Just FYI, it's difficult to tell what you two are even arguing over any more - whether there's some actual issue or whether it's just gotten into a pissing match.
Ms Rowling: insightful critic of gender policy or myopic [insult]
- Thread starter TheVat
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It's just a pissing match. Sorry.
In part, this has come about because parmalee has strong beliefs about JKR and he's upset that he hasn't managed to convince me that she's actually the devil he thinks she is. On the issue of the thread, my own position is shifting towards parmalee's but not because of anything he or Tiassa has posted. It's more based on what I have picked up from other (non-sciforums) sources, which are less biased on the matter.
The other part of this is that I called parmalee out in March 2024 (and maybe earlier than that; I don't recall) for some sub-par behaviours of his. He took rather strong exception to that back then and I now find that, apparently, it remains front and centre in his mind whenever he interacts with me. So now he looks for reasons to shoot the messenger, rather than working to address the problem.
Of course, you shouldn't take my word for any of this. You are probably aware of some of the history and no doubt have your own opinion on it all, if any of this interpersonal stuff between myself and parmalee is remotely interesting to you. If you're unaware and you're interested enough (I wouldn't be, if I were in your shoes), you can check the record and make up your own mind.
TL;DR: yes, it's mostly a pissing match now.
I think another factor is that neither parmalee nor Tiassa has brought anything new to the table for a long time about JKR. But they both still have a bee in their bonnet about it all and are annoyed that they haven't achieved uncritical acceptance of all their claims about her on sciforums yet. So, they keep popping into the thread and plugging away at it, mostly to repeat past claims, as if that will change hearts and minds.
Another thought: I'd hate to be a trans person in the US right now. To be in the middle of a constant war of words waged by people who have absolutely no skin in the game - most of whom are mostly or fully ignorant of what "transgender" even means, and to whom the whole thing is an ideological argument - must be absolutely awful. And we're talking about a tiny minority of people. I really empathise with them.
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A good friend of mine (and a trans woman) just had to leave the US for the Netherlands. She has about 40 patents in communications, power conversion and power transfer, and her inventions are used in wireless charging for phones across the world. She has her own company that she was able to take with her to the Netherlands.
Texas recently passed a law that gives any Texas resident a $10,000 bounty for reporting a trans woman who uses a woman's bathroom. (Payable by the trans woman of course.) She wanted to leave before that became a federal law.
Another two friends of mine - an ER doctor and a physicist who has been working in local startups - are also leaving. They have a daughter who is mixed race, and they don't want to risk her being singled out for that.
These are the people who are leaving.
They are being replaced by (in Trump's words) sommeliers and "high quality waiters." Those are the people he wants to bring in.
billvon:
The smart people and the oppressed minorities, with the means to do so, are often the first to leave when an autocracy starts to take hold. They are the first to see the writing on the wall. So they take their skills and expertise elsewhere, to where such things are valued, and to where the people themselves and their loved ones can feel safe.
The long-term effect of the exodus of the intelligentsia is to depress conditions in the nation for those who remain. The economy suffers. The society suffers from the lack of diversity and the lack of skilled workers. The nation becomes a culturally and artistically stunted pariah among nations.
Only cronies of the dictator prosper, but only for as long as the people are oblivious to or are willing to tolerate the crumbling infrastructure of their state and totalitarian interference in all aspects of their daily lives. Eventually, there's no hiding the enrichment of the "party" at the expense of the general populace. Then there's a revolution or a war (external or civil).
The only hope the US has is to break the cycle early. If there are fair elections in 2026, the country might yet put itself on a path towards saving itself. If not, then the chances that Trump and his cronies will leave at the end of 2028 are minimal.
The smart people and the oppressed minorities, with the means to do so, are often the first to leave when an autocracy starts to take hold. They are the first to see the writing on the wall. So they take their skills and expertise elsewhere, to where such things are valued, and to where the people themselves and their loved ones can feel safe.
The long-term effect of the exodus of the intelligentsia is to depress conditions in the nation for those who remain. The economy suffers. The society suffers from the lack of diversity and the lack of skilled workers. The nation becomes a culturally and artistically stunted pariah among nations.
