All services have outages. The difference is that when Outlook goes out (https://uptime.qodex.ai/outlook/incidents), it's a happy occasion because nobody can work and we all take an hour off, but when something like Proton goes offline, we're the only ones who can't access our important stuff.
Anyway, point is, Proton is generally very reliable, but shit happens.
> Following social norms common to one sex doesn't imply one is that sex.
This is about gender, not sex, and that's not the definition I used for "gender" that you agreed with. You agreed with this definition of "gender": "female gender refers to the social roles and norms associated with being a woman".
> For me the benefit appears obvious (and cynical): power
Together with atheists and muslims, trans people are the most hated group of people in the US. I mean, I do think that the Democrats are mostly craven idiots, but "let's find the most hated people in the US and do a power grab by aligning with them" is so stupid that even they wouldn't do that.
If you genuinely believe that advocating for trans people is a power grab, I think you have a very skewed view of politics.
> some people genuinely believe that males can be born with a female brain/soul, and vice versa.
Your brain creates your perception of your gender. But trans people don't have a "female brain". There isn't a single aspect of your brain that determines your gender; there isn't really a commonly accepted scientific definition of a "male brain" or a "female brain."
However, trans people do have statistically measurable differences in their brains, which tend to make their brains align more with their gender identity than their birth-assigned sex.
Anyway, all of this isn't at all necessary to believe that trans people should be treated kindly and with respect, which is what this is ultimately about.
> There are many definitions of what a "doctor" could be
Right. So if you ask somebody, "Do you sincerely believe that a person becomes a woman simply by self-declaring it?" you need to tell them which definition of the word you're using, or they'll be talking about something different from what you think they are.
They're different models with different philosophies behind them. This is anecdotal with a user group of 1, but in my experience:
Claude has a stronger personality and is more creative. If you give it vague instructions, it's better at filling in the blanks with reasonable ideas.
GPT-5.5 is better at following instructions. If you know exactly what you want, it will do it without going off the rails. It's also less likely to imply that you're dumb, but I don't really care about that. Some people do.
> One can disagree with you and still believe you have the right to live how you like
You're missing the point. "Disagreement" implies some level of care. You can't claim to not give a fuck, and also claim to disagree. These two statements are incompatible.
Example: I disagree that trans people should be treated poorly and insulted. Therefore, I care that trans people are not treated poorly and insulted.
> Your first sentence doesn’t imply the second
Yes, it does. Passage as stated: "female gender refers to the social roles and norms associated with being a woman."
Letting A = "someone follows the social roles and norms associated with being a woman" and B = "someone has the female gender," the passage becomes:
Premise (definition): To have the female gender is to follow the social roles and norms associated with being a woman — so A implies B.
Premise: This person follows those roles and norms (A).
Conclusion: Therefore, this person has the female gender (B).
Symbolically: A → B, A, ∴ B — a straightforward modus ponens. I knew that my logic courses would eventually become useful. Just kidding, logic is always useful.
> As long as we agree that being an asshole shouldn’t be against the law then live your life.
I agree.
> For the record, this wasn’t an issue for me until the left made it a wedge issue
The left didn't make this a wedge issue. This is obvious; there is nothing for the left to gain from doing that. The left did the same dumb thing they always do: take a moral stance and then get kicked in the teeth by bad-faith polemicists who'd rather talk about bullshit that never happens to anyone but sounds kinda scary than about actual shit that actually happens and makes them look bad.
I'm not sure if you really don't understand what you just agreed to. You initially claimed that it doesn't matter what "women" means when you ask, "Do you sincerely believe that a person becomes a woman simply by self-declaring it?"
With a reductio ad absurdum disproof, you've now shown your claim to be false and agreed that the definition of "woman" matters. So if you're still interested in the answer to your question, you may now provide your definition of the word "woman."
> So, according to the definition that a woman is anyone who says they're a woman, anyone who says they're a woman is a woman. That's a tautology, so it's obviously true.
