Debra Soh: The End of Gender

A controversial new book aims to debunk "the myths about sex and identity in our society."

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Debra Soh: The End of Gender

In a world where Facebook recognizes more than 70 sexual identities, are we really witnessing what author Debra Soh calls The End of Gender?

The Toronto-based sex researcher's new book is subtitled "debunking the myths about sex and identity in our society" and she tells Nick Gillespie that scientific rigor is being tossed aside in the name of political activism when it comes to talking about gender differences and flashpoint issues such as allowing pre-pubescent children to transition sexually. Unapologetically "sex-positive" and in favor of letting consenting adults do whatever they want with their bodies, Soh worries that a new form of science denialism mostly on the left will ultimately undermine all sorts of social progress.

Comments

[Longtobefree]

Mostly on the left? MOSTLY?

[Thomas L. Knapp]

Maybe not even "mostly," but at least "partially." I've run into people on the right who (for example) 1) un-scientifically conflate gender identity and biological sex, and 2) un-scientifically define the latter as consisting entirely of a particular chromosomal distinction that, while applicable to the vast majority of persons, is neither definitive nor dispositive.

[damikesc]

1) The Left has done that, not the Right. The Left has decided that "gender and sex are different" is now "they are the same damned thing"

2) Sure. Only a very good indicator 99.9% of the time. Feelings, CLEARLY, trump that.

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[Sidd Finch v2.01]

Glad OBL has a new bit.

[The New Number Two]

Knapp isn't a sock. He's an established left-libertarian activist.

[Sidd Finch v2.01]

I'm not a sucker. There's no way this is real.

[Sidd Finch v2.01]

Holy shit this is a gold mine.

And she might continue to lose massively if her opponents debated her. Their abject, paralyzing fear of doing so indicates they don't believe that to be the case.

The Democratic Party gave up on marriage apartheid in 2016.

At the moment, the threshold is 15% -- in polls that are hand-picked by the Commission on Presidential Debates, which is operated by the Republican and Democratic parties. See the problem there?

[NOYB2]

He’s an established left-libertarian activist.

There is no such thing as an "established left-libertarian activist". Libertarianism and left wing ideology are fundamentally incompatible. He may delude himself into thinking that that's what he is, but that doesn't make it objectively true.

[The New Number Two]

Your sophomoric objection is duly noted.

[Entelechy]

I wish there were no such thing as a barrier to a sopomoric libertarian becoming a carping bore, but this one just crashed through it.

[Thomas L. Knapp]

In fairness, I'm a thin and paleo left-libertarian (Paine, Comte/Dunoyer, Bastiat, et al.), not a thick and/or pomo/critical theory left-libertarian.

[mad.casual]

In fairness, I’m a thin and paleo left-libertarian (Paine, Comte/Dunoyer, Bastiat, et al.), not a thick and/or pomo/critical theory left-libertarian.

In accuracy, you need labels to make you feel special.

[The New Number Two]

Since the "left-libertarian" label has been (mis)applied to everyone economically left of Ayn Rand and culturally left of Lew Rockwell, from Noam Chomsky to Gary Johnson, I don't see anything wrong with clarification.

[mad.casual]

Since the “left-libertarian” label has been (mis)applied to everyone economically left of Ayn Rand and culturally left of Lew Rockwell, from Noam Chomsky to Gary Johnson, I don’t see anything wrong with clarification.

Because you need labels to make you feel special too.

[The New Number Two]

Weird accusation, considering I haven't labeled myself.

[CE]

libertarians are the masters of splitting hairs

[mad.casual]

some "libertarians" are the masters of splitting hairs

[Thomas L. Knapp]

Nah, if I want to feel special there are drugs for that.

[lmarkus.sergalw]

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[The New Number Two]

The right essentializes gender in such a way that it's treated as a natural extension of one's biological sex with only minor, insignificant cultural variation.

The old left attacked gender as purely a social construct, divorces from biological sex, designed to oppress women.

The new left re-essentializes gender, but in such a way that it's divorced both from chromosomes and from cultural norms. It's a mystically personal, subjectively relative essence, known only through self-reporting, that demands societal recognition.

[Vernon Depner]

it’s treated as a natural extension of one’s biological sex with only minor, insignificant cultural variation.

Which is, of course, the truth.

