Home » Twitter suspends Jordan Peterson: why?

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Twitter suspends Jordan Peterson: why? — 72 Comments

  1. Nothing, in this terrible era, could possibly be more important than to refuse to accept the lies, the propaganda, and the stupidity of our ruling technocratic elite, the calamitous and catastrophic kakistocracy under which rational and sensible persons are condemned to exist, with no discernible light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. It is still not clear whether Musk’s deal with Twitter will actually go through, but one can still have some small hope at least on that front. The decision of Page to have her body mutilated nearly beggars belief.

  2. Why not ban anybody who calls Obama ‘Barry’?

    What about ‘Slick Willy’?

    Those are not their names they identify as after all.

    Should all nicknames be banned by twitter? But only from the approved classes of course.

  3. Arnold Kling provided a perspective that sharpened my thinking. He writes “I think of transitioning as akin to committing suicide. Both transitioning and suicide tend to cause deep pain in those around you. You are at the point where you don’t mind inflicting that pain, and maybe deep down you want them to feel pain.

    I can imagine people objecting to this analogy between transitioning and suicide. But that is where I come down.”

    https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/keeping-up-with-the-fits-and-comments

    My understanding is that a person who transitions is replacing their old identity with a new one. Otherwise, why not just change your dress and makeup and and call it good? Something deeper is happening.

    Consider Bruce Jenner. He was an Olympic champion and a celebrity on my breakfast cereal box. That person lived and now is gone.

    What does it mean to change one’s identity? When people do it to avoid being found they try to make their old identity dead and gone. I don’t know if this applies to all transpersons but my understanding is the hard rules against misgendering are to respect a person’s new identity – the old person is gone.

    Should we hold funerals for people who transition? Would that provide some finality to what is actually happening? I don’t think the confusion of transitioning can be fully resolved, but I wonder if it would help if we accepted that transitioning involves the death of a person and the creation of a new individual.

  4. I watched a video clip of Oprah asking Elliot Page how he/she felt after his/her top surgery. There was some mention of getting out of the shower and looking into the mirror. Then a very long pause, before he/she said something about choking back tears of joy.

    Now I don’t claim to know what was going on in his/her head, but trying to read his/her face it certainly seemed to be a much more complex emotion than that. I guess you’d expect that generally, I just hope it wasn’t deep regret too.

  5. Deadnaming. It’s a big no-no. Peterson knows this. He was gaslighting Twitter.

  6. ‘It’s a big no-no’

    Says who? That is the point. Don’t accept their terms.

  7. Twitter could delete the tweet themselves any time they want, yet they insist that Peterson must bend the knee and do it himself, to admit to the lie that 2+ 2 = 5. Being kicked off Twitter is one thing, but what about when not accepting the lie means losing your livelihood or even prison? I can see it getting to that point. Peterson says that he would rather die than do so, and I believe him. But what about the rest of us?

  8. Saying a biological fact that a human male cannot menstruation would probably get you tossed. Glad I never had a account.

  9. I am sick of having to listen to the freak show that is upon us.
    Once upon a time the freaks worked at the circus.
    Someone let them out among the normals.
    I say it is time to put them back in the circus.
    Please God help us in our time of need, or at least send the SMOD so that I can get into paradise.

  10. “Call yourself what you want. Dress how you want. Live with whomever you prefer. Join whatever group you want, and everyone there can agree on whatever they want among themselves. I care not a bit.

    Expect me to fund that life, or demand that I recite your creeds, and we will no longer have a friendly day. Send the government to force my compliance, and we will not have peaceful relations.” – Comment on Internet

    Agreed.

  11. The best thing about today’s date being July 1 is that it means Pride Month is over.

  12. At base, why Twitter banned Peterson boils down to him being a profound threat to “the narrative”.

    Upon which everything the Left seeks, relies.

  13. PA+Cat,

    Amen to that. All of the stupid banners and rainbows disappear from every website and company everywhere just like that.

  14. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliot_Page :

    “Page was born on February 21, 1987, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Martha Philpotts, a teacher, and Dennis Page, a graphic designer. He was assigned female at birth and used his birth name of Ellen prior to transitioning.”

