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   The Dread Slender Gnome (gnomeshatecheese@spinster.xyz)'s status on Saturday, 12-Aug-2023 12:28:44 JST The Dread Slender Gnome

   In several of his recent discussions, Peter Boghossian has brought up the substitution hypothesis.

   That is, that the reason genderism and other similarly cultish ideas have had such success, is that organised religion has been pushed to the wayside. According to the hypothesis, this has left a vacuum because most people yearn for, essentially, religion. Genderism and other similar fads have then moved into this vacuum.

   I have several problems with this hypothesis, but I think the biggest one is the following.
   It doesn’t fit the data.

   If it were true, one would expect genderism et.al. to have the greatest sway in the most secular countries, quite possibly even originating in them. Yet, this is not the case. In several polls the most secular country has been found to be Estonia, if measured by the population’s lack of religion. Yet, Estonia is not even on the scene when it comes to genderism. Nordic countries are also well known to be highly secularised, yet they have been adopters, not leaders in genderism. And Sweden and Finland were first ones to officially announce they would stop giving endochrine disruptors for adolescents.

   Instead, the “patient zero” of genderism, as Helen Joyce put it, was the U.S. A country which I would argue, is one of the least secular western countries.
   Ergo: the data doesn’t fit the hypothesis.

   • Embed this notice
     ???????? ??? (jennifer_lee@spinster.xyz)'s status on Saturday, 12-Aug-2023 12:28:41 JST ???????? ???

     in reply to

     • LostInCalifornia
     • Cousin_Martha_Corey
     @Cousin_Isobel @Gnomeshatecheese @LostInCalifornia Yes, I do believe there are some people who will believe ANYTHING, if it comes from a source they trust. Even something as profoundly stupid as the idea someone could literally change from one sex to another. Unfortunately, a huge number of people blindly trust their news sources, completely oblivious to how much power the LGBTQ lobby has to dictate "facts" to the media.
     
     "... I think a lot of people who oppose religion want to support science..."
     
     ^^^ THIS! We all have questions, and we've got to get our answers somewhere, right? Science is the default source for non-believers. Non-religious people want to think of themselves as more modern and evolved than religious people. Quite often we are. It's not that difficult to find problems with a religion. The primitive authors of sacred texts always had their own agenda, and used fear, superstition, and violence to promote their beliefs. The problem is that promoters of various "scientific" ideas operate nearly the same way.
     
     Non-believers often see "science" as a monolithic body of knowledge that has some kind of central clearing house with reliable fact-checkers and a mysterious authority that prohibits the circulation of misinformation. We rely on whistleblowers and lawsuits to keep everyone honest, though history has shown us that integrity goes out the window whenever money is involved. In our own way, we are just as guilty of giving in to blind faith when we refuse to perform our own due diligence.
     
     Getting to the truth is much more difficult than it used to be. Activists have given themselves permission to attack their opponents by any means necessary, including circulating outright lies and making false accusations against people they KNOW are innocent. They don't care. They tell themselves the end justifies the means because everyone who disagrees is a nazi bigot who deserves to die.
     
     And now these maniacs have hijacked science. Throw enough $$$ at a funding-starved clinic and they will churn out whatever results you want. Once someone has packaged any kind of woo bullshit as "science", the woo-mongers will proliferate like crazy, and create official-looking websites for laboratories and research organizations that only exist in cyberspace. These sites are becoming more adept at mimicking the legitimate presentation of peer-reviewed studies. Once people see a science-washed claim appear in several places, they assume it's been cross-verified and must be true. Pin any of this garbage to a colorful feel-good social movement, and the public support keeps the $$$ flowing.
     
     Even the illusion of support is powerful. Most people still DON'T support trans ideology. Major medical corporations want a chunk of that $$$, and are also motivated by the appearance of legitimacy that so many NGOs have bestowed upon gender woo, that it feels safer to go along with it now, and simply claim later that "everyone else was doing it".
     
     In social psychology, pluralistic ignorance is a situation in which a majority of group members privately reject a norm, but go along with it because they incorrectly assume that most others accept it. This is also described as "no one believes, but everyone thinks that everyone believes". This is why the lie is effective. It's become potentially dangerous to even ASK another person if they believe. People are wearing their compliance like body armor. It's a sad situation when a pronoun pin could save your career.
   • Embed this notice
     Cousin_Martha_Corey (cousin_isobel@spinster.xyz)'s status on Saturday, 12-Aug-2023 12:28:41 JST Cousin_Martha_Corey

     in reply to

     • LostInCalifornia
     • ???????? ???

     @Jennifer_Lee @Gnomeshatecheese @LostInCalifornia Gosh, all of this is overwhelming and sad.

     I agree with everything you wrote here.

     Re: pluralistic ignorance, I want everyone to understand that it is mostly dangerous (e.g., to career) to discuss this issue online. Almost everyone probably can discuss it with a few more people in real life than we currently are. I mean, even with people we don’t know extremely well. We can innocently bring up single-sex spaces as though there is nothing wrong with mentioning them. It’s really quite safe. The people who want to get us want to get us by sifting through online content.