[The New Number Two]

Not exactly. Gender roles are constantly evolving. Most traditionalists aren't prepared to argue that male nurses and female truck drivers act contrary to nature. There's a certain "appeal to disgust" or at least an "appeal to discomfort" that carries a lot of weight with conservatives in these physis vs. nomos debates.

[Nardz]

Gender roles also have a fundamental basis in nature.
Some trappings might change, but biology/physics is what it is

[The New Number Two]

Part biological basis, part historical necessity, sometimes pure historical accident. None of which is sufficient to conclude that gender roles are natural functions or -- more to the point -- normative for the present day in their present forms.

As these roles no longer serve to aid our survival in a hunter-gatherer society, even if the gender essentialists were correct re: the metaphysics of manhood and womanhood, it isn't enough to justify the considerable is-ought leap.

[soldiermedic76]

It's a false dichotomy. Yes there are natural reasons and cultural reasons. And gender is a distribution curve. It isn't defined by the extreme tails but by the mean. Well few fall on the mean, the majority fall within two deviations on either side of the mean.

[CE]

so why not speak up for non-traditional gender roles, rather than trying to hack your body to match your personality? seems like a less invasive intervention.

[Sidd Finch v2.01]

Gender roles are constantly evolving. Most traditionalists aren’t prepared to argue that male nurses and female truck drivers act contrary to nature.

Sissies and tomboys aren't new concepts. The left is always acting like they recently discovered "exceptions" and everyone must be mesmerized by their big brains.

[mad.casual]

It's retarded self-fulfilling prophecy. To solve the eclipse problem, you have to throw virgins into volcanoes. Then, to make progress on the eclipse problem, you discover that you don't have to throw virgins into volcanoes and deride all those who thought you had to throw virgins into volcanoes to end eclipses as idiots.

Male nurses have been a thing since they were called orderlies and before. There's never been a law, broad or narrow, in the US and possibly even the West, preventing women from driving and yet, in 2020 decades after the women's rights movement, work equality, etc. men make up less than 50% of drivers but still drive over 60% of the miles driven.

[The New Number Two]

You honestly believe >50% of truck drivers are women? Being familiar with the transportation industry (LTL, FTL, flatbed, containers, heavy haul), my generous guess is <5%. A progressive might want to claim such lopsided demographics are due to societal pressures and sexual discrimination. All I'm saying is that women who do pursue careers as truck drivers, or police officers, or surgeons, or philosophers, or bounty hunters don't violate their nature as females, with moral implications, in doing so; the same logic applies to all gender transgressions, including those that offend traditionalist sensibilities. A woman murdering her children is both egregiously wrong and unfeminine, but it isn't wrong *because* it is unfeminine.

[mad.casual]

You honestly believe >50% of truck drivers are women?

I don't see the word 'truck' or 'professional' driver anywhere in my post. Maybe you'd understand it if I'd said that more than 50% of driver's licenses belong to women.

All I'm saying is that women who do pursue careers as truck drivers, or police officers, or surgeons, or philosophers, or bounty hunters don't violate their nature as females

And all I'm saying is that 'violating their nature as females' as applied to truck driving, let alone the moral implications of truck driving, is a concept that exists nowhere but in your head.

Even the most chauvinist of male chauvinists wouldn't say "Women couldn't possibly make up 5% of the trucking industry." and, whether they make up 5% of the industry or not, here you are saying "Women couldn't possibly make up 5% of the trucking industry."

I'm saying the idea of directed social progress as such is intrinsically contradictory and anti-teleological. You have to assume that gender dominated professions were consciously/deliberately chosen to be that way specifically and that way is wrong. It's anti-teleological nonsense.

Whether you think the virgin sacrifice is a traditionally female gender role or not, neither the eclipse nor the volcano care.

[The New Number Two]

You referred to male nurses, then female drivers. I had previously mentioned male nurses and female truck drivers.

And no, the notion that society should reinforce established gender roles does exist--not just in my head. I've witnessed a former ATA president instruct his HR director not to bring on women drivers and decline to give meaningful raises to his female employees because "men are the breadwinners." Are all gaps in wages due to sexual discrimination? Not at all. Does unfair wage discrimination based purely on the employee's sex still exist? Absolutely, on account of the gender essentialist mindset that you're denying is real.

As for the eclipses and virgin sacrifices in volcanoes, I lost interest in that fantastical little thought experiment before I could make out your point.

