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I am totally open-minded, and there is nothing you can say to change that.

So this someone took offence that you did not take offence to someone not offending you? Thats some next level stuff.

Ok, In general sports as pastimes - "fun and games" then any differences, advantages, weaknesses... are less important since as the good PC brigade keep ramming down our throats "its the taking part that counts". Fine this works just dandy. But at the elite level where "professional" sports people are competing at the highest level and are earning their living from this then the distinction between differences, advantages, weaknesses become majorly important, to keep things as "fair" or rather, as equally opportunistic for those people. Ha ha, Nobody said they are, we are discussing why they should/shouldn't be allowed the opportunity to do so in the first place. How many times in history people have suffered the consequences out of ignorance? Me personally I couldn't give a shite since it doesn't really affect me if Mr Joe decides to become Miss Jo and kick everyone's ass. It just amazes me that people are so afraid to speak of such, even to ignore the very evolution of humankind just because it doesn't fit in within modern western society. Crack on if it fits in with PC, and makes everybody feel better about themselves. I had a discussion at work yesterday, I'm a middle aged man who's hair is now well receded and consider myself bald (though technically I'm only slightly bald). Apparently I offended a colleague. They were offended that I did not mind when somebody else, in jest, remarked on my hair. They asked why it did not bother me and why I had not reported the incident to our human resources department. I explained that I enjoy a little banter and that it was all in good fun. They were shocked and dismayed and proceeded to report this themselves. My point being that, in my humble and perhaps archaic opinion, this world is a bit fucked up and we have bigger problems to worry about other than all this over bearing PC.

Brevity leads to more potential interpretations, potentially.

No one ever has their mind changed by what other people post on the Internet. I doubted the truth of that until I read a very persuasive proof on a message board.

Certainly not. If you don't consider it commendable, I withdraw my commendation, even though I continue to approve of your moral stance.

Essentially correct. You have a difference of 927 MeV acting as binding energy for the three quarks in a neutron. If you pull at one of the quarks with more than the energy of their 'combined' masses, 12 to 939 MeV, you have enough energy to 'create' three new quarks; two to associate with the one you were pulling on, and one to 'replace' the one you were pulling on in the original neutron. IOW, you can never get to the threshold value of 939 MeV which will allow for dissociation. That is a property of the color force, and why the 927 MeV difference is termed 'binding energy'.

That was the point quite early on in this thread (i.e. more studies are needed). So far we only know that transition does change the physiology and but some data suggests that certain proxy measures (such as testosterone levels) might not be enough to ascertain whether certain transgender athletes maintain categorical advantages. Thus, the idea that was circulated in this thread is whether one could try to devise a panel of physiological parameters (in addition or instead of testosterone) that could be used to separate athletes in different competition groups. After all, the argument is that men have a different physiology that affects certain athletic performances, therefore physiological parameters should be measurable. After all, chromosomes and genitals are also also just used as proxies (like testosterone levels) for certain physiological and performance differences. Another, likely easier method is to measure performance. Again, the base argument is that men and women have different base performance. Hence, an athlete that is closer to a given distribution might be sorted into the one or the other group. Finally, there is also the notion of fairness. The example of horse riding is a case where sex or gender has not shown to have a clear advantage in terms of performance, yet the system clearly favours one.

Why does the importance of these alleged differences in their “builds” supersede letting anyone qualify based on merit and skill based thresholds regardless of who they are and how they urinate? You keep repeating this point. I find it irrelevant and peripheral to the position I’m advocating. Can you convince me why I’m mistaken without simply repeating yourself or dismissing me as a PC social justice warrior? I tend to agree, but it’s the threshold that matters, not their maleness or femaleness or anything in between. What would their advantages matter if divisions were setup based on skill and competence instead of assigned sex at birth?

I recommend you believe me, specifically here now when I point out that this fun little anecdote of yours has literally Jack and his other brother Shit to do with the point I've been making about how better to setup sports divisions for improved and more inclusive outcomes.

@koti Given how incomplete our information is on all these people, I think it would be impossible to say who to believe. Family fights are often ugly and loaded with manipulation. There is a reason that some things end up in a courtroom - just accepting a bunch of "he said" and "she said" statements as a full account in hardly enough to make a rational decision. Also, as someone who has done counseling, I know that people may be "manipulative" because they have very little power over their own lives and can find no other leverage to make their needs known. It's entirely possible that the parents, if they had listened more and been more receptive to Ariel's feelings, would not have triggered quite so much manipulation.