Only cronies of the dictator prosper, but only for as long as the people are oblivious to or are willing to tolerate the crumbling infrastructure of their state and totalitarian interference in all aspects of their daily lives. Eventually, there's no hiding the enrichment of the "party" at the expense of the general populace. Then there's a revolution or a war (external or civil).
The only hope the US has is to break the cycle early. If there are fair elections in 2026, the country might yet put itself on a path towards saving itself. If not, then the chances that Trump and his cronies will leave at the end of 2028 are minimal.
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
Dude? Come on you're smarter than that.
The very clear issue is that James is asking, whether Parmelee is stating whether Tiassa implied, that the court case ruling, demonstrated Rowling's comments, relating to the twitter post, about the boxing match between what I thought was a trans athlete Vs a cis male to be transphobic.
I think.
If it wasn't that, then the beef must be that Parmelee and James are disagreeing whether Tiassa did not not state or imply that the court case relating to the...
Hang on, just give me a minute.
Right, there was this boxing match...
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
This quote came to mind but I had to Google the date and Rust.
1934 Bernhard Rust, the Nazi Minister of Education asked David Hilbert, one of the greatest mathematicians of all time.
"How is mathematics in Göttingen, now that it is free from the Jewish influence?"
Hilbert. "Mathematics in Göttingen? There is none."
It really is quite simple:
It's like this:
Let's say I think you are English.
Let's say that during a discussion I claim that you drink tea, and person A asks me for evidence of that. So I post a photo of you drinking tea in the Ritz in London.
Person A then says that they think I am posting that photo as evidence of you being English.
I tell them that I am posting the photo because I was asked for evidence of you drinking tea, not as evidence of you being English. After all, drinking tea does not determine whether or not you are English, does it!
Person A then says: "Oh, okay, I stand corrected: you don't think he's English."
I then question the ability of person A to comprehend, as their clear non sequitur must be due to inability/unwillingness to understand this particular part of the discussion thus far, right? I mean, it's about your tea-drinking, not whether or not you're English.
Person A then says: "I stand corrected, again. you do think he's English."
This is a somewhat simplified version, minus some of the more flowery language, and others have chipped in along the way, some thinking that tea-drinking in the Ritz clearly makes you English, others saying that doing so is in no way determinative of one's nationality, etc.
Note that person A is now making that particular dispute - about whether you drink tea or not - instead all about whether or not you are English, reframing the "discussion" as if it was always about that and nothing else, and ostensibly ignoring what this little detour was actually about.
So, yeah, it's all about being English versus drinking tea! Hope that clarifies things.
Or "there are anti-semitic elements within the Harry Potter universe" becomes "JKR is an anti-semite";
"I disagree with JKR's views on transgender persons" becomes "I am trying to 'shut down' debate on all matters transgender" or "I want to 'cancel' JKR";
"I disagree with JKR" becomes "I support making death threats against JKR";
"JKR has claimed that accepting any 'man' who claims to 'self-identify' as a woman is effectively 'erasing sex' becomes "I believe women who voice concerns over safety in public restrooms are just 'loudly complaining'";
"Some of JKR's attitudes towards transgender persons are informed by misogyny" becomes "JKR hates women";
"Don't tell me what is and is not of concern to me" becomes "I am trying to intimidate you into silence and I don't need reasons to persecute people who don't believe in the Great Crusade";
"I find yourr strawmanning rather ludicrous and ineffective" becomes "I would join a fascist lynch mob at the drop of a hat";
and so on and so on and so on, until we get to, "Tiassa neither claimed nor implied that the findings of court case were in any way determinative as to whether the defendants in the Macron case, nor JKR for that matter, were culpable for transphobic behavior" becomes "Tiassa has not claimed that JKR is transphobic".
Alternately, you are simply incapable of discussing anything without introducing a bunch of strawmen--see Billvon's post above:
IOW, I'm not going to answer your silly question about whether or not I have claimed that "Tiassa claims JKR is a transphobe" or"Tiassa claims JKR is not a transphobe" or "Tiassa does not claim that JKR is not a transphobe" because I never said anything with respect to any of that in in the first place. It's wholly irrelevant to anything that I have said. You introduced that shit because you misread a passage and couldn't own up to it.
Oh, and also because, as I have stated before, you are one of the more dishonest characters I've ever had the misfortune of encountering. And I find your regular practice of feigning ignorance about matters rather grotesque (and also dishonest, obviously). In short, you should just stick to discussing physics and maths; when you weigh in upon other matters, you tend to embarrass yourself.
