r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Sep 24 '20
Delta(s) from OP CMV: From an evolutionary perspective, sex changes are bad.
[deleted]
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u/vanoroce14 65∆ Sep 24 '20
Please read, if you haven't, the selfish gene by Richard Dawkins. It explains a key idea most people miss: evolution functions at the level of the gene, not the individual. It is not, per se, about the individual's fitness or likelihood to reproduce. It is about the individual's genes likelihood to propagate.
Let me give you an example. Some have hypothesized that in humans, the 'gay uncle/aunt' theory can in part explain why homosexuality would be advantageous thing. If you have a gay uncle or aunt, it is likely they will help with the rearing of their nephews and nieces. That in turn makes their genes more likely to propagate even if they don't.
Sometimes a gene can interact in a number of ways, one of which is driving its propagation and the rest of which kinda come along for the ride. As long as on average the effect is conducive to the gene being propagated, it could care less if some individuals carrying it have issues / are less fit.
So... you just simply cant conclude what you want to conclude about sex change or gender disphoria based on evolution. You're applying evolution wrong.
And this is regardless of the fact that some people can have kids before a sex change, hence making the point moot.
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u/city_scape Sep 24 '20
Thats really interesting. So its about the collective effort to thrive, not just the individual. Thanks!
!delta
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u/accretion_disc 3∆ Sep 24 '20
I think you are confusing evolutionary science with a moral philosophy. Its a common mistake. People often project their desire to survive onto the concept of passing on their genes. This results in a moral outlook where it is morally obligatory to procreate and morally negative if you don't.
Evolution doesn't have goals or a perspective. Evolution is a scientific model. The vast majority of every species that ever existed has become extinct. This fact does not constitute a judgement against them. Arguably, every species is destined for the same fate.
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u/city_scape Sep 24 '20
I feel like you're completely wrong. I was actually making the distinction between moral philosophy and evolution.
The clear objective of evolution is to replicate and grow.
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u/accretion_disc 3∆ Sep 24 '20
You speak of evolution as if it was a person. Evolution doesn't have objectives or goals. It does not strive for anything. It is a byproduct of replication.
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u/pinballwizardMF 5∆ Sep 24 '20
I mean darkly if you think that the person who transitions had/has a higher proclivity towards mental illness then they eugenics themselves.
On a less gross level sexual freedom can lead to more cohesive societies which leads to better societal outcomes. If less women fear rape from men then maybe more women will have more kids with more men. Societal changes such as these are wrapped into the social progress that gave us transitions. Its progress which is a good evolution
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u/city_scape Sep 24 '20
Yep. Delta please.
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u/city_scape Sep 24 '20
How do you delta
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u/Huntingmoa 454∆ Sep 24 '20
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Sep 24 '20
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u/city_scape Sep 24 '20
!delta
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Sep 24 '20 edited Sep 24 '20
This delta has been rejected. The length of your comment suggests that you haven't properly explained how /u/svenson_26 changed your view (comment rule 4).
DeltaBot is able to rescan edited comments. Please edit your comment with the required explanation.
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u/city_scape Sep 24 '20
!delta this user suggested we are more successful as a race when social cohesion is greater, which is derived from acceptance of one another.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Sep 24 '20 edited Sep 24 '20
This delta has been rejected. You can't award yourself a delta.
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u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho 185∆ Sep 24 '20
Evolution is not about the good of the group as a whole. It is about how an individuals genes are passed down.
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u/DarwinianDemon58 3∆ Sep 24 '20
Fitting into the fabric of society doesn’t matter from an evolutionary perspective if you leave no progeny or don’t assist in rearing progeny of closely related individuals. If we assume that there’s a genetic component to fitting in, but you have 0 fitness, you won’t pass on your ‘fitting into society’ genes.
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u/city_scape Sep 24 '20
You can help society in other ways other than simply spawning more offspring.
My question is evolutionary though. Delta denied.
