Why is a) bad? Have you considered d) pass a different law? Why are you pretending the law is some immutable thing that we always need to follow, regardless of the situations an unjust law might place someone in if followed?

Instead of processing immigration applications fairly for everyone, we just should let people who break the rules get away with it?

Having deportation as an actual threat, reduces the amount of people who attempt to break the rules since they know there are consequences.

Why does the consequence have to be deportation? Can we imagine a form of deterrence that doesn’t necessitate the cruelty of familial separation? Do we at least agree that what is happening right now, to this family and to others, is deeply unjust?

You can do what Australia does which is offshore processing

What about the threat of jail? Is the US punitive system not effective? In many ways I'd rather be an immigrant than a citizen if the punishment for crimes is deportation rather than detention... as long as I'm not being sent to country that has also suspended their constitutional right to due process.

First, I don't believe this crime rises to the level of jail. Second, it doesn't make sense here because if the parents are jailed who will take care of the children? I'm also not sold on putting more people into the meat grinder of US judicial system. When they deported at least they will be free. Ironically, compared to the US judicial system, this is the more human approach.

You said "break the rules". If you meant border crossing say it next time. Also they aren't free if they are deported to, like I already said, a country that has also suspended due process.

Until a new law is passed, the government and courts have a duty to follow the current law.

You have misunderstood what it means to follow the law. The law guarantees liberties, but doesn't guarantee prosecution. Obama has DACA, which gives young illegal immigrants a deferral on their prosecution. More generally there's the concept of prosecutorial discretion. Have you ever for example driven a car badly, been pulled over, but the cop let you off with just a warning?

Or, for that matter, driven a car badly but not been pulled over at all? Surely in the interest of absolute lawfulness they then proceeded to the nearest police station to demand to be ticketed.

Surely you understand the difference between a cop declining to issue a speeding ticket and a federal "discretionary" policy that makes it de facto legal to violate standing immigration law at scale.

There is no difference. People often complain during the pandemic that the San Francisco police department has seemingly instituted a "discretionary" policy that makes it de facto legal to violate traffic law at scale, you know, including speeding, not stopping at stop signs, not yielding to pedestrians. https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/11nbnxw/san_f...

Maybe you are misunderstanding. A single cop deciding "okay today I'm letting you off with a warning" is quite different from the President directing the entire Federal bureaucracy to not enforce existing immigration law. If for some reason a large jurisdiction, say maybe the state of California, decided that it was policy to let everyone off with a warning for speeding infractions, then, if I squint hard enough and ignore a wide range of second and third order effects, then yeah maybe they are similar.

The point OP is making (and it ‘s one that I agree with) is that Graham’s particular usage of the word “woke” as written in his essay functions as a shibboleth for a collection of reactionary beliefs and impulses — not merely that he uses the word, but that he does so in a poorly-defined and pejorative way that is characteristic of the word’s usage in various right-leaning circles.

> If someone hates trans people, they can, and you can't stop them. The whole "war on hate" thing was a bad idea; you can't forbid hatred. It predictably didn't work, and it's good that we're turning away from it.

It is disingenuous to suggest that anti-discrimination laws for trans people are attempting to legislate away the hatred held in people’s hearts, instead of access to healthcare, public facilities, protections against workplace discrimination — things you describe as having “real questions,” but which are, in fact, the parts of a full and dignified life that bigots would deny to trans people in particular. If you pretend like it’s trying to legislate “thoughtcrime,” it’s much easier to distinguish anti-discrimination laws for trans people from rulings like Obergefell or Brown v. Board — far easier to say “look, those were good, but this particular civil rights legislation is simply unreasonable.”

To platform these beliefs is to afford them a legitimacy they do not deserve. To suggest that bigotry, when amplified, will be in some way countered or reduced is naïve beyond belief. Instead, it becomes easier for bigotry to find an audience of receptive listeners and willing conduits for further transmission.

which begs the question: why spend any time at all including an ai image as part of the cover if it’s a negative signal for some people?

I don't think the issue is whether GP lives next to neighbors with these kind of lawns, but more that the relative proportion of bird-hostile yards is outpacing any individual attempt to counterbalance. Moving only solves the problem if the only thing you care about is the extent to which you, personally, are forced to see one of the causes of this population drop in your daily life. It doesn't address the problem itself, which is kind of also GP's point.

> The creation of new ideas being restricted to only experts, those who "actually know stuff" shrinks the pool of creators of new knowledge.

Abstractly, I agree with what you've said here, but I don't think the part of Gerard's post that you quoted is making the point that you're countering.

