Because someone asked:
Yes, matter of fact I do want to completely abolish gender as a concept, and get rid of terms of gendered attraction
Because they are entirely obsoleted artifacts from a time when we considered gender to be much more strictly binary, and these terms made sense. They no longer do.
So, I would much prefer we create new frameworks and terms to describe personal expression, and sexual and/or romantic attractions.
The entire concept of "masculine" and "feminine" gets tossed out, and instead we should focus on attributes that are entirely independent of one's physiological build, which is essentially what we're already doing by adding all these new "edge cases" to our legacy model.
femininity and masculinity are individually perceived concepts. We may be told by others what they think it means, but that doesn't mean we have to agree with them, or that it's the one truth.
It's simply a vague set of ways you show yourself to others.
they are not intrinsic to anything, certainly not some fixed set of body types or behaviors.
Therefore terms like "lesbian" don't really mean anything at all.
So we can either get rid of them, and make new ones, or, shut the fuck up about them.
Because just because you don't perceive someone to match your idea of what lesbian means, doesn't mean they don't.
@luna
So words don't have meaning because anyone can percieve them as they like?
@nikolal yeah. that's how language works.
@nikolal Another example you might consider is machine translation
A computer has no clue what a "ball" is, or what "hello" means.
All it sees is a piece of data, and that it maps to another piece of data somewhere.
That's why machine translation between two vastly different languages is often messy.
@luna
We are not machines, we are far more complicated than that. Subjectively words don't have to have meaning, objectively thats not the productive way to be in society
@nikolal well if your only concern is the productivity of society at large you're honestly talking to the wrong person
@luna
You are mixing things here, if you speak to someone about microbiology on the street they know that that is subject they don't know anything about, so your words mean something objectively, they just don't have clue because they are not educated about it
@nikolal there is no objective meaning
even in science, all observations made are relative to our human perception
two people might have differing understandings of a topic
@luna
There is objective meaning, do you know of independent researches in science/engineering/microbiology that have come to same conclusion? That is definition of being objective, gender theory is subjective stuff, you either buy it or not. Objectivelly if you jump from building you will fall, and that is universal, objective truth.
@nikolal we can play this game if you want
what does it mean to fall?
@luna
We can, but it would be just a waste of time. I could show you though
@nikolal if it's *objectively* true that if I jump from a building I will fall, then there has to be an objective definition of falling.
So?
@luna
Objectively means that it has same meaning for very large group of people, if we discuss about social stuff. Objectively in science means for all that follows same set of rules. So if you are in gravitational field of our dying planet then yes, you follow set of rule that is being in gravitational field and you are going to fall if you jump from buidling (if you don't have jetpack or something like that. Do you still think there is no objectivity?
@nikolal now you're moving goalposts friend, I asked you to define falling, not define "objective"
@luna
As I said, I can define falling by showing it to you
@nikolal if you show it then it's relative to my personal perception again
why can't you use words to do it
@luna
I don't really have to use words to define something, showing is always better when comes to falling.
@nikolal oh so you agree that words have no objective meaning then
@luna
Everything is subjective if you consider yourself at the centre of the world. For me words have objective meaning because I use them to find common ground with other people. There is objectivity in that. Care to give some argument that actually makes sence?
@nikolal a common subjective ground.
@luna
If its common its objective, lets just find common groud of agreeing to disagree. Its not very productive discussion
@nikolal you still didn't tell me the meaning of falling so but by all means, wasting an hour of your time with this was pretty fun
@luna
Glad that someone of us enjoyed it
@luna
And yet again, I could just show you what falling means. So you should work in the future on your arguments, maybe both of us could have fun in conversation, and be productive too.
@nikolal My arguments were rock solid given you failed to attack any of them and instead resorted to running around in circles about objectivity, which is entirely unrelated to the original question of whether words in and of themselves have meaning
lul
@nikolal words communicate concepts, which have no meaning in and of themselves
the meaning comes from how we perceive or interpret these concepts
If I say, talk to a person on the street about microbiology, chances are they have no clue what the fuck I'm talking about
Without me also communicating my perception of the concepts, my words are utterly meaningless