I’m hoping that people here have gotten enough stronger that my rather non-contentious handling of this subject doesn’t lead to a blow-up. So far, it hasn’t.
If it is indeed the case that, as you suggest, spelling out the truth on these topics requires breaking strong taboos, then there’s a third failure mode, where LessWrongers actually succeed at spelling out the taboo truth, and this causes the site to be pegged as a hate site and lose influence on the cold-button topics that actually matter.
If it’s a choice between 1) don’t talk about these issues and risk forgoing some minor novel insights on a topic that affects most people’s life decisions only very indirectly, 2) talk about these issues in an inoffensive way and risk creating a false consensus of the kind you describe, 3) talk about these issues in an offensive way and risk becoming a hate site (as well as presumably having more blowups), I really would much rather choose 1.
If you’re mistaken and we can be both non-taboo and accurate, then wanting to have the discussion becomes more reasonable. But many people don’t seem to think you’re mistaken, and I don’t understand why these people aren’t helping me root for option 1.
If it’s a choice between 1) don’t talk about these issues and risk forgoing some minor novel insights on a topic that affects most people’s life decisions only very indirectly, 2) talk about these issues in an inoffensive way and risk creating a false consensus of the kind you describe, 3) talk about these issues in an offensive way and risk becoming a hate site (as well as presumably having more blowups), I really would much rather choose 1.
I remember we once had a disagreement about this, but in the meantime I have moved closer to your view.
Basically, the problem is that the idea of a general forum that attempts to apply no-holds-barred rational thinking to all sorts of sundry topics is unworkable. It will either lead to people questioning all kinds of high-status ideological beliefs and purveyors of official truth, thus giving the forum a wacky extremist reputation (and inevitably generating a lot of ugly quarrels in the process) -- or it will converge towards ersatz “rationality” that incorporates all the biases inherent to the contemporary respectable high-status beliefs and institutions as its integral part. What is needed to salvage the situation is a clear statement of what constitutes on-topic discussion, and ruthlessly principled policing of off-topic content no matter what positions it advocates.
But many people don’t seem to think you’re mistaken, and I don’t understand why these people aren’t helping me root for option 1.
Basically, it’s the ersatz rationality failure mode. People simply assume that the principal contemporary high-status beliefs and institutions are, if somewhat imperfect, still based on rational thinking to a sufficient degree that a rational discussion free of delusion and malice simply cannot result in any really terrible conclusions. So I do think most people think I’m mistaken. (Even if they see some validity in my concerns, they presumably believe that I’m exaggerating either the ugliness of reality or the ideological closed-mindedness and intolerance of the respectable opinion.)
I disagree, however, with your characterization of option (1) as “forgoing some minor novel insights on a topic that affects most people’s life decisions only very indirectly.” There is plenty of low-hanging fruit in terms of insight from applying unbiased thinking to issues where the respectable opinion is severely delusional. Also, any topic that is truly important for people’s life decisions, and where accurate knowledge is of high practical value, is highly likely to involve at least some issues where respectable platitudes and effective advice will be very remote from each other, and no-nonsense talk will be against the social norms.
I object to your use of “questioning” here, because it has become ambiguous. I suppose you mean “espousing low-status opinions as the result of questioning”.
ruthlessly principled policing of off-topic content
Notice how and why nothing like this has been necessary for traditional politics. People post political manifestos and are often told both that the content is inappropriate because of its subject and that they have made specific severe errors of thought. I don’t remember a case in which the political poster kept pushing and ultimately only the first response was given, because it isn’t really true, it’s just that if content is political, the outside view is that it is flawed.
the idea of a general forum that attempts to apply no-holds-barred rational thinking to all sorts of sundry topics is unworkable.
The point of the forum is to develop thinking techniques that are useful because they can be widely applicable. Apolitical examples are part of the training, but eventually one only cares about applying the system of thought when it reaches correct conclusions that otherwise would not have been reached, and it will inevitably deviate from what other systems would conclude.
