Posie on Talk Radio this evening

A different take on why people need golden bridges from an anti-vaxxer perspective and using what is known about perpetrating cons/fraud:

Goffman observed that all “marks” eventually come to understand that they have been defrauded. But strangely, they almost never complain or report the crime to the authorities. Why? Because, Goffman argues, admitting that you have been conned is so deeply shameful that “marks” experience it as a kind of social death – the painful end of one of the many social roles we all play.
…
Within those groups, we can pinpoint influential members who may be turning their backs on Covid denialism, and encourage them in their journey. We can message them offering support, particularly if our reference groups overlap – whether that means sharing the same home town, or practising the same faith. The more shared social space, the better. We might offer to back them up if they get trolled for expressing misgivings about Covid denialism. Or we could let them know that we would admire them for telling the truth.

Those people may not have a television audience of millions, but they nonetheless have the potential to act as “coolers” for those in their reference groups – both online and off. The higher their status within the groups, the more influence they will have in reconciling their fellow travellers to the reality of the pandemic, perhaps enabling them to rejoin society, or at least preventing them from endangering the rest of us.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/09/convince-anti-vaxxers

archive of article: archive.is/1JAfS

I've no idea how the above is possible if SM platforms keep banning some people because this reduces interaction. And, much as I think the ability to block and mute is much needed (especially by women) it does facilitate being in a bubble - which is why those crossover coolers are so necessary.

If OJ doesn't want a golden bridge, this doesn't mean that one shouldn't be available both to him and his followers - especially if the latter were well positioned to act as "coolers".

re post above:
4th Wave Now via Twitter

"1. Latest leak from our source in the affirming parents Facebook group: Dr. Beverly Fischer in Baltimore, MD is offering a $750 discount on double mastectomies if booked during Pride month, according to this mother.

1. This special promotional offer is corroborated by Dr. Fischer’s own June 7 tweet.

1. ...as well as by Dr. Fischer’s surgery practice Facebook page, Advanced Center for Plastic Surgery. "DrBevsBoys" ?

1. Not everyone in this affirmative-parent FB group thinks a 12-year-old has the wherewithal to make the decision to have both breasts removed, but the original poster and supporters beg to differ. "This is harmful content.

1. Dr. Fischer's professional website promotes the Tumblr page they run. "If you had top surgery with Dr. Fischer, tag photos of your chest."

1. We know who's on Tumblr. It's not (for the most part) adults. Fischer's Tumblr site is "DrBevsBoys". But (besides the original poster in Tweet 1 in this thread and her 12-yr-old) does Fischer do double mastectomies on other tweens/teens?

1. On the ask_Transgender Reddit, users promote Dr. Fischer as someone who does surgeries on 14-year-olds. (And they got this right: "There are no rules or laws in the US about transition.")

1. More from the affirming parent FB group. 14-yr-olds. Fischer is a star.

If there is social contagion influencing gender-dysphoric teens, there is anotherperhaps even more powerfulsocial contagion affecting parents. It's on full display in this Facebook forum."

twitter.com/4th_WaveNow/status/1232162688500826112
twitter.com/4th_WaveNow/status/1142552285962231809

"According to the mother who posted this information, Dr. Fischer performed “top surgery” on her child at the age of 12 years old."
June 22 2019

twitter.com/4th_WaveNow/status/1142552285962231809

I still think people like Owen Jones need a golden bridge.

All of that said, I am always mindful of the photograph of OJ with Jess Bradley:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3320513-Jess-Bradley-first-transgender-student-officer-suspended-after-flashing-photos?msgid=79807832

So, LOJ is being a complete and utter hypocrite, for all the world to see, not even trying to hide, it by kicking off at the interviewer because they asked him, a gay man, about having sex with someone that (everyone else knows) is a woman?

Wow…

However, the questioner was simply holding up Perseus' mirror to Jones's Medusa, reflecting his own nasty homophobia back to him. These are the ideas that Jones and other TRAs push on other gay men and lesbians. If he doesn't like his reflection, that's on him.