[mad.casual]

I’ve witnessed a former ATA president instruct his HR director not to bring on women drivers and decline to give meaningful raises to his female employees because “men are the breadwinners.”

First, ^shit that didn't happen.
Second, I wasn't aware that a former ATA president was the sole authority of defining the nature of women and/or the morality of trucking. Once again, if you were a fervent male chauvinist arguing on behalf of your position and cited a former ATA president as saying "men are the breadwinners" you'd be rightfully laughed off stage and yet, here you are citing a former ATA president as some sort of proof of the essential or vital nature of women.

Does unfair wage discrimination based purely on the employee’s sex still exist? Absolutely, on account of the gender essentialist mindset that you’re denying is real.

It's not an essentialist mindset, even your former ATA president isn't arguing that women *can't* drive trucks or that they're deplorable women for driving trucks, he's arguing that they shouldn't, it's a biased one. Moreover, the segretation can/does happen whether the mindset is present or not and, given that, the distinction between when it happens organically and when it happens intentionally boils down to fixing wrongthink.

[The New Number Two]

1. Yes, that shit did happen.

2. My God, are you talented at missing the point.

[soldiermedic76]

The problem is nothing in biology is a distinct category, everything is a spectrum. There are very few pure herbivores and very few true carnivores. There are no true exotherms and no true endotherms. Sex hormones do impact brain development and chemistry in utero. But like everything the level of hormones differ even between individuals of the same biological sex. Yes, there are some roles that females find more appealing and some that males find more appealing. The further problem is that what we are discussing is actually phenotype which is a combination of both nature and genetics, however, people tend to think only in terms of nature vs nuture, as if they were competing adversaries. The truth is people don't understand what we are actually witnessing is phenotype and that both nature and genetics play a role. Sexuality, gender, even biological sex is more a spectrum of traits. Some women will be much more masculine in appearance, while some men will be naturally more feminine in their appearance. Some women will find roles that are traditionally male appeal to them (but they still generally have other female type roles that appeal to them also) and the same goes for most males. We aren't all the same and no, very few people are going to adhere to the mean of traits, and very few will be at the extreme tails (if we assume a bell curve of gender traits, it is probably more left or right tailed biased than bell curved).

[Sidd Finch v2.01]

however, people tend to think only in terms of nature vs nuture, as if they were competing adversaries.

I've regularly had nature/nurture debates for about 20 years now, and a blogger named Jayman is the only person on the nature side that's even come close to genetic determinism while literal blank slatism is extremely common.

[Sidd Finch v2.01]

One thing I've noticed from nature/nurture debates is the nurture side only has one thing they really care about (black intelligence) and many of their arguments are a kind of strategic 'offense is the best defense' play. Two examples: a couple years ago anthropologists were arguing that the behavior of dog breeds was socially determined by humans, i.e. chihuahuas are barky shits because they read human cues and that's how humans expect them to be. Reason even claimed that it's impossible to breed dogs for aggression. Also, one of the incidents that lead to Andrew Sullivan's firing was asking for citations when the NYT claimed that there's no racial differences in dong size. The 1619 Pennywise lady and other blue checks didn't care at all that Sullivan had his own rather impressive data set.

[D-Pizzle]

"The 1619 Pennywise lady and other blue checks didn’t care at all that Sullivan had his own rather impressive data set."

If you are suggesting what I think you are, that's a really good one.

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[Squirrelloid]

The old right treats 'gender' as a property of languages, not people.

[NOYB2]

The right essentializes gender in such a way that it’s treated as a natural extension of one’s biological sex with only minor, insignificant cultural variation.

"Essentializes" is this kind of weasel word that leftists like to hide behind. One thing that it obscures is the distinction between a descriptive and a prescriptive analysis, and statistical and individual analysis.

Descriptively, there is no question whatsoever that statistically, biological sex strongly determines personality, skills, aptitudes, career choices, income levels, intelligence, strength, and many other factors. And the more free a society is, the more these gender differences result in disparate outcomes by biological sex.

The left denies biological reality, and then wants to limit individual liberties in order to achieve the statistical outcomes they desire. The outcome they desire isn't equality; equality would mean women entering dangerous blue collar professions and working towards increasing life expectancy for men. No, they outcome they desire is ever more legal and social privileges for themselves.

