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The financial crisis is a great recent example that helps provide a context we're familiar with. I've read and kept up with it pretty closely and, as an objectivist, would say in the loosest terms that it was government caused, but there are so many aspects of that, that I would never claim, for instance that fannie mae caused it. They certainly had a hand, but quite a few things would qualify as necessary but insufficient in the same sense. Same with the civil war. Slavery, obviously a major issue but so were slanted tarriffs favoring the purchase of goods from the north rather than cheaper better goods from Europe. It seems that anytime you impose economic hardship on a group they'll be pretty inclined to separate. I wasn't alive then, but I imagine if I was and read the news consistently there would be half a dozen major causes and 42 minor causes. It's always stricken me as a strange thing to debate in that sense.

I've always had trouble with what this means, so maybe you could explain it further. It seems that war happens because one group of people is angry at another, so if varying groups of people decide to fight, wouldn't all of the available reasons be the collective causes of the civil war? You might be able to make the claim about the motivations for a single individual with enough evidence. Like say "Lincoln was in favor of the war because he wanted to end slavery," or the other way around, but that would not make slavery the cause of the civil war just one. You could even, theoretically at least, have a poll where 58% of residents were in favor of the war to end slavery, in which case it would be the most common reason for the war, but still not the reason. So I'm trying to understand what exactly people mean when they make a claim, one way or the other. (I don't know enough about this subject to have a strong opinion one way or the other) Second, but in the same vane, I don't see how Paul's positions are predominantly incompatible with the war being about slavery. Assuming that slavery is the cause, it doesn't change the fact the Lincoln drafted men, or had more than a thousand draft protesters shot for wanting to preserve their own freedom. There's no reason, in other words, that a tyrant could not be on the right side of a war against slavery. Or am I missing something?

Just to be clear, I'm not opposed to finding causation and it's always the goal. It's a great goal, but neuroscientists are nowhere near having a full understanding of the causation involved, to my knowledge. In light of that, correlation is adequate for decision making. A cab driver in NY deciding who to pick up or a headhunter for a multinational drilling company, would do well to take what data was known, even racially based data, to make decisions with, even if it was correlational or incomplete. Using people for the example makes everyone uncomfortable, so it would be better to use an example about expectations like the Einstein's or say having a rule about avoiding lions because they tend to bite. My primary point, to clarify this, is that our brains, at their most basic levels of functioning correlate information that we're presented with. Taking it to the point of understanding causation is great when possible, but when it's not, then using correlational information has great survival value like avoiding lions, even if some of them don't bite. Maybe because of a strictly adhered to circadium rhythm they only bite between 3pm and 6pm and are useful to ride in between those times, but the avoidance of them, absent that causal knowledge, is still wise.

Semantic arguments bore me, but if you prefer we can call them rules of thumb. If I say things fall toward the earth, your going to point out that helium balloons don't. Great. I'm not daft. When you do this though, I feel as though you're ignoring my meaning especially since I've now stated on several occasions that I am talking about rules in which there exist a number of unknowns and exceptions. I really have no idea what you are trying to accomplish with that approach. We're at odds then, because I am primarily defending gender as a concept and not trying to defend Peikoff's position on them. Again with the oughts? I made no sich oughts about the nature of transgendered people. More to the point, we gain nothing by arguing 2 positions from 2 different points of view. Oh...thanks!?! No, unfortunately it only demonstrates that there isn't much benefit to continuing this conversation. We're clearly not understanding each other at all.

To nitpick further, neuroscience is a subset of biology. I was just choosing not to narrow my options. Partially`made up. It was several years ago but I think the brain differences were 100% of males and females with equitable IQ's had these differences, but it was a small samble size...37 maybe?? Anyways, a seperate study found that some transexuals seem to have white and gray matter distributions somewhere in between what would be expected for a male or female...so I was guessing at the percentage of transsexuals and hermaphrodites and subtracting them. I don't recall the name of the study or its authors. The cause is only important in assessing morality or in searching for ways to alter the fact. The fact remains immutable though.

