Comments by "andrew worth" (@andrewworth7574) on "Rationality Rules" channel.

  1. To our ancestors sex and gender were almost always synonyms. Pointing to examples in which cultural expressions of the sexes were different to today isn't evidence of multiple genders.
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  2. Relatively doesn't dispose of newtonian physics, we don't rewrite meanings in the dictionary to suppress to traditional meaning of words. Woman is an adult human female is a traditional definition, as is doe is a female deer. People who use the traditional definition aren't "wrong" in their definition. You can invent new definitions, traditionalists aren't obligated to adopt your definition.
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  3. Your claims that "it's only a small number of people who regret being talked into surgery is not based on actual data, you're following your preferred narrative. Tavistock has refused or been unable to release the relevant data.
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  4. ​ @eattherich1793 which means women would almost never get to represent their state or their country. Such a situation sounds like misogyny.
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  5. Apparently some of what was going on a Tavistock contradicts your claim that ideology wasn't perverting the medical integrity of the process of gender reassignments.
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  6. What's wrong with being intersex? You guys are working on the assumption that others have a problem that some people are not of either sex, so rather than just acknowledge that they're intersex you're determined to define sex as not binary with some people not clearly members of either sex. Not being clearly member's of either sex doesn't make them less human.
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  7. Would be great if they took a serious look at the criticisms in the comments - but I'm not optimistic, in a previous video they did a disgraceful cherrypick on a discussion Dawkins had.
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  8. Yep, it's often the "tell", when people claim they're objective, scientific and rational that they're so emersed in their preferred ideology that they're incapable how much their opinions have been captured by that ideology, but they just can't resist the digs at those they see as the enemy.
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  9. Heck of a lot of comments criticizing Woodford's and Valkai's claims. Their response? Must be sexist, genderist Christian bigots. Ahh, nope, like me, most of your critics on this are your atheist subscribers.
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  10. 1:22:00 claiming the religious are claiming the moral high ground. I'm not religious, but throughout this discussion Valkai seems to be the one claiming moral superiority.
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  11. 1:16:00 So the word woman has no social utility unless people are mind readers. Someone has to believe they're a woman to be a woman, simply telling people they're a woman, or telling people they identify as a woman doesn't make them a woman.
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  12. Valkai always returns to ideology. He clearly brings "progresssive" ideology into the science. Real science isn't based in ideology.
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  13. What's your take on "gender is a social construct"? If I understand the meaning, this suggests that transgender people who feel they are in a body of the wrong sex don't have that feeling based on something innate in them, it's somehow a product of social conditioning.
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  14.  @Neonb1bLes  yes, I get it from ideologues on both sides, I guess I'm doubly persecuted, the cross I have to bear for sticking to the evidence.
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  15. Too many absolute assertions from Valkai without any numbers available to support his claims.
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  16.  @coffeecoder8162  you're obviously an American, in case you haven't noticed, your entire country has gone nuts. I think Bill Maher is one of the few sane people remaining.
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  17. "Girl", "Woman", "boy" and "man" are not just words in english that have been used to label human females and males for nearly a thousand years. They've been the primary words for that function ("is it a boy or girl?") and for most I expect will continue to do so as their utility in that role is too high for them to be converted into gender terms. So, given that the push to change the meaning of such basic terms with such a high use and utility has been orchestrated by a minority of the population and against the interests of the majority, of course there's going to be push back against such linguistic piracy. Compare this piracy to the change in the meaning of the word "gay", it had already evolved from simply carefree to, in the 1950s, lackadaisical with an edge of promiscuity, and it was never an important word in English, it was an alternative to more commonly used words with similar meaning. If we need words to denote genders (and I agree we do) there are obvious options in "femme" and "masc", which were already serving or close to serving as gender terms.
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  18. ​@Melesniannon I think the OP is addressing the claim that sex is nonbinary. So the analogy would be as some people are born without legs, or with 3 legs, the human species is not a bipedal species, it is monopedel, bipedal and also tripedal. All the text books, people and scientists that say the human species is bipedal are wrong.
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  19. Very good, looking forward to your apology to all the Christians you've offended.
