as we write it into words then the original method I proposed for knowing a person's identity -- asking them -- can no longer be relied upon. If a law is written then there's usually a reason to lie somewhere because the law is not a reflection of our identity, or even anywhere close to what an identity is. — Moliere

See, here's where I part company from the modern identity culture. I don't think the law is the oddity here. I think the notion of a part of our language being inaccessible to the language community is the oddity. Can you think of any other examples of words whose meaning resides with the object? Does the meaning of 'tree' depend on the tree? The meaning of 'Zebra' depend on the zebra? It's not a casual and everyday change that's being proposed here. The notion that the word 'woman' now describes, not a loose family resemblance type collection of public traits, but rather a thing called an 'identity' which I don't even believe exists, let alone has a state.

I can think of a few words that have entered the lexicon of a similar nature. People say a person had a 'bad energy', which I think is also nonsense. Or maybe saying someone is a 'Libra'... but none of these have attempted to enforce compliance. I simply don't believe in the notion of an identity which someone is. I don't see any compelling evidence that I should. It seems very much the sort of thing that belongs in the same category as personality theory, or some of the spurious DSM classifications. But instead it's become a thing, the denial of which, is grounds for accusations of bigotry.

The thing I'm being asked to refer to is a thing I don't think exists. Can you see how that's a problem for me?

The point is, as I have repeated for a long time now, that you base your whole argument on a single metrics, which you admit is quite prone to variation due to subjective weights assigned to particular indicators. In other words, you believe that the single indicator precisely describes the state of affairs in the region. I have provided you with four other indicators, you have never engaged with them. — Jabberwock

There's nothing to 'engage' with. Yes. There are other metrics which show things in a different light. What exactly is it you want me to do about that? Carry out some phoney 'rational synthesis' which somehow determines the Truth of the matter (despite experts in the field being unable to decide), and no doubt suspiciously resembles the position I held in the first place? I'm about 25 years past that kind of naivety.

We ahve to compound ALL the data, your source, Freedom House, The Economist, Polity etc. and any other source available. We also need to consider facts both from the history and from the current state of affairs that could influence our assessment. — Jabberwock

Oh. Turns out yes.

Why did Freedom House not do that then? They have the staff, they have the expertise. Why are they leaving it to us laymen? If The Economist has data that needs accounting, then what's stopping Freedom House from including it?

The reason these sources differ is because they differ in opinion as to what's relevant, how important each issue is, and what it all means put together. There's no resolving those differences. Finding some kind of 'mean average' doesn't get you closer to the truth, it's not done by vote and it's neither does splitting the difference.

is that correct? — Jabberwock

You already know it isn't because I've already explained three times how to interpret my use of the term, since you refuse to listen, I can't see the value in doing so a fourth time.

Ukraine is a grave threat to his regime. We know that he is willing to go to war to defend against threats, so it is reasonable that he would keep threatening war until there was no chance of free and prosperous Ukraine. — Jabberwock

Yep.

As you are claiming that avoiding the war is better than letting people get under oppression, you would advocate letting him subjugate the whole of Ukraine if it meant war could be avoided. — Jabberwock

Pretty much, yes. But as @boethius has pointed out, that option is not the one we're considering right now.

We also know that he is interested in Ukrainian territories and is willing to risk war to get them, therefore we can assume that he might want more Ukrainian territories. — Jabberwock

True also.

you would rather give away Ukrainian territories to avoid war, therefore you would advocate giving away further parts of Ukraine, until it run out of parts. — Jabberwock

Yes. That's right.

You seem to think you've reached some kind of conclusion.

I think that course of action protects the most people's well-being. I've asked if you disagree and your answer was pretty much that you don't really care about the well-being of non-Ukrainians because you don't know any, so I don't see much we can discuss further.

The issue I am pointing out is that first you make very specific claims — Jabberwock

The claim was not specific, and in context that should have been obvious. You read it that way simply to have something to bite. It's the equivalent of pointing out a spelling mistake. Read the context, and if you're not sure, ask, rather than go on a massive diversion assuming your interpretation, even when you've been specifically told otherwise.

Data that do not fit your claims are 'pointless distraction'? — Jabberwock

No. Treating them as if they proved some kind of deception or error is the pointless distraction. The data is interesting itself, but doesn't actually change anything. I used your preferred dataset to show the same thing.

