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Comment by deanCommie | Hacker News Reader

> Although parlor was only used for hate

> Right. I used parler to do such things as <hate>. I stopped using Twitter for <hate> because I figured that ... it was only a matter of time before they were banned (for <hate>)

I know you don't think it's hate. I know you think trans rights are a subjective ethical issue.

But what if you're wrong? What if it's an objectively human rights issue? Like sexuality, and race?

I know there is still an ongoing "cultural war" about these subjects in the more conservative western nations like the US and the UK. But on every socially progressive position, for the last few decades, countries like The Netherlands, Sweden, and Canada, lead the way, and the US/UK eventually follows.

So my question is genuine - do you genuinely believe that you will come out ahead on this issue on a historical timeline? That the trans discussion will be nothing but a passing fad?

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I am a brown man who has been subject to many racist attacks. After 9/11 my elementary school classmates called me a terrorist. My father and I (when I was a young boy) was chased out of a car dealership by a mad salesman yelling strawberry picker at us. Walking through the downtown of my city with my white wife, I have been harassed by people who don't like we are in an interracial marriage.

I still do not believe that racism or incidents of racism, including the ones I described above, are 'objectively' human rights issues. They are clearly quite subjective, since they only really exist in my experience. My religion (which most would also describe as subjective) tells me that these experiences have absolute moral character, but barring my reference to that, I cannot say for sure whether or not such discourse is objectively wrong.

I especially have trouble labeling the discourse as 'objectively' a human rights violation when none of the behavior I described above has come from anyone in any position to have power over my life or my rights.

Honestly, to continue to harp on those individuals that have mistreated me would be incredibly childish.

Do you think your personal subjective experience with tolerating racism is therefore broadly applicable to other people's subjective experience with racism?

I'm probably misunderstanding but your post reads as "I don't call personal racist discrimination I faced hatred or racism, therefore my own personal discrimination of transgender people is not hatred or <ism>"...

Sexual mores have been fluid throughout history. There's no particular reason to think one side is more on the "right side" than the other from an absolute sense, looking at the historical track record.

For that matter, the notion of human rights as we conceive of them is a relatively modern invention. Liberalism isn't even 400 years old yet (and the notion of universal rule of law as codified in the Magna Carta is itself only just past 800). By comparison, Ancient Egypt lasted for around 3,000 years, and Rome for 1,200. We've got a while yet before we can declare our way is any more successful than theirs.

Particularly if someone believes that it's a religious issue dictated by a deity who takes an active interest in the world, then they'll definitely believe they're on the right side of history.

Transgenderism is not a sexual more, though.

Is the trend of human history on the scale of thousands of years old relevant? Is that no different than saying "It's pointless to worry about climate change because the sun will explode and then there will be the heat death of the universe?"

Surely there is some evidence that society and humanity is "stabilizing" to a certain plateau of morality and ethics not driven by religion but driven by humanism?

Lastly, "Particularly if someone believes that it's a religious issue dictated by a deity who takes an active interest in the world, then they'll definitely believe they're on the right side of history." is exactly why I ask!

Because the perspective of what is acceptable from these religious institutions is rapidly changing!

50 years ago a Christian church that is "gay-friendly" would be inconceivable. Today there are many. Of course there are those that would dismiss those out of hand, but by default the ethical positions of groups that supposedly represent eternal immortal deities is shifting - from evolution, to birth control, to homosexuality.

I'm genuinely wondering if people believe that transgender acceptance is somehow unique.

> Is the trend of human history on the scale of thousands of years old relevant?

Yeah, because...

> Surely there is some evidence that society and humanity is "stabilizing" to a certain plateau of morality and ethics not driven by religion but driven by humanism?

My point in my previous post is that I don't think we can make that claim yet because we don't have enough data. Surely the ancient Romans and Egyptians would have believed the same, yet here we are.

Humanism is one world view. One that you can build a moral framework around. Much the same way religious people build a world view based on their religious beliefs.

It's hard to make an argument that one world view is better than another. Because to do so you have to agree how to measure the outcomes of world views. Often this is impossible as the world views conflict.

The makes most assessments of societies progress subjective.

Or you could argue that as long as no one is getting hurt what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ for other people is none of your business.

You realize trans people are going to go extinct right?

It should be clear as day to anyone with even a passing interest in biology. Once we've identified exactly what genes influence transgenderism, and genetic editing of our embryos is commonplace for the populace, no one is going to allow their children to be born with a predilection for being transgender. You'd be literally putting your child at an enormous disadvantage for no discernable reason.