[Vernon Depner]

people on the right... 1) un-scientifically conflate gender identity and biological sex
No, people on the right, AKA "the reality-based community", recognize that "gender identity" is a recently invented and very fuzzy concept of no objective reality.
and 2) un-scientifically define the latter as consisting entirely of a particular chromosomal distinction that, while applicable to the vast majority of persons, is neither definitive nor dispositive.
It is dispositive in far more than a "vast majority". It is virtually fucking everyone with extremely rare exceptions. So rare that there is no need for any codified and enforced government policies regarding them.

[Thomas L. Knapp]

I agree. I oppose government social engineering vis a vis sex and/or gender.

That includes wasting taxpayer money to build two sets of restrooms because some parents need the fainting couch if they suspect there's a possibility their kid might see the wrong gear.

[mad.casual]

That includes wasting taxpayer money to build two sets of restrooms because some parents need the fainting couch if they suspect there’s a possibility their kid might see the wrong gear.

^What you say when you're a narrow-minded idiot to whom it's never occurred that women don't like to pee in front of men, share toilets with men, some men can't pee if *anyone* is around them, that urinals use considerably less water than toilets, as well as about a dozen other extra-legal reasons why we have "sex segregated" bathrooms.

[mad.casual]

I’ve run into people on the right who (for example) 1) un-scientifically conflate gender identity and biological sex, and 2) un-scientifically define the latter as consisting entirely of a particular chromosomal distinction that, while applicable to the vast majority of persons, is neither definitive nor dispositive.

Horseshit. You haven't run into anyone on the right. You've run into people whom you infer think what you're projecting, deemed them wrong, and ascribe them as conservative or 'right'.

You may as well have just said, "I have a black friend..."

[Thomas L. Knapp]

If I had read that comment last week, it would have been the dumbest comment I read last week.

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[Art Kumquat]

Denialism on the left? Pshaw!

[Winston in Wonderland]

Why is this tagged as a Science article?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Because Debrah Soh is a sex researcher who debunks the unscientific claims of leftist crackpots.

[Vernon Depner]

Aren't we all sex researchers?

[Squirrelloid]

that... depends on how experimental you are?

[A Thinking Mind]

more than 70 sexual identities

Uh-huh.

[Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)]

Facebook recognizes more than 70 sexual identities

If you can't cite Wikipedia for anything serious, which at least represents itself as a repository for information, should we really be citing Facebook over the DSM-5?

[Vernon Depner]

Both are garbage.

[Some User]

Many of those identities have significant overlap or are otherwise analogous. You could probably trim the list down to a dozen or fewer terms and still cover the major axes of gender identity and expression. Even on boards that discuss the topic, most people tend to stick with the more common terms.

Every group has its members that need to stand out. My neighbor once mentioned that he's not a motorcycle rider, but rather, that he's a Harley rider and that there is a difference.

[D-Pizzle]

Try pulling into a rural, hard-core biker bar on a crotch rocket.

[Liberty Lover]

more than 70 sexual identities
or
more than 70 made up, bullshit terms for sexual identity

"A ‘normal’ human cell is diploid (2n) because it contains 2 copies of each of the 23 chromosomes. Included in these 46 chromosomes are sex chromosomes X and Y. A normal human male has one X- and one Y- chromosome. They are often denoted 46, XY male. A normal human female has two X chromosomes, and is denoted 46, XX female."
That is it folks, genital mutilation doesn't change the facts.

[mad.casual]

The way I see it, previously, being a white cis-het male was a privilege. Now that simply immigrating makes you a race and there are 70 genders, being a white cis-het male is a rare privilege.

I wake up in the morning exercising my male privilege without even trying while trans men all over the world have to take a pill and do God knows what else just to mimic my privilege.

[Mickey Rat]

Gender theory is an ideology cum psuedo religion that does not abide dissent, infidels, heretics or apostates. I hope Soh has a thick skin.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland]

Gender identity doesn't exist, just ask John money!

[Mother's lament]

GLAAD tells me that sexuality is biologically innate and not a choice, but also that gender is a construct and totally is.

[Thomas L. Knapp]

Ah, you noticed the problem with that too?

[Brandybuck]

Both are right, because "gender" has more than one definition. But the Left deliberately conflates the definitions. Probably because they're brains aren't big enough to handle more than one definition at a time.

Gender in languages is how you decline nouns. English mostly doesn't have it. Gender in sex means male or female (or in rare cases intersex or aphroditism). Gender as a social role means what social roles different genders engage in (men tend toward hunting, women tend towards gathering).

