The Heterosexual White Males example rubs me the wrong way. I haven’t heard of what I’d call conspiracy theories about that, and it doesn’t match the ridiculousness of Satan or the Illuminati. It reads like someone who wants to get back at feminists or whomever, you know. A politically motivated and sort of mean-spirited low blow. I mean, maybe there are a bunch of people that believe that on a level that matches the rest of the examples, but this is the vibe I got.
The Heterosexual White Males example rubs me the wrong way.
The article deals tightly scapegoating and seeing malignant agency where there is none.
Our Dunbarian minds probably just plain can’t get how a society can be that complex and unpredictable without it being “planned” by a cabal of Satan or Heterosexual White Males or the Illuminati (but I repeat myself twice) scheming to make weird things happen in our oblivious small stone age tribe.
The line was a joke alluding to acceptable targets. However since you responded seriously and with concern I think I should reply in kind.
I haven’t heard of what I’d call conspiracy theories about that, and it doesn’t match the ridiculousness of Satan or the Illuminati.
I find this hard to believe. They aren’t really used in such theories exactly the way a devil would be (oh wait), but I dare say they are invoked in the same way Jews sometimes are. And surely a list of Satan, the Iluminati and the Jews makes intuitive sense? ;) Even the most ardent anti-semite in conversation assures you that while most Jews are annoying they probably aren’t all involved in plots to enslave mankind. The MacDonald inspired anti-semite will further argue that because of their culture they can’t help but subconsciously sabotage wider society for the benefit of their ethnic group. He will also even point out one or two good Jews, usually the kind that exposes the fiendish plots of other Jews.
Are anti-semites conspiracy theorists? Not all of them. One can have hatred or dislike for the Jewish or any other people and avoid spinning any such tales at all. But often conspiracy theories used to support such positions are quite common among them. A different example of this would be the conspiracy theories regarding Armenians. The pattern even holds for Anti-American sentiments.
Keeping this in mind I ask you to search for some conspiracy theories about the origins of AIDS. Mind you these are quite popular in some circles. Are you really claiming you never head of such tales? Don’t White Heterosexual males play the role of Satan or the Jews in them? It seems strange to deny that they indeed to. It also seems hard to dispute that the image evoked by The Man is such a male.
Even if you discount all these example, what about the theories such as that of Babylonian oppression?
Some Rastafarians maintain that a white racist patriarchy (“Babylon”) controls the world in order to oppress the African race.[32] They believe that Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia did not die when it was reported in 1975, and that the racist, white media (“Babylon”) propagated that rumour in order to squash the Rastafari Movement and its message of overthrowing Babylon.[33]
These indeed this one exactly fit the bill of my joke and is far from the only one of its kind.
Well, hmm. I’m not really sure that it was in good taste nonetheless. I understand that you’re joking, and that there are conspiracy theories like that. That Jews, the Illuminati, or Heterosexual White Males have a big conspiracy to rule the world is a pretty silly idea, that’s true. Here’s what I think the thing is. Straight white males are the least discriminated against and therefore probably most likely to be dismissive of the idea that racism, sexism ect still exist and such. People don’t really like hearing that their group has it good and that they’re ignorant, and can get defensive. As a reaction they might set themselves against that whole idea and dismiss it whenever possible. That’s why your comment came off that way to me, because that seemed a likely way for it to have come about. And even as just a joke, I don’t think it’s a good idea, because it’s a serious issue and joking about it makes it less serious, I guess? And even if you think that still isn’t reason enough, multiple other people seem to have gotten the same sort of vibe from it, so. That’s my two cents.
Oh, and your first comment, about scapegoating and seeing malignant agency where there is none- is that a jab at me supposedly doing that? Excuse me if it isn’t, I’m looking at it and having trouble coming up with other things it could be… other than maybe saying this is off-topic. But I thought I was pretty careful in the way I phrased things to say what it came off as to me and not what it is.
Straight white males are the least discriminated against and therefore probably most likely to be dismissive of the idea that racism, sexism ect still exist and such.
I don’t doubt they exist at all.
Oh, and your first comment, about scapegoating and seeing malignant agency where there is none- is that a jab at me supposedly doing that?
No. Thought I must admit I’m not quite sure which comment you have in mind. I do think I mentioned something like that in the original form of this comment, but it was aimed at categorizing the kinds of conspiracies I linked to and didn’t have anything to do with this fork of the conversation.
Edit: Ugh I’m so stupid, of course you where refering to the first comment in this exchange. I forgot about that line. No it wasn’t targeted at you I was setting up my explanation of why I thought it made a good joke/example. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Straight white males are the least discriminated against and therefore probably most likely to be dismissive of the idea that racism, sexism ect still exist and such.
