At my middle school there was a sweet kid who had probably had pretty serious Aspergers. He was teased quite a bit but often it would take him a while to figure out that the other kids were sarcastically mocking him and not being friendly. He’d pick up on it eventually but by then he had replied the wrong way and looked stupid, leading to even more teasing.
No offense, but if you thought the article was taking us seriously you are somewhat socially tone-deaf.
I wouldn’t say it was taking us seriously, but journalists of this type tend not to take anything “seriously”. Only “hard-news” journalists write in a style that suggests their subjects are of status equal to or higher than their own.
I think many are failing to appreciate just how much respect is shown by the fact that almost nothing in the piece is false. That’s an incredible achievement for a fluff journalist writing about...pretty much anything, let alone this kind of subject matter.
The Observer isn’t the Times… but it also isn’t the Inquirer or World Net Daily. But your point is taken. Still, while you’re going to get the “wow, these people sure are weird” reaction no matter what but what you want is a ”… but maybe have they have point” graf or at least not get called “unhinged”. I don’t really have anything against the writer—she does what she does well (the writing is really excellent, I think). And I do think she probably likes the Less Wrong crowd she met. But I think it made the image problem really clear and explicit.
No offense taken! I was that kid in middle school, but I’ve grown a lot since then. I’ve learned to read people very well, and as a result I’ve been able to win elections in school clubs, join a fraternity, date, host dinner parties, and basically have a social life that’s as active and healthy as anyone else’s.
I think often we assume that people are criticizing us because we are starting out from a place of insecurity. If you suspect and worry and fear that you deserve criticism, then even a neutral description of your characteristics can feel like a harsh personal attack. It’s hard to listen to someone describe you, just like it’s hard to listen to an audiotape of your voice or a videotape of your face. We are all more awkward in real life than we imagine ourselves to be; this is just the corollary of overconfidence/optimism bias, which says that we predict better results for ourselves than we are likely to actually obtain. It’s OK, though. Honest, neutral feedback can be uncomfortable to hear, and still not be meant as criticism, much less as trolling.
Are there thousands of narrow-minded people who will read the article and laugh and say, “Haha, those stupid Less Wrongers, they’re such weirdos?” Of course. But I don’t think you can blame the journalist for that—it’s not the journalist’s job to deprive ignorant, judgy readers of any and all ammunition, and, after all, we are a bit strange. If we weren’t any different from the mainstream, then why bother?
I’m not blaming the journalist. The problem is that the image that was projected (and I’m not close enough to the situation to be comfortable attributing any blame, thus the passive voice) wasn’t worth taking seriously.
Which a) is a perspective that could have shown through a bit more in the article and b) is entirely independent of whether or not she or the article takes Less Wrong or SI seriously.
But I did read that earlier and mellowed a bit. Again, I don’t fault a gossip writer for writing gossip. That’s a separate question from whether or not the story counts as good press.
Writers that tend to get articles published in popular magazines tend to write things that people that read popular magazines tend to want to read. This may or may not be identical to the actual beliefs or feelings of the author.
At my middle school there was a sweet kid who had probably had pretty serious Aspergers. He was teased quite a bit but often it would take him a while to figure out that the other kids were sarcastically mocking him and not being friendly. He’d pick up on it eventually but by then he had replied the wrong way and looked stupid, leading to even more teasing.
No offense, but if you thought the article was taking us seriously you are somewhat socially tone-deaf.
I wouldn’t say it was taking us seriously, but journalists of this type tend not to take anything “seriously”. Only “hard-news” journalists write in a style that suggests their subjects are of status equal to or higher than their own.
I think many are failing to appreciate just how much respect is shown by the fact that almost nothing in the piece is false. That’s an incredible achievement for a fluff journalist writing about...pretty much anything, let alone this kind of subject matter.
The Observer isn’t the Times… but it also isn’t the Inquirer or World Net Daily. But your point is taken. Still, while you’re going to get the “wow, these people sure are weird” reaction no matter what but what you want is a ”… but maybe have they have point” graf or at least not get called “unhinged”. I don’t really have anything against the writer—she does what she does well (the writing is really excellent, I think). And I do think she probably likes the Less Wrong crowd she met. But I think it made the image problem really clear and explicit.
No offense taken! I was that kid in middle school, but I’ve grown a lot since then. I’ve learned to read people very well, and as a result I’ve been able to win elections in school clubs, join a fraternity, date, host dinner parties, and basically have a social life that’s as active and healthy as anyone else’s.
I think often we assume that people are criticizing us because we are starting out from a place of insecurity. If you suspect and worry and fear that you deserve criticism, then even a neutral description of your characteristics can feel like a harsh personal attack. It’s hard to listen to someone describe you, just like it’s hard to listen to an audiotape of your voice or a videotape of your face. We are all more awkward in real life than we imagine ourselves to be; this is just the corollary of overconfidence/optimism bias, which says that we predict better results for ourselves than we are likely to actually obtain. It’s OK, though. Honest, neutral feedback can be uncomfortable to hear, and still not be meant as criticism, much less as trolling.
Are there thousands of narrow-minded people who will read the article and laugh and say, “Haha, those stupid Less Wrongers, they’re such weirdos?” Of course. But I don’t think you can blame the journalist for that—it’s not the journalist’s job to deprive ignorant, judgy readers of any and all ammunition, and, after all, we are a bit strange. If we weren’t any different from the mainstream, then why bother?
I’m not blaming the journalist. The problem is that the image that was projected (and I’m not close enough to the situation to be comfortable attributing any blame, thus the passive voice) wasn’t worth taking seriously.
In the article’s comments, the author states that she “found the people [she] met and talked to charming, intelligent, and kind.”
Which a) is a perspective that could have shown through a bit more in the article and b) is entirely independent of whether or not she or the article takes Less Wrong or SI seriously.
But I did read that earlier and mellowed a bit. Again, I don’t fault a gossip writer for writing gossip. That’s a separate question from whether or not the story counts as good press.
Writers that tend to get articles published in popular magazines tend to write things that people that read popular magazines tend to want to read. This may or may not be identical to the actual beliefs or feelings of the author.