We should only look at your data when examining your claim and disregard data that say something else? — Jabberwock

Kind of like...

your single source does not seem particularly good in describing the level of opression in Russia — Jabberwock

...? But no. I used your preferred tables and showed they support the same conclusion. Something I note you've studiously avoided mentioning.

Here you are: https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2023-02/All_data_FIW_2013-2023.xlsx — Jabberwock

Sure. That measure clearly doesn't show anything like the achievable movement I'm advocating. Freedom House have had some criticism of their methodology, and the list of countries scoring low reads suspiciously identical to the list of oil-rich countries that the US would like some political excuse to interfere with... but I'm sure Cato has it's critics too.

The point is, so what? As I said. I'm not the one suggesting your theory is nonsense, so I don't need to trash your source. You're the one suggesting my theory is nonsense, so presenting a different source has no weight in that argument. Why are they a better source? Why, in fact, are they so much better that to believe any other source is nothing short of ideological delusion?

If the tool you have provided does not indicate changes caused by draconian oppression, then it is not a good indicator of oppression, right? — Jabberwock

It does indicate changes caused by draconian oppression. That it doesn't come up with the results you want isn't a flaw. I don't know if you're familiar with the way evidence works, but you're supposed to look to the evidence to check your theory. You're not supposed to use your theory to check the evidence.

The point is there would not be a free and prospering Ukraine next door, because you would have given it away to Putin. — Jabberwock

I'm aware of what your point is. I'm trying to move the conversation to a place where you actually begin to support it with anything like an argument.

By curtailing I also meant to suggest "blocking the advancement of". We could talk about rejecting the Scottish Bill if you like, my understanding was that the official reason was largely "we haven't changed the law in England yet, so making this easier in Scotland would cause some chaos down here". — fdrake

Here's the official statement of reasons - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/statement-of-reasons-related-to-the-use-of-section-35-of-the-scotland-act-1998/html-version

They basically come down to three matters - the effect on reserved characteristics in the Equalities Act, the effect of having two different sex records cross border, and the inadequate protection against fraud.

There's clearly a lot of political wrangling though, with the UK parliament itching for an opportunity to give the Scottish parliament a bloody nose on anything, so...

I saw a lot of people donating to an anti trans charity just before the bill. They were getting donations on the streets of Edinburgh. People would go by and tell them all kinds of things. I know they were anti trans because of their pamphlets, and the "all trans women are rapists" rhetoric they were spewing onto the street. I can understand why people would get that impression. — fdrake

As I said 'ivory tower' for me at the moment. I think what's happening among real people out there is quite divorced from what's happening institutionally. From the sounds of your experience, that's probably a good thing - eugh!

My org kept poaching their punters though, they soon left. Buggers also couldn't stand light rain. — fdrake

Your org can make it rain! Powerful org.

That's an interesting take. There were aspects of Wilkinson's argument I quite liked (but not all).

I think the issue with moderation (and also moderation) is that it cannot itself sit outside of politics. We can't sort of look down on politics (including ourselves) - see the whole gamut - and derive from that what is moderate and what extreme. Yet - the extent to which I agree with the argument - we must try to do so anyway because tolerance is necessary outside of the extremes, which should not be tolerated. We need to know when it's D-Day and when it's not, but that decision is viewed through the lens of our political position and our right-wing neighbours aren't going to have the same answer as us.

It always annoys me intensely in gardening books (and other guides - but gardening seems the worst offender) when it'll say something like "don't plant the bulbs when the soil is too wet". It's such meaningless advice, I mean, that's what 'too wet' means, more wet than is ideal.

There's something of that with the maxim that we "don't tolerate racists, sexists, homophobes and transphobes". Obviously we don't tolerate those people, those labels imply people not to be tolerated. It doesn't help guide our behaviour because our behaviour requires that we identify them, that we know where the line is between the 'Terf's' genuinely held belief that the everybody's welfare is best served by retaining the connection between 'woman' and birth sex, and an actual transphobe who's just let their conservatism turn to hatred. Where that line is is already coloured by where you stand on the issue politically.

