The issue is one of content, of deliberately trying to creep people out.
You have now officially accused me of being a bad person.
Not, for example, of having underestimated the cost to Group X of a certain proposal to help Group Y—or any other error that a decent person might make. No, you have now made it explicit that you think I have bad—indeed “creepy”—intentions.
Do you stand by this, or do you want to reconsider?
That was my impression of Perplexed’s comment, also. I think it makes far too many assumptions about your state of mind and views, and is also directly contradicted by your own words (“grant” implies agency). Perplexed’s comment makes you sound like a passive-aggressive schemer using a veneer of tact to implement your sinister female-unfriendly agenda. I can’t reconcile his impression with what you’ve actually said, and I can’t even reconcile it with the most strident responses you’ve received from women, which at least don’t accuse you of intentionally trying to be a creep and even explicitly disclaim that accusation.
To satisfy my own curiosity, could you clarify you original thoughts when making the comment you got jumped on for? What did you think might make it controversial? What do you now think of the comment, and what have you learned from the responses to it?
I’m tired of folks projecting motives and views onto you that aren’t entailed by what you’ve actually said merely because your words triggered an association with people who do have bad motives who’ve said somewhat similar things. The fact that some people may have trouble imagining any charitable explanations of what you said could be due to undue cynicism or errors of reasoning, but it could also be partly due to a lot of inferential distance, which isn’t their fault or yours.
Similarly, I think a big part of the reason you made the original comment was because of your own inferential distance from those who were upset by it. You understood that people could have problems with it, but you didn’t understand exactly the nature of those problems. I also wonder whether you were aware of the history of Bad People saying stuff that sounds similar to what you said, and if so, how distinct you thought your argument was from theirs. Also, I don’t think you fully anticipated some of the inferences could be drawn. If you had realized these things, I think you would have made your original comment differently, and included disclaimers like the one you made later (that you think it would be bad to encourage people to do things they don’t want to do).
Of course, I’m speculating here, and you are inviting to fill me in. But I think my speculation is a much more parsimonious explanation for your comments than Perplexed’s. It’s also more charitable, and would have provided a better foundation for a dialogue with you to change your mind.
Even intelligent, tactful, thoughtful people such as yourself can not know things, not know that Bad People exist who say similar things, not anticipate all the potential implications of their words, and fail to anticipate the reactions of different people with different life experiences. That does not make them Bad People, or even bad rationalists. It’s called inferential distance, folks!
a much more parsimonious explanation for your comments than Perplexed’s.
Perplexed’s explanation is more parsimonious, given a much higher prior for trolling. My intentions at this site, combined with my experiences here, lead me to expect a near-complete lack of attempts to generate controversy for its own sake. Perplexed’s experiences and intentions may lead him to expect otherwise.
That last paragraph was a disingenuous jab at Perplexed, but after reading through the comments on this post I feel indignant at his take on the proper use of indignation, and I’m going to signal that.
Perplexed’s explanation is more parsimonious, given a much higher prior for trolling.
Yeah, I agree that it would make more sense if there was a different history with Komponisto, and some evidence to think he was trolling. None of the women in the thread seemed to think he was trolling, and Alicorn explicitly acknowledged in her initial response that she considered him a decent person. That’s why I’m wondering whether Perplexed is reading the same thread that everyone else is reading.
Perplexed’s explanation is more parsimonious, given a much higher prior for trolling.
My initial “gut feel” explanation, and the one which I think justifies community indignation, is more parsimonious. But Hugh’s is probably more parsimonious than my current hypothesis that the behavior was part of an act.
Your point regarding priors for trolling is a valid one. I should probably take my unfamiliarity with the mores here into account much more when estimating probabilities as to what is really happening.
I’m tired of folks projecting motives and views onto you that aren’t entailed by what you’ve actually said merely because your words triggered an association with people who do have bad motives who’ve said somewhat similar things.
Yes indeed—it’s the phenomenon of pattern-completion, the same thing that Eliezer talks about all the time in the context of his views on the Singularity. People expect certain opinions or characteristics to go together, so that when a person exhibits a subset of these, people’s brains complete the pattern and automatically fill in the rest, regardless of whether or not the rest is actually there.
It’s incredibly frustrating, but also predictable. I should have seen it coming.
To satisfy my own curiosity, could you clarify you original thoughts when making the comment you got jumped on for? What did you think might make it controversial? What do you now think of the comment, and what have you learned from the responses to it?
There’s a limit to how much I can say without breaking my vow to never again discuss the underlying topic. Basically, it was an honest passing thought that should have been censored. In the context of explaining specific reservations about a portion of a comment by SarahC, I briefly took a broader view, focused on a more general human problem, and more-or-less offhandedly wondered whether a solution could be found by tweaking in a certain direction.
I expected it to be controversial in the sense that I thought people would be strongly inclined to reject the proposal. It sounds incredibly naïve now, but I thought people would reply by saying “no, that wouldn’t work” or “that’s not the real source of the problem” or “you won’t find a solution by going down that particular path”. I had little or no notion that I was at risk of being treated like the next Sexist Villain. If I had to verbalize my unconscious, automatic thought processes, I suppose what I thought was that I had built up too much of a reputation here as a reasonable person for that!
I had forgotten how many different people read this site, and how little of a detailed model of me they have.
I would like to discuss my hypothesis. Which is, I suppose, a form of reconsideration. I have some questions regarding your motivation for the wording and timing of some of the things you said. We can do this publicly or privately—your choice. I’ve already admitted I was wrong about the Amanda Knox thing. I am open to being corrected about the rest.
At the end, I may well apologize.
Incidentally, let me clarify my current opinion. I don’t think you were trying to creep women out from some kind of malice or general love of being creepy. I think you were trying to deliberately draw criticism so as to fake being wounded by it with the ultimate aim of making some point—perhaps a point about double standards. That kind of bad person.
I don’t know if that makes you feel better.
And to respond also to Hugh and also, I think, Nancy, my apology, if komponisto convinces me I’m wrong, will include an apology for attributing motive with too little evidence.