I am well aware that these prejudices exist. I even spot prejudice implicit in this very sentence.
Oh, huh. I didn’t mean to do that. Do you think you could point it out for me? I’m no expert.
And I’m not trying to say that such a large portion of straight white males aren’t aware of these prejudices that you’d need to provide anecdotal evidence to the contrary, haha. ?
That’s a conspiracy theory about whites, not “white heterosexual males”. Most focus on “white heterosexual males” if anything is an anti-conspiracy theory, since what is posited is not coordination but rather more oblivious people who just don’t realize that not everyone is in their position or has their viewpoints. For example, when people speak of “white male privilege” they don’t mean there’s a conspiracy theory to help white males, but rather that white males do have advantages in much of society and we often don’t realize it. Similarly, when people talk about heteronormativity, they are generally talking about people taking for granted certain types of sex and gender roles as universal.
The appropriate analogy might be that there are people who think the Illuminati created the banking crisis. That’s distinct from thinking that specific systemic problems and competence issues created the problem.
Again, in most forms it isn’t a conspiracy theory- the people advocating it don’t generally argue that there’s an overarching conspiracy as much. Some of them do move to the conspiratorial end, but even then they don’t approach full blown conspiracy in the sense of deliberate hidden coordination.
Ah, yes that would fall into the conspiracy theory outright. There’s no question that there are quite a few conspiracies about “whites” as the explicit conspiracy group. I think my confusion in this context stemmed from your use of patriarchy- as far as I’m aware the Rastafarian conspiracy doesn’t make any point about patriarchy or heterosexuality, which are relevant in the original context.
Huh. That’s interesting. I’ve never seen an emphasis on patriarchy in the Rastafarian material I’ve seen. I’ll have to look into that in more detail. The sources that Wikipedia entry give are a dead link and this which doesn’t seem to mention a patriarchal aspect as far as I can tell.
Downvoted. Both needling comments like Konkvistador’s and specifically bringing them up are poking a stick at a beehive, and it’s probably best to precommit to de-escalate whenever possible. Innuendo about forbidden topics aside, I think everyone who’s posting here for some time knows where others stand, and also knows what’s liable to summon others’ inner toddler (which is why it can be so tempting.)
Given that there is a forbidden topic, your strategy is to punish those who challenge raising the topic? This isn’t a strategy likely to decrease the frequency of the undesired behavior—it creates a large incentive to be the first to bring up the topic since your strategy noticeably lacks a threat of punishment for that act.
Well, my intuition was that there’s probably a Schelling point where people make needling, inessential asides in the context of something else, but that Stokes’ comment makes the subtext a text and so goes out of the Schelling point. But these issues are complex and I don’t have any strong argument to back my intuitions here against your reasons, and if I keep on following this train of thought I’ll have gone about ten levels meta deep on nerd drama, and that’s just embarrassing, so dedownvoted.
In context this has the unfortunate implication that Konkvistador’s ideas and manner of speech aren’t acceptable.
While he identifies himself as apolitical in some lost thread I don’t care dig up it is pretty clear that he at least entertains right wing ideas and is very unmoved by political correctness. Unlike me he never seems to be rude about it though. Intelligent right wing people are a tiny minority here and are even more banished one in the academia we often rely on. Note that we even have LW posters who have in academia personally experienced discrimination and harassment because of their right wing politics.
Considering this shouldn’t we try to not to make a spectacle out of them in this fashion? By picking on a joke line, and discussing it so we are “excluding them from intended audience”.
Funny how no one seems to think ideological diversity is a good idea if one wants to catch bad thinking. At least no one ever lets it show in their actions.
In context [the no politics position] has the unfortunate implication that Konkvistador’s ideas and manner of speech aren’t acceptable.
First, I’m not the one who wrote “Politics is the Mindkiller.” If we take the lesson seriously enough to establish a norm that we don’t discuss politics or political theory at all—Konkvistador’s jab at feminism is a violation of the norm. That’s one of the main points of the essay you linked.
Second, the no politics norm is not what I would prefer—in this discussion, I was a proponent of moving towards more open discussion of political theory. I was this close to making a thread, but it became clear that there was no consensus to change the community norm (at best, the community was split—which wasn’t enough to justify any change).
Intelligent right wing people are a tiny minority here
To the extent you assert Konkvistador’s right-wing views are persecuted here, the assertion is false. Consider just about any political conversation by Konkvistador. He’s able to start them with little pushback, and my perception is that he gets more upvotes than his interlocutors. This community is very interested in views like his. It’s not fair to hold me accountable for jerk moves by left-wing academics in the larger world, just like it’s not fair for me to pin the squickiest PUA stuff or Objectivist stuff on you.
