perception bias creating conflict

and how to avoid stepping on this rake

perception bias seems to be the predominant culture force at the moment. it’s leading to fantastical hallucinatory maps being mistake for terrain.

it pervades both sides. it’s pervading everything.

and it’s making a mess.

the trans movement is indeed a tiny part of the world yet every part of society from schools to sports to politics and media is over representing it to the point where people mistakenly believe that 21% of americans are transgender. (reality is <1%)

as seems so often the case, james has it backwards:

i mean, where would anyone possibly get the idea that trans was being over represented and forced to the fore of just about every part of societal experience from schools to parades and sports to white house lawn parties?

why, it’s almost as if a group famous for saying “we’re coming for your children” that has managed to pass actual legislation allowing the activist teachers of 2nd graders to refuse to tell patents about the gender confusion they are so busily instilling in children much too young to grasp the subject matter in any meaningful way and that, oddly enough, not all parents love this idea and some (gasp) actually took umbrage at this incredible overreach and are pushing back.

ideas that “it’s the right that will not stop talking about this” are desperately deluded inversion.

it’s been front and center and rammed into everyone’s consciousness for ages.

and it’s rapidly getting worse.

i spoke the other day about how these “justice for aggrievement” movements that lionize performative marginalization inevitably drive themselves mad and become pathocracies as an emergent property of the fight to remain “the most aggrieved.”

perhaps it’s small wonder that so many trans and drag queens have done so well at staying atop this pile: many were trained and consummate performers beforehand. they had the training and the shock value to get everyone else off balance and upstage them. it’s the same show many had been putting on for decades only elevated into the realm of politics and driven like a wedge into classrooms and curricula and espoused as entitled morality.

it went from nowhere to everywhere like a phase change. BLM was the wedge that broke intersectionalism fully lose on kids, and this is what took over and colonized the depleted host.

between schools and media and political messaging all picked up and shilled by corporate marketers, it took on a life of it’s own. everywhere you look, you see it. and the astonishing misperceptions it has created are legion. like the bolsheviks convincing everyone they were the majority and not a minority, these groups have bent popular consensus consciousness beyond recognition.

americans now believe that 21% of people are trans and 30% are gay. the real numbers are <1% and ~3%. these are massive, outlandish order of magnitude misses on perceptions of prevalence. this does not just happen.

only a truly concerted and durable barrage of messaging can shift perceptions this far off reality and hold them there.

this is happening with a stunning number of variables that are being so misrepresented in media and public discourse that tiny minorities are perceived to be orders of magnitude bigger than they are.

people think 4 in 10 amercians are black. (it’s 12%)

people think 27% are native american. it’s 1%.

it’s an astonishing distortion field of mistaking media and online for real.

instagram has people thinking 1 in 5 make $1million a year. the reality is it’s less than 1/2 of 1%. $407k put an individual in the top 1% in 2023.

no wonder people feel so economically excluded. they think 26% of people make over $500k. that’s a 30-50X misunderstanding of prevalence. people making $410k a year cold look at that as 1%’s and feel like they are “about average.” it must make people earning $100k (themselves about 80th percentilers) feel positively poor.

media is making a mess of all of this and the endless over expression of some groups in has lost people their sense of reality. one kardashian clone with endless vacation and private jet snaps gets millions of follows and the millions of people with normal lives get nearly none. so the whole internet looks like runway glamour when in fact it’s just runaway representation because people find this “interesting.”

people think america is 1/3 vegetarian. and while vegetarians famously cannot wait to tell everyone they’re veggie, trans puts this in the shade and while veggie folks tend to proselytize, they never managed to get a mantle as “marginalized” and so they never took over institutions and schools.

but it’s important to remember that this runs both ways.

the gender and sexuality activist teachers are striking and memorable when you see them and they are clearly FAR better represented in these systems than their societal prevalence and more active, but they are also not by any means anything like a majority at least until high school when it gets close. (source)

a lot of teachers think this should not be taught in schools.

odd how that never seems to surface.

and important to internalize and to remember.

but this is still enormously out of step with broader american belief which has actually been swing toward “sex is determined by birth” for some time. (source)

note this is not directly comparable as many in the top are “should not teach” and not in the can or cannot be different dichotomy directly.

