I'm seemingly one of the few people who not only likes "Fallout 76", but who simply can't stop playing it! Wifey and a joint-friend of ours have been having a blast, sometimes literally. The extreme negativity is yet another one of those classic cases of the "toxic internet hive mind" at play-- even the "professional" reviews all parrot the exact same three bullets; no independent thought at all.

As much as I've been enjoying, I have been having problems getting video recording to work from the game, and I've missed some achingly hilarious ludonarrative moments because of that. But thankfully, I've got it sorted now.

The problems stemmed from, when I'd run the game in true full-screen mode-- where it very nicely lets you pick which display to use, right in the game's graphics menu-- the Xbox "Game DVR" feature videos were all black, while the Nvidia "instant replay" mode wouldn't turn on at all. And when I'd run the game in borderless window mode, it would stretch really strangely from my 1080p monitor, up to the 4K TV, with the game half-and-half on both screens!

The solution was to, before I started the game, flip the TV in Windows' "personalize settings" menu to be the "primary" device-- then the game's borderless window option would properly "anchor" the graphics to the top-left of the 4K TV-- not the monitor-- and fill out the entire 3840x2160 pixels: native 2160p, plus working Xbox DVR video recording!

This is yet another example of something which flat-out works better under GNU/Linux: Nvidia's control panel there is much easier to use than the Windows one, and under Arch I never have a single issue getting stuff on the correct screen. As I wrote about here, this overall phenomenon of Windows being clunkier than GNU/Linux is surreal.

Here it is: the very first-ever benchmarks of production ray tracing code, via Nvidia's RTX hardware and Microsoft's new API!

The 2080 Ti loses 44% of its frames with ray tracing on; the 2080, 52%; the 2070, 56%. I don't know what I was expecting, but in looking at the graph it seems more than reasonable to me, given that this is the equivalent of a first-gen 3d accelerator, from 1995. This real-time ray tracing is that pioneering, and unlike a Matrox Millenium, it's already usable!

Now that the dust has settled, the star in this three-product lineup is the RTX 2070; while I don't regret my 2080 purchase at all-- it's presently running Fallout 76 at native 4K, with HDR, at Ultra detail and 60 fps-- the 2070 is easily the best value for money. Especially in games which will utilize "DLSS", the 2070 will deliver phenomenal performance even in 4K.

But back to ray tracing: the first title I'm going to buy which uses it is the upcoming "Metro" release. After that, it will be the new "Mechwarrior" game.

Hah, the Counterfeit News Network made a video about "MGTOW", which you can view here. It's really disjointed, you can tell how heavily edited it was, designed to dismiss the movement's observations as just a bunch of angry men, while painting the self-described feminist journalist as the clear-headed rational one.

What "MGTOW" is really about-- note how the video didn't approach any of this:

• Men are biologically wired via millions of years of evolution to want to mount and mate females, and to hunt for and defend the tribe. All men have this kind of plumbing, to varying degrees. What's more, no one disputes any of this, least of all feminists. These facts can lead to healthy or toxic behaviors: they are the driver for modern civilization and practically every major invention in the history of the human race; they are also what motivates a man to provide resources and protection for his wife and kids. It can manifest in toxic ways too: violence, and rape.


• Women are also biologically wired towards certain behaviors: their motivations are to "shop around" for a mate, who will provide them with free resources, so they can have babies. Just like how all men have varying degrees of the same wiring, so do all women, hence the term "AWALT"-- "all women are like that". In a healthy context, this plumbing is what causes women to make good mate choices: picking a dependable, reliable, moral man, with whom she can raise beautiful, healthy children. It can be toxic too: women who have dozens of sex partners before the age of thirty, or who simply use men after marriage by raking them through divorce courts, and stealing half of the man's wealth.


• It used to be that American society had values which minimized the downsides of both men and women, and which maximized the upsides: men worked, women raised the kids; men and women who slept around or cheated were shamed; most people were religious, and the Bible is clear regarding both the roles of men and women, and adultery. Thanks to sleazy Democrats like Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, the welfare state replaced men as resource providers, while feminism told women that it was ok for them to sleep around-- to be like (toxic) men.