I have some questions regarding your motivation for the wording and timing of some of the things you said. We can do this publicly or privately—your choice.
I’m inclined to keep it public for now, for the benefit of curious onlookers.
I think you were trying to deliberately draw criticism
That is something I never do. I am terrified of criticism and social disapproval generally (including downvotes on LW by the way). When I express an opinion that I know may subject me to criticism, I do so either because I feel so strongly about the issue that I judge it a worthwhile tradeoff (a very high bar), or because I believe the environment is “safe” for expressing such opinions without fear of judgmental criticism or other social punishment. In this instance, it was the latter; my safeness detector failed.
so as to fake being wounded by it with the ultimate aim of making some point—perhaps a point about double standards.
I had no point to make about double standards. I think I was explicit in at least one comment about allowing for symmetry. I happened to be discussing one side, with no implication whatsoever about the other. At least, no logical implication. But here I was the victim of pattern-completion.
I don’t think you’ll find anything I said that was inconsistent with the possibility of an analogous reversed situation—even, interestingly enough, anything inconsistent with the existence of the exactly reversed situation (i.e. men being too selective, resulting in sex-starved women)! I don’t think anyone noticed this.
Me: I have some questions regarding your motivation for the wording and timing of some of the things you said. We can do this publicly or privately—your choice.
You: I’m inclined to keep it public for now, for the benefit of curious onlookers.
Great.
I think you were trying to deliberately draw criticism
That is something I never do. I am terrified of criticism and social disapproval generally...
Ok, if that is true, then it is very likely that I am going to be proven wrong. So the only substantive question I want to ask in this comment is this: Can you provide any evidence that you are terrified of criticism? For example, a link to a comment or posting on LW or some other forum where you confided that fear. Something prior to this blow-up.
Here is how I would like to proceed. Tomorrow morning (here) - roughly 12 hrs from now—I will post a list of (~20) short questions. Most will take simple yes or no answers; a few may ask you to state your motivation for doing X. The style of the questions may be something like what happens in the taking of a deposition in an American legal case. Not particularly friendly questions, but not particularly hostile either. I doubt that I will be asking anything that would force you to break that vow not to further discuss sexual politics.
After receiving your answers, I may ask a much smaller number of follow-up questions in a second posting. After this I will do one of two things.
One possibility is that I may announce that I still don’t believe you and explain why. At this point, it is your turn to question me. When you are done, I’m sure other people will want a shot at me.
The other possibility is that I will sincerely apologize for having impugned your integrity. I will ask that you, or some member of the community, “penalize” me to the amount of 100 karma points. If you wish, you can question me in this case too. And then when that is done, I’m sure other people will have things to say to me as well.
Can you provide any evidence that you are terrified of criticism? For example, a link to a comment or posting on LW or some other forum where you confided that fear. Something prior to this blow-up.
Here is how I would like to proceed....Are these ground rules satisfactory?
I’m willing to give it a try; but please keep in mind what you’re asking here: you, who have been here for (as you say) little over a month, are asking me to demonstrate my good faith to you. If I can do this easily, I’m willing to, but you should realize that there is a limit on the extent of my obligations in this regard.
I will ask that you, or some member of the community, “penalize” me to the amount of 100 karma points.
This is unnecessary, it seems to me, and I’m not sure how it would be implemented anyway.
Can you provide any evidence that you are terrified of criticism? For example, a link to a comment or posting on LW or some other forum where you confided that fear. Something prior to this blow-up.
See here, here, here, and here. No claim of exhaustiveness.
Ok, it certainly looks at this stage that I am going to owe you, and the community, an apology. But before I do that, I wonder if you could remove any lingering doubts by answering these questions, as I had originally proposed. The overwhelming majority are simple yes-or-no questions. I see them as pretty low-stress. If they don’t seem that way to you, decline to answer.
Yes or no answers are fine, but feel free to provide a line or two of explanation where it seems appropriate. Refusing to answer is acceptable too, but a short explanation of the reason for the refusal would be helpful.
The first three questions deal with conspiracy theories (mine). For this group of questions, to “privately discuss” means to communicate with any LW commenter by email, personal contact, telephone, or internet forums other than this one.
-- Within the day or so before the incident, did you privately discuss your intention to make an LW comment on the topics touched on in the opening comment?
-- During the course of the incident, did you privately discuss the incident?
-- Since the incident, have you privately discussed the incident with anyone other than participants in the public discussion related to the incident?
Your opening comment begins by criticizing SarahC’s comment “It can get creepy when men think...that it’s unfair when they get turned down”. Later in the comment, you segue into your “bound-to-be-controversial suggestion”.
The following questions deal with your motivation in the opening comment.
-- Had you already formed the intention to make the “bound-to-be-controversial suggestion” at some point before seeing SarahC’s comment?
-- When you saw SarahC’s comment, did it immediately occur to you that this was a good opportunity to make the “suggestion”?
-- Did you decide to make the “suggestion” only after you had already begun writing your criticism of SarahC’s comment?
-- Prior to the incident, had you read any novels (“Stranger in a Strange Land” might be an example) which includes the premise of a world or subculture in which women are less “conservative when it comes to granting sexual favors”? If so, what did you think about the desirability of the situation and the realism of the depiction of the situation?
-- Prior to the incident, had you heard of or read the book “Against our Will”?
-- Prior to the incident, did you have any particular opinions regarding feminism?
-- Prior to the incident, did you have any particular opinions regarding an unwarranted obsession with rape in feminist discussion?
The following questions deal with the way the incident unfolded.
-- Did you notice that most of the strong criticism of the opening comment was coming from women?
-- If you can recall, at what point in incident did you become aware of this?
-- Had you expected, when you wrote the opening comment, that this gender pattern would occur?
-- Have you seen this gender pattern before, in responses to any of your previous LW comments prior to the incident?
-- During the incident, what significance, if any, did you attach to this gender pattern? I.e. what hypotheses did this pattern suggest?