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  20. "But I must say, I'm with Alex O'Connor on this one, the only fair treatment of slaves is their immediate emancipation with adequate compensation". You're applying the morals of the world you live in today to a world that was completely different, in that other world most people died during childhood, if you had 6 children chances were that 3 to 4 of them would die when children, being the master gave you and your kids a better chance of survival than being the slave, but being the slave gave you and your children a much better chance of survival than if you were homeless, living on the street with your sons thieving to survive and your daughters selling their bodies for sex. So "their immediate emancipation with adequate compensation" was not a great prospect you imagine. Today we are lucky enough to live in a rich world, rich largely due to our technology, it means we live in a non-zero sum population world, for our children to survive other peoples children don't have to die. So if you ever magically find yourself back in that world, hang on to whatever form of food income you have, even if it's just as a slave.
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  21. Most of those comments criticizing Woodford and Valkai are from atheists.
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  22.  @CorwinFound  thanks for your thoughtful response. I do however think that your reply, with the evidence that I know Valkai has referred to in the past, pushes the weight of evidence towards a biological rather than social basis for gender. Obviously gender EXPRESSION is largely cultural, but I think gender orientation, like sexual orientation, is based on innate characteristics, though not necessarily heritable. I'm strong on evolution psychology, and when I see other primates adhering to gender roles, I think that's good evidence that it's instinctive. A couple of analogies: I think we have social instincts that shape human morality - but society has an overlay of cultural morality. Cake might be a social construct, but food is a biological necessity, dressing food up as a cake doesn't alter the fact that the cake is still food.
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  23. Who the f said intersex people aren't human! Huge strawman!
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  24. "Gender is a social construct" If so people in male bodies that see themselves as female choose to have that gender disphoria, rather than it being something beyond their psychological control. Perhaps for many these days that's true, being trans is trendy, but I'm certain that gender disphoria is a genuine condition, rather than being a "social construct".
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  25. Very noticeable at times "man" or "woman" was used in the discussion when, according to their definitions they should have been using "male" or "female".
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  26. ​ @HistoritorJimaldus economic freedom, individualism, democracy, these are things that the right stands for, should we talk pogroms, gulags, and poverty, creations of the left?
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  27. I question how genuine his claims of ignorance of sport are, when those claims amount to claims of ignorance about the substantial differences between male and female athleticism.
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  28. Regarding Woodford's earlier castle analogy, in which he argues that language is imprecise, words evolve and therefore women can have penises. Can I point out that it's not just a case of extending the means of the words "man" and "woman", which traditionally have meant adult human male and female respectively. If it were merely a case of extending the meaning, describing a transwoman (with male biology) as a "man" would be perfectly reasonable because, biologically, she's a male. What is required is for the traditionally meaning, as referring to sex, to be canceled and banned, and that the word only ever be used to denote gender. That's a complete redefining of the words "man" and "woman", two words that until today, and for nearly a thousand years, have had extremely high utility as nouns for adult human males and females, there simply are no substitute words with the same utility and meaning. "Male" and "female" apply to almost all animals and many plants, and apply to all ages, not just adults, other words like "lady", "dame" and "gentlemen" and "bloke" usually apply to subsets of "women" and "men".
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  29. @junetalon8796  I just watched a video by Forrest Valkai from 2 years back entitled Sex and Sensibility. He gets onto gender at about the 17 minute mark, stating "gender is a social construct", gives the usual arguments about men in dressed, girls as mechanics to support the "social construct" claim, but then goes on to explain how gender roles in other species are a product of biology - and then emphasizes that in humans gender is a product of the physiological brain structure - that it's males with female brain characteristics that are usually the ones with gender disphoria. Can you explain his claim that "gender is a social construct" given the evidence he then goes on to offer that gender is a product of biology? Am I (we) missing something, or has a Forrest fallen out of its tree?
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  30. @junetalon8796  Valkai didn't differentiate between gender roles and gender identity, in the video I reference, nor does Woodford in this video, the claim is "gender is a social construct" in both cases. Given the importance of biology in gender identity (overwhelmingly important) and how that would be a very considerable influence on gender roles (men hunt, women gather, men do things, women do people) I take the position that the "social construct" contribution to "gender identity" is negligible and to gender roles in any meaningful way small. So why the sweeping "gender is a social construct" claim when that is almost entirely not the case? Must be ideology is more important than science to Forrest.
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  31. @junetalon8796  The societies we live in in the West have been changed massively over the last century by technology and wealth. 100 years ago, keeping a family home in order was a full-time job, so required a full-time homemaker. Today appliances like washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and heat pumps, along with instant hot water and quick and easy shopping trips in cars to get food largely already prepared has reduced house keeping to a couple of hours a day. Additionally, technology has brought about inexpensive mass education and most employment being far less physical. The Western Europe of 100 years ago is in many ways more like the Middle East and India of today than the Western Europe of today, and as other parts of the world become wealthier they will also become more Western in culture. Conversely, if civilization crumbled tomorrow and Europe returned to the technology and energy availability of two centuries ago, poverty would quickly see a return to a similar culture and education levels of two centuries ago. To illustrate my point, I will mention that the life expectancy of 1920's Western Europe was less than it is in Africa today.
