Is It? The Mess We're In Ep. #114: The beginning of the end

[EmbarrassingHadrosaurus]

Glinner and guests discuss whether this is the beginning of the end. Is it? Is this premature optimism or does it feel right?

Is this the collapse part of preference falsification? Are we seeing a gaggle of minor events suddenly hitting the public consciousness at the same time and shaking some foundations?

Or will this all fade away from public attention and the structures survive? Are our organisations all so Stonewalled and entrenched that they can survive any amount of public outcry as long as it's not sustained?

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.

www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674707580

I think this is the beginning of the end. And I knew it would be sport which started it.

Because of the visuals or the fairness?

I am cautiously optimistic. I know a few women who still hold firm, but one has had her own reset button pushed recently as her middle son has decided, after about 6 years, that he is actually a boy. All her joy in having a daughter, all the effort she put into defending his choices, bolstering his confidence and not just a little of fear as he was on a waiting list for hormones etc. He is 14 now and thinks he might actually prefer to be a boy, have a girlfriend, and all the stuff his 17 year old brother is doing.

There is a lot of revisionism happening... online and in real life

There is a lot of revisionism happening... online and in real life

One of the things that the trio discusses is whether all if this is so important that it's golden bridge time because people have to be able to save face.

Glinner wants acknowledgement and apologies from some people who've been front and centre of deriding women and calling everyone bigots before they get the golden bridge (Billy Bragg has a dishonourable mention amongst others). But I think he is supportive of golden bridges for pretty much everyone else because there's still so much work to do to help the people who've been harmed by this. For me, this would have to include rebuilding the reputation of captured organisations.

Declaration: I'm not sure this is the beginning of the end. It might mark the end of the slow introduction or beginning that has gathered momentum. It also depends on whether we're looking at just England, the UK, Europe, or more widely.

If it's the beginning of the end then it's going to be a very long end as so many organisations have been Stonewalled it is going to be years, maybe even decades of unpicking.

Personally I won't believe it until they take men out of women's prisons and correct all the dodgy stats caused by self ID.

Oh and of course we're going to have to re-set up all the Women's organisations yet again to start afresh with women's rights front and centre as I certainly don't trust the ideologically captured ones to be able to do it.

I think it is really quite interesting how activists are counting on the 'younger' generations to build and support this. However, I think there is a falseness to this claim because I see young women in particular who are fearful of discussing this now getting vocal.

I think that those stating that the 'younger' generation will accept this in the future are also forgetting that many women and men would be accepting of this until something happens that changes their mind. Could be having children, could be any number of events that will cause a disruption in the blind acceptance.

What I think will happen, is that there will be bank of studies and reviews within 5 years and much of what was being forced through will come to light as being harmful. And the 'younger generation' will have moved on too.

Something that lacks substance will have no sustainable future.

I think there will be a domino effect. Once key organisations review their policies etc, others will follow.

Because men give a shit about sport and understand it. Sport has peaked a lot of blokes I know because they know the importance of size and strength. It’s too obviously unfair.

Personally I won't believe it until they take men out of women's prisons and correct all the dodgy stats caused by self ID.

And no longer tolerate anyone abusing suicide stats in media interviews.

I can't think how long it will take to extirpate this from the NHS and every other captured organisation.

Show of good faith is to:
—return prisons to being single-sex.
—record crimes according to sex (with whatever add-ons people please).
—report crimes appropriately in media (amend IPSO).
—single-sex wards.
—prioritise clarity of medical and health education communication.

This might not be the beginning of the end but it is definitely a point where the rapid increase in the power of the trans activists is slowing down and perhaps even halting.

Once their ideas are introduced to the mainstream, very vigorous conversations begin and those cannot be controlled the way Twitter has controlled our protests.

But the actual process of institutional change will be much slower. Actually, the takeover of schools has only just begun and will get worse, not only in the UK but certainly in Canada and the US and Australia. If that takeover works, women's rights will truly have to be re-won in a few generations, because there won't even be any words which would allow the crucial concepts to be defined.

Everyone seems to be saying it's the beginning of the end, which will become a self fulfilling prophecy, I'm hoping. We just need a critical mass of people to decide enough is enough and the whole house of cards will collapse.

it will be like the death of communism in east europe-everyone thought it was bollocks apart from the gatekeepers and appeared impregnable right up until five minutes before it collapsed like a cheap bookcase. The kids will find something more trendy, the Koolaid nutters wont have any cogent arguments (what with it being utter nonsense, and that) and the emboldened majority who are fucking sick to death of being hectored by these twat will tell them to do one.