The idea that it's just a label one puts on oneself is bizarre. That's not what sexuality is, that's not what a social role is. We put labels on things so we can communicate more easily. Of those 70 Facebook labels (which seem to be missing in my copy of Facebook), 65 of them are just nametags used at alt-hookup sites to filter through various proclivities and preferences and kinks. It doesn't mean there are 70 genders.

There are three primary colors, even though they can be combined to produce millions of colors. There are three genders even though they can be combined to produce 70 categories. It does not mean the three primary genders (male, female, neuter) do not exist.

[Rufus The Monocled]

I find it perplexing Nick interviews this Canadian and avoided Peterson even though he challenged his views on post-modernism.

Big swing and a miss there Nick.

[soldiermedic76]

Name me one thing the left is good about in relationship to science? Even their support of AGW is riddled with science denialism (opposition to nuclear power, pushing organic and non-GMO crops to combat climate change, pushing grass fed beef and dairy to combat climate change, or veganism, all of which, on a GHG per pound basis are all worse than conventional farming and ranching).

[soldiermedic76]

*GHG emissions per pound of product produced basis.

[Sevo]

You left out the problem with verified predictions.
Science is based on the requirement that to be taken as 'proven', your theory must allow you to make predictions which are then shown to be correct.
After 30 years and thousands of predictions, the number of those predictions which have been shown to be correct remains at zero.
Kent Hovind has yet to do *that* poorly...

[NoVaNick]

But they fuckin love SCIENCE, even if they don’t know science.

[mad.casual]

With the right dress, in the right light, and if they were a little bit drunk, they'd totally rape science.

[Some User]

Nuclear power is falling out of favor even with centralists and conservatives. Second to safety concerns are cost concerns. Without government subsidies, new reactors aren't cost competitive to utility scale renewables or natural gas except for some niche cases.

Concern for GMOs is only slightly higher for people on the left versus the right and outright opposition is about equal.

The other views are more loony liberal positions than mainstream leftist ones. Suggesting that people eat less meat, especially beef, is a more mainstream one. But even people on the right have criticized how government land and water subsidies are artificially deflating the true cost of beef and that if the market was allowed to float on it own, consumption would correct itself.

[soldiermedic76]

Most on the right and Libertarians know that the main costs of building nuclear is unnecessary over regulations. You solve that and support for nuclear goes up. As for safety, anyone who thinks nuclear isn't safe is ablnti-science. As for land subsidies, depends on what you are talking about. If you are talking about federal land rents the land was owned by the ranchers or used by the ranchers, the government then stole it, and rented it back to the ranchers. Study the history of so called public land.

[Some User]

The argument of excessive nuclear regulation is moot because in the time it would take to trim it back, the price of renewables and battery storage would still be cheaper due to technological gains.

The best way to really drive down prices of nuclear construction would be to go all in on nuclear like how the French did it. But who is going to front the capital for such a project? Private finance doesn't think it'll get its money back, so you're looking at government loans, guarantees, and subsidies. No thanks.

[TJJ2000]

"renewables and battery storage would still be cheaper" --- funny how the "renewables" champion CA has the 3rd highest KWH cost in the entire nation only surpassed by isolated islands and still can't seem to keep even the lights on at night.

[mad.casual]

The argument of excessive nuclear regulation is moot because in the time it would take to trim it back, the price of renewables and battery storage would still be cheaper due to technological gains.

Pretty flatly saying that regulation is overtly strangling nuclear and that the strangulation won't stop until renewables become competitive, regardless of whatever that time frame is.

It's like the Biblical story of Abraham where God commands him to kill his son. Except you haven't communed with God, you'd just kill your son because you know it's the right thing to do.

[Some User]

> Pretty flatly saying that regulation is overtly strangling nuclear and that the strangulation won’t stop until renewables become competitive

That's not at all what I said. I'm implying that over-regulation is only part of the reason that nuclear is losing its competitive cost and that attempts to reduce regulation may prove fruitless due to other market forces, making such attempts moot.

Even in western countries with less burdensome nuclear regulation, the cost of new nuclear capacity is trending higher than many utility scale renewable and gas turbine projects. If you look at industry forecasts, that trend is only expected to widen as nuclear costs remain relatively flat while renewable and natural gas costs continue to drop over the next decade.