• Once men were no longer needed to provide resources on the one hand, and the sleeping around behavior was socially encouraged on the other hand, combined with the rise of secularism and the downfall of religiosity, women who were "slutty", superficial, and disloyal went from being a small minority, to a critical mass-- to the point where good, honest men are having a tough time even finding women who don't exhibit strong degrees of the "toxic" behavior patterns described above. This is how "MGTOW" was born.

Obviously, there is a huge genetic gulf between the strengths of the average man or woman. Even in my personal situation, my wife is not a small female-- 5'8" and 140 lbs-- yet she is only a fraction as strong as I am, and I'm a sedentary 5'9" computer programmer. I just naturally have substantially more muscle mass, better stamina, and larger bones than she does.

But, I didn't realize that the gap was this large! And it wasn't just this one match: apparently, young teenage boys of mediocre club sides routinely obliterate professional, adult femalt footballers. People are dredging up dozens of examples of, let's say, FC Dallas' U-14 boys crushing women's national sides.

One fellow here says he was a member of a U-15 club side which was winning against the number one ranked US Women's National team 5-0 at half-time, to the point where the coach started playing everyone out of position, just so the score wouldn't become too humiliating. He said from his experience, women's teams are about the level of the average boy's high school side, if that!

You can see this in other sports too: I remember a highly ranked professional woman's tennis player saying that she was no match for her high school teenage little brother. And yet, we're supposed to believe that sex and gender are merely hand-waved social constructs?

When the Fed was instituted during a lame duck session of Congress, when Russia annexed Crimea in just a few weeks, or when the European Union was formed, it was all over and done with quickly.

But when power is to be decentralized, there are either armed government goons in assault rifles arresting and shooting people, or it becomes a multi-year, heel-dragging, 585 page red tape debacle.

No inflation here; as recently as 2009, Arshavin was Arsenal's record signing. The fee? 16.5 million Euro.

Only nine years later, Arsenal have thirteen players worth more than that, with Aubameyang valued at 75 million Euro all by himself! In terms of English football as a whole, top dog Manchester City's squad is worth over a billion Euro!

And that's just the thing: when central banks expanded the global money supplies by trillions following the last financial crisis, that money went straight to the richest people on Earth, which is why "income inequality" has become so incredible. You can see it directly with massive price inflation of play things for the rich, like football players.

I thought I had heard of-- and parried-- every known criticism of Liberterianism. But for the first time in several years, I just heard a new one! Bold emphasis is mine:



This one is easy to refute, simply because it's not even a true statement!

Libertarians have long pointed out, with huge lists of concrete examples, that "regulations" are created because one group is trying to get the upper hand on some other group by leveraging the State's monopoly on force. In fact, recognizing this tenet is central to why many people are drawn to Libertarianism in the first place: the philosophy best describes both current and historical events, with regards to the nature of "regulations".

I would posit that the opposite criticism of non-Libertarians is in order: their default position is that a given law is created for the "public good". It's so pollyanish and naive that the term "clover" was invented to describe these people.

Speaking of my Alpha Male father, I asked him to not call me this weekend, yet he's done so seven times just in the past two hours. I anticipated his behavior, so I'd blocked his number ahead of time: but I still get notified when the voicemail messages hit.

Two of my close, male family members are simultaneously going through strange identity crises-- that's why I've been doing so much research regarding masculinity-related phenomena, such as "soy boy" syndrome, and so-called "trans-genderism", where men are so dysfunctionally effeminate that they start to think they are women.

These issues in my family have utterly consumed both of my parents, to the point where they are hardly even the same people: my mother has basically stopped sleeping and seems hopelessly paralyzed and conflicted, alternatingly battling and enabling; while my incarcerated-and-hence-absent father-- in true Alpha Male fashion-- is continuously hounding me to be the focal support point for the rest of the members in question, to the point where it was beginning to impact my career and my relationship with my own kids.

Because of this, I explained to my mom that for Thanksgiving and Christmas, the kids and I will hang out with her separately from the rest of the family-- not out of anger or frustration, but factually because the family baggage is weighing too heavily on me: I can't really be around either parent without getting bombarded!