Fourth, Konkvistador is a very clear writer and he’s generally very polite. But apolitical is a laughable label. He’s deeply suspicious of the idea “consent of the governed” and opposed to what he thinks feminism is. And he’s not afraid to say it—and he says it fairly well. But that’s not apolitical, no matter how often he asserts otherwise.
Fourth, Konkvistador is a very clear writer and he’s generally very polite. But apolitical is a laughable label. He’s deeply suspicious of the idea “consent of the governed” and opposed to what he thinks feminism is. And he’s not afraid to say it—and he says it fairly well. But that’s not apolitical, no matter how often he asserts otherwise.
This debate might clarify what I mean when I identify myself as apolitical, as CS correctly notes I do. In short it amounts to not participating in the political process or commenting current political struggles, it also for me means not identifying with a political identity. Descriptively I don’t mind it that much if someone describes me “right winger” or some such, but I won’t refer to myself by such labels except in jest. Especially in my internal narrative.
In other words I don’t see myself as a “right winger” while accepting that I do currently hold some right wing ideas. The reason I make this perhaps seemingly trivial difference is because I don’t consider those ideas at the heart of who I am, but mostly hypotheses about how the world works. If I wake up tomorrow and realize they are bull I hope I will have enough virtue to be happy about realizing my mistake.
Also please note that I have a highly eclectic bunch of right wing ideas, mixed in with left wing ones, for example I like the idea of a basic income guarantee (though people like Charles Murray support it as well), I think universal healthcare in my country works pretty well and my stance on marriage (homosexual and otherwise) dosen’t neatly fit there either. I would have a hard time finding a political tribe or label I could identify with even if I wanted to.
I’m familiar with that conversation, since you mostly had it with me. :)
The fact that there is no political faction that supports your cluster of political ideas does not mean that you don’t have political opinions or that you don’t push them in this community. Your lack of mainstream partisan identification speaks well of your rationality. But the norm in the community is no political opinions rather than no partisan opinions. To be clear, I disagree with that norm and think that your contributions are a net benefit to the community. But as far as I can tell, the stated norm of the community conflicts with talking about the topics you discuss.
In short, your (deservedly) high status in this community is protecting you from pushback that a newcomer would receive if he posted substantially similar content to what you post.
In this particular case, I think there has been a bit of misunderstanding among your critics. Your reference to Heterosexual White Males was interpreted (by me and others) as a reference to feminism, when you intended to reference conspiracy theories like “CIA caused crack epidemic” or “CIA made AIDS”.
I would not agree that the existing community norm precludes all discussions of policy proposals, even those not affiliated with any partisan group.
I would agree that it precludes discussions of proposals affiliated with any partisan group, even if raised by individuals who don’t identify as members of that group.
That is, if I picked some example to talk about that was, strictly speaking, political, but that no significant political group had made into a partisan point of contention, I would not expect to be censured for it; if I were censured for it I would treat that as evidence that it was partisan in some way I hadn’t previously noticed.
On reflection, I think you explain the data better than I, but I maintain that the equilibrium you describe is not stable.
Specifically, it is not a neutral principal—one side on a substantive disagreement can be suppressed by creation of a social norm that the side is too close to a live partisan political debate while the other side far enough from the live debate not to be suppressed.
Or, rather, I agree that some ideas violate the local norm more strongly than others (and, in particular, more than a given opposed idea) and that consequently the local norm isn’t ideologically neutral. There exist partisan positions that LW collectively implicitly supports, and partisan positions that LW collectively implicitly rejects.
Whether that makes the norm unstable in any practical sense, I’m not quite sure, though it seems intuitively plausible. (I agree that the norm is unstable in a technical sense, but I can’t see why anyone ought to care.)
I recognize that there are people here who would at least claim to disagree with you, on grounds I don’t entirely understand but which at least sometimes have to do with the idea that this community is “exceptionally rational” and that this renders us relatively immune to normal primate social dynamics. I’m not one of them. (I’m also not entirely convinced that anyone actually believes this.)
First, I’m not the one who wrote “Politics is the Mindkiller.”
This reminds me of a discussion I had on naming the article. I was reluctant to give it a title and prefered “On Conspiracy Theories”, because giving a post a memorable title seems to cause the meaning of the article to over time the meaning of the article will converge with its title.
I suspect this is because we like linking articles, and while people may read a link the first time, they don’t tend to read it the second or third time it is linked. Eventually a phrase that is supposed to be a shorthand for a nuanced argument starts to mean exactly how it is used.