Allow me to float an idea: post a disclaimer on the site that as a test and to prevent cultishness, one (or perhaps a few) deceptively wrong idea (wrong as unanimously agreed upon by a number of demonstrably masterful people) is advocated as if it were the mainstream opinion here, and aspiring rationalists are expected to reach the unpopular (here) opinion. The masters—most,but not all of them—argue for the popular (here) opinion that is low-status in society. Anyone who objects that an aspect of the site has a plurality of evilly inclined and majority of wrongly thinking people on a topic (say, PUA) can be told that that subject is suspected to be the (or one of the) ones on which the best thinkers not only disagree with the local majority opinion, but do so unanimously.
It goes without saying that...well, it really does go without saying, so I won’t say it.
College physics professor gives a weekly lecture. Toward the end of the first day, a student in the first row points out an elementary mistake in one of the equations. Prof congratulates the student, announces that every day there will be an error in the lecture. The midterm and final exams will consist of a list of lecture dates, and the only way to pass a given question is to point out the error in the corresponding day’s lecture.
Prof gets into progressively more complex subjects. Everybody takes good notes. After the final, that student from the front row visits the prof’s office, apologetically explains that nobody could figure out the mistake in the last lecture. Prof says “That’s alright, I can’t either.”
Basically, the problem is that the idea of a general forum that attempts to apply no-holds-barred rational thinking to all sorts of sundry topics is unworkable.
What’s scarier, the idea of a conceptual apparatus that attempts to apply no-holds-barred rational thinking to all sorts of sundry topics may to an extent be unworkable. If the deniers of high-status-falsehood-1 all started using some catchy phrase (of the sort that LW has lots of), and then the deniers of high-status-falsehood-2 started using that phrase too, both would start smelling like the other and seem crazier for it. (This is one of the considerations that make me not want to try getting around these restrictions with pseudonyms.) On the other hand, of course, there are a number of concepts to fall back on that basically can’t be corrupted because they’re used all the time by e.g. probability theorists obviously lacking any agenda.
I disagree, however, with your characterization of option (1) as “forgoing some minor novel insights on a topic that affects most people’s life decisions only very indirectly.”
When I said that, I was thinking of the “do women like nice guys or jerks” question specifically. I wouldn’t say politically-charged topics hardly affect people’s lives as a blanket statement, though I think it’s true in a great many cases. But your reading was the more natural one and I apologize for being unclear.
There is plenty of low-hanging fruit in terms of insight from applying unbiased thinking to issues where the respectable opinion is severely delusional.
It’s really hard to actually know when the “respectable” opinion is severely delusional… and even if the consensus view is indeed totally wrong, most minority opinions are usually even wronger than that. Saying the Sun orbits the Earth is much less crazy that saying that the Sun orbits the Moon half the time and Mars the other half of the time.
It’s really hard to actually know when the “respectable” opinion is severely delusional…
I disagree. Of course, it’s hard to know this with consistent reliability across the board, but there are plenty of particular cases where this is perfectly clear. Many of these cases don’t even involve topics that are ideologically charged to such extremes that contrarian conclusions would be outright scandalous. (Though of course the purveyors of the respectable opinion and the officially accredited truth wouldn’t be pleased, and certainly wouldn’t be willing to accept the contrarian discourse as legitimate.)
To give a concrete example, it is clear that, say, mainstream economics falls into this latter category.
Just watch out that when you say “The experts on X are wrong; don’t believe them” that you aren’t telling people to sell nonapples. “Don’t believe in YHVH” doesn’t mean that you should go believe in Zenu.
I don’t mean rejecting the mainstream view in favor of some existing contrarian position—of which the majority are indeed unavoidably wrong, no matter what the merits of the mainstream view—but merely applying the very basic tools of common sense and rational thinking to see if the justification for the mainstream view can stand up to scrutiny. My point is that often the mainstream view fails as soon as it’s checked against the elementary laws of logic and the most basic and uncontroversial principles of sound epistemology. It really isn’t hard.
