TRANSGENDERAmerican and Canadian Anthropology Societies decide a panel about biological sex at their conference is “harmful” to LGBTQ+ members and cancel it

submitted by ClassroomPast6178 from x.com

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[–]Q-Continuum-kin 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I'm going to invent a term here. Not sure if it's been used before but... Scientific and medical organizations are experiencing tautological capture. For anyone who has seen Idiocracy, it's exactly like the electrolytes conversion just here you have a politically correct position formed that "trans" is a marginalized community and needs special privileges. You get autistic screeching aimed at some marginal organization until they get nervous of offending HR somewhere and they change a definition. TRAs then point at the change in definition as proof that their bullshit is real and the next organization experiences autistic screeching while being pointed to the previous definition change until they flip and so on and so on.

The problem is that there is no starting point to the change in decisions other than "the science is settled". Why is the science settled? Because this organization said so. Why did they say so? Because the science is settled.

[–]newguy 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I think the tautological capture, as you term it, happens because the Overton Window of "debate that is allowed" is so narrow that anything that can escape that tautological loop is disqualified from consideration.

I think the broader issue at hand is what I call "weaponized compassion", where they've taken people's natural impulse to want to help others, and then used it to push an agenda that is actually harmful in the long term. It's a cultural trojan horse that abuses one's compassion. Lots of modern culture can be described via this mechanism.

We got so successful as a nation we wanted to help everyone. And that bubble of "everyone" now includes people who are being actively harmful, so it's causing self-destruction. We've lost appropriate boundaries for what behavior is ok and what isn't, because of so many cultural movements based around weaponized compassion.

[–]Q-Continuum-kin 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think I'm describing something different. I often find TRAs use these particular incidents to support the "science is settled" narrative. Yes that's a sort of Overton window but it's important to HR departments when they are faced with some anthropology society making statements like this so it loops.