I’m not assuming that the hypothetical original denigrator of evolutionary psychology would react better to a feminine rebuke. I think this hypothetical person is lost to us anyway.
I think that someone who calls evolutionary psychology unfeminine, is insulting the honor of feminity—but it’s not my place to say that. It’s not my place to borrow offense, if indeed the honor of feminity has been insulted.
Someone who has actually, directly, personally been offended… can be apologized to, her offense has a limit because it’s hers. Someone borrowing offense—how do they ever know when an apology is enough? They can always insist that it’s not enough because they’re not really the one being apologized to, and maybe if they accepted the apology, it would mean they weren’t sufficiently virtuous enough in their offense.
It’s sort of like how I’m willing to argue with genuinely religious people or Luddites but not with hypothetical religious people or Luddites being simulated by nonreligious people or non-Luddites, who can always refuse to be hypothetically persuaded because there is no limit to how unreasonable and evil the simulator thinks a theist or Luddite can be, in contrast to real theists and Luddites who think of themselves as the good side.
That is, in general, I don’t like to borrow trouble—the first-order troubles of this world are enough.
I’m not assuming that the hypothetical original denigrator of evolutionary psychology would react better to a feminine rebuke. I think this hypothetical person is lost to us anyway.
I think that someone who calls evolutionary psychology unfeminine, is insulting the honor of feminity...
I agree that calling evolutionary psychology “unfeminine” because it “denigrates women” is bullshit. The truth about the human brain is not determined by our preferences. But failing to control for cultural influences in ev-psych-speculation is bullshit too. In fact, it’s reversed stupidity.
Evolutionary psychology is about human universals and therefore should, in the ideal case, apply to all human cultures at all times. Exceptional cultures that deviate from the biologically determined base should be actively sought for and if found, explained. The pick-up-related speculation here (and on many other forums I’ve read; I’m not familiar with the PUA literature though) has considered only modern Western women (and to a lesser extent, modern Western men) and tried to explain their behavior by fitness arguments. Cultural explanations of behavior haven’t even been considered, even though the proper application of evolutionary psychology should start from identifying human universals, that is, controlling for culture.
As the debate has dragged on, it has seemed to me that some have even hinted that offering cultural explanations of behavior instead of fitness arguments is evidence of a mental stop-sign or a refusal to accept the “hard facts”. I invite them to consider the historicallywidespreadpracticeofpederasty. Does pederasty confer a fitness advantage to either partner or maybe both? If it indeed does confer a fitness advantage, how can it be determined if this has actually been adapted for? How does the explanation take into account the revulsion towards pederasty felt in our modern culture? Or alternatively, if pederasty is to be considered a cultural deviation from the evolutionarily determined base culture, how can it be assumed that the modern Western culture is free of such deviations?
So, in my opinion, a very relevant issue for this whole debate is that the pick-up-related ev-psych-speculation has failed at actively seeking for contradicting evidence. Combined with the “objectifying” nature of the speculation—women considered as little more than sex-providers—it shouldn’t be in the least bit surprising that offense has been taken.
That was something of a rant, I guess. What did it have to do with the possible limiting of discussion anyway? Well…
A theory that sounds offensive but is (according to overwhelming evidence) correct shouldn’t offend anyone.
A theory that sounds offensive and is obviously wrong can just be ignored and downvoted into oblivion.
Speculation that sounds offensive, is taken seriously by some but actually fails to consider simple, less offending alternative possibilities is something that communities should seriously be wary of.
...Is there some chance I can, like, deputize individual (amenable) males who I think have their heads on straight? This would make me feel less like I have to go on being the feminism police because I am one of a handful of people around here eligible (by your standard) and one of even fewer who also cares and is obstinate enough to speak up.
Edit: Why does this apparently bother multiple different people that I suggested it?
Edit 2 to address replies (thanks for the explanations): I was not suggesting that I should, upon seeing a sexism-related problem, call on these hypothetical deputies and collaborate on hammering the comment into oblivion. I meant that the hypothetical deputies would have the approval of me, a female, to identify things that are “insulting the honor of femininity” so that if this identification needs doing, it doesn’t have to fall to me to do it. In my mental model, they’d do this on their own initiative, much as [anyone who I would select] already does; they’d just have the backing from someone with the anatomical credentials Eliezer wants to make this sort of call.
Given the variety of ways people objected to “Sayeth the Girl”, I suspect even firsthand “anatomical credentials” are ineffectual.
I’m not saying I won’t help call out sexist remarks, but that “how would you know that’s sexist?” is a Fully General Counterargument you will face whatever reproductive system you have.
That’s why I’m suggesting a policy which says “We want to avoid writing that causes women (or any other gender) to flee”, rather than a policy which says “Sexism is a bad, bad thing.” You don’t need to know what’s sexist. You just need to know what makes you personally (not some hypothetical average woman) want to flee.
I already carefully monitor my writing so that it reads properly for the intended audience. It’s called “writing well”. Sometimes “editing” specifically.
You may be overestimating the effort involved here. I doubt you are in the habit of using—to draw an example from the French Revolution, as has been suggested—the phrases “clergy” and “enemies of the revolution” interchangeably, or any of the equivalent modern equivocations which can offend. If I were to try to make concrete rules, I would say to use the singular “they” or randomize pronouns for hypothetical persons, take care to be general when speaking in the second-person, and question any generalizations you propose not strongly backed by peer-reviewed evidence (particularly about nations and genders). That set of rules doesn’t sound onerous.
It’s not about the amount of effort it takes, it’s about this whole mentality that when a certain turn of phrase or writing style risks ‘offending’ or ‘scaring off’ a person, the one who has to give way is always the writer, never the reader. In other words, it’s assumed that the responsibility lies with the writer to change his wording, rather than with the reader to see past the offending words to the meaning behind them.
The mentality described above is similar to the one that has forced anyone speaking in public to use the childish euphemism “n-word” instead of saying “nigger”, even when it’s obvious from the context that they’re not expressing a racist sentiment. People will even say, “Hey, don’t use the n-word, you racist!” They have to speak this way because, where the word “nigger” is concerned, it’s universally believed that it’s the speaker’s responsibility to censor himself rather than the listener’s responsibility to actually use his brain and understand what the other guy is saying.
I think this mentality is lazy and anti-rational. The way I see it, if you’re offended by the superficiality rather than by the substance of my words, it’s your problem, not mine. Being able to overlook the surface of a message (and suppressing whatever feeling of offense it may have triggered in you) is an essential skill to a rationalist, and skewing the balance in favor of easily offended readers can only cause its atrophy.
If you find the kind of monitoring Eliezer is advocating natural, go for it, but don’t pester the rest of us about it.
It’s not about the amount of effort it takes, it’s about this whole mentality that when a certain turn of phrase or writing style risks ‘offending’ or ‘scaring off’ a person, the one who has to give way is always the writer, never the reader. In other words, it’s assumed that the responsibility lies with the writer to change his wording, rather than with the reader to see past the offending words to the meaning behind them.
Behold, the internet. It’s full of people, and most of them have something to say. In a market of attention where people decide “should I bother to read this”, the power is purely on the buyer’s side. In other words, if you want to be taken seriously as a writer it’s your responsibility to communicate effectively.
