PUA is obviously a very ‘political’ topic on LW, and I expect that many readers / posters have initial reactions along the lines of “this is icky and I don’t care to examine any further”, “it is obviously bad to try to ‘fake’ charisma if you’re not inherently charismatic like me”, “anyone who has a problem with this hates me personally”… that sort of thing.
I don’t necessarily think these or the comments in my earlier post are majority positions on LessWrong. I do think that there is a problematic component to some aspects of PUA (some areas of the field are overtly misogynistic, some techniques are problematic WRT consent), but the most common issue I’ve seen here is in failing to acknowledge that these are real problems. So it’s less “these are what LW believes about PUA”, and more “there are some dangerous meme-strains related to PUA that we should be careful about, and here are some ways in which they have struck”.
“Manipulation” is a useless term
Something like this, or different?
Here is one relevant discussion. This is more specifically the sort of thing I’m talking about.
I’m confused as to how it would naturally come up discussing CEV, such that its absence would be noteworthy.
It seems that manipulation is, approximately, influence that you “would prefer not to go along with” in a CEV-ish sense. I would expect that a generally held belief that this is a useless distinction would motivate criticisms of CEV along the same lines. The specificity of the confusion seems too conveniently self-serving.
If you get someone to cheat on their partner, then they were in an unhappy relationship and therefore there’s no problem.
This was, admittedly, a one-off remark that was denounced by none other than Eliezer (“A few seconds of thought should convince you this is obviously false”, or something, but I can’t seem to find the link).
Women don’t like explicit discussion of social reality (and this is the only possible objection to PUA discussion here).
The discussion you found in another comment, this’n is the one I had in mind. The original post was edited, however, initially it said something much closer to what clarissethorn is reacting to.
This comment thread features a few posts wherein it seems I or someone else will say “this isn’t about explicit analysis” and the response will be “of course not, but really it is.”
So, uh. In conclusion? I think that these are views / traps that have at least a small but non-negligible presence here, that are difficult to think rationally about, that we should be aware of, denounce, and oppose rather than deny when we’re discussing PUA and explicit social reality (which is a thing that we should do).
I apologize for the long and rambling post, I hope I have expressed myself clearly and accurately. And I apologize as well if I am mistaken! I realize that the emotional coloration of the facts effects me as well, but I don’t think I’m completely deluded about this. I’m glad we can have a reasonable meta-discussion about this! Thanks.
Things should be called “manipulatory” because they are bad, things should not be called “bad” because they are manipulatory.
Like, for example, “with women, you have to pretend that they don’t have cheat codes (unlike with us tough-minded rational men)”, or “bayes tells us we should all bang hot chicks”.
A google search for each of those phrases only found your comment; you should provide links.
Untruths differ in plausibility, and it is expected that someone “taking sides” in an argument speak dishonestly to put one side in the best light. The reason I feel almost no negative reactions to your statements like this while others such as wedrifid does is not that I think them more plausible than he does, but that I think they are transparently exaggerations by an advocate. You have broken free of something like the uncanny valley, such that I think your statements barely imply they are what a neutral observer might think. I say this to be upfront because you might not think this a respectful reason for not feeling disagreement. That last sentence doesn’t say what I want it to but I can’t figure out how to say what I mean, I hope you can figure it out.
some areas of the field are overtly misogynistic, some techniques are problematic WRT consent
1) People mean different things by “the field of PU”, so it’s helpful to be explicit and at least name the area.
2) Techniques don’t have the property of being problematic, being problematic is a relationship between the technique and a value system. If you aren’t trusted by someone to know their value system, and they don’t know your value system, those kinds of accusations are of limited use, so the technique should be explicitly described, its problem explained (if it isn’t obvious), and its link to PUA established. All of this can be done by providing a citation, so the work is in finding it, but it spares you the trouble of having to paraphrase it accurately. At least name the technique.
I think your generalizations about PU are useful and better than nothing or even most things for an understanding of it, but not great, with about the same relationship to PU that PU has to women.
I think I’m fairly tolerant of your intolerance of intolerance, as well as PUA’s intolerance. This might make me inconsistent, as against other guys who are intolerant of intolerance of intolerance, though I doubt it. But I don’t have a problem with the community’s relationship with PUA (I consider myself part of this community and not that one, rather than the other way around, or neither, or both), it’s good enough by my value system, and I feel motivated to defend that value system much more than PU.
It seems that manipulation is, approximately, influence that you “would prefer not to go along with” in a CEV-ish sense.
What you prefer is a property not just of you, but of your environment. What you’d prefer to prefer is a property not just of you, but of your environment. What you’d prefer to prefer to prefer...If I’m looking at a hungry kitten, I have different preferences than if I’m in a crowded bus, or reading a paper about meta-morality. To privilege where I happen to be seems arbitrary, in any case it means my CEV from minute to minute would be subject to vast swings due to the butterfly effect (I think).
