This is a point at which to take care of the difference between “very common” and “normative”, where the non-normative element is systematically suppressed. c.f. surgical gendering of intersexed children at birth, or even those whose penis had been burnt off by a circumcision needle. And there are no homosexuals in Iran.
I’m skeptical that there is an important difference between “very common” and “normal.” Maybe I don’t know what you mean by “normative.” I understand it to be a useful word that emphasizes that a what-should-be opinion is not a what-is opinion.
Most humans alive today live in a society shaped by reading and writing.
Writing has only been invented a handful of times, and spread by diffusion from there.
Are the small minority of humans alive today whose lives are wholly unaffected by reading and writing irrelevant, when the question being asked is whether writing is a fundamental element of human behavior?*
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*No, because the spread of writing is a recent phenomenon compared to the time there’ve been humans, and most human societies didn’t come up with it, meaning the current distribution of writing across human societies is the tip of the proverbial iceberg—more obvious, but less important to understanding the actual thing in its entirety.
“Normative” means “relating to an ideal standard or model”. In the social context, this means the ideal is socially enforced.
“Normal” is often used with the same meaning. Hence the gay rights slogan “Heterosexuality isn’t normal, just common.” (With a bonus double meaning on “common.”)
All right. Evaluating the difference between “very common” and “normative” in this instance, I arrive at the following: it is very common for my three tests for femaleness to give the same result. And this is not the result of social enforcement. Were you saying the opposite, that this is the result of social enforcement?
Botched circumcisions and hermaphrodites are rare, As-Nature-Made-Him-style experiments rarer. Which people are actively trying to make the coincidence of my 3 tests seem more universal, and what are they doing to make it seem so?
Crossdressers, transgender people of various stripes, etc may not be all that abundant in a strictly numerical sense, but we are damn near guarunteed to throw an exception to your criteria every time you ask one of us.
Your criteria account perfectly for the majority, up until they encounter an admitted exception and then almost invariably fail. Those exceptions aren’t noise in the dataset—they’re a sign that you’re ignoring the points that don’t neatly fit your aesthetically-pleasing line.
This is a point at which to take care of the difference between “very common” and “normative”, where the non-normative element is systematically suppressed. c.f. surgical gendering of intersexed children at birth, or even those whose penis had been burnt off by a circumcision needle. And there are no homosexuals in Iran.
I’m skeptical that there is an important difference between “very common” and “normal.” Maybe I don’t know what you mean by “normative.” I understand it to be a useful word that emphasizes that a what-should-be opinion is not a what-is opinion.
Most humans alive today live in a society shaped by reading and writing.
Writing has only been invented a handful of times, and spread by diffusion from there.
Are the small minority of humans alive today whose lives are wholly unaffected by reading and writing irrelevant, when the question being asked is whether writing is a fundamental element of human behavior?*
--
*No, because the spread of writing is a recent phenomenon compared to the time there’ve been humans, and most human societies didn’t come up with it, meaning the current distribution of writing across human societies is the tip of the proverbial iceberg—more obvious, but less important to understanding the actual thing in its entirety.
If you follow the link I put there explaining what I was talking about, you may be enlightened.
way ahead of you
“Normative” means “relating to an ideal standard or model”. In the social context, this means the ideal is socially enforced.
“Normal” is often used with the same meaning. Hence the gay rights slogan “Heterosexuality isn’t normal, just common.” (With a bonus double meaning on “common.”)
All right. Evaluating the difference between “very common” and “normative” in this instance, I arrive at the following: it is very common for my three tests for femaleness to give the same result. And this is not the result of social enforcement. Were you saying the opposite, that this is the result of social enforcement?
It’s very common, but it’s not universal, and it appears more universal than it would if people weren’t actively trying to make it seem so.
Botched circumcisions and hermaphrodites are rare, As-Nature-Made-Him-style experiments rarer. Which people are actively trying to make the coincidence of my 3 tests seem more universal, and what are they doing to make it seem so?
Crossdressers, transgender people of various stripes, etc may not be all that abundant in a strictly numerical sense, but we are damn near guarunteed to throw an exception to your criteria every time you ask one of us.
Your criteria account perfectly for the majority, up until they encounter an admitted exception and then almost invariably fail. Those exceptions aren’t noise in the dataset—they’re a sign that you’re ignoring the points that don’t neatly fit your aesthetically-pleasing line.