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  32. Yep, there's a lot of hypocrisy buried in all Valkai's motivated reasoning.
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  33. @junetalon8796  we also see it in some schools, those that encourage woke ideology, but not in others. If we look at those with gender disphoria we find the incidence of this condition is far higher in those with childhood trauma, especially sexual abuse.
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  34. @junetalon8796  woke ideology is a self congratulatory belief held by people who see themselves as morally superior to others in society on the basis that they see themselves as being awake to social injustices that they view others as being blind to. A lot like other religious beliefs that also look down on those blind to their faith. The adherents of these religions see confirmation in their beliefs in all things, this ability to see evidence in support of their beliefs everywhere is call confirmation bias. High correlation with childhood trauma is indicative that that trauma likely contributes to the gender disphoria, evidence that in many cases the disphoria is not innate. If a person has had childhood trauma that leads to a condition that causes them difficulty in later life, the usual treatment is to recognize the condition and treat it, not to affirm the condition as normal for that person. Western society is happy to live with gay people and transpeople, generally gay people are happy to live with the rest of society without demanding special rights, like, for example, demanding that members of one sex be treated as members of the opposite sex or being addressed as members of the opposite sex, having certain privileges that are given to people of the opposite sex, including entering those spaces reserved for members of the opposite sex.
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  35. I'm betting you're a Marxist with the good sense to choose not to live under Marxism.
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  36. The "gender is a social construct" claim became fashionable about 30 years with the "blank slate" theory, which was popular on the left as it supported the claim of oppression of women. The fact that Valkai continues to spout it, while at the same time claiming that there are physiological female and male brains, is a result of his buy in to woke ideology. Ideology is blinding him to the contradictions in his own words.
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  37.  @citizenghosttown  your reply isn't a rebuttal of my point: woman has historically meant "adult human female" and did not include people with a penis, the claim that it's meaning was imprecise enough to include males, in the way the meaning of the word "castle" is imprecise, is false.
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  38. ​ @Neckhawker I've watched another Valkai video in which he is categorical that brain physiology shows gender aligning with sex
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  39. We should be skeptical of claims not supported by peer review. 24 of each sex/gender group is a very small sample, I would hope Valkai has more papers to offer supporting his very adamant claims on brain physiology. It would be expected in science for a scientist making such claims to cite his evidence.
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  40. "Fear or aversion", ("phobic" is often used in chemistry) though I agree with you in principle.
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  41. I appreciate Stephen challenging Valkai at the end on sports issues, and Valkai revealed that, yep, for him it's all about the woke ideology he believes in. Valkai is proposing the end of female international sport, in fact the end of female sport at any senior level.
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  42. I'll also point out that both Woodford and Valkai slip up during their discussion and use the terms "man" and "woman" when referring to the sexes. Nice illustrations of the words' utility as descriptors of sex rather than gender.
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  43. "Woke" in this context, was developed as a self-congratulatory word for those who saw themselves as being "awake" to the alleged social injustices us lesser beings were supposedly unaware of.
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  44.  @shannonkey9926  who claimed who doesn't exist?
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  45.  @Capybarrrraaaa  conservatives have a divergence of opinion like any other large group, if you see them all as the same, you're the ideologue, that is, one who is uncompromising and dogmatic on ideology.
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  46.  @shannonkey9926  who's voted against whose rights and what is a "right"?
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  47.  @shannonkey9926  oh, who creates or bestows these "rights" of which you speak? Are they God given, or given by some other high entity?
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  48.  @shannonkey9926  so if a majority say such and such isn't a right, even though you think it's a right, it isn't a right.
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  49.  @shannonkey9926  evidently you're incapable of defining what you mean by "we collectively decide our rights". I've had a couple of cracks at it, as I assumed you meant either society as a whole or individually. You now seem to rule out individually, so society as a whole. So if an elected government decides it disagrees with your definition of "rights" and take certain privileges away from some members of society, tough shit, they're not taking away your "rights" they're, likely in your case, taking away privileges that "we collectively" as a society, have decided aren't "rights".
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  50. ​@nonripeloki8959 A description of Forrest I read and agree with: "He's good on evolution, but devolves into anti-consensus babble when it comes to controversies on sex-related topics."
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