From: M. Taylor Saotome-Westlake Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2017 22:27:48 +0000 (-0700) Subject: drafting "A Common Misunderstanding" X-Git-Url: http://534655.efjtl6rk.asia/source?a=commitdiff_plain;h=b91993a90e6979d5c654ef2e17a10d2b43f8419b;p=Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git drafting "A Common Misunderstanding" --- diff --git a/content/drafts/a-common-misunderstanding-or-the-spirit-of-the-staircase-24-january-2009.md b/content/drafts/a-common-misunderstanding-or-the-spirit-of-the-staircase-24-january-2009.md index d3f31f9..5341456 100644 --- a/content/drafts/a-common-misunderstanding-or-the-spirit-of-the-staircase-24-january-2009.md +++ b/content/drafts/a-common-misunderstanding-or-the-spirit-of-the-staircase-24-january-2009.md @@ -3,10 +3,31 @@ Date: 2020-01-01 Category: other Status: draft -I remember (and the Diary entry helps, too) there was a party at someone's place down in Sunnyvale, back during the golden age when the Sequences were still being written, when the _M_ and _R_ in _MIRI_ were still an _S_ and an _A_, respectively; before the Eternal September, before everyone was poly, and _long_ before everyone was trans. +I remember (and the Diary entry helps, too) there was a party/meetup at someone's place down in Sunnyvale, perhaps in honor of Robin Hanson being in town. This was back around eight-and-a-half years ago, during the golden age when the Sequences were still being written, when the _M_ and _R_ in _MIRI_ were still an _S_ and an _A_, respectively—before the Eternal September, before everyone was poly, and _long_ before everyone was trans. -I worked the 0600 to 1500 bookkeeper/customer-service shift at my supermarket dayjob that day. After work, I dropped off the week's bag of coupons at store #936, bought a woefully-misnamed espresso medicinal from the hegemon's coffee kiösk there, then drove downtown and parked by the library construction site to buy a "FEMINISM IS THE RADICAL NOTION THAT WOMEN ARE PEOPLE‭" button at Ming Quong to put on my bag as a replacement for the one I had bought in 'aught-six and lost at some point. +I worked the 0600 to 1500 bookkeeper/customer-service shift at my supermarket dayjob that day. After work, I dropped off the week's bag of redeemed manufacturer's coupons at store #936 (what the company did with them after that, I was never told—perhaps they weighed them), bought a woefully-misnamed espresso medicinal from the hegemon's coffee kiösk there, then drove downtown and parked near the library construction site; I had some time to kill before I was scheduled to rendezvous at University and Shattuck in Berkeley at 1745 with a local genetics blogger with whom I had arranged to give a ride to the party. I walked to Ming Quong and bought a "FEMINISM IS THE RADICAL NOTION THAT WOMEN ARE PEOPLE‭" button to put on my bag as a replacement for the one I had bought in 'aught-six and lost at some point. I had recently reöutfitted my bag with buttons I had bought from a site I knew because the proprietor occasionally commented on the blog (_the_ blog). My newly-accessorized bag could hardly be complete without a gender pin, and for some sentimental reason I wanted it _before_ taking the geneticist to the social. [narrative optimization note] + +(I still have that "radical notion" pin, but it's no longer proudly pinned to my backpack. Ideology—in the general case—is not my style anymore.) + +The party was amazing, as always, but there's one exchange that haunts me to this day, a moment when I was caught off guard by having been _seen through_ in a way that, at the time, I couldn't permit myself to anticipate or understand. I wish I had an actual transcript of it. + +[something about how narrative optimization should be deliberate: you should keep separate track of what actually happened and what _should_ have happened, rather than blurring them together] + +(rather than the narratively-convenient reconstruction of an eight-and-change-year-old memory and a Diary entry from the Monday after), so that I could pencil in corrections of [...] +A blonde woman wearing a red dress and black high heels stuck out among the predominantly male throng of geeks. + +casually referred to my desire for social dominance. + + +I stammered out a shocked and perhaps unconvincing denial. + +She regarded me skeptically. "You _look_ male," she said. + +"But that doesn't mean I'm _happy_ about it!" I burst out defensively, to the apparent surprise of + +The woman's skepticism was unpreturbed. "I'm not getting a tranny vibe from you," she said. + "Right, you're thinking of the good kind," is what I _should_ have said. "I'm the bad kind."