that’s a stat one basically never sees, is it?

here’s another:

this movement is losing ground in terms of biological argument.

i think a lot of people are surprised to see this. the whole of “media as sensorium” would lead one to assume the opposite. and this is exactly why you really do not want to trust it. we live in the “rage age” of being asked to care about 1000 far flung issues in places we’ll never see offered up by people we’ll never meet and filtered and slanted by people who push agenda over actuality.

i mean, the NYT just blamed the venezeluan economic collapse on capitalism taking over and wrecking their successful socialist system. (yes, really)

what, you think they suddenly get honest around demographics, politics, or gender?

we’re living through a weird dichotomy.

on the one hand, institutions are being loaded with and dominated by the poorly calibrated activists and DEI denizens that james would have us believe do not really exist in much prevalence.

but there’s an embodied fallacy there. indeed, they are uncommon. but that does not mean they are not taking over institutions or wielding disproportionate or oppressive power.

it’s just a pool stocked with rare fish until they invasively eat everyhting else.

it’s sharks hired as lifeguards because “anti-shark sentiment in swimming pools is systemic speciesism.”

DEI lifeguards: no longer marginalized

on the other hand, it’s easy to get so overwhelmed by this invasion and barrage that one over-estimates prevalence as well and starts to assume “it’s everyone, all the schools, all the politicians, all the corporations” when it’s not. these things are not all “too far gone” or “unfixable” and neither is the alleged/assumed bigotry against it.

bud light learned some powerful lessons about falling for this over-estimation.

this was never really as pervasive as claimed and they made a severe miscalculation based on inhabiting an echo chamber.

microsoft, john deer, twitter, and others are pushing back toward reality.

and the important thing here is not to let the outlandish actions of the craziest 5% of “people like X” to create backlash and hatred for all “people like X.”

that’s how culture war gets entrenched, bigotry takes hold, and you get turned into the very villain they accused you of being while losing sight of yourself and your own ideas.

we’re being goaded into joining battle lines most of us want no part of.

and it’s an invitation we should decline.

interestingly, most people favor basic protections etc. (this is from the same poll showing erosion of belief on “born in wrong body.”)

it’s not that americans are intolerant.

it’s that people are losing tolerance for having things forced on them. left at “accept me?” these movements are likely to gain ground and hearts and minds. this was working in the 80’s and 90’s. cast as “accept me! (or else)” they’ll foster resentment. this is why it’s failing now. (piece on this here)

you cannot force belief or sympathy on people. that always goes the other way and “we’re coming for your children” as an overt flex will trigger the most atavistic of responses. it’s just a stupid approach that only the most misanthropic would adopt. it’s predatory and immoral. few will sit still for it. nor should they.

but it’s also not really representative of mainstream movement either, so let’s take a step back and breathe.

my base case is this:

trans is small. so is gay. all this “i identify as X” in kids and young people is mostly affect and social contagion. they’re gaming systems of privilege and admissions and hiring, not being converted in wholesale droves. it’s 95% mirage.

some people are gay or trans. but this is an adult issue. even taking it up with a pre-pubescent is an atrocity. they have no basis to understand it as a part of self conception and puberty and a big dose of the hormones that naturally come with it tend to clarify these things and erase uncertainty. bodies are like that. adolescence is confusing enough without this and “trans” is making it far worse (and puberty blockers used to prevent timely puberty are not reversible and likely wind up sterilizing gay kids for life).

i am not by nature a conservative. i grew up in raves and at burning man. i have lots of gay friends. they’re great people. most, even the libertines, are horrified by what their movement has become, how monstrous, misrepresented, and impositional. “how come we have to be represented by guys in leather harnesses and dog masks at parades?” is a more common complaint that one might think, especially if one gets their take from media instead of talking to actual people.

and perhaps we can all stop wrestling on the conservative/liberal axis and remember that most of of us are predominantly “pro-civilization.”

there’s a charming waitress at a place i get breakfast sometimes. she’s trans if you look closely. i have no idea if she has any politics. if she does, she keeps them to herself. she was not born a woman, but i’ll happily use her pronouns. she’s never asked, but it’s no big deal. she’s just living her life. perhaps it’s easier for her because she’s southeast asian and such things have been sorted through for longer there (and such choices are not a protected class). she’s a pleasant person. why not be pleasant too? this is not really that difficult.