I have to second that. NancyLebovitz comes across as positively sane and relaxing to converse with (and read) - a valuable and somewhat rare trait in this subject area.
Blowups seem like they can be quite damaging even if they occur only a fraction of the time. Even without blowups, there’s still the waste of space and collective attention. As I see it, the recent comments page is to some extent a commons that a minority of LWers are tempted to spend on their pet topic, and that a majority of LWers would like to see spent on topics more directly related to the site’s theme, but the minority is here in the thread voting and the majority is not.
On the other hand, the vote numbers here are extreme enough that I find them surprising. Should I conclude that, as a community, we’ve decided to stop having on-topic and anti-mind-killing norms? Or is it the way I said it?
This fails to address the comment it’s replying to:
Blowups seem like they can be quite damaging even if they occur only a fraction of the time. Even without blowups, there’s still the waste of space and collective attention.
I’m not sure why you got so many downvotes—I’m not one of the people who supplied them.
Since “women prefer jerks” is something which is commonly believed but which may not have a lot of evidence supporting it (especially if ‘women’ isn’t quantified and ‘jerks’ isn’t defined), I don’t think it’s off-topic to discuss it.
something which is commonly believed but which may not have a lot of evidence supporting it
That could describe anyone’s pet issue.
What topics would you like to see more of?
The math, psychology, philosophy, and economics of rationality, careful futurism, the singularity, existential risks, optimal philanthropy, strategies for rationalists and their organizations, considerations relevant to common life decisions that human biases cause to be ignored elsewhere or that benefit unusually from using our conceptual tools.
Since “women prefer jerks” is something which is commonly believed
I disagree insofar as it’s not obvious what that phrase means. Assuming everyone who believes “it” actually has beliefs that provide predictions, it’s not obvious that those believers make common predictions.
I think the phrase stands in for widely varying sets of different actual beliefs, rather than either meaning just one sort of thing or usually being just emotive, but I don’t believe that too firmly.
I’m surprised this comment was made and is so highly upvoted because it doesn’t meet your usual standards.
Specifically, the context is “it’s not obvious what that phrase means. Assuming everyone who believes “it” actually has beliefs that provide predictions, it’s not obvious that those believers make common predictions,” and you responded with a paraphrase that I believe is close to the truest meaning of the phrase. Some problems:
It’s not obvious what your comment’s function is. You probably meant to assert at least that this is a true and near truest interpretation of the phrase. The context is my assertion that people mean different things by the phrase, do you (also) mean to imply that people using it are generally using it accurately?
“On average” isn’t specific enough.
You missed saying the truer, deeper pattern behind the true statement, the {6, 6, 6, 6, 6, …}, though it isn’t something implied by the phrase. That deeper truth is that it is behaviors indicating high status that are attractive. Usually these are “selfish and aggressive”, not showing concern with others’ standards, but conspicuous vulnerability/non high-status behavior also shows high status by ignoring opportunities to display high status with selfishness and aggression. See e.g. John Mayer.
I’m surprised this comment was made and is so highly upvoted because it doesn’t meet your usual standards.
I, surprisingly enough, disagree. In the context of casual conversation the meaning is well enough understood. Normal people having conversations don’t use precise technical terms but they get along fine—and often wouldn’t even understand the formal and precise terminology very well anyway.
It just isn’t reasonable to dismiss “‘women prefer jerks’ is something which is commonly believed” as undefined.
Mind you I myself don’t particularly find the “women prefer jerks” belief to be all that useful (or even necessarily have an opinion on just how common the belief is). It just isn’t the most practical foundation on which to self-improve (even though it does work for some). Myself I recommend “quit being a pussy” alongside the kind of deeper insight that you allude to in “3.”
I still a not sure if you are asserting that the phrase “women prefer jerks” has a single, commonly understood meaning among everyone, or among men, or what.