Also, perhaps you ought to re-read post #810 again--and read it carefully this time--because your mistaken reading becomes very apparent there, and you kinda look like a dumbass when you use that post to support anything that you've said here.
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Person A also seems to be obsessed with "grudges" (and, heh, people conspiring together against him), when the other party is simply providing further evidence as to the sorts of behavior towards which person A is very much prone. After all, this is ostensibly a science forum: we are supposed to provide evidence to support our claims, and that includes providing evidence of historic antecedents when the claims pertain to propensities towards certain behaviors.It really is quite simple:
It's like this:
Let's say I think you are English.
Let's say that during a discussion I claim that you drink tea, and person A asks me for evidence of that. So I post a photo of you drinking tea in the Ritz in London.
Person A then says that they think I am posting that photo as evidence of you being English.
I tell them that I am posting the photo because I was asked for evidence of you drinking tea, not as evidence of you being English. After all, drinking tea does not determine whether or not you are English, does it!
Person A then says: "Oh, okay, I stand corrected: you don't think he's English."
I then question the ability of person A to comprehend, as their clear non sequitur must be due to inability/unwillingness to understand this particular part of the discussion thus far, right? I mean, it's about your tea-drinking, not whether or not you're English.
Person A then says: "I stand corrected, again. you do think he's English."
This is a somewhat simplified version, minus some of the more flowery language, and others have chipped in along the way, some thinking that tea-drinking in the Ritz clearly makes you English, others saying that doing so is in no way determinative of one's nationality, etc.
Note that person A is now making that particular dispute - about whether you drink tea or not - instead all about whether or not you are English, reframing the "discussion" as if it was always about that and nothing else, and ostensibly ignoring what this little detour was actually about.
So, yeah, it's all about being English versus drinking tea! Hope that clarifies things.
Uhhh, I think what you mean to say here is that you repeatedly accused me of being unfamiliar with a thread frrom which I had directly quoted. Again and again and again. When you finally got around to acknowledging your error, you couldn't do so graciously, of course, rather, you had to throw in some insults--directed towards both me and other parties, as well, for reasons only you can account for.
The real "problem" there was that it took you nearly a dozen posts before you recognized that what you were saying didn't make a damn bit of sense. And then, when you finally acknowledged as much, you just could't help yourself and you had to insult a bunch of people.
ps. I need to change the settings on my new(ish) laptop. It's prone to repeating characters if I press a key for more than a handdful of milliseconds. That's why you see all the weird double letters.
Edit: Here is post #39 from that thread--you read that right, post #39:
James said. (I can't quote properly because the thread is in the Cesspool):
"Okay. It looks like I made some incorrect assumptions, and probably didn't read your post carefully enough.
There is some confusion because you originally posted in the Abortion thread, but I agree that you did reference the opening post of this thread. However, I did not know at the time of my first reply to your first post in this thread whether you had read through the following conversation between myself and Sarkus after his first post (in this thread).
Apparently, you had read it through, so "my bad" on that."
And then he proceeds to make even more unfounded assumptions, as per usual.
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@ James
(And just for shits and giggles.)
You have repeatedly alluded to a podcast entitled, The Witch Trials of JKR.
So, are you claiming that JKR is a witch? Do you mean that in the literal sense, or more of a metaphorical sense? What is the basis for your conviction that JKR is a witch, and do you have any substantive evidence to support this contention?
(And just for shits and giggles.)
You have repeatedly alluded to a podcast entitled, The Witch Trials of JKR.
So, are you claiming that JKR is a witch? Do you mean that in the literal sense, or more of a metaphorical sense? What is the basis for your conviction that JKR is a witch, and do you have any substantive evidence to support this contention?
What am I supposed to do when a person repeatedly insinuates that I said something which I did not say? I could ignore it, but it's extremely frustrating to be told that you said something which you did not.
So, I try to clarify the matter by citing what I did actually say, only to have that ignored and to be told that I said such and such again. Others weigh in, clarifying what I did, in fact, say, but this is also ignored.
Then I'm asked repeatedly to state my position on a matter which has precisely nothing to do with anything that I actually said. Why? It's got nothing to do with anything that I said. And it goes on and on.
