Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

[POOHEAD189]

No @Kratesis though a code of conduct and respect is often considered important enough for someone to lose or keep their job. But that's just for arguments sake. I was mostly speaking to @The Harbinger of Ferocity about why it might be good to use pronouns that adhere to the patient. I wasn't entirely speaking of legal ramifications, though I should have been more specific. That's my bad.

[Penny]

<Snipped quote by POOHEAD189>

Is the law a tool to force people to be nice?

@Kratesis

I mean I'm not going to actually read the article, but I assume the basis of the law is that California feels that repeatedly and deliberately misgendering someone constitutes sexual harassment.

[Kratesis]

I wasn't entirely speaking of legal ramifications, though I should have been more specific. That's my bad.

@POOHEAD189

Fair play

<Snipped quote by Kratesis>

I mean I'm not going to actually read the article, but I assume the basis of the law is that California feels that repeatedly and deliberately misgendering someone constitutes sexual harassment.

@Penny

The law makes it a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail for a health care worker to 'willfully and repeatedly' refer to a senior citizen who is also a patient by something other than their preferred pronouns. It does not appear to be related to sexual harassment legislation in any way.

[Penny]

@Kratesis

Repeatedly and deliberately misgendering someone is sexual harrassment. Given the amount of teeth gnashing on this thread over literally changing a pronoun, I can see why California might feel it needs to add some teeth to tell people that they are serious.

Kind of strange to focus it specifically on seniors. I wonder if that is a particular problem area.

[Kratesis]

@Kratesis

Repeatedly and deliberately misgendering someone is sexual harrassment.

@Penny

Why?

Kind of strange to focus it specifically on seniors.

Yeah that was kinda weird.

[Penny]

If you ask me to call you Bill and I continue to call you Nancy, that is sexual harassment. Pronouns just depersonalize it one step by using a pronoun instead of a noun.

If one of my staff bought that to me I would go right into the classic pathway of sexual harassment complaints.

[Kratesis]

If you ask me to call you Bill and I continue to call you Nancy, that is sexual harassment. Pronouns just depersonalize it one step by using a pronoun instead of a noun.

If one of my staff bought that to me I would go right into the classic pathway of sexual harassment complaints.

@Penny

But why is that sexual harassment? I ask this not to be persnickety for detail but because when we make something a law and punish violations of that law with being locked inside a jail cell for a year less one day the government needs to demonstrate a compelling case for why their behavior was so wrong as to rise to the level that the government must use force to compel them to change.

[Penny]

...other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature that tends to create a hostile or offensive work environment.

Now normally HR doesn't arrest the person. They just warn, counsel, terminate.

[Kratesis]

...other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature that tends to create a hostile or offensive work environment.

@Penny

(I assume this is a reply to me? If not please disregard this message with my apologizes.)

That doesn't answer why refusal to use the pronouns that someone prefers is sexual harassment. (The italicized line is also tailored to the maintenance of a productive work environment, not a legal system of crime and punishment.)

Why is vocalizing your disagreement with an individuals claims about their gender sexual harassment?

[Penny]

Lets assume for a moment that the transgender issue didn't exist at all. Just for the sake of this point.

Now assume that you had a male nurse whose co-workers consistently called him by a female name (not his own). He has made it clear that this is unwelcome and offensive. He has asked them to stop and they continue to do so. That is clear cut workplace bullying and sexual harassment and practically any HR officer would agree with that.

Now add in transgender pronouns... and there we are.

I assume the Californians have that law on the books because people are just as obtuse in not recognizing/respecting that they are serious about protecting peoples right to self identify (although again I'm not sure what it has to do with seniors specifically). I find it a little hard to imagine that it is necessary to actual arrest people for it. Most places I have worked for would just fire you after an official warning and have done.

[Kratesis]

@Penny

Now assume that you had a male nurse whose co-workers consistently called him by a female name (not his own). He has made it clear that this is unwelcome and offensive. He has asked them to stop and they continue to do so.

What you have described is man whose colleagues are jerks, not a title seven violation. They may or may not be in violation of a company policy but the law requires unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, or other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature for a given behavior to qualify as sexual harassment.

Furthermore the situations being compared are not the same. In the example you give a man is bullied by his colleagues, who address him with a name that is not his. But that is different than a situation where one individual makes a claim (that they are a certain gender) and those around them do not believe their claim and elect to not behave as if it is true.

That is clear cut workplace bullying and sexual harassment and practically any HR officer would agree with that.

The opinions of a human resources department are not relevant.

[IceHeart]

The biggest question is why the law is specifically about senior citizens? I am sure that 99% of senior citizens that this law would effect frankly don't give a peep, don't even remember their own name half the time, or various other memory type mess ups. What I'm afraid of is that some smart senior citizens will try to abuse the new law in order to get back at some doctors and nurses they don't like for some reason.

Before you know it the senior citizens will have a lawyer led uprising as they purge care facilities of staff they don't like so only the people they like remain. The great purge will devastate the medical industry and plunge the nation into chaos because a care provider was rude to an old person. This is of course a joke but...it is California after all where anything can seem to happen. :)

[Penny]

leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/bill…

It actually was worth googling for the first page of articles all being various flavors of conservative outrage.

The pronoun thing is apparently part of a raft of protections that this bill seeks to provide. They seem to have inserted preferred pronouns into the Patients Bill of Rights and licencing system, thereby making a consistent refusal to use the desired pronoun a violation of the state license that the facility operates under.