-- During the incident, you expressed distress that your critics were making you out to be a bad person. However, an alternative interpretation might be that they were saying you had, perhaps by not fully understanding the implications, done a bad thing. Did you consider this alternative interpretation during the incident?
-- Do you think that these interpretations are different enough to be worth making the distinction?
The first three questions deal with conspiracy theories (mine). For this group of questions, to “privately discuss” means to communicate with any LW commenter by email, personal contact, telephone, or internet forums other than this one.
-- Within the day or so before the incident, did you privately discuss your intention to make an LW comment on the topics touched on in the opening comment?
No.
-- During the course of the incident, did you privately discuss the incident?
No
-- Since the incident, have you privately discussed the incident with anyone other than participants in the public discussion related to the incident?
Yes, with exactly one such person (i.e. someone not involved in the incident or the discussion). The person in question is a female who had/shared the impression that the second paragraph of my comment (the “controversial suggestion” part) subjected women-in-general to an unfair level of scrutiny, but agreed with the implication of the first paragraph (and disagreed with Alicorn) about the desirability of treating sex differently from other forms of interaction.
Your opening comment begins by criticizing SarahC’s comment “It can get creepy when men think...that it’s unfair when they get turned down”. Later in the comment, you segue into your “bound-to-be-controversial suggestion”.
The following questions deal with your motivation in the opening comment.
-- Had you already formed the intention to make the “bound-to-be-controversial suggestion” at some point before seeing SarahC’s comment?
No, although the fact that SarahC’s comment (and the composition of my reply) so easily prompted me to make the suggestion implies that this was not the first time a thought of this sort had crossed my mind.
-- When you saw SarahC’s comment, did it immediately occur to you that this was a good opportunity to make the “suggestion”?
Not for any definition of “immediately” that is limited to the time period before I had begun composing my reply. (I should insert a caveat here about the reliability of memory with respect to distinctions like this.)
-- Did you decide to make the “suggestion” only after you had already begun writing your criticism of SarahC’s comment?
Yes (see above).
-- Prior to the incident, had you read any novels (“Stranger in a Strange Land” might be an example) which includes the premise of a world or subculture in which women are less “conservative when it comes to granting sexual favors”? If so, what did you think about the desirability of the situation and the realism of the depiction of the situation?
While I would not want to make a categorical denial stretching over my entire life, it is nevertheless almost certainly the case that I have significantly less familiarity with this type of literature than is typical among readers of LW.
-- Prior to the incident, had you heard of or read the book “Against our Will”?
No. My brain treated your mention of it as the first time I had heard of it.
-- Prior to the incident, did you have any particular opinions regarding feminism?
If the word “particular” in interpreted to mean “strong” (which I suspect is the intended meaning), and “feminism” is taken to mean a contemporary, as opposed to historical, stance (so that e.g. a strong belief that women should be allowed to vote in elections would not automatically require a “yes” answer), the answer is no.
-- Prior to the incident, did you have any particular opinions regarding an unwarranted obsession with rape in feminist discussion?
Subject to similar interpretive conventions, my answer to this question is logically entailed by my answer to the previous one.
The following questions deal with the way the incident unfolded.
-- Did you notice that most of the strong criticism of the opening comment was coming from women?
Without checking the record, my memory of the dialectic pattern (which will reveal my perception) was as follows: I received approval from wedrifid and SilasBarta (both males, as I understand), strong criticism from Alicorn (female) which developed into a vigorous argument, mild criticism from pjeby (male), feedback from SarahC (female) not concerning the most controversial part which led to the approximate reconciliation of our opinions on the main point, and some noticeable (though not especially severe) criticism from NancyLebovitz (female). HughRistik (male) provided helpful commentary from a position not specifically aligned with either me or my critics, but which I would expect my critics to regard as slightly closer to mine. At some point later in the discussion, I recall learning with mild surprise that datadataeverywhere is female, which seemed to occur at around the same time my mind began to identify her specifically as a critic.
I do not recall any female commenter who was as strongly critical as you (evidently male) were.
-- If you can recall, at what point in incident did you become aware of this?
I regard this question as superseded by my previous answer.
-- Had you expected, when you wrote the opening comment, that this gender pattern would occur?
If queried beforehand, I would have responded with an expectation that females would be more likely to be critical of my remarks than males. This isn’t to say that my brain performed this particular query.
-- Have you seen this gender pattern before, in responses to any of your previous LW comments prior to the incident?
No. Having participated only minimally in such threads prior to the incident, I considered myself neutral on LW’s gender controversies, and would have expected other readers to regard me this way also.
-- During the incident, what significance, if any, did you attach to this gender pattern? I.e. what hypotheses did this pattern suggest?
I did not devote any significant attention in my thoughts to the gender patterns of the discussion.
-- During the incident, you expressed distress that your critics were making you out to be a bad person. However, an alternative interpretation might be that they were saying you had, perhaps by not fully understanding the implications, done a bad thing. Did you consider this alternative interpretation during the incident?
I will omit this question due to the premise being false. It was others, intervening on my behalf (HughRistik in particular, as I recall) who characterized my critics in this way. I did not employ such a characterization until after the incident as you have defined it, and I did so with respect to only one critic: you.
-- Do you think that these interpretations are different enough to be worth making the distinction?
Instead of answering this question directly (which presupposes the coherence of the previous one), I will state my current point of view on my critics’ reactions. My critics have communicated to me that it is not socially acceptable (to a sufficient degree for my temperament), even on LW, to express a thought such as the “controversial suggestion” in my comment. I disagree with them about whether such expressions ought to be acceptable; however I do not desire their acceptability so strongly that I would be willing to sacrifice additional status in a likely-futile struggle to bring about that outcome. Sex and gender as such are not particular interests or priorities of mine here (or really, anywhere else I might happen to be). As a human, I have some nominal degree of interest in them, just as I have some nominal degree of interest in topics relating to food; however that interest pales in comparison to my interest in e.g. mathematics, music, or epistemic rationality in the abstract (or concrete).
Thank you for submitting to this interrogation. I realize that you had not placed yourself under any obligation to satisfy my curiosity on these points.
