 Hey everybody, tonight we're debating whether or not we should affirm trans identities when we're starting right now. With Sean last opening statement, thanks so much for being with us. Sean, the floor is all yours. Alrighty, I'll try to get through this as quickly as I can. So I'm gonna argue that we shouldn't set up a culture which promotes transgenderism because doing so may increase the number of transgender people and more people being trans is bad for those people themselves and society at large. Beginning of transgenderism being bad for those who become trans, as is well known, trans, suicide rates go above that, general population. Trans advocates broadly offer two solutions to this. Let trans people live as their preferred gender and anti-trans discrimination. Concerning the first suggestion, if we look at data from the 2015 US Transgender Survey and about 27,000 transgender individuals and suicide rates, the report notes that among the general population, only about 0.6% of people have attempted suicide from the last year, but among trans people, this rate is 5.1% for those who have gone through with the sex, altering surgery and 12.2% for those whose status as transgenders reliably obvious to others. While still well above average, it's also with no gender rates, this rate goes down to 4.1% among those who don't intend to actually live their life out as the preferred gender identity even though they are transgendered. Now, with respect to discrimination using the same source for data, the past year suicide rate, which again is only 0.6% among the general population, is between 5 and 6% among those trans people who say that they have supportive families or supportive co-workers or who say that they have not been harassed or discriminated against in any major way in the last year for being trans. And so a lack of discrimination seemingly will use trans people with a suicide rate roughly 10 times that of cisgendered people. It's also worth noting that a 2021 meta-analysis found with a vast majority of LGBT youth who have attempted suicide and to know when asked if they personally been the victim of various sorts of anti-LGBT discrimination and bullying. Moreover, across seven studies, I found an average lifetime of suicide at a temperature of 24% among trans people who claim to have not been the victim of various kinds of discrimination compared to a rate of 4.6% among the general population. Now, if discrimination did play a huge role in trans suicide rates, we might expect trans people who have experienced a great deal of discrimination to report suicide attempt rates far higher than those who have not. But a recent meta-analysis finds that experiences of discrimination correlated at only 0.24% of the trans person's suicide attempt, high expectations of rejection was a weaker correlated at 0.15 and internalized transphobia exhibited a still weaker and only marginally significant correlation of 0.09. These effect sizes entail that no measure of discrimination explains even 5% of the variance in the rate at which trans people attempt suicide. Now, research on bullying gives us reason to think that even these weak correlations overstate the causal impact of discrimination on suicide. Bullying research is relevant because most forms of discrimination, things like verbal harassment, physical assault, ostracism and the like are basically just forms of bullying. And as to the kids who are bullied are more likely than others to attempt suicide, but roughly two thirds of this association is explained by genetics and cycle pathology which existed in these kids prior to them being bullied. It is likely then that much of the already weak association through discrimination and suicide about trans people is non-causal as well. Returning to the main point, creating more accepting environments, putting people through surgeries and trans people living as their preferred identity are all things which have not been shown to lower the suicide rate of trans people to any figure even approaching normal. Now, because trans advocates so often refuse to acknowledge that the widespread mental illness among trans people is largely not the fault of cis people or of them failing to live their life as their preferred gender, I typically don't have answers when asked for a set of conditions which has been shown to stop trans people from acting in these ways. Now, setting the well-being of trans people themselves aside there's also the issue of how trans people impact other people. Now, trans people are often stereotyped as victims but if we're gonna make a broad generalization they're more accurately stereotyped as victimizers. So for instance, analysis of about 139,000 students from the National Institute of Health and Welfare showed that transgender youth were about two times as likely as others to be bullied but also four times more likely than others to bully other people. And this association persisted after controlling for things like depression, parental economic status being the victim of bullying, communicating well with one's parents, et cetera. Now, maybe the bad people just more likely to become transgender to begin with. Other than also some reason to think that being transgender may increase people's propensity to act in these ways. Specifically several psychological experiments of evidence that a person feeling that they're the victim of other people's wrongdoing increases their tendency to act in selfish and unfair ways. And so it is plausible that becoming transgender increases bad behavior by increasing the person's perceived degree of victim. Now, of course, trans advocates also want us to change our own behavior in a variety of ways which many find problematic, stressful, disgusting and in some cases even important. The most obvious example of this is pronoun used. So acting like the word woman just means anyone who identifies woman seems very silly because the word then becomes essentially meaningless and so far as we take this definition seriously although it may still feel meaningful to a degree but that's largely just piggybacking off the momentum of the meaning that was described with the word traditional. Using pronouns in this way also may open the door for more people identifying as transgender by allowing them to think it is possible for for instance, a woman to be a man prior to this change in language, a person engaging in gender non-performing behavior for instance, a girl who acts like a tomboy might be inclined to interpret their feelings in less radical ways and may not even occur to them but it was logically possible that they could just be the other sex. Now in terms of relations with others, obviously a different trans advocates say different things by looking at a few specific examples that the Canadian Human Rights Trust gives examples of transphobia that include things like a child only inviting children of their own biological sex as opposed to self-declared gender to a party or a PE class which often both changing clothes in front of other people being segregated by sex rather than gender identity. Now being forced to interact with and change in front of people they don't want to may cause children significant distress but trans advocates often insist that we let trans kids have their way anyhow implicitly saying that the feelings of these trans kids are somehow more important than the feelings of the cisgender kids but of course that's nonsense. Now the sex many trans advocates will say that you can have a preference so that this is fine. You can have a preference about what the people you have sex with look like and act like but if you would refuse to have sex with someone just because they are trans meaning you would have sex with an identical looking and acting person who was cisgender then you are engaged in transphobia. Such has been argued by people running various trans advocacy groups and trans pro-trans academics writing for Cambridge University Press but for many the suggestion was disgusting and violates their own sense of identity as a heterosexual. Trans advocates seemingly expect cisgender people to sacrifice this part of their own identity for the sake of trans people but many myself included would refuse to do so and I can see any argument trans advocate could make about how much this will upset trans people which will justify this sort of demand. And then there's sports setting aside whether male athletes can actually weaken their bodies to such an extent that they no longer have any advantage over females. Trans advocates often act as if sex segregated sports are just about ability and I do not think that's true. If ability is all that matters then we would just segregate sports by ability and on athletic males compete against athletic females but obviously that's not how we do things. It's fundamentally about sex and the ability is just a correlate of that. And even if a male is weak say we're a female strong so that there's a fight between the two and there's no significant strength difference initially between them. We still find the idea of a male winning the fight and beating the crap out of a woman to be unacceptable. Again, these values of business sex not just ability and the trans demand for us to rewrite these values in terms of supposed ability so that they can achieve a society where for instance, a man is allowed to do something like make a living beating women the UFC should be denied in the strongest possible terms. Now the final thing to say is that there are reasons to suspect that the increased acceptance of trans people in the society that has happened in society in recent years has led to an increase in the number of people who are transgender. The most obvious reason to think this is true is that the rate at which people identify as transgender has increased over time. Now, some people will think that this merely reflects the number of people admitting to being trans and not an actual increase in the number of people who aren't trans. Seemingly, I refuse to interpret poor results. In this case, the way we do for almost every other issue is due to a wave of propaganda that started about 25 years ago spread initially about homosexuality and then applied to transgenderism which presented these conditions as genetic and unchangeable so that they would be less susceptible to moral condemnation. But none of this was ever true. For instance, a 2000 paper estimates the heritability of gender identity to be less than 50%. A 2002 paper put it at 62%. The exact value here doesn't matter. The point is environmental variation is quite significant. 2012 paper aggregated data from previous twin studies and found that the concordance rate for transgenderism was 0% among non-identical twin pairs and 39% among identical twin pairs. A later study from Japan produced similar results with respect to gender identity disorder. Now, the fact that concordance rates are higher among identical twins than non-identical twins implies that genetics does play a role in transgenderism as it does in all human behavior. But the fact that concordance rates even among identical twins are well below half suggest that genetics in the prenatal environment are far from a sufficient explanation for transgenderism. Moreover, in gender non-performing individuals, gender identity seems rather fluid. So for instance, in one review, looking at children of evidence from 11 studies was estimated that at least 60% of children who at one point had a sense of gender identity disorder grew up to be cisgendered. Similarly, a 2016 article which reviewed data from 10 studies found consistently across reports that the vast majority of cases of gender identity disorder among children did not persist into adulthood. More recently, a follow-up set of interviews on 139 children who were found to exhibit symptoms of gender identity disorder around 1989 concluded that only 12.2% of cases and only 12.2% of cases did this persist into adulthood. Now, another study of 317 transgender youth who began being followed around the age of eight in 2013 found that 7.3%, which is a much lower number of course, of those who have transitioned, went on to de-transition, but within just five years, again, these are people who actually transitioned. Now, given the relationships that people often have to destroy in the pursuit of transitioning or the public nature of this decision, in fact, the people who transitioned very early are presumably experiencing quite extreme gender dysphoria to begin with, de-transitioning is no doubt an extremely profound, stressful and humiliating experience and 7.3% doing so in just five years where a decision that's supposed to last for life I think is quite significant. From this kind of research, I think we can plausibly infer two conclusions. First, for those who are not simply consistently cisgender, gender identity is far from perfectly stable. Second, while still somewhat unstable, there's some reason to think that abnormal gender identities are more stable now than in the past. Both these points increase the chance the culture can alter the rate of transgenderism. Finally, it is important to know that transgenderism is mostly increasing among young people. For instance, a 2021 Gallup poll found that the rate of transgenderism had risen to 2.1% among Gen Z, but was still less than or still