Normal people having conversations don’t use precise technical terms but they get along fine—and often wouldn’t even understand the formal and precise terminology very well anyway.
Their understanding of formal terminology is barely relevant. If a someone says that their printer “is shit”, I want to know if they mean that it burns through ink cartridges, jams frequently, prints with low quality, or what. I am unsure as to what an informal phrasing means, specifically I am unsure about the extent to which it means the same thing to different people. I’m not blaming people for being informal, I’m questioning how much agreement there can be among the people around hundreds of thousands of water coolers in the world when such an imprecise phrase is used. That around any individual water cooler people communicate well enough is not in doubt.
It just isn’t reasonable to dismiss “‘women prefer jerks’ is something which is commonly believed” as undefined.
It’s not being dismissed, it’s being partitioned according to my best estimation of what its speakers and listeners actually mean. There are probably different meanings because the phrase is not very specific.
Meta-statements about something like “the belief shared by people who believe this statement is true” are being dismissed.
If we must have these sorts of conversations could we while doing so please refrain from using terms for female genitalia as negative descriptors? Although the linked SMBC is amusing thist really doesn’t help keeping things calm or help the signal to noise ratio.
Terms meaning cat have been slang for the female genitalia in more than one language, or so The Great Cat Massacre claims about “le chatte” in French, at any rate..
Huh. Interesting. I did not realize what the etymology of that word was. The fact that it is used almost exclusively to target males rather than females suggests that there’s been some etymological bleed over.
Huh. Interesting. I did not realize what the etymology of that word was. The fact that it is used almost exclusively to target males rather than females suggests that there’s been some etymological bleed over.
The fact that it is used almost exclusively to target males rather than females suggests that there’s been some etymological bleed over.
While I don’t doubt that there has been some bleed over, I am not sure this is actually suggestive of it; typical gender roles would have “pampered” or “soft” also be seen as more negative when directed at a male, and I don’t think there is any related bleeding going on there.
I prefer to avoid them, for approximately this reason.
Although the linked SMBC is amusing thist really doesn’t help keeping things calm or help the signal to noise ratio.
Objecting to the use of unsophisticated terms is one thing—it would be pointless to argue with that. But if you are moving to a claim about “signal to noise ratio” then you are simply wrong. The signal there is extremely important.
I think the comment is being upvoted in the context of it being a translation of the claim, not in the context of it being an assertion that the claim is true.
I don’t find “do women dig jerks?” particularly mind-killing, or at least, not here (much less than the ethics of PUA, political parties, elections, welfare, taxes, Occupy Wall Street, race and intelligence, Israel and Palestine …); I don’t have strong opinions on the issue, and hearing someone speak on that topic doesn’t allow me to categorize them into a clearly-defined group.
I can’t clearly see any “sides” on the issue (two possible sides are of course “women are stupid and dig jerks so I hate them” and “anybody who criticizes women is stupid”, but I’m not seeing either of those here, the sides are more “it’s complicated” and “it’s not that simple”).
There’s no “that” for it to be either that simple or not that simple.
(Implicit modifier A) women (implicit modifier B) dig (whatever that means exactly) jerks (whatever that means exactly).
Modifier A can be “all”, or “most”, or “the most attractive ones”, or whatever.
Modifier B can be “most days of the week”, “most years of their lives”, or whatever.
“Dig” can mean “prefer ceteris paribus”, “will only have one night stands with”, “will stay with them even if the guy hits them”, “strongly prefer at all times”, “prefer for all types of relationships”, or whatever.
“Jerks” can mean “people who are more assertive than average”, “people who try and make them feel bad about themselves”, “people who have killed a man”, “people who wear motorcycle jackets”, “people who frequently brag”, or whatever.
“Women dig jerks” provides an opportunity to construct an obviously (or not obviously) true or false meaning to something other people say, depending on how right or wrong one wants them to be. It allows room to always easily be able to interpret an interlocutor’s words to mean that they are innately evil or hopelessly misguided.