Yes, only to then go on to write stuff like "disagreeing with the way you live". I don't know if you're lying to yourself or to me, but you very obviously, very clearly do give a fuck.
> This is the feminist definition of gender, and I am perfectly happy to use it in certain contexts
Right, so you agree that the female gender refers to the social roles and norms associated with being a woman. So anyone who follows these social roles and norms has the female gender. If a biological male follows the social roles and norms associated with being a woman, her gender is female.
That doesn't say anything other than that this is the definition of that word.
> Men can be feminine. Women can be masculine. It does not imply that men can be women, or that women can be men.
But you just agreed to the definition of the female gender under which biological men can have the female gender, and vice versa.
Honestly, this is a fucking stupid discussion. In the end, it doesn't matter. If somebody asks you to treat them a certain way that costs you absolutely nothing and makes their lives better and you don't, you're just being an asshole. In all likelihood, you will interact with maybe a dozen trans people in your whole life. If you want to be an asshole to people in those dozen times, that's your problem, but it really doesn't matter to your life either way. All you achieved is being an asshole.
Meanwhile, we're wasting our lives discussing these stupid identity politics wedge issues while we have another record summer thanks to global warming. Just because you want to ensure that you can be an asshole to the twelve transgender people you meet in your life.
> nor should I be criminalised for disagreeing with the way you live
See, that's exactly it. Why do you give a fuck how other people live their lives? You're clearly not a "don't tread on me" liberal if you "disagree with the way people live."
GTFO out of other people's lives. It's not for you. Leave them alone. Don't talk to them. Don't tell them you think they're mentally ill; you're clearly not an expert, so your opinion is worth jack shit. Don't peek inside their pants. Don't ask them what their chromosomes are. Let them pee and poop in peace. Don't write online comments about them. Don't bring up pedophiles unless somebody actually abuses children.
Just leave them the fuck alone. Leave them out of your own issues; they're for you to deal with. Don't make your issues other people's problems.
In short, be an actual liberal.
> Okay, what is it? Provide some evidence for its existence please.
You want me to provide evidence that gender exists? The word "gender" refers to the social roles and norms attached to being a man or a woman. Stuff like divisions of labor, dress codes, and behavioral expectations. You clearly agree that these social roles and norms exist, because you're discussing them with me. If you didn't agree, you couldn't discuss them with me.
So I present your own comments as evidence that gender exists.
> They/we are perfectly happy for a man to call himself a woman
This is plainly false, as we shall immediately see.
> The part where we draw the line is a) government policies forcing us to take part in the delusion, and b) schools reinforcing it with children.
Ah, see, you're "perfectly happy," but you can't go a single sentence without calling it a delusion, bringing up pedophilia, calling the idea that people can feel a gender different from their sex "crazy" and pretending that you're being "forced to join in" and that people are "preying on children."
You can't even pretend for one short comment.
> that one could have a gendered soul distinct from their biological sex
This is not what gender is. There is no evidence for any soul at all, and souls have nothing to do with gender.
You're making claims about these laws, but you continue to fail to provide examples of what you're talking about, and now you're asking me to provide examples of what you are talking about?
You asked me this: "So you reject laws that require people to affirm my gender based on nothing but my self identification?"
I genuinely do not know exactly what you are referring to. I might be for or against such a law, depending on what exactly it says. Yet you refuse to provide examples, and then you accuse me of dodging, which is pretty funny.
> I'm not asking you to define what makes a woman. It doesn't matter to the point what you or I believe makes a woman, except the distinction that it is (or isn't) as simple as declaring it.
This is an absolutely nonsensical thing to write, and if you could take a step back and consider what you're actually saying, I believe you would notice the same. Of course it matters which definition of the word "woman" you use when you ask me whether I "believe that a person becomes a woman simply by self-declaring it".
As I have pointed out above, the word "woman" has different definitions. So if you ask me whether I believe that "a person becomes a woman simply by self-declaring it", then the answer is yes for some definitions of the term, and no for others, like I already explained to you.