was rather than 0.1% among baby rumors. This is what we would expect if actual identity development which tends to occur to a young age was being impact. If all that was happening was that people were becoming less scared of admitting at least to an anonymous pollster that they are transgender, then we'd probably see a larger increase in transgenderism among older Americans as well. For all of these reasons, I don't think we have good cause to doubt that transgenderism really is increasing. Given that I've argued that transgenderism is bad for the people with a flicks and society at large, it's hopefully clear why I don't favor affirming trans people's perceptions of who they are. You got it. Thank you very much for that opening, Sean. And we're going to kick it over to Dario for his opening as well. But want to let you know folks first, if it's your first time here at Modern Day Debate, welcome. We hope you feel welcome no matter what walk of life you are from. And we have many more juicy debates coming up. In fact, tomorrow, pro-choice versus pro-life tag team. You don't want to miss it as shown on the bottom right of your screen. It's going to be a big one. And don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss big debates like that one. With that, thank you very much, Dario. The floor is all yours for your opening as well. Yes, thank you, James. That was a lot. I think I counted like 17, 18 citations, something like that. I couldn't follow half of them. I don't know why half of them were even relevant. I think maybe we should dial it back a little bit, because I heard you mention a bunch of arguments that you've heard trans advocates make. Like you went into all kinds of topics about sports and bathrooms and all that. Personally, when I do these debates, I'm here to debate and talk to you and not talk to every single conservative, Republican, whatever advocates you want to say. And I'm mostly interested in what you have to say and what your thoughts are specifically and then go point by point. So my opening statement is just going to be that I believe that this conversation is way more fundamental. I think we have to answer a fundamental question before we can move on to even talk about like the 25 studies you mentioned. So fundamentally, I think there's a question and the question is, do you believe that there is a thing that is being trans? Like, is that a thing that you recognize? And I believe that in your previous debate you said you do. So if you do believe that there is a thing as of being trans, then if presumably there is a subset of people who fit within this category correctly by your definition, then to affirm them and say, well, they are trans and we can confirm that they are trans by whatever metric we decide, then affirming their identity would simply just be speaking truth on the matter. And I don't think truth is relative and I don't think whether or not people have certain feelings about themselves in terms of like suicide or whatever changes the fact they are trans so that we should confirm or deny that they are trans based off of that fact. So I'd like to kick it off there if you don't mind, Sean. And yeah. You got it. I want to remind you folks, our guests are linked in the description. We're going to jump into open conversation. If you'd like to learn more about our guest views, you certainly can with their YouTube channels linked below. And that includes if you're listening via the podcast, we link them there as well. Thanks so much, gentlemen. Floor is all yours for that open dialogue indeed. So maybe we have a different idea of what it would mean to affirm a trans person's identity. In the sense that like there are trans people and I affirmed they exist in the sense that there are people, for instance, there are males who perceive themselves to be females. That is true. But what I would take it to mean to affirm their identity would be to say that in some sense, I agree that they're female and to act in accordance with that gender identity. That's why I would take the opportunity. Sure. So so quickly, just decouple that. OK, so when you say that they believe that they are female, what do you mean when you say that? Do you do? Are you saying that there is a somebody who is assigned male at birth or like born as a biological male and they believe that they are like a biological female because I don't believe that's the case, right? I believe that they're saying their gender identity more correctly maps on to what we would consider to be a woman within like a societal context, right? That's that's what I believe that they're saying, right? And if we agree that this is a thing that people can experience and feel, then simply affirming that and saying, OK, yeah, I understand that's how you feel. That is how you present yourself. That is how you wish to be seen. Simply affirming that is saying, I believe this is a real thing that happens to people. I don't know how you can disagree with that based off of your prior statements, but maybe you do. So it is certainly true that there are people who, for instance, like they're biological males who would prefer to be referred to as a her who want to wear a dress, etc. Yeah, so I don't deny that people have those sorts of desires. Now, if you ask what exactly do they mean? For instance, when a biological male says that I identify as a woman, that's a tricky question because I think typically those people tend to define the actual work woman right into somewhat non meaningful way. But sending that aside in terms of concrete behavior, that we know so so can I quickly and I just quickly make a point, right? So like we don't have to go into specifically what some people might think, right? Like we're talking me and you. So I don't want to go into like a rabbit hole of like what some people might believe and associate, right? So if I'm coming to you and I'm saying, well, what they believe or like what people, what in my experience at least, and you can say, well, that's not your experience. That's fine. We can disregard that. But like in my experience, when people say, like they are a biological male and they say, I am a woman, what they mean is my gender identity or like my gender presentation is that of a woman. And it would make sense to categorize be under that category. Yeah, or at least they have a desire for their presentation to be like that. We both agree that there are men who want to be treated as if the way I put it is be treated as if they were. We both agree that those are, there are people like that. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, so if somebody is coming to you and saying, I am a woman, that is how I feel, they present as a woman, you look at them, you think they look like a woman or whatever you would consider to be a woman, like physically in terms of like a gender thing, not a sex thing, obviously, but like a gender thing. And then you would, I think by any logic, be able to say, well, you would affirm, yes, you do look like a woman, you present as a woman, you operate as a woman, if they say they do that, right? I mean, isn't that just like what this is about? It's also true that obviously it is possible for a man to look like a woman. Yeah. But again, the affirmation would come in where I would actually act as if they were, which I would not do. Well, but they would be like a trans woman. In fact, I would think it would be negative. Well, sure, but you would consider them a trans woman, like that is a category, right? They would be a trans woman. Like there wouldn't be a cis woman, but they would be like a trans woman, right? I mean, my Euro definition even, right? I mean, I doubt you would, like that's just a name, like we can call it whatever we want, right? That's just a signifier. Right, yes. There aren't trans women, if you want to define it that way. And what I assume, what we're arguing about though, is given the existence of these people, should we agree with and affirm the identity that they are presenting as, or should we, I suppose you could be totally neutral about it, but that's not the position I'm taking, or should we react negatively to them trying to manifest that idea? Well, no, so sure, that is what we're arguing, right? But I would say, I would say that's a very trivial argument. And I want to just see if we can like create some rapport and understanding there, right? Because I think by the definitions you've given and like the way that you've spoken about it so far, you would affirm at least that there are some trans people that you would affirm their trans identity and you would say, yes, you are trans and you present in the way that you're saying, you're presenting and you would be trans, right? So what it seems to me is that you then have some issue with other people who you say are trans, but maybe you don't think they're trans or like you don't believe that they are within the same category or maybe we're talking past each other. Like, am I hitting something? So whether or not I think someone, but if someone is, by the way, we've defined a legitimate trans woman, right? I still would not treat them as if they were a woman and I would do whatever mechanism is possible, encourage them to drop that identity. Well, so just to clarify, just from my clarification, right? When you say, if somebody is a trans woman, you wouldn't treat them as a woman. The word woman there, that means cis woman in that context, right? Like they are not a biological woman, right? That's what you mean, right? When you say that or do you mean something else? Okay, but so my, I guess what I would posit to you is that I don't believe that most trans women believe that they are cis women, right? Or like they are biological women in that sense, right? Like that's, I don't think they believe that. Why else would they call themselves trans? But they want to be treated as if they were cis women. Well, in some aspects, yeah, obviously. And that is, right. And so that is why, I mean, like in ways, but like, but you would do that, right? In some aspects, but maybe not in others, right? So like, for example, let's say, I mean, the classical example, I don't know if you've heard this. Like, are you familiar with the trans woman called Blair White? Kind of, they're like a conservative trans, right? Yeah, sure. Do you know how she looks? Like, do you have an image vaguely? Sure. So if you were out in a bar with Blair White, and you were pointing to her and saying, oh, she's my woman friend, or like she's my, or whatever, you were pointing to some friends and saying, who is Blair White? And you would point her and say, that's her over there. Like you would be pointing at a woman and acting as if she is a woman within this context, right? Like you wouldn't say pointing at Blair White and saying, oh, that's my guy friend, or like that's a man or whatever. Well, and then we can set Blair White, because I'm not exactly sure what they look like, but there are trans people that look like you couldn't tell how they're told. There are trans people like that who exist, for sure. And with respect to those people, I mean, what you would do in that kind of circumstance, I guess, depends on, like, whatever this way, what I think would be the most, what people should do, I'll put it that way, what people should do is not what you just said. Now, in terms of practical convenience, people may do that anyway, but in fact, no, I wouldn't say that you actually should just treat that person as if they were a woman, because again, I think that's a toxic social norm to go around treating trans women as if they were cis women. But wait, so, but how do you, so how do you in your, so you recognize, so you recognize that there are women out there, trans women out there, who you would not know that they were trans unless they told you, right? So we recognize that. So how would you go about calling them a man without first knowing that they are trans? Like, you would, like, you would by your own definitions play into this already within society, right? And that's just what I'm saying, right? Oh, if I didn't know, I could be tricked, for sure. I could definitely be trying. I mean, someone could also trick me into finding them as an old person to make up or something like that. I mean, I could be tricked, yes. Sure, we can call it tricked. We can call it whatever you want, right? The point is just that there are societal contacts where within you would, someone who looks like a woman, you would call them a woman, especially if you didn't know, right? Because that's just what makes sense. And my point is just being that, that is just a social way that we refer to somebody who looks a certain way within society who looks like a woman, right? We call them a woman because they look like a woman, generally, or act like a woman. So the initial question about Blair White Nabar, I mean, I just assumed that I would know they were transgender, right? Because otherwise, what would be the point of question? Sure, but so would you, so would you tell your friends, oh, it's my guy friend over there or like call her a man, like to, let's say to a, like, is there a difference between like a stranger or like a friend of yours? If I was trying to point out Blair White Nabar, because I mean Blair White looks just like a woman, I would explain, oh, there's a man, the