     Seahorses are horses likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Cousin_Martha_Corey (cousin_isobel@spinster.xyz)'s status on Saturday, 12-Aug-2023 12:28:42 JST Cousin_Martha_Corey

     in reply to

     • LostInCalifornia
     • ???????? ???

     @Gnomeshatecheese @Jennifer_Lee @LostInCalifornia Boghossian might be saying that because, in the United States, where he lives and where I live, atheists are the #1 group embracing gender identity ideology. Presbyterians, Episcopals, some types of Lutherans, and some Jewish movements certainly give atheists a run for our money, but we are still #1.

     I don’t think gender identity ideology just naturally pops up where religion leaves a vacuum (whether in an individual or in a society). It just happens to be affecting our atheists because people with political and financial motives inserted it into our society and atheists were the ones who were most vulnerable. It could have been something else if something else had been profitable.

     I also think U.S. polarization, in which non-Republicans are thrilled to embrace anything that will help them differentiate themselves from Republicans, is a big factor.

     What I’d like to know about Estonia is whether something different (but also stupid) has infected that country’s many atheists, or are they doing well? If they are doing well, do Estonian atheists “do atheism” in some kind of different and better way? What can we in the U.S. and the rest of the world learn from Estonian atheists?

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     ???????? ??? (jennifer_lee@spinster.xyz)'s status on Saturday, 12-Aug-2023 12:28:42 JST ???????? ???

     in reply to

     • LostInCalifornia
     • Cousin_Martha_Corey
     @Cousin_Isobel @Gnomeshatecheese @LostInCalifornia I find it so WEIRD that all of the atheist and "skeptic" pages on social media are refusing to call out gender woo as bullshit. How can they fail to recognize the zealotry of TRAs as religious indoctrination? Maybe part of the problem is that most women get run out of atheist pages, so there isn't anyone left to explain WHY trans ideology is toxic. A surprising number of atheist men are just insufferable misogynists, and they will thread-stalk women in those groups. Apparently they believe "logic" is their domain.
     
     Men ruin every fucking thing. Stupid dicks.
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     Cousin_Martha_Corey (cousin_isobel@spinster.xyz)'s status on Saturday, 12-Aug-2023 12:28:42 JST Cousin_Martha_Corey

     in reply to

     • LostInCalifornia
     • ???????? ???

     @Jennifer_Lee @Gnomeshatecheese @LostInCalifornia Do you think some of them genuinely think that “science” has discovered something new about the sexes, e.g. that it really is possible for the mind to be one sex and the body to be another? Doctors are frequently brought before legislatures to explain how “trans girls” are exactly like “other girls.” They are lying, of course, but I think a lot of people who oppose religion want to support science, instead, and now that “science” is so corrupt, it’s hard to know where to turn..

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     LostInCalifornia (lostincalifornia@spinster.xyz)'s status on Saturday, 12-Aug-2023 12:28:43 JST LostInCalifornia

     in reply to

     @Gnomeshatecheese It has been twisted in the US. Defanged and made into fashion.

   • Embed this notice
     The Dread Slender Gnome (gnomeshatecheese@spinster.xyz)'s status on Saturday, 12-Aug-2023 12:28:43 JST The Dread Slender Gnome

     in reply to

     • LostInCalifornia

     @LostInCalifornia Maybe the Americans just like fads and fashions more…?

   • Embed this notice
     ???????? ??? (jennifer_lee@spinster.xyz)'s status on Saturday, 12-Aug-2023 12:28:43 JST ???????? ???

     in reply to

     • LostInCalifornia
     @Gnomeshatecheese @LostInCalifornia American youth are First World privileged over-protected and under-educated narcissistic brats who lost their minds out of boredom in covid lockdown. They managed to subdue their helicopter parents with tantrums and threats, so it's only natural they would carry those tactics forward into adulthood. What better avenue to vent their bitter discontentment at the world than joining an informal pseudo paramilitary civilian army that will take anyone without screening or training, where aggressive anti-social behavior is celebrated, and the targets of their wrath are the perfect stand-ins for Mommy? It's not punching down if you identify as the victim and position the real victim as the perpetrator, right? The upside is that everyone now sees Antifa as a bunch of pear-shaped aggro manbabies with stupid hair.
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     The Dread Slender Gnome (gnomeshatecheese@spinster.xyz)'s status on Saturday, 12-Aug-2023 12:28:43 JST The Dread Slender Gnome

     in reply to

     • LostInCalifornia
     • Cousin_Martha_Corey
     • ???????? ???

     @Jennifer_Lee @LostInCalifornia This could almost just as well go into the discussion I was having with @Cousin_Isobel about antifa…

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     LostInCalifornia (lostincalifornia@spinster.xyz)'s status on Saturday, 12-Aug-2023 12:28:44 JST LostInCalifornia

     in reply to

     @Gnomeshatecheese I’d say collapse of the women’s movement, not religion.

   • Embed this notice
     The Dread Slender Gnome (gnomeshatecheese@spinster.xyz)'s status on Saturday, 12-Aug-2023 12:28:44 JST The Dread Slender Gnome

     in reply to

     • LostInCalifornia

     @LostInCalifornia Much more plausible. Though the women’s movement has been much more muted in the countries I mentioned as far as I can tell. Or rather not explicitly visible in the same way.