I really appreciate it. I disagree. I teach 2-6 year olds, and even at that age this particular difference is very noticeable. There's really no way that I can prove it to you, so I'm content to let it go though. That's certainly possible, but if there were a large number of these sorts of differences, in that world would lead me to suspect otherwise. Again, not a provable point, so there's not much value in debating it. That's a separate thing. I agree that rules can always be refined and bettered with more information, but the fact that there are exceptions does not affect the rule unless you demand that the rule includes the word "all" at the beginning of it. If I say, "let's go swan hunting! Keep your eyes open for any large white birds." The fact that its possible that they can very occasionally be black or that someone dyed a couple swans blue doesn't change the usefulness of looking for a large white bird. They do apply. The fact that some small percentage of n can be outliers does not affect the vast majority of cases. Sure, except that they are.My guess is that you are probably not an outlier but are simply overcompensating by using other areas of your brain to accomplish similar tasks better. Sociopaths can become quite good at dealing with emotions by having to sort of learn to have them deliberately. (not calling you a sociopath, just an analogy ) Same could be true with language and math skills. I think you are mistaken. . It's a nice equitable thought, but it's not how our brains function. We don't treat each new experience as a first. We organize and categorize everything, including people. We don't spend all day reinventing the wheel. Also, I think the fact that you keep adding "every" and "all" to each reiteration of my examples is a large part of what makes them so unpalatable.

Of course not. That was one fairly delimited example that I tried to trace through with my best guess of how that one difference would play out on a macro level. It doesn't need to be said that the brain is a fairly complex piece of equipment and that it isn't fully understood. So you can take my example with a grain of salt, if you like, but I would hope that you are not expecting me to convince you that the many large differences in brain structure probably have a significant impact on processing information. My understanding is that having less back and forth conversation between the two hemispheres causes men to tend to filter their thinking through the left hemisphere leading to more mechanistic thinking. This is a bit of an oversimplification, but this isn't a nuerology course so you can feel free to research it further and draw your own conclusions. Like a hermaphrodite, transgendered people seem to have brain structures somewhere inbetween a male and a female, at least with regard to the amount of white matter. If this was found to be purely a matter of genetics, then it wouldn't be a moral issue, for the most part. My guess though is that, in male/female brain differences, some parts are genetic directly, but most are genetic indirectly in that their genes tell their bodies to produce different kinds of hormones and particular times in their development and that those are largely responsible for the differences that do occur. It's a sloppy process, so it seems that individuals can have specific elements that are more "masculinized" or "feminized" depending on what hormone balance existed during the time that that particular brain part was developing. Related, it's been known for awhile that areas that experience high stress problems, like bombings or war or famine, will produce a higher percentage of homosexual offspring. It's thought that the increased cortisol levels of the mothers alters the hormone balance in utero leading to that variation. So it's quite possible that other sorts of variations could lead to transgendered brains or any other number of differences. Yes, except that, it would be dozens of brain differences and the connected behaviors. What I meant to say, I said in posts 55 and 64. That cultural influence is insufficient to account for the many developmental and behavioral differences between men and women...but to answer your sentence above, ,because...there would be a number of base behaviors that would tip the scale over time. He would, for example, have troughs and peaks of focus with the peaks most often instigated by physical activity, whereas a natural woman would have a more stable level of concentration. He would also tend toward analytical rather then interpersonal thinking in dealing with problems involving people. I don't mean to imply, by the way, that I or anyone else could not be fooled in the short term. I'm thinking more in the context of a ongoing relationship or friendship. This is where you are mistaken. There is no "must" in all of this. We're talking about biology, which is the same field that's responsible for the platypus. Obviously exceptions abound with regard to any particular case or brain part, but those exceptions don't invalidate the rule. Yes Taking you at your word, yeah, in those particular ways. If 99.6% of women have 9 times as much white matter as men and 1/7 the amount of gray matter, and you were to for example, have those same ratios, then, your brain would be similar to a woman's in those ways. A is A. That's just an example since what is actually going on with your personal brain, I have no way of knowing or even guessing since I don't know you really. No and no. Like I said, I have no way of knowing. It could be differences or it could be that you have used entirely different parts of your brain to achieve the same thing at the expense of not using those areas for something else. I've been saying exactly what I mean. I would guess what makes you think I'm obfuscating is that I am aware of the large number of unknowns in the field and in comes out in the form of more passive writing. There are not many known absolutes regarding this gene, hormone, experience interplay. This is only my best guess as to how it plays out. No, and Post hoc ergo proctor hoc. This explains why there are less women in those fields, and why males consistently outperform females on spatial rotation tests and why its almost always harder for girls to learn to parallel park. There is no should involved in this except that one should have a realistic concept of their own personal capacities if they expect to succeed and that one useful shortcut is understanding how your brain functions, which usually includes and understanding of your brain as a woman or man, since their are differences. So, I would recommend that males run for 15 minutes immediately before taking an important exam since it has been shown to increase test scores on standardized tests by nearly 20%. that would be an example of a useful ought derived from an understanding of male brain structure. That sounds all well and good, but it can't be true. Our brains function primarily by generalizing. We take examples and search for causation. Correlation is a necessary(though insufficient) first step and correlation is a good deal more useful with more examples than less. And anyways, Right, there's a lot of incorrect stereo types out there. Again, what you're saying does not follow from the premise. There is no determination of value. Maybe in the sense that a highly masculinized brain might balance out well in a relationship with a similarly highly feminized brain, and likewise with a less masculinized or feminized brain, but that's a lot of conjecture. No, we don't. You do. I come to quite reasonable expectations of behavior that play out pretty consistently. I do take them seriously, but I avoid logic mistakes like the above, where you stereotype stereotypes, assuming that they all have arisen from the same mistaken premises and are all therefore equally invalid. This is getting off topic, but stereotype is really just a smear word for the process of induction. Everyone stereotypes all day long. Buildings with "Einsteins" on the side usually sell bagels. If you get robbed at gun point in NYC 86% of the time it will be a black male between the ages of 16-35. 13% of the time it will be a Hispanic male of the same age. Oranges that are green on the outside are usually more bitter. These things are true and useful stereotypes. "All bitches is just hoes." Not really useful unless all women really do have sex for money which I know they do not. Jumping from the robbery statistic to "therefore all black people are criminals" would also be a mistake because it doesn't follow. As an aside, this line by line kind of conversation is really difficult for me to stay on track with. To the extent that you could consolidate your arguments for me, I would greatly appreciate it. I realize that sometimes there's that one sentence or fact that needs special attention, so I don't mean to say never, but I doubt every line I pop out deserves that much merit.