trans woman. I would not just say one. Okay, so if a bartender asks you, who are you with, you would point to Blair and say, I'm with that person over there. Just so you know that they are trans, they are, in fact, they're men, but they look like a woman and they have big boobies and they have long hair and you would, is that... Well, again, there's a difference between what we should do and what we're going to do because of convenience, right? Now it might be that like fear or awkwardness pressures me into acting as if Blair White is a woman. That might be true, it might not be. That's a psychological factor, though. I don't see that as very relevant. What we should do is that every opportunity available to us, steadfastly refuse to treat transgender women as if they're a sister. Sure, but again, like I'm saying, like I don't think that they are, can you give me just a second? Okay, I'm back. So I feel like we're circling around sort of the... You believe that trans women want you to believe that they are cis women? Is that what you think or...? I don't know, I treat them like they're cis women. Well, yeah. That they actually are, but they want you to treat them as if they are. But do you think that they want that in all contexts? That depends on the trans person, how many contexts they want to be treated in that way. Sure, but we agree that there are certain contexts where they would effectively be treated as any other woman, because that is how they act, look and present in that situation. Yeah, there are contexts in which... I mean, for one thing, that's just people in the society where there are lots of people who are pro-trans and you can treat people, so for sure. Sure, so what? That doesn't change the argument. Well, no, I mean, kind of does, right? So the argument goes from... So you're presenting this as that there is like a unified response in every single case, right? But what I'm presenting to you is that there are obvious variances within the argument, right? So for example, somebody who, at least from my knowledge right now, somebody who was born as a biological male, they won't be able to bear children or be impregnated because they don't have a uterus or whatever right now. So in that context, you would never treat them as a woman as in somebody who can get pregnant by you as a man or like you a man could not make them pregnant, right? Because they have like biological male intestines, right? So like not in every case would we treat them like a woman. But what I'm saying is there are a lot of cases, many of them social, many of them like in terms of just like how we interact out in the world where we don't really look at people's biology to interact with them, they would be treated as a woman just because that's what makes sense, especially again, especially if you don't even know, right? Like how could you treat them otherwise other than just affirm them by default? Uh-huh, sure, to me, like, okay, maybe this one make clear why I don't think this is useful. Like, suppose we were talking about pedophiles, right? And I said pedophiles are bad, we should ostracize pedophiles at every chance we can. You said, well, wait, what if in a bar you didn't know someone was a pedophile? Then in that case, and in fact, most of the time, people don't know that they're pedophiles. And so in the vast majority of circumstances, because it just makes practical sense, people treat pedophiles as if they're not pedophiles. And to be clear, I'm not saying trans people are pedophiles. I'm just using an example of something that we would both agree is clearly morally important or bad in some way. To me, that feels like what this comes to, like, so it's true, right? There are people who are pro-trans and there are people who are trick, but I'm not talking about what actually happens, I'm talking about what should happen, what should happen is that people should not play along with trans identities, even if they do. Sure, sure. So the difference there is how it is appropriate to treat them within society, right? So like, we can draw a distinction between trans people and pedophiles in this case by saying, even you agree that there are contexts where a trans woman would just be treated as a woman, right? So like, within that frame, the only thing we're actually arguing is what are those contexts, right? And like, we may agree on some of them or disagree on another, but it doesn't really change the fact that there exists, by your definition, trans people in this world, which would, for most intents and purposes, be treated as women. Well, I also want to make a distinction here with reference to the fact that there aren't trans people, there are like trans women who you could not tell are not trans women, but that is not most trans. I think most trans women actually are regularly treated as. But that doesn't matter, like it doesn't, for the argument, it doesn't really matter if it's most. The language you were using started to imply certain things about proportions. Oh, no, so yeah, sure. So just to be clear, right? My, like I'm not arguing about like most or whatever, right? I'm just arguing definitions at this point, right? I'm just trying to establish a baseline where we can say, if this is a phenomenon that exists, like you can even tell me, right? You can come to me and say, Dario, actually, I only believe that there is a hundred trans people total in the world and everybody else is just faking it, right? Or like clearly isn't trans or whatever, that's fine. But like by your definition, those a hundred people that you would actually consider trans by every metric and they would pass by every metric you could present, you would then, by your own definitions, affirm that they are trans, right? And the other people, they simply wouldn't necessarily be trans to you. They're all trans, then none of them are, I mean, the fact that some of them are obviously not cis women doesn't make them less trans. Okay, so how do you define trans? So when it's, I mean, I think in the normal way, so when it's transgender, you have every sense of gender identity, which is opposite to what was assigned to the birth based on their biological sex, right? Sure, so by that definition, right? If somebody comes to you and tells you, that's how I feel, I mean, you would have to be like, oh, yeah, sure, you're trans, and then you would affirm that they are trans, right? Am I? But I would affirm that they were trans, but I would also then say, and that's bad, and we should discourage you from having those sorts of feelings, and we should try to prevent other people from having those sorts of feelings. And that's what we're, isn't that what we're arguing? I think that's, it seems weird to me, like all besides the point so far. Well, no, I mean, I don't think it's besides the point, right, because I think we need to clarify specifically what we mean when we are gay, right? Because all the things you bring up with like the numbers and stuff, like, I mean, we can dig into that, but like this format isn't really created for you to bring up 20 studies and be like, here are 20 studies. Like, I can't go through them with you like one by one, right? We only have maybe like 30 more minutes or like an hour tops, right? So like it's pointless, right? So like we have to start somewhere. And yet, this, I mean, this issue, well, my views on this issue in a way are contingent on empirical reality. So I can't, like it's not a thought experience. Well, sure, me too, but right, but we have to interpret empirical reality in the lens, right? So like, okay, so let me probe you on that actually, because I actually have a question for you there, right? So you believe that, I assume you believe in biological sex, right? Like that's a, is that like, when you think about biological sex, do you think that's like a matter of factly thing? Like, do you think that you can change your biological sex? Not really. I mean, no, no, I'll just say no. Sure, no, okay. Sure. So you would say, like, you would say factually, like trans women who were born male have the biological sex of a male, correct? Yes. Sure. So what if, let's say 20 studies came out, right? You read the studies and all of the studies said, actually the suicide rates of all these trans people, it drops to 0%, right? It drops to 0%, their life becomes great. We just magic wand away all the issues of like they function way better in society. People like are way less adverse to them like other people or whatever. And the only thing that requires for that to happen is that you have to affirm and tell them that actually their biological sex is actually female, right? So would you do that? No, although there are a set of extra conditions we could add if you want to where I would do that. So by the arguments that you're presenting, what it sounds to me is that you would have to do that, right? Because you're saying you're grounded in empiricism and you only actually care about the empiricism. But if I do the counterfactual, it doesn't seem like the empirics are actually what's at stake. And what I'm presenting to you is I actually just care about the truth of the matter, right? And like how we define terms is what's important to me. So what I would say is just that, so you would have gotten rid of one of the reasons for which I wouldn't affirm a trans person's identity, but there are other reasons. And I'm not going to like reread the studies but just to name them. One of the other reasons was that trans people, I think partly because they're trans tend to be very antisocial people and their behavior. And then also a lot of trans people tend to want other cis people to do things beyond just a simple thing like a home. Sure, but can I, can I- Like I said, we could add these, there is an empirical reality, hypothetically speaking, where I would affirm trans people's identities if the empirical reality was different on all of these. No, so, okay, so I'm not asking you to affirm their identities, right? What I'm asking you is to obviously lie, right? So what I'm asking you is, would you say to them and say to everybody, oh, they are biologically female, right? Even if- Oh no, why would I be that? That's what I'm saying, right? If we could magic wand all the empirical realities that you want, right? Like we could say, oh, we dropped the suicide rates, we dropped like every single study, every everything reverses and becomes perfect in your view, like in terms of like the numbers. But the only thing that it requires would be for you to actively lie to make that happen. Would you do it? And by the argument that you're presenting, you're saying, I only care about the empirics and that's why I'm making this argument. You would have to bite that bullet and say, yes, I would have to lie because I only care about the empirics. Well, no, I mean, it's as we said, we're talking about affirming trans people's identity. And as we've already talked about, trans people don't identify as cisgender people, trans women- No, I agree. I call them biological women. That would be a lie, right? No, no, no, no, no. But they're going to make something different, which are not- Yes, but to be clear, right? I'm creating a hypothetical, right? I'm not saying they're like, just to be completely clear what I'm asking, right? I'm presenting you a hypothetical counterfactual, right? And the counterfactual is I'm attacking your position through a hypothetical example, right? And I'm saying in this hypothetical, if all the empirics were the opposite of what you believe them to be, right? If they were perfect in terms of like, where you wanted them to be, but the only thing it required would be, for you to lie about their biological sex, then you would have to do that. If those empirics are the only thing you care about, and if it's not, and there's like something else there. So I feel like this made clear. So empirics are the reasons that I would not have sent to the current demands of actual trans people, but there are hypothetical trans people who might make further demands, which I would not have sent to poor reasons like if it was just a blade block. And that is true, but that's not the actual situation in the hand because they're not demanding that I actually say they're biologically whatever that fire is. Well, there is, well, to be fair, right? There is no actual situation in hand, right? Like what you're basically saying is that there's a handful of like millions of people probably worldwide who all have different definitions, have different demands and like different ways that they wanna interact with you and the world, right? Like they're not all unified, right? So it's like arguing against every single one at the same time, obviously there's even trans people I disagree with quite a lot, right? I debate with trans people as well that I, where I disagree with them on definitions, I disagree with them on this and that, right? But like, that's- I mean, I've specified the specific sort of demands that I'm talking about that I won't do. And I just, I don't see how it's helpful to talk about what if they have this other demand about being biologically some of them are in that explicit way. So the question- I've never met a trans person who says that. Sure, so the question for me is, why won't you do it? Right? Like that's sure, but that's not the thing that