Sure, that’s a failure mode, and it’s one which—stepping down a level of abstraction—seems prevalent in gender discussions (“I’m $gender, I can’t help it!”). From the inside, it can be pretty hard to distinguish between the motivations you can and can’t change with enough reflection. There’s a loose cultural consensus as to what counts, but at the same time that varies between subcultures and can lead to conflict in its own right: consider the “ex-gay” phenomenon in fundamentalist Christian spheres.
Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it in context; in my estimation it’s not directly relevant to what we’re discussing upthread. But at the same time I think it’s a mistake to consider our wants entirely plastic; for the time being we’re working with a certain set of hardware, and software changes can only do so much.
Sure, that’s a failure mode, and it’s one which—stepping down a level of abstraction—seems prevalent in gender discussions (“I’m $gender, I can’t help it!”). From the inside, it can be pretty hard to distinguish between the motivations you can and can’t change with enough reflection. There’s a loose cultural consensus as to what counts, but at the same time that varies between subcultures and can lead to conflict in its own right: consider the “ex-gay” phenomenon in fundamentalist Christian spheres.
Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it in context; in my estimation it’s not directly relevant to what we’re discussing upthread. But at the same time I think it’s a mistake to consider our wants entirely plastic; for the time being we’re working with a certain set of hardware, and software changes can only do so much.