As a group, we all share an interest in keeping the quality of communication on Less Wrong high.
You’re right that people can be hypersensitive. It’s a fool’s errand trying to avoid offending such people, and if I were suggesting that you try, you’d have every right to tell me off.
But think about what you’re sounding like for a moment. From what you said, you’d think it was an imposition to expect that you not call black people “niggers”! Why would you want to? Why would you want to anger a large part of your potential audience, why would you want to lose their respect and their attention?
I wouldn’t call black people niggers in a sentence such as, “Niggers tend to be less well educated than whites”, because that would clearly imply that I’m being racist (or a troll).
On the other hand, using ‘him’ instead of ‘them’ as a gender-neutral pronoun doesn’t imply sexism. Maybe one day it will, but right now it doesn’t. Anyone who is offended by this kind of wording is hypersensitive.
The word “sexism” is a distraction here—what we are discussing is what makes people uncomfortable, and the rules I suggested are addressing actual things which have a track record of making people uncomfortable.
To start with the example you give here, since you specifically state that it is mistaken: using “him” in a sentence primes the reader to assume the male, and is therefore intrinsically not gender-neutral. (I believe studies can be found to this effect, although as a mechanical engineer I do not know where to look.) Less rigorously, “him” as a default enshrines “her” as an exception, an aberration, rather than half the population of the globe. Finally, if you were to substitute race-specific terminology for sex-specific—as Douglas Hofstadter did in A Person Paper on Purity in Language—the legitimacy of taking offense would be obvious.
Similar arguments can be made with respect to hypotheticals in the second person—not everybody was working up the courage to talk to the girls in high school, even if you limit the pool to people who went to high school (I didn’t). And generalizations about gender and nation (and race, and creed) are warned against because people are continually motivated to find evidence for generalizations matching their prejudices—meaning a lot of the evidence and generalizations you see are unmitigated bull.
I chose these examples to enshrine in rules because these are the easy ones, the well-established ones, the ones which we rationalists should think of instantly when someone says “biases associated with prejudice”. If you don’t know about them, you need to learn.
Your comment starts with, “what we are discussing is what makes people uncomfortable”, but most of the rest of it talks about biases!
Fighting people’s biases is a good reason to pester them about wording things differently; I’ve never said otherwise. But then let’s make it clear that’s the reason we’re doing it, and cut all the chatter about offending the hypersensitive nuts out there.
As for Hostadter’s essay, it doesn’t work. All of his examples sound offensive to us because if they were introduced in a sentence in reality, we would have good reason to think that the person who spoke them is a racist. On the other hand, you can’t rationally conclude that I’m a sexist because I wrote “him” instead of “them” two comments above. We legitimately take offense because of the implied racism, not because of the words themselves.
I thought that the extension from “implicitly excluding women” to “making women feel unwelcome” was evident. Likewise (often) from “drawing unjustified generalizations about a class of persons” to “making a class of persons uncomfortable”. If it wasn’t, I apologize—consider it hereby explicitly stated.
As for Hofstadter’s essay, it explores a world in which linguistic genders do not exist and linguistic colors exist instead. The author isn’t racist, not in any strong sense of the word—the author is just following the standard convention of their hypothetical world by using “white” both as a race-specific and a race-neutral term. It’s obvious that you have a visceral distaste for calling black people white “in reality”, but given that—and this is the point of the damn essay—why do you consider calling womenmen acceptable?
I recently read Jaquez Barzun’s “From Dawn to Decadence”, which includes a digression on the word “man”. He notes that in its origins it actually is a gender-neutral word indicating person, with “woman” deriving from “wife-man” (man who is a wife). To use racial terms, this is not like appending “white” to words, because “white” means a color rather than person. It is like deeming non-whites “colored”, however nonsensical the practice may be (as illustrated in the poem “White Fella”).
I can’t recommend the book as a whole, when I hear the word “culture” I reach for my gun.
I used to mention that derivation whenever the subject came up IRL (with the rather unfortunate gloss that therefore “man” really was gender-neutral and women should not feel left out by its exclusive use), until I realized that usage 800+ years ago has little to no influence on the current meaning of the word.
No one ever noticed the fallacy, which is depressing now that I think about it. Don’t count on others to fix your thinking is the lesson, I guess.
The etymology of the word “man” is completely irrelevant to its present use. This isn’t some obscure term like “ironic” for which it would be reasonable to claim that common usage is mistaken—this is one of the ten most common nouns in the English language. The common usage is as the only formal term for male human beings.
Were this thread a discussion of the evolution of gendered terms in English, your remarks would be apt. Were it a novel argument in the dialectic of gender in English, your remarks would be apt. It is neither.
It’s obvious that you have a visceral distaste for calling black people white “in reality”, but given that—and this is the point of the damn essay—why do you consider calling women men acceptable?
Because it’s obvious from the context that by ‘men’ I mean human beings. If you put aside the chance that it will trigger certain biases in the reader, there is no reason to feel offended by the use of words like mailman… no reason except the unthinking reflex of political correctness that drives certain people to get hysterical when they read the word ‘nigger’, or to get offended when they hear Neil Armstrong’s legendary phrase (even the version with an ‘a’).
And yes, if we lived in a world where ‘mailwhite’ had the same (widely agreed-upon) meaning that mailman has in our world, it would be silly to be offended by it.
I thought that the extension from “implicitly excluding women” to “making women feel unwelcome” was evident.
If there are women who are made to feel unwelcome by my use of ‘him’ instead of ‘them’, and similar conventions, they’re hypersensitive, because it doesn’t implicitly exclude them: I don’t mean to exclude them, and anyone who reads my posts will understand what I mean; anyone who wants to understand and isn’t looking for an excuse to be offended, that is.
drawing unjustified generalizations about a class of persons
… is wrong because if we value truth (and we do), holding a false belief when it’s in our power to do otherwise is wrong. This being the website that it is, we don’t need additional justification to avoid such generalizations; there’s no need to bring offensiveness into it.
Actually, the n-word did not acquire unambiguously negative connotations until well into the 19th century. So you might run into a sentence like what you just quoted in a historical source, and the word would merely be denotative of black skin color.
This is unsurprising, as it’s a straightforward derivation (probably via Spanish) from the latin word for “black”, which can be found also in scientific names for species and such (for instance, the black pepper used on food is the seed of the plant Piper nigrum).
The negative connotations are purely based on use and social context, not the denotation of the word.
it’s assumed that the responsibility lies with the writer to change his wording, rather than with the reader to see past the offending words to the meaning behind them.
I think this mentality is lazy and anti-rational. The way I see it, if you’re offended by the superficiality rather than by the substance of my words, it’s your problem, not mine.
EDIT: I guess I’ll clarify, just in case thomblake isn’t the only who doesn’t get it. I am not arguing that crafting your post, article, or comment to ‘reach the widest audience possible’ isn’t the best thing to do. What I’m arguing against is the promotion of the mentality I’ve described at length in my previous post. Constantly pestering LW posters (however politely) to get them to change their wording promotes that mentality.