Existing law provides for the licensure and regulation by the State Department of Public Health of health facilities, including skilled nursing facilities and intermediate care facilities. A violation of these provisions is a crime. Existing law, the Long-Term Care, Health, Safety, and Security Act of 1973, imposes various requirements on long-term health care facilities, as defined, and prescribes the civil penalties assessed for a violation of those requirements.

And apparently seniors do face real issues. Not something that had previously been on my radar.

(a) In 2006, the California Legislature found that “lifelong experiences of marginalization place lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) seniors at high risk for isolation, poverty, homelessness, and premature institutionalization. Moreover, many LGBT seniors are members of multiple underrepresented groups, and as a result, are doubly marginalized. Due to these factors, many LGBT seniors avoid accessing elder programs and services, even when their health, safety, and security depend on it.”

(b) Recent studies confirm the state’s findings and provide evidence that LGBT seniors experience discrimination, including in long-term care facilities where residents are particularly vulnerable because they must rely on others for necessary care and services, and may no longer enjoy the privacy of having their own home or even their own room.

43 percent of respondents reported personally witnessing or experiencing instances of mistreatment of LGBT seniors in a long-term care facility, including all of the following: being refused admission or readmission, being abruptly discharged, verbal or physical harassment from staff, staff refusal to accept medical power of attorney from the resident’s spouse or partner, discriminatory restrictions on visitation, and staff refusal to refer to a transgender resident by his or her preferred name or pronoun. Eighty-one percent of respondents believed that other residents would discriminate against an LGBT elder in a long-term care facility, 89 percent of respondents believed that staff would discriminate against an LGBT elder in a long-term care facility, and 53 percent believed that staff discrimination would rise to the level of abuse or neglect.

[Gwynbleidd]

Imprisoning people for their words is ludicrous.

<Snipped quote by Dark Wind>

At this rate medical staff will be forced to refer to patients in they way they want to be refereed to. I don't know if I can function in a world where I have to refer to a patient as Mr Smith, rather than Johnny Organ-donor. Sad.

@Penny

It's not your place, or my place to demand that a person change their beliefs for the sake of your or my comfort. That's tyranny, plain and simple. Don't like your doctor? Change to a different one.

[Polymorpheus]

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[POOHEAD189]

@Penny@catchamber@POOHEAD189

Careful with this one, the cringe nearly made me legit ill.

@Dynamo Frokane

Saw this on facebook

[POOHEAD189]

<Snipped quote by POOHEAD189>
Perhaps, but this announcement and this article might be evidence that he's not exaggerating.

@catchamber

Futurists enjoy being very vocal about such things, and it's true that technology is growing rapidly. But every time I've thought the way you are, I've always found something to make me think 'oh, not a big deal.' In fact, forever futurists have been claiming they would soon be able to hook your brain up to a computer. Yet a study last year in China had someone's thoughts being scanned, and it took 40 minutes to download 1% of one thought. And the average human thinks 30-50 thousand thoughts a day, sending us back decades in where we thought we were.

I agree with you, this is something to take note of. But at the same time, we won't be seeing surrogate robots in 5 years.

[Polymorpheus]

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[Gwynbleidd]

<Snipped quote by catchamber>

Futurists enjoy being very vocal about such things, and it's true that technology is growing rapidly. But every time I've thought the way you are, I've always found something to make me think 'oh, not a big deal.' In fact, forever futurists have been claiming they would soon be able to hook your brain up to a computer. Yet a study last year in China had someone's thoughts being scanned, and it took 40 minutes to download 1% of one thought. And the average human thinks 30-50 thousand thoughts a day, sending us back decades in where we thought we were.

I agree with you, this is something to take note of. But at the same time, we won't be seeing surrogate robots in 5 years.

@POOHEAD189

I read a book on DARPA. They're basically this almost completely unaccountable arm of the U.S. government who develop advanced weapons and other technologies. Brilliant minds, basically, but they're turned loose and never told they CAN'T do so something.

They believe limb regeneration is completely possible. That's fucking cool, and I hope it happens.

But, they're also the scary brand of people that are responsible for Agent Orange and a hundred percent believed that if they had been given more time and hadn't had their operation derailed by bad press... that they could have legitimately burned down the entire forest of Vietnam.

These are the same people who are working on hunter killers that can recognize a face and then wander out into a city/battlefield and assassinate them. Sure, we won't be seeing these things any time soon but there are some things you just SHOULD NOT do.

[POOHEAD189]

<Snipped quote by POOHEAD189>
Do you think that replacing a vast segment of the labor force with AI has the same level of difficulty and return of investment as scanning someone's thoughts and creating surrogate robots?

@catchamber

All I'm saying is, robots and AI are advancing faster than we anticipated, but not as fast as we are fearing. I've never watched a video from the guy who's video you linked, but after watching that once, my youtube recommended has been trying to show me his vids, and all 5 thumbnails I've seen have been him asking things like "how will we survive" in one form or another. It's why I don't give too much credence to him.

One of my biggest fears used to be advanced AI, which is why I have a 'been there, done that' attitude on this. I've research more than I am comfortable enough about it. It's happening, just not to the level futurists are claiming. In 10 years we'll have some self driving cars and more drones, maybe some more automated dispenser machines, and some people will be without jobs, but a lot of them won't be blindsided by it as if the future caught them by surprise.