Why can’t society agree on who is a “man,” who is a “woman,” and who is neither? An empirical and philosophical investigation into the metaphysics of gender.

February 7, 2025

by Spencer Greenberg Gender is a central part of many people's identities, and yet a very basic and politically contentious question is still being debated: What IS gender? And what defines whether someone is a "man," a "woman," or neither? This question is especially topical and important now in light of the January 20, 2025, Executive Order from Donald Trump attempting to define what it means to be a man or a woman: After carefully investigating people's usage of "man" an...

Productive Disagreements – An Interactive Event Format

June 25, 2017

I ran a "Productive Disagreements" event last night, a new interactive format I've been working on where attendees practice structured disagreements on controversial topics in order to learn from each other and get experience accurately modeling other people's perspectives. Here are the materials, in case you want to run an event like this or just learn about the format: Part 1: Brief presentation about why disagreements are so often unproductive 1. You want to "win" more than you want...