I cited precisely “Politics is the Mindkiller” as an example of this. In the original article Eliezer basically argues that gratuitous politics, political thinking that isn’t outweighed by its value to the art of rationality is to be avoided. This soon came to meant it is forbidden to discuss politics in Main and Discussion articles (though politics does live in the comment sections).
Since the personal is the political, we pretty quickly started applying this kind of thinking to PUA and Gender relations in general as well, though we may not cite is as often.
Is “marketplace of ideas” actually a Schelling point? It seems more like the temporary absence of a a Schelling point (at least, once stripped of idealism).
But I’m not totally comfortable with its inclusion on my list. For example, both Europe and America operate on the same basic free speech principle (Allow speech unless it is too “dangerous”/”uncivil”), yet the two regimes are substantially different in practice. This discontinuity is a substantial challenge to the accurate of the label “Schelling point” when applied to freedom of speech.
It also sends an unintended signal: “This community is more interested in putting up with core-demographic provincialism for the sake of avoiding flamewars between the majority; folks on the periphery are better off not even trying to point it out, analyze it, or correct it.” I think this is bad for LW in the long run; while it’s definitely beginning to change, the user base is still very homogenous, with some fairly big gaps in knowledge and skills.
I think this is bad for LW in the long run; while it’s definitely beginning to change, the user base is still very homogenous, with some fairly big gaps in knowledge and skills.
Pretty much anything relating to biology from anything other than a careful reading of pop-sci evolutionary theory, for a start (and even that is often misleading when you try to extrapolate from it to real biological systems, let alone complex things like ecosystems). Given the unabashedly transhumanist and pro-cryonics position of SIAI’s main figures present here, that’s kind of glaring—it comes off as a bit overconfident and a bit naive.
A lot of things that amount to context and particulars of the world we live in. It’s my perception that LWers in general know very little about stuff like ecology, infrastructure, history, culture, and downrate their importance when trying to understand how the world works, how a given pattern has developed, ways in which it might change in the future, or to what degree and how one might seek to deliberately change some facet of that.
At the very best of times it seems like, to the extent this gap is recognized at all, it’s considered a problem for FAI to solve. We don’t need to know any of this stuff or why it’s relevant to stuff like “raising the sanity waterline”, “mitigating global existential risk” or “extrapolating human value”; if it has any relevance at all, our future genie will surely determine that and implement it tidily.
A lot of things that amount to context and particulars of the world we live in. It’s my perception that LWers in general know very little about stuff like ecology, infrastructure, history, culture, and downrate their importance when trying to understand how the world works, how a given pattern has developed, ways in which it might change in the future, or to what degree and how one might seek to deliberately change some facet of that.
If anything user Konkvistador seems remarkably interested and knowledgeable about history, culture and politics.
I also seems to recall several academically trained biologists, doctors and even ecologists being prominent members of the community. Are you really bothered by a lack of knowledge or skill, or are you bothered by how they are applied?
I would argue that you are actually bothered by LW not paying attention to them and discussing them as you think appropriate. At least that is what I get out of the quote here:
At the very best of times it seems like, to the extent this gap is recognized at all, it’s considered a problem for FAI to solve. We don’t need to know any of this stuff or why it’s relevant to stuff like “raising the sanity waterline”, “mitigating global existential risk” or “extrapolating human value”; if it has any relevance at all, our future genie will surely determine that and implement it tidily.
But again Konkvistador dosen’t exactly shy away from the topics I mentioned. He has 6000+ karma, so he’s not exactly a pariah. He often discusses them at length. I even recall a debate about ecology now that I think about it. Do we need a smaller share of people like him?
Okay, but that’s not the demographic/experience gap implied by political matters like that which spurred the thread. Everyone would like more and different scientists here. But come on, that’s not what you mean. When you say the user base is homogeneous in the context of Estoke’s comment you’re not talking about how there are too many computer programmers and not enough ecologists.
It also sends an unintended signal: “This community is more interested in putting up with core-demographic provincialism for the sake of avoiding flamewars between the majority; folks on the periphery are better off not even trying to point it out, analyze it, or correct it.”
I’m not completely sure what you mean by “putting up with core-demographic provincialism”—I assume it’s the “Yay hard sciences boo humanities!” subtext, no?
And I have no idea of what you mean by “flamewars between the majority”—flamewars dividing the majority? Flamewars between LessWrong and the rest of the world?
(For context, I’m French, so I may not have a clear idea of what kind of things signal what in an American context)
I’m not completely sure what you mean by “putting up with core-demographic provincialism”—I assume it’s the “Yay hard sciences boo humanities!” subtext, no?
I believe the subtext is more about LW’s racial and gender makeup than our favorite parts of academia.
