Glenn Greenwald's recent Tweets:
These people are the literal opposite of what journalism is supposed to be. Their only purpose is to monitor the internet to find and punish ordinary people whose views they believe should be prohibited because they deviate from establishment decrees. They are censorship agents.
Jordan Peterson is making an excellent point here, one that will be instantly recognizable to experienced attorneys. Every time a question is asked, various concepts are embedded in the question. In this video, the question considered is "Do you believe in God?" Anyone who answers this without questioning the meaning of God is committing intellectual malpractice.
Einstein believed in "God," but that "God" was nothing like the God of the Abrahamic religions. Einstein said, Einstein said, “I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.” Now consider typical understandings of "God," the understandings of most religious believers.
Consider these two dramatically different meanings of "God. Now consider how different these two conversations would be! To proceed with this conversation about "God" without first coming to a common understanding of the meaning of "God" would amount to two ships passing in the night, even though it might, for awhile at least, seem to be a meaningful conversation. It would be, in fact, a waste of time.
There are limits to the power of words, of course. Meaning is ultimately squishy, no matter how hard we try to pin down the meanings of words. There is no perfect etched in stone definition to most concepts, so we need to proceed in the face of somewhat (or wildly) imprecise definitions or else we can't ever have these conversations. On the other hand, proceeding with a conversation without any effort to make sure that we all know what we are talking about, is folly.
I really love insights into how the great song writers compose their music. Here is a video of Elton John talking about his brand new composition, "Tiny Dancer," and performing it.
I have no business telling any adult what to do with his or her body. That is their own business. It's a different story with children. We need to make sure that our children (and their parents) are not being given false information that leads to irreversible physical damage to their bodies (cross-sex hormones and surgeries), in many cases leading to sterility. There are real cases of gender dysphoria but, historically speaking, they have been rare (1/10,000) and they have overwhelmingly been boys. Today, almost 2% of teenagers are claiming to be transgender and they are overwhelmingly girls who tend to fall into social clusters, which would not be expected if dysphoria were truly a medical condition.
What is going on and why should be be concerned? Much of the left-leaning news media cheerleads for those who promote gender ideology and totally ignore the numerous and growing cases of those teenagers who detransitioned--who permanently altered their bodies, often through double mastectomies then, years later, declared that they were, indeed, the sex aligning with their chromosomes, their gametes and their sex organs readily apparent at birth. It's not rocket science to figure out the sex of most people (intersex cases are extremely rare). These stories by numerous detransitioners are extremely difficult to read. They are stories of deep regret, stories of how these teenagers got caught up in a fad encouraged by their peers, and enabled by well-meaning activist school teachers and counselors, as well as almost instant access to cross-sex hormones, often at Planned Parenthood. The parents are often concerned that they must allow their children to transition based on commonly touted but false statistics and unsubstantiated claims that suicide is the only other option.
Biologist Colin Wright recently wrote "How to Make a Trans Kid." It is well-written and accurate upon my own extensive readings. I recommend reading Wright's entire article. Here is an excerpt:
Most people understand the terms “man” and “boy” refer to adult and adolescent human males, respectively, and that “woman” and “girl” refer to adult and adolescent human females, respectively. These are not “identities,” but terms that describe objective facts about one’s age and biological sex.
Gender ideology, conversely, is a belief system asserting that what makes someone a woman or a girl, or a man or a boy, has nothing whatsoever to do with their sex, but is based entirely on the social roles and stereotypes with which they “identify.” Therefore, a person who identifies with feminine roles and stereotypes is a girl or woman, and a person who identifies with masculine roles and stereotypes is a boy or man—regardless of their biological sex. According to gender ideology, people who do not identify with the social roles and stereotypes typically associated with their sex are considered “transgender.”
That’s Gender Ideology 101. If it comes across as completely insane, that’s because it is.
Gender ideology has therefore proven to be a hard sell for many adults who rightfully view such ideas as regressive and sexist. After all, this worldview entails that a woman who does not fully embrace femininity is not actually a woman, and a man who does not embrace masculinity is not actually a man. If this sounds similar to the regressive and oppressive system that women’s and other human rights groups fought for decades to overcome, that’s because it is. But it’s actually much worse, since it also promotes the idea that a “mismatch” between one’s sex and “gender identity” can be medically “corrected” with hormones and surgeries.
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