What is a woman?

[billvon 2,384]

56 minutes ago, wmw999 said:

Check your link…

Could have been worse!

[GeorgiaDon 340]

1 hour ago, billvon said:

Could have been worse!

Oops!  That's what I get for "multitasking" at work.  Fixed now.

[metalslug 31]

7 hours ago, SkyDekker said:

Can you find any US legislation that defines a woman?

In the same way that you might struggle to find US legislation that defines a grape, a giraffe or a pencil, and yet legal scholars can reasonably be expected to know what these are.  You're making my argument for me.

[wmw999 2,116]

1 hour ago, metalslug said:

In the same way that you might struggle to find US legislation that defines a grape, a giraffe or a pencil, and yet legal scholars can reasonably be expected to know what these are.  You're making my argument for me.

The law, especially with more people, really does define those finer gradations. Why with more people? Because the more people, the more exceptions there are going to be, and the law is all about defining the differences, and accounting for the exceptions.

Why is it important to be able to define woman in a confirmation hearing? Because they're going to weaponize it and use it against you. So find out what specifically the application is going to be, and then act accordingly.

Wendy P.

[billvon 2,384]

1 hour ago, metalslug said:

In the same way that you might struggle to find US legislation that defines a grape, a giraffe or a pencil, and yet legal scholars can reasonably be expected to know what these are.  You're making my argument for me.

If you saw a contract that promised someone who lived in Baker House at MIT a giraffe, and they stated that they did not receive a giraffe, and sued the other person, what would they be suing over?

[metalslug 31]

2 hours ago, billvon said:

If you saw a contract that promised someone who lived in Baker House at MIT a giraffe, and they stated that they did not receive a giraffe, and sued the other person, what would they be suing over?

How is that relevant? It's your scenario so fill in whatever fabrication is missing from it. OTOH if you'd like to ask me for the definition of a giraffe then go ahead and ask. I'll be answering with some version of an English dictionary definition.

[JoeWeber 2,294]

45 minutes ago, metalslug said:

How is that relevant? It's your scenario so fill in whatever fabrication is missing from it. OTOH if you'd like to ask me for the definition of a giraffe then go ahead and ask. I'll be answering with some version of an English dictionary definition.

To Bills point, you'd be suing over the definition, naught else. Mr. Metalslug, while it may be true that Black and White are words it is not absolutely true that the definition of Black or White are finally known. White and Black, as colors, are being constantly refined. Same with a meter. You'd think a meter was a meter but conditions, new information, and perspective matter. Of course, it's your'e prerogative to look backwards to any originalist meaning you hold dear and argue from that position. Back doing so does not make you right.

Edited April 9, 2022 by JoeWeber

[metalslug 31]

41 minutes ago, JoeWeber said:

You'd think a meter was a meter but conditions, new information, and perspective matter.

In the absence of explicitly specified conditions, new information and perspective then the definition defaults to the originalist meaning. Not?  If the word has ambiguity then one is not 'wrong' to defer to that.  To now obfuscate the question with additional but incomplete context therefore has no relevance to the OP or the question put to KBJ.

 To my earlier post in that regard, even bill replied with  'Yep' in his subsequent post. 'Being right (correct)' , in this forum, appears to be subjective opinion too.

[JoeWeber 2,294]

1 hour ago, metalslug said:

In the absence of explicitly specified conditions, new information and perspective then the definition defaults to the originalist meaning. Not?  If the word has ambiguity then one is not 'wrong' to defer to that.  To now obfuscate the question with additional but incomplete context therefore has no relevance to the OP or the question put to KBJ.

 To my earlier post in that regard, even bill replied with  'Yep' in his subsequent post. 'Being right (correct)' , in this forum, appears to be subjective opinion too.

Not. Unless, obviously, one is the final authority and has complete control of the askers intentions one is always wise, factual in fact, to assume one has incomplete information. Sort of it's like being pulled over by some true believer cop and thinking that by being completely honest, as you understand honesty, you'll be fine. Your lawyer would likely have a different opinion.

[kallend 1,621]

4 hours ago, metalslug said:

How is that relevant? It's your scenario so fill in whatever fabrication is missing from it. OTOH if you'd like to ask me for the definition of a giraffe then go ahead and ask. I'll be answering with some version of an English dictionary definition.

It's relevant because you seem quite unable to answer the question without referring to expert opinion - rather like asking a biologist about defining "woman".

[metalslug 31]

2 hours ago, kallend said:

It's relevant because you seem quite unable to answer the question without referring to expert opinion - rather like asking a biologist about defining "woman".

I avoid inventing new language unnecessarily. To recite a 'textbook definition' of something that I agree with does not imply physically referencing a book in the moment. A career academic such as yourself should know that. 

Edited April 9, 2022 by metalslug

[kallend 1,621]

3 hours ago, metalslug said:

I avoid inventing new language unnecessarily. To recite a 'textbook definition' of something that I agree with does not imply physically referencing a book in the moment. A career academic such as yourself should know that. 

Irony meter explodes.