    “He was assigned female at birth . . . .” [ahem] I imagine there was a pretty compelling reason for the assignment, n’est-ce pas?

    Sigh. There was a woman at work with whom I was friendly. Over the years, I enjoyed our brief visits; we had things that we talked about. At some point, I found out she had once been a man. We remained friendly; as far as I was concerned, nothing changed. I still enjoyed our brief visits and chats.

    I think of her as “she” because that’s how she presented herself. Maybe had I known her in her prior life, my emotional equilibrium might have been upended; I don’t know. I do know that I valued her friendship, and I trust that was mutual.

    She never, to my knowledge, insisted on being referred to as “she” *or* “he”. This was before the rainbow business, but I do not see her as wearing a rainbow ribbon or anything of that sort; that would not have been her personality. (Yes, I could be mistaken; it’s been over a decade.) She went about her business just like any of us do, and that was that.

    Enough. “He was assigned female at birth” just plain goes too far. My friend was born a male, there evidently was a gender dysphoria issue involved [we never had any reason to discuss the transition, as that was *not* on the roster of things we talked about], and now she is who she is.

    Those are historical *facts*, which some people evidently contest. I think those latter people have a dysphoria of their own to deal with — a reality dysphoria.

    “He was assigned female at birth” just plain goes too far. But I said that already . . .

  15. Invisible sun,

    If we accepted that transitioning involves the death of a person and the creation of a new individual… wouldn’t that logically involve issues of ownership and inheritance of assets? They’re a “new” individual… right?

    Erasmus,

    Yes, a thousand times yes.

  16. I noticed this new (to me, anyway) tendency to insist that subjective beliefs should hold sway over objective ones, and that in fact there was no such thing as objective truth.

    I’m still waiting for the “no objective truth” segment of the political segment to explain to me how Trump was such a liar. How could anyone be a liar when there is no such thing as truth?

  17. M J R,

    It is a fact that he is presenting himself as a female. That is the biological factual reality that no amount of surgery can change.

    The nominum (nominal meaning: 1. in name or thought but not in fact or not as things really are) “assigned” at birth is another of the left’s word substitutions intended to shape the narrative.

    Like “my body, my choice” and “my bodily autonomy” which denies that the fetus is a separate person’s body defined by its unique DNA. Another individual that has taken up temporary residency in the mother’s body. Solely due in the great majority of cases, to the mother’s choice.

    We are NOT “assigned” our sex at birth. In nearly all cases, it is a formal listing of the recognized bodily reality of the newborn by the attending medical personnel.

    Nature’s God assigned our sex at conception. And that, is the real objection… by the “pro-choice” crowd.

    Steve57,

    Good point.

    I’m still waiting for the “no objective truth” crowd to jump off a 10 story building and prove that the objective truth of gravity is, in fact a subjective illusion.

  18. The best and simplist analogy I have seen was a meme that explained transgenderism this way:

    Do you know how Pizza Hut has those funky unique rooves? When a Pizza Hut closes, the property can be turned into anything else: A bar; a craft store; an auto supply store. It doesn’t matter because no matter what it is now, you see the roof and know that it started life as a Pizza Hut.

    https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.bUnWDTccIELpRBK9m0pY3AHaDt%26pid%3DApi&f=1

  19. tcrosse–

    In spite of his recent illnesses, Peterson is in better shape than Canada.

  20. I’m reminded of refusenik Natan Sharansky. Gawd, does that date me? I even know who he was! If the only place in the USSR where you could think for yourself, laugh at jokes, and speak your mind was in prison than every honest person belonged in prison.

    He used to taunt his KGB inquisitors who dared not laugh at his heretical jokes even though they wanted to, lest they be reported by the other KGB agent in the interrogation room.

    When he was exiled his Soviet minders told him to walk straight to his awaiting aircraft.

    Sharansky zigzagged in the snow.

    I’m not saying we’re a totalitarian state. But if we don’t want to be never ever give up. Never give an inch.

  21. When he was exiled his Soviet minders told him to walk straight to his awaiting aircraft. Sharansky zigzagged in the snow.

    You remember that Stephen Cohen dismissed Sharansky as a ‘western-sponsored martyr’? Don’t forget that a large slice of our intelligentsia were on the other side during the Cold War.