Edit: Though I suppose part of it would be a typical anti-humanities reaction to, say, departments of gender studies, African-American Studies, Queer-studies etc. and their manifestation in, e.g. English departments.
Oh, very much so. It’s a sort of offhand straw-man caricature of attitudes found in certain aspects of humanities scholarship, especially those that purport to “social justice”; its use here suggests to me that Konkvistador either doesn’t understand the arguments, several chains of interpretation away, or has a fairly selective sample set to work from.
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.
Oh, very much so. It’s a sort of offhand straw-man caricature of attitudes found in certain aspects of humanities scholarship, especially those that purport to “social justice”; its use here suggests to me that Konkvistador either doesn’t understand the arguments, several chains of interpretation away, or has a fairly selective sample set to work from.
I’m pretty sure a supporter of any of the other conspiracy theories Konkvistador casually dismissed in the post would make an analogous complaint.
Though it might be good to tack on “though it doesn’t mean it’s not a valid statement” to the beginning or something. Not that I’m trying to police the way you comment, haha, I’m just trying to say this in a way that doesn’t seem like aggression.
The Heterosexual White Males example rubs me the wrong way. I haven’t heard of what I’d call conspiracy theories about that, and it doesn’t match the ridiculousness of Satan or the Illuminati. It reads like someone who wants to get back at feminists or whomever, you know. A politically motivated and sort of mean-spirited low blow. I mean, maybe there are a bunch of people that believe that on a level that matches the rest of the examples, but this is the vibe I got.
The article deals tightly scapegoating and seeing malignant agency where there is none.
The line was a joke alluding to acceptable targets. However since you responded seriously and with concern I think I should reply in kind.
I find this hard to believe. They aren’t really used in such theories exactly the way a devil would be (oh wait), but I dare say they are invoked in the same way Jews sometimes are. And surely a list of Satan, the Iluminati and the Jews makes intuitive sense? ;) Even the most ardent anti-semite in conversation assures you that while most Jews are annoying they probably aren’t all involved in plots to enslave mankind. The MacDonald inspired anti-semite will further argue that because of their culture they can’t help but subconsciously sabotage wider society for the benefit of their ethnic group. He will also even point out one or two good Jews, usually the kind that exposes the fiendish plots of other Jews.
Are anti-semites conspiracy theorists? Not all of them. One can have hatred or dislike for the Jewish or any other people and avoid spinning any such tales at all. But often conspiracy theories used to support such positions are quite common among them. A different example of this would be the conspiracy theories regarding Armenians. The pattern even holds for Anti-American sentiments.
Keeping this in mind I ask you to search for some conspiracy theories about the origins of AIDS. Mind you these are quite popular in some circles. Are you really claiming you never head of such tales? Don’t White Heterosexual males play the role of Satan or the Jews in them? It seems strange to deny that they indeed to. It also seems hard to dispute that the image evoked by The Man is such a male.
Even if you discount all these example, what about the theories such as that of Babylonian oppression?
These indeed this one exactly fit the bill of my joke and is far from the only one of its kind.
Well, hmm. I’m not really sure that it was in good taste nonetheless. I understand that you’re joking, and that there are conspiracy theories like that. That Jews, the Illuminati, or Heterosexual White Males have a big conspiracy to rule the world is a pretty silly idea, that’s true. Here’s what I think the thing is. Straight white males are the least discriminated against and therefore probably most likely to be dismissive of the idea that racism, sexism ect still exist and such. People don’t really like hearing that their group has it good and that they’re ignorant, and can get defensive. As a reaction they might set themselves against that whole idea and dismiss it whenever possible. That’s why your comment came off that way to me, because that seemed a likely way for it to have come about. And even as just a joke, I don’t think it’s a good idea, because it’s a serious issue and joking about it makes it less serious, I guess? And even if you think that still isn’t reason enough, multiple other people seem to have gotten the same sort of vibe from it, so. That’s my two cents.
Oh, and your first comment, about scapegoating and seeing malignant agency where there is none- is that a jab at me supposedly doing that? Excuse me if it isn’t, I’m looking at it and having trouble coming up with other things it could be… other than maybe saying this is off-topic. But I thought I was pretty careful in the way I phrased things to say what it came off as to me and not what it is.
I don’t doubt they exist at all.
No. Thought I must admit I’m not quite sure which comment you have in mind. I do think I mentioned something like that in the original form of this comment, but it was aimed at categorizing the kinds of conspiracies I linked to and didn’t have anything to do with this fork of the conversation.
Edit: Ugh I’m so stupid, of course you where refering to the first comment in this exchange. I forgot about that line. No it wasn’t targeted at you I was setting up my explanation of why I thought it made a good joke/example. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Well, I’m not trying to say that you personally doubt they exist.