If all LW posters magically started using ‘them’ instead of ‘him’, and so forth, do you think I’d be saying “No, no, no, this is wrong, go back to using ‘him’!” Of course not. It’s the pestering about the wording I’m against, not the wording itself.
Why is that? And, more importantly, if you are not willing to think about the community before clicking “comment,” why would the community mind if you flee?
Now, of course, “carefully monitor” is a bit relative. I would consider myself in thomblake’s camp in the sense that I already try to monitor what I write. I also appreciate posts that let me know I accidently offended someone. Hopefully I am not in the minority with either of those behaviors.
You just need to know what makes you personally (not some hypothetical average woman) want to flee.
This assumes two things.
One: there being enough women available to identify the offputting behavior.
Two: there being no men capable of identifying the offputting behavior.
The first is false and the second offensive—and yes, offensive to me personally, as a black male social liberal. It’s not the victim’s job to fight unjust discrimination. It’s everyone’s.
Edit: As Eliezer Yudkowsky points out, “discrimination” is an unfairly loaded term in this context. I shouldn’t have used it. To reword: offputting behavior can be recognized by more than just those it would make uncomfortable, and it is, in fact, everyone’s responsibility to avoid it in their own writing and to point it out in others. (With the caveat, as thomblake and Jonathan_Graehl observed, that offensiveness should not be pointed out where it does not exist, and overzealous policing should be discouraged as well.)
But it’s not about discrimination. It’s about providing a non-gender-unfriendly environment. We are not assuming the speaker is guilty—of sexism, of deliberate intent, of anything. We are not on a crusade. We are just trying to avoid that sort of speech in the future.
That assumes innoc...dagnabbit, why am I arguing about vocabulary? You’re right, I shouldn’t phrase it to present all gender-unfriendly speech as intentional. I’ll edit in a disclaimer.
Women exist. Given that, your objection must be other than that expressed in the surface content of your words. Please make it explicit so it may be rationally discussed.
In the interests of full disclosure and not being deliberately obtuse: I suspect you may be concerned that kneejerk censorship of remarks perceived to be offensive to a given group by those ignorant of the feelings of members of that group towards said remarks (a phenomenon often pejoratively referred to as “political correctness”) would inhibit the free exchange of ideas to an unacceptable degree. I propose that a reason why you might be concerned in this fashion is because “offensive” looks like a chaotic feature of the environment to you—the metaphor in this case being that of a minefield, with the pejorative political correctness being roping off the entire thing even though many topics you wish to discuss are within it.
If that’s your concern, stop it. It’s not a minefield. If you want to avoid accidentally giving offense, all you need is empathy and education. And if you think you have those things but you’re still accidentally offending people, you’re probably wrong. Now let’s start getting less so.
The “hypothetical people that don’t even exist” would be “people who are offended by comment X”. Given how often people are mistaken about what might give offense, it’s easy for some crusader to start campaigning on behalf of someone who doesn’t want or need their help.
Another critique of offense once-removed comes from the comedian Bill Maher. He rails against what he calls “feigned outrage”, which he takes to be mostly to be aimed at establishing one’s status as a defender of the weak.
I don’t think second-hand offense is all conscious signaling, but it’s certainly sometimes inapt and even a little patronizing.
I’ve complained about racist comments in various net communities I’ve been a part of, and been met with the excuse “you’re not even Mexican, don’t be so intolerant” etc.
I don’t mind leaving the “that’s unfairly demeaning of X-people” argument as long as there are refutations available independent of that. But there are certain offenses which, when met with only silence, could result in every single offended person simply deciding that the community is not worth it, leaving without even a reply.
That’s clearly not the case re: the pickup teapot’s tempest.
When we find such crusaders, we should criticize and downvote them appropriately. We should all avoid being ones ourselves. And, on a different note, we should establish a norm in which declarations of offensiveness require justification.
None of these require that we restrict all complaints of offense to when we are personally insulted. That requirement would almost entirely eliminate complaints even in the face of endemic bad behavior, which is precisely what we do not want.
Hey, I doubt I have my head on straight, but if I see comments that display objectionable gender attitudes in my view, I will do my best to critique them. Here’s an example of how I’ve gone about it in the past. The goal was to point out the potentially objectionable implications of that post, and to do so in a way that might actually convince the other person rather than making them feel shamed.
I downvoted you because I believe mod power should never be centralized. Once you deputize four other people, you’re able to instantly make any unfavored comment invisible; I wouldn’t like any entity on LW (except maybe Eliezer) to have such power.
Edit: Why does this apparently bother two different people that I suggested it?
I downvoted you because you’re endorsing overt factionalization of Less Wrong’s userbase (again). As the previous discussion has shown, there’s no shortage of people (male and female) who will take genuine offense at objectifying or otherwise insensitive language: we have no need for meat-puppets or “deputies”.
Edited to address reply: The only situation where Eliezer called for female rationalists to intervene was to debunk a hypothetical feminist commenter who took offense at eminently sensible things like, say, evolutionary psychology [1]. This is not at all the same as identifying genuine sexism concerns.
[1] Which is ironic, since evolutionary psychology as currently practiced is full of baseless “just-so stories”. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if some of these stories were genuinely problematic.
The idea of deputies is… well… silly… but I suppose if you actually were finding that it took up your time, then sure, I guess so. I’m hoping you won’t have to do this more than once in a blue moon once we settle what the actual LW policy is.
Why does this apparently bother two different people that I suggested it?
I have no idea. Those downvotes really should’ve come with an explanation.
I have plenty of guesses, on the other hand, for the downvotes:
1) divisive langauge—there are those who “I think have their heads on straight” and everyone else, who is suspected of wrongdoing. probably more offense at being suspected than desire to behave brutishly
2) attempt to assume authority and power—unless your position is secure, or your proposal compelling, people will tear down and mock the young upstart
3) interpetation of “i think we should do this” as a call for votes
And I think it’s clear enough at this point that you don’t need to take any action, as there are enough people being affected regardless of ‘anatomical credentials’.
...Is there some chance I can, like, deputize individual (amenable) males who I think have their heads on straight?
This would be a credential of negative value. I think (whether accurately or not) that I have my head on straight on this matter, but if I comment on these things it will only be because I have found it worth commenting on, not because I have been conferred with an office of The Male Voice of Feminism, no matter who by.
Did you not read the rest of this thread? EY suggested that one might require certain ‘anatomical credentials’ (not his wording) to speak up, and Alicorn despaired that it might put an undue burden on her and asked if other people could help.
Incidentally, insisting that people apologize to you is not good form.
Did you not read the rest of this thread? EY suggested that one might require certain ‘anatomical credentials’ (not his wording) to speak up, and Alicorn despaired that it might put an undue burden on her and asked if other people could help.
That speaks to whether the feminist censors’ existence is justified. That issue is distinct from my point, which is that Eliezer_Yudkowsky’s proposal amounts to assigning feminist censors, which turns out to be an accurate assessment.
You may have wonderful reasons for supporting this policy, but I was absolutely right about the implications of Eliezer_Yudkowsky’s proposal, when others didn’t see such implications.