What's amusing is that my father's incessant attempts to contact me this morning, against my stated wishes, are cases in point of how all-consumed my parents are with these problems.

Hah, I've become addicted to the site "Urban Dictionary". There is an internet term which describes me exactly; bold emphasis is mine:



People have asked me why I seldom locked horns with my controlling, Alpha Male dad growing up-- the reason is because I was content to let him do his leadership thing, where he was generally very competent, then just go behind him and trim around the edges where he'd make mistakes.

It's the same pattern professionally: my managers, who know what I'm doing every day, always describe me as a leader-- but no one else realizes that aspect of me, because I'm "engine room" quiet about it. I recognize that others need the recognition, so I let them have it. But to the degree which they make mistakes or become incompetent, is the degree to which I consciously take on more active leadership myself.

Of course, another major aspect of my reluctance to be an overt leader is my intense introversion, or my "high level autism" traits, as they could be described: once I "appointed myself" project manager when the actual person was utterly inept and absent in her job-- after about six months of constant meetings and socializing, I essentially melted down into nothing. But that's neither here nor there.

As a follow-up to my previous post, there is mounting evidence that the mass consumption of soybean-based food products is what is causing the armies of effeminate men. Here is an entertaining video on the topic.

I should really start a game review site for conservatives: I've never seen so many cucks and freaks in my life! It's no wonder that contemporary game reviews are so worthless.

You know those pictures of bizarre worlds at the bottom of the ocean? We're living in one of those, right at Earth's surface.

What we "see"-- colors, shadows, textures-- are just visible light of varying wavelengths reflecting off of surfaces. If we could see more or less of the spectrum, the world would look almost totally alien! It's like we're existing in a phantom, "Stranger Things"-style upside-down world, only it doesn't "look" or feel that way to our human eyes, and our developed notions about the way things "are".

On a related note, Duncan and I were recently looking at millions-times electron microscope imagery, and something as seemingly fine or boring as dust is actually a tremendous variety of objects, of different shapes and sizes-- another whole world, within our own! A whole civilization could live in the dust, and we'd never know because it would be so tiny and fleeting.

It made me wonder if the "big bang" was just some cosmic alien having tipped over his coffee mug, and our perception of time is so limited that the billions of years of the "infinite expansion" are just the tiny interim period until the giant wipes the spreading mess off his desk. Like our lives, or even the whole scope of the universe, is just one tiny, microcosmic, ephemeral spark coming off of an anvil.

Wonderful mantage from Mark Dice-- this Jim Acosta guy is something else. It's just one more of those surreal "late days of a falling empire" phenomena.

Hah, if this isn't the truth, then I don't know what is.

The comment about video games being adapted for "normies" is especially relevant: it's what brought in all of the "cinematic" focus, the dreadful orchestra music, and the removal of depth and simple little "shiver-inducing" moments. In fact, you could replace "women" with "chads" in the original post, and it would make just as much sense.

The other interesting remark is the recounting by the guy who came back to the hobby after getting his career established, only to find ruins!

Back in the 90s, I remember how desperate other video game fans were to make the hobby "acceptable" and mainstream. Even as a ten year old, I would ask: "Why? If you like playing them, who cares what other people think?" All of those pathetic morons got their way in the end.

I think the internet is largely to blame for both the political climate today, and the destruction of risk taking in video games.

In both cases, every single syllable which emerges from a politician or video game publisher is immediately shouted at by the most shrill members which the human race has ever conjured. So it's these people who set the direction.

Then the absolutely painful "walking back" and dilution occurs, until nothing of quality is left.

There is an enormous parallel between the total court misinterpretations of the second amendment, and the fourteenth.

In the case of the second, the context was the horrors of the British militia imposing themselves on the colonists, just a few years prior. The only way the States would ratify the proposed Constitution's clause that the newly-formed government apparatus could raise its own militia, was to add some kind of regulatory mechanism: in that case, the right of private citizens to keep and bear arms, as a check and balance.