Broadly speaking, a lot of discovery work comes from domain experts precisely because of the work it takes to become such an expert. My read on the phrase "actually knowing stuff" is that it refers not just to a solid understanding of the nuts-and-bolts of your field, but also a more general grasp of the field's history. This kind of contextual knowledge is extremely helpful when attempting new or experimental research because it gives you an idea of which areas of knowledge might contain some novel insight while also cluing you in to which approaches might help you arrive at that insight. I interpreted Gerard's critique of Buterin here not as one of insufficient academic clout, but of arrogance, a reification of great man theory [1] through a techno-libertarian lens that positions himself among a host of other so-called "great men" and frames every societal problem as solvable through whatever lens the Great Man might think is particularly interesting.

Gerard's critique of Buterin's approach to sharding (which goes into further detail here [2]) seems to back this interpretation up:

> Buterin blogs extensive essays full of great thoughts on how to reorganise the world, and how Ethereum will be the basis for this once they add amazing new functionalities that will only require solving P=NP.

> Remember that Buterin spent years working on a sharding plan for Ethereum that, had he done Intro to Theory of Computation, he might have realised was probably impossible.

Seems less like "Buterin is a fool for not Being An Academic" and more like "Buterin is arrogant enough to assume he can solve a really difficult problem without understanding why nobody's solved it yet."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory [2] https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2022/04/04/if-you-want-...

> Seems less like "Buterin is a fool for not Being An Academic" and more like "Buterin is arrogant enough to assume he can solve a really difficult problem without understanding why nobody's solved it yet."

Whether or not Buterin knew that the problem was unsolved shouldn't influence his decision to attempt to solve it within the constraints of his research area. Vitalik is very smart and works for a research foundation who spends time on complex things that might pan out if they work on them.

Very smart people usually take the time to understand the historical context behind the problems they're attempting to solve, IMO. (Especially if solving that problem requires proof that P=NP.) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

pretty much, yes. And that it's not just Buterin, it's a type, and he learned this error from this type.

The sibling comment actually does a pretty good job articulating why we as trans people (surprise! I’m one of them) receive the reactions we do. It’s a fundamental disgust at the concept of a trans person existing, full stop. In an ideal world for these people, we simply would not exist. We challenge their expectations by asking to be addressed in a way that goes against their ideas of what gender, at its core, means to them. It’s a belief that the world works in a specific and rigid way, and that respecting the way another person chooses to be addressed is “feeding into a delusion.” This also feeds into a larger bit of discourse around trans kids that is tinged with the usual “think of the children” moral panics that show up whenever a kid is some flavor of LGBTQ+. It does not make for a great time on the internet (or on Hacker News, specifically).

Thanks, I appreciate that explanation, I never understood moral panic or things of that nature. To me, a persons sex is pretty arbitrary, something that shouldn’t affect how we look at the person inside that body.

> We challenge their expectations by asking to be addressed in a way that goes against their ideas of what gender, at its core, means to them.

Nope, you're asking for a special treatment in an environment where 99.9% of people don't care how you want to be called. Not because they hate you -- it's because they're not there to fight for your rights.

My name has at least 12 different ways to be pronounced in my country -- most of them in a semi-mocking manner, too -- and at one point I simply stopped caring even if I didn't like being called as some people do. Felt like pissing against the wind and I figured I'm not going to waste my time arguing with people whose only goal is to tease. They give up literally seconds later when ignored.

I feel that some trans people are just barking up the wrong tree at the wrong time. in a normal social setting -- say, in a restaurant, or a cafe in the park -- people are there to socialize or network. Not to fight the good fight against trans people being harmed.

Of course I'm not even touching on the psychopaths who would pursue and physically harm you. I'm addressing the problem of people bringing the issues that are close to their hearts in a social setting where people don't care and are looking negatively at the idea of forcing that discussion right there and then.

And I feel that point of view is very often missed by people who feel they have to fight for various social justice causes.

The "special treatment" includes:

1. Antidiscrimination policies preventing trans people from being evicted from their home, fired, etc, for being trans.

2. The elimination of policies that prevent or seriously limit access to medical treatment recommended by professional physicians.

3. Basic politeness from peers and colleagues, who should use a trans person's preferred pronouns and name.

None of these things are achieved. Federal antidiscrimination laws have not been passed. States like Texas consider medical treatment to be child abuse. And people regularly deliberately misgender trans people in school and at the workplace.

> Most kids are impressionable and these "lessons" might have the exactly opposite effect: turn kids into LGBT people before they even discovered themselves sexually.

