outline points for "An Infovist's Advisory" (from my email to BBL)

diff --git a/content/drafts/an-infovists-advisory-or-standing-athwart-history-yelling-wait-i-like-the-idea-but.md b/content/drafts/an-infovists-advisory-or-standing-athwart-history-yelling-wait-i-like-the-idea-but.md
index 22b7357..da65a67 100644 (file)
--- a/content/drafts/an-infovists-advisory-or-standing-athwart-history-yelling-wait-i-like-the-idea-but.md
+++ b/content/drafts/an-infovists-advisory-or-standing-athwart-history-yelling-wait-i-like-the-idea-but.md
@@ -8,4 +8,23 @@ TODO
 
 OUTLINE OF POINTS TO HIT—
 
- * 
\ No newline at end of file
+ * the current situation re MtF is crazy
+ * activists who want to change society are both incentivized and selected for self-delusion—
+    * incentivized because: ... ? (Exercise: what was I thinking when I said
+      this?)
+    * selected-for because: ... ? (Exercise)
+    * some kind of Goodheart's-law/Berkson's-paradox-like phenomenon??
+ * Whichever activists happen to win get to write the history books, and so
+   most people end up with this Whig history view of the world where people in
+   the past were bad, bad men, but we're so much more progressive and
+   enlightened now. But evolutionarily speaking, there's no fact of the matter
+   as to what's better; there's only what won.
+ * A lot of intellectuals try to avoid politics: if your only choices are the "maximize the number of trans people" coalition vs. a "minimize the number of trans people" coalition, then it makes sense to sit it out
+ * But maybe there's a role for a more narrowly-targeted form of political
+   behavior (making friends and allies, trading favors, alienating people,
+   &c.), with the goal of just getting the correct theory (sexual dimorphism is
+   real, societies have gender roles, there are these two distinct classes of
+   motivation for why transitioning might seem like a good idea to someone) in
+   the standard sex-ed textbooks, but not trying to dictate what the social
+   norms of who should transition should be, who should pay for it,
+   &c. "Infovism" rather than activism.