Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of ads on YouTube for Matt Walsh’s new documentary on gender ideology: “What is a Woman?”. While I agree with the general message (gender ideology is crazy), I find the ads irritating. In the movie, Matt interviews various SJWs, such as activists and professors. He asks them to define “woman”. This simple question puts them in an awkward predicament. We can see the pain on their faces as they struggle with cognitive dissonance. They are required to believe that a trans-woman is a woman. This eliminates the meaning of "woman", making it impossible for them to give a definition. (See
Very few people are capable of rationality, and even those who are, often reach wildly different conclusions. Even on matters related to science.
Your book on debunking the selfish gene is very interesting (of course for its content), but it's also interesting for the implicit "meta" content: it shows how someone very rational (arguably unnaturally so) like Richard Dawkins, who dedicated his life to the rational study of biology, has arrived at the wrong conclusions with his selfish gene framework.
> The authority of rationality is your authority. It comes from you, not from a meme, and not from other people.
That's kind of the problem though, isn't it? It's all subjective. A culture that encourages individuals to use rationality ultimately encourages them to value subjectivity. A culture of "My Truth" and "His Truth" where anything goes and you're not allowed to call out other people's stupid opinions. Just like you used your rationality and reached your conclusions, they used their rationality and reached their own conclusions.
Human irrationality cannot be fixed. It can only be worked-around. The ability to outsource improtant cognitive problems to culture is in my opinion one of the important adaptations that made civilization possible.
I think people in the West largely understand that the purpose of living beings is reproduction, and yet this only makes them value reproduction less, not more.
High fertility societies don't tell people that their purpose is to reproduce. These cultures make individual people value having large families and makes men value leaving a progeny. I don't think you can find many people who value rationality and also think that wanting to leave behind a progeny is a rational thing to want.
The only reason I can leave this comment on your article is because I know that you do value reproduction, but it's actually quite a contrarian position among the rationalist blogosphere.
If instead I was commenting on an article by say, Sam Harris, I wouldn't leave this kind of comment, because I know he would probably say "Indeed we should not value reproduction".
I think the argument is not "we should become religious because it's good for us". It's more like "Between you and me, religion is all bullshit, but for the masses, they need religion or they will be lost".
The difference between "gender ideology" and Christianity is that the former's sacred object is part of the material/physical plane - therefore signaling loyalty to the ideology necessarily has direct consequences on one's actions on that plane eveen at the most fundamental level of reproduction.
Christianity's "holy contradiction", "religious paradox" - however you want to rationalize the form of its belief in God - remains in the realm of metaphysics and need not have consequences on one's actions on the material plane.
In other words - believing men are women affects your daily life and reproductive success significantly, believing God is at once One and Trinity has no bearing on your everyday life, nor on your reproductive success (religious celibacy notwithstanding).
This point is illustrated very well by the fact that Christianity has, until its recent subsumption by Globo*omo, driven reproductive success (be fruitful and multiply), whereas gender ideology tends to quite literally sterilize its proponents.
Very few people are capable of rationality, and even those who are, often reach wildly different conclusions. Even on matters related to science.
Your book on debunking the selfish gene is very interesting (of course for its content), but it's also interesting for the implicit "meta" content: it shows how someone very rational (arguably unnaturally so) like Richard Dawkins, who dedicated his life to the rational study of biology, has arrived at the wrong conclusions with his selfish gene framework.
> The authority of rationality is your authority. It comes from you, not from a meme, and not from other people.
That's kind of the problem though, isn't it? It's all subjective. A culture that encourages individuals to use rationality ultimately encourages them to value subjectivity. A culture of "My Truth" and "His Truth" where anything goes and you're not allowed to call out other people's stupid opinions. Just like you used your rationality and reached your conclusions, they used their rationality and reached their own conclusions.
Human irrationality cannot be fixed. It can only be worked-around. The ability to outsource improtant cognitive problems to culture is in my opinion one of the important adaptations that made civilization possible.
I think people in the West largely understand that the purpose of living beings is reproduction, and yet this only makes them value reproduction less, not more.
High fertility societies don't tell people that their purpose is to reproduce. These cultures make individual people value having large families and makes men value leaving a progeny. I don't think you can find many people who value rationality and also think that wanting to leave behind a progeny is a rational thing to want.
The only reason I can leave this comment on your article is because I know that you do value reproduction, but it's actually quite a contrarian position among the rationalist blogosphere.
If instead I was commenting on an article by say, Sam Harris, I wouldn't leave this kind of comment, because I know he would probably say "Indeed we should not value reproduction".
I think the argument is not "we should become religious because it's good for us". It's more like "Between you and me, religion is all bullshit, but for the masses, they need religion or they will be lost".
The difference between "gender ideology" and Christianity is that the former's sacred object is part of the material/physical plane - therefore signaling loyalty to the ideology necessarily has direct consequences on one's actions on that plane eveen at the most fundamental level of reproduction.
Christianity's "holy contradiction", "religious paradox" - however you want to rationalize the form of its belief in God - remains in the realm of metaphysics and need not have consequences on one's actions on the material plane.
In other words - believing men are women affects your daily life and reproductive success significantly, believing God is at once One and Trinity has no bearing on your everyday life, nor on your reproductive success (religious celibacy notwithstanding).
This point is illustrated very well by the fact that Christianity has, until its recent subsumption by Globo*omo, driven reproductive success (be fruitful and multiply), whereas gender ideology tends to quite literally sterilize its proponents.