Then there's the other way around, the Overton Window of what's acceptable. You touched on Ukraine as an example. I think both war and, worse, mass starvation (particularly in Africa for some reason) have been normalised, brought into the Overton Window as acceptable policy outcomes. We hear people casually dismissing both as if their necessity hardly needed a second thought, like the decision was in the category of what rate to set the upper tax bracket, or whether to relax planning legislation. To me, that's extremism, and I've been pretty blunt at times about the kind of people who espouse it. To others my bluntness looks like unprovoked asperity, worthy of moderation (and moderation, at times too). Our different political perspectives have yielded a different bright line of where extremism becomes tolerable, the exception that proves the rule.

On the other side, I've been the recipient of some pretty blunt attempts at 'intolerance' of positions that I think are non-extreme, presumably because others think them extreme enough to be more 'exceptions which make the rule'. Again, their political positions colour their judgement of where the line is.

Coming back to the topic (so sorry @Moliere - there's just so many interesting threads to pull on from this topic)...

But I'd also say that Goldwater was striking a masculine note with his remarks, entrenching the connection between the right and a particular view of masculinity. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes. there's something 'masculine' about knowing where that line is. Intolerance is masculine - certainly if Hollywood knows anything about what masculine is (and who's going to argue with Hollywood?). Knowing the line and being decisive about it is the square-jawed hero of the film, unsure of the line and dipping a toe into the wrong side is at least the wayward sidekick, if not the antagonist themselves.

But where I think conservatism used to be the main bastion of unquestioning certainty about lines of tolerance, the new left has taken up that torch and now - in very masculine fashion - are fighting their own D-Day without compromise.

thoughtful
adjective
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/ˈθɔːt.fəl/ us
/ˈθɑːt.fəl/
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B2
carefully considering things:
He has a thoughtful approach to his work.

long
adjective
uk
/lɒŋ/ us
/lɑːŋ/
long adjective (TIME)
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A1
continuing for a large amount of time:
a long film/meeting
I've been waiting a long time.
It's a long time since I worked there.
Apparently the sessions are an hour long.


To alleviate any confusion.

Folks, those numbers haven't been independent. — jorndoe

Absolutely. But that works both ways. Why do you think...

Putin + team probably wouldn't be too happy about Belarus changing towards democracy, transparency, and all that (perhaps even seeking NATO membership :gasp:), either. — jorndoe

...? Because movement in a pro-freedom direction makes his grip weaker.

Sure, Ukraine's 2015-2023 progress has definitely been in large part bought by throwing off some of the shackles of Russia, but if Putin's fears are even half justified, we can expect a likewise positive effect on pressure for change in Russia (including any stolen territories) from a free and prospering Ukraine next door.

Saw what you did there. — Srap Tasmaner

Thank you. That one's going on the wall.

Your claim was that it went from oligarchy to democracy in ten years. Do you still support that claim? — Jabberwock

Yes, but you quibbled over the meaning of 'oligarchy' and 'democracy' so I went for just the actual index scores to create what I thought would be a more objectively measurable claim. It's less subjective to say that Ukraine went from where Russia is now to where Ukraine is now in terms of human freedom. What we call 'Russia-now' and 'Ukraine-now' is not relevant - I went for 'oligarchy' and 'democracy'. I could have gone for 'authoritarian' and 'less-authoritarian' It doesn't matter because the point was relative (Russia to Ukraine) not absolute (one category or another). If the territory is ceded to Russia, it will become Russia-like. If it is won back, it will become Ukraine-like, We're comparing those two, so the metric is how long it takes to go from Russia-like to Ukraine-like.

One specific indicator has changed (through no fault of Ukrainian authorities) that has badly affected the overall score. That is the peril of using a single datapoint for your argument. — Jabberwock

I've already indicated that it was more than a single indicator. Also, the same level of progress was made 2000-2008, the 'disappearances' issue didn't even register then. I'm not using a single metric, you are. I'm trying to include all the measures that have changed, you keep ignoring the ones that don't suit you and focussing only on the ones you can blame on Russia.

I am using the 2022 table and it shows that the biggest change from 2012 to 2014 was in the category I have named. The other one was religion. In other words, Ukraine went from 7.04 in 2012 to 6.50 in 2014 mostly due to a single indicator. — Jabberwock

Then I suggest you actually look at the data I've provided to support my argument rather than this pointless distraction that the data you're looking at doesn't. If my data is at fault, find fault with it. "some other data says something else" is not a fault unless your data is somehow more authoritative than mine.