Incidentally, insisting that people apologize to you is not good form.
Perhaps, but so is:
1) Ignoring warnings that turn out to be correct.
2) Not apologizing for ridiculing someone who turned out not to deserve it.
partially because if I was a female rationalist it would be offensive to me that Eliezer assumes I would respond differently to the same comment simply because of the gender of the commenter.
Just like it would be offensive to me as a black person if the LW community thought that I would only respond positively to comments made by another black person.
there’s absolutely nothing wrong with men making generalizations about women, nothing wrong with whites making generalizations about blacks or vice versa. allowing overly sensitive members of minority groups to dictate behavior is a waste of time.
if I was a female rationalist it would be offensive to me that
See… that’s where I’m not willing to go, there. That is a hole with no bottom. There’s enough real trouble in the world without borrowing imaginary subjunctive counterfactual trouble on top of that. If I really said something offensive to a female rationalist, a female rationalist can tell me so.
I’m not sure Eliezer qualifies as an “overly sensitive member of a minority group” but I take your point. I think he’s making a pragmatic decision but we can disagree.
In this particular case, I think Eliezer is arguing that the hypothetical woman who thinks all evolutionary psychology discussions are sexist is not a rationalist. As such she has no rationalist honor and would probably not respond as you (being a male rationalist) would. I think it’s fair to give her (as a female assumed-non-rationalist) a little breathing room, which is what I think Eliezer is suggesting.
I think this is consistent with his narrative of trying to recruit/grow the rationalist pool, and as such trying to be more tolerant/welcoming of people who may not yet be rationalists but are interested and learning.
if I was a female rationalist it would be offensive to me that Eliezer assumes I would respond differently to the same comment simply because of the gender of the commenter.
And you’d be wrong to be offended.
Because as far as we know, humans can’t reliably switch off the biases that would make them act irrationally in such a circumstance, and a rationalist should be humble enough to acknowledge when his/her brain can’t be expected to do the right thing.
That being said, I agree with your second paragraph: there’s nothing wrong with making generalizations, per se. (Actually speaking about them, however, or otherwise revealing them to other persons, alas, is fraught with many perils.)
“there’s absolutely nothing wrong with men making generalizations about women, nothing wrong with whites making generalizations about blacks or vice versa. allowing overly sensitive members of minority groups to dictate behavior is a waste of time.”
Are you serious? Assuming that you are, you are treading on ground that is far from stable, especially in a place such as this...
I fear I play a poor inquisitor, and you a poor Galileo. The thought that it’s all right to make broad generalizations about large groups of people isn’t some great new theory that society is trying to suppress—it’s just wrong. Indeed, such an idea is regressive, not revolutionary.
you’re attaching a bunch of words with negative connotation without actually telling what’s wrong. we all make generalizations all the time. we can’t interface with reality without making generalizations. if it is clearly wrong then you have the entire apparatus of social statistics to debunk.
I’m quite surprised that this requires explanation, since this seems like basic-level rationality to me, but here we go:
Generalizations about people of a particular ethnicity, based solely on their ethnicity, are racist. Overt racism is not acceptable in modern civilized society. In the past, overt racism was acceptable, but we have moved beyond that. It is extremely unwise both from a personal belief perspective and from a general signalling perspective to hold or argue for such views.
generalizations about individuals based on their ethnicity is clearly dumb. inquiring into broad trends that correlate well with ethnic divisions is interesting and demands further research. http://www.reason.com/news/show/116483.html
we’re at the dawn of understanding genetics. to preemptively decide that a branch of inquiry will not be allowed simply because our ancestors were ignorant douche bags is silly. as rationalists I’d say it’s our job more than most to take a mature, level headed look at the data that emerges. things are really going to heat up once we get cheap complete genome sequencing. we’ll be able to look at actual allele distributions in ethnic sub-groups on a large scale for the first time in history (!)
I understand this research, view it as important, and know several people who are working in this field at the present time. That said, the work of geneticists is quite different from casual social observations and generalizations. When I speak out against sweeping generalizations based on gender or ethnicity, I do not speak out against the geneticists.
I’m not going to shout down people who make observations about group behavior just because their observations haven’t been tested in a double blind trial yet. the data precludes us from making certain generalizations. it doesn’t stop the tentative creation of new ones.
if I made a generalization about people with fingers of certain length it wouldn’t generate nearly this much ire. we shouldn’t treat race any differently just because people made stupid generalizations in the past.
We don’t have enough data to make the case for OR against any racism (biological differences → behavioral differences)
we shouldn’t treat race any differently just because people made stupid generalizations in the past.
If a topic tends to historically collect relatively more stupid generalizations than other topics, isn’t it reasonable to keep a stronger default prior against such generalizations that aren’t backed by data?
We don’t have enough data to make the case for OR against any racism (biological differences → behavioral differences)
That’s an important point (that others’ generalizations on race are suspect by default). However, I’m perfectly happy to consider appearance (including race) as a conditioning variable in my own thinking. I guess it might be smart to not admit this, but I think it’s relatively uncontroversial amongst the mind-not-yet-killed.
There are some reasons to distrust one’s own baseline p(trait|appearance) estimates, other than the obvious (confounds, low sample size), say, particular personally experienced traumatic events, or exposure to explicit indoctrination on the matter. Most of us are not committing errors like: “in my experience, chinese people like chocolate ice cream more than strawberry, while everyone else prefers strawbeery; therefore chinese genetics code for chocolate-preference.”
The main problem is not that you can’t, or even shouldn’t, draw conclusions based on personal appearance. The problem is that obvious, superficial differences are very easily observed and remembered, and so seem to carry more weight than they deserve.
For instance, upon observing one woman and three men exhibiting Annoying Behavior X, many will immediately go for “it must be a guy thing” rather than looking for more powerful explanations, for instance all four people sharing the same profession, or being from the same geographic region, or any number of even more subtle things.
I’d like to test myself somehow, to find out how often I make mistakes along those lines, but nothing occurs to me right now. Yes: just because I have no reason to be especially biased toward making positive or negative associations toward e.g. pretty vs. ugly people (let’s not even consider race), it doesn’t follow that I’m free from a general tendency to form and cling to assocations from chance, or interpreted as causal without recognizing confounds.
Link to cool study/test, anyone? Such demonstrations on Overcoming Bias are the primary reason many of us are here today.
Unfortunately, I expect this sort of thing to be difficult to deliberately test an individual on, because if someone goes in knowing what’s being tested, or figures it out from the test, it’s going to alter the results beyond use. Self-testing may not be possible at all.
I recall having read about blind studies being done on related topics but, alas, I am terrible about keeping organized links to such things.
That I have some implicit association doesn’t actually tell me I make errors in thinking (but maybe if I’m distracted, my errors will tend in the direction of my implicit association?)
That’s a reasonable starting point, but I think his argument about the prevalence of stupid generalizations about “people of race X”, especially taken to wrongly prove “race X has more of a genetic predisposition for Y”, suggests a convincing case against your stance, unless you only mean to “listen” with great discrimination.
“But let a female rationalist be the one to say it.”
this really bothers me.
Okay, sorry for the ambiguity here.
