Simon Paynton

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

I know very few Irish people that really want to have Ulster “rejoin” the rest of Ireland.

I think Queen Elizabeth I caused a shed-load of trouble.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Which men came out onto the streets to protest in any of these cases or to vent their feelings? None.

“We’ll abuse our own women, thank you very much.”  That’s a very informative answer Reg.  What did you mean by

very few Irish people want to “get Ulster back”.

?

 

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

I put it down to the sexual competition between males. That’s why they are slightly larger.

I’ve shown this before.  Pre-human australopithecine males had enormous canines compared with females, until they abruptly became almost even when the human ancestor arrived, 4-6 million years ago.

 

 

Human males are a lot less violent than other in great apes.

 

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

The great bulk of violence, gun violence included, is perpetrated by the male gender.

That’s true.  Most violence comes from men.  I put it down to the sexual competition between males.  That’s why they are slightly larger.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Occam’s Razor cuts those strings easily. One Universe with lots of unknowns is the best catch-all.

I don’t buy Occam’s Razor all the time.  I think it’s artificial.  Something’s the way it is, not necessarily the simplest way.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

You could elimlinate almost all gun violence in America by simply forbidding anyone with an X chromosome to own or have access to firearms.

Do you mean a Y chromosome?  XX, XY?  I see your point: gun violence is almost exclusively male.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

jakelafort wrote:

So hypothetically a scientific theory emerges and a consensus forms that a many worlds ‘reality’ is as solid as Darwin’s game changer.

Surely we can never know.  But wasn’t there a story about another universe that had bumped into ours?

When I bring up this point in William Lane Craig Facebook discussions, Christians say it’s an example of blind faith.  They’re right.  But at least it’s consistent and doesn’t contradict observed reality.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

PopeBeanie wrote:

Umm, I know it sounds hokey, but like worm-holes abide in another dimension, dude.

Is it not possible to connect two points by travelling in a higher dimension?  I’m not sure.  A two-dimensional plane can be folded within three dimensions, we can connect two 3-d points by travelling in time.  I’m pretty sure that if you go up a dimension or two, then distant points in lower dimensions can be connected.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

While one often hears “But they aren’t even 1% of those competing in women’s sports” as if the ethical issue is one of numbers. “It’s fair as long as there are no more than x% of them” is wrongheaded on its face. Wrong is wrong. Unfair is unfair.

That’s true.  I heard a feminist on the radio saying that trans people make up only a small proportion of the population, so, who cares?  Yet, each individual is a whole world.  I’ve heard trans activists saying there were “only 2 or 3 rapes” in a women’s prison by a man dressed as a woman.  Again, not a good argument.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

After all. if women and people of certain physiotypes were not just historically, but today are intrinsically in all circumstances victims of systemic oppression, why do some people want to be members of those victim categories?

I imagine it’s irrelevant to a man who is born a woman psychologically.  Rachel Dolezal maybe just loves black people and black culture, and wants to be black.  There are some white people in this country who try and talk like a Jamaican, and people ridicule them for it.

_Robert_ wrote:

I admire many trans women for their accomplishments. I just wish they could comprehend the special concerns and tread softly. Instead, some (and worse, who have put questionable effort into transitioning and appear pretty pervy to me) get all militant when people become concerned for woman’s rights. Not a fan of that.

We want to be fair to everyone, but everyone can’t have what they want.  I think there’s a priority that should be given to not getting raped.  It’s not that trans women are more likely to rape women – it’s that men are more likely to rape women, and sometimes they pretend to be trans in order to do that.

I think overall it looks like a case of women’s rights getting trampled on by men, yet again.  But trans women get their rights trampled on too.  I see an uneasy dynamic between trans women and biological women.  They don’t always seem to get along.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

I think you are the one oversimplifying, because unsaid on your part is that we should just accept that split, but to do so is unjust to the biological females, because it’s not just sports.

I agree with you:

Simon Paynton wrote:

Frankly, it would end a lof of trouble and hostility if trans people could have their own category in sports.  I don’t see what’s unfair about that.  People don’t like biological women being elbowed out of their rightful winnings, unfairly, basically by men.

Can Rachel Dolezal identify as black?  She can do whatever she likes.  The questions are, is it legitimate, can she claim benefits meant only for racial minorities, and would other people accept her?

I think legitimacy is a personal thing.  Something’s legitimate to me if I think it is.  Would other people accept her identifying as black?  Probably, never in a million years.  It’s akin to Jeff Bazos identifying as a poor person.  But I’m not black, so I couldn’t tell you the full ramifications.

Could she claim black people’s benefits?  That would not be fair.  She would essentially be getting two bites of the cake – white people’s and black people’s benefits.

 

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

When someone expresses the belief that they are not the gender biology gave them, like most beliefs, it is either true or false is it not?

It’s not as simple as that.  Sex is biological but gender is psychological and social.  So someone can be born male and have a female psychological and social identity.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

We’re all sympathetic with trans people, but it’s a difficult dilemma to resolve satisfactorily.  In the UK it’s just been decided legally that for some purposes, such as women’s safe spaces, a person’s biological sex is what matters and not their social and psychological gender.  So, in effect, we’ve decided that for some purposes, you can’t change sex.

As @robert once pointed out, to exclude trans women from biological-women-only spaces is the same as saying they’re “not real women”.  The problem with self-identification is that biological men took great advantage to abuse the system.

Frankly, it would end a lof of trouble and hostility if trans people could have their own category in sports.  I don’t see what’s unfair about that.  People don’t like biological women being elbowed out of their rightful winnings, unfairly, basically by men.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

You have to remember the difference in what they may believe to be moral.

I think religious morality has plus and minus points.  “To please God” or “to get into heaven” aren’t bad reasons for doing moral things.

But like you say, different people think different things are moral.  The biggest drawback with religion is its tendency to make things sacred, which is not surprising if it’s headed up by God.  When people make things sacred, all other values including human welfare become secondary.  This is dangerous.  Woke people do it too.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

“Name one moral action performed by a believer that could not have been done by a nonbeliever.”

I think that’s not the point.  It’s not either/or.  It’s good that both exist.

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