Before it was collected as a compendium of official parts, sure, but most of the individual books (both the ones that made it into the current version and additional ones that ended up being rejected) were around. The Old Testament ones were already written down, and most of the Gospels were at least oral tradition very early on.

I believe it was over one hundred years before the Gospels were all written down, and early Christian sects had passionate disagreement over which texts were official or hearsay, but it’s not like they were completely without religious texts.

Mob violence has been a thing for all of human history. Before humans, even: chimpanzee groups, if they get large, will split into two groups. After a few months apart, if the groups encounter each other, the stronger group will murder every individual in the weaker one.

I think we had settled on a regulated and normalized system in pre-internet media that moderated the mob violence tendencies. Our current polarization is not really that social media created this new thing in society, it’s that it removed the guardrails in traditional media that were suppressing natural human tendencies. I hope we can figure out and implement some new guardrails sooner rather than later.

Our brains are hard-wired to be susceptible to specific patterns. Ancestral humans who stayed in good graces with their social group, even when the leaders of that group were factually mistaken, survived at higher rates than humans whose respect for facts drove them to reject or be rejected by the group. The details of which and to what degree we have these triggers override our rationality varies by genetics and environment, but we are all susceptible.

That a very significant percent of humans respond to their system by adopting specific harmful behavior is not something we can fight by moral condemnation. Labeling them as bad people is unproductive. If the goal is to actually reduce the harmful behavior, addressing the system - not the individuals - is the only effective strategy.

There are shades of gray. I consider burying it in well managed landfills (what is done with the very large majority of plastic in developed countries) significantly more environmentally responsible than dumping it into the local river (what is done with most plastic in many developing countries) or ocean (fishing nets, cruise ships).

I am confused. I thought the thread was about gender, and the reference to “social bullshit” and the statement “that outliers exist, doesnt mean anything” were statements in support of excluding transgender people from society. The 0.018% stat (rate of intersex if defined narrowly) is clearly a reference to sex, not gender. So now I am just lost.

I think things get taken too far in some contexts, but the underlying sensitivity is when you are talking to a person who considers themselves an outlier. Like telling someone with no legs that they don’t meet the definition of human and ADA is an abomination that should be repealed. Or telling someone diagnosed with conversion disorder that they can’t receive any physical accommodations, and can’t have any medical consults to check if their symptoms might have a different cause. I hope we can agree those would be insensitive positions to take.