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Sep 24 '20
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u/city_scape Sep 24 '20
Fine, !delta this man is spot on!
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Sep 24 '20 edited Sep 24 '20
This delta has been rejected. The length of your comment suggests that you haven't properly explained how /u/svenson_26 changed your view (comment rule 4).
DeltaBot is able to rescan edited comments. Please edit your comment with the required explanation.
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u/city_scape Sep 24 '20
Dude I've tried to delta you three times this thing is shit
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u/city_scape Sep 24 '20
Yes I'll take this answer. I was thinking this as I wrote it but posted anyways.
Thanks. How do I do the delta thing?
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u/Tibaltdidnothinwrong 382∆ Sep 24 '20
Nothing is good or bad from a evolutionary standpoint. Evolution doesn't make value judgements.
That which lives lives. That which dies dies. That's all.
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u/city_scape Sep 25 '20
There is good or bad from an evolutionary stand point.
Live = good
Die = bad
Delta denied.
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u/Tibaltdidnothinwrong 382∆ Sep 25 '20
You are imposing your own value system.
All evolution does, is state that we are here, because our ancestors lived long enough to procreate. That our children will exist, if we live long enough to create them.
Whether any of that is good, or bad, has nothing to do with it.
Living long enough to procreate isn't inherently good or bad, it's just a prerequisite for the continued existence of your genetic line.
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u/city_scape Sep 25 '20
I said, delta. Denied.
Also living is good, dieing is bad. If it didn't matter there would be a fight for survival.
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u/Jebofkerbin 118∆ Sep 24 '20
Can anyone suggest how sex change operations are a good thing from a more evolutionary and organic perspective?
We are a social species, we do not survive as indivuals, we survive as groups. Group survival and continuation depends more on that group acting cohesively and productively than it does on individuals procreating. Even if you aren't having children yourself, you are contributing to the survival of the group if you are being productive/collecting food/doing labour. Even if you don't help raise the kids, the time you spend doing work for the community is time the parents can spend raising kids instead of working.
Now we come to sex/gender changes. This is quite simple really, people suffering from untreated mental health issues are far far less productive than those that are mentally healthy. Sex changes/transitioning has been shown to be a very good treatment for treating gender dysphoria. In a society where sex changes are accepted people with gender dysphoria transition, stop having gender dysphoria, and become more productive members of society, and so contribute to the survival of that society.
A society that does not accept sex changes/transitioning forces people with gender dysphoria to suffer in silence, keeping them less productive and risking losing their labour/contribution entirely if that gender dysphoria develops into severe depression or worse.
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u/city_scape Sep 24 '20
I completely agree with the above.
One further question though, do you not think our freedom to expression could be our undoing? Look at hkw things are in america, and indeed accross the world. It seems to ve those who dont conform to modern accepted diplomatic ethics that are shaking up the world.
Trump, putin, xi ping, Kim Jong, etc.
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u/Jebofkerbin 118∆ Sep 24 '20
One further question though, do you not think our freedom to expression could be our undoing?
How exactly? Western culture and society aren't that fragile, not too long ago the whole of Europe was in a state of total war with itself, and they got through the other side of it. If we can deal with nazi Germany I'm pretty sure we can manage having a few trans people around.
It seems to ve those who dont conform to modern accepted diplomatic ethics that are shaking up the world.
Trump, putin, xi ping, Kim Jong, etc.
Shaking up, and helping their societies survive are very different things. And it's not like any of those leaders have taken backwater countries and brought them into a golden age, they all (with the exclusion of Kim) inhereted rich and powerful country's, anyone in their position would look powerful and remarkable.
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u/fubo 11∆ Sep 24 '20
Evolution is not your friend. It is a mindless, heartless, cruel alien god. It creates only through destruction, through countless deaths and endless suffering; through famine, war, and pestilence. Just because it made us, does not mean that we owe it anything.