Why would asking that question be considered homophobic?

Because #NoThankYou hadn't been coined then?

However, guessing at the context…

OJ is gay. OJ promotes the ideology that TWAW #NoDebate - and possibly that genital preferences are transphobic in the context of sexual attraction.

Somebody asked OJ the question because if TWAW #NoDebate etc. then TMAM (or, trans men are men) #NoDebate etc. - Again, if trans women are self-identified as male lesbians then trans men can identify as female gay men. So, iirc, OJ was asked if he would consider a sexual relationship with a trans man. And he gave the response that he did.

That's my best explanation.

He already had an "incident" didn't he? When he was asked if he'd perform cunnilingus on a transman to which he replied "you're homophobic".

One rule for him... Another for everyone else.

After that, there's basically no hope.

At some point, Owen Jones will have an incident that hits home to him. And it may well be the realisation that it is a tyrannical government that circumscribes freedom of thought, speech, and association - and that he has found himself in a position that he is in danger of supporting something which is completely inimical to his other beliefs and principles.

Even if he did, his ordeal would be "different" to the bigoted views of gender critical feminists being silenced.

Don't forget LOJ is a Guardianista who is completely and utterly surrounded by people who endorse the ideology, who call us lot all "trfs", who demonize and belittle women actually affected by the ideology, because they themselves never will be.*

I assure you that I haven't forgotten.

I can't think of times when a good outcome has been reached by sustained polarisation on issues rather than discussion in the public square.

Don't forget LOJ is a Guardianista who is completely and utterly surrounded by people who endorse the ideology, who call us lot all "t*rfs", who demonize and belittle women actually affected by the ideology, because they themselves never will be.

He's in a fully sealed bubble. And being a gay man will never ever understand the downsides of the ideology. He might break out of it but I doubt it because he's so stubborn.

But I think Douglas Murray is reconsidering because he appears to be a fairly rational guy who's thought about it, and who isn't so entrenched that he can't change his mind. With OJ it feels like it's coming from a different place - it's a visceral response, which is why I can't see it ever changing.

To be perfectly honest, and bearing in mind I've been relatively nice to him on this thread, I don't think the creation of a new Stasi will bother him that much because his whole trajectory here is to set himself up as one of the enforcers of the new, glorious regime.
Don't get me wrong, I'll always be pleased to see a man with the humility to admit error. But I think Jones is far more likely to seek power at this stage than speak truth to it.

Does male privilege really exist? I did not used to think so. But in recent years, I’ve come to realise that not only might it exist, but that, at least in one respect, I may also benefit from it. That is, I have the privilege of being able to write about certain contentious issues without being singled out and demonised for doing so.

In no area has this become more apparent than in our perpetual “gender wars”.
…
Like me, Jones happens to be a gay man. But unlike me he seems to think that transgender activism is simply the latest, logical progression in the gay rights movement.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4315813-Douglas-Murray-asks-Does-Owen-Jones-have-a-woman-problem

At some point, Owen Jones will have an incident that hits home to him.
See, I don't think he ever will. But it will be interesting to watch!

There is no speaking truth to power with the protection of free speech.

without the protection…

Sorry cross post

Yeah as far as I can tell he has no skin whatsoever in the game, which is why I find it a bit strange that his responses are so visceral. That lawyer guy - can't remember his name - he's another.

Circumscribing free speech is seen as a pragmatic shortcut to reducing bias against minoritised and excluded groups.

The creation of non-crime hate incidents and the official recording of them casts shadow that will may well blight the lives and opportunities of people and I'd expect some of the poorest and most vulnerable people to be particularly open to abuse in this way. - The threat of such reports might become a coercive tool on a scale that we've never seen. And all without due process.

Free speech is being misrepresented as stark binaries. There is an ongoing exercise to tarnish free speech as the exercise of a protected privilege to say wretched things to people (taken as a proxy for abuse and plausibly prejudicial behaviours) with no consequences and without the expectation of any challenge.

