outline support for "Categories Were Made ... to Make Predictions"

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+Title: Categories Were Made for Man in Order to Make Predictions
+Date: 2018-03-01 5:00
+Category: commentary
+Tags: epistemology, Scott Alexander
+Status: draft
+
+OUTLINE—
+
+ * First, the basic point is obviously correct.
+ * Things become muddier when we get to the section about national borders:
+   it's true that countries may agree that their borders work in this
+   noncontiguous way, and that matters for some purposes, but these legal
+   fictions don't always capture what people actually mean when they talk about
+   being in a country.
+    * During my Facebook meltdown, an acquaintance of mine gave some really
+      solid examples that I should ask him if I can borrow (with or without
+      attribution).
+ * An attempted clarification (Scott does address this, but I want to
+   emphasize/rephrase it?): categories are value-laden because they're grouping
+   things together on the basis of the predictions that are decision-relevant
+   to what you care about. But this should be distinguished from the categories
+   themselves being _arbitrarily_ value-laden.
+    * Scott Alexander understands this, but the bottom 50% of _Slate Star
+      Codex_ readers do not.
+ * An important subtlety: in the case of countries and gender but _not_
+   whales/fish, we're not just classifying things that exist, but also making a
+   political decision of how we're going to organize ourselves. It's not that
+   trans women and nonbinaries already exist in fixed proportions, and we're
+   trying to decide how to parse them: that we have socially-recognized
+   transition as a thing creates an affordance for people to make the choice to
+   transition (linky ["Lesser Known..."](/2017/Dec/lesser-known-demand-curves/))
+ * The argumentation in section IV is _uncharacteristically_ weak for Scott:
+   basically just "We've established that categories are neither true nor
+   false, so if you care about transgender people, then you should use their
+   categories"?!
+    * To do better: let's _discuss in detail_ the detailed consequences of
+      different ways of drawing gender categories, and analyze the conflicts
+      that different people have.
+    * The case for using identified gender rather than biological sex is
+      strongest for binary trans people who actually pass.
+       * The tack where you show a picture of Buck Angel and say, "You're not
+         really going to call this person a woman, are you?" makes a good point
+    * It's less strong for ...
+       * People who don't pass
+          * Passing is a continuum rather than a binary and is also
+            observer-dependent, which is inconvenient from the perspective of
+            categorization, which tends to stick to bright-lines and Schelling
+            points
+          * Re observer dependence: quote Serano (do I rely/pick on Serano too
+            much?) or someone about how it's actually _harder_ to pass in urban
+            areas because people have a higher prior
+          * Ref-to-rebut Zinnia Jones on "passing is subjective, therefore it's
+            bullshit"
+       * "nonbinary people"
+          * Normies don't have nonbinary gender in their ontology; at least
+            acknowledge that you're making a political demand when you want
+            them to adapt
+          * What are the decision criteria for nonbinary, anyway? People can
+            still _tell_
+    * Rundown of social consequences of different criteria—
+       * When you have people who are _identifiably_ distinct from natal-sex
+         people _and_ not drawn from the same psychological distribution, it
+         becomes socially profitable for people to notice and adjust their
+         expectations; you can't stop them from doing this
+          * separate post "Stereotypes, Models, and Cognition"
+          * People are making probabilistic inferences all the time whether
+            they realize it or not
+          * Being drawn from a different psychological distribution but _not_
+            identifiably (AGPs who pass really well) doesn't hurt the dynamics
+            as much
+       * AGPs aren't drawn from the same psychological distribution as cis
+         women. (Briefly explain the typology, but refer to external sources
+         for justification. For a more hard-facts empirical justification of
+         "not drawn from the same dist'n", cite data on sexual orientation (and
+         [constrast](https://twitter.com/SteveStuWill/status/905572666332987392))
+         and crime rates.)
+       * Making it not-OK for people to _talk_ about the categories that they
+         internally use to make sense of the world is bad
+          * experiences in LWish spaces with lots of trans women: if you
+            doctrinairely call everyone women, my brain rebels and wants to
+            say, "That's not what I meant and _you fucking know it_." And
+            honestly? (And I think they do, in fact, fucking know it.)
+          * The inability to have women's clothing swaps is a _real loss_
+          * Negotiation-structure: we've been using this word to refer to this
+            thing for the past 200,000 years since the invention of language;
+            if you want us to stop, you need to offer us something we value
+            (and you have nothing to trade with); threatening to kill yourself
+            is easily (if callously) countered with "We don't negotiate with
+            terrorists"
+    * For crime/medical statistics, you need natal sex or third-category.
+
+ * The case of Emperor Norton looks cute at first glance, but
+   ostensibly-benevolent gaslighting is still problematic (we call it
+   _hugboxing_).
+    * I've been crazy (link "Memoirs"), and I'm glad my friends patiently told
+      me why I was wrong rather than saying "That's nice dear" (maybe quote
+      care email).
+    * Tell a story about what this could have been like for Norton beginning to
+      doubt the reality of his reign.
+    * Link to Maria Catt's "Baby Jessica" essay (maybe write her fan mail and
+      ask her to put it back up again)