That said, people actually do disagree on the substance of the issue.
Why would anyone so disagree? If this topic isn’t off-topic and mind-killing, is there any topic that is?
I would say yes. I mean, it’s clearly on topic relative the main post, and if instrumental rationality is going to be one of the focuses of the site, then “on topic” for top level posts is necessarily going to be pretty broad.
As for mind-killing, there are certainly topics I think it’s harder to hold a productive conversation on.
I think a comment can be off-topic even though it’s on-topic relative to the main post and the main post is itself on-topic. I’m also worried that people are using too broad a definition of “instrumental rationality”.
I’m hoping that people here have gotten enough stronger that my rather non-contentious handling of this subject doesn’t lead to a blow-up. So far, it hasn’t.
Trouble is, blow-ups are in fact the less bad failure mode in discussions of this sort. A much less bad one.
If it is indeed the case that, as you suggest, spelling out the truth on these topics requires breaking strong taboos, then there’s a third failure mode, where LessWrongers actually succeed at spelling out the taboo truth, and this causes the site to be pegged as a hate site and lose influence on the cold-button topics that actually matter.
If it’s a choice between 1) don’t talk about these issues and risk forgoing some minor novel insights on a topic that affects most people’s life decisions only very indirectly, 2) talk about these issues in an inoffensive way and risk creating a false consensus of the kind you describe, 3) talk about these issues in an offensive way and risk becoming a hate site (as well as presumably having more blowups), I really would much rather choose 1.
If you’re mistaken and we can be both non-taboo and accurate, then wanting to have the discussion becomes more reasonable. But many people don’t seem to think you’re mistaken, and I don’t understand why these people aren’t helping me root for option 1.
I remember we once had a disagreement about this, but in the meantime I have moved closer to your view.
Basically, the problem is that the idea of a general forum that attempts to apply no-holds-barred rational thinking to all sorts of sundry topics is unworkable. It will either lead to people questioning all kinds of high-status ideological beliefs and purveyors of official truth, thus giving the forum a wacky extremist reputation (and inevitably generating a lot of ugly quarrels in the process) -- or it will converge towards ersatz “rationality” that incorporates all the biases inherent to the contemporary respectable high-status beliefs and institutions as its integral part. What is needed to salvage the situation is a clear statement of what constitutes on-topic discussion, and ruthlessly principled policing of off-topic content no matter what positions it advocates.
Basically, it’s the ersatz rationality failure mode. People simply assume that the principal contemporary high-status beliefs and institutions are, if somewhat imperfect, still based on rational thinking to a sufficient degree that a rational discussion free of delusion and malice simply cannot result in any really terrible conclusions. So I do think most people think I’m mistaken. (Even if they see some validity in my concerns, they presumably believe that I’m exaggerating either the ugliness of reality or the ideological closed-mindedness and intolerance of the respectable opinion.)
I disagree, however, with your characterization of option (1) as “forgoing some minor novel insights on a topic that affects most people’s life decisions only very indirectly.” There is plenty of low-hanging fruit in terms of insight from applying unbiased thinking to issues where the respectable opinion is severely delusional. Also, any topic that is truly important for people’s life decisions, and where accurate knowledge is of high practical value, is highly likely to involve at least some issues where respectable platitudes and effective advice will be very remote from each other, and no-nonsense talk will be against the social norms.
I object to your use of “questioning” here, because it has become ambiguous. I suppose you mean “espousing low-status opinions as the result of questioning”.
Notice how and why nothing like this has been necessary for traditional politics. People post political manifestos and are often told both that the content is inappropriate because of its subject and that they have made specific severe errors of thought. I don’t remember a case in which the political poster kept pushing and ultimately only the first response was given, because it isn’t really true, it’s just that if content is political, the outside view is that it is flawed.
The point of the forum is to develop thinking techniques that are useful because they can be widely applicable. Apolitical examples are part of the training, but eventually one only cares about applying the system of thought when it reaches correct conclusions that otherwise would not have been reached, and it will inevitably deviate from what other systems would conclude.