you're presenting me, right? Like you're presenting me studies and empirics. I wasn't explaining why I wouldn't do that. I was explaining why I wouldn't do things I was talking about. I was not explaining why I wouldn't say that a transgender woman is a biologically woman. I was explaining why I wouldn't treat a transgender woman as if they were a system, right? Those are two different things. In one case, dishonesty comes into, like these are just two different, the reasons are different, that's not inconsistency, it's because there are different situations. Sure, but okay, so, but do you understand why that doesn't track, right? So like if you were, if I'm asking you, right? If I'm asking you, okay, there is a person who identifies as a woman, right? And they are asking you, why won't you call me a woman, right? And you think they look like a woman or whatever. And a thing you bring up is, well, trans people in general have higher suicide rates, right? That's not really you talking about the matter of factly statement of them being a woman, right? That is you saying because of external factors that are based in empirics in terms of like societal outcomes, that is why I won't call you a woman, right? But what you're telling me now is, well, actually you believe that there is some truth in the matter of whether or not they're a woman. And actually you don't actually care about the empirics. Okay, so now we're just like a side point. Right, so these are the difference in these situations. So now you're just using the word woman and when a trans person asks me to call them a woman, I don't take them to mean they want me to call them a biologically woman. I assume that they want me to treat them as if they're a cis woman. Now, if, so those just aren't, do you say those aren't the same? Like if a trans person came to me and said, call me a biologically woman. Yeah, the studies wouldn't even matter. That's just, that's like them asking me to claim the seven feet, like no, you're not. And it's not because you're using the word in a different being. It's because we both agree on the meaning of a biologically woman and you're not it. Sure, but what I'm saying is, what I'm saying is, right? If all the studies agreed that if you did call them a biological woman, then their suicide rate would drop to zero. Like they would magically work perfectly in society, right? None of that would matter to you. Actually, you only care about the definition and them not falling within that definition, right? So I'm taking that argument and I'm transplanting it onto, well, now if we talk about gender, why do the studies matter when actually there might be just a fundamental disagreement of definition, right? That's what I'm attacking. I'm attacking what I'm not. Like, okay, let's just talk specifically about definition, right? So like a definition, I wanna put this. I understand how they're using the word woman. I don't disagree with how they're like, I know what they mean by the word woman. I don't see how you don't see the difference between that and then adding on biologically women work. Like, if they say, I feel like there's a disconnect, right? I understand that there's a difference, right? I'm not saying that there is no, like I even, I'm presenting it as hypothetical and before that hypothetical, I told you I understand that there's a difference between biology and gender. That wasn't even in my opening statement, right? That's not what I'm saying. Like the biology thing is a hypothetical. It's a counterfactual to attack why you are making an argument, right? And I'm then taking that logic that you use to respond to that. And then I'm applying it to the actual conversation we're having about gender, right? Do you understand the difference? Right, but it just doesn't apply. Okay, maybe I'll define my, let me define my state of this one, maybe this one will make things. If I won't do something if the empirical evidence highly suggests that it's very detrimental to society that's one reason why I wouldn't do a thing. Another reason why I wouldn't do a thing and an even greater reason why I wouldn't do a thing. So this value is even higher is if they're directly asking me to lie, right? So either of those. So I agree. So can we take that? Can we take that and work from there? Yeah, what I'm saying, we can go from there but to be clear, I don't think that trans people are asking me to lie. No, I agree. I agree, right? I agree, right? So what I'm saying is what you just said there is what I'm trying to point out, right? So you said that if they're asking me to call them a woman, right? There is like an empirical reality and that's important to you, right? But there is an even more important reality to you and that is that they're asking you to lie which is above that, right? So like actually this, we don't even have to talk about this. We can just talk about them asking you to lie. But then I'm trying to figure out, well, if that is actually what we're discussing it's a fundamentally different argument, right? And it seems that this argument above the lying part there's something that you've already conceited in previous debates and even here, right? Where you're saying that you believe that there is such a thing as being trans and it is like some mental state call it whatever you want, right? Like you can even call it an illness if you want, right? Or like gender dysphoria, call whatever, right? But it is an actual thing that people are that existed the world and simply affirming that it's just saying, well, you are this thing, like you are a trans woman and you wish to be treated as the thing that you are by society, right? That's all it says. This just goes back to like the first thing I said in the debate, of course, trans people exist but we're debating what should we actually treat them as they want to be treated, right? Well, yeah, because, yeah, and I would say yes because that is the truth of the matter. No, no, but what I'm saying is that is the truth of the matter, right? Like they are trans women, like that is just true. So I don't really care about the empirics. I don't care about the suicide rates. I don't care about the whatever danger of assault or bad. No, no, no, no, no, this is very- I just care about the truth of the, like they are trans women. So they are trans women, but that doesn't entail any, just a mere fact that trans women doesn't logically entail anything about the truth of how we should treat them. We can recognize that we are trans women and treat them in all sorts of ways in the way I- Well, sure, sure, but there are different ways of treating people, right? So like what I'm just saying is we treat them as trans women. We call them trans women and by thus affirming their transness and the debate topic, right? The debate topic, can I, should we affirm trans identities, right? Yes, I'm not saying we should, I'm not saying we should deny that trans women. I'm saying that we should, they should shame them for that. You can't shame something for someone that they don't have, but that's what makes sense. Sure, no, no, okay, okay, so, so let me rephrase that, right? And maybe, maybe you agree or disagree, right? So let me rephrase that and say, so what you're saying is you affirm that they are trans women, but you dislike that and you would like to shame them for it, right? Like that's what you're actually saying, right? And by thus, then we agree that we affirm trans identities, we affirm that they are trans. It is a thing that exists, right? But we, but maybe, but you don't like that it's a thing that exists. Again, I've already said this, that I took affirm their gender identity to me to treat them as if they are the gender they identify as, to treat them in the way they want to treat. That's what I took, affirming their identity to me. Now, should we just mean literally, acknowledging they exist? And yeah, we both agree they exist. Sure, that's not, that's not a debate. No, so I agree, right? So there's multiple steps, right? So step one, we both agree they exist, right? Trans is a thing that exists. People can be trans, right? We both agree that there are people who would come to you and say that they are trans and we both agree that there are contacts and situations where you would treat them as if they are a trans woman and they would be acting as a woman within whatever social situation they're in, right? So like these three things fundamentally are just what this debate is about. So we have, I guess, totally different ideas about what this debate is about. I understood that by your 20 minute opening statements where you had like 25 studies. I mean, I don't know how you would expect me to engage with like 20 studies. If the debate is, are there trans people and are there circumstances even through trickery in which they can get virtually anyone to treat them as if they were the cisgendered version of what they, yeah, there are. So we agree and there's no debate. And that's all it's about. But I don't, that's not how I interpret it. Sure, so we can actually, so if we agree with that, right? We can actually move further and maybe I can move you even further than that, right? By just doing step by step, right? So let's say, let's say you even, let's say we don't even have to think about like what exists today, but let's say in the future, let's say 20 years from now, there is a pill where a biological man can eat the pill and by all intents and purposes, even down to like their DNA, like they would become a biological woman, right? And then they would be. That's actually why when you ask people to change it, I kind of laugh for a minute. I think that's what you need to control here. But then again, that doesn't matter. There's an actual trans movement in America, which is in the world, which is actually fucking society up. And this is why I do these kinds of open statements, but so often these debates are just about some bullshit. No, but that's fine, that's fine. But that's fine, that's fine. Listen, that's fine. Okay, I just, I want to take that endpoint, right? And I just want to walk you one step back and say, well, what if they were 99%? Like they take the pill and they would be 99% biological woman. Like, would they still be a woman? Or would they be a man? Like 99% of the chromosomes now had a why? Yeah. They would be 99%, I guess. No, but would they be a woman? Like they would be able to birth children, they would be able to, I don't know, menstruate, like whatever you would associate with like any woman is. Well, in nature, this doesn't happen, but in this kind of circumstance, you would actually bring biological sex into a continuous very, so I would say they're 99%. Yeah, but okay, but okay, so you would say... But again, this doesn't matter at all. Okay, cool. No, I mean, it's fine, it's fine that it doesn't matter, right? But it matters to me. And the reason why it matters to me is that we're fundamentally arguing definitions, right? We're arguing what is a woman by your definition, right? And what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to move you and find out where on the scale, specifically you are, right? And I'm trying to take every single aspect of whatever you may consider a woman, and I'm trying to move one of them over and find out where is the edge of what actually matters to you, right? So does it actually matter to you that they can birth children? Like is that the thing that is most meaningful? Like what is a trans woman missing for you to call them a woman in every single aspect? Like what are those key factors? Like do you know or like, should we go through some scenarios? How much is it? Obviously it's a set of biological variables like the things we're talking about, the DNA, the reproductive ability, this sort of thing. Sure, so does DNA actually matter, right? So let's say they had like reproductive, let's say doctors are amazing and they create like bio vaginas that are so amazing that they can actually birth children, right? They can impregnate, they can do all those things. Would the DNA then matter at that point? Like how would you even go about checking that? Well, you go about, what do you mean how would you check? No, I mean like in day to day, like would you ask people what's your DNA? Can you show me your DNA card? Or like would you just accept, okay, they look like a woman, they act like a woman, they can have children, like whatever factors, like they have a vagina. This is totally, this is just another example of an even more severe case of me being led to form a false belief that they're a biological woman so they can cause that false belief in my mind. Sure, but what I'm asking you is where's the line between a false belief and an actual belief in this case, right? So like how do you define a false belief even in this case? Like what is the line between a woman and not a woman to you? Like is it the children, is it specifically the DNA, right? You said if there was a magic pill, so like there's obviously some set of factors which if we sweep all of them, then they become a woman. But is it only this subset of all the factors or is there like certain factors which are more important? And like at what point does it become absurd? Okay, there's like, there's a cluster of factors. DNA is probably the most important. Probably you have to change more