  22. To celebrate Canada Day, the Ottawa Polizei just fined a Canadian protester $1130 [I don’t know whether that sum is in Biden or Trudeau dollars] for writing “Free Tamara Lich” in chalk. “Tamara Lich was one of the original organizers of the Freedom Convoy of truckers who drove across Canada to Ottawa protesting vaccine mandates. Lich was recently re-arrested and it is widely believed that Lich is a political prisoner.”

    https://www.rebelnews.com/ottawa_police_just_fined_a_protester_1130_dollars_for_writing_free_tamara_lich_in_chalk

  23. “. . .it is widely believed that Lich is a political prisoner.” [PA+Cat]

    What the Hell has happened to Western Civilization?

  24. T–

    I wish I knew. It will be interesting to see how JoJo and the Border Czar celebrate the holiday formerly known as Independence Day on Monday, and how M. le Président Macron leads the annual Bastille Day parade in Paris on the 14th.

  25. It’s all about domination: “You will think as I tell you, and speak as instructed ~!”

    Peterson is morally correct and exhibiting intellectual integrity in his expressions, as we should all be. If Ellen Page wants to present as a male, then she needs to be more convincing than she is – and she’s a professional actress.

    Right now, many (if not most) transgender people look like they don’t really have much gender at all. Female bone structures and slender musculature with facial hair, or burly male frames with breasts and new fat layers.

    Anyone that has decided to pursue transgenderism seriously ought to at least be convincing enough to fool a stranger – that’s the real-life, no gaslight test. And then, if somebody insists on ‘misgendering’ them for spite, they ‘might’ have a case for defamation, which will be even more difficult to prove than normal, if you ask me.

    We are a free society, and this is one of those moments where you just going to have to insist upon it, if you wish to remain that way. Otherwise the only people that would be even approximately free, are the ones demanding you obey.

  26. Art Deco wrote: “Don’t forget that a large slice of our intelligentsia were on the other side during the Cold War.”

    A large slice of our intelligentsia is still on the other side. TWANLOC

  27. Aggie:

    You’ve fallen prey to what I call the “bad toupee fallacy” when you write: “Right now, many (if not most) transgender people look like they don’t really have much gender at all.” The fallacy is that when someone says that, the person isn’t taking into consideration that there might be many trans people who pass because they look like the sex with which they now identify and they would be unnoticeable by definition.

  28. I wish Peterson would do more of his stuff in the form of Writing, rather than video. For me, at least, and probably for quite a few other people, video-watching is much less time-efficient than reading.

  29. Geoffrey Britain; M J R:

    This business of having an “assigned” sex at birth is an interesting appropriation of the term. It used to be reserved for the rare situation in which a child was born with ambiguous genitals or hermaphroditic genitals. Sometimes the “assignment” was somewhat arbitrary and it emerged later on that the assignment had been the wrong one. There are a number of medical conditions that can cause such problems, and for some of them what seems to be the case at birth ends up being reversed at puberty when certain hormones kick in. One example of the latter phenomenon is Reductase 2 deficiency. There are others. In such cases, the word “assigned at birth” is appropriate. But as I said, they are rare. It is not an appropriate phrase for the vast vast majority of human births.

  30. Neo, well I guess I didn’t express my point well enough. I fully accept that there are transgender people that pass and take the time to craft their appearance in a convincing way, and whose true desire is to sincerely live their newfound gender identity. But unlike the toupee paradigm, in our age it often seems that the most obnoxious, loudly vocal, and ridiculous examples of a given leftist social phenomenon, those demanding to be at the vanguard of attention, often seem to be the most unlikely and unconvincing examples of the very thing they are demanding acceptance of.

    It’s like the abortion protestors that are vowing to deny access to sex because of the change in abortion laws; one looks at them, and wonders what the imagined conflict might be with that proposal. It would be as if the guy with the most ridiculously phony toupee was also loudly insisting that everyone agrees that it’s really his hair. At the bottom of it, I suspect that the most profoundly unhappy people are the ones making the most noise and demanding both attention and endorsement.

  31. neo, thank you for educating me regarding the rare “assigned” sex at birth.