Ok, I have no follow up questions. Since you have given me no reason to doubt your veracity, I clearly owe both you, and the community, an apology.
I apologize to you, komponisto, and you all, Less Wrong, for publicly jumping to a conclusion based on hunch and intuition. That was simply a wrong thing to do, an unfair thing to do. That my conclusions were, not only unjustified, but also incorrect, is simply icing on the cake.
I apologize to komponisto for suggesting he was a devious person. I apologize if my overstated opinions that the “opening comment” deserved condemnation brought him distress.
I made several specific mistakes in the course of the incident, but mostly in the “post-mortem”. I have already admitted to some of them, others I have forgotten. If anyone wishes to bring them to my attention, I will be happy to do a mea culpa on them too, if I feel they warrant them.
Again, and in conclusion, I apologize.
Well, that felt good. I’m happy to have it (mostly) behind me. I also want to thank some of my critics who were very helpful to me in leading me to see the errors I had made. I will try to justify your efforts by trying not to repeat those errors.
If anyone has questions for me, or post mortem analysis, I will do my best to be accomodating.
Ok, it certainly looks at this stage that I am going to owe you, and the community, an apology. But before I do that, I wonder if you could remove any lingering doubts by answering these questions
You appear to be making your apology conditional on answering a questionnaire, which is both long enough that it represents a significant time commitment, and personal enough that it likely contain questions which he would prefer not to answer. Withholding an apology as leverage for anything comes across as very hostile and defeats the point of the apology if it’s eventually given. Additionally, a heuristic I can’t quite identify is telling me it smells like a trap, designed to elucidate answers which could be used out of context in an attack.
Withholding an apology as leverage for anything comes across as very hostile and defeats the point of the apology if it’s eventually given.
It did cross my mind that apologizing first, and then saying “could you answer some questions to help me figure out how far off my initial intuitions about you were, and how they went wrong” might be more interpersonally effective. Perplexed could always resurrect a critical opinion after hearing komponisto’s answers.
Additionally, a heuristic I can’t quite identify is telling me it smells like a trap, designed to elucidate answers which could be used out of context in an attack.
Maybe, but I think a more parsimonious and charitable explanation is that Perplexed is trying to find a way to update in a phased way while still saving face. I think the first goal is laudable (and I hope I don’t jinx it by making this comment), but the means may still be a little frustrating for komponisto.
Veracity, mostly. I had a conspiracy theory in my mind. The “evil perpetrator” could get away with it, simply by lying. But he would have to be careful not to lie about anything that could be checked.
The questions really only make sense if my conspiracy theory is true. Since it is false, the questions look odd. He would have still “passed” with the same answers and less explanation.
The only reason I went through with it, even after the “fear of criticism” evidence, was that in my original conspiracy theory, the conspirators would (of course) want a front man with a publicly known sensitivity of this kind.
A real comedy of errors and I end up with well earned egg on my face.
I applaud you for reconsidering. I look forward to seeing any dialogue between you and komponisto, if he is comfortable with it. I still think that this hypothesis is a bit tenuous:
I think you were trying to deliberately draw criticism so as to fake being wounded by it with the ultimate aim of making some point—perhaps a point about double standards.
I’m much more inclined to take komponisto’s own explanation of his words at face value, which I’m not sure if you’ve seen yet. I think he’s already answered some of your questions. He says:
I expected it to be controversial in the sense that I thought people would be strongly inclined to reject the proposal. It sounds incredibly naïve now, but I thought people would reply by saying “no, that wouldn’t work” or “that’s not the real source of the problem” or “you won’t find a solution by going down that particular path”.
So it sounds like he had an intuition he was unsure about, and decided to toss it out to LessWrong to figure out how to evaluate it. This behavior reminds me of the following INTP profile based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator:
Where the extraversion of the iNtuition function becomes obvious is during discussions, especially heated ones. In contrast to INTJs, an INTP will often make controversial, speculative points of argument, often annoying the discussion-partner, and make them in such a way as to leave the impression that he is very serious about what he says. In reality, the INTP is not actually even certain himself whether he really stands by what he is saying, but his Ne strongly suggests that there must be a core of truth there. The purpose then of his outspoken style of argument is to sharpen his own intuitive understanding by testing the reaction of the listener, and indeed to examine the logic of his own arguments in real time while speaking them out. On occasion, INTPs may seem brash and tactless, but for themselves it is part of their way of getting closer to the truth. This is another aspect of the Ne grappling with the external world (in this case discussion with another) to understand it. The Ne provides the raw material for the Ti core to analyse. The INTJ, on the other hand, with Ni dominant and Te as secondary, tends to avoid letting uncertain speculative ideas out in the open: he presents a more considered structured viewpoint to the world while holding his private thoughts free for intuitive reasoning.
Since I engage in this behavior all the time, I instantly suspected that komponisto might be operating out of a similar psychology. In fact, his acknowledgment that his statements were controversial could have been read as acknowledging valid reasons for controversy (of course, acknowledging controversy can also be a way of trying to attract attention and imply that people who disagree are idiots, but that didn’t fit the overall tone of his comment). If so, then his comment could be understood as something like “here’s an uncomfortable thought I’m having… other people think it’s wrong, but I’m not entirely sure exactly why it’s wrong and what is wrong with it, so please help me figure it out.” Given what I know of komponisto’s attitudes, and given my own proclivity to suggest controversial ideas to help me make up my mind about them, that’s pretty much how I read his initial comment.
I understand that your experience with internet discussions may have led you to start with different priors, and I’m glad you’ve begun to question whether they apply in this case on this website. And if you’re not familiar with the psychology I describe above or can’t relate to it yourself, then it’s not your fault for not considering it as a possible explanation for komponisto’s words.
I find “raising uncomfortable intuition to figure out if there’s any grain of truth involved, or if it deserves to be debunked” to be a more parsimonious explanation than “deliberately drawing criticism so as to fake being wounded by it.” I do think it’s a good thing for rational discussion on LessWrong if people can raise controversial issues they are grappling with and try to use the resulting discussions to figure out their positions.
