iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

I wasn't really expecting an answer. It doesn't take a lot of work requiring serious study to know that a human being can't change from Homo sapiens to something else.

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Please explain how a human can change from Homo sapiens to something else.

It's as if you're complaining about me saying "humans breathe gas" because I'm not an expert on fluid physics.

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Andrew Craig @andrewcraig.bsky.social · 10h

You're trying to make this much wider than it is. Are human beings members of Homo sapiens? Yes. Can they change that? No. That's all I'm saying, and I'd be staggered if you were to disagree with it.

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No, I haven't. I fully accept that for, say, a herring gull, species is a less definite thing. But Homo sapiens has no relatives as close as those of the herring gull; and for a human being, their species can't be changed any more than their date of birth.

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Andrew Craig @andrewcraig.bsky.social · 10h

Indeed; but nevertheless, it is completely impossible for a human being to change its species from Homo sapiens to something else. So, for an individual human, species is an example of a characteristic that's immutable.

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Andrew Craig @andrewcraig.bsky.social · 11h

MY species is not mutable; I, living in 2026, can't change my species. My ancestors millions of years were indeed of different species from me. Similarly, if you go back far enough, my ancestors were asexual organisms. That doesn't mean that I, a mammal, can change my male sex.

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Andrew Craig @andrewcraig.bsky.social · 13h

Same with the state pension.

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Andrew Craig @andrewcraig.bsky.social · 14h

That's a nice barrow and a nice playing field behind some nice trees. No irony here.

Andrew Craig @andrewcraig.bsky.social · 14h

I Þink you mean Þelwell.

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Andrew Craig @andrewcraig.bsky.social · 14h

No. It's a material reality that I'm human. My species is not mutable. It's a material reality that I'm male. My sex is not mutable.

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Any stamp collectors on here? Would anyone like this 1995 first day cover?

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The Brits ended up leaving without handing Palestine over to either side. That's why there was a war.

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Of course we're not going to pretend it was not a thing. Britain promised Palestine to both sides at various times, and therefore found itself incurring great hostility from both. There was an Arab revolt, and a Jewish terrorist campaign.

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"the original Zionists who managed to convince the Brits to practically hand Palestine to them" You what? What about the bombing of the King David Hotel? The hanging of the sergeants? The assassination of Lord Moyne? Would they have done that if the Brits were handing Palestine to them?

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Perhaps the best memoir by an infantryman who was at the sharp end (in Burma) is Quartered Safe Out Here, by George MacDonald Fraser (later author of the Flashman novels).

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Who is the "we" that you hope can agree?

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Prettier hills than Wiltshire? Ravilious wants a word!

020

Not just 44/45. The British Expeditionary Force in 1940 used (rather inadequate) motor transport rather than horses.

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They should have called it Welwyn Monorail City.

020

In Morden there used to be a 99p Shop next door to Poundland. Some genius put a sign in the window saying "Why pay more?"

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Sure, and they'd be wrong. But I'm not wrong in saying there are physiological differences between male and female people.

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Does that apply to age as well? Is it how someone lives and is perceived that determines how old he is, or is it when he was born? And does actual date of birth matter for some purposes? Is actual date of birth merely "some asserted inner essence"?

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There are no observable physical differences between someone with Czech nationality and someone with Albanian nationality. There are plenty of observable physical differences between someone with male sex and someone with female sex.

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As with cars in period dramas - they're spotless, because who's going to hire their vintage car to the film company and let them knock it about?

010

Yes, which passport you have is an objective reality; but plenty of British citizens consider their nationality to be Scottish, or Indian, or Greek. Also, official nationality can be changed by the authorities in an instant - look at Zola Budd or Shamima Begum.

Yes, distinguishing between facts and opinions was an important part of the job.

Age and sex are objective realities; nationality is a combination of feelings, history, and bureaucracy.

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But there's no material, physical difference between an Albanian and a Czech. You can't tell someone's nationality by examining their body. You can tell someone's sex by examining their body (or, in nearly all cases, by a quick glance).

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Compare it with age. Plenty of people who were born 40 years ago act as if they were 25, and maybe even look 25, and good luck to them; but they remain 40, not 25, as a matter of objective fact.

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I'm using "female" to mean "having a female body" rather than "feeling female". Are you using it to mean "feeling female"?

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The thing that annoys me is British servicemen saluting without hats on - in the Dunkirk film, for example. In Which We Serve gets this right in the very moving scene where the shipwrecked sailors line up to salute their captain, if they've kept their hats, and to shake hands if they haven't.

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If a female person fancies other female people, that person is lesbian - unless we want to change the meanings of lots of our words.

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I remember seeing jars like that in a very old biology laboratory in Oxford.

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Just a sausage in a glass jar? Or bits of sausage in some kind of sauce? Were there no saucepans in the flat?

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You can assert what someone's sex is - not sexuality or gender - because it's determined by material reality, rather than by how they feel about themselves. Like age or height.

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