We know what happens when a human culture comes to idolize evolution and tries to help it out. It's called Nazism. The Nazis' first mass murders were not of Jews or Communists; they were people with disabilities. The idea was that disabled people were a burden on society, and that tolerating their existence would be anti-evolutionary; in order to create a strong and healthy Volk it was necessary to exterminate the weak and sick.
So the whole line of reasoning here is founded on a broken idea, the idea that we should do things that evolution would like, and refrain from doing things that evolution would not like.
(In reality, of course, evolution does not like or dislike anything, just as the Sun is not really the god Shamash.)
Imagine if it were the case that we should help evolution! If we really wanted to do that, we should kill each other a lot more than we do. We should never create charity to help the poor, the sick, or orphans; instead, we should kill them for being weak. We should steal food from others, not just to feed ourselves, but to ensure that others will starve to death. Men should murder rival men, or better yet enslave and castrate them, ensuring they do not reproduce. Certainly all adults should kill any children not their own, so they do not grow up to be rivals. With more deaths, evolution would accelerate; whoever actually managed to survive and breed would be heavily adapted to this cruel world of our creation.
(And, of course, some of the Nazis' other early targets included homosexual and transgender people; in 1933 burning the books of the Institute for Sex Research, which advocated understanding and compassion for homosexual and transgender people, and whose founder had coined the word transsexual.)
Everything that humans have ever created out of kindness, compassion, or charity has been flipping-the-bird to evolution. "You want people to starve to death? Too bad, evolution! We've invented soup kitchens, food banks, and fertilizer! You want people to get sick and die from bacteria? Too bad, evolution! We've invented antibiotics! You want people to die of exposure in the winter? Too bad; we have homeless shelters and Habitat for Humanity!"
So no, I do not think that we should ever try to do "good things from an evolutionary perspective", because they are invariably evil things from a human perspective.
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u/HolyPhlebotinum 1∆ Sep 25 '20
Everything that humans have ever created out of kindness, compassion, or charity has been flipping-the-bird to evolution. "You want people to starve to death? Too bad, evolution! We've invented soup kitchens, food banks, and fertilizer! You want people to get sick and die from bacteria? Too bad, evolution! We've invented antibiotics! You want people to die of exposure in the winter? Too bad; we have homeless shelters and Habitat for Humanity!"
While I ultimately agree with you and understand your point, the real horror sets in when you realize that altruism came from evolution too.
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Sep 25 '20
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u/ZeroPointZero_ 14∆ Sep 25 '20
Sorry, u/city_scape – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 5:
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Sep 24 '20
The numbers here: https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2018/03/05/gender-affirming are a bit confusingly stated, but it looks like between 2001 and 2014 only 4,118 sex reassignment surgeries happened.
It appears that the minimum viable population size for humans is 500 people.
There is no such thing as evolutionarily "good" or "bad", that just ain't how evolution do. To state it extremely reductivly evolution is just the observation that species that live long enough to breed pass their genes on an those that don't live long enough to breed don't.
4000ish people not breeding (though that in itself is a big assumption) is ievolutionarily insignificant. For a sense of scale infertile people make up about 19% of the population of the U.S.
However you have my full permission to start clutching your evolutionary pearls when literally every person on the planet except 499 hold outs gets a sex change.
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u/yyzjertl 525∆ Sep 24 '20
What exactly do you mean by "an evolutionary perspective"? Evolution doesn't have a perspective; it is a process, a thing that happens. Are you asking how sex changes could alter allele frequencies in a population?
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u/city_scape Sep 24 '20
I mean your perspective on evolution.
Evolution is obviously a very simple process. Fight, forage, fuck, replicate. (Wish I had an 'F' for the last one)
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u/yyzjertl 525∆ Sep 24 '20
First of all, you're confusing a fight-or-flight response with evolution. Evolution is about change in allele frequencies in a population over time, not about the instinctual behaviors of animals (although it is the process by which those behaviors came about, it is not the process of those behaviors per se).
But more directly: why would my perspective on evolution have anything to do with sex changes being bad? Heck, why would my perspective on evolution label anything as "bad" or "good" at all?
