Your writing is almost impossible to finish reading with all the embedded links that I keep wanting to also read but I'm loving discovering another polymathic being!
I appreciate that. I realized self-application was critical after someone rightly called me out for falling victim to the very things I criticized in others. I suffered a righteous bout of cognitive dissonance before finally facing the truth and realizing I was an idiot.
It's still SUPER hard to do and I'm always catching myself failing at it but I also have a better appreciation.
Since you're a martial artist (brown belt if I recall), you might also appreciate this core ethos of Polymathic Being and the foundation of Mixed Mental Arts: "Embracing My White Belt"
Your writing is almost impossible to finish reading with all the embedded links that I keep wanting to also read but I'm loving discovering another polymathic being!
Nice! I hadn’t applied it yet to the trans conversation, but it also applies well there. Thanks for sharing. Especially when it comes to the refusal to look at the situation holistically, misdiagnosis through myopia and closed-mindedness is helping no one suffering from gender dysphoria.
👍 De nada; share the wealth; praise the lord and pass the ammunition ... 😉🙂
Though not sure about holistically -- a rather bizarre phenomenon, though I think it speaks to how we all develop our senses of self and how it can go off the rails. Not sure how deep down the rabbit hole you've gone on that issue, but you might be interested in the case of a saner, quite brilliant actually, transsexual, "Lynn Ann Conway (January 2, 1938 – June 9, 2024) was an American computer scientist, electrical engineer, and transgender rights activist":
More broadly, the whole issue is such a clusterfuck -- excuse my French -- in large part because of incoherent definitions and sloppy use the terms. I'm reminded of an American philosopher's take on a quip by Voltaire:
Will Durant: "“If you wish to converse with me,” said Voltaire, “define your terms.” How many a debate would have been deflated into a paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms! This is the alpha and omega of logic, the heart and soul of it, that every important term in serious discourse shall be subjected to strictest scrutiny and definition. It is difficult, and ruthlessly tests the mind; but once done it is half of any task.”
Barking mad -- "transgender female athletes" are, in manifestly "brute fact", males -- guys in drag if they still have their nuts attached, and sexless eunuchs if they don't. "exercised" me enough to write a "sternly-worded" missive last night to the author of it 🙂:
Letter; QUOTE: "transgender female athletes" are, in fact, males. Rather depressing is the degree of scientific illiteracy, if not outright cluelessness, particularly so in "the newspaper of record", in that phrase. You may wish to consider exactly what are the biological definitions that are more or less the de facto standards, and which have largely been replicated by President Trump's EO order "restoring biological truth in government. From the Glossary of an article in the well regarded Oxford Journal of Molecular Human Reproduction:
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
To a first approximation, to be a female is to have ovaries, and to be a male is to have testicles; those are the "necessary and sufficient conditions" to qualify as members of those categories. Those "transgender female athletes" haven't replaced their testicles with ovaries, and by those definitions, they're still males. All they have is some feminine traits or a desire to be treated as if they were actual females, as if they had changed sex. If wishes were horses then beggars would ride ..."
Your writing is almost impossible to finish reading with all the embedded links that I keep wanting to also read but I'm loving discovering another polymathic being!
Lol. Sorry! It's like a rabbit warren sometimes because so many topics intersect. Welcome to the adventure.
His hyper linking is on point. Probably helps the algorithm understand his content better.
There is an element to that but also it flows a little better than footnotes.
I forgot about footnotes. Reminds of college essays!
I use them sparingly. As often for a reference as an editorial aside.
Thank you for this post. Reminds me at a basic level to (really) listen before opening my mouth.
Listen, analyze, explore, challenge, refine. There’s a lot mixed in. I’m glad it resonated.
Welp, loved everything about this one. The double-edged sword point was powerful on top of an already empowering perspective.
Big fan of self-application prior to expansion of ideas.
Great stuff
I appreciate that. I realized self-application was critical after someone rightly called me out for falling victim to the very things I criticized in others. I suffered a righteous bout of cognitive dissonance before finally facing the truth and realizing I was an idiot.
It's still SUPER hard to do and I'm always catching myself failing at it but I also have a better appreciation.