Allow me to float an idea: post a disclaimer on the site that as a test and to prevent cultishness, one (or perhaps a few) deceptively wrong idea (wrong as unanimously agreed upon by a number of demonstrably masterful people) is advocated as if it were the mainstream opinion here, and aspiring rationalists are expected to reach the unpopular (here) opinion. The masters—most,but not all of them—argue for the popular (here) opinion that is low-status in society. Anyone who objects that an aspect of the site has a plurality of evilly inclined and majority of wrongly thinking people on a topic (say, PUA) can be told that that subject is suspected to be the (or one of the) ones on which the best thinkers not only disagree with the local majority opinion, but do so unanimously.
It goes without saying that...well, it really does go without saying, so I won’t say it.
College physics professor gives a weekly lecture. Toward the end of the first day, a student in the first row points out an elementary mistake in one of the equations. Prof congratulates the student, announces that every day there will be an error in the lecture. The midterm and final exams will consist of a list of lecture dates, and the only way to pass a given question is to point out the error in the corresponding day’s lecture.
Prof gets into progressively more complex subjects. Everybody takes good notes. After the final, that student from the front row visits the prof’s office, apologetically explains that nobody could figure out the mistake in the last lecture. Prof says “That’s alright, I can’t either.”
What’s scarier, the idea of a conceptual apparatus that attempts to apply no-holds-barred rational thinking to all sorts of sundry topics may to an extent be unworkable. If the deniers of high-status-falsehood-1 all started using some catchy phrase (of the sort that LW has lots of), and then the deniers of high-status-falsehood-2 started using that phrase too, both would start smelling like the other and seem crazier for it. (This is one of the considerations that make me not want to try getting around these restrictions with pseudonyms.) On the other hand, of course, there are a number of concepts to fall back on that basically can’t be corrupted because they’re used all the time by e.g. probability theorists obviously lacking any agenda.
When I said that, I was thinking of the “do women like nice guys or jerks” question specifically. I wouldn’t say politically-charged topics hardly affect people’s lives as a blanket statement, though I think it’s true in a great many cases. But your reading was the more natural one and I apologize for being unclear.
It’s really hard to actually know when the “respectable” opinion is severely delusional… and even if the consensus view is indeed totally wrong, most minority opinions are usually even wronger than that. Saying the Sun orbits the Earth is much less crazy that saying that the Sun orbits the Moon half the time and Mars the other half of the time.
See also.
I disagree. Of course, it’s hard to know this with consistent reliability across the board, but there are plenty of particular cases where this is perfectly clear. Many of these cases don’t even involve topics that are ideologically charged to such extremes that contrarian conclusions would be outright scandalous. (Though of course the purveyors of the respectable opinion and the officially accredited truth wouldn’t be pleased, and certainly wouldn’t be willing to accept the contrarian discourse as legitimate.)
To give a concrete example, it is clear that, say, mainstream economics falls into this latter category.
Just watch out that when you say “The experts on X are wrong; don’t believe them” that you aren’t telling people to sell nonapples. “Don’t believe in YHVH” doesn’t mean that you should go believe in Zenu.
I don’t mean rejecting the mainstream view in favor of some existing contrarian position—of which the majority are indeed unavoidably wrong, no matter what the merits of the mainstream view—but merely applying the very basic tools of common sense and rational thinking to see if the justification for the mainstream view can stand up to scrutiny. My point is that often the mainstream view fails as soon as it’s checked against the elementary laws of logic and the most basic and uncontroversial principles of sound epistemology. It really isn’t hard.
I have appreciated your non-contentious handling of these subjects, both here and elsewhere.
I have to second that. NancyLebovitz comes across as positively sane and relaxing to converse with (and read) - a valuable and somewhat rare trait in this subject area.