What I’d meant by the first comment, excuse me if I’d caused confusion by saying comment, is this:
I am well aware that these prejudices exist. I even spot prejudice implicit in this very sentence.
Oh, huh. I didn’t mean to do that. Do you think you could point it out for me? I’m no expert.
And I’m not trying to say that such a large portion of straight white males aren’t aware of these prejudices that you’d need to provide anecdotal evidence to the contrary, haha. ?
That’s a conspiracy theory about whites, not “white heterosexual males”. Most focus on “white heterosexual males” if anything is an anti-conspiracy theory, since what is posited is not coordination but rather more oblivious people who just don’t realize that not everyone is in their position or has their viewpoints. For example, when people speak of “white male privilege” they don’t mean there’s a conspiracy theory to help white males, but rather that white males do have advantages in much of society and we often don’t realize it. Similarly, when people talk about heteronormativity, they are generally talking about people taking for granted certain types of sex and gender roles as universal.
The appropriate analogy might be that there are people who think the Illuminati created the banking crisis. That’s distinct from thinking that specific systemic problems and competence issues created the problem.
The white racist patriarchy is not male at least? I’m sure it will be very disappointed to hear that.
Again, in most forms it isn’t a conspiracy theory- the people advocating it don’t generally argue that there’s an overarching conspiracy as much. Some of them do move to the conspiratorial end, but even then they don’t approach full blown conspiracy in the sense of deliberate hidden coordination.
I was specifically referencing the Rastafarian conspiracy theory I quoted previously.
Ah, yes that would fall into the conspiracy theory outright. There’s no question that there are quite a few conspiracies about “whites” as the explicit conspiracy group. I think my confusion in this context stemmed from your use of patriarchy- as far as I’m aware the Rastafarian conspiracy doesn’t make any point about patriarchy or heterosexuality, which are relevant in the original context.
Huh. That’s interesting. I’ve never seen an emphasis on patriarchy in the Rastafarian material I’ve seen. I’ll have to look into that in more detail. The sources that Wikipedia entry give are a dead link and this which doesn’t seem to mention a patriarchal aspect as far as I can tell.
I’ve had enough of your disingenuous assertions.
Gains Renegade Points
Downvoted. Both needling comments like Konkvistador’s and specifically bringing them up are poking a stick at a beehive, and it’s probably best to precommit to de-escalate whenever possible. Innuendo about forbidden topics aside, I think everyone who’s posting here for some time knows where others stand, and also knows what’s liable to summon others’ inner toddler (which is why it can be so tempting.)
Given that there is a forbidden topic, your strategy is to punish those who challenge raising the topic? This isn’t a strategy likely to decrease the frequency of the undesired behavior—it creates a large incentive to be the first to bring up the topic since your strategy noticeably lacks a threat of punishment for that act.
Well, my intuition was that there’s probably a Schelling point where people make needling, inessential asides in the context of something else, but that Stokes’ comment makes the subtext a text and so goes out of the Schelling point. But these issues are complex and I don’t have any strong argument to back my intuitions here against your reasons, and if I keep on following this train of thought I’ll have gone about ten levels meta deep on nerd drama, and that’s just embarrassing, so dedownvoted.
I think history makes a solid case that there are three Schelling points:
Don’t talk about certain subjects
Marketplace of ideas
Purge the unbelievers
“Keep it to a low roar” is not really a stable dynamic.
In context this has the unfortunate implication that Konkvistador’s ideas and manner of speech aren’t acceptable.
While he identifies himself as apolitical in some lost thread I don’t care dig up it is pretty clear that he at least entertains right wing ideas and is very unmoved by political correctness. Unlike me he never seems to be rude about it though. Intelligent right wing people are a tiny minority here and are even more banished one in the academia we often rely on. Note that we even have LW posters who have in academia personally experienced discrimination and harassment because of their right wing politics.
Considering this shouldn’t we try to not to make a spectacle out of them in this fashion? By picking on a joke line, and discussing it so we are “excluding them from intended audience”.
Funny how no one seems to think ideological diversity is a good idea if one wants to catch bad thinking. At least no one ever lets it show in their actions.
First, I’m not the one who wrote “Politics is the Mindkiller.” If we take the lesson seriously enough to establish a norm that we don’t discuss politics or political theory at all—Konkvistador’s jab at feminism is a violation of the norm. That’s one of the main points of the essay you linked.
Second, the no politics norm is not what I would prefer—in this discussion, I was a proponent of moving towards more open discussion of political theory. I was this close to making a thread, but it became clear that there was no consensus to change the community norm (at best, the community was split—which wasn’t enough to justify any change).