I’m not assuming that the hypothetical original denigrator of evolutionary psychology would react better to a feminine rebuke. I think this hypothetical person is lost to us anyway.
I think that someone who calls evolutionary psychology unfeminine, is insulting the honor of feminity—but it’s not my place to say that. It’s not my place to borrow offense, if indeed the honor of feminity has been insulted.
Someone who has actually, directly, personally been offended… can be apologized to, her offense has a limit because it’s hers. Someone borrowing offense—how do they ever know when an apology is enough? They can always insist that it’s not enough because they’re not really the one being apologized to, and maybe if they accepted the apology, it would mean they weren’t sufficiently virtuous enough in their offense.
It’s sort of like how I’m willing to argue with genuinely religious people or Luddites but not with hypothetical religious people or Luddites being simulated by nonreligious people or non-Luddites, who can always refuse to be hypothetically persuaded because there is no limit to how unreasonable and evil the simulator thinks a theist or Luddite can be, in contrast to real theists and Luddites who think of themselves as the good side.
That is, in general, I don’t like to borrow trouble—the first-order troubles of this world are enough.
I agree that calling evolutionary psychology “unfeminine” because it “denigrates women” is bullshit. The truth about the human brain is not determined by our preferences. But failing to control for cultural influences in ev-psych-speculation is bullshit too. In fact, it’s reversed stupidity.
Evolutionary psychology is about human universals and therefore should, in the ideal case, apply to all human cultures at all times. Exceptional cultures that deviate from the biologically determined base should be actively sought for and if found, explained. The pick-up-related speculation here (and on many other forums I’ve read; I’m not familiar with the PUA literature though) has considered only modern Western women (and to a lesser extent, modern Western men) and tried to explain their behavior by fitness arguments. Cultural explanations of behavior haven’t even been considered, even though the proper application of evolutionary psychology should start from identifying human universals, that is, controlling for culture.
As the debate has dragged on, it has seemed to me that some have even hinted that offering cultural explanations of behavior instead of fitness arguments is evidence of a mental stop-sign or a refusal to accept the “hard facts”. I invite them to consider the historically widespread practice of pederasty. Does pederasty confer a fitness advantage to either partner or maybe both? If it indeed does confer a fitness advantage, how can it be determined if this has actually been adapted for? How does the explanation take into account the revulsion towards pederasty felt in our modern culture? Or alternatively, if pederasty is to be considered a cultural deviation from the evolutionarily determined base culture, how can it be assumed that the modern Western culture is free of such deviations?
So, in my opinion, a very relevant issue for this whole debate is that the pick-up-related ev-psych-speculation has failed at actively seeking for contradicting evidence. Combined with the “objectifying” nature of the speculation—women considered as little more than sex-providers—it shouldn’t be in the least bit surprising that offense has been taken.
That was something of a rant, I guess. What did it have to do with the possible limiting of discussion anyway? Well… A theory that sounds offensive but is (according to overwhelming evidence) correct shouldn’t offend anyone. A theory that sounds offensive and is obviously wrong can just be ignored and downvoted into oblivion. Speculation that sounds offensive, is taken seriously by some but actually fails to consider simple, less offending alternative possibilities is something that communities should seriously be wary of.
...Is there some chance I can, like, deputize individual (amenable) males who I think have their heads on straight? This would make me feel less like I have to go on being the feminism police because I am one of a handful of people around here eligible (by your standard) and one of even fewer who also cares and is obstinate enough to speak up.
Edit: Why does this apparently bother multiple different people that I suggested it?
Edit 2 to address replies (thanks for the explanations): I was not suggesting that I should, upon seeing a sexism-related problem, call on these hypothetical deputies and collaborate on hammering the comment into oblivion. I meant that the hypothetical deputies would have the approval of me, a female, to identify things that are “insulting the honor of femininity” so that if this identification needs doing, it doesn’t have to fall to me to do it. In my mental model, they’d do this on their own initiative, much as [anyone who I would select] already does; they’d just have the backing from someone with the anatomical credentials Eliezer wants to make this sort of call.
Given the variety of ways people objected to “Sayeth the Girl”, I suspect even firsthand “anatomical credentials” are ineffectual.
I’m not saying I won’t help call out sexist remarks, but that “how would you know that’s sexist?” is a Fully General Counterargument you will face whatever reproductive system you have.
That’s why I’m suggesting a policy which says “We want to avoid writing that causes women (or any other gender) to flee”, rather than a policy which says “Sexism is a bad, bad thing.” You don’t need to know what’s sexist. You just need to know what makes you personally (not some hypothetical average woman) want to flee.
A policy that says we have to carefully monitor our writing lest we scare someone away makes me want to flee.
I already carefully monitor my writing so that it reads properly for the intended audience. It’s called “writing well”. Sometimes “editing” specifically.
You may be overestimating the effort involved here. I doubt you are in the habit of using—to draw an example from the French Revolution, as has been suggested—the phrases “clergy” and “enemies of the revolution” interchangeably, or any of the equivalent modern equivocations which can offend. If I were to try to make concrete rules, I would say to use the singular “they” or randomize pronouns for hypothetical persons, take care to be general when speaking in the second-person, and question any generalizations you propose not strongly backed by peer-reviewed evidence (particularly about nations and genders). That set of rules doesn’t sound onerous.
It’s not about the amount of effort it takes, it’s about this whole mentality that when a certain turn of phrase or writing style risks ‘offending’ or ‘scaring off’ a person, the one who has to give way is always the writer, never the reader. In other words, it’s assumed that the responsibility lies with the writer to change his wording, rather than with the reader to see past the offending words to the meaning behind them.
The mentality described above is similar to the one that has forced anyone speaking in public to use the childish euphemism “n-word” instead of saying “nigger”, even when it’s obvious from the context that they’re not expressing a racist sentiment. People will even say, “Hey, don’t use the n-word, you racist!” They have to speak this way because, where the word “nigger” is concerned, it’s universally believed that it’s the speaker’s responsibility to censor himself rather than the listener’s responsibility to actually use his brain and understand what the other guy is saying.
I think this mentality is lazy and anti-rational. The way I see it, if you’re offended by the superficiality rather than by the substance of my words, it’s your problem, not mine. Being able to overlook the surface of a message (and suppressing whatever feeling of offense it may have triggered in you) is an essential skill to a rationalist, and skewing the balance in favor of easily offended readers can only cause its atrophy.
If you find the kind of monitoring Eliezer is advocating natural, go for it, but don’t pester the rest of us about it.
Behold, the internet. It’s full of people, and most of them have something to say. In a market of attention where people decide “should I bother to read this”, the power is purely on the buyer’s side. In other words, if you want to be taken seriously as a writer it’s your responsibility to communicate effectively.
As a group, we all share an interest in keeping the quality of communication on Less Wrong high.
There’s a difference between communicating effectively and catering to hypersensitive nuts.
I think we actually agree with each other more than it seems. I agree with the following:
Generally speaking, it is better to not offend than to offend
All other things being equal, use the non-offensive word
Worrying about not offending everyone is pointless and impossible
There is a line somewhere between avoiding potentially offensive words/language/topics and freaking out over every offense
Accept pointers about being less offensive when the less offensive route is rather trivial
Use common sense
Do you disagree on any particular point? The details are up for grabs, but the gist sounds right to me.