  32. Regarding the bad toupée fallacy, I have a friend who decided, sometime in her late thirties, to transition from man to woman. Coming from a wealthy family, she had the means to undertake the process without consideration of cost. She started by growing her hair out, adopting clothes that did not define her as a man, and then taking hormone treatment. Then she went to a speech therapist to learn how to speak as a woman, lost a lot of weight and tried (not entirely successfully) to develop the hour-glass figure stereotypically associated with a woman’s physique. This was followed by plastic surgery to develop breasts. Finally, she went to Switzerland (IIRC) for the series of operations that would give her a simulacrum of a vagina.

    The entire process took about five years and cost a substantial amount of money, so one cannot doubt her commitment to the change.

    And I used to go to public venues with her occasionally, where she was consistently taken as a woman, something that caused me surprise, because I still thought of her as a man and did a double take when someone would say to her “how is the little lady doing today?” Wha. . .? Who’s that? I’d think, then remember she was no longer he.

    But I was always struck by the fact that her clothes gave her away. She had never become conscious of being neat and tidy, as I generally associated with women. Her blouse was frequently wrinkled, her dresses stained, and just generally she appeared somewhat unkempt. It was the was how she had been raised, as a boy, and she never reordered her life to “be” a woman — just to look like one. And a somewhat unconvincing one at that. She was, in Neo’s terms, a bad toupée.

    She is more than a dozen years older now, having lived with her new identity for almost 20 years. She is in a long-term relationship with a woman, something that dumbfounds me, but I guess makes sense to her and to my liberal daughter. I haven’t seen her in almost 20 years, but see her Facebook posts occasionally, which is how I know about her relationship. Long before she transitioned she was married and fathered a child who has accepted her as she currently presents.

    Just one person’s personal experience.

  33. “People believe what they want to believe.”

    This quote is from the movie “America Hustle.”

  34. In medieval England, a man who joined a religious community changed his name, gave up all property, and essentially gave up civil society.
    In Ireland in the 19th century, a man who was emigrating (and that was most of the young men in many places) was given a farewell party more akin to a funeral than anything else.
    A few years ago, a wealthy San Francisco socialite, once she was widowed, gave a great farewell party for herself and moved east to join a convent.
    These transitions are observed but not necessarily celebrated by those who love them most.
    This is a free country, but as free citizens we cannot be forced to celebrate any transition, not even the 4th of July! We cannot be forced to cheer when the Party says “Cheer!”
    I myself am not going to celebrate the amputation of healthy human body parts or affirm the person doing it to himself or herself. If would be like approving liposuction for an anorexic person.

  35. I’m intrigued by JP’s term “criminal physician.”
    Certainly not to be taken literally- physicians remove all or parts of breasts all the time, for reasons good or bad.
    Does he mean that the physician who does such a thing should be viewed by society as a criminal? Does he favor passing a law that would imprison a surgeon for doing this?
    Why can’t a person who has no need for a body part have it removed if its presence causes distress? Assuming, of course, no significant mental illness is the cause of the person’s desire to be flat-chested. Some would say that transgenderism is a mental disorder, but that is not the current position of organized medicine, and legislatures generally follow the lead of the medical establishment.
    JP may be getting close to libel here, if the operating surgeon chooses to make a cause of it.

  36. Jordan Peterson has already released a video on The Daily Wire saying he absolutely refuses to delete the Twitter post. As he was only “suspended” Twitter insists he remove the post in order to be reinstated, in essence conceding that he was wrong.

    Peterson’s reply was basically “Not until Hell freezes over.”

  37. Solzhenitsyn tells the story of what Stalin did at a grand congress of the Soviet Communist Party:
    He stationed KGB agents at every entrance. He entered the arena and stood on the podium. Thousands cheered wildly. Those who quit clapping most quickly were immediately arrested. When the Party members saw this, they cheered until their hands and throats hurt. As the weaker ones wore out, they too were hauled away by the KGB. Eventually, Comrade Stalin was satisfied that he had made his point, and he allowed everyone still standing and cheering to sit down.

  38. Dr Peterson released a 15 min video detailing his reasons for everything he said in the tweet. As is his usual way, he had thoroughly thought it through and every word was there because he wanted it there.