than one of them. We changed your DNA and the reproductive ability and the DNA was changed sufficiently early in development and et cetera, so they look just like the knee-out which is there is a imaginable scenario where you can literally change your entire biological sex. That's sci-fi, but that's imaginable. Sure, so okay, so here's a fun question, okay? And this is where it becomes fun, okay? Let's say we take the pill and the DNA swaps and so does the reproductive organs or whatever, right? But they still look like a very masculine man, right? Like they look like whatever wrestler, like WWE wrestler and like looking at them, which is like Jesus Christ, that's like a man, right? Would you say, oh, they are a woman now? No, probably not. That's why I said DNA would have to change sufficiently early development. Okay, so that's interesting, right? Because now it feels like there's like an inconsistency there, right? Because earlier you said you made the case that you could be tricked to call somebody a woman if they looked like a woman but didn't have like the biology and you would argue that they would fit within like those criteria, right? And then we went to the magic pill where you said if they swallowed the magical pill and they change everything 100%, right? The biology and in terms of things you listed, right? You said DNA was the number one and reproduction rights was the number two, right? So if you take all of the biological aspects but the only thing we leave behind is just the looks then you would still say, oh, they are still a man. If the looks were caused by their earlier, say male DNA, if a woman, right? If the cause of them looking like a male has nothing to do with them at one point being biologically male let's imagine we gave them a pill and at first they do look just like a woman and in fact they are a woman by any biological criteria but then we take another pill and now suddenly because of that pill they look manly. Exactly, yes. And in that case, I'm not gonna really thought about this but I think I would be fine to call them a woman anyway but again, if the male lookingness is caused by them actually being a male at one point obviously I think that's quite problematic but also again, there's like a real social reality but I just have to keep saying there's a real social reality and the function that's happening at this super on the court. Sure, I mean, sure. So my issue is that what I believe is that the way that we deal with the social reality is secondary or it springs from how we actually feel philosophically about the issue, right? So the way that we philosophically feel about the issue is gonna inform how we deal. So an example is like, let's just take an example like about smoking weed, right? So like as a whole, people who smoke weed have a higher suicide rates than people who don't, right? That's just a fact. But I mean, maybe you are of that belief that we should just ban all weed because I mean people who smoke weed have a higher suicide rate and there is even some studies suggest like even smoking weed, if you smoke enough, right? It can cause you to become more suicidal but I wouldn't argue we should then ban weed or like say, tell everybody, oh, you should never smoke weed or like you should never do that, right? Because that's not how we philosophically feel about weed, right? So like, do you understand what I'm getting at? I mean, I semantically understood what you said but I disagree with it. Okay, so which part do you disagree with? And we can make it a little more robust because weed affects so many. If it was shown empirically that A, that weed being legal say, and let's say but this way, not ostracizing people for using weed. Okay, like this way. If it was shown that people using weed produced a bunch of negative outcomes on it and I thought that we could decrease the use of weed by ostracizing people who used weed that I would totally favor that. Okay, okay. And see that you were saying that you was. No, yeah, I wouldn't, right? Because well, I mean, it depends on like if we're talking like a hypothetical. Okay, so maybe this will make it a lot clearer to me why you. So in your case, even if everything I said was true, let's say you don't agree that it is true, but even if it was true, everything I said about the effects of transgenderism and it was true that by ostracizing transgenderism, we could decrease the weight of which transgenderism occurs, you still wouldn't wanna actually do that. You would still want to. Exactly, right? And the reason why, and the reason why is because I believe that it is a real phenomenon that happens and I believe that it is not a causal relationship, right? I could be convinced if it was shown to be like a causal relationship, like just by virtue of you being trans, you wanna kill yourself, right? Like that is a causal, like as soon as if you tomorrow, if you tomorrow became trans or like had feelings of being trans, you would also automatically be suicidal. If there was like a causal relationship, right? But because I believe, and I mean, obviously by the studies, right? That there are trans people who do not feel suicidal. What it tells me is that there are, it is not a causal relationship number one and number two, that there are like societal factors or like some other factors which obviously influence like the suicidality. So I would focus on addressing those factors rather than dismissing, yeah. I mean, that shows that being transgender is not on its own, being transgender is not universally a sufficient condition to produce suicidality. Exactly, yeah. But it does not show that, I mean, it doesn't even show that being transgender doesn't universally increase one's probability to be suicidal. The fact that some trans people who are reasonably happy, doesn't show, I mean, it's not even relevant to that question. Well, I mean, well, it is relevant in terms of like if it's like a causal relationship, right? And that's what I'm saying, right? So in the same sense with the, so in, I guess to draw it back to like the drugs analogy or like the weed or whatever, right? Like where I would focus the conversation around is talking about, well, if there is people who overuse weed and have negative side effects from overusing or overdosing or whatever, like some people or some people are just predisposed to like having suicidality when they secrete, right? I would focus on limiting those cases and helping those cases rather than just banning all weed because I don't believe that there's like a causal relationship between harm being done. So I just wanna say, again, the way you're using causal, I think it's very weird. The way you're using causal seems to me, X only causes Y. If in every case where X occurs, Y occurs. But in reality, when we're talking about a psychological outcome, Y, Y is going to be the function of a very large number of variables. So that even if they are all causal, because it's a function of a large number of variables, like do you see why that implies that this kind of thinking doesn't work? Well, so what it implies to me is, I mean, we can talk about the difficulty of addressing all the variables, right? And I wouldn't disagree that it might be difficult to address all the variables. But what I'm saying is if we studied the variables and we're saying, okay, these variables for sure have a large effect on the suicidality or whatever, minimizing those in turn should bring it down to like an average amount unless you believe that there's like some hidden variable that we can never change or never affect, which is intrinsically caused by the transness, right? And I don't believe that there's like anything to show that. So what I would say is that if there is some variable independent of transgenderism which accounts for their suicide rate, we haven't found it. Sure, but that doesn't mean anything, right? That just means that we could still find it in the future, right? So it's like, would you change your argument if we could find it in the future and say, oh, because again, there's not, to my knowledge- Yeah, of course, but we have to operate. And again, it's not like we have a look to be clear. It's not as if no one's ever investigated this. There have been a very large number of studies on the suicidality of trans people. We've looked through various causes. So far, we haven't found one independent of transgenderism which explains a pretty significant proportion of their suicidality. It is possible that in the future, we will, there's no particular reason to think so. And we have to operate from the standpoint of the knowledge that we currently have. Well, well, depends on, I guess depends on the outcomes, right? So like you wouldn't say we operate based on the knowledge that we have if the outcomes are very drastic, right? If the outcomes are very, very, I'd say, societally changing, right? So it's like, I would agree with you if it's like a life and death situation, literally in the moment then you have to make a decision, right? I would agree with you, right? You have to just go with the best information you have, right? But when me and you are talking, we're having a broader conversation about like, how we actually deal with this very real subset of people that exist in the world that both recognize exist, right? That feel a very real thing that you can feel as a person in this world, right? And how we address those feelings in society, right? So like we can even look forward five, 10 years and say, well, these are the things we would like for people to study, right? And many times people who do these studies say there needs to be more research on this or there needs to be more research on this specific factor or something like that. I'm not really sure. Like it's not, maybe this is worth saying, it's not as if it isn't currently a significant situation because if I'm right, then what's going on is we're spreading a mental condition across the population which induces an extreme level of psychological distress in a huge number of people and in a wild proportion. Sure, I understand that's right. So to just say, look, we know that, look, we've granted we figured out that problem isn't that they're living in the full identity and the problem isn't that they're being discriminated against and lots of other studies that found it's not things like poverty or education or their relationship with their parents, but it could be something else. And until, and this could never happen until we've checked every variable in existence we need to act socially as if transgenderism is not related in a causal way to suicide. I think it's ridiculous. So what I'm saying is it's obvious that it isn't causally related or like it isn't intrinsic to being trans just by virtue of us being able to observe that there are people who are trans by every metric imaginable. And they also are not suicidal. Let me make up a number and put it this way. How does that show that it is not true that university trans increases your chance of suicide by 25%? Sure, but it doesn't, that's not really... No, I mean, we don't even have to get into that, right? Like we can just use whatever metric you wanna use and we can say, let's say that there is a suicide rate of 20% among, or like 30%, 40%, whatever you wanna say. That still means that there are 50% of trans people or 60% or whatever who are not suicidal. So that means that it is not an intrinsic thing to being trans and that in fact, the majority of trans people aren't suicidal, which tells us that it's actually not an intrinsic factor which like that there is a missing variable that that's what it tells us, right? So like whether or not we know that variable or whether we're able to find that variable, I mean, logically, right? Like even just logically, or like do you disagree? I mean, I feel like the logic is very... Yeah, I mean, I don't know what to do other than repeat it. That doesn't show that transgenderism doesn't universally increase someone's odds of committing suicide. No, but I agree, like I agree, like I 100% agree, right? But that's not what I'm saying, I do understand. So I agree with you that, so this is what you're saying, that it is true that it does not necessarily follow that because someone is transgender, they will attempt suicide. Of course, I agree with that. The rates are not 100%. Well, so, okay, so that's, so we agree, right? So what I'm saying is, so by virtue of us agreeing on that point, you must also then agree just logically that there is some subset of factors or like one factor or multiple factors which we have not discovered which is causing the suicidality which is not just that they are trans, right? Like that logically follows from the previous statement we agreed on. No, because so, and we're gonna have to think about this a bit statistically for a moment. So it could be the case that being like, say, you said all the other variables determined someone's degree of suicidality to the average. And you look at trans people and find out that they're say one state of deviation above the average in terms of their probability of attempting suicide. And it turns out that that could easily be just because of the fact that they are transgender and being transgender increases your odds of suicidality by a state of deviation. While also being true, that if, for instance, if we