Yes, you still are ignoring them, if you consider the single indicator from a single source as sufficient evidence for your claims. According to the Freedom House 'Freedom in the World' index, Russia went ten points down since 2015, but so did Ukraine. Does it mean that they both went from democracy to oligarchy? No, it does not, it means that some particular indicators which were given arbitrary weights went one way or another. Why should your single datapoint carry more weight than mine? — Jabberwock

Provide the Freedom house figures then. I'm happy to look at both. What progress does Freedom House have Ukraine making in their best eight year period, and where does it put Russia in it's latest score?

As to why my datapoint should carry more weight than yours... You're the one arguing my position is completely wrong. I'm not arguing yours is, I just disagree with it. I've no reason to claim my datapoint is more authoritative than your. My claim is merely that it is a legitimate source.

No, I have argued that the score might be affected which would throw off your maths. — Jabberwock

Only a substantial change would alter the maths. A few points leaves things the same.

draconian laws were introducted after 2020. — Jabberwock

And none were introduced from 2006 to 2020? The point is not whether they are draconian, but whether they are draconian enough to significantly alter the score. For that they'd have to be something outside the range of anything introduced in all of the recorded history of Russia in this index.

And, as I've said, wartime measures can't count otherwise we'd have to make the same adjustments for Ukraine (seeing as this is a comparative exercise). Ukraine have also instigated some very draconian laws in the midst of war. My argument is only about getting from Russia-as-it-is-now to Ukraine-as-it-is-now, so if we include wartime measures, then Russia-as-it-is-now gets worse, but so does Ukraine-as-it-is-now so the distance between them is not only affected by Russia's move.

I can read that and know you intend the bolded "she" as a continued reference to the person with female natal sex who was declared a woman at birth and then identified as/behaved as/became a man later. I don't think I immediately need to read you as intentionally misgendering. Which could well have happened. Since my Internal Twitter picked up on it, and it is usually quite good. — fdrake

This, then, is actually a really good example of the some of the issues. I thought about that use. My thought process went "I ought to say 'he' as the person I'm now talking about is a man"..."but if I say 'he' no-one will know who I'm talking about as the whole purpose of these identifiers is to save having to repeat the act of reference" ..."but there's only one person in this story, I'm sure I'll get away with swapping to 'he'"..."but if there was more than one person, I wouldn't get away with it, it'd cause confusion, I need to have one rule that covers all situations"..."do I though?"..."fuck it, it's only a pronoun for an hypothetical person, I'll work it out properly if ever I need to refer to a real person in these circumstances"...

At no point did "Ha! I'll misgender them...that'll show 'em", come into the mix. And I very much doubt my thought processes are far off most people's. This is all very new to most people and a little transition time is not an unreasonable request.

Unless there was further context that the EHRC report's recommendation came out for purely political reasons as a curtailment of rights (which I can imagine being the case, since I don't know what knock on effects this will have on current trans protections). — fdrake

Do you think? It's funny how from different sides (only slightly different, I hope) the world looks so different. I can't, off the top of my head, think of a single act on the part of any institution at all in Britain that's been aimed at curtailing trans rights. I can see how the trans community might think the necessary changes aren't happening fast enough, but changes in the wrong direction...? I certainly don't know of any. We only narrowly avoided the Scottish bill to have birth certificates replaced. Maybe they should have been, that's a legal argument, but the bill was pro-trans and it didn't progress. It wasn't that an anti-trans bill did progress.

I think it's clear (from where I'm sat - leather wing-back armchair in ivory tower, of course), that the political climate is pro-trans but with the brakes on. Anti-trans I just don't see.

The situation in America, I understand, is not so tolerable.

As an aside, I do hope that we can keep TPF able to have these kind of discussions in a respectful manner, it's something we've needed to argue about in the mod thread on numerous occasions. — fdrake

Me too.

Respect is a loaded term, but it consists of more (much more) than just not swearing. And the mods shouldn't have to work so hard to maintain it. It's up to us as a community to develop the sense of the place - what's acceptable and what's not. We rely on moderation too much.