    What I find interesting is that the tweet went out 6 days before it was deemed “offensive” enough for Twitter to suspend him. And what a coincidence, it happened the same day the Daily Wire announced Peterson was joining them to provide content. (I’m shocked! Shocked I tell you!)

    https://youtu.be/UYfKWQqvFac

  39. > When I was in graduate school in the 1990s I noticed this new (to me, anyway) tendency to insist that subjective beliefs should hold sway over objective ones, and that in fact there was no such thing as objective truth. Sorry, I don’t buy that. Maybe there isn’t absolute and definitive truth, but some things are a lot truthier than others and someone like Peterson should be allowed to say so without being thrown off Twitter.

    To say that “Objective truth doesn’t exist” instantly raises the question, “Is that statement objectively true?” It leads to an absurdity.

    However, abstractions such as arithmetic and logic cannot have any real or objective existence if their only home is within the human mind. Yet we treat them as authoritative because we assume they mirror at an elemental level the orderliness of our universe. But why should we expect an accidental universe to follow logical and orderly laws?

    We instinctively know that math and logic are valid, that they are objective, that they would continue to be contain truth even if nobody was around to sense it.

    The only way it works is if God exists and math and logic are His thoughts. His thoughts are eternal and never die. Jesus was stating a philosophical truth when He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” and “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” The truth is either objective, or it doesn’t exist as anything more than a mere thought, a presumption, an idealistic conceit.

    It’s only natural, then, that people who have no reason to believe in objective truth don’t. Their belief systems cannot support eternal truth. Some cling to abstractions like math and logic regardless, because the alternative is unthinkable to them. Others go where the logic, or lack thereof, leads them.

  40. JP may be getting close to libel here, if the operating surgeon chooses to make a cause of it.

    He’s stating an opinion, chump. And, yes, a surgeon who removes a woman’s breasts for these reasons is a criminal. And, no, we’re not obligated to pay attention to the fictions in which ‘organized medicine’ elects to traffic.

  41. The Transgender Spectrum Disorder refers to a state or process of divergence from sex-correlated gender (e.g. sexual orientation).

  42. Surgical or medical corruption or abortion of healthy tissue or viable (from six weeks when baby meets granny in state, if not in process) life, respectively, is justified by ethical religions (e.g. Pro-Choice) under the modern model. Also, abortion chambers, Mengele mandates, etc.

  43. Glad somebody else sometimes reads Arnold Kling, (my other, more econ oriented, favorite blogger). I think suicide of the prior person is closer to the reality than merely cross-dressing.

    Some of our “individualist liberalism” individuals reject their genetic XX or XY sex. They demand that freedom, and I accept that Elliot is no longer a “real woman”, despite having XX genes. But neither is q’he now, nor ever will be, a “real man”.

    Q’he’s a q’man, or t-man, or trans man; we need some other words for this new reality where sex is binary and genetic.
    Because q’his chest is now like that of a slender, David Bowie-like androgyny, q’he is pleased by q’his view of q’himself in the mirror.

    I like this sentence better than:
    Because t’his chest is now like that of a slender, David Bowie-like androgyny, t’he is pleased by t’his view of t’himself in the mirror.
    We already have the word “this” so t-his or t’his is confusing.

    Q’he is now a quasi-man, and is no longer a woman, but is not a real man. When the language no longer encompasses the known truth, the language must expand and change so as to express the truth. So it is with pronouns – in a non-binary world, she & he are not enough.

    Peterson is more interested in Truth, than in leftist/ Democrat Party power – and Elon Musk is not yet in control of Twitter.

  44. Pingback:“Twitter suspends Jordan Peterson: why?” | We Are What We Think

  45. Art D-
    It may be your feelz that calling a person a criminal is an opinion, but the actual definition of a criminal is a person who has been convicted of a crime. That’s why you see the word “allegedly” in news reports prior to actual conviction. I agree that the surgeon who did this did a very bad and unethical thing, but there is no jurisdiction in the USA in which there is a law against removing breasts at the request of a competent patient, no matter how functional and nice they may have been.
    I know that JP is a foreigner, but he knows, or should know, that calling someone a criminal when he knows that no crime has been committed is libelous.
    It’s the lefties who profess that everything they think is a bad idea should be against the law. There is no law against removing breasts. It’s unethical and absurd, and I would be in favor of medical boards making that clear and civilly punishing doctors who do that, but that is not reality.

