Comment by vimy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vimy | Hacker News Reader

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> The belief in this case being that your opinion of their identity, based on the studies you have read, is more relevant to their truth (or anyone's) than their feelings about their identity. As far as some of us are concerned, it isn't.

Facts are more important than feelings.

> It just happens that there are enough people who feel that way that being ostracized by them stings. Your options are to not do it or accept that a large portion of society will think you're a dick.

In this case it’s 10 % of the population (progressives or woke whatever you want to call them) who make a lot of noise and have the power to push their ideas on the rest of society. You get banned on twitter for questioning or mocking current gender ideas. Media also don’t give airplay to people who disagree. There’s no debate possible. So we get a misrepresentation of what society really thinks. And that’s why, if you believe him, Elon wants to buy twitter.

I've never really been persuaded by the 'facts are more important than feelings' statement. At best, it's an apples and oranges comparison in most cases. People don't typically claim they feel creationism is true, rather they take creationism as a fact. Similarly, the fact that I feel this way is nevertheless a fact, one which we take on good faith many times a day in person and online. If someone tells you they're angry, we're usually justified in believing that fact about their mental state. The degree to which we're skeptical of that claim is heavily influeneced in turn by epistemic trustworthiness and epistemic justice.

I think GP's point is that being or not being non-binary is unfalsifiable. I don't have a horse in that race, as I'm not sufficiently informed on the topic. However, it's important to note that (i) falsifiability is not the only reason to believe something and (ii) there is serious criticism of the idea that a statement must be falsifiable to be considered scientific.

I accept that someone is non-binary the same way that I accept that someone is a man or woman. I haven't had any issues with it so far, and it has the added bonus of making people feel validated, accepted, and comfortable around me, which is also a benefit to me in turn.

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