In the case of the fourteenth, the context was how to confer newly-freed blacks citizenship, but without simultaneously opening up silly loopholes whereby every foreigner and their uncle could also become citizens. So, the first sentence was added to the amendment, indicating that anyone who was not already subject to a foreign power upon birth-- meaning, coming from parents of a foreign nation-- would be citizens of the United States. According to the clause's own author, compliments of Wikipedia-- bold emphasis is mine:



In addition to the clause's author, I also found quotes from Lyman Trumbull and John Bingham-- both of whom were involved with the amendment from day one, and the latter of whom actually wrote the rest of the text-- that one hundred percent concur with Jacob Howard's explanation above.

But, just as was the case involving the second amendment, activist Supreme Court judges much later on essentially re-wrote the Constitution's text by radically re-defining what the actual words mean, in order to suit their political agendas.

This is getting brought up a lot right now since Trump is considering an executive order, instructing agencies to enforce the original intent of the Constitution's text. If he can get that accomplished, I see that as a win based on what my research has uncovered. Of course, Democrats and their followers will be arrayed against this, because it will take away the "future Democrat anchor baby" pipeline.

I've been trying to deduce what's been going on with the "white trash" trailer park neighbors, who live in a house almost directly across from my Murderapolis abode.

For the past six or eight months, they will have between five and ten cars show up, each evening, which sit there for between thirty and sixty minutes, then disappear. "Maybe they just have parties every night?", you might propose.

Here's the kicker: I never, ever see the same car twice! Right now, there's a rusted out silver Hyundai Accent, some kind of contemporary-looking white cute-ute, and a ghetto looking BMW X5, all parked right in front of my house. I have never seen any of those three cars before, and wager I'll never see them again.

At first I'd assumed they were selling drugs. But if that were the case, you'd think people would be stopping there for less than five minutes. Now I'm thinking that they're having orgies, or some other sorts of sex parties. It fits the time windows, and the lack of repeats.

I wouldn't care, except that they literally take up my entire section of the block, like it's their personal parking lot. My next-door neighbors presently have had to drop their car three houses down, because there's no other open space!

Excellent article here from my new favorite car guy. We're getting closer and closer to the day where I buy my "final car": the most fun-to-drive, biggest horsepower performance car I can get. Then I'll just keep it forever.

"Forever" might sound like a long time, but I'm 37 years old now, and I plan to "retire" to a relaxing, mundane retail job in ten years-- I've already worked out the budget. That will take me to 47.

That job will probably be within walking distance from my house, since retail work is pretty much everywhere. I probably won't live to be particularly old due to the permanent damage done to my body from all of the decades of stress-- let's say, 67 years old. This one final car should be able to last me twenty years, considering I won't drive it all that much.

In the meanwhile, the 350z only has 61,000 miles on it, so that will keep me going until "the day" when the State mandates these stupid electric cars. Then I can hand it over to Henrietta.

Dating back to pre-tournament friendlies, and including today's demolition at the hands of Inter, Lazio so far this season have taken:

• 27 of 30 points against teams with a squad value less than theirs
• 0 of 15 points against teams with a squad value greater than theirs

Using the values from the Transfer Markt site, of course.

It's gotten to the point where I don't know why I even bother watching the games against the "big teams"; sports are only fun if they are unpredictable. Not only that, but with Inzaghi's crazy naive attacking play, it's feast-or-famine-- zero draws in fifteen fixtures!

I NyQuil'd myself last night, and somehow managed to not have the hangover today. The net effect is that today is the best I've felt in maybe six or seven years: nine hours of sleep!

As long ago as it was, I remember what it was like to feel this way every day. It's an amazing sensation.

How can anyone doubt "climate change"? Why, just this summer Mars had a historically large dust storm! You can't possibly tell me it's not related.

This is how Sharia Law will come to pass in the West: it won't arrive in a fell swoop, but rather drip-fed intravenously through case precedent.

Just wait until they come for the homosexuals! Not that I want to see anyone get hurt, but in a way it will be a "grab the popcorn" day, because Cultural Marxists have been backing Islam for a long time now.

What if a biologist, peering one-eyed through his powerful electron microscope at a tiny atom, observed a previously-unnoticed detail, the ramifications of which would throw the existing notions of atomic and molecular functions out the window?