The part that contradicts the free market is the part where government steps in and mandates the use of the code in all circumstances. Having a code as a recommendation is fine. Insurance companies in a free market, for example, would likely do well to only insure buildings built according to such a code. Having a building tagged in county records as having been built according to code might even increase its value, but creation of government bureaucracies to enforce the code, I think, does more harm than good, in that it stunts innovation and even slows normal building procedures since the enforcement of that code, however well written, relies on humans with, often, little to no hands on experience in the field. I spent close to 12 years installing mechanically seamed steel roofs, which, being uncommon and only a few decades old, led to some pretty bizarre encounters with fellows whose job it was to permit me me to work...Asking me, for example how they were supposed to be installed, or if I had an "installation book" so that they might check my work or even requiring changes based on their own poorly formed opinions that would ultimately lead to a worse(as in leaking) product. I can only imagine the trouble you'd run into trying to trying to make a dome or a half buried hippie house with straw bale insulation, or whatever. As new materials and techniques become available, the code, necessarily will lag behind, leading to the uncomfortable situation where they need to be used in experienced to understand how best to use them and determine what the code ought to be, but they can't be used until their is a code defining their use. Also, I would note that, as with all government intervention, corruption plays no small part. Vindictive and paid off enforcers aren't unknown, and even with regard to the contents of the code itself, I have some doubts about how those decisions are made. OSB, for example, is supposed to be as strong as plywood in its hold strength, but in every tear-off that I experienced, I could easily rip up a panel screwed down into OSB with one hand, whereas, a similar roof screwed into 3/4" plywood would require a crowbar. So, maybe no one involved in the code has noticed that OSB is only marginally better than cardboard in application(lab tests are another story) or maybe something else is going on that allows it. Whatever it is though, OSB is cheaper so even a framer that knows better, is pushed into using a sub par product to be competitive.