Since you're a martial artist (brown belt if I recall), you might also appreciate this core ethos of Polymathic Being and the foundation of Mixed Mental Arts: "Embracing My White Belt"
https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/embracing-my-white-belt
https://open.spotify.com/track/6u1Kmq1zTMW70j3DJXDSaX?si=0b722665fe6e4a07
Fun, I like it. What were your thoughts behind this song?
Connection and separation ..... even though we're worlds apart, here, across aeons, is home
Perfect.
Your writing is almost impossible to finish reading with all the embedded links that I keep wanting to also read but I'm loving discovering another polymathic being!
You might be interested in another Substacker's kick at the same kitty, though in a different context from the one you're starting off from:
"'Nullius in Verba' - Identity Ideology vs. the Scientific Disposition; The Dangers of Self-ID"
https://thetransatlantic.substack.com/p/self-id-or-nullius-in-verba-between
https://thetransatlantic.substack.com/p/self-id-or-nullius-in-verba-between/comment/47238283
Nice! I hadn’t applied it yet to the trans conversation, but it also applies well there. Thanks for sharing. Especially when it comes to the refusal to look at the situation holistically, misdiagnosis through myopia and closed-mindedness is helping no one suffering from gender dysphoria.
👍 De nada; share the wealth; praise the lord and pass the ammunition ... 😉🙂
Though not sure about holistically -- a rather bizarre phenomenon, though I think it speaks to how we all develop our senses of self and how it can go off the rails. Not sure how deep down the rabbit hole you've gone on that issue, but you might be interested in the case of a saner, quite brilliant actually, transsexual, "Lynn Ann Conway (January 2, 1938 – June 9, 2024) was an American computer scientist, electrical engineer, and transgender rights activist":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Conway
https://www.eejournal.com/article/lynn-conway-1938-2024-the-computer-architect-who-helped-to-revolutionize-digital-ic-design/
https://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/conway.html
More broadly, the whole issue is such a clusterfuck -- excuse my French -- in large part because of incoherent definitions and sloppy use the terms. I'm reminded of an American philosopher's take on a quip by Voltaire:
Will Durant: "“If you wish to converse with me,” said Voltaire, “define your terms.” How many a debate would have been deflated into a paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms! This is the alpha and omega of logic, the heart and soul of it, that every important term in serious discourse shall be subjected to strictest scrutiny and definition. It is difficult, and ruthlessly tests the mind; but once done it is half of any task.”
https://quotefancy.com/quote/3001527/Will-Durant-If-you-wish-to-converse-with-me-said-Voltaire-define-your-terms-How-many-a
Somewhat related thereto is this bit of cluelessness from "the newspaper of record", the New York Times, on the Skrmetti case in the US Supreme Court:
NYT: "... nearly 80 percent of Americans — including 67 percent of Democrats — believed that transgender female athletes ..."
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/us/politics/democrats-supreme-court-transgender-ruling.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Qk8.Pv30.G1kUSzIPvDtC&smid=url-share
Barking mad -- "transgender female athletes" are, in manifestly "brute fact", males -- guys in drag if they still have their nuts attached, and sexless eunuchs if they don't. "exercised" me enough to write a "sternly-worded" missive last night to the author of it 🙂:
Letter; QUOTE: "transgender female athletes" are, in fact, males. Rather depressing is the degree of scientific illiteracy, if not outright cluelessness, particularly so in "the newspaper of record", in that phrase. You may wish to consider exactly what are the biological definitions that are more or less the de facto standards, and which have largely been replicated by President Trump's EO order "restoring biological truth in government. From the Glossary of an article in the well regarded Oxford Journal of Molecular Human Reproduction:
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
https://web.archive.org/web/20221214064356/https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990?login=false
To a first approximation, to be a female is to have ovaries, and to be a male is to have testicles; those are the "necessary and sufficient conditions" to qualify as members of those categories. Those "transgender female athletes" haven't replaced their testicles with ovaries, and by those definitions, they're still males. All they have is some feminine traits or a desire to be treated as if they were actual females, as if they had changed sex. If wishes were horses then beggars would ride ..."
UNQUOTE
Part and parcel of that "nullius in verba". 🙂