Not only would it make him uncomfortable, because it would upset his decades-long understanding of how reality functions, but it would unbalance entire established scientific communities-- which, like any organizations, have their firmly-grasped sacred cows and borderline religious-like zealotry and dogma.

If this hypothetical biologist was a real scientist, where that term is defined as "someone who goes wherever the truth leads him, no matter how personally uncomfortable the cognitive dissonance might be", then he would not only continue to study this new information, but would accept the new conclusions which it carries!

Libertarians are scientists. Real scientists. Wherever the truth leads them, that's where they go, accepting the suddenly-obvious conclusions as they proceed-- even when those newfound facts are unpleasant, or uncomfortable, or not financially in that specific Libertarian's best interests.

And this is the problem I have with conservatives: they'll accept the truths in isolation, but the instant the unavoidable conclusions become uncomfortable to them, they scramble for the higher ground where their previously-held convictions live-- even when these convictions are at complete odds with the new truths. Following this, they engage in mental gymnastics to fruitlessly try and reconcile the glaring contradictions.

Conservatives are only interested in truth to the point until it makes them start to sweat a little.

Then you get to the pesky case of Liberals. They are the most simple-minded of all, as their thinking comes in two steps. The first: in the cloudy, swirling, murky vagaries of their thoughts, if an action or belief makes them feel good, then it's correct. The second, and this looms even more significantly: if it's in their personal financial best interest, they will fight for it tooth and nail.

Where contradictions emerge between these two positions, they simply moralize endlessly about what really just boils down to a simple financial position. For example, women want free food, free health care, free daycare, free condoms, and free abortions-on-demand. These are all financial concerns. Then, ex post facto, they convert each of these into moral considerations: "it's the woman's body", "the patriarchy is oppressing women and that's unfair", and so on.

As the most rational group in American politics, Libertarians are open the compromise, only: from where can compromise be found?

It's easier with Conservatives, because most potential incremental improvements just-so-happen to jive with some of their existing scripts, and so don't make them uncomfortable. It's a happy accident. For example, Conservatives today want to localize power because they believe their "social contract theory" works better that way-- so a Libertarian might propose, "why not fund things with voluntary contributions on a per-use basis at the State government level, such as how fishing licenses presently work?" And boom: toll roads. Not perfect, but a happy compromise.

But with Liberals, who will en masse truck fellow-Leftists from places like Honduras and then help them illegally cross the border law-and-order be damned, all in pursuit of such noble causes as getting free "welfare" at someone else's expense (again, it's just a simple financial concern, ignore the wallpaper moralizing), negotiating a middle ground becomes more like haggling over the price of a used car: Baltimore residents can pillage and burn down two CVSs, but three...

With Conservatives, one can usually find compromises which are compatible with the Conservative's emotional pre-conditioning. This is possible because Conservatives are generally stable people, whose views are fairly constant over time. But with Liberals, their perceptions of right and wrong are not static or based on any "larger than life" convictions, such as a belief in logic or religion. Without those kinds of anchors or guiding principles, their world view is like an endlessly moving goal post. This makes compromise almost impossible.

Setting aside the painfully obvious route of secession, which is people exercising their negative right to freely associate-- a path with runs against the scripts of Conservatives ("but... the social contract theory!") and Liberals ("but who will pay for my free stuff then?"), making it politically untenable-- the best option would be for Libertarians and Conservatives to form some kind of super-majority, and simply overrule the Liberals that way.

What a throwback... this was my favorite film all through my childhood-- but I hadn't so much as heard or seen any mention or footage from it until about five minutes ago, in the form of this video.

I call my world view "realistic". Others call it "dark". Either way, I don't soften my perceptions with comforting-but-false delusions like most people do (think deities and afterlives, ignore problems and they will go away, etc.).

I've always thought that my way of viewing the world was, in part, due to exposure to this film at such an impressionable age. Skipping forward through the video now, I think a lot of the messaging and imagery is pretty disturbing even through my adult eyes, much less to my six years-old self.