To the extent you assert Konkvistador’s right-wing views are persecuted here, the assertion is false. Consider just about any political conversation by Konkvistador. He’s able to start them with little pushback, and my perception is that he gets more upvotes than his interlocutors. This community is very interested in views like his. It’s not fair to hold me accountable for jerk moves by left-wing academics in the larger world, just like it’s not fair for me to pin the squickiest PUA stuff or Objectivist stuff on you.
Fourth, Konkvistador is a very clear writer and he’s generally very polite. But apolitical is a laughable label. He’s deeply suspicious of the idea “consent of the governed” and opposed to what he thinks feminism is. And he’s not afraid to say it—and he says it fairly well. But that’s not apolitical, no matter how often he asserts otherwise.
This debate might clarify what I mean when I identify myself as apolitical, as CS correctly notes I do. In short it amounts to not participating in the political process or commenting current political struggles, it also for me means not identifying with a political identity. Descriptively I don’t mind it that much if someone describes me “right winger” or some such, but I won’t refer to myself by such labels except in jest. Especially in my internal narrative.
In other words I don’t see myself as a “right winger” while accepting that I do currently hold some right wing ideas. The reason I make this perhaps seemingly trivial difference is because I don’t consider those ideas at the heart of who I am, but mostly hypotheses about how the world works. If I wake up tomorrow and realize they are bull I hope I will have enough virtue to be happy about realizing my mistake.
Also please note that I have a highly eclectic bunch of right wing ideas, mixed in with left wing ones, for example I like the idea of a basic income guarantee (though people like Charles Murray support it as well), I think universal healthcare in my country works pretty well and my stance on marriage (homosexual and otherwise) dosen’t neatly fit there either. I would have a hard time finding a political tribe or label I could identify with even if I wanted to.
Konkvistador,
I’m familiar with that conversation, since you mostly had it with me. :)
The fact that there is no political faction that supports your cluster of political ideas does not mean that you don’t have political opinions or that you don’t push them in this community. Your lack of mainstream partisan identification speaks well of your rationality. But the norm in the community is no political opinions rather than no partisan opinions. To be clear, I disagree with that norm and think that your contributions are a net benefit to the community. But as far as I can tell, the stated norm of the community conflicts with talking about the topics you discuss.
In short, your (deservedly) high status in this community is protecting you from pushback that a newcomer would receive if he posted substantially similar content to what you post.
In this particular case, I think there has been a bit of misunderstanding among your critics. Your reference to Heterosexual White Males was interpreted (by me and others) as a reference to feminism, when you intended to reference conspiracy theories like “CIA caused crack epidemic” or “CIA made AIDS”.
I would not agree that the existing community norm precludes all discussions of policy proposals, even those not affiliated with any partisan group.
I would agree that it precludes discussions of proposals affiliated with any partisan group, even if raised by individuals who don’t identify as members of that group.
That is, if I picked some example to talk about that was, strictly speaking, political, but that no significant political group had made into a partisan point of contention, I would not expect to be censured for it; if I were censured for it I would treat that as evidence that it was partisan in some way I hadn’t previously noticed.
On reflection, I think you explain the data better than I, but I maintain that the equilibrium you describe is not stable.
Specifically, it is not a neutral principal—one side on a substantive disagreement can be suppressed by creation of a social norm that the side is too close to a live partisan political debate while the other side far enough from the live debate not to be suppressed.
(nods) Oh, absolutely.
Or, rather, I agree that some ideas violate the local norm more strongly than others (and, in particular, more than a given opposed idea) and that consequently the local norm isn’t ideologically neutral. There exist partisan positions that LW collectively implicitly supports, and partisan positions that LW collectively implicitly rejects.
Whether that makes the norm unstable in any practical sense, I’m not quite sure, though it seems intuitively plausible. (I agree that the norm is unstable in a technical sense, but I can’t see why anyone ought to care.)
I recognize that there are people here who would at least claim to disagree with you, on grounds I don’t entirely understand but which at least sometimes have to do with the idea that this community is “exceptionally rational” and that this renders us relatively immune to normal primate social dynamics. I’m not one of them. (I’m also not entirely convinced that anyone actually believes this.)
That . . . makes me feel a lot better, actually. I suppose that fragile is a better adjective than unstable for what I was trying to say.
Oh I know you are. Its just the casual reader might not be and I felt a bit uncomfortable being quiet as other people debate me.
This reminds me of a discussion I had on naming the article. I was reluctant to give it a title and prefered “On Conspiracy Theories”, because giving a post a memorable title seems to cause the meaning of the article to over time the meaning of the article will converge with its title.
