Best or worst idea? Getting a Velotaxi/Rikshaw for private use

[delinquent]

Over here, we have the same principle - "unnecessary" surgeries, such as liposuction, cosmetic surgeries, the more cosmetic dental surgeries, are all surgeries that you have to pay for out of your own pocket. Some NHS trusts will offer some forms of cosmetic surgery post-illness - like you mentioned Kyle, breast reconstruction after the likes of cancer.

Some very small, very minor surgeries, such as wart or mole removal, can sometimes be carried out on the NHS - but you need to make a proper case for it, and it has to be significantly connected to quality-of-life. I wouldn't get my dinky lil mole above my top lip removed, for example, but someone with a very large mole on their face might.

An interesting point to make here is that gender dysphoria falls into the broader category of body dysphoria - something that we have been looking into quite heavily since the 1930's, or perhaps even earlier. There are a fair few thousand cases across the decades of persons who have so very strongly felt that a body part does not belong to them, and the most prominent takeaway is that all the counselling and therapy in the world doesn't really quite fix it. In fact, there are a significant number of cases in which the patient has found means to remove the offending body part - and here's the rub: Their wellbeing thereafter usually improves. The subject matter itself is absolutely fascinating, but what I'm getting at is the insight that realistically, there's no getting away from the concept that transsexual persons generally require a supported transition.

This is all why, at the end of day, random IT guys shouldn't be setting healthcare standards. Go fix your computers or program your website or whatever and let the medical professionals decide what's best for their patients.

Setting standards, no. But the state of healthcare is something that impacts every one of us, and long-form debates like these have, in the past, often served as excellent means of establishing worldwide sentiments around difficult subjects - thus, I'd say that its quite appropriate to have discussions on any and every topic under the sun. Forums are slowly on their way out, to be replaced with ethereal chat services such as Discord and Telegram, which I consider a great loss given the quick-fire nature of those platforms. Here, and on other forums, users generally take the time to think out their contributions to a discussion, and make comprehensive arguments rather than short, sometimes quite farcical, replies that add nothing of substance. I don't hate chat platforms in general, but I do wish forums could retain some of their importance and relevance.

[Z-Man]

But hey, I know you're a "Libertarian" that somehow wants cops to have more power...

Chill I'm a Treehugger who somehow would be fond of Nuclear Power. Only idiots keep their ideological presets at default values.

Over here, we have the same principle - "unnecessary" surgeries, such as liposuction, cosmetic surgeries, the more cosmetic dental surgeries, are all surgeries that you have to pay for out of your own pocket. Some NHS trusts will offer some forms of cosmetic surgery post-illness - like you mentioned Kyle, breast reconstruction after the likes of cancer.

Yep, same here. Everything that has a proven significant medical benefit is paid for, unless a cheaper alternative that is at least as effective exists. Being able to live a life free of stigma, for example caused by your face being disfigured by a fire or dog attack, counts as a health benefit. For some reason, Homeopathy also counts for some providers... must be a market thing.

[kyle]

I know you're a "Libertarian" that somehow wants cops to have more power...

I love this quote I lean Libertarian on most things, but I am not bound to any party. I'm not saying make cops more powerful per say, I'm just saying let them do their jobs, so much backlash on them doing their jobs they stop and let crimes rise up. I also should point out that there are way too many dumb laws that should be removed.

Over here, we have the same principle - "unnecessary" surgeries, such as liposuction, cosmetic surgeries, the more cosmetic dental surgeries, are all surgeries that you have to pay for out of your own pocket. Some NHS trusts will offer some forms of cosmetic surgery post-illness - like you mentioned Kyle, breast reconstruction after the likes of cancer.

That's not "elective surgery", that's "cosmetic surgery", and isn't covered by health insurance. Elective surgery is surgery that isn't an emergency and can be scheduled. My ex-wife had "elective" surgery that was life-saving. She was getting blood transfusions from the ER to get her through to when they could finally do her "elective surgery". Also, curious why you went for "boob job" on that. What about vasectomies?