Would it be better for men (or anyone) with a highly controversial intuition to just sit on it, and have it constantly niggling away at their psyche? No. The only way to handle that belief is to put it out in the open and discuss it with other people.
Of course, people should be tactful and consider how their audience will feel when they express that intution. But like in this case, they can’t always anticipate every sort of reaction they will get, especially in subjects with great inferential distance. komponisto says he did his best to be tactful, and he still got jumped on; the reactions he got were simply different from what he anticipated. That difference isn’t because he is a bad person of any sort who is trying to prove that people here have double standards, but because there are things he simply did not realize.
The notion “don’t raise any controversial issue you are grappling with that someone with great inferential distance from you might find offensive despite your best attempts to be tactful” is not a good principle for a rationalist community. It would shut down too many discussions, and it’s already doing so to komponisto now that he’s been driven to vows of self-censorship.
And to respond also to Hugh and also, I think, Nancy, my apology, if komponisto convinces me I’m wrong, will include an apology for attributing motive with too little evidence.
That’s great… but I will note what I said before: “here’s my negative opinion of what you say, and it’s your job to prove it misplaced” may not be the most interpersonally effective mode of communication.
As always, Hugh, your comments are long, reasonable, and well worth reading. I will just be responding to a few points, though.
...komponisto’s own explanation of his words … which I’m not sure if you’ve seen yet. I think he’s already answered some of your questions.
Yes, I have seen. Yes, he has answered some.
So it sounds like [komponisto] had an intuition he was unsure about, and decided to toss it out to LessWrong to figure out how to evaluate it. This behavior reminds me of the following INTP profile based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator:
… In contrast to INTJs, an INTP will often make controversial, speculative points of argument, often annoying the discussion-partner, and make them in such a way as to leave the impression that he is very serious about what he says. In reality, the INTP is not actually even certain himself whether he really stands by what he is saying, but his Ne strongly suggests that there must be a core of truth there. The purpose then of his outspoken style of argument is to sharpen his own intuitive understanding by testing the reaction of the listener, and indeed to examine the logic of his own arguments in real time while speaking them out. …
Since I engage in this behavior all the time, I instantly suspected that komponisto might be operating out of a similar psychology.
Interesting. I am an INTP myself. I will be sure to avail myself of that excuse the next time my intuition and impulsiveness get me into trouble. ;)
I do think it’s a good thing for rational discussion on LessWrong if people can raise controversial issues they are grappling with and try to use the resulting discussions to figure out their positions.
I agree. And I certainly have little to complain about regarding the help I have received in this thread. (That is not sarcasm, by the way. Something more like sincere sardonic irony. I remain impressed with the level of rationality and civility).
Would it be better for men (or anyone) with a highly controversial intuition to just sit on it, and have it constantly niggling away at their psyche? No. The only way to handle that belief is to put it out in the open and discuss it with other people.
I’m so glad to have you on my side! (Now that was a more pure irony.)
… I will note what I said before: “here’s my negative opinion of what you say, and it’s your job to prove it misplaced” may not be the most interpersonally effective mode of communication.
True, but I honestly don’t think I have deviated all that far from your ideals here. If I recall, my first direct communication with komponisto on this thread was a request that he clarify some things that he had said. He declined to do so.
You have now officially accused me of being a bad person.
Not, for example, of having underestimated the cost to Group X of a certain proposal to help Group Y—or any other error that a decent person might make. No, you have now made it explicit that you think I have bad—indeed “creepy”—intentions.
Do you stand by this, or do you want to reconsider?
That was my impression of Perplexed’s comment, also. I think it makes far too many assumptions about your state of mind and views, and is also directly contradicted by your own words (“grant” implies agency). Perplexed’s comment makes you sound like a passive-aggressive schemer using a veneer of tact to implement your sinister female-unfriendly agenda. I can’t reconcile his impression with what you’ve actually said, and I can’t even reconcile it with the most strident responses you’ve received from women, which at least don’t accuse you of intentionally trying to be a creep and even explicitly disclaim that accusation.
To satisfy my own curiosity, could you clarify you original thoughts when making the comment you got jumped on for? What did you think might make it controversial? What do you now think of the comment, and what have you learned from the responses to it?
I’m tired of folks projecting motives and views onto you that aren’t entailed by what you’ve actually said merely because your words triggered an association with people who do have bad motives who’ve said somewhat similar things. The fact that some people may have trouble imagining any charitable explanations of what you said could be due to undue cynicism or errors of reasoning, but it could also be partly due to a lot of inferential distance, which isn’t their fault or yours.
Similarly, I think a big part of the reason you made the original comment was because of your own inferential distance from those who were upset by it. You understood that people could have problems with it, but you didn’t understand exactly the nature of those problems. I also wonder whether you were aware of the history of Bad People saying stuff that sounds similar to what you said, and if so, how distinct you thought your argument was from theirs. Also, I don’t think you fully anticipated some of the inferences could be drawn. If you had realized these things, I think you would have made your original comment differently, and included disclaimers like the one you made later (that you think it would be bad to encourage people to do things they don’t want to do).
Of course, I’m speculating here, and you are inviting to fill me in. But I think my speculation is a much more parsimonious explanation for your comments than Perplexed’s. It’s also more charitable, and would have provided a better foundation for a dialogue with you to change your mind.
Even intelligent, tactful, thoughtful people such as yourself can not know things, not know that Bad People exist who say similar things, not anticipate all the potential implications of their words, and fail to anticipate the reactions of different people with different life experiences. That does not make them Bad People, or even bad rationalists. It’s called inferential distance, folks!
Perplexed’s explanation is more parsimonious, given a much higher prior for trolling. My intentions at this site, combined with my experiences here, lead me to expect a near-complete lack of attempts to generate controversy for its own sake. Perplexed’s experiences and intentions may lead him to expect otherwise.
That last paragraph was a disingenuous jab at Perplexed, but after reading through the comments on this post I feel indignant at his take on the proper use of indignation, and I’m going to signal that.