Look how long its taken for gay people to be accepted by society. Not decades, but centuries. Transgender people don't have that long. In a century, we'll be editing genetically superior superbabies. No parents in their right mind would give their children such a tremendous disadvantage in life when they could make them "normal". I suspect gay people will probably go extinct too, but one never knows with 100% certainty how these things play out.

I suspect a great many classes of people / traits will go extinct. Down's Syndrome babies will certainly be screened out of the population, because again... in a society of beautiful 200 IQ super athletes, why would you deliberately hinder your child?

Haven’t you seen Gattaca? There will be plenty of babies born to parents who can’t afford to genetically modify their children. We can’t even get insulin to the people who need it today.

> There will be plenty of babies born to parents who can’t afford to genetically modify their children.

Yes, and how far behind will they be left?? This is one of my primary concerns.

GATTACA tells the story of a single individual with Herculean willpower. That's simply not most of society. For every one Vincent Freemans, there's 999,999 Carls from The Breakfast Club.

You vastly underestimate the complexity of the human genome and also assume transsexuality is _all genetics. Ontogenesis, epigenetics, environmental factors, ... there is a lot more on sex variant hardware front than genetics.

Sex is bimodal, by definition parents can't define a "right body" in this regard.

And anyway, at that point of understanding and manipulating human biology, "people" will likely moved beyond limiting categories such as 'sex'.

So what you're saying is that people are grooming young boys and girls to be transgender?

Sounds pretty bigoted, bro

> You vastly underestimate the complexity of the human genome

We mapped it out 20+ years ago. We learn more about it each year, but what's more, the extent of our knowledge increases exponentially, not linearly.

> Ontogenesis, epigenetics, environmental factors, ... there is a lot more on sex variant hardware front than genetics.

You act like these are factors that can't be controlled, if not entirely, at least to some degree.

> at that point of understanding and manipulating human biology

We are very nearly at that point. Within anywhere from 20-30 years, maybe even less. If you think "people" will have moved beyond limiting categories in that time, you're not thinking clearly about the past, but what's worse, you're not thinking clearly about humanity.

If you think we'll end up in a Star Trek-like world before we have the ability to successfully manipulate the genome, you can just look to the fictional history of Trek for that... we were supposed to be in the middle of the Eugenics Wars right about now. Turns out they'll come later, I guess.

Mapping DNA is not understanding genes. We know very, very little about the genome. In fact we're still discovering new mechanisms of encoding and meta-encoding. We can't even say where "genes" begin and where they end.

We identified a few single genes in _association with certain risks, but literally nothing is understood in complex interactions and how environment and genetics make for the concrete phenotype.

Transsexuality is related to brain anatomy, which... is about the most obvious complex system in the body...

Have you had any introduction to bioinformatics at all? Your enthusiastic futurism is uncalled for.

We also thought to be at the edge of AI in the 50s, thought the mystery of the brain was about to be illuminated with the introduction of fMRI and weather prediction is only marginally better at what farmers were capable of for thousands of years. Nobody can extensively model even a single cell today. Do you know how prostate cancer cells ultimately always evade androgen deprivation therapy? Me neither. Nobody does. All we are celebrating is "this transporter may play a role" types of "breakthrough", achieved by extensive experimentation.

Humans tend underestimate chaotic complexity...

And again, what are you even getting at? To understand and manipulate transsexuality completely, you need to understand and manipulate sex expression completely. It's pretty telling that you assume "parents" will chose to eliminate transsexuality exclusively. Why wouldn't you rather have intersex humans? There is no inherent value to sexual dimorphism and the sexual evolution likely isn't related to survival, but rather costly (see birds).

Snails do fine.

Clown fish do fine.

Sex is overrated.

You just want to construct a reason to be edgy on transsexuality... don't you?

Oh good, eugenics.

> Look how long its taken for gay people to be accepted by society. Not decades, but centuries. Transgender people don't have that long.

You might wanna read up on actual history before winging it. We've been around since time immemorial. Nothing new here, we've been variously celebrated, tolerated, and eradicated by societies throughout history. The last big purge was during the holocaust. Is that the side of history you wanna be on? Oh right, the eugenics thing. I shouldn't presume.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_history

I've written before that there'll be a second eugenics movement. It'll likely happen when we have more knowledge about the human genome and a very easy way to edit it.

You're also assuming because I think a thing will happen, that I want it to happen. There are lots of things that I don't want to happen, that I'm almost certain will happen.

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