I could always report it, but to whom? In this instance (and in most, frankly), the sole moderator is the troll whom I would be reporting.
So what would you do?
And the Band Plays On
We should remember that the main reason we're even having this discussion at all is because other people wanted to. That is to say, the point at hand↗ when we decided to do this part remains in effect: "When are people going to learn, this is what it gets them?"
It's a basic question of cause and effect, or desire and consequence. Consider:
And:
And then:
So, yeah, that's what happens when people empower the sort of thinking almost universally used by bigots↗. So, sure, the war is shite and the whole tariff debacle↗ is worse than even his supporters could imagine, but at least they're being mean to transgender, and this is kind of how it goes when those kinds of people are in charge.
Which brings us back to a certain point↑: Inasmuch as↗ the past is the past, and can't be changed, but we can leave markers for the future↗, when are people going to learn, this is what it gets them?. You can't just dabble↗ in it; if the trade is worth it, you probably weren't a dabbler↗.
And that's the thing; I already know I'm probably not getting through to the would-be "pink Tory", but the note I can leave for those who come later is that the lesson of our moment is an accentuation of what history tells us so clearly to not do.
I get that he's a terf. He doesn't understand that what he's complaining about doesn't happen without people like him.
And this whole thread is nothing more than a desperate distraction from that.
Eventually, we must accept that the spectacle is the distraction is the point.
We should remember that the main reason we're even having this discussion at all is because other people wanted to. That is to say, the point at hand↗ when we decided to do this part remains in effect: "When are people going to learn, this is what it gets them?"
It's a basic question of cause and effect, or desire and consequence. Consider:
And:
And then:
So, yeah, that's what happens when people empower the sort of thinking almost universally used by bigots↗. So, sure, the war is shite and the whole tariff debacle↗ is worse than even his supporters could imagine, but at least they're being mean to transgender, and this is kind of how it goes when those kinds of people are in charge.
Which brings us back to a certain point↑: Inasmuch as↗ the past is the past, and can't be changed, but we can leave markers for the future↗, when are people going to learn, this is what it gets them?. You can't just dabble↗ in it; if the trade is worth it, you probably weren't a dabbler↗.
And that's the thing; I already know I'm probably not getting through to the would-be "pink Tory", but the note I can leave for those who come later is that the lesson of our moment is an accentuation of what history tells us so clearly to not do.
I get that he's a terf. He doesn't understand that what he's complaining about doesn't happen without people like him.
And this whole thread is nothing more than a desperate distraction from that.
Eventually, we must accept that the spectacle is the distraction is the point.
Which is where North Korea is right now. Without the revolution, unfortunately.
I'd try once, perhaps twice, to clarify what I said.
Then I'd give up and move on. It's OK if other people misunderstand me.
To be clear, then, that would be the end of it, and it would never come up again?
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
Yes we do. A good cup of tea won the war, everyone knows that.
TheVat
Valued Senior Member
Some strong points made on the trans girls right to play, before SCOTUS today.
www.theguardian.com
**(I would ask if this thread has broadened out to encompass the larger issue of trans rights within a constitutional framework. I've sort of lost interest in the opinions of a young adult/children's author operating well outside her area of expertise. If anyone feels it would be better to split the larger issue off to a separate thread I'm cool with that.)**
There seems no basis here for conjuring the bogeyman of mannish brutes crushing young girls dreams. Hormonal treatments seem to remove physiological traits that would lie beyond the range found in cis females. One of the plaintiffs didn't even experience puberty. It is difficult to see the state's argument as anything but transphobic handwaving.
US supreme court appears poised to uphold laws banning trans athletes
A ruling against two athletes in West Virginia and Idaho could have far-reaching implications for civil rights
www.theguardian.com
**(I would ask if this thread has broadened out to encompass the larger issue of trans rights within a constitutional framework. I've sort of lost interest in the opinions of a young adult/children's author operating well outside her area of expertise. If anyone feels it would be better to split the larger issue off to a separate thread I'm cool with that.)**
There seems no basis here for conjuring the bogeyman of mannish brutes crushing young girls dreams. Hormonal treatments seem to remove physiological traits that would lie beyond the range found in cis females. One of the plaintiffs didn't even experience puberty. It is difficult to see the state's argument as anything but transphobic handwaving.
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