It jarred me too, but I don’t like to point out factor-of-two mistakes in arguments relying on orders-of-magnitude differences because this.
(Well, that may be problematic for different reasons too, but I was stunned speechless by the fact that a discussion mentioning rape had managed not to mindkill anybody thus far, and was afraid that calling that out could break the spell.)
It’s also a society in which an equivalent number have to suffer being raped.
I’m a little bit appalled to find a line of argument here that implies that only men are people!
The problem with letting yourself be distracted by that kind of phrasing, is that you spend so much time crusading for Right Thinking that you never get to make your actual point. Clever debaters will notice this, and will start deliberately trolling you just to see how many times they can derail you.
Also, declaring that only men are people is a statement of value, not a statement of fact. Oftentimes, when you find someone whose values you disagree with, it is more fruitful to take their value system as given and find discongruities WITHIN it, or discongruities between that value system and the behavior of the person espousing it, than it is to merely declare that you are appalled by that value system.
First, it might well be that fubarobfusco does not believe that your value system actually embeds the idea that only men are people, and therefore your suggestion about what is more fruitful to do when such a value conflict arises might not seem apposite to them. They might have instead been (as they said) objecting to the implications of the line of argument itself.
Second, do you mean to imply that fubarobfusco was actually allowing themselves to be derailed/distracted from something in this case? Or are you just expressing your concern that they might hypothetically be in some other, similar, case? (Or is this just an indirect way of suggesting that their comment was inappropriate for other reasons?)
EDIT: army1987 just explained better. Feel free to TL;DR the rest of this post and most of my previous one.
Hmm. English lacks distinction between specific and generic ‘you’. :(
I was trying to describe my own thought processes when I chose to continue the “suffer the indignity of having their wives raped” line, rather than challenge it in the typical gender-crusader fashion. (Also, I suspected that jaime2000 was stating that line hyperbolically in any case—Poe’s Law is tricky that way.)
While I agree with gender equality goals myself, displaying that I am appalled at someone else’s disregard for gender equality has an opportunity cost that I didn’t want to pay at the time, and wasn’t likely to achieve the results that one normally hopes for when performing that display. Lesswrong doesn’t seem to be the sort of place where shaming and rallying tactics work, nor do I want it to be. So I’ll try to treat people’s positions courteously as long as their positions don’t seem actively disingenuous.
When I saw fubarobfusco’s post, I read it as a shaming/rallying tactic for ‘my side’, which I felt a minor social obligation to respond to. Rather than falling into line, I decided to explain my dissent.
Also, I suspected that jaime2000 was stating that line hyperbolically in any case
Me too, but I was too lazy to try to guesstimate whether I was right (e.g. by looking at jaime2000′s contribution history) and so I didn’t even mention that.
It’s also a society in which an equivalent number have to suffer being raped.
I’m a little bit appalled to find a line of argument here that implies that only men are people!
It jarred me too, but I don’t like to point out factor-of-two mistakes in arguments relying on orders-of-magnitude differences because this.
(Well, that may be problematic for different reasons too, but I was stunned speechless by the fact that a discussion mentioning rape had managed not to mindkill anybody thus far, and was afraid that calling that out could break the spell.)
Scratch everything I just said, army1987 just summed up my position far more succinctly than I did.
EDIT: Really?
The problem with letting yourself be distracted by that kind of phrasing, is that you spend so much time crusading for Right Thinking that you never get to make your actual point. Clever debaters will notice this, and will start deliberately trolling you just to see how many times they can derail you.
Also, declaring that only men are people is a statement of value, not a statement of fact. Oftentimes, when you find someone whose values you disagree with, it is more fruitful to take their value system as given and find discongruities WITHIN it, or discongruities between that value system and the behavior of the person espousing it, than it is to merely declare that you are appalled by that value system.
Couple of things.
First, it might well be that fubarobfusco does not believe that your value system actually embeds the idea that only men are people, and therefore your suggestion about what is more fruitful to do when such a value conflict arises might not seem apposite to them. They might have instead been (as they said) objecting to the implications of the line of argument itself.
Second, do you mean to imply that fubarobfusco was actually allowing themselves to be derailed/distracted from something in this case? Or are you just expressing your concern that they might hypothetically be in some other, similar, case? (Or is this just an indirect way of suggesting that their comment was inappropriate for other reasons?)
EDIT: army1987 just explained better. Feel free to TL;DR the rest of this post and most of my previous one.
Hmm. English lacks distinction between specific and generic ‘you’. :(
I was trying to describe my own thought processes when I chose to continue the “suffer the indignity of having their wives raped” line, rather than challenge it in the typical gender-crusader fashion. (Also, I suspected that jaime2000 was stating that line hyperbolically in any case—Poe’s Law is tricky that way.)
While I agree with gender equality goals myself, displaying that I am appalled at someone else’s disregard for gender equality has an opportunity cost that I didn’t want to pay at the time, and wasn’t likely to achieve the results that one normally hopes for when performing that display. Lesswrong doesn’t seem to be the sort of place where shaming and rallying tactics work, nor do I want it to be. So I’ll try to treat people’s positions courteously as long as their positions don’t seem actively disingenuous.
When I saw fubarobfusco’s post, I read it as a shaming/rallying tactic for ‘my side’, which I felt a minor social obligation to respond to. Rather than falling into line, I decided to explain my dissent.
You can use “one” for the latter.
Ah, I see. Thanks for the explanation.
Me too, but I was too lazy to try to guesstimate whether I was right (e.g. by looking at jaime2000′s contribution history) and so I didn’t even mention that.