Worse, baseline power sources that are slow to ramp like nuclear are having a hard time with an increasingly volatile electric grid as they cannot tap into the lucrative spot power market the way battery storage, gas turbine, and hydro power can. That puts nuclear in an even greater competitive disadvantage.

I'm not saying that the US shouldn't harmonize its nuclear regulation with that of lesser regulated peers just to remain flexible. But unless something else drastic changes in the market, deregulation probably isn't going to be enough to save nukes from the one-two punch of cheap natural gas and renewables.

[mad.casual]

I’m implying that over-regulation is only part of the reason that nuclear is losing its competitive cost and that attempts to reduce regulation may prove fruitless due to other market forces, making such attempts moot.

Liar. You didn't imply it, you didn't say 'may', and you didn't partly. You said, "*The* argument *is* moot *because*..." and now that I pointed out to you that you've tipped your shitty hand, you're backpedalling.

Moreover, your ignorant assertion doesn't disprove or really even consider what I indicate below and flatly ignores the larger dynamic of markets. Saying nuclear won't survive the 1-2 punch of cheap natural gas and renewables, you might as well tell us peak oil is around the corner.

[Some User]

You didn't tip my hand, you outright misrepresented what I said and then wandered off into the weeds because you don't have any real counterargument. What you said below is so full of generalities that it is meaningless. And as for "larger dynamic of markets", let me quote from that liberal rag oilprice.com:

"But, as it stands, nuclear power is riskier, more expensive and takes infinitely longer to bring online than renewable energy. Very few, if any, utilities will want to move forward on new nuclear projects when they have cheap solar and wind to turn to."

"If nuclear power is going to survive, let alone thrive, it will need a hefty dose of support from government policy because the industry is increasingly uncompetitive."

[mad.casual]

Oh wow, so to dispute my assertion that you were projecting a lie you provided us with a source that doesn't say anything to the effect of "the price of renewables and battery storage would still be cheaper due to technological gains."

Please, by all means keep convincing us you're not a biased hack by exposing your own lies.

[mad.casual]

let me quote from that liberal rag oilprice.com

And if you think oil companies, prospecting, and energy markets can't be manipulated by political ideology, you're completely clueless.

[mad.casual]

I mean, FFS, we're posting at a libertarian magazine that pretty overtly runs cover for violent socialists.

[soldiermedic76]

Battery technology is limited and bulky, as are renewables. They may get cheaper, but they also have finite life. Wind turbines are constantly requiring expensive repairs. We have quite a few here in eastern and central Montana. You rarely ever see them all working and almost always see crews out repairing them. Solar panels, especially large concentrator farms, are not much better.
As for regulations, it would take a simple act of Congress to change them, which could be done in a couple weeks (see how fast the borrowed money for the COVID handouts last spring). Saying it would take a long time to deregulate is stating the system can't be changed. Most of those regulations were at the behest of laws passed by Congress, ergo Congress could easily undo them. The fact that they choose not too is the problem.
So our choices are use nuclear, natural gas, or get used to blackouts during bad weather as we wait on better batteries (which are like cold fusion, always just a few years away). Actually, if the project in France continues with promising results, fusion reactors will probably beat better batteries. And there is a reason they call them rare earth materials, they are pretty fucking rare, dirty to mine, dirty to process and dirty to dispose of. The supply is very limited.

[mad.casual]

Also, 'batteries will get better' is a parlor trick. Batteries are an enabling technology for all forms of generation, not just wind/solar. The same improved battery technology that makes "solar without sunshine" feasible makes the artificially-induced 6 mo. delay on starting a nuclear reactor less of an impediment. The battery that stores a full day's worth of power doesn't care if the solar/wind/nuclear/gas plant generated it when the sun shined and the wind blew or not and, equally, it when it goes empty, it won't care if the sun is shining and the wind is blowing or not.

That's a big part of the idiocy of green energy is that they don't realize wool that's been pulled over their eyes. If/Once battery technology becomes as easy as gasoline, it doesn't usher in an era of green energy because it depresses the price of fossil fuels and enables ideas like even more massive nuclear reactors in more remote locations by providing broader distribution capabilities.

[mad.casual]

They may get cheaper, but they also have finite life. Wind turbines are constantly requiring expensive repairs.

