The Sand Trap

Ginger

12:21 AM

I'm a bit late on this one, but happy Transgender Awareness Week! (although ig it's almost over)

Jo King

there should be a transgender awareness week awareness week, cos i had no idea that was a thing

6

Unrelated String

true

forest

My thoughts exactly.

There are too many awareness days, weeks, and months.

But for what it's worth, I think most people are aware that transsexuality is a thing.

caird coinheringaahing

Yeah, that's not a great term to use, just as a heads up

forest

Transsexual?

Jo King

12:24 AM

^^

forest

I thought transvestite was the bad term since it implies it's a crossdressing fetish and not something deeper.

caird coinheringaahing

Yeah, the general aim is to move away from both of those, in favour of "transgender"

forest

Oh.

caird coinheringaahing

Specifically because being trans is a gender thing, not a sexuality thing

forest

Well it's the gender identity not matching the biological gender (aka sex).

I always thought transgender was pre-operation and transsexual was post-operation. But that's probably wrong.

Oh OK, so transsexual is a subset of transgender, according to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsexual.

Ginger

12:26 AM

^^ I think that was the terminology once

forest

> The term transsexual is a subset of transgender,[2][3] but some transsexual people reject the label of transgender.

caird coinheringaahing

@forest Yeah, people generally just say "pre-op" or "post-op", and, given that that's often a private medical thing, it's not used a lot unless relevant/necessary

forest

> Distinctions between the terms transgender and transsexual are commonly based on distinctions between gender and sex.[53][54] Transsexuality may be said to deal more with physical aspects of one's sex, while transgender considerations deal more with one's psychological gender disposition or predisposition, as well as the related social expectations that may accompany a given gender role.[55]

I wonder which is more common.

caird coinheringaahing

Transgender

forest

So transsexual is a result of gender dysphoria, whereas transgender is a social rejection of gender norms?

caird coinheringaahing

12:28 AM

Generally speaking, I use the term "transgender" to refer as a umbrella term to anyone who rejects their assigned gender at birth

forest

So then a tomboy would be transgender but not transsexual if they don't experience gender dysphoria?

Ginger

I don't think there really is one "correct" interpretation; I'd assume it's up to the individual

caird coinheringaahing

@forest I would disagree with this, and I've never heard of anyone in trans circles with this take

forest

@cairdcoinheringaahing Oh, huh.

So if a tomboy isn't rejecting gender norms (and is merely not following them), they aren't transgender?

But if they actively reject them then they are, and if they get an operation or want to due to gender dysphoria, then they're transsexual in addition to transgender? Am I understanding that correctly?

caird coinheringaahing

Generally speaking tho: it's considered rude to refer to someone who identifies as trans by their birth gender, or by their deadname if they chose to change their name. It's also generally considered private information whether someone medically transitions or not, so having a term to distinguish between people who do and don't can be fairly invasive

@Ginger This is usually the best approach, as it varies from person to person. It's just that, especially in the trans circles I'm in, I'm aware of "transsexual" being used often in a derogatory way, so people prefer "transgender"

forest

12:32 AM

That's so weird, because Wikipedia says the exact opposite (that transgender as a term is often rejected by transsexuals), but then on another page, they agree and say that transsexual is often rejected by transgenders.

Ginger

@cairdcoinheringaahing cool

Jo King

i think i've heard of like one person who wanted to be called transsexual over transgender

caird coinheringaahing

@forest It's a varied topic, that changes from person to person. There's very little "universal" consensus

forest

Hm

Hard to know what term to use when even the people who use the terms to identify themselves don't agree.

I'll just use whatever Wikipedia says is standard then.

caird coinheringaahing

E.g. I'd consider myself under the "trans" umbrella, but generally refer to myself as non-binary or genderfluid instead of transgender

@forest Yeah. My approach is to use the term I'm most familiar with, and change that if someone tells me they prefer a different term

forest

12:34 AM

I personally believe that gender is a binary, but is also a spectrum (in the same way that digital logic is binary, but there is a spectrum of voltages). That may just be because the definition of binary I'm used to is not always absolute, but is usually absolute (i.e. there are far more people whose gender expression and identity match their biological gender such that it could be described as binary even if there's variation).

But that's a view from statistics and not linguistics.

(Of course, I come from a culture where this is rarely talked about, so I know little about the intricacies of the jargon as used in trans* culture)

hyper-neutrino

in that case I'd still call it a spectrum and just that the majorty of people fit within two very small zones of the spectrum

forest

@hyper-neutrino Which is typically referred to as binary if the peaks are strong enough.

Seggan

how about we move this to ottnb

hyper-neutrino

sure

forest

Good idea.