People have been peddling this for ages. Surely there'd be some respected research to back it up. First it was "talking about gay people will turn your kids gay." Now it is "talking about trans people will turn your kids trans." It is just the satanic panic for frightened parents. Equally as stupid as "Mortal Kombat will turn your kids into killers." So let me be very clear. Refusing to speak about the existence of LGBT people in school because of an unsubstantiated belief that it will trick children into not being cishet is a problem. Asking for extremely basic recognition in ordinary life is not an "unreasonable thing."

Or maybe the LGBT people need to cite proper research before bringing these classes to school? You know, with a proper process and peer reviews and all the good stuff.

Nobody should get a free pass to put any new classes to school before they prove a benefit.

The burden of proof should fall to them, not on me who's skeptical.

So let's see it. Middle school curricula that says that straight, cis, white, males should be killed. Because what I see here is an incredible overreaction used to justify actual public policy that harms transgender people by denying them access to medical care.

> Nope, you're asking for a special treatment in an environment where 99.9% of people don't care how you want to be called. Not because they hate you -- it's because they're not there to fight for your rights.

You are framing this as "special treatment" precisely because of your ideas of what gender means to you. Honestly, I empathize hard with what you describe as "pissing into the wind." I'm misgendered on a daily basis -- if I spent every ounce of energy I had correcting people, I'd end each day exhausted. More often than not, I don't push back, usually because it's a service worker who's forced to be deferential as part of their job ("sir"/"ma'am"/etc). I don't begrudge that kind of attempt at politeness. Even outside that, it's never a huge deal in isolation, but it adds up, because I have to do a little bit of mental calculus each time: is this person going to make a whole thing about it or go "my bad" and move on? do I have the energy to bring it up? are they trying to be rude or is it an honest mistake? etc. In professional and personal circles, I'm generally more likely to correct people, because I'm signalling a way to be polite to me, and I've been polite to them, and it's how we establish mutual respect, not "special treatment."

Usually, when people get frustrated at misgendering, it's because a person is ignoring really obvious tells about how a person wants to be addressed (clothing, etc.) in favor of their own personal philosophy about what being "right" means. In the exact same way, for example, you might feel frustrated if someone intentionally decided to use a semi-mocking pronunciation of your name. In both cases, it signals that a person has decided to be cruel to you for petty and unknowable reasons.

I guess my big takeaway is that you deserve as much dignity and respect in the way people pronounce your name as I do for my pronouns, and I hope you can find some understanding/empathy in the parallels between our experiences.

Sorry that this is long, hope you are in the mood for reading. :)

But I also sympathize with you a lot and want to give you finer details of where I stand.

> are they trying to be rude or is it an honest mistake?

Obviously I can't generalize but I've been around several types of LGBT people a good amount of times in my life (trans included) and yes, almost always it's an honest mistake. Almost all of us are brought up with a rather binary definition of sexes / genders in mind and any rebellion against that is bound to fail... or at least will need decades, if not centuries, to eventually succeed.

What is my central point boils down to: don't take misgendering personally -- unless it's a crowd of killers chasing you down an alley with knives and bats of course, or people who tell you in the face they'll sabotage an effort of yours because of what you are.

These are the villains. These are the people we as a society must push back against. Everyone else are just people that are there to do an activity with you and to them misgendering is a non-issue.

That's not a malicious behavior and it saddens me when I see trans people furiously arguing that it is (not saying that you do; I've met such however, and I've seen them on Twitter as well). People (a) do an honest mistake and (b) people wouldn't care to correct it even if you told them so you might as well just shrug it off most of the time because the reverse would be a huge drain of time and energy (as I think we both agree).

A fact that a good amount of LGBT people I spoke with find strange: people usually don't are about you at all ("you" being any random person out there, not just LGBT). But start arguing for your cause -- especially when nobody actually brought it up -- and people are likely to side against you. Again, not because they hate you, but because they feel an issue is brought into light out of the blue and especially because the arguers usually try very hard to paint everybody else around them as villains.

Unsurprisingly, people don't react well to that. But that's sadly a much bigger issue that goes well beyond LGBT rights; in many public discourses there are the people that will say "if you don't speak up at all about issue X then you are a part of the problem" which is, of course, where any constructive dialogue falls apart with little hope of it getting back on track. :(

> In professional and personal circles, I'm generally more likely to correct people, because I'm signalling a way to be polite to me, and I've been polite to them, and it's how we establish mutual respect, not "special treatment."