Unless, of course, you're the transgendered person, or parent or loved one of a transgendered person, who's being needlessly discriminated against as a result of some not so humble yet extremely archaic opinions and assumptions. Categorize based on skill and ability and merit. Ignore gender, and sex, and how they identify or how they sit or stand when they pee. Why is this such an appalling and unacceptable idea to so very many? Why is it so hard to agree here that sports qualification criteria shouldn't care how you were classified at birth and how it should instead be focused on qualifications based on sport-specific thresholds?

An agenda seeking real progress would strive to give everyone the same rights and opportunities, and reduce the ability for the rich to exploit the poor, regardless of the colour of their skin and regardless of their gender.

If it was reversed, I would probably be watching the women's game. I can't exclude the fact that I'm my age group and it's all I know.

That will be funny - all the women in one room, watching a game; all the men in another room watching a game; everybody watching for the unfair advantage that one transgendered player might have; nobody watching the turkey.

You keep referring to the positive (or negative) electrode as though positive and negative were absolute measurements. They are not they are relative statements. Positive relative to what ? Negative relative to what ? I have added a second battery to my sketch connecting its 'negative' terminal to the negative terminal of the first battery. If the first battery has a voltage of 10 volts and the new battery has a voltage of 100 volts and I measure from the positive terminal of the new battery as shown then *) The voltage at the combined 'negative' terminal is -100V and the voltage at the 'positive' terminal of the original 10V battery is - 90V So is the positive terminal positive or negative ?

It means that even the devil he knows (intimately) is preferable to people who might change the unbalance of power.

What's wrong with progressivism? Absolutely nothing!! In fact it is a desired aspect ofr any and all progressive societies. We have elections in Australia this Saturday and we have the present tired old conservative government now playing politics and claiming now is not the time for change, against the Labor party, the party that gave us probably the best universal health scheme in the world, compulsory employer and employee contributing superannuation, general wage growth instead of stagnation, and a party for the people, leaving no one behind. The party I have been presently handing out leaflets for and have been a member of. But progressivnism like political correctnness can reach a stage of going mad and silly and shooting themselves in the foot in the progress.

This is all part of the modern phenomenon of re-defining words to suit an agenda. Republicans are trying to re-define 'progressivism' as something bad; as simply change for the sake of change, or change to a worse outcome. Most people ( who don't watch Fox News ) know that is politically driven, and it actually refers to the improvement of the human condition.. I would also suggest the term 'populism', has been re-defined by a liberal agenda, to mean something just short of fascism, while in effect it means a government serving the needs, and representing all the people, including commoners; not simply the elite affluent/intelligentsia, who don't necessarily believe the 'commoners' deserve representation.

Philosophy has always been a bit of a mystery to me so please take what I say with a grain of salt. The way a philosopher speaks about philosophy and the way laymen speak of philosophy makes it seem like they are talking about two completely different fields of study. It is similar to the way QM sounds like two different fields of study depending on whether you are speaking to a scientist or a layperson. When a scientist says 'as it really is' he is generally speaking of a destination that cannot realistically be achieved, and thus philosophy may seem a bit cracked. But when a philosopher says 'as it really is' he seems (to me) to be speaking of a journey of understanding and exploration. So just as a group of laypeople discussing QM can miss subtleties and have misperceptions go unchallenged, I think it is the same way with philosophy. While what the scientists say about philosophy sounds reasonable, by reading the thoughts of our few resident philosophers I get the feeling that the rest of us are missing something when it comes to understanding what philosophy can really do for us.

Of course he was being facetious. And while we're busy tooting our own horns, I'd like to point out that I have never beaten my wife, nor have I ever argued that women should not be allowed to vote in any election whatsoever! That is just my moral stance that I have stood by for years, and I don't care if you criticize me for my stand. I am not backing down! Let me say it again. And while we're busy tooting our own horns, I'd like to point out that I have never beaten my wife, nor have I ever argued that women should not be allowed to vote in any election whatsoever! That is just my moral stance that I have stood by for years, and I don't care if you criticize me for my stand. I am not backing down! (Just to be clear, I was being facetious there! 😀)

Commendable!

I certainly hope you do, just with reasoned arguments, rather than your usual handwaving insistence that you're right, because you say so. Not the same in a literal sense, but the same in the way they think about our contemporary surroundings and knowledge there of; the question's haven't changed, only the day the answers are given.

Yet again!!! you've failed to directly address a single point I've made, if and when you do (and I hope you do) we can have a decent conversation; until then I won't be replying to you...

You mean like your usual philsophical utterences? Or like this? I'm really trying not to laugh at your hypocrisy!