After years of searching, I've finally found a car web site which isn't run by a bunch of nutty Communists. In fact, this guy shares basically all of my views about cars, which is kind of fun. Obviously, when wanting to know ahead of time how one would like product XYZ, one should seek out another with similar taste.

In his latest video, he explains how boring electric cars are, because they're so homogenous. It kind of reminds me of Jaron Lanier's arguments some years ago regarding "social media" sites, or-- my take-- Twitter bootstrap. Both Lanier and I miss the 90s, when web sites had crazy-- and sometimes ugly, true-- background wallpapers, MIDI files playing music, and so on; a lot more personality.

This car fellow even makes the same observations regarding contemporary "smartphones" which I have. This relates to modern-day video game systems as well, versus platforms from the 80s and 90s, which had totally different instruction sets, rasterization techniques, memory architectures, bus designs, and so on. That's a big part of why old video games have so much more personality and charm than modern titles do.

One final note about modern cars: with performance-oriented cars, you get what you pay for, in objectively quantifiable ways; better power-to-weight ratios, mid-engine layouts, higher chassis rigidity, and so on. But with any other class of car, what does a $60,000 cute-ute get you that a $25,000 doesn't? Both have sat-navs, heated seats, blinking lights so you don't need to interrupt your more-important texting to check your blind spot, and so on. This is the homogenization he's referring to.

Say what you want about so-called "income inequality", but the numbers show that the top tiny percentage of people are pulling everyone else's fat asses in the wagon.

Incidentally, I wonder what constitutes a "transfer"? Unless you're talking "roads" or "libraries", I don't receive a cent from the State in any kind of payment, and I manage my budget down to the penny on a daily basis.

The Mises quote in the article has never been more applicable, what with the Leftists pushing for "guaranteed income" and the like. I've said it before and I'll say it again: if that ever comes to pass, I'm pulling an "Atlas Shrugged" faster than you can say "Ayn Rand".

Or, "on the genders" if you prefer, since the two terms seem to be used interchangeably these days. In my time, "sex" referred to immutable biological realities (male or female), whereas "gender" referenced disposition (feminine or masculine-demeanored).

No matter: the topic of "trans-genderism" came up twice in one day-- first, with this article, then again via a brief conversation with a co-worker. I'd done quite a bit of research about this subject in the past, but never cared enough to turn it into a post. Why not today? Let's start by defining some terms.


Male or Female, Man or Woman

To what do these terms refer? In other words, is a human being with male genitalia and XY chromosomes, who is wearing a dress and lipstick, a man (male) or a woman (female)? Fortunately, dictionaries plus thousands of years of taxonomical scientific work, dating from the Ancient Greeks to present day, already have the answers.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a male is "an individual of the sex that is typically capable of producing small, usually motile gametes (such as sperm or spermatozoa) which fertilize the eggs of a female". A female is "of, relating to, or being the sex that typically has the capacity to bear young or produce eggs".

Correspondingly, Wikipedia also describes the difference between human males and females according to their reproductive organs (bold emphasis is mine):



Meanwhile, Wikihow discusses the taxonomical criteria for categorizing male-versus-female humans, where two individuals of the opposite gender need to be able to biologically reproduce. In their words: "Any male-female pair of healthy humans can produce viable offspring."

The same reasoning is applied to non-human species as well. For instance, here we find that the "difference between a male and female is that a male's sex or reproductive organs are located outside of the body, whereas the female's sex organs are located inside the body." Even to flowers: "male plants have stamens coated with pollen, while female plants have pistils that contain the ovaries."

Along with the observable, objective realities of reproductive systems, long-time science writer Regina Bailey explains how chromosomes determine a human's gender:



I could easily reinforce this section ten-fold, but I don't want to belabor the point: it should now be obvious that "male" or "female" are not clerically "assigned" on a whim "at birth", like how someone is assigned a name on their birth certificate by their parents, nor can they be merely "chosen" on a day-to-day basis: sex is a purely biological feature set, defined by a combination of genitalia, chromosomes, and reproductive functionality, which have been "figured out" and taxonomized for centuries.