Yeah, I agree that it would make more sense if there was a different history with Komponisto, and some evidence to think he was trolling. None of the women in the thread seemed to think he was trolling, and Alicorn explicitly acknowledged in her initial response that she considered him a decent person. That’s why I’m wondering whether Perplexed is reading the same thread that everyone else is reading.
My initial “gut feel” explanation, and the one which I think justifies community indignation, is more parsimonious. But Hugh’s is probably more parsimonious than my current hypothesis that the behavior was part of an act.
Your point regarding priors for trolling is a valid one. I should probably take my unfamiliarity with the mores here into account much more when estimating probabilities as to what is really happening.
Signal received and noted. Thank you.
Yes indeed—it’s the phenomenon of pattern-completion, the same thing that Eliezer talks about all the time in the context of his views on the Singularity. People expect certain opinions or characteristics to go together, so that when a person exhibits a subset of these, people’s brains complete the pattern and automatically fill in the rest, regardless of whether or not the rest is actually there.
It’s incredibly frustrating, but also predictable. I should have seen it coming.
There’s a limit to how much I can say without breaking my vow to never again discuss the underlying topic. Basically, it was an honest passing thought that should have been censored. In the context of explaining specific reservations about a portion of a comment by SarahC, I briefly took a broader view, focused on a more general human problem, and more-or-less offhandedly wondered whether a solution could be found by tweaking in a certain direction.
I expected it to be controversial in the sense that I thought people would be strongly inclined to reject the proposal. It sounds incredibly naïve now, but I thought people would reply by saying “no, that wouldn’t work” or “that’s not the real source of the problem” or “you won’t find a solution by going down that particular path”. I had little or no notion that I was at risk of being treated like the next Sexist Villain. If I had to verbalize my unconscious, automatic thought processes, I suppose what I thought was that I had built up too much of a reputation here as a reasonable person for that!
I had forgotten how many different people read this site, and how little of a detailed model of me they have.
The illusion of transparency strikes again!
I would like to discuss my hypothesis. Which is, I suppose, a form of reconsideration. I have some questions regarding your motivation for the wording and timing of some of the things you said. We can do this publicly or privately—your choice. I’ve already admitted I was wrong about the Amanda Knox thing. I am open to being corrected about the rest.
At the end, I may well apologize.
Incidentally, let me clarify my current opinion. I don’t think you were trying to creep women out from some kind of malice or general love of being creepy. I think you were trying to deliberately draw criticism so as to fake being wounded by it with the ultimate aim of making some point—perhaps a point about double standards. That kind of bad person.
I don’t know if that makes you feel better.
And to respond also to Hugh and also, I think, Nancy, my apology, if komponisto convinces me I’m wrong, will include an apology for attributing motive with too little evidence.
I’m inclined to keep it public for now, for the benefit of curious onlookers.
That is something I never do. I am terrified of criticism and social disapproval generally (including downvotes on LW by the way). When I express an opinion that I know may subject me to criticism, I do so either because I feel so strongly about the issue that I judge it a worthwhile tradeoff (a very high bar), or because I believe the environment is “safe” for expressing such opinions without fear of judgmental criticism or other social punishment. In this instance, it was the latter; my safeness detector failed.
I had no point to make about double standards. I think I was explicit in at least one comment about allowing for symmetry. I happened to be discussing one side, with no implication whatsoever about the other. At least, no logical implication. But here I was the victim of pattern-completion.
I don’t think you’ll find anything I said that was inconsistent with the possibility of an analogous reversed situation—even, interestingly enough, anything inconsistent with the existence of the exactly reversed situation (i.e. men being too selective, resulting in sex-starved women)! I don’t think anyone noticed this.
Great.
Ok, if that is true, then it is very likely that I am going to be proven wrong. So the only substantive question I want to ask in this comment is this: Can you provide any evidence that you are terrified of criticism? For example, a link to a comment or posting on LW or some other forum where you confided that fear. Something prior to this blow-up.
Here is how I would like to proceed. Tomorrow morning (here) - roughly 12 hrs from now—I will post a list of (~20) short questions. Most will take simple yes or no answers; a few may ask you to state your motivation for doing X. The style of the questions may be something like what happens in the taking of a deposition in an American legal case. Not particularly friendly questions, but not particularly hostile either. I doubt that I will be asking anything that would force you to break that vow not to further discuss sexual politics.
After receiving your answers, I may ask a much smaller number of follow-up questions in a second posting. After this I will do one of two things.
One possibility is that I may announce that I still don’t believe you and explain why. At this point, it is your turn to question me. When you are done, I’m sure other people will want a shot at me.
The other possibility is that I will sincerely apologize for having impugned your integrity. I will ask that you, or some member of the community, “penalize” me to the amount of 100 karma points. If you wish, you can question me in this case too. And then when that is done, I’m sure other people will have things to say to me as well.
Are these ground rules satisfactory?
See here, here, here, and here. No claim of exhaustiveness.
I’m willing to give it a try; but please keep in mind what you’re asking here: you, who have been here for (as you say) little over a month, are asking me to demonstrate my good faith to you. If I can do this easily, I’m willing to, but you should realize that there is a limit on the extent of my obligations in this regard.
This is unnecessary, it seems to me, and I’m not sure how it would be implemented anyway.
Ok, it certainly looks at this stage that I am going to owe you, and the community, an apology. But before I do that, I wonder if you could remove any lingering doubts by answering these questions, as I had originally proposed. The overwhelming majority are simple yes-or-no questions. I see them as pretty low-stress. If they don’t seem that way to you, decline to answer.
For purposes of these questions, “The Incident” is defined as the LW discussion beginning with the opening comment and running up to the “officially finished”—“strychnine” comment.
Yes or no answers are fine, but feel free to provide a line or two of explanation where it seems appropriate. Refusing to answer is acceptable too, but a short explanation of the reason for the refusal would be helpful.
The first three questions deal with conspiracy theories (mine). For this group of questions, to “privately discuss” means to communicate with any LW commenter by email, personal contact, telephone, or internet forums other than this one.