Ginger

12:39 AM

@forest I think you mean trans.* :p

hyper-neutrino

← 50 messages moved from The Nineteenth Byte

forest

Nah I mean trans or transs or transss or transsss. :P

Ginger

I may be stupid.

Jo King

@forest you're not operating on the same meaning of binary as most people would, which leads to some confusion

Ginger

binary == binary

a binary is either 1 or 0

forest

12:41 AM

No, a binary is one of two values. It need not be 1 or 0.

But a binary can also be a norm, even if there is variation (depending on context).

Ginger

@forest fair enough

forest

So in C, a bool is always either true or false, whereas in electronics engineering, a low may be 0V or 0.2V, and a high may be 5V or 4.8V or 5.2V. So the "norm" is that a high is 5V and a low is 0V, but it varies in practice. Likewise biologically we're limited to male and female expression, but there's always variation because humans are complex systems.

Ginger

@forest I personally don't agree with this, but that's just my opinion

hyper-neutrino

yeah what jo king said. i think of binary as strictly just a system of only two components which the common dictionary definition seems to mostly line up with; i'm sure you're not wrong but i think using binary to refer to "it's a spectrum but heavily distributed within two peaks" is probably easy to misunderstand when not talking about like EE :P

also by that logic height is a binary, you're either short or tall (i'm being facetious but hopefully that sort of makes sense?)

forest

Height is relative.

It requires a third component, a comparator.

Jo King

12:43 AM

while you're technically true, if you have to follow up your terminology with an explanation on voltage, then you're not using the usual definition of the word

forest

It's like the word theory. To a layman, it means "educated guess", but the precise meaning is quite different.

Jo King

especially in regards to gender, where saying gender is binary has a very explicit meaning

forest

I think it's binary in that we are biologically "intended" (quotes are important here) to fit into one or the other.

But what biology "intends" for us is not always what is right for us personally.

But that's harder to describe without getting into attractor dynamics in embryo morphology. :P

A lot of people fall into the fallacy of appeal to nature, where something that is "intended" by nature is seen to be morally right. Normality does not beget morality, after all. It merely explains why the statistical distribution is what it is.

Jo King

gender is more of a cultural evolution vs sex as a biological evolution

forest

It's biological in that it's neurological, which means it can be studied in light of evolutionary biology. One could say, while anthropomorphizing a blind, incremental process, that evolution attempts to align personality traits with biological gender in a way that improves the fitness of the species. This can mean aggressiveness in males, who are more competitive due to reproduction requiring less resources on their part. Likewise with choosiness in females who have more to lose.

Some bigots use that fact to assume that being anything but what is "normal" (i.e. typical or common) is therefore unnatural and bad, which is blatantly untrue.

That's the case with many animals, not just humans. The thing that makes us different is that our brains are so complicated that our gender expression goes beyond just a few dimensions of personality. With such complexity comes inevitable variations (if we were engineered, it would be considered an aberration, but we're not, despite what some bigots think).

Jo King

12:55 AM

i think where we disagree is that I believe that the majority of gender expression can be attributed to culture rather than biology

forest

Culture is largely a reflection of biology.

But I believe our disagreement is dialectic in nature.

Jo King

that too

forest

Even gender stereotypes such as favorite colors have biological explanations.

Same with variations in emotional responses (e.g. "urge to cry" which is a social thing just as it is biological).

Even choice in jewelry is profoundly influenced by biology. Now obviously, culture is hysteretic, so biological biases are not the entirety of the story and current and past culture play a role...

Jo King

i don't know enough about biological responses to discuss

forest

My light bulb just went out, wtf.

It's an LED. That's not supposed to happen.

Jo King

1:01 AM

@forest regarding this, the reason you get a lot of pushback when starting these discussions (at least that i've seen a couple), even though your points seem reasonable when explained, is mostly just using the wrong terminology and triggering people's immediate worst reactions

e.g. if someone came up to me and started talking about transsexuals and how gender is binary, i'd probably want to punch them

forest

@JoKing I assume some people expect that I have an agenda when I use terms in a way that is similar to the way used by those who antagonize them?

Jo King

exactly

Ginger

and you do have an agenda, but it's just the "moderate SE and do code golf" kind

forest

@Ginger Well yeah, but that's not a hidden agenda. :P

Ginger

it is if you put it in a box :b

forest

1:03 AM

Not if the box is transparent.

Jo King

some people are a hidden agender

forest

I'm two hidden genders, and one non-hidden one in a trench coat.

Ginger

the cosmic censorship hypothesis suggests that we can never observe your gender, only a secure hash

forest

@Ginger There was actually a recent research paper likening some sort of cryptographic hardness assumption to some theory regarding black holes! I haven't read it yet though, but it sounds amusing.