Or, to answer our previous question: a human with XY chromosomes and a male reproductive system-- predominantly or otherwise-- who happens to be wearing a dress and lipstick, is a man. They may have higher-than-average feminine propensities (what used to be called "gender") such as fondnesses for blouses and hair estensions-- but they are still unequivocally male.


He or She

Merriam-Webster dictionary describes he as "a male person or animal", and she as "a female person or animal". Thankfully, we have already successfully defined "male" (man) and "female" (woman) in the previous section: thusly, men should be referred to as "he", and women as "she".


Fringe Cases

So far, we have waded knee-deep into an apparently controversial subject, totally unscathed: the reality is crystal clear. So from where does the debate emerge?

The answer: proponents of the so-called "gender construct" family of theories use fringe cases to try to support their case via "gotcha" moments. Let's start with a hypothetical, to illustrate the point of confusion: dogs are four-legged mammals, right?

Nope! Did you know a scientist once found a dog with five legs? They also once found one which could not regulate its own body temperature. Therefore, objective physical characteristics like "leg count" and "warm-bloodedness" can no longer be applied to dog-taxonomy; and since objective criteria are now irrelevant, all that's left is each person's subjective opinion about whether a given specimen is in fact a dog.

Clearly, any scientist worth his salt would laugh at such exposition, least of which because the syllogism simply does not follow, but also because: a five-legged or cold-blooded dog is an outlier: it is suffering from genetic defects. Taxonomically, it is still a dog according to other criteria, such as the rest of its DNA. The field of taxonomy unambiguously solved this problem of "outliers" thousands of years ago.

Applied to the issue of "trans-genderism" then:

It is pointed out, using the buzz-phrase "science of trans-genderism", that some tiny percentages of "women"-- note how the author describes them thusly, fast-and-loose-- have "long clitorises", which "look like penises" (again, according to the author), due to an enzyme deficiency. Or, small percentages of "men" who have malfunctioning receptor genes for testosterone, causing them to endure imbalanced hormone ratios.

Or what about people who have only one chromosome? Or who have three? There are entire families of chromosome-related disorders which produce irregularities, such as Down Syndrome.

Of course, it's obvious that the discovery of an outlying individual suffering an unfortunate medical issue does not logically invalidate a specific taxonomical criterion: a dog is still a four-legged mammal even if there is a dog with five legs; "males" and "females" are still objective, knowable things even in the presence of fringe cases.

One final observance before we proceed: the most pedantic of this crowd-- the fringes within the fringe-- will stop me here, and finger wave: "don't you know the difference between trans and inter, you numbskull?" Well, good luck trying to make sense of that humorously inconsistent wording: clear as mud. Besides, so few "trans" people themselves wade there, that it's for all intents a "distinction without a difference".

In the end, where does this leave us?


To People Not Suffering

Live and let live.

Be supportive and positive like you would with anyone else. Remember, these people are much more prone to depression and even suicide: they need compassion, not stigma. Be friendly and engaging, by all means don't refuse them jobs on this basis or discriminate in a sexist kind of way-- just generally treat them like you would anyone else, who you want to be happy, and to feel included.

Simultaneously though, don't bow over no matter how much verbal and physical intimidation is applied: a man is still "he", and a woman is still "she". It would be mean to pretend that someone with a 50 IQ and Down Syndrome is actually a genius; similarly, enabling a man to pretend that he's actually a real woman, or vice-versa, is exceedingly cruel and despicable, because it's just not true. Ignorance is not bliss.


To People Suffering

Live and let live.

Either go get medical treatment or at least a diagnosis into the underlying cause of your issues-- or simply choose to stop placing other peoples' approval of you on a pedestal, and live your life how you please. I've always been an outcast too (for other reasons, probably Asperger's Syndrome-- which is another disorder incidentally), but I don't choose to let other people define my happiness. Go your own way, and let the haters be damned.

There is a rub though: you do not have a monopoly on "understanding". If you "identify" as a man, a woman, a loaf of bread, or even a hippopotamus, it is highly unreasonable to ask other people to "play along"; that would be like me getting angry for people not reinforcing that I have an elephant's trunk hanging from my face. If your happiness is dependent on people mirroring back unrealities, then you are going to be miserable (and depressed and suicidal: don't be a statistic). That's a fact: take it to the bank.