I have said (in a comment elsewhere in the internet that I can’t find) that there is a continuum—but not one with influence and manipulation as its poles. Rather, to get one’s interlocutor’s molecules into a state accepting a proposition, there is a continuum between influencing someone with level speech and feeding them to a child and teaching the child the proposition is true, and that these aren’t different in kind. Manipulation with drugs or body language or torture or verbal intonation etc. are each more to the middle of that scale, some practically next to influence! So I, for one, can’t be said to ignore an important difference between influence and manipulation except when convenient for political purposes, whatever else one might say about me!
I think the answer has to do with fully understanding the nature of hypothetical alternatives, and very little to do with understanding utility functions. I don’t know how to do it, but the present is a single place and the best hope for non-arbitrariness, however difficult it is to make it non-arbitrary from a moral perspective. Utility functions are maps of map-makers, ignorance compounded upon ignorance, not a platonic form to aspire to. Somehow reality has to be specially important, the reality in which I’d pay the same to save 1,000 birds as 1,000,000, etc.
Like, for example, “with women, you have to pretend that they don’t have cheat codes (unlike with us tough-minded rational men)”
It’s not obvious that what you added in the parentheticals is actually meant, though it may be. Imagine the following conversation:
PUA: “With women, you have to pretend that they don’t have cheat codes.”
LW Feminist: “Women and men are equally rational!”
PUA:”I’m not bisexual!”
LWF:”I didn’t say you were!”
PUA:”Well I didn’t say women were less rational than men!”
LWF:”You implied it by only mentioning the rationality, or lack of it, in women!”
PUA:”You implied it! I’m talking about how to use social cues and biases to sleep with people. People, meaning women!”
I recently figured out how to keep dog owners from picking up their dogs or pulling them away from me when I’m out walking my pit bull. I had been having little luck at all with “He’s friendly.” “He doesn’t bite, he’s never bitten anyone!” etc. Yet my new method, inspired by PUA, almost never fails. I say “Is your dog friendly?” while holding back my dag as if I were protecting him. This works astoundingly well, even with people walking tiny yorkies! Now my dog can get to have social interactions with nearly all other dogs we come across. I change the other person’s frame of reference from “Is that large-jawed monster going to eat my dog/me?” to “Is my dog qualified to interact with that dog, or is its personality not good enough?” If I make it all about whether or not they are good enough, so they forget to ask themselves if I am good enough, is this wrong? How would speaking by uttering reassurances or choosing not to speak be more neutral than using the “dark arts”? Saying nothing isn’t doing nothing, and something must be done, and being as underhanded as I am, no more no less, is working out for me.
PUA is obviously a very ‘political’ topic on LW, and I expect that many readers / posters have initial reactions along the lines of “this is icky and I don’t care to examine any further”, “it is obviously bad to try to ‘fake’ charisma if you’re not inherently charismatic like me”, “anyone who has a problem with this hates me personally”… that sort of thing.
I don’t necessarily think these or the comments in my earlier post are majority positions on LessWrong. I do think that there is a problematic component to some aspects of PUA (some areas of the field are overtly misogynistic, some techniques are problematic WRT consent), but the most common issue I’ve seen here is in failing to acknowledge that these are real problems. So it’s less “these are what LW believes about PUA”, and more “there are some dangerous meme-strains related to PUA that we should be careful about, and here are some ways in which they have struck”.
Here is one relevant discussion. This is more specifically the sort of thing I’m talking about.
It seems that manipulation is, approximately, influence that you “would prefer not to go along with” in a CEV-ish sense. I would expect that a generally held belief that this is a useless distinction would motivate criticisms of CEV along the same lines. The specificity of the confusion seems too conveniently self-serving.
This was, admittedly, a one-off remark that was denounced by none other than Eliezer (“A few seconds of thought should convince you this is obviously false”, or something, but I can’t seem to find the link).
The discussion you found in another comment, this’n is the one I had in mind. The original post was edited, however, initially it said something much closer to what clarissethorn is reacting to.
This comment thread features a few posts wherein it seems I or someone else will say “this isn’t about explicit analysis” and the response will be “of course not, but really it is.”
So, uh. In conclusion? I think that these are views / traps that have at least a small but non-negligible presence here, that are difficult to think rationally about, that we should be aware of, denounce, and oppose rather than deny when we’re discussing PUA and explicit social reality (which is a thing that we should do).
I apologize for the long and rambling post, I hope I have expressed myself clearly and accurately. And I apologize as well if I am mistaken! I realize that the emotional coloration of the facts effects me as well, but I don’t think I’m completely deluded about this. I’m glad we can have a reasonable meta-discussion about this! Thanks.