Ginger

in The Nineteenth Byte, Aug 26 at 20:47, by pxeger

Oh guys do you know Unrelated's theorem, one of the most famous proofs in 21st century mathematics? Yeah it was that one that concluded with "yeah, maybe, I guess"

forest

1:06 AM

The proofs were too large to fit in the margin of this comment, I suppose.

Ginger

huh, I have now broken 5k network-wide rep

over 4000 of which is on CGCC d:

forest

Congrats.

Ginger

why does flatpak always take so long to install things

ffs

lyxal

@Ginger you would too if you had to assemble ikea furniture on demand

Ginger

I'm sorry you "install" furniture?

tf kinda [[Cyber World]] yall got in australia

forest

1:10 AM

apt-get -y install desk

Ginger

blech apt-get

forest

@Ginger Flatpak is awful.

Ginger

Real coders use apt

@forest ikr

lyxal

@Ginger you "install" cabinets and other things like that

forest

@Ginger emerge -uv sys-furniture/desk

Ginger

1:11 AM

I'm only using it because it was the easiest way to get the software I want

lyxal

@forest at least it isn't javascript makefiles

Ginger

@lyxal cabinets != furniture

forest

Flatpak, Snap, AppContainers... they all suck.

Ginger

@lyxal AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

forest

Build from source or go home!

lyxal

1:12 AM

@Ginger edwardjonesrealestate.com/are-cabinets-considered-furniture

> Yes, kitchen cabinets are considered furniture. Cabinets can be made from a variety of materials, such as wood, plastic, or metal. They are usually used to store plates, pots, pans, or other kitchen items. Your kitchen cabinets are both furniture and accessories.

Ginger

@forest hey wait that's just portage

@lyxal my canonical version says they aren't

forest

Or Slackware which doesn't even have a true package manager. :P

Or LFS for masochists.

lyxal

@Ginger and my canonical version doesn't care that yours says they aren't

Ginger

or waterjet .jet + Makefile once I get around to finishing it

lyxal

@Ginger Jake

forest

1:14 AM

I wish building furniture was as easy as building a program from source.

Ginger

@lyxal yeah? mine doesn't care that yours doesn't care that mine says they aren't

lyxal

> Next we’re going to change the way you get rewarded for what you build by implementing a blockchain protocol that finally recognizes your hard work in open-source. You won’t have to use our web3 features to use tea, but we think you’ll want to. Check out our whitepaper for more details.

from tea package manager

why the hell do I need a blockchain in a package manager

Ginger

@lyxal hey! burn in hell tea

lyxal

package management doesn't need to be web3

it just needs to get packages and allow packages to be published

forest

What the actual fuck?

lyxal

1:17 AM

monetisation can happen on web2 if need be

forest

We don't need another goddamn package manager, much less one with "blockchain".

Ginger

soon we're going to have Web3 linux that uses a blockchain kernel and a NFT icon set and a cryptocurrency package manager and collapses spectacularly when the developer is revealed to be a begging, stealing, lying, cheating asshole

forest

Integrate NFTs into kernel DRM. :D

lyxal

Non-fungible terminal commands

Ginger

blockchain build tools

forest

1:20 AM

It's a little annoying that iptables is being replaced with nft since it makes searching for the commands harder.

user

1:31 AM

I thought that tea thing was a joke but it's not

lyxal

I wish it was

user

The only blockchain I need is git

lyxal

but alas, it's more web3 bs being advertised in StackOverflow podcasts

user

This feels like an AI was fed a bunch of buzzwords

It wasn't like this when I was growing up

Seggan

web3 is a fad imo

user

1:32 AM

I'm afraid for you kids

Seggan

nobody understands blockchain

forest

This generation of kids are in for a rough time.

user

Nah this web3 nonsense will probably pass

forest

@Seggan Except cryptographers, who are the very people who consider it useless for 99% of the crap it's advertised for!

user

What's the 1% it's useful for?

forest

1:33 AM

Cryptocurrency.

lyxal

@user hopefully it'll all be over soon

I'm just here waiting for binance to eventually go broke

forest

Everything else that people claim it's useful for could be done with hash chains.

Ginger

I wonder when binance will pull a FTX and go foom

Seggan

@user thats literally what i just said

forest

I hope all centralized exchanges go foom.

Cryptocurrency is supposed to be cash with wings.

Seggan

1:34 AM

@forest even crypto(currency) is useless

user

@Seggan My bad

Ginger

~~well I do have this nuclear weapon~~

forest

Using a central exchange is a bastardization of that ideal.

@Seggan No, it's useful for the one thing that it is.

user

I feel like it's impossible to maintain that ideal though

forest

I use it and often get paid in it.

user

1:34 AM

Eventually you're going to get centralized exchanges again right?

forest

If we do, they should be purely exchanges and not online wallets.

lyxal

@Seggan not exactly - it's great for rug-pulls and money laundering!

forest

As long as they can hold your money, they're a single point of failure.