[billvon 2,384]

13 hours ago, metalslug said:

How is that relevant? It's your scenario so fill in whatever fabrication is missing from it. OTOH if you'd like to ask me for the definition of a giraffe then go ahead and ask. I'll be answering with some version of an English dictionary definition.

Ah!  So you can't define it in this context, and you'd have to ask to know what the context is!

Which is exactly what KBJ said.  Thank you for proving my point.

To answer your question above, it is relevant because furniture in Baker House is referred to by animal names - and a giraffe is an odd looking shelving unit.  You could not have known that from my question.  So to answer it correctly, you would have to first find out what a giraffe is.  Even if "everyone knows what a giraffe is."  Had you answered without knowing that, you would have been wrong.  And if you were prepared to offer a legal opinion on that agreement without that knowledge - you would make a piss-poor judge.

It is also worth nothing that the very republicans who were mocking KBJ had no better luck defining what a woman was.

Marjorie Taylor Greene:  “This is an easy answer. We’re a creation of God. We came from Adam’s rib. God created us with his hands.  We may be the weaker sex — we are the weaker sex — but we are our partner — we are our husband’s wife."

Madison Cawthorn: “Science isn’t Burger King; you can’t just ‘have it your way.  Take notes, Madame Speaker. I’m about to define what a woman is for you.  X chromosomes, no tallywhacker. It’s so simple.”  So he disagrees with you.

Josh Hawley: “Someone who can give birth to a child, a mother, is a woman. Someone who has a uterus is a woman. It doesn’t seem that complicated to me.”

Also Josh Hawley when asked about a woman who had a hysterectomy: “Yeah. Well, I don’t know, would they?”

So per Republicans, anyone weaker who is someone's wife, and who is created by God, is a woman.  But only if they have a uterus.  If they don't, or if they are stronger than their husband, they fall into some grey area.  And they have to have X chromosomes - which would mean that men are women too, since they have X chromosomes as well.  But only if they don't have a tallywhacker.  Would a large clitoris count?

On the plus side, at least none of them will be in charge of deciding such cases.

[sfzombie13 307]

maybe i'm just missing the point, but i find it telling that in this day and age there are some folks who are arguing this point when the obvious answer was pointed out in the hearing:  it depends on context.  bill has put a fine example proving this, as have several others.  i find it difficult to believe that some could have the audacity to argue the point, unless trolling or stupid as hell.  as i have met none of you, i cannot say which it is for sure, but i suspect trolling.  the propaganda is good to get so many folks.  i just wish some idiots weren't so close minded and were open to other perspectives.  and i am included in this as well, i am not immune to propaganda, but am not an idiot in that i can acknowledge it when pointed out and have an open mind that can change when needed.  it makes me sad to think of how many think this way.

 

 

[kallend 1,621]

19 minutes ago, sfzombie13 said:

maybe i'm just missing the point, but i find it telling that in this day and age there are some folks who are arguing this point when the obvious answer was pointed out in the hearing:  it depends on context.  bill has put a fine example proving this, as have several others.  i find it difficult to believe that some could have the audacity to argue the point, unless trolling or stupid as hell.  

 

 

We know which party loves the poorly educated.  The marks don't even realized they're been conned despite their "fearless leader" having been fined $25M for fraud.

[billvon 2,384]

1 hour ago, sfzombie13 said:

maybe i'm just missing the point, but i find it telling that in this day and age there are some folks who are arguing this point when the obvious answer was pointed out in the hearing:  it depends on context.  bill has put a fine example proving this, as have several others.  i find it difficult to believe that some could have the audacity to argue the point, unless trolling or stupid as hell.  as i have met none of you, i cannot say which it is for sure, but i suspect trolling. 

I think it's more that if they concede the point, then "their side loses."

[JoeWeber 2,294]

24 minutes ago, billvon said:

I think it's more that if they concede the point, then "their side loses."

I am certain of that. At the end of February in the Covid thread I said "You have fully nailed the reality of Billeisele. He believes what he believes because it where he is at socially." It was simply an observation. Of course, that was as well received as a turd in the punch bowl but I have no doubt it is true. Not just for conservatives, although at least here they seem bound by the shackles more so, but for all of us. Every go at it we all like to point out the obvious bias in our correspondents news sources to make our points. But I think the bigger problem is the filter of our own biases supported by constant reaffirmations in our social circles. Again, and I concede the bias, I think the liberals here are a bit more free of those constraints. Surely there will be divergent views.

[billvon 2,384]

1 minute ago, JoeWeber said:

I am certain of that.  . . .Again, and I concede the bias, I think the liberals here are a bit more free of those constraints. Surely there will be divergent views.

Yeah.  I was somewhat suprised to hear a GWB staffer actually admit this years back.  He was talking to a reporter who he considered a liberal.  The reporter spoke about some fact or other, and how the staffer had disputed that.  The staffer claimed the reporter was stuck 'in what we call the reality-based community,' a community of people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality . . .That's not the way the world really works anymore.  We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors, and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'.