Both of you saying that is encouraging to me, I thought there were more loopholes around procedures like this that made it funded. I chose boob job, simply because I believe it is of the most preformed cosmetic surgery

Here, and on other forums, users generally take the time to think out their contributions to a discussion, and make comprehensive arguments rather than short, sometimes quite farcical, replies that add nothing of substance.

This is part of why I'm not afraid to share my views here, I've known most of you for quite a while, I respect your input and you may make me change my mind, and I might change your mind on this. If i post something like this on X to people with opposing views, it's answered with you are a turdbag with no real way of helping me understand, or just instantly blocked. In the end IMO it's OK to have different views, but at least have the information from all sides, to share or rechange your views.

gender dysphoria is pretty much different parts of your body at war with each other. 2/3 of transgender men experience phantom limb syndrome for a penis they never had. I don't know how many transgender women feel the same thing about breasts, I can only tell you I feel that way from time to time.

I'd like to hear more if you are willing to share, PM's here, in this topic or DM's on IRC (I'm on there now) I'm really curious when you first discovered having this feeling.


sinewav: are you doing ok? you just seem a bit more snappy than you used to be, maybe it's just the nature of this topic though. I know people have pretty strong views on it.

[Lucifer]

gender dysphoria is pretty much different parts of your body at war with each other. 2/3 of transgender men experience phantom limb syndrome for a penis they never had. I don't know how many transgender women feel the same thing about breasts, I can only tell you I feel that way from time to time.

I'd like to hear more if you are willing to share, PM's here, in this topic or DM's on IRC (I'm on there now) I'm really curious when you first discovered having this feeling.

It goes all the way back into my childhood. The biggest problem is acceptance, and since literally every transgender/nonbinary person basically knew when they were kids, that's how we get to a place where kids are getting gender associated therapy. It's really difficult to articulate when you're 10. I turn 50 next month, and it's easy to talk about now. But when I was 10? Or earlier? I've got stories, and I'm not real interested in going into them here (they'll probably show up in a book at some point), but yeah. It's frustrating as hell when you're in kindergarten playing with the girls, playing girl games and doing girl things, and you get pulled out of the group that you belong in because you have a penis.

And of course I grew up at a time when just suggesting you might not totally identify as the gender your parents assigned you could get you killed. My parents wouldn't have done anything that extreme, but one of the reasons I'm estranged from my family is because I started coming out to them, and they rejected it completely. Still do, even though I have a nephew who was assigned female at birth, and they're taking him just fine.

But there are things like looking at adult women and wondering when my own boobs will grow in, and having to come to grips with the fact that they won't. Even more confusingly, figuring out that I only felt like that some of the time. Young girls ask those kinds of questions because they're looking forward to their lives. The phantom limb stuff didn't kick in until puberty, and honestly, there were enough other mental issues happening around then that this particular one took a back seat.

I'd like to reinforce the fact that I'm really lucky that I can live outwardly as a cisgender man and feel fine about it 90% of the time because it's at least 10% true 90% of the time. Of course, I know people who aren't that lucky, and every year on my birthday (November 20), we have Transgender Day of Remembrance, which is a day for you to spend some time thinking about all the transgender people who were murdered that year for no other crime than simply existing. The list is published on November 19th and can be found with a pretty easy google search. It's a list of all the transgender people who were murdered. It's necessarily incomplete, too.

Edit: It's worth pointing out that my nickname here, Luci, was very affirming for me and actually helped a lot for me to finally figure all this crap out.

[sinewav]

sinewav: are you doing ok? you just seem a bit more snappy than you used to be, maybe it's just the nature of this topic though. I know people have pretty strong views on it.

I've always been this much of a jerk, I can't sit by and let bad ideas go unchallenged. I always stand up for the oppressed, minorities, marginalized people, and I'm a hardcore feminist. Also I'm a collectivist who sees the world through the lens of class struggle so I get set off when I see reluctance to lift up people who are needy. We all have more in common with that poor person who "forgets" to scan some groceries at the self-checkout than the person who owns 50 grocery stores, and that solidarity means a lot to me. Also I've been radicalized by the incredible selfishness and stupidly of people in the US. A person like me doesn't have a political voice, there are no representatives that share my views here, so I have to fight alone, online if I have to.