  46. When I was in graduate school in the 1990s I noticed this new (to me, anyway) tendency to insist that subjective beliefs should hold sway over objective ones, and that in fact there was no such thing as objective truth.

    As long as this is limited to Social Studies and similar subjects, I don’t care. What worries me is that medical schools and societies are adopting it. I spent 15 years teaching medical students and it seems I quit at just the right time.

    Neo, to add to your examples of intersex infants, there is a phenomenon called “Androgen insensitivity syndrome,” that used to be called “Testicular feminization syndrome.” The patient has XY chromosomes but the appearance is completely female except that the gonads are testes and the patient is infertile. Often there is no uterus. The testes should be removed as there is a real risk of malignancy.

    It is quite rare but a famous actress is an example. I won’t name her as she was diagnosed when I was a resident at Childrens Hospital in LA. She is quite beautiful.

  47. It is quite rare but a famous actress is an example. I won’t name her as she was diagnosed when I was a resident at Childrens Hospital in LA. She is quite beautiful.
    JLC?

  48. It may be your feelz that calling a person a criminal is an opinion, but the actual definition of a criminal is a person who has been convicted of a crime. That’s why you see the word “allegedly” in news reports prior to actual conviction.

    You are weirdly literal-minded. Dr. Peterson’s critics are unwell, but they likely do understand metaphor.

  49. As long as this is limited to Social Studies and similar subjects, I don’t care.

    You should care. Or perhaps one of us can care on your behalf. A number of social research disciplines have decayed into wretched apologetical exercises and really have no place in higher education anymore. And I’m talking about what were once real disciplines, not hooey like ‘women’s studies’.

  50. hypocritic oath

    cancel culture

    semantic games

    A many ethical religion.

    Peterson was suspended for reading the verboten 1984 book.

  51. Progressives have turn into Major Frank Burns from the TV show ‘MASH’ as shown by these quotes.

    – Unless we each conform, unless we obey orders, unless we follow our leaders blindly, there is no possible way we can remain free.

    – Individuality is fine, as long as we all do it together.

    They demand to be respected but give none. They demand conformity while celebrating their “individuality.” They DO have their own “religious views” and require everyone to follow its precepts with mistakes needing confession, grovelling and sometimes, excommunication. They demand the higher ups to punish those who will not follow their ideas and demands.

  52. Mike K:

    When I was in grad school I had to take a course called Human Sexuality, and as part of it I had to memorize all the genetic sexual anomalies like that, including their causes and how they operated. It was quite fascinating. But that’s how I know about this stuff.

  53. LeClerc:

    I believe he posts there for 2 reasons. The first is that it reaches an enormous number of people, and the second is that he is purposely trying to demonstrate the way Twitter operates by tweets such as this one.

  54. petersen grapples with ideas and their consequences, that is very dangerous, you are supposed to swallow the blue pill, and don’t ask questions, we don’t (currently) accept those who mutilate themselves as normal, ’15 minutes into the future’ who knows, so why here, do we accept this procrustean arrangement,

  55. }}} When I was in graduate school in the 1990s I noticed this new (to me, anyway) tendency to insist that subjective beliefs should hold sway over objective ones, and that in fact there was no such thing as objective truth

    Simple solution to this.

    Anyone who seriously believes this is true should be expected to prove it:
    Go step in front of a moving bus and tell it ‘you don’t believe in it’.
    Anyone refuses, clearly, they are lying, to themselves if not everyone else as well.

    And anyone who survives will have opened up a very interesting new realm of scientific inquiry.

    Win win for everyone.

  56. }}} Art D-
    It may be your feelz that calling a person a criminal is an opinion, but the actual definition of a criminal is a person who has been convicted of a crime.

    No, Neo pretty much pointed out that the EXACT definition of “criminal” includes the definition she is using, and arguing that Peterson is using…

    Perhaps your problem is that your “feelz” — note usage of “don’t give a fuck about your opinion” quotes — are that Doctor Peterson’s usage, as well as Neo’s usage — of language is not as sloppy and ineffectual as your own…?