-- Within the day or so before the incident, did you privately discuss your intention to make an LW comment on the topics touched on in the opening comment?
-- During the course of the incident, did you privately discuss the incident?
-- Since the incident, have you privately discussed the incident with anyone other than participants in the public discussion related to the incident?
Your opening comment begins by criticizing SarahC’s comment “It can get creepy when men think...that it’s unfair when they get turned down”. Later in the comment, you segue into your “bound-to-be-controversial suggestion”.
The following questions deal with your motivation in the opening comment.
-- Had you already formed the intention to make the “bound-to-be-controversial suggestion” at some point before seeing SarahC’s comment?
-- When you saw SarahC’s comment, did it immediately occur to you that this was a good opportunity to make the “suggestion”?
-- Did you decide to make the “suggestion” only after you had already begun writing your criticism of SarahC’s comment?
-- Prior to the incident, had you read any novels (“Stranger in a Strange Land” might be an example) which includes the premise of a world or subculture in which women are less “conservative when it comes to granting sexual favors”? If so, what did you think about the desirability of the situation and the realism of the depiction of the situation?
-- Prior to the incident, had you heard of or read the book “Against our Will”?
-- Prior to the incident, did you have any particular opinions regarding feminism?
-- Prior to the incident, did you have any particular opinions regarding an unwarranted obsession with rape in feminist discussion?
The following questions deal with the way the incident unfolded.
-- Did you notice that most of the strong criticism of the opening comment was coming from women?
-- If you can recall, at what point in incident did you become aware of this?
-- Had you expected, when you wrote the opening comment, that this gender pattern would occur?
-- Have you seen this gender pattern before, in responses to any of your previous LW comments prior to the incident?
-- During the incident, what significance, if any, did you attach to this gender pattern? I.e. what hypotheses did this pattern suggest?
-- During the incident, you expressed distress that your critics were making you out to be a bad person. However, an alternative interpretation might be that they were saying you had, perhaps by not fully understanding the implications, done a bad thing. Did you consider this alternative interpretation during the incident?
-- Do you think that these interpretations are different enough to be worth making the distinction?
That’s it.
No.
No
Yes, with exactly one such person (i.e. someone not involved in the incident or the discussion). The person in question is a female who had/shared the impression that the second paragraph of my comment (the “controversial suggestion” part) subjected women-in-general to an unfair level of scrutiny, but agreed with the implication of the first paragraph (and disagreed with Alicorn) about the desirability of treating sex differently from other forms of interaction.
No, although the fact that SarahC’s comment (and the composition of my reply) so easily prompted me to make the suggestion implies that this was not the first time a thought of this sort had crossed my mind.
Not for any definition of “immediately” that is limited to the time period before I had begun composing my reply. (I should insert a caveat here about the reliability of memory with respect to distinctions like this.)
Yes (see above).
While I would not want to make a categorical denial stretching over my entire life, it is nevertheless almost certainly the case that I have significantly less familiarity with this type of literature than is typical among readers of LW.
No. My brain treated your mention of it as the first time I had heard of it.
If the word “particular” in interpreted to mean “strong” (which I suspect is the intended meaning), and “feminism” is taken to mean a contemporary, as opposed to historical, stance (so that e.g. a strong belief that women should be allowed to vote in elections would not automatically require a “yes” answer), the answer is no.
Subject to similar interpretive conventions, my answer to this question is logically entailed by my answer to the previous one.
Without checking the record, my memory of the dialectic pattern (which will reveal my perception) was as follows: I received approval from wedrifid and SilasBarta (both males, as I understand), strong criticism from Alicorn (female) which developed into a vigorous argument, mild criticism from pjeby (male), feedback from SarahC (female) not concerning the most controversial part which led to the approximate reconciliation of our opinions on the main point, and some noticeable (though not especially severe) criticism from NancyLebovitz (female). HughRistik (male) provided helpful commentary from a position not specifically aligned with either me or my critics, but which I would expect my critics to regard as slightly closer to mine. At some point later in the discussion, I recall learning with mild surprise that datadataeverywhere is female, which seemed to occur at around the same time my mind began to identify her specifically as a critic.
I do not recall any female commenter who was as strongly critical as you (evidently male) were.
I regard this question as superseded by my previous answer.
If queried beforehand, I would have responded with an expectation that females would be more likely to be critical of my remarks than males. This isn’t to say that my brain performed this particular query.
No. Having participated only minimally in such threads prior to the incident, I considered myself neutral on LW’s gender controversies, and would have expected other readers to regard me this way also.
I did not devote any significant attention in my thoughts to the gender patterns of the discussion.
I will omit this question due to the premise being false. It was others, intervening on my behalf (HughRistik in particular, as I recall) who characterized my critics in this way. I did not employ such a characterization until after the incident as you have defined it, and I did so with respect to only one critic: you.
Instead of answering this question directly (which presupposes the coherence of the previous one), I will state my current point of view on my critics’ reactions. My critics have communicated to me that it is not socially acceptable (to a sufficient degree for my temperament), even on LW, to express a thought such as the “controversial suggestion” in my comment. I disagree with them about whether such expressions ought to be acceptable; however I do not desire their acceptability so strongly that I would be willing to sacrifice additional status in a likely-futile struggle to bring about that outcome. Sex and gender as such are not particular interests or priorities of mine here (or really, anywhere else I might happen to be). As a human, I have some nominal degree of interest in them, just as I have some nominal degree of interest in topics relating to food; however that interest pales in comparison to my interest in e.g. mathematics, music, or epistemic rationality in the abstract (or concrete).
Thank you for submitting to this interrogation. I realize that you had not placed yourself under any obligation to satisfy my curiosity on these points.
Ok, I have no follow up questions. Since you have given me no reason to doubt your veracity, I clearly owe both you, and the community, an apology.
I apologize to you, komponisto, and you all, Less Wrong, for publicly jumping to a conclusion based on hunch and intuition. That was simply a wrong thing to do, an unfair thing to do. That my conclusions were, not only unjustified, but also incorrect, is simply icing on the cake.