change another variable, even if we change another variable, like for instance, they have, they're the 99% out for the relationship with their parents and that across, there's another deal of trans just universally that decreases your suicidality by two standard deviations. Then therefore there will be some trans people who suicidality is two standard deviations below. But that doesn't change the fact that it is universally increasing by one state of deviation. It's just not how thinking works. I don't know how to put this. Sure, so I understand the point that you're making, right? But like that would only work if there's like, if we're talking about a spectrum, right? And we're saying, okay, if we, instead of being like a binary, like you're either a suicidal or not suicidal, let's talk about like suicide attempts. I don't know. I don't know, like let's say suicide attempts, right? And we're saying, okay, there are trans people who have one suicide attempt and that's it. And then there are trans people who have a hundred suicide attempts. And like obviously there are different factors on that scale. But what I'm coming to, and I'm saying, well, there are trans people who have zero, right? And that's like a limit on the scale, right? And there are, so by virtue of them having zero, I mean, those factors would have to be, I guess, so I guess, or it could be that it might be the case that being trans increases your suicide rate inherently, but it is so little that it can actually just be reduced to zero by any number of factors. So it doesn't really matter, like, or they are, well, or they have- It isn't so little. It could have a large effect, but there are a large number of variables determining someone's mental outcomes. And there are several that have significantly the size of the facts. Then of course, if someone in the scores are above average in a protective factor, then they can have the average, you know, if they have no suicide attempts, which is the average number of suicide attempts. And it's just easy to have, like, so what? That doesn't show that for them, that doesn't even show that for them, that person wouldn't have an even better mental outcome, let's say, in terms of a less extreme outcome, like psychological distress, were they not transgender? But that doesn't even show that. It doesn't show anything. Well, I agree. I agree. It doesn't show anything. And that's, I guess that's what I would argue. So do you see then that trans people having no suicide attempts in some cases is consistent with thinking that in, and I don't even think that this is a simplistic version, but it is consistent with thinking that in every case, being transgender makes people significantly worse and they wouldn't have been if that person was cisgender. Yes, but I don't think that's like evident in the data, right? So like what I think is evident in the data and what I will agree with you, right, is that what I have seen is that there are, suggests that on average, if we take like a large populations, we can say that on average, trans people have a higher suicide rate than cis people, right? And like, there might be a bunch of different factors that we can argue about the factors, but that seems to be the case, right? But that doesn't say that it is specifically because they are trans, it might just be that there's a bunch of conflating variables to people who become trans, right? Or like, or like are trans, whatever you, however you wanna phrase it, right? Like the subset of people that are trans might just also be predisposed to a number of factors which also increases suicidality, right? That's always, because we can never do an experiment where we randomly assign some people to be trans and some people not to be trans, it is always gonna be a logical possibility that there's some omitted variable from any model. But that's just a reality we have to deal with. That's just universally going through. We could research this for a thousand years and it would still be true. And we still have to decide an actual social network. Exactly, I agree, right? So like that's why I didn't wanna, I guess go into the data like that with you, right? Because we can argue like each single study or whatever, and we can go back and forth. And if we were to do that kind of debate, you would have to probably send me whichever study you're gonna bring up to read beforehand so that we agree on what it says, right? And then we can discuss the wording of the study and like everything, like the responses. But that's not the kind of debate we're having. Like what we're having is like a broader debate about like how do we feel about trans people and how should we treat them in society, right? And like what even is being trans, right? That's what we can talk about. We can't really talk about studies in a debate like this. I mean, again, all I can say to that is the reason that I won't treat trans people as they wanna be treated is in large part due to various empirical realities, so. But the most important one was just your belief in the truth of the matter, right? No, no, no, no, no, no. That was in a hypothetical, that would be true if a different trans community existed, which was the man that I called him by a lot, like just literally, you know, identifies a woman, call me a biologically, but I'm not even facing that community. Honestly, it's nothing to do with the reasons why I wanna center the demands of all the trans people I've ever met, because they haven't asked me to do that. Okay. If you have anything else you wanna go through? I mean, honestly, I don't see how we can get to anything that I would consider. We have very different ideas of what is relevant to substance, clearly, so. Clearly. This may be a good time to go right into the Q and A. I wanna say, folks, my dear friends, thanks so much for your questions. We're gonna try to move through them fast to get through as many as possible. We wanna get these guys out of here by a decent time as they are busy. Wanna remind you, they're linked in the description. So if you wanna learn more about their views, you certainly can by clicking on those links below and also wanna let you know, as mentioned, tomorrow, big, juicy political debate, Destiny and Rachel will be taking on Sanvi and Kenden. You don't wanna miss it. Pro life versus pro choice, it is going to be a big one. This question coming in first from Steven Steen, a nasty guy. I'm not even gonna read that. Nianneur says, Dario, redeem yourself and say, people who are not of mature age should not be exposed to this stuff. Adults can make the decision, but not children. I assume they may be the topic of the drag. I'm not sure, so I'm not sure what this stuff. My thought is they might be, we have had a lot of debates on whether or not, for example, drag queen shows are okay for kids. I don't know if they're referring to that, as I'm trying to remember if that actually came up tonight. I mean, based on the conversation we've had, they're probably wondering about like, should children be allowed to decide if a thousand years from now, the Star Trek universe, they would call a woman a man. I mean, if that was the state of the society we live in, I don't see why not, right? I mean, it just depends on- To be clear, that's obviously not what the question is. Because they're asking about something that's actually happening in reality and that's not what we've been talking about. Well, we'll let them clarify. Nia, let me know in the chat. NG Benji says for Dario, if a leaf insect does a good enough job at fooling you into thinking that it's a leaf, does it become a leaf? Wait, can you repeat that? Sorry, a leaf what? I think it's an analog for when you said, for example, like Blair White, very convincing trans person in terms of Blair looks like a woman. They said, Brandon Hanson says, Dario, hypothetically, there's says, if a leaf insect does a good enough job at camouflaging and fooling- Oh, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Does it become a leaf? Yeah, so I would say that there's a distinction between like how we categorize things, right? So I would say that there is a different category of like what is a quote unquote biological woman or like a, let's just call it biological for simplicity and like what is socially be referred to as a woman, right? So like socially, I believe you constantly make decisions about who to call a woman or a man or like how you even perceive them without even saying anything, right? You constantly make those perceptions and you work with that data that you have, right? So if I'm looking at a leaf, like an IC a leaf and I don't know that it's an insect pretending to be a leaf, right? I would just say, oh, that's a leaf, right? How would I, that would be a leaf to me unless somebody else pointed out to be like, oh, actually that's an insect. And then I would go, oh, that's an insect that's being a leaf, right? Or like, yeah. You got it, Anne, thank you very much for your question, this one coming in from Brandon Hansen says, Dario, hypothetically, there's a study that shows hypothetical questions or hypothetically speaking, hypothetical thoughts. I think they're just teasing you for your use of hypothetical. I think that's a hypothetical question, I don't know. Con the stoner, Lynn says, are adoptive parents parents? Anne, should we affirm their parenthood? Well, I would say, yeah, they act like parents, right? I mean, they might not be their biological parents but they would be in all, for all intents and purposes be acting as parents for a child unless I guess they're not. You got it, Brandon Hansen. Go ahead, Sean. Oh, so is that a question for both of us or just it? I'm open, yeah, go for it because we've got so many questions for Dario. How? As well. Oh, I was just gonna, You got an audience today, James. Yeah, just gonna depend on how you define the word parent. Yeah. You got it. This one coming in from Con the stoner, Lynn says, are adoptive parents? Oh, I got that, sorry about that. So can I clarify that? Yeah. So the clarification is, and this is actually what I think is like 90% of the issues whenever people ask these question is there isn't any actual clarity to the meaning of what is being asked, right? So if I ask somebody, are you a woman, right? That can mean a bunch of different things depending on like what I'm actually asking, right? So like clarity there is like, or like how you would define woman is relevant there, right? So it's like somebody asking me, is this person your parent, right? Or like even, like we can even go even further and like say, is this person your brother? And I'd say, well, yeah, they're my bro. They're like my brother, but like that's not necessarily what they asked me, right? So I first have to get clarity on what they actually asked me or else I can just respond with whatever I have, right? Like I have a bunch of bros, I have a bunch of brothers, like in the hood or whatever, like I got my brothers in my hood, but like they're not like my biological brothers, but I call them my brothers, right? You got it. Again, thank you very much for this question coming in from Brandon Hansen strikes again, says leftists want to get rid of the prefix trans is that it signifies a crossover from one type into another form. The prefix causes cognitive dissonance in their minds that they aren't real quote unquote women. Was that a question or more? We allow people to do statements as well. So thoughts on that. So my thoughts is that depends on the kind of conversation we're having, right? So it goes back to the brother thing, right? So like we might be in a world where I have to call, say, if somebody asked me is that your brother, I'd say that's my biological brother or like that's just my brother, right? So the question there is again, a question of definitions, right? So like if we're saying if the definition of a trans woman is somebody who transitioned into becoming a woman who like started out as like being assigned male at birth and now refers to themselves as a woman and wants to be seen as a woman, like they would be a trans woman by definition, right? So, but like that might mean, but in societal context, right? If you're talking about these people or like if we're out in the city or just like socially talk about them, like we might just say they're just a woman for shorthand or like for all intents and purposes within this specific social situation, they are a woman in like whatever is relevant for that social situation, right? So like, yeah, I hope that made sense. You got it, Anne. Thank you very much for this question. Coming in for a, you guessed it, Brandon Hanson strikes again. He's got your number, Dario. He says, Dario, what if we had a pill that made quote unquote trans people not trans and accept their birth biology? So namely they, I think it's meaning that they themselves would accept that and it says, and it was commonly known as antidepressants. I feel like that's a meme at the end but I'll actually answer like the good part of the question. So if there was a pill, and I mean, I would wish this for society, right? If there was a pill that just removes your gender dysphoria and you get to just be happy with whatever birth sex slash what you were assigned at birth and you had the option to take that pill, I would be all for that. Like if that's