Now, I think you are reading far more into my comments than I intended. I tried to explain that I understand the development of all characteristics as a complex interplay between genetics, hormones, and environment. I see all of them as necessary but insufficient for the development of any and all traits. The dna is there at conception, by birth a massive amount of hormones(directed by the dna) have altered the human in huge ways that will affect their environment and have it affect them back. Puberty will do the same again. Some differences are known to be there at birth, some are not, but I don't see that as very relevant to my position. That it's not perfectly understood is a given, but I can't imagine that you believe that the scale of differences we do see are insignificant or that they are not pervasively linked to sex. To be sure, early circumstances can affect the size of elements but nothing on that scale that I am aware of. I seem to remember a study on the affects of serious abuse and neglect on the development of (I think) the amygdala, and while significant, even that was nothing like a 700% increase. I can definitely see plenty of room for disagreement as to the particular effects of those differences. Men possessing 75% of the corpus collosum of women, for example seems to filter a good deal of activity through the left hemisphere, To what extent that(and especially that alone) causes men to operate more mechanistically, if at all is not well understood. It could do that or it could be that some mixture of other brain parts over compensates for women in some way. That doesn't match my experience and I don't think it likely but I wouldn't rule it out. I'm a little concerned that you think my estimation of some as being more masculine or feminine is a value judgement. If it came across that way, I apologize. I picture some median conglomeration of traits for both men and women as a line bisecting two side by side bell curves. plenty of room for crossover in any particular trait but two distinctively different sets or quantities of sets. So early reading would be a more feminine trait, statistically. Reading by 2 or even 2.5(depending on what exactly you mean by "reading") is exceedingly rare, even for girls, so that could be something else altogether. On average though, girls are at 3 what boys get to by 4 1/2. Conversely, many boys are doing math that I haven't seen girls do. Similar differences exist between gross and fine motor skills. Because of individuation, I would not assume one propensity being opposite of their sex as being indicative of a more feminized brain, but if there were a great number of them, then I would think that. Also, for the record, I never said that " dumb, frail, helpless, and quiet/dispassionate" were feminine traits.

I disagree that cultural influence is sufficient. Obviously. I suppose if you had a mad scientist bent you could unleash an unfriendly amount of pressure on a female infant to improve her spatial skills, or badger a boy long enough to keep him from moving around so much, but I wouldn't recommend it. I teach in a Montessori school and spend a good deal of time trying to stretch the underused abilities of 2-6 year olds, so no harm in trying, but these propensities are really strong and happen before anyone has had much of a chance to genderize them. It's not that it has no effect, but they in no way make up for those differing capacities. It's very much a "lead the horse to water..." sort of a problem.

No, not magic. Those traits are just some of my extrapolations of what some of the mentioned brain differences would lead to. Maybe a more specific example. The Fusiform face area is much larger in female infants than males. Also that females tend to use more parts of their brain(on both hemispheres) to analyze faces. Also with a much larger limbic system they are more quickly able to process emotions they experience and witness on others. Also that both males and females from infancy up prefer to look at female faces. Because they are able to be aware of more, faces are more interesting to them. So they stare at faces more. So parents and other adults hold them more because of the eye contact paired with preferences for female faces. So they talk to them more. So they develop faster, linguistically, than males. They are relatively good at it so they prefer activities which involve interpersonal interactions and gain a good deal more experience as well as several estrogen baths along the way, further reinforcing this tendency towards empathy and linguistic capacity. Providing them an increased capacity to anticipate and understand the needs That's not the whole story, of course, but that is, roughly, my current understanding of the way genes, hormones, and experience build on one another toward general tendencies of sex based behavior. There are certainly exceptions and crossover with borderline cases but exceptions and malfunctions ought not be the standard by which a concept is defined except as an indication of the widest point the concept can stretch to, of which, I'd argue, transgendered people would be an example. This is anecdotal, but a few years ago I went on a date with a "reforming lesbian"(her words) and despite physical attraction, could not muster up a bit of sexual interest. Her mannerisms and intellectual/emotional responses were just kinda male. There's probably a better word than feminine energy, but I don't know it. But I suspect that it would feel quite similar in your transsexual example above. As a straight male, I am more attracted to feminine women(up to a point) and lesbians and transexuals would usually fall further down that scale than is interesting to me.

I'm not quite sure what you're asking for. Can you think of an example(doesn't have to be true) that would qualify as a real life example?

So obviously you could write some sci fi situation where they don't just change every aspect of their body, but even completely alter their brain structure so as to match the brain structure and even memories of a natural woman. In that case, though, it really would be a completely different person at the end. No way to argue against that. Assuming though that they are biologically female in all other ways, changing everything but their original brain, then I would expect to see quite a number of differences indicated by those brain structure differences. So...less multi-tasking, more singular focus on specific things, particular word patterns, non-verbal communication cues and awareness, attention to motion and movement, reflex responses, that sort of thing, would all lead to a more masculine energy. Obviously I could be aware of any number of those (and other) things at different times, but they would all come up circumstantially. To clarify, I am not claiming that I couldn't be fooled. Especially in the sort run. One more argument against casual sex.

