dfranke didn’t make a “correct” assumption, he made an “unnecessary” assumption.
I should have included “if he wished to gender his pronouns”. I meant to communicate that the assumption he made was the correct one given his information and priors at the time; I grant that it spilled over into saying that gendering his speech was a correct choice and I did not intend that.
I find it really quite surprising and disheartening that the Less Wrong community doesn’t have an interest in making a habit of avoiding these
Actually we do—as I said in the previous comment we are partial to this practice, but it is not (yet) a community norm the way that, say, having read the Sequences, or arguing in good faith allowing for the possibility of changing your mind is. I fully expect it will soon become a norm.
A note on indignation: although it’s a greasy social psychology point, indignation isn’t the correct response unless it is a community norm. Reacting indignantly to something which is normally reacted to neutrally or ignored marks you as the unreasonable one, instead of the person that casually insulted you. Of course, this is only where “correct response” means “response that achieves the goal you want”. (There’s another interpretation of “correct response” that would say that indignation is a correct response, and that it fails to achieve the goal you want is a fact about the environment, not about the response).
if the community assumes that everyone in the community is male, then the community is more likely to lose female or third-gender members
Given the concern that LessWrong already suffers from style and interest deficiencies in such respects, this is a crucial matter. I don’t know how to address it other than to increase my efforts to avoid gendered speech and more often point it out to others.
A note on indignation: although it’s a greasy social psychology point, indignation isn’t the correct response unless it is a community norm.
Leaving aside semantics around “correct,” I agree that getting indignant over X when most people around me think X is unobjectionable often has results I don’t want.
That said, sometimes things become community norms as a consequence of the expressed indignation of individuals and the community’s willingness to align with those individuals.
Predicting when that second result is likely is easy to get wrong. Sometimes it’s worthwhile just to try and see.
Yes. I feel that is an extension on my parenthetical about the other interpretation of correct response—that it could lead to changing the environment.
Predicting when that second result is likely is easy to get wrong.
I’d like to put it down in writing somewhere that I predict a community norm of using nongendered speech, at least on the level of the norm of “read the Sequences”, to be fully formed and applied by six months from now.
By nongendered to you mean ve, ver, vis? Conditional prediction: If there is a move away from “he,she,etc.” I predict “they/them/their” will dominate.
By nongendered speech, I mean speech that does not indicate male or female gender. So they/them/their, ve/ver/vis, ey, or any other gender-neutral pronouns. It also includes my preferred way of avoiding gendered speech—you, the poster, and using the poster’s name. Yes, it’s fairly broad :P
I totally endorse that, and I’m pretty good about it myself (at least, I think I am), but I’d be very surprised if it ever became a reliable LW community norm.
I should have included “if he wished to gender his pronouns”. I meant to communicate that the assumption he made was the correct one given his information and priors at the time; I grant that it spilled over into saying that gendering his speech was a correct choice and I did not intend that.
Actually we do—as I said in the previous comment we are partial to this practice, but it is not (yet) a community norm the way that, say, having read the Sequences, or arguing in good faith allowing for the possibility of changing your mind is. I fully expect it will soon become a norm.
A note on indignation: although it’s a greasy social psychology point, indignation isn’t the correct response unless it is a community norm. Reacting indignantly to something which is normally reacted to neutrally or ignored marks you as the unreasonable one, instead of the person that casually insulted you. Of course, this is only where “correct response” means “response that achieves the goal you want”. (There’s another interpretation of “correct response” that would say that indignation is a correct response, and that it fails to achieve the goal you want is a fact about the environment, not about the response).
Given the concern that LessWrong already suffers from style and interest deficiencies in such respects, this is a crucial matter. I don’t know how to address it other than to increase my efforts to avoid gendered speech and more often point it out to others.
Leaving aside semantics around “correct,” I agree that getting indignant over X when most people around me think X is unobjectionable often has results I don’t want.
That said, sometimes things become community norms as a consequence of the expressed indignation of individuals and the community’s willingness to align with those individuals.
Predicting when that second result is likely is easy to get wrong. Sometimes it’s worthwhile just to try and see.
Yes. I feel that is an extension on my parenthetical about the other interpretation of correct response—that it could lead to changing the environment.
I’d like to put it down in writing somewhere that I predict a community norm of using nongendered speech, at least on the level of the norm of “read the Sequences”, to be fully formed and applied by six months from now.
By nongendered to you mean ve, ver, vis? Conditional prediction: If there is a move away from “he,she,etc.” I predict “they/them/their” will dominate.
By nongendered speech, I mean speech that does not indicate male or female gender. So they/them/their, ve/ver/vis, ey, or any other gender-neutral pronouns. It also includes my preferred way of avoiding gendered speech—you, the poster, and using the poster’s name. Yes, it’s fairly broad :P
Huh. Confidence interval?
I totally endorse that, and I’m pretty good about it myself (at least, I think I am), but I’d be very surprised if it ever became a reliable LW community norm.
It’s pretty uncalibrated but let’s say 90% confidence interval of 2 months to 2 years.
Upvoted for being willing to put numbers to it. I’ll never remember to come back and check, though.