Hotter, Badder, and Unpopularer Takes

[Sol]

The usage of "it" to refer to little children, which apparenty is not uncommon in English, irks me and strikes me as dehumanizing.

It irks many English-speakers and strikes them as dehumanizing as well. I never hear anybody who doesn't vocally hate children use it, (ETA) except sometimes for infants--and it bothers me when used for infants as well.

I'm the opposite way, as I wish "it" could be normalized as a gender-neutral pronoun that can apply to human beings regardless of age. I don't understand what's so terrible about things and people sharing pronouns. Romance languages do that all the time (in the other direction) and I don't think that has rendered the relevant countries more callous toward human beings.

Of course, I know it's probably too late. The grammatically clunky singular-they is probably the best we'll ever get to a gender-neutral pronoun. As if having the same pronoun for 2nd p. sing. and 2nd p. plur. wasn't confusing enough already.

Well, "they" is a pretty easy lift since it's been used that way since Chaucer.

[Sol]

Antonio's idea of a "genderless world" is pretty flatly unappealing to me, to be perfectly honest, and I'm saying this as someone who thinks the vast majority of the styles and habits that pass for gender roles in our actually-existing society are complete balderdash. I'm broadly in agreement with the point that Cody and others have made that this sort of framing eventually horseshoes around into something similar to homophobia (my friend Meredith and I refer to it as the "Being Bi Is Woker" mindset) and that discourses of "fluidity" or "just being open to what you're open to" eventually start to acquire just as much unpalatable normative content as rigidly categorizing every possible sexual or romantic impulse people can have. What if a lesbian does conceive of her lack of attraction to men as psychologically, politically, or (perish the thought) even spiritually important? What if a gay man conceives of his lack of attraction to women that way? It isn't at all obvious to me that this is inherently the kind of ~repression~ that certain posters seem convinced it is.

For what it's worth, I largely agree--there's certainly no moral value imo attached to being bisexual, and I think a genderless world is both undesirable and also probably impossible. I think our area of disagreement lies around a slightly different issue--in my view, making sexual orientation a tentpole of one's personal identity is a bit of a complex proposition, regardless of whether one is straight, gay, bi, etc. Human sexuality is so complex and fluctuating, one risks on missing out if one defines oneself too strictly.

(FWIW I'd argue this would apply to people identifying as bisexuals too potentially--I'm not super up on this side of queer discourse but compulsory heterosexuality seems to be a thing.)

This isn't some sort of normative thing, but I personally find taking my identity categories lightly to be so much more freeing than taking them so seriously, and patrolling their boundaries rigidly. It makes me feel more connected to a sense of common humanity with people who are different than me.

Obviously I understand people have their reasons for doing this (ones often rooted in discrimination, which I get) and I don't care that much provided that others don't try to police me, but personally I prefer to live in shades of grey.

I'm also saying this as someone whose sexual orientation is fairly important to me both politically and (whatever the agnostic equivalent of) spiritually is, in a way which is hard to articulate without sounding like a gay male version of that one Kyrsten Sinema quote. But I don't think that's mutually exclusive with leaving the door open to other possibilities.

Apologies if this post comes off as douchy or holier than thou, just trying to express my perspective.

[Sol]

Maryland is 100% southern. It's more southern than West Virginia, Texas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Missouri, or Florida.

It's completely impossible but IMO the U.S. would be much better off if the vast majority of Americans lived in the Midwest and Northeast, with some in the south and a minimal handful west of Kansas City. Basically 1890 population distribution, except with basically every western state at just 3 EVs.

The Biden administration should come up with a managed transition plan for moving the Mississippi River into the Atchafalaya. It's inevitable anyway, so they should do the ethical and unpopular thing of coming up with a plan now, ideally with massive compensation to everyone being bypassed by the river. Better than what will happen at some point if we do nothing!

The Maritimes would be extremely strong #MAGA country if they were transposed into the U.S.

I think Democrats should be more concerned about a possible "Rob Ford" Republican coalition. They need to yeet rich people out of the coalition forever.

[Sol]

Maryland is 100% southern. It's more southern than West Virginia, Texas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Missouri, or Florida.

I'm curious why that is.

It's patterns of population distribution resemble Southern states more closely than Northern ones--extremely weak municipalities, strong counties, large suburban and rural Black populations, etc. The rural parts of the state are pretty obviously southern.

Washington DC is southern in the same way as a place like Charlotte or Atlanta--it has a lot of transplants, so at least among white people it doesn't seem super southern, but in terms of urban growth and local government it has a stronger resemblance to the Research Triangle, etc, albeit with an old-growth urban core.