I apologize to komponisto for suggesting he was a devious person. I apologize if my overstated opinions that the “opening comment” deserved condemnation brought him distress.
I made several specific mistakes in the course of the incident, but mostly in the “post-mortem”. I have already admitted to some of them, others I have forgotten. If anyone wishes to bring them to my attention, I will be happy to do a mea culpa on them too, if I feel they warrant them.
Again, and in conclusion, I apologize.
Well, that felt good. I’m happy to have it (mostly) behind me. I also want to thank some of my critics who were very helpful to me in leading me to see the errors I had made. I will try to justify your efforts by trying not to repeat those errors.
If anyone has questions for me, or post mortem analysis, I will do my best to be accomodating.
komponisto, I applaud your honesty. It’s very impressive—a new standard to measure my own introspection by.
You appear to be making your apology conditional on answering a questionnaire, which is both long enough that it represents a significant time commitment, and personal enough that it likely contain questions which he would prefer not to answer. Withholding an apology as leverage for anything comes across as very hostile and defeats the point of the apology if it’s eventually given. Additionally, a heuristic I can’t quite identify is telling me it smells like a trap, designed to elucidate answers which could be used out of context in an attack.
jimrandomh said:
It did cross my mind that apologizing first, and then saying “could you answer some questions to help me figure out how far off my initial intuitions about you were, and how they went wrong” might be more interpersonally effective. Perplexed could always resurrect a critical opinion after hearing komponisto’s answers.
Maybe, but I think a more parsimonious and charitable explanation is that Perplexed is trying to find a way to update in a phased way while still saving face. I think the first goal is laudable (and I hope I don’t jinx it by making this comment), but the means may still be a little frustrating for komponisto.
It seemed to me that there was something “off” about the questionaire—I think it was mostly that I couldn’t tell what it was intended to discover.
Veracity, mostly. I had a conspiracy theory in my mind. The “evil perpetrator” could get away with it, simply by lying. But he would have to be careful not to lie about anything that could be checked.
The questions really only make sense if my conspiracy theory is true. Since it is false, the questions look odd. He would have still “passed” with the same answers and less explanation.
The only reason I went through with it, even after the “fear of criticism” evidence, was that in my original conspiracy theory, the conspirators would (of course) want a front man with a publicly known sensitivity of this kind.
A real comedy of errors and I end up with well earned egg on my face.
Hey, I like that phrasing. I’ll try to use it the next time I feel the urge to do something stupid. :)
More seriously, are you dissatisfied with the outcome?
It seems to have turned out pretty well. Looks like that heuristic was a misfire.
I applaud you for reconsidering. I look forward to seeing any dialogue between you and komponisto, if he is comfortable with it. I still think that this hypothesis is a bit tenuous:
I’m much more inclined to take komponisto’s own explanation of his words at face value, which I’m not sure if you’ve seen yet. I think he’s already answered some of your questions. He says:
So it sounds like he had an intuition he was unsure about, and decided to toss it out to LessWrong to figure out how to evaluate it. This behavior reminds me of the following INTP profile based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator:
Since I engage in this behavior all the time, I instantly suspected that komponisto might be operating out of a similar psychology. In fact, his acknowledgment that his statements were controversial could have been read as acknowledging valid reasons for controversy (of course, acknowledging controversy can also be a way of trying to attract attention and imply that people who disagree are idiots, but that didn’t fit the overall tone of his comment). If so, then his comment could be understood as something like “here’s an uncomfortable thought I’m having… other people think it’s wrong, but I’m not entirely sure exactly why it’s wrong and what is wrong with it, so please help me figure it out.” Given what I know of komponisto’s attitudes, and given my own proclivity to suggest controversial ideas to help me make up my mind about them, that’s pretty much how I read his initial comment.
I understand that your experience with internet discussions may have led you to start with different priors, and I’m glad you’ve begun to question whether they apply in this case on this website. And if you’re not familiar with the psychology I describe above or can’t relate to it yourself, then it’s not your fault for not considering it as a possible explanation for komponisto’s words.
I find “raising uncomfortable intuition to figure out if there’s any grain of truth involved, or if it deserves to be debunked” to be a more parsimonious explanation than “deliberately drawing criticism so as to fake being wounded by it.” I do think it’s a good thing for rational discussion on LessWrong if people can raise controversial issues they are grappling with and try to use the resulting discussions to figure out their positions.
Would it be better for men (or anyone) with a highly controversial intuition to just sit on it, and have it constantly niggling away at their psyche? No. The only way to handle that belief is to put it out in the open and discuss it with other people.
Of course, people should be tactful and consider how their audience will feel when they express that intution. But like in this case, they can’t always anticipate every sort of reaction they will get, especially in subjects with great inferential distance. komponisto says he did his best to be tactful, and he still got jumped on; the reactions he got were simply different from what he anticipated. That difference isn’t because he is a bad person of any sort who is trying to prove that people here have double standards, but because there are things he simply did not realize.
The notion “don’t raise any controversial issue you are grappling with that someone with great inferential distance from you might find offensive despite your best attempts to be tactful” is not a good principle for a rationalist community. It would shut down too many discussions, and it’s already doing so to komponisto now that he’s been driven to vows of self-censorship.
That’s great… but I will note what I said before: “here’s my negative opinion of what you say, and it’s your job to prove it misplaced” may not be the most interpersonally effective mode of communication.
As always, Hugh, your comments are long, reasonable, and well worth reading. I will just be responding to a few points, though.
Yes, I have seen. Yes, he has answered some.
Interesting. I am an INTP myself. I will be sure to avail myself of that excuse the next time my intuition and impulsiveness get me into trouble. ;)
I agree. And I certainly have little to complain about regarding the help I have received in this thread. (That is not sarcasm, by the way. Something more like sincere sardonic irony. I remain impressed with the level of rationality and civility).
I’m so glad to have you on my side! (Now that was a more pure irony.)
True, but I honestly don’t think I have deviated all that far from your ideals here. If I recall, my first direct communication with komponisto on this thread was a request that he clarify some things that he had said. He declined to do so.