Yes and no. It depends on what characteristics your looking at.

I would recommend this article as a primer on some of the inherent differences seen so far. http://health.howstuffworks.com/human-body/systems/nervous-system/men-women-different-brains1.htm With those sorts of differences to begin with, I think it's too much to expect that people would ever be able to forgo the appropriate epigenetic responses. Obviously, some elements of gender roles are fairly arbitrary, like the color pink as a preference, but the more fundamental and meaningful differences, like those found in communication styles or sensitive periods for language acquisition, would be pretty unavoidable.

No, I wouldn't. The differences that had already accumulated would be too much to be unrecognizable to me in most realistic scenarios that I can imagine. To be clear, I'm not saying they can't recognize themselves differently. Just that I wouldn't.

This is an idea that seems to be at the root of this issue for me. Even if, through some feat of genetic engineering, they could change a man into a woman, from the chromosomes up, I couldn't get myself on board with having a relationship with one. In some more fundamental way, they would still not be a woman to me. I wouldn't try to argue formally that he is not a she since all evidence would imply otherwise, but on a psycho-epistomomological level I could never alter it in my mind once I knew. My only introspective guess as to why I feel that way, is that I see being a woman as more than a set of XX's. A large part of being a woman is that she grew up as a little girl. All of the truly formative years of her self concept were spent being, and being reacted to, as a girl and a woman. That life and those experiences are, by and large, completely different from the the life of a little boy turning into a man. Even a troubled little boy without a strong sense of his masculinity and any number of more typically female experiences, cannot be thought to have experienced and developed his sense of life as a woman would have. To me, they are what they are, which is a man who had a surgical procedure so that he might be more womanlike, but he is not a woman. Sex isn't a perfect dichotomy so exceptional cases in the middle get their own names, like hermaphrodite, or transgendered. Psychologically speaking, them identifying with another sex and taking surgical steps to identify further does not obligate me to identify them as the other sex so that they might feel better about themselves. And anyways, it would never work since accepting the sum total of who they are, an individual who wants to be fundamentally different than what they are, is the only way to close that kind of book. I wouldn't go as far as Peikoff and suggest that they are immoral, but I think that a reasonable assumption is that being so fundamentally opposed to your own identity usually comes out of an unhealthy place.

I know. In all seriousness, even if you have no real intention of following through, trying to start one is worth it just for its educational value. To get a grasp of how horribly gamed the system is.

Double Fucking "Like." Everyone should read this.

I wish more people would try to start a small business for that experience alone. Until you do it is not as obvious how very owned we are. I feel your pain, man.

Sorry, some malfunction in the quoting there. Meant to add that I don't understand what you mean in this sentence.

Wouldn't that then, also apply to marriage in general? Without needing to reproduce and secure inheritance, what purpose does it serve? Sure there is, desire at least. Just fewer people asking for it. As far as practical need for it, that same argument could likely be applied against gay marriage. We don't need larger families and we have sex for romantic reasons. As a culture we are trending away from group relationships and individual relationships

So no arguments against polygamy?

I understand that there would be a lack of efficiency, but that's not an ethical reason. Ostensibly, a polygamist(or polyandry for that matter)could craft their own marriage licenses for wives number 2, 3, and 4. Perhaps a line of succession, like inheritance, for decision making with regard to health issues and all that. Currently, like gay gay marriage, it is not even allowed regardless of how much work they wish to put into it. If ones sexual preference is to have more than one person to love, than they and their sexual preferences are being discriminated against. Their preference isn't just having a woman. They want the woman, her best friend, and her sister, too be happy in the relationship. If they're all game, why should other people tell them that they can't?

I'm saying that wanting a variety of vaginas in your life would be a sexual orientation that's being discriminated against. Gender does have relevance if the "institution" is believed to be intended for procreation and/or biblical values. Removing that standard for judgement, what remains is anti-discrimination, in which case disallowing any sort of marriage(assuming consent) seems unsupportable to me. So my thought is that once gay marriage is legalized it's unavoidable that eventually some bigamists are going to sue for recognition of their marriage and should probably win, expanding it even further. I'd like to understand if their is a moral basis for discriminating against polygamist couples for what I see as an inevitability.