Those of you who think it's the beginning of the end , is that in
—England
—United Kingdom
—Europe
—North America
—English-speaking world
—globally (meaning the affected countries)?

Is this a local rout or, as predicted by Barracker in 2018:

The landscape is changing. I can't say how long it will take, but people are starting to assert absolute boundaries and reject the legal and ethical principle that a person can change from male to female and vice versa. This will not reverse. It will grow, and it will reach an inevitable conclusion. The UK is looking very likely to be the fulcrum of change, and then the balance will shift back everywhere.

I just worry that a lot of people have been made incredibly stupid by this phenomenon. How do you retrain the entire DEI industry? What do you do with generations of school kids who have been taught that sex is a spectrum or a social construct and that men could get pregnant if we only believed hard enough? The collective stupidity is embedded deep.

I think Sajid Javid's review of the Tavistock and all things related is a great move forward. Also Allison Baily's court case. However, neither of these are getting much publicity yet. I hope the press and the media will pay attention.

There is no foundation to transgenderism. It collapses under challenge. So the only way to maintain it is to silence its opponents. And the Maya Forstater judgment has made that impossible.

Forcing the conversation, asking questions and drilling down into justifications exposes the ideology as a sexist based belief. Deliberate and misogynistic.

An an ideology, it won't last. But realising quite how many people are in thrall to sexism is another story.

England is definitely leading the way in the return to sanity, but Ireland /Scotland /Wales are still a long way off. They must have been easier to conquer unfortunately but England has always been a stubborn mare.

Northern America, or rather California, Washington DC, New York, and by proxy Canada, is where the ideology is most embedded and going to be very very hard to undo.

Unfortunately American culture influences us (the UK) to a great degree particularly through it's control of social media and "popular" culture.

There has been pushback in some Southern American states but the pushback comes from a Conservative Christian position so is coupled with abortion bans etc, nevertheless the seeds have been sown in parts of America against gender ideology so there is some hope.

I'd say it looks like we're at the beginning of an extremely long and painful journey of having no choice but to watch the ideology slowly self destruct with it's foundation built from internal contradictions, myths and blatant lies, while we do what we can where we can to fight it.

I hope they are right but it would only take a new prime minister for everything to change again. Much as I dislike Boris, when I hear Penny Mordant’s name being touted as a leadership contender I fear what might happen. I hope that her TRA views would make her a controversial choice but even if she isn’t in charge, what would happen if Labour get in at the next election? It all feels very precarious to me.

I agree here. Keeping the momentum is important. Had a discussion yesterday with a friend about staying in the Labour party to fight the ideology from within. I really feel recognition has to come from the leadership of all parties of the harm that this ideology is doing. Not one to tell people how to vote, but a clear message needs to go out in the local elections that women are standing up in support of children/young people and other women.

I agree with this. But I'm pessimistic. I don't think this ideology will ever die off.

Things that harm children don't die off. They go into retreat and come back again.

We have to be ever vigilant.

England is definitely leading the way in the return to sanity, but Ireland /Scotland /Wales are still a long way off. They must have been easier to conquer unfortunately but England has always been a stubborn mare.

I don't know about Ireland, but since this all started Wales has had a Labour government and Scotland SNP, both of which are more captured than the Tories. I don't think it's anything to do with being easier to conquer, just that people tend to vote for more left wing parties in general and end up with this as part of the package.

Who are the credible candidates if Boris is pushed?

I'm ruling Rishi and Priti out.

Sajid Javid seems to get it, as does Liz Truss. Do we know about Jeremy Hunt?

What about the middle tier, committee chairs and the rest of the cabinet? It feels like a good time to do some groundwork.

I feel it's the beginning of the end (or maybe just the end of the beginning) in England only. Not in any other countries yet. But the end will take a long time, because it's been going on for a lot longer than I realised. ('It' is ideas which are untrue being worked into & apparently underpinning policies and how institutions interact with the world). I realised in early/mid 2018 but I felt late to the game then. This is long term.

It's also fragile as others say. We would not be seeing the domino effect under a Labour government. I don't know if the EHRC's more realistic balanced stance would have happened under labour as I don't know how it relates to the government of the day, but the geo would not have abandoned self id, the health minister would not have ordered the cass review. (Guessing obviously but seems likely to me). There will be a general election in 2024 I think. We need to keep pppppuuuuuuulling for the next 2 years and keep trying to make headway with labour.

I hope the changes in England ripple out to Scotland and Wales.