Since then, of course, we have heard how Trump supporters use "alternative facts" to believe in things like Pizzagate, the stolen election, the Fauci-created coronavirus and the vaccine that contains a microchip tracker to make us obedient to the New World Order which apparently is being planned by Bill Gates.  And unlike liberal kooks, of which there are plenty, these are memes that are believed by a large number of republicans.

In fact, fully 25% of republicans either believe or mostly believe three tenets of the Qanon thing:

1) The government, media, and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex-trafficking operation.

2) There is a storm coming soon that will sweep away the elites in power and restore the rightful leaders.

3) True American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.

So it's not a fringe belief.

Trump, of course, engaged in this regularly.  “I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City … where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down.”  He was challenged on this observation of something that never happened.  “I have a very good memory, I’ll tell you.  I saw it somewhere on television many years ago. And I never forgot it.”

And republicans then defend that with every tool at their disposal - via doctored videos, fake tweets, something someone saw on Youtube.  For exactly the same reason.  Because if they said "yeah, he's not really telling the truth there" - their side loses.

 

[mistercwood 287]

[brenthutch 383]

[JoeWeber 2,294]

57 minutes ago, billvon said:

Yeah.  I was somewhat suprised to hear a GWB staffer actually admit this years back.  He was talking to a reporter who he considered a liberal.  The reporter spoke about some fact or other, and how the staffer had disputed that.  The staffer claimed the reporter was stuck 'in what we call the reality-based community,' a community of people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality . . .That's not the way the world really works anymore.  We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors, and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'.

Since then, of course, we have heard how Trump supporters use "alternative facts" to believe in things like Pizzagate, the stolen election, the Fauci-created coronavirus and the vaccine that contains a microchip tracker to make us obedient to the New World Order which apparently is being planned by Bill Gates.  And unlike liberal kooks, of which there are plenty, these are memes that are believed by a large number of republicans.

In fact, fully 25% of republicans either believe or mostly believe three tenets of the Qanon thing:

1) The government, media, and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex-trafficking operation.

2) There is a storm coming soon that will sweep away the elites in power and restore the rightful leaders.

3) True American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.

So it's not a fringe belief.

Trump, of course, engaged in this regularly.  “I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City … where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down.”  He was challenged on this observation of something that never happened.  “I have a very good memory, I’ll tell you.  I saw it somewhere on television many years ago. And I never forgot it.”

And republicans then defend that with every tool at their disposal - via doctored videos, fake tweets, something someone saw on Youtube.  For exactly the same reason.  Because if they said "yeah, he's not really telling the truth there" - their side loses.

 

What people think isn't particularly interesting, why they think as they do is the important thing. Too bad that's such a hard thing to explain.

[kallend 1,621]

1 hour ago, JoeWeber said:

What people think isn't particularly interesting, why they think as they do is the important thing. Too bad that's such a hard thing to explain.

Education.

[metalslug 31]

8 hours ago, billvon said:

Ah!  So you can't define it in this context, and you'd have to ask to know what the context is!

I don't care to answer it in an irrelevant and fabricated context. Again you've absolutely missed it. Both the OP and question put to KBJ was devoid of context. Your 'Baker House at MIT' did have context. Not the same thing. When kallend's students are asking him about atoms so you think he would first get them remove the context of a racing car before agreeing to answer?   It's utterly asinine to bang on about "but.. but... context !" in the obvious settings in which the question is asked.

[billvon 2,384]

1 hour ago, metalslug said:

I don't care to answer it in an irrelevant and fabricated context. 

Ah!  So you thought I was going to trip you up with a fabricated context, so you "didn't care" to answer.

Sounds like you took exactly the same approach as KBJ.

You can wiggle and squirm about this all you like - but when you take exactly the same approach as the person you are attacking, your premise for attacking her starts to look like it's not based on anything but emnity.

Quote

When kallend's students are asking him about atoms so you think he would first get them remove the context of a racing car before agreeing to answer?

YES!  Exactly!  In a classroom dealing with physics (i.e. context) that has a very definite answer!  And it has nothing to do with racing cars.

But if he went into an interview for a software position, and they asked him to define "atomic" - if he said "pertaining to atoms" he would likely not get the job.  If he said "a computer operation that must not be interrupted or pre-empted" then he might just get the job - since that is the correct answer in a software context.

And if he was talking to a hostile lawyer, he would be wise to say "I don't know the context, so I can't give you an accurate answer.  What is the context?"  If he was talking someone on the Net who was trying to trip him up, he might even say "I don't care to answer it."  This does not mean he does not know what atomic means.  It just means that it can mean more than one thing, and he doesn't care to root out the context.

I THINK you are getting it now.  Maybe?

[metalslug 31]

1 hour ago, billvon said:

I THINK you are getting it now.  Maybe?

I rather suspect I'm the only one getting it. An interview for a judicial position is in the context of law and if you believe that jurisprudence is not tightly integrated with basic language and grammar then good luck to you. There's little point in debating further if you have no interest in the OP of the thread. The 'wiggle and squirm' has been all yours.

Edited April 10, 2022 by metalslug