Blowups seem like they can be quite damaging even if they occur only a fraction of the time. Even without blowups, there’s still the waste of space and collective attention. As I see it, the recent comments page is to some extent a commons that a minority of LWers are tempted to spend on their pet topic, and that a majority of LWers would like to see spent on topics more directly related to the site’s theme, but the minority is here in the thread voting and the majority is not.
On the other hand, the vote numbers here are extreme enough that I find them surprising. Should I conclude that, as a community, we’ve decided to stop having on-topic and anti-mind-killing norms? Or is it the way I said it?
Obviously, mind-killingness is a joint property of an idea and a mind, and not the sole property of ideas.
This thread has gone well.
This fails to address the comment it’s replying to:
I’m not sure why you got so many downvotes—I’m not one of the people who supplied them.
Since “women prefer jerks” is something which is commonly believed but which may not have a lot of evidence supporting it (especially if ‘women’ isn’t quantified and ‘jerks’ isn’t defined), I don’t think it’s off-topic to discuss it.
What topics would you like to see more of?
That could describe anyone’s pet issue.
The math, psychology, philosophy, and economics of rationality, careful futurism, the singularity, existential risks, optimal philanthropy, strategies for rationalists and their organizations, considerations relevant to common life decisions that human biases cause to be ignored elsewhere or that benefit unusually from using our conceptual tools.
It seems to me that this topic falls squarely into the last category.
I disagree insofar as it’s not obvious what that phrase means. Assuming everyone who believes “it” actually has beliefs that provide predictions, it’s not obvious that those believers make common predictions.
I think the phrase stands in for widely varying sets of different actual beliefs, rather than either meaning just one sort of thing or usually being just emotive, but I don’t believe that too firmly.
Women are, on average, more attracted to men who are more selfish and aggressive than they are compliant and cooperative.
I’m surprised this comment was made and is so highly upvoted because it doesn’t meet your usual standards.
Specifically, the context is “it’s not obvious what that phrase means. Assuming everyone who believes “it” actually has beliefs that provide predictions, it’s not obvious that those believers make common predictions,” and you responded with a paraphrase that I believe is close to the truest meaning of the phrase. Some problems:
It’s not obvious what your comment’s function is. You probably meant to assert at least that this is a true and near truest interpretation of the phrase. The context is my assertion that people mean different things by the phrase, do you (also) mean to imply that people using it are generally using it accurately?
“On average” isn’t specific enough.
You missed saying the truer, deeper pattern behind the true statement, the {6, 6, 6, 6, 6, …}, though it isn’t something implied by the phrase. That deeper truth is that it is behaviors indicating high status that are attractive. Usually these are “selfish and aggressive”, not showing concern with others’ standards, but conspicuous vulnerability/non high-status behavior also shows high status by ignoring opportunities to display high status with selfishness and aggression. See e.g. John Mayer.
I, surprisingly enough, disagree. In the context of casual conversation the meaning is well enough understood. Normal people having conversations don’t use precise technical terms but they get along fine—and often wouldn’t even understand the formal and precise terminology very well anyway.
It just isn’t reasonable to dismiss “‘women prefer jerks’ is something which is commonly believed” as undefined.
Mind you I myself don’t particularly find the “women prefer jerks” belief to be all that useful (or even necessarily have an opinion on just how common the belief is). It just isn’t the most practical foundation on which to self-improve (even though it does work for some). Myself I recommend “quit being a pussy” alongside the kind of deeper insight that you allude to in “3.”
I still a not sure if you are asserting that the phrase “women prefer jerks” has a single, commonly understood meaning among everyone, or among men, or what.
Their understanding of formal terminology is barely relevant. If a someone says that their printer “is shit”, I want to know if they mean that it burns through ink cartridges, jams frequently, prints with low quality, or what. I am unsure as to what an informal phrasing means, specifically I am unsure about the extent to which it means the same thing to different people. I’m not blaming people for being informal, I’m questioning how much agreement there can be among the people around hundreds of thousands of water coolers in the world when such an imprecise phrase is used. That around any individual water cooler people communicate well enough is not in doubt.