Some boundaries need to be put and respected from both sides. If somebody told me "address me as ze/zir" (random Tumblr example) then I will laugh and I will not feel bad about it. To me that's requiring special treatment, bordering to spoiled entitlement even. On the other side of the argument, if you e.g. have physical manly features but prefer a female pronoun -- I can very easily respect that and remember to do it. Those are my boundaries as a fairly regular hetero guy. Please understand that I don't mean to offend; all my responses are only aimed at informing you how the regular folk feels and thinks about LGBT people. Maybe that can help you and make your life better. I hope.

> In the exact same way, for example, you might feel frustrated if someone intentionally decided to use a semi-mocking pronunciation of your name. In both cases, it signals that a person has decided to be cruel to you for petty and unknowable reasons.

Oh, absolutely. I just figured I'll start ignoring it and my demeanor and way of treating these people (usually cold and professional tone, completely ignoring the joke they were trying to make and quickly getting to the matter at hand that I have to discuss with them) put them right back in their place. To me it boiled down to energy expenditure vs. potential reward; I figured the reward is not worth the time and energy so if somebody tries to be disrespectful by using the mocking pronunciations of my name, I just start being laser-focused on whatever I am there to do with that person. I've made friends that way, paradoxically. Later these people told me "I respect a guy who ignores an obvious trolling attempt and puts things back where they should be". We the people can function in such counter-intuitive ways, for the better or worse.

> I guess my big takeaway is that you deserve as much dignity and respect in the way people pronounce your name as I do for my pronouns, and I hope you can find some understanding/empathy in the parallels between our experiences.

I hope you appreciate my being honest -- I completely agree with some understanding and empathy, yes, but as mentioned above, there are boundaries beyond which the common folk will strongly disagree with you and will even start targeting you. Not ideal, I know. :(

I personally wouldn't target anyone (and I never had) but I too have my boundaries about what I'd respect and what I wouldn't.

A constructive dialogue only happens when both sides are well-represented e.g. many people feel that trans people demand too much. However, the same regular folk will not only tolerate but will also ACTIVELY SUPPORT AND DEFEND YOU if they feel you don't go overboard and are just trying to go about your life without stopping anybody else from doing the same.

In conclusion, I sincerely hope that you understand that my main goal is to provide you with the path of the least resistance into wider acceptance by everyone else. Just telling you how a normal hetero guy feels about LGBT rights. Too often this group of people shoots themselves in the foot by making villains out of the regular people that would never attack them in any way. And these same people can be your dear friends and fight for your rights.

In conclusion, I believe the LGBT group really needs to learn how to make friends. My observation from talking to a lot of people is that most folk out there is tolerant and even supportive.

I guess I just can’t think of a better way to describe some of the stuff people say about trans people. It’s rooted in a deep hatred that warrants the suffix, IMO. I don’t think “disagreement” adequately describes the severity. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That's not how the term is normally expressed though. It's very often used to shut down disagreement or enquiry.

Like for example, if someone asks, "how can this person be a woman if they have a penis?"

These days, they'd get immediately accused of transphobia.

Is it rooted in hatred or fear?

It's pretty complicated! I'd say it's a little bit of a lot of things, and the amounts of those things depends on the person. There's some people who feel like they wish they could have transitioned but didn't, and direct a pretty intense resentment towards people they see as having undeserved happiness (the "rotten egg" theory). Some people believe in a strict natural "order" in the world that they see trans people as subverting in ways they see as disgusting. Some people are scared parents who believe trans people will indoctrinate their children and turn them into unrecognizable, traumatized, uncontrollable shells of their former selves through surgeries and hormone treatments.

Shared amongst all these lines of thinking is an intense belief that the world would be a better place if the idea of being trans (and trans people in general) simply didn't exist, and that to move to that world, we should be detransitioned first, invisible second, and dead otherwise.

I can’t help but wonder if reducing the possibility space of opinions one might have about Star Citizen’s development process to “sweaty misogynist nerd (the bad kind of nerd)” and “magnanimous rich nerd (the good kind of nerd)” is maybe showing your hand a bit here. This isn’t to say I don’t believe you with respect to the employee death threats, nor do I think they’re a good thing — internet hate machines formed out of the froth of fermented gamer rage are unambiguously bad and steps should always be taken to reduce or eliminate the damage they cause. I also think there’s a pretty wide array of acceptably minimal and non-bigoted ways to express curiosity, scrutiny, or even displeasure with Star Citizen’s development process. Your lumping of that spectrum of thought into a single uncharitable bucket is probably why you’re being read as combative here.

I’m not sure I like the implicit association here between a job’s income level and some vague metric of “usefulness to society,” to say nothing of the dismissiveness that comes with the “barista science” label.