“Manipulate” isn’t a useless term. “Manipulatory” is a useless category, or as the other guy said, not a “natural kind”.
I communicate, you influence, he manipulates.
Things should be called “manipulatory” because they are bad, things should not be called “bad” because they are manipulatory.
A google search for each of those phrases only found your comment; you should provide links.
Untruths differ in plausibility, and it is expected that someone “taking sides” in an argument speak dishonestly to put one side in the best light. The reason I feel almost no negative reactions to your statements like this while others such as wedrifid does is not that I think them more plausible than he does, but that I think they are transparently exaggerations by an advocate. You have broken free of something like the uncanny valley, such that I think your statements barely imply they are what a neutral observer might think. I say this to be upfront because you might not think this a respectful reason for not feeling disagreement. That last sentence doesn’t say what I want it to but I can’t figure out how to say what I mean, I hope you can figure it out.
1) People mean different things by “the field of PU”, so it’s helpful to be explicit and at least name the area. 2) Techniques don’t have the property of being problematic, being problematic is a relationship between the technique and a value system. If you aren’t trusted by someone to know their value system, and they don’t know your value system, those kinds of accusations are of limited use, so the technique should be explicitly described, its problem explained (if it isn’t obvious), and its link to PUA established. All of this can be done by providing a citation, so the work is in finding it, but it spares you the trouble of having to paraphrase it accurately. At least name the technique.
I think your generalizations about PU are useful and better than nothing or even most things for an understanding of it, but not great, with about the same relationship to PU that PU has to women.
I think I’m fairly tolerant of your intolerance of intolerance, as well as PUA’s intolerance. This might make me inconsistent, as against other guys who are intolerant of intolerance of intolerance, though I doubt it. But I don’t have a problem with the community’s relationship with PUA (I consider myself part of this community and not that one, rather than the other way around, or neither, or both), it’s good enough by my value system, and I feel motivated to defend that value system much more than PU.
What you prefer is a property not just of you, but of your environment. What you’d prefer to prefer is a property not just of you, but of your environment. What you’d prefer to prefer to prefer...If I’m looking at a hungry kitten, I have different preferences than if I’m in a crowded bus, or reading a paper about meta-morality. To privilege where I happen to be seems arbitrary, in any case it means my CEV from minute to minute would be subject to vast swings due to the butterfly effect (I think).
I have said (in a comment elsewhere in the internet that I can’t find) that there is a continuum—but not one with influence and manipulation as its poles. Rather, to get one’s interlocutor’s molecules into a state accepting a proposition, there is a continuum between influencing someone with level speech and feeding them to a child and teaching the child the proposition is true, and that these aren’t different in kind. Manipulation with drugs or body language or torture or verbal intonation etc. are each more to the middle of that scale, some practically next to influence! So I, for one, can’t be said to ignore an important difference between influence and manipulation except when convenient for political purposes, whatever else one might say about me!
I think the answer has to do with fully understanding the nature of hypothetical alternatives, and very little to do with understanding utility functions. I don’t know how to do it, but the present is a single place and the best hope for non-arbitrariness, however difficult it is to make it non-arbitrary from a moral perspective. Utility functions are maps of map-makers, ignorance compounded upon ignorance, not a platonic form to aspire to. Somehow reality has to be specially important, the reality in which I’d pay the same to save 1,000 birds as 1,000,000, etc.
It’s not obvious that what you added in the parentheticals is actually meant, though it may be. Imagine the following conversation:
PUA: “With women, you have to pretend that they don’t have cheat codes.” LW Feminist: “Women and men are equally rational!” PUA:”I’m not bisexual!” LWF:”I didn’t say you were!” PUA:”Well I didn’t say women were less rational than men!” LWF:”You implied it by only mentioning the rationality, or lack of it, in women!” PUA:”You implied it! I’m talking about how to use social cues and biases to sleep with people. People, meaning women!”
I recently figured out how to keep dog owners from picking up their dogs or pulling them away from me when I’m out walking my pit bull. I had been having little luck at all with “He’s friendly.” “He doesn’t bite, he’s never bitten anyone!” etc. Yet my new method, inspired by PUA, almost never fails. I say “Is your dog friendly?” while holding back my dag as if I were protecting him. This works astoundingly well, even with people walking tiny yorkies! Now my dog can get to have social interactions with nearly all other dogs we come across. I change the other person’s frame of reference from “Is that large-jawed monster going to eat my dog/me?” to “Is my dog qualified to interact with that dog, or is its personality not good enough?” If I make it all about whether or not they are good enough, so they forget to ask themselves if I am good enough, is this wrong? How would speaking by uttering reassurances or choosing not to speak be more neutral than using the “dark arts”? Saying nothing isn’t doing nothing, and something must be done, and being as underhanded as I am, no more no less, is working out for me.