what people want, right? If they were born a man and they want to be a man but they have dysphoria and they feel like, oh, I feel like I want to be a woman but I would rather not have those feelings. If they could take a pill and be like, oh, those feelings are gone, now I'm just a man and I'm actually happy about that. I don't want that to change. Oh, cool. Yeah, they should have that option for sure. You got it. I wouldn't be okay if I asked Dario a question. I'm just gonna, I'm actually not clear about something about one of his arguments. Because you're talking about weed before and we're talking about trans, you're saying if the trans does not put the transgenders and actually causes the suicidality. But in the weed case, you seem to imply that you thought the weed really did cause the negative outcomes associated with weed. So- I'm saying if it was the case. Even if it were causing. And I'm just asking that he's just trying to get clear what your view is here. If it was caused. So assuming it is caused and the impact is quite significant or a very bad negative impact and it was caused and we knew this for sure. In that case, would you favor ostracizing these people and trying to limit the number or- Well, yeah, if that was effective, right? If we could say, oh, that's an effective way to sort of curtail that. Yeah, for sure. Okay, that's what I was clear about. You've got it. This one coming in from, do appreciate your question. Coffee Mom says, Sean, why are some people not worthy of basic respect? I think Coffee Mom's saying that affirming their identity is just basic respect. Well, insofar as what you consider to be basic respect constitutes a social norm which is going to increase the number of people who are, well, suicidal, acting badly towards others, et cetera. If it has negative outcomes, that's why. That's what I would say. You got it, Ann. Thank you very much for this question. Coming in from Ozzie and Tox says, harassing someone can cause anxiety, depression, et cetera. We even have a torts against, so the legal word I think, T-O-R-T-S, against intentional infliction of emotional distress, recognizing this. So harassing someone by misgendering them is immoral, Sean. Obviously they didn't provide. I mean, there's no evidence or reason to think that I have a moral obligation to never cause distress in people. And our society has been massively fucked by this idea that we have to be nice to everyone at the maximum ability. We all know that, like, if parents are overly nice to their kids, you end up with a shit show, broadly speaking, that's what our civilization is at this point. It is for the good of most people in the long run to sometimes not treat people nicely. Don't know what else to say. Oh, and the tort thing, like, okay, obviously there's a law against harassment. Don't do anything illegal. But if the law, if the government is trying to mandate you in the following set of social norms, which leads to the degradation of your own society, you need to change that law. That's another thing I'd say. You got it. Out of curiosity, not to challenge you, but just out of curiosity, you had mentioned it's probably maybe in the long run better to allow for some rough, being rough with people. What do you mean, or what's the rationale behind that? In what way? I'm just curious about this as a bystander. In the case of transgenderism, all I'm talking about is not ascending to how they want to be treated to insisting they are the biological sex they are, to not changing our standards about things like who children have been invited to parties, who can participate in the sport, who you're going to have sex with, et cetera, on the basis of these gender identity claims and such. And discouraging people, describing it as a negative thing, to have this condition, you can even do it in an empathetic way, I suppose, if you want to and talk about it, these people need help, et cetera. But to definitely not go around and try to paint it as something that's basically fine. Because again, I think that the long-term consequence of that is an increase in people that suffer. And I know people will hear this and think that's mean, why must just want people to suffer, to be following the logic of the argument. Maybe you think the argument's wrong, but the argument's goal here is not just to be mean for the sake of being mean. You got this one coming in from Brandon Hanson says, Dario, is it a problem in your mind that one in two trans people you meet will be, you could say suicidal. They say because that is the statistic and it's not going down. So they're saying like, is that a problem to you that it is one in two or 50% that will commit suicide? Okay, so first off, I don't think it's 50% that will commit suicide. Maybe Sean can teach me something there. But yeah, I mean, obviously if that was the case, yet that would be a huge problem, right? I mean, that would be something definitely that we should be looking at and seeing like, how the fuck can we do something about this, right? Like in any kind of way curtail. But in terms of like if suicidality in general is a problem, but yeah, obviously, right? I mean, obviously suicidality is a problem. Now, depending on like these specifics, it might be a bigger or a lesser problem, right? Like for example, it might be the case that there is some degree of suicidality, but not really anybody who actually does end up committing suicide. Well, then it would be like less, like there's a lot of factors there that would have to be taken into account and we would have to be very clear in terms of like making decisions based off of that, right? And I'm completely willing to say that if it actually is the case that it is very, very bad, like to a degree that like I would consider bad, then obviously, yeah, I would adapt some of my views to sort of fit within that reality. You got a day on this one coming up. And I did, go ahead. I just wanted to attribute a little something to that in terms of the appearance that if you look at the United US Transgender Survey, which is a large sample of 27,000 transgender people, it found that 40.4% of respondents had attempted suicide in their lifetimes. So lifetime suicide attempt rate, that is pretty close to half. And if you instead consider suicidality to be suicidal ideation that way, for lifetimes obviously gonna be very high, right? Because it was unclear in the question they just said suicide is not totally clear if they met successfully committed suicide, attempted suicide or thought about suicide if they can meet any of those things. This one, any questions for Sean? Let me know folks. Well, just because we have so many for Dario. Samar Rao says Dario, let's say we fast forward 50 years and we had quote unquote, divine data that suggested that trans is causally related to suicide though. They said it increases the rate among other variables. Then they said, would this change your view? Well, yes, but it would depend on like, again, the specifics, right? So like, let's say it was like, there was like some causal link and the causal link accounted for like, let's say, like a 2% increase at like over the standard population, like like a 2% more of the people who would normally be suicidal would, if they were trans, like then that would depend on, like then I don't think much would change in terms of like how we approach the issue. We would just obviously try to mitigate that as much as we can. But I think even Sean would say that, like just because that there would be some increase in suicidality doesn't mean that A, people would commit suicide or B, that you kind of decrease that through other factors like there are multiple points on that scale as he made an argument for that earlier. This one coming in from King Crocoduck says, Dario, should we affirm anorexic girls by prescribing them diet pills? No, probably not. This one coming in from Bezos Anti-Bullying Agency says, I identify as extremely good looking, but people don't seem to respect myself identification and continue to use their own sensory inputs to judge me. I think you should post some pictures and chat. We can take a look and make that judgment. From King Crocoduck says, Dario, what are your thoughts on transracialism? Can someone, you could say have like an inner experience or kind of perception of themselves as being one race when their outside external body shows otherwise? Listen, that's actually, that's a discussion for a whole nother time. I think that's an interesting discussion. I'm not sure exactly where I stand, but I think that there is actually some arguments to be had there in terms of like what, like what transracialism actually could mean. And if that is a thing that like would exist in society, because I believe that there are people just like there are transgender people. I believe that there are people who closely identify like more with like a certain race and like the way that we define race might even not necessarily be the same across like all disciplines. So, yeah, that would be a longer discussion. Short answers, I don't know, but maybe. You got it. This question coming in from, where did I see that? Two seconds, let me scroll up, I can find this. L. Ronder says, how does transgenderism help us prevent the cultural and demographic decline Dario? Wait, can you repeat that, sorry? How does? How does transgenderism help us prevent the cultural and demographic decline Dario? I don't know, isn't that a question? Am I, I feel like I'm having a hard time. How is it going to stop the Great Replace? How is transgenderism going to stop the Great Replace? Maybe if you push transgenderism on minority communities, maybe that's the next step for like white supremacists, like pushing transgenderism on minority communities and creating more trans minorities and thus having white people reproduce more. Maybe that's like the new agenda, I don't know. You got it. This is what the transracialism is. Just get all the black people and say, oh, look, white people have all this privilege. Don't you want to be white? They say, yes, to do that. If I was white, there's no replacement. There you go. You got it and with that, I want to say folks, our guests are linked in the description. If you would like to learn about their views, you certainly can. What are you waiting for? And that includes if you're listening to the modern native podcast, if you're listening to this debate on the podcast, our guests are linked in the description there too. So if you happen to have one last thing, a friend who likes these juicy controversial topics, hit that share button below. That's a great way to say, hey, what are your thoughts on this debate? Would you find it persuasive? Or, hey, did you like this part or that part? And with that, I want to say thank you to our guest, Dario and Sean. It has been a true pleasure to have you guys. Thanks for real. It's just fun having you guys hang out here. Thank you. With that, thanks, folks. I will be back in just a moment. So stick around for that post-credits scene about upcoming debates and I'll be back in just a moment. Fun summer nights. We are in July, folks. If you did not know that, we are pumped to start this new month. We have a lot of debates that are coming up for this month. You don't want to miss them. But also, my dear friends, it's Friday. We hope you are excited about the weekend. My dear friends, it is going to be a fun one, fourth of July weekend. We hope you enjoy it. Hopefully you get to spend time with some family and friends, get some sunshine, enjoy it. I've got to tell you, I will be pumped to be, no joke, because I just, honestly, I just enjoy modern-day debates. Seriously, this is fun for me. Like, I love doing this and I always thank the guests and I'm like, thanks for being here. Like, this is a fun, just fun, you know, fun time. I've got to tell you, I will be spending some of my fourth of July weekend setting up debates. I'll tell you about some of these debates. And like I said, I enjoy it. So don't feel bad for me, like, oh, no, no, no. It's not, it's not even like work. Like, I honestly, it just, it's a fun, modern-day debate is a true pleasure for me. And if you didn't know, you might be wondering, well, what's the, you know, I'm new to modern-day debate. 