The protection of free speech and the right to due process are core freedoms. Most people who advocate for it are aware that countries that lack these have a deplorable human rights record and minorities endure the full consequences of their multiple vulnerabilities or oppressions to the point of atrocities in plain sight.

At some point, Owen Jones will have an incident that hits home to him. And it may well be the realisation that it is a tyrannical government that circumscribes freedom of thought, speech, and association - and that he has found himself in a position that he is in danger of supporting something which is completely inimical to his other beliefs and principles. He can not want the UK to sleepwalk into its own Cheka or Stasi who will have acquired the additional power to create a new reality in which you must live and with the power of compelled speech. And that this power extends to courts of law in which judges can compel you to lie under oath.

There is no speaking truth to power with the protection of free speech.

There is more to be laid out about the positive value of free speech. And the power of people to have conversations/dialogues with good faith without a fear of a verbal choice that will result in reputational harm or even a life altering report to the authorities .

Ultimately, he will need a golden bridge because nobody can support where this is heading. We are in for some very troubled and conflicted social times in which people look for authoritarian figures. I'd hope that he has enough sense of history and humility to know that there are no enlightened despots and that the groundwork for authoritarianism is something we must all resist.

LOJ you would hope had the common sense to stop being a fuckwit, but it doesn't affect him negatively either way atm, so there is no incentive for any of us for him to do an about-face. Excepting that he might be less irritating, but that's a very long shot.

Would OJ even want a golden bridge though? My guess is that he was raised on tales of Stonewall riots, spent his childhood cursing his bad luck at being born too late to join in, and dreaming of getting a chance to step up and yes, fight to the death.

I regularly mention preference falsification in highly polarised discussions - especially for the important message in the second-to-last paragraph in bold.

Preference falsification, according to the economist Timur Kuran, is the act of misrepresenting one’s wants under perceived social pressures. It happens frequently in everyday life, such as when we tell the host of a dinner party that we are enjoying the food when we actually find it bland. In Private Truths, Public Lies , Kuran argues convincingly that the phenomenon not only is ubiquitous but has huge social and political consequences. Drawing on diverse intellectual traditions, including those rooted in economics, psychology, sociology, and political science, Kuran provides a unified theory of how preference falsification shapes collective decisions, orients structural change, sustains social stability, distorts human knowledge, and conceals political possibilities.

A common effect of preference falsification is the preservation of widely disliked structures. Another is the conferment of an aura of stability on structures vulnerable to sudden collapse. When the support of a policy, tradition, or regime is largely contrived, a minor event may activate a bandwagon that generates massive yet unanticipated change.

In distorting public opinion, preference falsification also corrupts public discourse and, hence, human knowledge. So structures held in place by preference falsification may, if the condition lasts long enough, achieve increasingly genuine acceptance. The book demonstrates how human knowledge and social structures co-evolve in complex and imperfectly predictable ways, without any guarantee of social efficiency.

Putting aside OJ's position on this matter, he has a reputation as someone who cares about social justice. He has a reputation for contributing to a greater awareness of the impact of class and poverty on health, wellbeing and participation in society.

I have occasionally wondered if he'd find himself out of sympathy with the marginalised women in the Deptford People Project if he spent time with them and listened to them.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3203804-The-Deptford-People-Project-and-the-impact-of-self-ID-and-transactivism-on-working-class-women

Is his golden bridge the decision that no matter what, the introduction of – compelled speech
– positive rights that increases the vulnerability of a protected characteristic that is 50% of the population
adds velocity to a momentum that historically leads people towards authoritarianism in stressful times?

It depends if LOJ has got to sunk cost phase yet. I do think for those who plough too deeply there is no coming back. That daft Jette Knox person is one that I think has just pitched herself way too far in to ever climb out. Susie Green is another. LOJ has done about-faces politically before, but mainly for personal benefit. He's sailing pretty close to defending the indefensible with this and his MO on NSPCC rubberman was the same. He is leaning hard into the LGBTQ+ identity angle. Maybe the increasing amount of gay men speaking out might persuade him to rethink.