So we are supposed to ignore it and pretend it that the other data are not there? — Jabberwock

No, but spending four posts trying to imply I've made some kind of mistake or act of deception is not just 'admitting it's there', is it?

using data from two different sources if you have the relevant data in a single table in a document you have linked does look a bit suspicious, wouldn't you say? — Jabberwock

I didn't have the relevant data in a single table, I had the CSV from 2018 anyway but had to look up the 2022 report. I can't think why the numbers are different, but it doesn't matter because even the figures you've used show the same. Ukraine went from 119 (where Russia is now). So the argument - that in eight years Ukraine has come from where Russia is now - is unaffected. This whole thing has been a massive diversion to avoid that argument.

If Ukraine had the exact same score, but in the period of six years ten countries would fall behind it because people there lost their freedom, then Ukraine would automatically improve in the ranking. Is that evidence of its improvement? — Jabberwock

Yes. If the other ten countries fell behind because of global reasons (like economic recessions), and yet Ukraine didn't, then it clearly had some compensatory improvements. That's why they show rankings. It's not perfect, but pretending it doesn't show anything is just ridiculous. Besides, I used scores, not rankings, from 2000-2008 and you won't accept that result either, so this whole 'ranking' issue has just been yet another deflection to avoid the argument. Whatever I use, you're going to fish out some hurriedly made-up reason to dismiss it. First it's there being another table, then it's the particular year (2015), then it's using rankings not scores, then it's the definition of 'autocracy'... you're clearly clutching at straws.

Are you using a different source again? I cannot even find such categories in the 2022 document. — Jabberwock

Same source because I'm referring (as you know full well I have been since the very fist time I mentioned it) to the 2018 document for Ukraine's 2015 score. In it, it breaks down the scores. I compared the relevant one to Russia's 2020 (latest). Not all categories are in both sets, but most are. The ones I've listed are the ones for which Ukraine scored lower than Russia (the reasons for it's lower ranking). Disappearances and homicides weren't even that big an effect. The corrupt judiciary caused as much of an effect on the score - but I suppose you'll claim that was the Russian's too.

in 2000-2008 Ukraine also did not went from 'corrupt oligarchy' to 'free democracy', as was your claim. The data shows a constant process of improvement that has lasted at least two decades, but that is only because there are no data from before 2000. That is, nothing about the data supports your claim that Ukraine went from oligarchy to democracy in a decade. — Jabberwock

Then either Ukraine is not a democracy (at 6.68) or Russia is not an oligarchy (at 6.01), because that is the scale of improvement Ukraine made in that timescale. The names are irrelevant (as you already know - another deflection). The point is about freedom.

I say we have to take all the factors into consideration — Jabberwock

... so long as it's Russia. Ignore the others.

I have already explained what factors were, in my opinion, instrumental in the fact that the progress of the two countries was different. You have just ignored them. — Jabberwock

I haven't ignored them. They're in the Human Freedom Index. The end result is a net improvement of some 0.6-0.8 points (you know that thing you're claiming you do about taking into account all the factors). It's you who wants to ignore some of those and focus only on the one which Russia caused.

I have already listed the laws, do you want every single act listed? — Jabberwock

No, only the ones instigated after 2020, the period you claim Russia has deteriorated so much as to render the 6.01 score no longer relevant. Any laws before then will show their effects in previous scores, so are irrelevant to that claim.

strict tightening of censorship laws that put you in jail for 16 years MIGHT have some impact on the freedoms of those involved — Jabberwock

It might. The blacklist was instigated in 2012, the circumvention ban in 2017. Both will also have severely restricted freedoms, but in grand total, had minimal effect on the overall score. You're arguing that post 2020 such draconian laws were put in place as to render the 6.01 score completely redundant.

Also the law you mention is a wartime law regarding mention of Ukraine war atrocities etc. Shall we include Ukraine's wartime censorship in the metric?

your single source does not seem particularly good in describing the level of opression in Russia, — Jabberwock

Ah! When the evidence doesn't support your theory, the evidence must be wrong. I thought we'd pretty much reached the bottom of the barrel, but...

What sickening about this is that if you were clutching at straws to support some noble ideology, I could kind of accept that, but you're desperately using every trick you can think of, every deflection and supposition, to defend the principle that people cannot improve their own lives without war.

You're desperate to prove that hundreds of thousands of dead are a necessary price to pay.

I just can't get my head around that.