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I can't tell you the details until we have more confirmation, but I've got to tell you, we are working on big things. We want to go where the mainstream news channels or the mainstream even YouTube channels won't go. So questions like this topic tonight as well as many others in the future. And as I mentioned, a couple of debates coming up that you don't want to miss in particular, we are excited that tomorrow night, actually tomorrow, 6 p.m. Eastern. So a little bit earlier than usual, Destiny and Sanvi will be debating Kenden and Rachel on the ethics of abortion, pro-choice versus pro-life. You don't want to miss that one. It is going to be controversial and got to tell you, not only that, but within the next week, we are also, we have it scheduled. It's ready to go. It's just a matter of, I'm pretty sure it's going to be Thursday. Whether or not dinosaurs and man live together simultaneously, that's going to be a fun one, a juicy one. And I want to say hello to you though, in the old live chat before I jump into the next debate, letting you know what else is coming up. Anman, good to see you, as well as all of, thanks for coming by, as well as XXX, silliest goose. Thanks for coming by. I said debates on the Supreme Court, maybe. Well, in particular on the abortion topic, Roe versus Wade, I'm sure is going to come up. That's going to be controversial. No doubt about it. Santari Atakama says, T-shirt, we're glad you're here. And Hannah Anderson, thanks for your support, says subscribe and hit that bell notification. We want all of you to come back for more. And yeah, I agree, folks. We definitely do have regular debates. So this isn't like, oh yeah, I just like modern day debate. I do a debate like, you know, once a week. And then I take a week off and come back and do it again once a week. No, no, no. This is minimum of two debates a week. Like we are pretty serious about our regular debates. And I can say that two, as of right now, is quite low compared to we've, at some points, when I have my kind of like school responsibilities, because a lot of you, I mentioned before, I'm working on my doctorate. And that's super, like by itself is really like rigorous. It's very time consuming. So it's oftentimes very busy, but nonetheless, we always have a minimum of two. That's our goal. And then we oftentimes have as many as like no joke. We used to, at some points, sometimes we've had like five a week. We might maybe, this is a maybe, we might actually have four or five debates in the next week. So we might have one. I'll tell you about some of these debates though. So let me tell you about what we've got on the calendar. And some of these are tentatively planned, so they're not confirmed yet. But wanna say, one, we might have Godless Girl taking on Muslim Apologist. That could happen next week. We also might have, oh, that one will probably happen the following week. Let me make sure I've got that right. Yep. Yeah, that's right. We might have a debate on Islam. We might have a debate on, yeah, we do actually have a debate on Islam. That's scheduled for Saturday. So Saturday, July 9th. And then there's another one pending on whether or not evolution on trial. And then we will be having Richard Spencer on to debate Ken Den Farr. That one, well, I gotta tell you, technically we haven't confirmed that with Richard Spencer yet. I assume based on the last experience when we had him on debating Kay Fellows, that went smoothly. I think Richard enjoyed himself. So it'll be Richard Spencer against Ken Den Farr. So a lot of controversial debates coming up that you don't wanna miss. And many of them political, many of them science debates. We do try to change it up here, keep things fresh with different topics, all that good stuff. And Creature, I see you there in the old live chat said, we need a debate on if drugs should be decriminalized. That's an interesting idea. Baseball tomorrow says, baseball tomorrow, glad to have you here. I see you there in the old live chat as well as Bean Biang. Thanks for coming by and you to have heck you. Good to see you again as always. Let's see, Centauri Atacama. Thanks for being with us. Huh? Good to see you in the live chat. Shamus Crawford, glad to have you make it here better late than never. Flooded area three, two, six, one, pump to have you. Nikki, good to see you again. And Shamus Crawford said, I want to know about the most controversial debate. It's not confirmed yet. I can't do it because otherwise they might, I gotta tell you, there's a big high profile person that might be in that one. And I don't want to announce it because if we announce it and then they're like, hey, why'd you announce it before I confirmed? I don't want to jeopardize it. But believe me, we're working on it. I'm pretty optimistic that it's gonna happen and that it's gonna be in person in Texas. So, Olive says, I also know things came out against Jesse Lee Peterson. It's true, they're happened. I have no idea what's true, but I did see the documentary. But it's pretty controversial. As a lot of you guys know, Jesse Lee Peterson, I don't know if you know who he is. Amazing stuff. He recently had a documentary come out about him about whether or not, well, I'm just, I'm not gonna say it, but it's true. There is like a lot of controversy around him right now. And so I have no idea what the truth is. But Rock E. Shepherd, good to see you, as well as L. Ronder says, I see you smirking James, I smirk like it's my job. Olive says, it really is. I'm heading out now and take care. God bless you. Thanks, Olive, we appreciate that. Seriously, take care and have a great night. And Saitronav, good to see you. It says, bring on the debates, James. We love it. I am excited. We are pumped. Let's see, I've gotta tell you, we're working on some projects right now. Another one being an in-person panel that is slowly coming together. You don't wanna miss that one. Two seconds, let me just take a sip. Bear with me. In the meantime, let me know in the chat, what are you up to? What's new? Tell me something that you're excited about, my dear friends. That was good. But I've gotta tell you, my dear friends, we appreciate you being with us here in the old live chat. I'm seeing, I'm reading, Lord H. Sizzle, glad to have you here, as well as Tony Swan, happier with us, Pedro H, I'm good to see you. And Let's Farm says, we're working on some projects, two at the Modern Day Debate Discord. And it's true, we do have a Discord led by Let's Farm, put together. It's a community, it's tremendous. We encourage you to check it out. They host debates there as well. It's kind of like, it's also a great training ground, because sometimes people reach out to me and they're like, oh man, can I come on Modern Day Debate? It's my first time. And I'm like, maybe, I'm not sure. The only reason is I'm like, it's your first time, it might be good to get a little experience rather than jump into it. So I would recommend, if a person was like, hey, I wanna get into the debates, I would say, it's great that you wanna do debates. It's probably good to start though, either in the Modern Day Debate Discord or honestly, we're not the first channel to host debates. There are a billion channels that host debates. Some of them, it's just kind of intermittently. They just do it once in a while to kind of change things up at their channel. And then there are some out there too. Man, I gotta be honest. I've seen, this is a weird thing. I wanna get your guys' opinion. You can let me know what you think about this. But first, let me turn on my fan. I like that. Is, I've seen a lot of debate channels start since Modern Day Debate has started. And there's been a common theme, not always. Hello, couple roaches, Tyrone, I see you there in the live chat, glad to have you, is not always, but man, there are a lot of debate channels that just disappeared. So some of them, they started, there's all sorts of weird things. There are very few debate channels that get running and they get some good momentum and they stick with it and then they keep growing. Like just, they're consistent. Like very few that are actually consistent. Which is weird. There are all sorts of different reasons for that. So for example, some of them, I think they just give up. I don't know what it is. Like they just, they do it for a while. Like they do it even for several months and then they just stop putting out debates altogether. And I have no idea why. Maybe they're just not, they don't enjoy it or something like that. I honestly don't know. And then there are some that fly too close to the sun and they get in trouble, they get banned or something like that. And then there are some that, yeah, I can think of two off the top of my head that they were going for a while and they just quit. And then there are some that maybe they, I would always recommend. If you do a YouTube channel, I would not recommend doing it as a team. I think it's possible to do it as a team and be successful. But I think it's a, I think it potentially makes it harder. It depends on the relationship you have with that person. But many relationships are the type that I, I'd be like, I don't know if I'd do that because I've seen a lot of people get into a fight with namely the two people that own the channel together or kind of run the channel together, they get into a fight and then it's like, oh man, they just kind of, the channel implodes. So that's a bummer. But also my dear friends, Jupiter Dharman says no other debate channels like modern day debate. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Really kind stuff. And let's see here. Thank you for your support. Let's Farm says, been with you for years now, James not going anywhere. I appreciate that. Let's Farm, you have been super consistent here and we appreciate that. Seriously, it means a ton. And Rock E. Shepard, good to see you there. There says Flat Earth slash Globe Debate. Yes, we have hosted plenty of those. We might host one of those in July. I'm honestly not sure to be honest, but it would be amazing to do that. I gotta be honest. It is a fun and kooky topic. So I do actually enjoy it. Huh? Says you need to turn that soundboard up. Oh, do I really? Let me check. I've got it cranked. Can you guys really not hear it? Let me see what it, let me see. Oh, you can't. Oh, you couldn't even hear it the whole time because I forgot to turn the desktop audio on. Thanks for letting me know about that. Beta! Now we're rolling. Now we're cooking with fire. Interesting. But I've got to tell you, my dear friends, we are pumped and I've got to tell you this. Actually, I'm just stalling. I just want to play with the soundboard. I absolutely appreciate it. She is a lesbian. But I want to say thank you guys so much for your support. Let's see here. Lord H. Sizzle, good to have you with us and with that. I'm going to let you guys go because from now on I'm like just only playing with the soundboard as you can tell. So I want to say thanks to your patience. I love you guys. Seriously, you guys make this fun. It honestly, it is a blast. And we really are working on some big projects. Seriously, we are still pumped to shoot for our goal of 100,000 subscribers by the end of the year. We're not ashamed of the fact that we want to grow. Some YouTubers are like, oh, you know, like, oh, we don't care about growing. And it's kind of like, eh? Well, don't you think you have anything good to offer the YouTube community? Well, like if you do, then you'd want to grow. And so for us, we're not ashamed of the fact that we'll just say we do want to grow and we even have goals. We set for modern day debates growth. We are pursuing the 100,000 subscriber mark by the end of this year. And that frankly is a huge goal. It is super difficult because at this pace, like really, I mean, think about this, 27 divided by six, we would have to get 4,500 subscribers on average each month. We have only ever hit that many subscribers one month in the history of modern day debate. So in other words, we would have to like peak and hit our highest level for the rest of the year. But we are working on a couple of projects that we think might make it possible because we are really trying to branch out, do big new things. And we are absolutely excited though, you guys. This is just the beginning. This is the very start of our story at modern day debate as we are absolutely excited to continue to have an impact as we strive. I think we all have similar values no matter what walk of life we are from. We at least agree on this. We want fair debates. That's one big thing. And one thing that we're excited about too is trying to make the world a better place. And that's why we have our monthly charity stream. And we know that you, no matter what walk of life, probably hold those values in common with us. And that's something that we can pursue together and we're excited about that for the future. So we wanna say thank you guys for joining us and fulfilling the vision of providing a neutral platform so that everybody has their chance to make their case on a level playing field. Thank you guys. We love you guys. Thanks for making this fun. And we'll be back tomorrow for that debate that I had mentioned is gonna be amazing. You don't wanna miss it. And then like I said, we'll probably have like four, three or four more realistically, probably maybe four debates next week. So stick around, keep an eye out for those. They're gonna be fun. And so thank you guys for all of your guys' support. Creature says, which charity? We usually change it up each time. So sometimes we did, I think we've done like worldwide orphans, which helps orphans around the world, United States included. And we also have done Save the Children, which helps children in poverty. We've donated it for Ellsheimer's research, Diabetes research, Kreuzfeldt-Yakub, very rare neurodegenerative disorder. We've done it for many different types of charities. And so we wanna say thank you guys for all of your guys' support of Modern Day Debate. And we will see you next time. I love you guys. Thanks for making this fun. I absolutely appreciate it. That's great. Black as the ace of spades. The hate report, the hate report. I say not all, not all, not all, not all, but most. The wicked witch of the West. She's insane. Boy, you live to your teeth. Are you a beta male? Beta! Amazing.