You’re right that people can be hypersensitive. It’s a fool’s errand trying to avoid offending such people, and if I were suggesting that you try, you’d have every right to tell me off.
But think about what you’re sounding like for a moment. From what you said, you’d think it was an imposition to expect that you not call black people “niggers”! Why would you want to? Why would you want to anger a large part of your potential audience, why would you want to lose their respect and their attention?
I wouldn’t call black people niggers in a sentence such as, “Niggers tend to be less well educated than whites”, because that would clearly imply that I’m being racist (or a troll).
On the other hand, using ‘him’ instead of ‘them’ as a gender-neutral pronoun doesn’t imply sexism. Maybe one day it will, but right now it doesn’t. Anyone who is offended by this kind of wording is hypersensitive.
The word “sexism” is a distraction here—what we are discussing is what makes people uncomfortable, and the rules I suggested are addressing actual things which have a track record of making people uncomfortable.
To start with the example you give here, since you specifically state that it is mistaken: using “him” in a sentence primes the reader to assume the male, and is therefore intrinsically not gender-neutral. (I believe studies can be found to this effect, although as a mechanical engineer I do not know where to look.) Less rigorously, “him” as a default enshrines “her” as an exception, an aberration, rather than half the population of the globe. Finally, if you were to substitute race-specific terminology for sex-specific—as Douglas Hofstadter did in A Person Paper on Purity in Language—the legitimacy of taking offense would be obvious.
Similar arguments can be made with respect to hypotheticals in the second person—not everybody was working up the courage to talk to the girls in high school, even if you limit the pool to people who went to high school (I didn’t). And generalizations about gender and nation (and race, and creed) are warned against because people are continually motivated to find evidence for generalizations matching their prejudices—meaning a lot of the evidence and generalizations you see are unmitigated bull.
I chose these examples to enshrine in rules because these are the easy ones, the well-established ones, the ones which we rationalists should think of instantly when someone says “biases associated with prejudice”. If you don’t know about them, you need to learn.
Your comment starts with, “what we are discussing is what makes people uncomfortable”, but most of the rest of it talks about biases!
Fighting people’s biases is a good reason to pester them about wording things differently; I’ve never said otherwise. But then let’s make it clear that’s the reason we’re doing it, and cut all the chatter about offending the hypersensitive nuts out there.
As for Hostadter’s essay, it doesn’t work. All of his examples sound offensive to us because if they were introduced in a sentence in reality, we would have good reason to think that the person who spoke them is a racist. On the other hand, you can’t rationally conclude that I’m a sexist because I wrote “him” instead of “them” two comments above. We legitimately take offense because of the implied racism, not because of the words themselves.
I thought that the extension from “implicitly excluding women” to “making women feel unwelcome” was evident. Likewise (often) from “drawing unjustified generalizations about a class of persons” to “making a class of persons uncomfortable”. If it wasn’t, I apologize—consider it hereby explicitly stated.
As for Hofstadter’s essay, it explores a world in which linguistic genders do not exist and linguistic colors exist instead. The author isn’t racist, not in any strong sense of the word—the author is just following the standard convention of their hypothetical world by using “white” both as a race-specific and a race-neutral term. It’s obvious that you have a visceral distaste for calling black people white “in reality”, but given that—and this is the point of the damn essay—why do you consider calling women men acceptable?
I recently read Jaquez Barzun’s “From Dawn to Decadence”, which includes a digression on the word “man”. He notes that in its origins it actually is a gender-neutral word indicating person, with “woman” deriving from “wife-man” (man who is a wife). To use racial terms, this is not like appending “white” to words, because “white” means a color rather than person. It is like deeming non-whites “colored”, however nonsensical the practice may be (as illustrated in the poem “White Fella”).
I can’t recommend the book as a whole, when I hear the word “culture” I reach for my gun.
I used to mention that derivation whenever the subject came up IRL (with the rather unfortunate gloss that therefore “man” really was gender-neutral and women should not feel left out by its exclusive use), until I realized that usage 800+ years ago has little to no influence on the current meaning of the word.
No one ever noticed the fallacy, which is depressing now that I think about it. Don’t count on others to fix your thinking is the lesson, I guess.
The etymology of the word “man” is completely irrelevant to its present use. This isn’t some obscure term like “ironic” for which it would be reasonable to claim that common usage is mistaken—this is one of the ten most common nouns in the English language. The common usage is as the only formal term for male human beings.
Were this thread a discussion of the evolution of gendered terms in English, your remarks would be apt. Were it a novel argument in the dialectic of gender in English, your remarks would be apt. It is neither.
Because it’s obvious from the context that by ‘men’ I mean human beings. If you put aside the chance that it will trigger certain biases in the reader, there is no reason to feel offended by the use of words like mailman… no reason except the unthinking reflex of political correctness that drives certain people to get hysterical when they read the word ‘nigger’, or to get offended when they hear Neil Armstrong’s legendary phrase (even the version with an ‘a’).
And yes, if we lived in a world where ‘mailwhite’ had the same (widely agreed-upon) meaning that mailman has in our world, it would be silly to be offended by it.
If there are women who are made to feel unwelcome by my use of ‘him’ instead of ‘them’, and similar conventions, they’re hypersensitive, because it doesn’t implicitly exclude them: I don’t mean to exclude them, and anyone who reads my posts will understand what I mean; anyone who wants to understand and isn’t looking for an excuse to be offended, that is.
… is wrong because if we value truth (and we do), holding a false belief when it’s in our power to do otherwise is wrong. This being the website that it is, we don’t need additional justification to avoid such generalizations; there’s no need to bring offensiveness into it.
It is evident that further conversation would be tiring and mostly ineffective for the both of us.
Actually, the n-word did not acquire unambiguously negative connotations until well into the 19th century. So you might run into a sentence like what you just quoted in a historical source, and the word would merely be denotative of black skin color.
This is unsurprising, as it’s a straightforward derivation (probably via Spanish) from the latin word for “black”, which can be found also in scientific names for species and such (for instance, the black pepper used on food is the seed of the plant Piper nigrum).
The negative connotations are purely based on use and social context, not the denotation of the word.
I take it you’re not a professional writer, then?
You sure as hell aren’t a professional reader.
EDIT: I guess I’ll clarify, just in case thomblake isn’t the only who doesn’t get it. I am not arguing that crafting your post, article, or comment to ‘reach the widest audience possible’ isn’t the best thing to do. What I’m arguing against is the promotion of the mentality I’ve described at length in my previous post. Constantly pestering LW posters (however politely) to get them to change their wording promotes that mentality.
If all LW posters magically started using ‘them’ instead of ‘him’, and so forth, do you think I’d be saying “No, no, no, this is wrong, go back to using ‘him’!” Of course not. It’s the pestering about the wording I’m against, not the wording itself.
They have those?
Why is that? And, more importantly, if you are not willing to think about the community before clicking “comment,” why would the community mind if you flee?