Also, increasingly, you can't just double the capacity of wind and solar technology. Maybe it would be better or more accuate to say that you can throw 4X as much money at it to build 2X the number of plants to generate 0.5X as much electricity, but the point still stands: batteries or not rolling blackouts in a world of 7B doesn't bode well for a world of 9B. Especially if one of the hallmarks of rising out of poverty and into the modern age is per capita electricity consumption.

[NoVaNick]

Pebble bed/thorium reactors are significantly cheaper and safer than traditional uranium reactors and take up much less space, but the progressives hear nuclear and crap their pants. Natural gas is now a big no-no for them too, even though it is responsible for shutting down many of the coal power plants to date along with the decline in CO2 emissions in the US since 2005. In fact, Berkeley is not even allowing gas stoves in new buildings. They seem to want everyone to pay $1000 month for purely renewable electricity to change behavior, not caring that this will hit the poor they claim to care so much about hardest.

[Some User]

Pebble bed reactors are safer in that a fuel meltdown is improbable. However, the fuel pebbles have a tendency to flake and crack, releasing radioactive dust and increasing the chance of a graphite fire (and thus radioactive smoke) under extreme conditions. The pebbles can also become stuck, damaging them and adjacent reactor parts. Both of Germany's PBR facilities closed because of severe radiation contamination caused by fuel issues. Lastly, the system generates more high level waste than traditional reactors because all of that cladding has to be treated as high grade waste.

Thorium rectors are safer in some regards than traditional reactors, but they also have additional complexities in fuel preparation and moderation. They're not expected to be much cheaper than traditional reactors.

Save for the environuts, people on the left tend to see natural gas as a good thing... for the time being (until cleaner tech takes over). There just isn't any real consensus on how long that time being is.

For all the talk about Berkley and Seattle wanting to nix natural gas because of CO2, another really big reason is because their distribution systems are old and leaking and nobody wants to pay to fix it the right way. Then you have the lawsuits from when a leak goes boom and kills people, like the one PSE was slapped with. Also, gas lines and fault zones probably aren't the best match.

[soldiermedic76]

Yet they sue whenever we try to build pipelines to move natural gas from the Bakken Shale Reserves to urban centers. Funny, if they support natural gas why do they oppose the new gas lines? And the new liquid gas plant they are building in North Dakota to make transport by rail and truck easier?

[Some User]

NIMBYism.

[mad.casual]

Nuclear power is falling out of favor even with centralists and conservatives.

Centralists and conservatives are gradually coming around to the idea that Some User prefers having a huge cock in his ass.

[NoVaNick]

The only good thing about the gender-confused generation is that they will be much less likely to reproduce since they can’t seem to decide what kind of private parts they have

[SIV]

Miss Soh is much better looking than Nancy "Karen" Rommelmann.

[SIV]

Hotness intensifies:

Soh describes herself as a former feminist who later became disillusioned with the term.

[John]

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[Formerly FreeRadical]

I don't have the time/inclination to listen to an hour long podcast. Transcript!

[Árboles de la Barranca]

To paraphrase Tommy Lasorda --- Can you dunk a basketball?

[Brandybuck]

Good old fashioned evolution means we'll never see the end of gender. Meaning gender based sex roles. Without it we don't reproduce and we end as a species. Duh.

Now the pointy headed academics will argue, and the media eat up, the idea taht gender is merely a social role. For ONE definition of gender that's true. But there's more than one definition, and pretending that "male" and "female" are always and everywhere just a social role if profoundly stupid, a stupid so stupid it could only come from the halls of academia.

The overwhelming majority of males will be attracted to females, and the overwhelming majority of females will be attracted to males. Duh. Gender is NOT going to go away.

Could we reach a point were no one cares about gender anymore? Absolutely not! These people actually care about it more than anyone! You can't have sexual reproduction without it. But can we get to a point where society doesn't care? Possibly, but very unlikely.

That there are people trying to push this on everyone else is profoundly disturbing. They can go wear gender-neutral underwear if they want, but don't be pushing it for everyone.

[Rob Misek]

The end of gender for genetic dead enders.

[emma]

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[Roberta]

Sex is objective, gender is cultural. So I'm going to continue referring to "sex" when something objective is wanted, not "gender". "Gender" just means "type", and you can categorize things any way you want, usefully or uselessly. Consider the genders of the French and Spanish words for "lock" and "key", and you tell me what gender has to do with sex.