[kyle]

It's frustrating as hell when you're in kindergarten playing with the girls, playing girl games and doing girl things, and you get pulled out of the group that you belong in because you have a penis.

This is the thing that I do think is wrong, to continually punish or abuse a kid for playing the way they want to, and my brain goes to this thought process, does the actions you did there mean you are trans, maybe, does it mean you are gay possibly, but the types of actions here with kids creates trauma in your head early on and that kind of trauma as you've mentioned eventually makes you want to transition. IMO If you were allowed to play with the girls and all the other types of abuse were removed from your life, you'd likely be a much different person today, and maybe not have any of the feeling like that. Maybe you still would, and maybe it would have done the opposite and lead you to transitioning.

We all have more in common with that poor person who "forgets" to scan some groceries at the self-checkout than the person who owns 50 grocery stores, and that solidarity means a lot to me.

I guess that's where I diverge a bit, I don't care if you are billionaire, or the person who cannot find a way to afford groceries, all people are important, all input is good. IMO just about every person has the ability to become a billionaire, they just have to want it and push towards it. That said there are a lot of crappy billionaires that are basically the puppet masters behind our presidents, and I feel they have more sinister plans for his country than what most of the people want, this is where we are similar in the fact that we both agree no candidate is going to represent what we want.
To tie this back to Elon, since I do think he's one of the exceptions to how must billionaires tend to end up acting, his whole mission behind all his companies has been to preserve human kind, Tesla to keep CO2 levels down by sustainable transportation. SpaceX to preserve life in case we go into all our war here on earth and destroy it, also a great way to unite the country again. The boring company to remove traffic hell, also I think will be extremely big for Mars. neuralink, to help people with disorders and potentially save us from AI taking over. X to allow free speech so we can hear both sides of the conversation, even if we don't like the extremes we can as a whole create a more collaborative decision.

I've always been this much of a jerk

No you are not a jerk! Not sure why this comes to mind, now, but remeber how we secretly met to form the new ladle rules and propose them to the community, those were the fun times, we all from different sides added our opinions and came up with what I think we all felt were a pretty good solution, I miss those times

[Monkey]

I've been radicalized by the incredible selfishness and stupidly of people in the US. A person like me doesn't have a political voice, there are no representatives that share my views here, so I have to fight alone, online if I have to.

In my opinion, the UK is the next worst place to live in the western world. We supposedly voted to leave the European Union and now poverty and the cost of living have both gone through the roof. We nearly lost our national health service, which is in a complete mess btw. Our favourite restaurants are KFC and McDonalds. Taco bell and some other shite restaurants have recently made an appearance too. We don't make anything and soon, due to outsourcing, we won't be doing anything at all. It's almost impossible to get a dentist, I haven't been to a dentist for about 7 years. Antisocial behaviour is out of control and both opportunistic and organised crime are high. There are four types of people here...
People that are stupid
People that are assholes
People that are stupid assholes
The rest.
The last one is the minority I assure you.
Oh, and it rains all the time here, it's an uninhabitable swampland. I'd like to emigrate eventually but of course it's much harder now that we are not in the European Union. Plus I'd need lots of money too.
I can totally relate to you sine, I feel like I'm in the minority all the time. I've never even met anyone that uses the operating system that I use (not political but it emphasises how much in a minority I am).

[Lucifer]

It's frustrating as hell when you're in kindergarten playing with the girls, playing girl games and doing girl things, and you get pulled out of the group that you belong in because you have a penis.

This is the thing that I do think is wrong, to continually punish or abuse a kid for playing the way they want to, and my brain goes to this thought process, does the actions you did there mean you are trans, maybe, does it mean you are gay possibly, but the types of actions here with kids creates trauma in your head early on and that kind of trauma as you've mentioned eventually makes you want to transition. IMO If you were allowed to play with the girls and all the other types of abuse were removed from your life, you'd likely be a much different person today, and maybe not have any of the feeling like that. Maybe you still would, and maybe it would have done the opposite and lead you to transitioning.