Now, of course, “carefully monitor” is a bit relative. I would consider myself in thomblake’s camp in the sense that I already try to monitor what I write. I also appreciate posts that let me know I accidently offended someone. Hopefully I am not in the minority with either of those behaviors.
You just need to know what makes you personally (not some hypothetical average woman) want to flee.
This assumes two things.
One: there being enough women available to identify the offputting behavior.
Two: there being no men capable of identifying the offputting behavior.
The first is false and the second offensive—and yes, offensive to me personally, as a black male social liberal. It’s not the victim’s job to fight unjust discrimination. It’s everyone’s.
Edit: As Eliezer Yudkowsky points out, “discrimination” is an unfairly loaded term in this context. I shouldn’t have used it. To reword: offputting behavior can be recognized by more than just those it would make uncomfortable, and it is, in fact, everyone’s responsibility to avoid it in their own writing and to point it out in others. (With the caveat, as thomblake and Jonathan_Graehl observed, that offensiveness should not be pointed out where it does not exist, and overzealous policing should be discouraged as well.)
But it’s not about discrimination. It’s about providing a non-gender-unfriendly environment. We are not assuming the speaker is guilty—of sexism, of deliberate intent, of anything. We are not on a crusade. We are just trying to avoid that sort of speech in the future.
If you’ve got a better word than “discrimination” to describe the problem, let me know, I want to hear it.
“obliviousness”
That assumes innoc...dagnabbit, why am I arguing about vocabulary? You’re right, I shouldn’t phrase it to present all gender-unfriendly speech as intentional. I’ll edit in a disclaimer.
True, but Eliezer’s point is well-taken. One wouldn’t want to defend hypothetical people that don’t even exist.
Women exist. Given that, your objection must be other than that expressed in the surface content of your words. Please make it explicit so it may be rationally discussed.
In the interests of full disclosure and not being deliberately obtuse: I suspect you may be concerned that kneejerk censorship of remarks perceived to be offensive to a given group by those ignorant of the feelings of members of that group towards said remarks (a phenomenon often pejoratively referred to as “political correctness”) would inhibit the free exchange of ideas to an unacceptable degree. I propose that a reason why you might be concerned in this fashion is because “offensive” looks like a chaotic feature of the environment to you—the metaphor in this case being that of a minefield, with the pejorative political correctness being roping off the entire thing even though many topics you wish to discuss are within it.
If that’s your concern, stop it. It’s not a minefield. If you want to avoid accidentally giving offense, all you need is empathy and education. And if you think you have those things but you’re still accidentally offending people, you’re probably wrong. Now let’s start getting less so.
The “hypothetical people that don’t even exist” would be “people who are offended by comment X”. Given how often people are mistaken about what might give offense, it’s easy for some crusader to start campaigning on behalf of someone who doesn’t want or need their help.
Another critique of offense once-removed comes from the comedian Bill Maher. He rails against what he calls “feigned outrage”, which he takes to be mostly to be aimed at establishing one’s status as a defender of the weak.
I don’t think second-hand offense is all conscious signaling, but it’s certainly sometimes inapt and even a little patronizing.
I’ve complained about racist comments in various net communities I’ve been a part of, and been met with the excuse “you’re not even Mexican, don’t be so intolerant” etc.
I don’t mind leaving the “that’s unfairly demeaning of X-people” argument as long as there are refutations available independent of that. But there are certain offenses which, when met with only silence, could result in every single offended person simply deciding that the community is not worth it, leaving without even a reply.
That’s clearly not the case re: the pickup teapot’s tempest.
When we find such crusaders, we should criticize and downvote them appropriately. We should all avoid being ones ourselves. And, on a different note, we should establish a norm in which declarations of offensiveness require justification.
None of these require that we restrict all complaints of offense to when we are personally insulted. That requirement would almost entirely eliminate complaints even in the face of endemic bad behavior, which is precisely what we do not want.
I don’t think we actually have any points of disagreement here.
Hey, I doubt I have my head on straight, but if I see comments that display objectionable gender attitudes in my view, I will do my best to critique them. Here’s an example of how I’ve gone about it in the past. The goal was to point out the potentially objectionable implications of that post, and to do so in a way that might actually convince the other person rather than making them feel shamed.
I downvoted you because I believe mod power should never be centralized. Once you deputize four other people, you’re able to instantly make any unfavored comment invisible; I wouldn’t like any entity on LW (except maybe Eliezer) to have such power.
Unless, of course, anyone else upvotes the comment in question.
Unless, of course, someone else upvotes the unfavored comment.
I downvoted you because you’re endorsing overt factionalization of Less Wrong’s userbase (again). As the previous discussion has shown, there’s no shortage of people (male and female) who will take genuine offense at objectifying or otherwise insensitive language: we have no need for meat-puppets or “deputies”.
Edited to address reply: The only situation where Eliezer called for female rationalists to intervene was to debunk a hypothetical feminist commenter who took offense at eminently sensible things like, say, evolutionary psychology [1]. This is not at all the same as identifying genuine sexism concerns.
[1] Which is ironic, since evolutionary psychology as currently practiced is full of baseless “just-so stories”. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if some of these stories were genuinely problematic.
The idea of deputies is… well… silly… but I suppose if you actually were finding that it took up your time, then sure, I guess so. I’m hoping you won’t have to do this more than once in a blue moon once we settle what the actual LW policy is.
I have no idea. Those downvotes really should’ve come with an explanation.
I have plenty of guesses, on the other hand, for the downvotes:
1) divisive langauge—there are those who “I think have their heads on straight” and everyone else, who is suspected of wrongdoing. probably more offense at being suspected than desire to behave brutishly
2) attempt to assume authority and power—unless your position is secure, or your proposal compelling, people will tear down and mock the young upstart
3) interpetation of “i think we should do this” as a call for votes
4) actual rational disagreement
Agreed with EY. “deputize” sounds silly.
And I think it’s clear enough at this point that you don’t need to take any action, as there are enough people being affected regardless of ‘anatomical credentials’.
You could -stop being the feminism police-and move on.
This would be a credential of negative value. I think (whether accurately or not) that I have my head on straight on this matter, but if I comment on these things it will only be because I have found it worth commenting on, not because I have been conferred with an office of The Male Voice of Feminism, no matter who by.
Okay, anyone who ridiculed my remark about the potential “special class of feminist censors”, you may begin your gold-plated apologies … now.
Did you not read the rest of this thread? EY suggested that one might require certain ‘anatomical credentials’ (not his wording) to speak up, and Alicorn despaired that it might put an undue burden on her and asked if other people could help.
Incidentally, insisting that people apologize to you is not good form.
That speaks to whether the feminist censors’ existence is justified. That issue is distinct from my point, which is that Eliezer_Yudkowsky’s proposal amounts to assigning feminist censors, which turns out to be an accurate assessment.
You may have wonderful reasons for supporting this policy, but I was absolutely right about the implications of Eliezer_Yudkowsky’s proposal, when others didn’t see such implications.
Perhaps, but so is:
1) Ignoring warnings that turn out to be correct.
2) Not apologizing for ridiculing someone who turned out not to deserve it.
that makes a lot of sense. thanks for clarifying.