we can all make choices and do as seems to suit our pursuit of happiness. just don’t force them on others. no one has a right to that.

my sense is that it’s not the underlying asks for gender or racial or sexual identity acceptance that lies at the root of the ongoing culture war.

it’s the difference between consent and force.

people are not angry about “you be you” they are angry about “you do what i say and give me stuff because of who i am” and such anger is largely justified.

what, after all, is the difference between sex and rape? consent.

cultural coercion only begets culture war.

this is not about inclusion, it’s about enraging people by attacking that which they hold dear and seeking to erase the words and institutions they cherish.

of course they’re going to fight about it. parenthood is about as atavistic a topic as biology can contrive.

“it’s not a big deal! it’s just words!” say the people who lose their minds because you refuse to call it “chestfeeding,” call them “zey/zem,” and who claim speech is violence.

it’s just nasty punch/no punchbacks assault.

kind of like what women’s boxing has become this olympics as “dude in dress kicking living crap out of woman on live TV” then struts, beaming with pride becomes the order of the day.

there is no sane world in which this should be forced upon women’s sports nor any sane person who would seek to inflict it then crow about having done so. the whole spectacle is as grotesque as it is vicious. it’s also seriously dangerous. this bout lasted 46 seconds, some of it time being checked to see if she was OK, before carini had to withdraw with a broken nose. someone is going to get killed.

1% of the world wants this but it’s being forced on everyone. it’s a savage mismatch that stands as the opposite of sporting. the backlash will be fury.

this does not win friends. it alienates people.

these movements have driven themselves mad and become societal scuppers for the worst and most assaultive. they wield identity like a mace to bludgeon others into submission. this is not togetherness, it’s attack and it’s pushing forward awful avatars of anti-civilization.

and some who seek power would use this to advantage.

therefore it’s important that we keep the frame correct here:

you can like gay people and oppose drag queens reading sexual material to 1st graders.

you can accommodate confused kids without supporting their hormonal disruption or physical mutilation or giving teachers rights to inculcate this while not telling parents.

the groups allegedly represented by these political movements are increasingly disavowing them, at least privately.

let’s lean in and help.

there remains a big tent of reasonable people around the “you be you, i’ll be me, let’s accept each other (or at least leave one another be) and leave the kids out of it” axis.

these are, in actuality, quite popular and widespread views.

keep sight of that instead of being dragged into the assumption that “the other side is everywhere and evil.”

most conservatives and liberals have more in common with these libertarian ideas than seems to pervade popular perception.

we’re being gaslit.

the acts of a few extremists and outliers are so coloring our sense of our society that we’re failing to find the vast comity and commonality that truly does reside at its center.

most people, when you get them alone, are pretty decent. not all, but most.

we can focus on that or keep elevating the craziest and most divisive and pretending they stand for anyone not just like us.

this is how you get the bad group psychology of culture clash without end.

i’m sure some determined social media maven could whip such images into controversy, in the 80’s this was called “culture club.”

it threatened no one that i can recall. you didn’t have to like it if you didn’t want to. but many did. the music was good. the identity was incidental. half the 80s metal bands dressed like ru paul’s drag race. no one cared. a bricklayer from newark would wear their t-shirts. but also, no one tried to put it in the olympics.

very few people in america have an interest in race or gender or sexuality war or dudes beating the hell out of women on TV as life imitates south park. but we’re being made to think that “everyone who is not like you wants to exterminate you” until we all act as though such war is not only needful but desirable.

this constitutes a mostly false consciousness contrived to have us at one another’s throats.

we’re seeing an enemy that isn’t.

this is not the real fight. never was.

the true enemy of the bugs in the jar is not the other bugs, it’s the kid who keeps shaking it.

it’s time we remembered that and swarmed out of here to go bite that little bastard.

and both sides need to come together on this. those being misrepresented by this outliers need to stand up and say “i am not with this. not in my name.” and the rest of us need to stand up next to them and say “we stand with you too.”

that’s society. that’s civilization.

we used to have this pretty well handled.

and we can again.

80’s flashback:

stop being goaded into conflict instead of commonality.

culture club, not culture war.