Nice job cherrypicking. You're just a shill for the billionaires.

You also make the stupid dumbass mistake of conflating gender identity with sexual orientation. These two things are different.

A boy playing with girls' toys is not gay. You're an idiot if you think there's a correlation here.

I've said all I'm willing to say, because I need a gun to say the rest.

[sinewav]

OK I'm going to get one more post in because this thread is pretty much dead and maybe locked soon.

...but the types of actions here with kids creates trauma in your head early on and that kind of trauma as you've mentioned eventually makes you want to transition.

Reading this I can say for sure you have never had a close friend who was gay or was anything other than stereotypical heterosexual. Sexual orientation and gender identity are innate traits, and while I'm sure there are some cases of "nurture" affecting a person's identity, it's basically all "nature."

...all people are important, all input is good. IMO just about every person has the ability to become a billionaire, they just have to want it and push towards it.

These statements are true in only the most abstract way. Billionaire voices are not equal and have a wildly out sized influence on society. And the idea that everyone can be a billionaire is true in the sense that everyone can flip heads on a coin 20 times in a row. It's technically possible, but people don't become billionaires from hard work. There are countless variables that determine success outside a person's control.

[kyle]

I've said all I'm willing to say, because I need a gun to say the rest.

Please No guns, you are valued, I'm just trying to understand more, but we can be done, with this. Other than I do want to clear up the point your mistook from what I said.

A boy playing with girls' toys is not gay. You're an idiot if you think there's a correlation here.

Sorry if that's the way that came off, It really was not what I was trying to say at all. It was more of the questioning of nature vs nurture. Not worth you going down this path, but had your childhood been different would you have different, As sinewav said, he thinks we act more of the nature, DNA based, I'm still more of the questioning and lean towards nurture, all of our encounters.

Reading this I can say for sure you have never had a close friend who was gay or was anything other than stereotypical heterosexual.

You are right, to an extent, it simply was not something common in my area growing up. I did find out maybe 5 or 6 years after high school one of my good friends from there, ended up transitioning, but I had no clue or anything in high school, and I never kept in contact with anyone from high school.

Nice job cherrypicking.

Software engineers are good at cherry picking

[sinewav]

...as sinewav said, he thinks we act more of the nature, DNA based...

Ah, I somewhat see the problem. I don't think you've ever really thought long and hard about some of these topics, which makes sense since they aren't important in your life. I however do think long and hard about things I have no reason to. It's like a quirk, I get really excited contemplating the deep mysteries in life. And after thinking about it I lean heavily on the nature side because I think nurture is just nature in disguise.

First, I subscribe to hard determinism. You aren't lgbt because of your DNA. You are lgbt because of your biology. All biology is chemistry, and all chemistry is physics. As such, biology follows the same inescapable chain of cause and effect. Second, because of this deterministic universe we live in, I don't believe in free will -- at all. Even the "nurture" component of society is the result of biology (and geography), which at it's core is deterministic.

Everyone makes decisions based on what they know, and if you've ever really thought about any of the decisions you've made in your life, like really thought about them, you'll realize you couldn't have chosen otherwise. If you could have done something different, you would have, but you didn't, and a lot of how we experience life has to do with the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. But we aren't even free to tell a different story!

I can see by the way you write that you value individualism and agency. Man I hate to break it to you but all of that is an illusion.

[kyle]

Everyone makes decisions based on what they know, and if you've ever really thought about any of the decisions you've made in your life, like really thought about them, you'll realize you couldn't have chosen otherwise.

This is where you lost me, I think the decisions we chose were based on the information we had at the time, and for a lot of people it takes a lot of contemplating to break the decision that we have, a lot of new facts to take in, but ultimately we can. but our brain places different weight and value on things based on how they have effected us.