Finally, Wrap Up

I was raised Catholic. My elementary school teachers: "The catechism is Christ's flesh and blood." "Um", I would peep, "not really though, right? I mean, it's a symbol, correct?" "No!", they would thunder back: "Lutherans believe it's just a symbol, but we believe it's actually real."

Little kid me, still baffled: "But... but it's not literally skin and blood plasma, right? Like, you know it's actually just bread and wine?" "No! It's actually flesh and blood!" "But... not really... you could put it under a microscope..." and back and forth we'd go, until I was threatened with the principal's office.

That sums up every conversation I've had, or seen had, with "trans-gendered" people: "Excuse me, I am a woman." Other party, in response: "Uh, I get that you feel like a woman, but... you know you're not literally a woman, right?" "No! I am actually a woman, and I will punch you in the face if you do not refer to me as 'she'!" Sputtering in reply: "But... but...!"

Go Leftism: STDs and terrorism for everyone!

"Government Accountability Institute" made me laugh; what an oxymoron. No one can be held accountable when they have a monopoly on force.

Who in holy hell is worried about pollution of the freaking ocean? Or any of the "environmental" ones for that matter? This is what happens when kids are shoved through over a decade of brain washing.

Back when I was in elementary school in the 1980s, they spent hours every month trying to terrify us about the "hole in the o-zone layer". I called BS on it when I was a six year old, and sure enough I haven't even heard the "o-zone layer" mentioned probably since 1989.

These environmentalist bozos are human-hating Communists. Their fear mongering track record is beyond abysmal, because their "predictions" are rooted in ideology, not science.

I already did a list of my biggest worries. Cross-referencing my list and theirs, not a ton of overlap: "World War" doesn't appear until spot 12, with no mention of China specifically; "economic collapse" is number 15, followed by "widespread unrest" at 24; "North Korea" is in spot 30; no mention of "Cultural Marxism", although "Antifa" shows up at spot 71.

I'd put a million Fed bucks, not like that'll be worth anything soon, on my list being way more predictive than this silly poll's output.

Nuclear armageddon with China, who cares? A total collapse of the financial system, shoving hundreds of millions into poverty? Meh. But a couple of dolphins getting the trots in the local harbor... now that's some scary stuff! No question that this is the second scariest thing in the universe in 2018!

On an unrelated note, go play around with this "anarchist creator" calculator, and see how furious you get.

For my part, between all levels of government they are confiscating $2200 per month from me in protection racket money-- and that's just my half of the "FICA" taxes! And it's at gun point for sure: if I could snap my fingers and give them $0 per month, I'd do it in a heart beat. I'd go private security, private dispute resolution, toll roads, and a couple hundred bucks a month to a private coalition just to line up a bunch of troops and missiles at both coasts to prevent invasion.

As soon as the houses are paid off, which will be in about ten years, I'm going to take the lowest possible paying job, to minimize the amount of money they get out of me. Besides that, I'm not sure my current life style is worth the stress of my stupid ass "corporate America" career. Especially when the State is taking a match to 31 cents of every dollar I earn in said career.

I didn't read this entire paper, but I did skim enough of it to get a good chuckle: it's yet another one of those grasping at straws deals, trying to "figure out" libertarians.

Principle of Occam's Razer: maybe libertarianism accrues followers because it's correct?

The paper frequently asserts that there must be something different about libertarians, because libertarians "eschew other moral principles" in lieu of "individualism".

What other principles?

A principle is a rule you can follow in order to help with decision making. "It's wrong to club someone over the head with a baseball bat and steal food from their refrigerator, unless it's to feed a baby with really cute eye lashes" does not constitute a principle.

If there is a rational argument for when it's suddenly ok to morally rape, murder, and pillage, there isn't a libertarian on the planet who wouldn't be interested to hear it. Unfortunately, such a guiding moral principle has not been forthcoming even after hundreds of thousands of hours of cumulative debate.

Oh, and paper authors: enough with the Ayn Rand quotes-- she wasn't even a libertarian!