In the link you have provided: https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2023-01/human-freedom-index-2022.pdf — Jabberwock

That's not the link I provided for the data in question, and it's completely dishonest to present it as such.

Why the same site gives different scores for the same country for the same year? I do not know — Jabberwock

... so just speculate instead, eh? Then assume your speculation is enough to accuse those who disagree with you of dishonesty in the same post as you blatantly lie about the source I provided.

comparing rankings from different years is simply wrong - rankings are relative, so they heavily depend on the movements of other countries. — Jabberwock

No. Rankings are there exactly so we can compare because, for example, the global economic situation affects all countries' scores, as will things like Covid restrictions and the global security situation with regards to terrorist threat and instability. Rankings avoids this. It also avoid weighting on scores because the scores are measured out of ten regardless.

Ukraine did not turn from corrupted oligarchy to a free democracy within a decade — Jabberwock

Yes it did. You re-interpreted my subjective terms so I clarified. All this in in the thread, you're not going to get anywhere pretending it didn't happen.

Ukraine had a temporary decrease caused by an armed rebellion instigated by Russia — Jabberwock

... Is not fact. You can't keep bringing in conclusions you approve of as if they countered a position I'm explaining. I don't believe the things you do. Of course your position is coherent, you've selected the beliefs which make it so. But seeing that one of your beliefs doesn't for into my narrative doesn't show us anything except that its not your narrative. We knew that.

you propose that Russia move from the oppression it is under now... to the state caused by the oppression it also caused? How does that make even sense? — Jabberwock

It doesn't. Probably one of the main reasons why I didn't say it.

It mostly improved a single indicator because it the effects of the armed rebellion caused by its neighbor were less pronounced. — Jabberwock

Ukraine's low score was the result of...

Taxation; payroll, government payments
Legal freedom; courts, enforcement, judiciary, police, protection
Economic freedom; growth, inflation control, regulatory compliance
Political freedom; party composition
Identity; overall
Rule of Law; criminal, disappearances, homicide

Apart from the disappearances and homicide (which the Amnesty International report from the time makes clear have been about equal on both sides), how are the others caused by Russia?

Before the rebellion Ukraine had scores above 7.0, that is in the middle between the current Russia and the current Spain - it was much better than Russia was then and much better than Russia is now. Before Russia has started troubles, Ukrainians were not nearly as oppressed as Russians are now, as your own source shows. So no, Ukraine did not go 'from where Russia is now', because it was never there (since 1991). — Jabberwock

Fine, we can use a different time period if you don't like 2015-2023. How about 2000-2008? Ukraine went from (using your own table seeing as you have some technical troubles opening links) 6.25 to 7.08 an increase of 0.83. The same increase would get Russia from its current 6.01 to 6.84, roughly where Ukraine is now (6.68).

Are you now going to say that that time period also had a whole load of special factors which we have to dismiss? I'm beginning to see a trend. Is it now your own links that aren't working?

Well, your argument was that it is clear that countries can go from corrupted oligarchies to free democracies in a decade. Is it still so clear? — Jabberwock

Yes. As above. If Russia currently is a corrupted oligarchy (6.01) and Ukraine is a free democracy (at 6.68), then it is clear from pretty much any time period you care to pick that the improvements required to get from one to the other are achievable within about a decade. Hell, Cabo Verde did it, with no war, no Russians, and no Soviets for a thousand miles. People can bring about improvements in their own freedoms without the military having to bomb the place first.

Sure: censorship laws, freedom of movement laws, laws on companies, laws on gay 'propaganda'. These are just formal measures, as important are changes which are nor formally sanctioned, like treatment of protesters, activities of Roskomnadzor, closing publications under false pretences, etc. — Jabberwock

Since 2020? What laws have been put in place then and how are you measuring their likely impact on the Human Freedom Index? Were all the changes you mention put in place after 2020 (6.01) but no similar changes made before 2006 (the last time Russia were near 6.01)? Did Putin have a break from oppressive policy instigation between 2006 and 2020? Was he on holiday?

The sum total of Putin's oppressive policies from 2006 have had virtually no impact on the score. Are you wanting to argue the the policies since 2020, are so awful, even compared to those in the entire period from 2006, that they'll push the score significantly lower to render all comparison with 2020 useless.