You way is like if I an taught an eating disorder I'm stuck with it for life. but with fee will you can start to see how this disorder is controlling you, and you end up hitting rock bottom and have to find a way to start controlling it. Lets say it's soo bad you end up going to a therapist, and you start to improve a bit, but they are still digging searching for the reasons why you are doing this. Maybe they figure it out, but then they slide it in, and your initial reaction is to reject it, because it's so unbelievable, that the root of your problem was your mothers fault. so then you walk out on them and end up regressing back into the eating disorders, until you hit rock bottom again, and find another one, you make no progress with them and find another one. and they all keep pointing out that it was your mom's fault. Finally you find one that gradually takes you into accepting that it's your mom's fault and you really start to heal, and you get to a point were you no longer have an eating disorder. I just don't think that type of story or outcome would happen if we did not have the ability to have free will and essentially reprogram our brains. because under what you said, without that person look back an choose to purge in the past now, no they would not have, they only chose to then, because of the state of mind that they were in.

It's just sometimes the root of decisions lay very deep within you, places you don't want to go, places you very hard mentally to face. That story is a true story. and that's why i do question are things more nurture, and the inputs that we have the experiences that we have, how our brains subconsciously way those, without even knowing it. But most importantly Lucifer, I'm not saying that it is caused by past experiences, and I'm not saying that you and others don't have those types of feelings. I'm just simply don't know many LBGT people and I personally still question the reasons why one could feel that way.

[sinewav]

...but our brain places different weight and value on things based on how they have effected us.

LOL you're starting to get the picture. Now ask why your brain places different weight and value on things. Once you start diving down into it you'll see that yes, it is your mother's fault, and you're teachers, and their mothers and teachers, and and so on and so on. There is a huge chain of causality that makes you who you are and you had no choice in it. You didn't choose to be born where you were, when you were born, from which parents, etc. All those things determined what language you spoke, what you learned in school, where your morality and beliefs came from, and you had no freedom to choose otherwise. Your brain started "weighting" things before you even knew your name, creating a schema for your experience of the world from before your earliest memory. Yes people change, we are compelled to by causality, but it's not self-directed even though it feels that way. Again, when things go right we tell ourselves a story of success and when things go wrong we call ourselves "a survivor" or something. It's an evolved trait to keep us functioning.

I'm just simply don't know many LBGT people and I personally still question the reasons why one could feel that way.

It's a pretty common retort when you ask a gay person "when did you decide to be gay" and they say "when did you decide to be straight?" Every gay person in my life has said the same thing: they always knew they were gay. None of them "decided" to be gay, it's just the way they were built.

[Lucifer]

You way is like if I an taught an eating disorder I'm stuck with it for life.

This is true. There are currently no cures for mental illness. Just like once I became an alcoholic, I'm now stuck with it for life.

but with fee will you can start to see how this disorder is controlling you, and you end up hitting rock bottom and have to find a way to start controlling it.

You don't control it. You can never "control" a mental illness. You can treat it, and you can recover from it, and in time, you can put it in remission.

Lets say it's soo bad you end up going to a therapist,

Like with any other disease, let's say you get treatment before it gets that bad. Your prognosis is much better if you do that.

and you start to improve a bit, but they are still digging searching for the reasons why you are doing this. Maybe they figure it out, but then they slide it in, and your initial reaction is to reject it, because it's so unbelievable, that the root of your problem was your mothers fault. so then you walk out on them and end up regressing back into the eating disorders,

Finding the source of a disorder doesn't negate the disorder. You still have to treat it. Finding out that it was your mother's fault only helps you to deal with the trauma that put you there to begin with. Even after you've dealt with all of that trauma, and there can be quite a bit (so much that I don't think you would be able to handle not only the crap I've been through, but the stories from other people that are 10x or 100x worse than anything I've been through), but even after you've dealt with all of that, the disorder is still there. It has to be treated directly.

Here's a video where I go into this process in a general way:
https://youtu.be/iDn52-YjvTA

Here's the video where I explain specifically what addiction is, but the ideas are actually true for eating disorders and a few related illnesses:
https://youtu.be/oFFeHq8AVJ4

until you hit rock bottom again, and find another one, you make no progress with them and find another one. and they all keep pointing out that it was your mom's fault.