An example: if your definition of a woman you're using here is "a person with XY chromosomes", then the answer is "no, I do not believe that".
Another example: if your definition of a woman is "a person who identifies as female" (which, to be clear, is one definition of the term), then the answer is tautologically "yes, I do believe that".
In short, asking somebody "Do you sincerely believe that a person becomes a woman simply by self-declaring it?" without saying what definition of "woman" you're using is a dumbass thing to say. That's not difficult to understand. So it is you who is dissembling, dodging, and pretending that you don't understand what I'm saying, or what people are saying when they say things like "trans women are women."
I think you intentionally refuse to understand them. I believe you are not arguing in good faith.
So I'm putting you on the spot again: Stop dissembling. Stop pretending you don't understand basic English. Stop pretending you don't understand what people are saying. Stop dodging. Tell me what definition of "woman" you are using, and you will have the answer to your incredibly disingenuous question.
> You are attempting the same tactic as the other guy: Diversion.
You're still not clarifying what you're actually saying, so I would level the same accusation against you.
> Do you actually believe that any person becomes a woman simply by self-identification?
I believe that trans women are women and should be treated as women.
> there are various laws that are being campaigned for
It would be helpful if you could be more specific.
> My tactic is to put you on the spot. My suspicion is that neither of you actually hold either of these beliefs. You're not principled in this regard, you merely want to signal that you're "good people", or something along those lines. That is, you're making it easy for yourselves by being disingeneous.
I find this line of reasoning incredibly interesting, because it reveals a lot about the people who make it. You, in particular. And absolutely nothing about me.
My experience is that when people make assumptions about others' motivations, it's often grounded in their personal, subjective experience. "I am reasoning like this or motivated by this, so I'm assuming that other people are reasoning like this or motivated by this, as well."
So the assumption that people hold pro-social, humanistic positions primarily due to some kind of "virtue signaling" implies that you are extrapolating from your own subjective, personal experience. It's something that would never have occurred to me to level against another human, because it never factored into my thinking - and yet it's being leveled at me.
So I would suggest to you that not everybody is like you. I empathize with other people. I genuinely do not want people to be treated badly or to be hurt. I do believe people when they tell me about their own subjective, lived experience. When someone tells me they have always felt like a man or a woman, I believe them, and, given what these words mean, I believe they are men or women in all the ways that matter in everyday contexts in which I interact with them.
That doesn't mean I believe they have different chromosomes than the ones they were born with, if that's what you mean by "becomes a woman." But, again, you're being very nonspecific, which makes it difficult to have a good-faith discussion.
So if your tactic is to "put me on the spot", I would encourage you to apply this to yourself and genuinely consider what you actually believe, and why you believe it.
This is such a vague claim that it is impossible to answer it in good faith. What do you mean by "affirm one's gender"?
And what else are you supposed to do than treat people by how they present themselves and ask you to treat them? You can't exactly ask people for a gene test, or a peek inside their pants, or whatever else it is that would satisfy your curiosity.
You are unfortunately correct that accosting people and demanding information about their sex or gender has become a right-wing position recently. Which is quite curious, given how traditionally, you would expect extreme individualism and liberalism of the "don't tread on me" kind to be a right-wing position.
So where does this leave us? Are LLMs right-wing because they correctly point out that "there are only two sexes and every human fits into one of them" is not biologically correct, or that gender is a social construct? Or are they just, you know, correct when they say that?
This is absolutely meaningless when "right-wing" positions have become correlated with corporate propaganda like global warming denial. You would expect a more correct model to become associated with a left-leaning political association simply because it will answer contentious questions correctly, and at the moment, that usually (but not always) correlates with what people on the left tend to believe.
The question is not whether models "lean politically left", the question is whether they are correct. Musk has a history of being dissatisfied with factually correct answers because they don't fit his political beliefs (e.g. "white genocide"). That's just a fact, although I'm sure Grok would disagree.