Well, I use it for laundering, but only insofar as I don't pay taxes on it. :P

Ginger

@lyxal and memes! can't forget the memes!

lyxal

@forest gaming

forest

1:36 AM

Gaming?

Seggan

@forest its too volatile

lyxal

in The Nineteenth Byte, Jan 22 at 1:33, by lyxal

Gamers dodge tax like they dodge women

forest

So? It shouldn't be used as a long-term investment.

Volatility only matters if you're speculating.

Ginger

@lyxal hey that got featured in the lyxal screaming vid didn't it

lyxal

yes

user

1:38 AM

@lyxal I'd assume gamers aren't very good at dodging stuff given that they lead pretty sedentary lifestyles :P (also, why are throwing humans at gamers?)

Ginger

@user to test our human railgun of course

lyxal

^

user

...I can't tell if you're setting up for a certain pun there

Ginger

quick, figure out which pun he means so we can make it!

Seggan

@forest consider the fact that bitcoin fell 68% in a month in 2018

forest

1:45 AM

@Seggan I never keep it for more than a few days.

And the serious volatility is caused by idiot speculators.

It didn't used to be that volatile.

Seggan

i dont see how it is better than good ol debit cards

forest

Censorship resistance and pseudonymity.

If you pay me to pop a shell, I'm not accepting a check or giving you my PayPal.

Ginger

although it's pretty easy to not be anonymous with bitcoin

forest

Hence why I said pseudonymous. You need Monero or Zcash to be anonymous.

Also, some just don't like the idea of putting the government in charge of their finances.

hyper-neutrino

2:00 AM

speaking of crypto, @forest have you heard of hashgraphs and if so what do you know about them

i came across them the other day and supposedly it's a basis for decentralized ledgers that's way more efficient and less environmentally destructive than blockchains but i didn't understand how it worked really

forest

Never heard of it.

It must be some other PoW system.

Hashgraph

Hashgraph is a distributed ledger technology that has been described as an alternative to blockchains. The hashgraph technology is currently patented, is used by the public ledger Hedera, and there is a grant to implement the patent as a result of the Apache 2.0's Grant of Patent License (provision #3) so long as the implementation conforms to the terms of the Apache license. The native cryptocurrency of the Hedera Hashgraph system is HBAR. Unlike blockchains, hashgraphs do not bundle data into blocks or use miners to validate transactions. Instead, hashgraphs use a "gossip about gossip" protocol...

It's patented, and thus is shite.

hyper-neutrino

lol valid

supposedly it has like several orders of magnitude better transactions/s than btc and eth, is a tiny fraction of the price, a lot faster transaction confirmation, and takes several orders of magnitude less power

which all sounds... a bit too good to be true, but i'm unfamiliar with what it actually is unlike blockchains which i sort of get

forest

Didn't Eth switch to some environmentally-friendly PoW?

hyper-neutrino

i think they use proof of stake which is supposedly less environmentally harmful? i am not exactly sure

idk what proof of stake is, i'd have to look more into that

oh so it seems that proof of stake is literally what it sounds like, prove that you have stake (basically that you own money) so validators instead of performing wasteful computations so that you need 51% of computational power to hijack the network, just prove their worth so you need 51% of the worth

or something along those lines i'm sure i'm oversimplifying

which is very prone to attack when the blockchain is new and so i think ETH started out with PoW and then upgraded to PoS later? i read somewhere in the ETH wikipedia article that the protocol has a "difficulty bomb" which supposedly makes mining exponentially harder as time goes on with the purpose being incentivizing upgrades to the protocol with the original intention to force the network to eventually upgrade to PoS once it was developed enough

this is still rather confusing to me but i think i vaguely get how that works

Ginger

ah yes, a Power of Spaghetti-based cryptocurrency :p

Jo King

2:10 AM

switching to PoS is the Merge stage, next are the Surge, the Verge, the Purge and the Splurge stages

Ginger

lmao

Jo King

do you think i am joking

4

forest

You are Jo King.

Ginger

that's the joke

Radvylf Programs

3:21 AM

Soon we'll see low quality point-of-sale systems that support proof-of-stake cryptocurrency, or PoS PoS PoS

3

Radvylf Programs

4:53 AM

I'm starting to think Elon Musk just wanted to sabotage Twitter from the start, and had to diguise it

emanresu A

roses are red
violets are blue
in soviet russia
poem reads you

2

Radvylf Programs

Even someone who's proven themselves to be completely incompetent as many times as Musk has can't possibly have messed things up as comphrehensively as he has with this

emanresu A

Yeah lol

Ginger

3:50 PM

@RadvylfPrograms bold of you to assume that

stupidity truly has no bounds

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