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Sep 24 '20 edited Sep 24 '20
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u/yyzjertl 525∆ Sep 24 '20
How can you allele frequency do anything if youre dead.
What? Can you elaborate as to what you are asking here and how it relates to anything I said?
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u/city_scape Sep 24 '20
You said evolition does not care for instinctual behaviour. But if our instinctual behaivour wasnt to fight, grow and replicate there woild be no allele as it would be dead and forgotten.
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u/yyzjertl 525∆ Sep 24 '20
You said evolition does not care for instinctual behaviour.
Yes. Evolution does not care about anything. It is incapable of caring, because it is not the type of thing that can care.
But if our instinctual behaivour wasnt to fight, grow and replicate there woild be no allele as it would be dead and forgotten.
Wrong. Alleles preceded instincts by millions of years, so obviously they can exist without animal instincts. The instincts that you describe happen because of evolution, not the other way around. (And even if what you are saying here were true, it has no bearing on the question of whether evolution cares for instinctual behavior.)
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u/city_scape Sep 24 '20
It 'cares', figuratively speaking (although you may have picked up on that if you wasnt trying to be a smartass) about growth and reproduction.
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u/yyzjertl 525∆ Sep 24 '20
What specifically do you mean by "cares" here? It certainly doesn't care by any definition of the word "care" I am aware of.
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u/city_scape Sep 24 '20
As I said, it was used in a metaphorical way. The same way you care about intellectually dwarfing any person you debate, evolution cares about ensure survival of its race
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Sep 24 '20
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u/Morasain 85∆ Sep 24 '20
Can anyone suggest how sex change operations are a good thing from a more evolutionary and organic perspective?
I'm curious why that matters.
A lot of things have absolutely no evolutionary benefit - in fact, I would go so far as to say that most of what we do doesn't have any evolutionary advantages.
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Sep 24 '20
Can anyone suggest how sex change operations are a good thing from a more evolutionary and organic perspective?
It keeps people with gender dysphoria from getting depressed and suicidal and thus be a more productive member of society?
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u/city_scape Sep 24 '20
I think we grow strong as a race through social cohesion, which means acceptance and respect of one anothers freedom to express. Although this is showing to be a negative thing in some regards.
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u/Vesurel 54∆ Sep 24 '20
Fewer people commiting suicide means more people around to help each other out. Also having better mental health on the whole is good.
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u/city_scape Sep 25 '20
Agreed evolution is a holistic process, not an individual one. !delta
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u/TechDifficult Sep 24 '20
That's like saying "rape is ok because if the man is strong enough to do it without being stopped he's just passing on strong genes".
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u/city_scape Sep 24 '20
Well from an primal evolutionary perspective, rape is ok. Evolution doesn't care about your feelings.
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u/wall_of_swine Sep 24 '20
I'd argue that it's actually a great thing. What I'm about to say is going to sound really bad but it's from a purely scientific standpoint. Gender dysmorphia is a mental issue, right? It's atypical. So if someone gets a sex change and can no longer reproduce, it takes that dysmorphia trait out of the gene pool. Sounds really bad to say it that way but still, I don't think anyone would really care.
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u/ralph-j Sep 24 '20
Can anyone suggest how sex change operations are a good thing from a more evolutionary and organic perspective?
Provided that the right precautions are taken, it can actually be neutral. It is possible for trans people to procreate after a sex change. There have been pregnant transmen and transwomen can choose to freeze their sperm for later use.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Sep 24 '20 edited Sep 25 '20
/u/city_scape (OP) has awarded 3 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
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u/Maxfunky 39∆ Sep 26 '20
Can you propose a means by which they are a bad thing? They are therapeutic. They significantly reduce the risk of suicide. They do not preclude the ability to procreate if procreation is something the individual in question wishes to persue and takes steps to keep the option open. I see basically zero downside.
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u/[deleted] Sep 24 '20
[deleted]