Early intervention has been proven to work. The problem with waiting until people hit rock bottom to tell them to get treatment is that for many people, rock bottom means they are dead. The illness killed them. Whether it's a heroin overdose or suicide or drunk car crash or whatever. Rock bottom means death for a lot of people. So let's stop pushing people not to get treatment before that point so they can live.

Finally you find one that gradually takes you into accepting that it's your mom's fault and you really start to heal, and you get to a point were you no longer have an eating disorder.

Nope. Once you have a mental illness, and they *all* have a genetic component, it's for life. The only real exception is light depression. This is the "common cold" of mental illness, where a person can have an actual depressive episode, which, by definition, has to last several weeks to be considered an actual depressive episode, and then it'll clear up after a few weeks and they're fine. It's like covid, where someone can have it, and a week or so later, they're back to normal. But long covid is a thing. Major depressive disorder is a thing. That kind of depression is for life. So is bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, substance use disorder, etc.

These conditions can be managed with medication, to some extent, and with psychotherapy. The only "free will" involved here is the choice to get treatment, and that's questionable at best as being free. Some people never have that choice for various reasons, which include the condition itself preventing them from seeing treatment as an option.

I just don't think that type of story or outcome would happen if we did not have the ability to have free will and essentially reprogram our brains.

You're giving it away here, in fact. When you say "reprogram our brains", that's literally describing a state of a lack of free will. If we had true free will, we wouldn't have to reprogram our brains in the first place.

And yes, a lot of treatment is specifically about reprogramming our brains. Behavior chains, identifying cognitive distortions, understanding grief, etc. Trauma imprints on the brain, much like branding a head of cattle with your name, and you have to actively work to route your thoughts around the parts of the brain that have been imprinted by the trauma. There's even a special treatment specifically for extreme PTSD that works like this.

You're so close to understanding, kyle. So close.

I'm just simply don't know many LBGT people and I personally still question the reasons why one could feel that way.

First of all, LGBT is more of a political alliance than a group of similar people. Yes, Lesbians and Gays are basically the same, just different genders. But plenty of L's and G's talk trash to B's, which are Bisexual, telling them to pick a side. There's a lot of biphobia within the LGBT world, too. Then there are the T's, which have nothing to do with sexual orientation. Transgender is a huge umbrella word that includes every possible gender identity that's not "cisgender male" or "cisgender female". After Obergefell, transgender people said "Ok, now it's our turn, we've been supporting the LGB part of the coalition, now it's time for us to get rights" and the LGB's all said "No, we're done, we got what we want" and the coalition has nearly fallen apart. Nowadays, transgender people are being left out by a lot of the people they've previously supported. So what are we supposed to do?

Second, the reason you don't understand why people feel this way is because you're not LGBT. Your brain is incapable of understanding why a man might want to have sex with a man, or why someone born with male parts might identify as female. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just what it means to be a cisgender heterosexual. You need to see that that very identity limits your ability to understand LGBT people and could even prevent you from understanding. We don't ask for understanding. We ask for acceptance, safety, and the right to live our lives without interference.

So you need to figure out how to be ok with not understanding, but still accepting LGBTQ+ people as being real, valid people who deserve all the same rights that you enjoy.

A therapist would be able to help you with that.

[kyle]

You don't control it. You can never "control" a mental illness.

I feel this way of thinking holds too many people back, yes there are certain mental illnesses, like dementia and Alzheimers that can't be broken, but that's because of a physical disorder of the brain. I think some disorders are trauma induced, yes hell to reprogram, but still doable, The real question is it worth it or not for this person. And like I said that eating disorder story is a real story. That person was also very fascinated with learning how the brain works.

So you need to figure out how to be ok with not understanding, but still accepting LGBTQ+ people as being real, valid people who deserve all the same rights that you enjoy.

These are mutually exclusive statements, I can still wonder and question anything I want, but I can also still be accepting of those people. Questioning how they got there does not make me dislike them.

I've been trying to decide if I say this here or not, probably very risky, but please be open minded, I'm trying to learn, but I think it's disrespectful to women, for a trans women, to compete in certain women sports. I am open to trans playing sports, but to me it punishes girls and women by allowing them.