The Times View on Harry Miller,Twitter & the trans debates:Thought Police 15/2/20

[mimivanne]

Excellent Leader in the Times,it feels like a turning point.

If anyone can do a share token,thanks

[Siameasy]

Loving conniptions - going to use it from now on

[Flashmaggie]

The bubble will burst. It's already deflating.

[BovaryX]

I do not think it is at all helpful to speculate on the identity of an anonymous complainant. It will result in deletions.

[BigGreenOlives]

Helen Belcher was outside court on Friday. I didn’t see them inside but they were sitting on a bench when Harry was giving his press conference. The one complainant to his tweet was Ms B.

[BovaryX]

^nd yet anyone can anonymously complain to the police about random tweets and get a non crime hate crime recorded against that person.
Bearing in mind some tweets will generate a more serious response from the police than other tweets.Huh? The Stasi was a very appropriate comparison^

Yes. It's dysfunctional and untenable. I think preference cascade is a very interesting paradigm. I think that we are reaching a tipping point and the absurd antics of Labour's women with their trans pledges and Stalinist purges are part of that

[Languishingfemale]

Today the Times reports on Nandy's expressed wish for male born rapists to serve their time in women's prison's. Share token:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/6281cfde-5108-11ea-b4ee-385bb4c8d255?shareToken=80a278d2efe0eb9f8ccf04d6d338c1c3

[MagnoliaMcLadyDeek]

Another issue I haven't seen much discussed is that the person who complained about Harry's tweets, (Ms A?) has been afforded full anonymity.
Now this isn't a rape trial.
Shouldn't the public have a right to know who it is that is so offended, to spot a pattern if they make multiple complaints?

For comparison I decided not to pursue my complaint with the GMC against a certain person, as they said they would have to reveal my identity to him. Given the complaint was with regard to his doxxing and harassment of other women, aided and abetted by his attack dogs, I decided that I couldn't risk my job, my family and my privacy in this way.

And yet anyone can anonymously complain to the police about random tweets and get a non crime hate crime recorded against that person.

Bearing in mind some tweets will generate a more serious response from the police than other tweets.

Huh?

The Stasi was a very appropriate comparison.

[boatyardblues]

It’s a really interesting idea in the context if this debate. I suspect the heavy-handed censorship and gaming of algorithms by Twitter and their ilk has been entirely counter-productive, as its made a lot of media-savvy, enquiring users think “hang on a minute” and prompted them to read more widely around the topic than they otherwise might have done.

[boatyardblues]

I found this quote in the WSJ article referenced below:

”This illustrates, in a mild way, the reason why totalitarian regimes collapse so suddenly. . . . Such regimes have little legitimacy, but they spend a lot of effort making sure that citizens don’t realize the extent to which their fellow-citizens dislike the regime. If the secret police and the censors are doing their job, 99% of the populace can hate the regime and be ready to revolt against it—but no revolt will occur because no one realizes that everyone else feels the same way.

”This works until something breaks the spell, and the discontented realize that their feelings are widely shared, at which point the collapse of the regime may seem very sudden to outside observers—or even to the citizens themselves. Claims after the fact that many people who seemed like loyal apparatchiks really loathed the regime are often self-serving, of course. But they’re also often true: Even if one loathes the regime, few people have the force of will to stage one-man revolutions, and when preferences are sufficiently falsified, each dissident may feel that he or she is the only one, or at least part of a minority too small to make any difference.“

It’s credited to Tennessee legal scholar Glenn Reynolds discussed in a 2002 essay about the post-9/11 outpouring of patriotism, though the embedded link is broken.

www.wsj.com/articles/preference-cascade-1435168641

[TheRealMcKenna]

But I can't remember the term!

I remembered it this morning (I think). It’s ‘preference cascade’.

[SonicVersusGynaephobia]

There is another term (that I can’t remember) which is used to describe the moment that the falsified belief system everyone stays silent about suddenly collapses when enough people gain confidence to call bllshit on it. I think we’re now reaching that moment (and about time).*

I think Helen Joyce talked about this in her interview with Benjamin Boyce, about how the Soviet Union deployed this strategy by making the stakes so high that nobody would say what everyone was thinking, but then people started saying it and the whole thing rapidly fell apart.

But I can't remember the term!

[Igneococcus]

lamaha I click on the envelope icon and that opens an email (you might have to sign into your email account at that point) with the share token link in the mail. You can then copy and paste.
This doesn't however work on some devices for me, like on my tablet and not always on my phone, but fine on work and home computer.

[Lamahaha]

I tried doing a share token yesterday and it didn't work. How is it done?

[StealthPolarBear]

Watching with interest

[wrongsideofhistorymyarse]

Brilliant.

[TheRealMcKenna]

Conniptions is a great word. It’s also far less transphobic than ‘hysterical’ which can only apply to uterus-possessors.

[ScapaFlo]

I've learned the word 'conniptions' in the last week!

[Languishingfemale]

The comments under all three articles in the Times have made fascinating reading. Thousands of comments with the majority completely understanding the key issues. And some sterling responses from women (and some men) updating / educating people only just starting to get to grips with the issue.

Trans HQ must be having conniptions. Never has #nodebate seemed more crass and irrelevant

[mcduffy]

Oh I was feeling something like that, McKenna.
People in real life are starting to send me things and sound me out where they need reassurance and clarification. Not many are buying it!

[TheRealMcKenna]

I came across this concept today:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification

There is another term (that I can’t remember) which is used to describe the moment that the falsified belief system everyone stays silent about suddenly collapses when enough people gain confidence to call b*llshit on it. I think we’re now reaching that moment (and about time).

[BINtersectionalFeminism]

“an unregulated live experiment on children”.

Spot on.

Yes I agree it’s good to see a multi-pronged approach from the Times.

[nauticant]

Ha! I'd missed it. In that case, well done The Times on covering in one day:
free speech (the main interest of The Times)
safeguarding of children
women's rights, including the damage being done to women's sports

[mcduffy]

Also the cycling article in sport about testosterone limits

[nauticant]

The Times is very interesting today, they're going in hard over the trans issue.

They've got 4 major articles, the front page on the Harry Miller case that extends into the paper, the article about the NHS and the transgender guide, the leader column tying these two aspects together, and the Janice Tuner column.

When you stop and think, it becomes clear that they've gone for the three main strands:
free speech (the main interest of The Times)
safeguarding of children
women's rights.

This is at a time when many people will be thinking for the first time "hang on, what's all this trans business?" and will be receptive to finding out more. Applause for The Times.

[Igneococcus]

Here is a sharetoken for the NHS article, I can't see a link to it yet:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2d7d6724-4f57-11ea-b112-75acb94b3417?shareToken=2e175e8c35c6b74d629a6ea97c4ce438