I suspect this is because we like linking articles, and while people may read a link the first time, they don’t tend to read it the second or third time it is linked. Eventually a phrase that is supposed to be a shorthand for a nuanced argument starts to mean exactly how it is used.
I cited precisely “Politics is the Mindkiller” as an example of this. In the original article Eliezer basically argues that gratuitous politics, political thinking that isn’t outweighed by its value to the art of rationality is to be avoided. This soon came to meant it is forbidden to discuss politics in Main and Discussion articles (though politics does live in the comment sections).
Since the personal is the political, we pretty quickly started applying this kind of thinking to PUA and Gender relations in general as well, though we may not cite is as often.
Is “marketplace of ideas” actually a Schelling point? It seems more like the temporary absence of a a Schelling point (at least, once stripped of idealism).
I got the idea from Yvain here.
But I’m not totally comfortable with its inclusion on my list. For example, both Europe and America operate on the same basic free speech principle (Allow speech unless it is too “dangerous”/”uncivil”), yet the two regimes are substantially different in practice. This discontinuity is a substantial challenge to the accurate of the label “Schelling point” when applied to freedom of speech.
It also sends an unintended signal: “This community is more interested in putting up with core-demographic provincialism for the sake of avoiding flamewars between the majority; folks on the periphery are better off not even trying to point it out, analyze it, or correct it.” I think this is bad for LW in the long run; while it’s definitely beginning to change, the user base is still very homogenous, with some fairly big gaps in knowledge and skills.
Which knowledge? Which skills? Be explicit.
Pretty much anything relating to biology from anything other than a careful reading of pop-sci evolutionary theory, for a start (and even that is often misleading when you try to extrapolate from it to real biological systems, let alone complex things like ecosystems). Given the unabashedly transhumanist and pro-cryonics position of SIAI’s main figures present here, that’s kind of glaring—it comes off as a bit overconfident and a bit naive.
A lot of things that amount to context and particulars of the world we live in. It’s my perception that LWers in general know very little about stuff like ecology, infrastructure, history, culture, and downrate their importance when trying to understand how the world works, how a given pattern has developed, ways in which it might change in the future, or to what degree and how one might seek to deliberately change some facet of that.
At the very best of times it seems like, to the extent this gap is recognized at all, it’s considered a problem for FAI to solve. We don’t need to know any of this stuff or why it’s relevant to stuff like “raising the sanity waterline”, “mitigating global existential risk” or “extrapolating human value”; if it has any relevance at all, our future genie will surely determine that and implement it tidily.
If anything user Konkvistador seems remarkably interested and knowledgeable about history, culture and politics.
I also seems to recall several academically trained biologists, doctors and even ecologists being prominent members of the community. Are you really bothered by a lack of knowledge or skill, or are you bothered by how they are applied?
I would argue that you are actually bothered by LW not paying attention to them and discussing them as you think appropriate. At least that is what I get out of the quote here:
But again Konkvistador dosen’t exactly shy away from the topics I mentioned. He has 6000+ karma, so he’s not exactly a pariah. He often discusses them at length. I even recall a debate about ecology now that I think about it. Do we need a smaller share of people like him?
Okay, but that’s not the demographic/experience gap implied by political matters like that which spurred the thread. Everyone would like more and different scientists here. But come on, that’s not what you mean. When you say the user base is homogeneous in the context of Estoke’s comment you’re not talking about how there are too many computer programmers and not enough ecologists.
I’m not completely sure what you mean by “putting up with core-demographic provincialism”—I assume it’s the “Yay hard sciences boo humanities!” subtext, no?
And I have no idea of what you mean by “flamewars between the majority”—flamewars dividing the majority? Flamewars between LessWrong and the rest of the world?
(For context, I’m French, so I may not have a clear idea of what kind of things signal what in an American context)
I believe the subtext is more about LW’s racial and gender makeup than our favorite parts of academia.
Edit: Though I suppose part of it would be a typical anti-humanities reaction to, say, departments of gender studies, African-American Studies, Queer-studies etc. and their manifestation in, e.g. English departments.
Oh, very much so. It’s a sort of offhand straw-man caricature of attitudes found in certain aspects of humanities scholarship, especially those that purport to “social justice”; its use here suggests to me that Konkvistador either doesn’t understand the arguments, several chains of interpretation away, or has a fairly selective sample set to work from.
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.
I’m pretty sure a supporter of any of the other conspiracy theories Konkvistador casually dismissed in the post would make an analogous complaint.
Though it might be good to tack on “though it doesn’t mean it’s not a valid statement” to the beginning or something. Not that I’m trying to police the way you comment, haha, I’m just trying to say this in a way that doesn’t seem like aggression.