It’s not being dismissed, it’s being partitioned according to my best estimation of what its speakers and listeners actually mean. There are probably different meanings because the phrase is not very specific.
Meta-statements about something like “the belief shared by people who believe this statement is true” are being dismissed.
If we must have these sorts of conversations could we while doing so please refrain from using terms for female genitalia as negative descriptors? Although the linked SMBC is amusing thist really doesn’t help keeping things calm or help the signal to noise ratio.
Eh? That term means “cat” to me.
EDIT: In fact, wedrifid’s meaning has a different etymology from either yours or mine.
Terms meaning cat have been slang for the female genitalia in more than one language, or so The Great Cat Massacre claims about “le chatte” in French, at any rate..
Huh. Interesting. I did not realize what the etymology of that word was. The fact that it is used almost exclusively to target males rather than females suggests that there’s been some etymological bleed over.
And at no niggardly pace, either.
While I don’t doubt that there has been some bleed over, I am not sure this is actually suggestive of it; typical gender roles would have “pampered” or “soft” also be seen as more negative when directed at a male, and I don’t think there is any related bleeding going on there.
Thanks, I wasn’t aware of the origins of, well, any of the various usages for that word.
I prefer to avoid them, for approximately this reason.
Objecting to the use of unsophisticated terms is one thing—it would be pointless to argue with that. But if you are moving to a claim about “signal to noise ratio” then you are simply wrong. The signal there is extremely important.
FWIW, I have it on good authority that he was a neighborhood bully when he was little.
I think the comment is being upvoted in the context of it being a translation of the claim, not in the context of it being an assertion that the claim is true.
Or disagree that it is off-topic or mind-killing.
Why would anyone so disagree? If this topic isn’t off-topic and mind-killing, is there any topic that is?
I don’t find “do women dig jerks?” particularly mind-killing, or at least, not here (much less than the ethics of PUA, political parties, elections, welfare, taxes, Occupy Wall Street, race and intelligence, Israel and Palestine …); I don’t have strong opinions on the issue, and hearing someone speak on that topic doesn’t allow me to categorize them into a clearly-defined group.
I can’t clearly see any “sides” on the issue (two possible sides are of course “women are stupid and dig jerks so I hate them” and “anybody who criticizes women is stupid”, but I’m not seeing either of those here, the sides are more “it’s complicated” and “it’s not that simple”).
There’s no “that” for it to be either that simple or not that simple.
(Implicit modifier A) women (implicit modifier B) dig (whatever that means exactly) jerks (whatever that means exactly).
Modifier A can be “all”, or “most”, or “the most attractive ones”, or whatever.
Modifier B can be “most days of the week”, “most years of their lives”, or whatever.
“Dig” can mean “prefer ceteris paribus”, “will only have one night stands with”, “will stay with them even if the guy hits them”, “strongly prefer at all times”, “prefer for all types of relationships”, or whatever.
“Jerks” can mean “people who are more assertive than average”, “people who try and make them feel bad about themselves”, “people who have killed a man”, “people who wear motorcycle jackets”, “people who frequently brag”, or whatever.
“Women dig jerks” provides an opportunity to construct an obviously (or not obviously) true or false meaning to something other people say, depending on how right or wrong one wants them to be. It allows room to always easily be able to interpret an interlocutor’s words to mean that they are innately evil or hopelessly misguided.
That said, people actually do disagree on the substance of the issue.
I would say yes. I mean, it’s clearly on topic relative the main post, and if instrumental rationality is going to be one of the focuses of the site, then “on topic” for top level posts is necessarily going to be pretty broad.
As for mind-killing, there are certainly topics I think it’s harder to hold a productive conversation on.
I think a comment can be off-topic even though it’s on-topic relative to the main post and the main post is itself on-topic. I’m also worried that people are using too broad a definition of “instrumental rationality”.
Indeed I’ve been pleasantly surprised by this so far.