[FeepingCreature]

This often happens:

1. X says that A did stupid thing B!

2. Y makes fun of X because obviously A didn't do stupid thing B.

3. Z (that's you) points out that A did a thing B', that is like B, only not stupid, but technically X described it accurately if tendentiously.

How do you deal with that? I don't think the human political brain is built for this level of indirection. But realistically this will now always be a fight between X's and Y's faction, because Z's position, though true, is too complicated to fit in a soundbite.

I don't know how we get back from that. If it were truth vs lies it would be manageable, but the truth isn't even on the table because it's too big to fit into the argumentative paradigm.

[watwut]

> 3. Z (that's you) points out that A did a thing B', that is like B, only not stupid, but technically X described it accurately if tendentiously.

It was not "technically described accurately" tho. It was a lie and comment you are responding to makes that clear.

So I think that response to that tactic would be to simply call it a lie rather then "technically accurate".

[FeepingCreature]

It's more accurate to say that "a paper studied gender in mice" than to say "no papers studied gender in mice".

edit: Nevermind I retract this. I think you're right about this paper in particular. I guess it comes down to whether a study involving weird things with gender hormones is "about gender"? But it still seems like the core debate is ultimately not very much attached to actual reality.

edit: It's like the "chemicals in the water that turn the freaking frogs gay" Alex Jones meme - if you thought "no that's nonsense there were no chemicals in the water" you would know less about Atrazine than Alex Jones did, despite Alex Jones also being wrong about what's going on with the frogs. The way in which you think that someone is wrong can also be wrong, even if that someone is in fact wrong.

[s1artibartfast]

I love that Alex Jones example.

Atrazine is causing hermaphroditic frogs, chemically castrating them, and turning male frogs into behavioral females.

Trump often plays in a similar gray zone (e.g. dual meaning, hyperbole, simplification) with language because It is often a winning tactic.

Trump and Jones generate soundbites that cant be easily refuted with democratic soundbites. Overly simplistic rebuttals often end up even less accurate and more detached from reality.

I have given some thought to why this is, and I think it is for a few reasons. First, I think that democratic respondents don't share as much linguistic & conceptual framework with the target audience (e.g. a feminized male frog = a gay frog).

Second, and relatedly, I think rebuttals are afraid to engage with certain topics, and therefore end up tying themselves up in knots.

Last, is they have an oppositional defiant disorder where everything must be denied. "YES and" responses are off limits.

They cant just say "Yes, and poor chemical regulation is turning the frogs gay, and that is a bad thing"

[watwut]

I think it is more simpler. The actual message is not something about frogs and chemicals, it is "liberals are stupid and demented" or "gay are feminine losers" or "fear, liberals harm children". It is basically just exaggerated stereotypical schoolyard bullying, except with massive audience. When you analyze chemicals and hermaphrodism frogs in response, you area acting like a stereotypical nerd who does not understand the social situation or just does not have it in him to hit back.

The message is not scientific complain about frog, read message is that "we" should band up against "them" and collectively now bully this or that person/group. It is in-group bonding based on common enemy that is vilified.

You can not counteract that with rational rebuttal. That never works, not on schoolyard, not in work, not in politics. The whole things is about making people feel certain way.

[fc417fc802]

> does not understand the social situation or just does not have it in him to hit back.

So I should adopt poor behavior because some other group did? There's sometimes a point to that for in person interactions with small groups but I don't see how that applies at larger scales. It becomes nothing more than an excuse for the poor behavior of your own in-group, which further exacerbates polarization for little to no benefit.

Realize that such behavior isn't going to change the mind of the opposition, and those in your group already agreed with you regardless. Then the bad behavior is a particularly harmful form of virtue signalling.

[watwut]

Self defense is not poor behavior. Responding to attack is not poor behavior. Submission is not good behavior.

On a larger scale, demanding that victims enable and accommodate their own bullies achieves exactly the same as in school yard. Bullies get stronger and dominant while victims get blamed for what bullies do.

That is why Canada is responding to tariffs. Whan goes on here is that republican enablers really want everyone else to just accept insults, lies and attacks passively and ineffectively. It feels good to them, because they are in group and harm to out group feels good.

[FeepingCreature]

I mean, I kinda feel you can say the same thing about many left talking points. "Republicans are evil and thuggish cavemen" has been barely subtext for well over twenty years!

[FeepingCreature]

I don't have a source, but I half-remember that some initial study on Atrazine assumed that the frogs were turning gay because the researcher hadn't realized the behavioral sex change.

[pas]

the paper used the word "gender" completely unnecessarily, no? those are sex hormones.

[enragedcacti]

No. The studies are attempting to understand the effects of a specific human medical intervention called "gender-affirming hormone therapy" using mice as an analog. GAHT is an umbrella of treatments that includes more than just cross-sex hormones (e.g. transwomen often take testosterone blockers in addition to estrogen) so its a very reasonable use of 'gender' in context.

[pas]

wait, I'm talking about the one linked upthread about asthma[1], and I think you are talking about this[2] one, right?

[1] Gonadal hormones as mediators of sex and gender influences in asthma - https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10891526

[2] A Mouse Model to Test the Effects of Gender-affirming Hormone Therapy on HIV Vaccine-induced Immune Responses - https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10849830

[enragedcacti]

my apologies, I mixed up which thread I was looking at. In that study I think gender is used because they are including transgender women as a population of interest, so similar to the other example gender is an aspect of what they are attempting to study, and sex hormones are the means by which it is being studied.

> We expect that our studies would serve to develop potential sex- and gender-specific treatments and recommendations for dosage of therapeutic agents to treat and prevent asthma in cis and transgender women.

It may also be that "sex and gender" is used because it isn't actually known what causes the differences observed in the population and that gendered socialization, treatment, or preferences could be contributing factors. This study for instance found that girls were less likely to see a doctor or get diagnosed with asthma even when controlling for symptom severity.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ppul.20373

[FeepingCreature]

It'd be fascinating - if considerably evil - to see if we could induce dysphoria in mice.

[tomrod]

> How do you deal with that?

Historically, with a slap, either open handed or with a glove to induce a dual. But we live in more genial times where such egregious violence is deemed unavailable.

> I don't think the human political brain is built for this level of indirection.

Indeed. People using incompetent and mistaken assumptions doesn't improve on their desire to tear up the political foundations in the US.