    Put more simply: Your “feelz” are what matters here, not reality, right? So projecting your own behavior onto them is “ok” with you…?

    }}} There is no law against removing breasts. It’s unethical and absurd, and I would be in favor of medical boards making that clear and civilly punishing doctors who do that, but that is not reality.

    … And clearly you have not bothered to read the comments here, or you would know how you possibly-to-most-likely are wrong on this.

    I tend to believe in body autonomy, so personally don’t like the idea that it can be or should be restricted, BUT, that said, it’s clearly possibly a function of true mental illness, so it isn’t as entirely unreasonable as it might seem. If you are not clearly in your own right mind, then possibly you should not be making irreversible decisions at this point…?

  57. avi, Yes. That is the actress. As far as “criminal doctors,” a commenter at Althouse was quite upset that I said it was unethical, not criminal. Plastic surgery does much unnecessary stuff but the patient pays for it. That’s OK. Some goof paid a plastic surgeon to make him look like a lizard. That is not the one I was thinking of but similar. If they pay for it themselves, I don’t care.

    What I do object to is the taxpayers being obliged to pay for it. There was a series of cases in California in which child molesters requested castration to allow them to be paroled after their fantasies were gone. The state refused them but I wonder if that has changed. There is pretty good evidence that pedophiles who have acted on their fantasies, lose the fantasy or at least the urge to act with castration.

    These “gender change” requests by prisoners are mostly scamming by sociopaths.

  58. She is quite beautiful.

    I’m gonna guess who you’re talking about as there have been rumors about her for quite a long time. IMO, she was handsome 30 years ago (though not my cup o’ joe). In recent years age and her idiosyncratic grooming have made her look from the neck up like a man. No understanding why women want hair of that length. It never looks anything but suboptimal.

    Her mother and father contracted nine marriages between them. She and her oldest sister have managed to keep it to one each.

  59. Are violations of HIPPA subject to statute of limitations? Can you be prosecuted for breach of a persons medical history from the early 1960s? Hope not.

  60. Neo, back in the 40’s, this Russian chick named Ayn Rand wrote books about that ‘tendency to insist that subjective beliefs should hold sway over objective ones, and that in fact there was no such thing as objective truth.’.

    They were quite popular, even decades after their publication. Check them out!

  61. No offense intended, Flight-ER-Doc, I enjoy your posts very much. However, I do challenge whether Rand’s philosophy explains satisfactorily how objective truth can objectively exist.

    Based on my readings, Rand wants very much to insist that objective truth exists, but has only circular reasoning to assist her.

    The link below takes you to “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z,” to her discussion of values.

    She writes, “It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.”

    Okay, so values depend on life. Got it.

    Then, further down, she writes, “Values are the motivating power of man’s actions and a necessity of his survival, psychologically as well as physically.”

    Okay, so life depends on values. Got it.

    The circularity of Rand’s reasoning is not really Rand’s fault, though not noticing it is. All philosophies, at some point, beg the question. For philosophy to work, same as in math and science, people must start with something that cannot be proven. Logic can help prove a number of propositions, but it can’t be used to prove logic itself is valid; that must be assumed true.

    I credit Rand with trying to accomplish something at which both Hume and Kant failed, namely, deriving objective values from rational thought.

    If objective values can be derived from anything, it will need transcendence, and therefore an eternally and morally absolute God. Without transcendence, values die, same as the beings that advocate for them.

    Morality is objective; about that, Rand is right. But it needs to be more than just animal behavior.

    http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/values.html

  62. The band “Save Ferris” had a track on their late 90s album “It Means Everything” called “Spam”. The lyrics contain a reference to Bruce Jenner. At least they did.

    If you google “save ferris spam lyrics” you’ll get a Google knowledge card for the lyrics, and you will discover that the deadname has been changed to “Bruce Jidder”. Hardly anybody remembers the song; it wasn’t a hit and it’s completely unimportant, but they CHANGED IT. Who changed it? Was it Brian Mashburn, who wrote the song, or someone else?

    The only reason I noticed this is that the lyrics were also changed on Spotify, and when “Bruce Jidder” rolled by on my TV screen I did a double take.

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