It was a joke (as clearly demonstrated when I equate Satan to the Illuminati to white males)
In light of this I quite honestly now see this as politicking. I’m pretty sure nothing can save this thread from spiralling into gender/sexuality fail. A predictable failure mode of LessWrong I guess.
sigh
The original draft was upvoted to +16 and was sitting in the comment section for a month. I sent versions of the draft and links asking for private commentary and criticism to several LW and non-LW people. I wanted to improve my writing both conceptually and stylistically. I was aiming for responses in the spirit of Cocker’s rules and made it clear that I wanted through criticism of any kind, because this is my first original content main article ever. Many of them responded. Of those that responded to my requests some where women, some where homosexual. None commented or scolded me for the statement.
Even now much later when the editing is done, If anyone had written me a PM asking me to remove the statement because it is hurtful I would have complied. But this isn’t what happened, now is it?
But now that I think about it I’m not sure if anyone contacted was non-white or non-Asian (since they don’t count as diversity any more). Darn maybe Derb had a point. I need to acquire a black friend, lest I fail to atone in a future struggle session.
Darn maybe Derb had a point. I need to acquire a black friend, lest I fail to atone in a future struggle session.
This wasn’t Derb’s point. There’s a clear distinction between asking someone from a minority racial group to look at an essay and an attempt to cultivate friends in racial groups. Moreover, part of what many found shocking about Derbyshire’s remark (well that specific part of the essay) was that for a very long time the “I’m not against X, some of my best friends are X” has been seen as such a transparent and self-serving defense that to seriously suggest it as useful implied a high degree of obliviousness about how race relations function in the US.
“I’m not against X, some of my best friends are X” has been seen as such a transparent and self-serving defense that to seriously suggest it as useful implied a high degree of obliviousness about how race relations function in the US.
Quite honesty I have a hard time imagining a token friend speaking up for someone wouldn’t help them. Not speaking up for someone is not really the trait of a friend after all. On the other hand befriending someone because of benefits is also less than most virtuous.
Quite honesty I have a hard time imagining a token friends peaking up for someone wouldn’t help them. Not speaking up for someone is not really the trait of a friend after all.
Friends can help only if they are present at the debate. If they are absent, and people are primed to see you as an X-hater, then it seems like you are talking about “imaginary friends”. That obviously does not help.
For example in a debate like this, only your friends active on LW would be relevant. And only if they had time to participate in this discussion now.
In real life, the best defense against being labeled as an X-hater is to actively label other people as X-haters, and to act offended every time someone speaks about X.
On a second thought, having an X friend and making them a part of your identity (e.g. having a photo with them as your avatar, mentioning them often), that would also help. That would give you the first move in the priming combat. (Though it would not work for “X = female”, because that could be reframed as you exploiting the given person.)
Mentioning X friends works best if I’m not perceived as doing so with the intention of establishing my credibility as a non-(X-hater). But with that proviso, it can work pretty well.
Also, for iterated discussions, it can sometimes help to establish a practice of preferentially using groups I’m actually in as examples of negative traits, and only using groups I’m not in as examples when I genuinely am claiming that my groups don’t have those traits. (It’s important when using this approach to avoid being seen as “self-hating” though.)
Of course, if I’m in the position of genuinely believing that group X is either generally inferior to my group, or inferior in certain specific ways that I genuinely consider more important to discuss than other group traits, that’s less available as an option.
I have demonstrated that such conspiracy theories do exist. And many of them are quite well known and popular.
It was a joke (as clearly demonstrated when I equate Satan to the Illuminati to white males)
In light of this I quite honestly now see this as politicking. I’m pretty sure nothing can save this thread from spiralling into gender/sexuality fail. A predictable failure mode of LessWrong I guess.
sigh
The original draft was upvoted to +16 and was sitting in the comment section for a month. I sent versions of the draft and links asking for private commentary and criticism to several LW and non-LW people. I wanted to improve my writing both conceptually and stylistically. I was aiming for responses in the spirit of Cocker’s rules and made it clear that I wanted through criticism of any kind, because this is my first original content main article ever. Many of them responded. Of those that responded to my requests some where women, some where homosexual. None commented or scolded me for the statement.
Even now much later when the editing is done, If anyone had written me a PM asking me to remove the statement because it is hurtful I would have complied. But this isn’t what happened, now is it?
But now that I think about it I’m not sure if anyone contacted was non-white or non-Asian (since they don’t count as diversity any more). Darn maybe Derb had a point. I need to acquire a black friend, lest I fail to atone in a future struggle session.
This wasn’t Derb’s point. There’s a clear distinction between asking someone from a minority racial group to look at an essay and an attempt to cultivate friends in racial groups. Moreover, part of what many found shocking about Derbyshire’s remark (well that specific part of the essay) was that for a very long time the “I’m not against X, some of my best friends are X” has been seen as such a transparent and self-serving defense that to seriously suggest it as useful implied a high degree of obliviousness about how race relations function in the US.
Quite honesty I have a hard time imagining a token friend speaking up for someone wouldn’t help them. Not speaking up for someone is not really the trait of a friend after all. On the other hand befriending someone because of benefits is also less than most virtuous.
Oh the paradoxes of modern living.
Friends can help only if they are present at the debate. If they are absent, and people are primed to see you as an X-hater, then it seems like you are talking about “imaginary friends”. That obviously does not help.
For example in a debate like this, only your friends active on LW would be relevant. And only if they had time to participate in this discussion now.
In real life, the best defense against being labeled as an X-hater is to actively label other people as X-haters, and to act offended every time someone speaks about X.
It’s all about signalling.
On a second thought, having an X friend and making them a part of your identity (e.g. having a photo with them as your avatar, mentioning them often), that would also help. That would give you the first move in the priming combat. (Though it would not work for “X = female”, because that could be reframed as you exploiting the given person.)
Mentioning X friends works best if I’m not perceived as doing so with the intention of establishing my credibility as a non-(X-hater). But with that proviso, it can work pretty well.
Also, for iterated discussions, it can sometimes help to establish a practice of preferentially using groups I’m actually in as examples of negative traits, and only using groups I’m not in as examples when I genuinely am claiming that my groups don’t have those traits. (It’s important when using this approach to avoid being seen as “self-hating” though.)
Of course, if I’m in the position of genuinely believing that group X is either generally inferior to my group, or inferior in certain specific ways that I genuinely consider more important to discuss than other group traits, that’s less available as an option.