Indeed… well said.
Why do you think the comment bothers you?
partially because if I was a female rationalist it would be offensive to me that Eliezer assumes I would respond differently to the same comment simply because of the gender of the commenter. Just like it would be offensive to me as a black person if the LW community thought that I would only respond positively to comments made by another black person.
there’s absolutely nothing wrong with men making generalizations about women, nothing wrong with whites making generalizations about blacks or vice versa. allowing overly sensitive members of minority groups to dictate behavior is a waste of time.
See… that’s where I’m not willing to go, there. That is a hole with no bottom. There’s enough real trouble in the world without borrowing imaginary subjunctive counterfactual trouble on top of that. If I really said something offensive to a female rationalist, a female rationalist can tell me so.
I agree completely, and I’ll add that it’s still valid even though it’s also an often used tactic of actual clods attempting to squirm out of censure.
I’m not sure Eliezer qualifies as an “overly sensitive member of a minority group” but I take your point. I think he’s making a pragmatic decision but we can disagree.
In this particular case, I think Eliezer is arguing that the hypothetical woman who thinks all evolutionary psychology discussions are sexist is not a rationalist. As such she has no rationalist honor and would probably not respond as you (being a male rationalist) would. I think it’s fair to give her (as a female assumed-non-rationalist) a little breathing room, which is what I think Eliezer is suggesting.
I think this is consistent with his narrative of trying to recruit/grow the rationalist pool, and as such trying to be more tolerant/welcoming of people who may not yet be rationalists but are interested and learning.
And you’d be wrong to be offended.
Because as far as we know, humans can’t reliably switch off the biases that would make them act irrationally in such a circumstance, and a rationalist should be humble enough to acknowledge when his/her brain can’t be expected to do the right thing.
That being said, I agree with your second paragraph: there’s nothing wrong with making generalizations, per se. (Actually speaking about them, however, or otherwise revealing them to other persons, alas, is fraught with many perils.)
“there’s absolutely nothing wrong with men making generalizations about women, nothing wrong with whites making generalizations about blacks or vice versa. allowing overly sensitive members of minority groups to dictate behavior is a waste of time.”
Are you serious? Assuming that you are, you are treading on ground that is far from stable, especially in a place such as this...
http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
I fear I play a poor inquisitor, and you a poor Galileo. The thought that it’s all right to make broad generalizations about large groups of people isn’t some great new theory that society is trying to suppress—it’s just wrong. Indeed, such an idea is regressive, not revolutionary.
you’re attaching a bunch of words with negative connotation without actually telling what’s wrong. we all make generalizations all the time. we can’t interface with reality without making generalizations. if it is clearly wrong then you have the entire apparatus of social statistics to debunk.
I’m quite surprised that this requires explanation, since this seems like basic-level rationality to me, but here we go:
Generalizations about people of a particular ethnicity, based solely on their ethnicity, are racist. Overt racism is not acceptable in modern civilized society. In the past, overt racism was acceptable, but we have moved beyond that. It is extremely unwise both from a personal belief perspective and from a general signalling perspective to hold or argue for such views.
generalizations about individuals based on their ethnicity is clearly dumb. inquiring into broad trends that correlate well with ethnic divisions is interesting and demands further research.
http://www.reason.com/news/show/116483.html
we’re at the dawn of understanding genetics. to preemptively decide that a branch of inquiry will not be allowed simply because our ancestors were ignorant douche bags is silly. as rationalists I’d say it’s our job more than most to take a mature, level headed look at the data that emerges. things are really going to heat up once we get cheap complete genome sequencing. we’ll be able to look at actual allele distributions in ethnic sub-groups on a large scale for the first time in history (!)
I understand this research, view it as important, and know several people who are working in this field at the present time. That said, the work of geneticists is quite different from casual social observations and generalizations. When I speak out against sweeping generalizations based on gender or ethnicity, I do not speak out against the geneticists.
I’m not going to shout down people who make observations about group behavior just because their observations haven’t been tested in a double blind trial yet. the data precludes us from making certain generalizations. it doesn’t stop the tentative creation of new ones.
if I made a generalization about people with fingers of certain length it wouldn’t generate nearly this much ire. we shouldn’t treat race any differently just because people made stupid generalizations in the past.
We don’t have enough data to make the case for OR against any racism (biological differences → behavioral differences)
If a topic tends to historically collect relatively more stupid generalizations than other topics, isn’t it reasonable to keep a stronger default prior against such generalizations that aren’t backed by data?
So, lacking data, what is the null hypothesis?
That’s an important point (that others’ generalizations on race are suspect by default). However, I’m perfectly happy to consider appearance (including race) as a conditioning variable in my own thinking. I guess it might be smart to not admit this, but I think it’s relatively uncontroversial amongst the mind-not-yet-killed.
There are some reasons to distrust one’s own baseline p(trait|appearance) estimates, other than the obvious (confounds, low sample size), say, particular personally experienced traumatic events, or exposure to explicit indoctrination on the matter. Most of us are not committing errors like: “in my experience, chinese people like chocolate ice cream more than strawberry, while everyone else prefers strawbeery; therefore chinese genetics code for chocolate-preference.”
The main problem is not that you can’t, or even shouldn’t, draw conclusions based on personal appearance. The problem is that obvious, superficial differences are very easily observed and remembered, and so seem to carry more weight than they deserve.
For instance, upon observing one woman and three men exhibiting Annoying Behavior X, many will immediately go for “it must be a guy thing” rather than looking for more powerful explanations, for instance all four people sharing the same profession, or being from the same geographic region, or any number of even more subtle things.
Example: xkcd
I’d like to test myself somehow, to find out how often I make mistakes along those lines, but nothing occurs to me right now. Yes: just because I have no reason to be especially biased toward making positive or negative associations toward e.g. pretty vs. ugly people (let’s not even consider race), it doesn’t follow that I’m free from a general tendency to form and cling to assocations from chance, or interpreted as causal without recognizing confounds.
Link to cool study/test, anyone? Such demonstrations on Overcoming Bias are the primary reason many of us are here today.
Unfortunately, I expect this sort of thing to be difficult to deliberately test an individual on, because if someone goes in knowing what’s being tested, or figures it out from the test, it’s going to alter the results beyond use. Self-testing may not be possible at all.
I recall having read about blind studies being done on related topics but, alas, I am terrible about keeping organized links to such things.
The link you are looking for.
I’ve seen that, but you’re right, it’s related.
That I have some implicit association doesn’t actually tell me I make errors in thinking (but maybe if I’m distracted, my errors will tend in the direction of my implicit association?)
the null hypothesis for me is that i’ll listen to a wide variety of other people’s hypothesis.
I’m not sure you’re clear on what a null hypothesis is. Your statement sounds to me more like the wrong kind of humility.
That’s a reasonable starting point, but I think his argument about the prevalence of stupid generalizations about “people of race X”, especially taken to wrongly prove “race X has more of a genetic predisposition for Y”, suggests a convincing case against your stance, unless you only mean to “listen” with great discrimination.
Indeed. I don’t see why that bit was needed, but I was hoping we could all ignore that one.