Oh, Brave New Year, that has such people in it.

Okay, today we play Fun with Doomcasting. 

One of the things conservatives dread is the concept of social credit -- that delightful Chinese Marxist system of ruining the lives of people who do not toe the government line in every way. Disagree with Xi, show interest in Falun Gong, request more pay from your job, and you may find yourself unable to get a decent place to live, a vehicle, a loan, or anything else that ought to be decided by a proper financial credit system.

 

We know there are people who think it would be a good idea here in America. But there are two things we ought to keep in mind: 

1) It is already here unofficially, in the media; 

2) Your social credit score does not start at a baseline and go up or down -- it starts at nothing. You have to earn credit. You actually have to out-earn your fellows.

I've seen it in correspondence among editors and writers when some topic of Sensitivity comes up. Everyone panics a little, and each tries to provide a wokier-than-thou solution. In one story, there was a question about a trans woman whose boyfriend dumped "her" for unknown reasons. Would that make him a transphobe? Because the idea that a man might rather date a woman than a man dressed as a woman would mean he's some kind of evil hater. (Try reversing that -- "So the lesbian doesn't want to date a man dressed as a woman; is she a transphobe?" -- and watch the panic set in.) 

Even worse is medical writing, where we supposedly need to be grown-ups, but we are not. This is because we are no longer men and women, but AMABs and AFABs. 

You remember a few years back when the medical press was having kittens because it turned out that women's heart-attack symptoms were different from men's, and coronary studies always looked at men? It started the American Heart Association's Go Red for Women campaign twenty years ago. Well, now you may Go Red for AFABs, but you'd better drop the "women." 

If we must discuss distasteful subjects like ovarian or prostate cancer -- distasteful because no surgery on earth can give you ovaries or a prostate, yet we have to describe the patient population somehow -- we must refer to Assigned Male at Birth or Assigned Female at Birth. Like the doctor just decided which sex the baby should be. "We're fighting godless commies in Vietnam; better make some more boys today."

But we know that's only a stopgap, because there are campaigners who want to prevent the assignment of sex at birth. A baby should just be registered as "a baby" and it will tell us what it is later. That demand does not come from some lunatic fringe group; it is from the American Medical Association. 

So much for the idea that medical needs are different between boys and girls, and not knowing the difference is dangerous. Better the child should die than be misgendered, or gendered at all. 

What will we do when nothing is assigned at birth? Call them PWOs and PWPs (People With Ovaries/People With Prostates)? 

If you've ever been in a group blamestorm you know how this happens. Everyone is nervous; everyone is scared of being labeled something bad; everyone has to try to top the others, and as fast as they can. Temperance, consideration, sobriety of thought -- these are not considered virtues. We saw that in the wicked Tweetfest following the monstrous October 7 attack on Israel -- after the initial rush to lunacy was over, with its concurrent ratchet effect, the wiser ones silently deleted their Hamas-supporting Tweets. Others doubled down, more frantic than before. This is not adult behavior. 

I don't know where this mania ends, but I suspect it will require a lot of trial lawyers to start suing the ever-loving crap out of the perpetrators of insanity. We're starting to see a little of that, but not enough. Come on, you greedy bastards! There are billions to be made from this. Wise up and get suing! 

P.S.: I guess my social credit is deep in the negatives now. It was bound to happen sometime. It may have happened a long time ago.