I’m not aware of the Simpsons ever making a joke about a character regulating punishment because they were too much of a loser to get in on everyone else’s punishment fun.
I’m not sure what this is supposed to show besides the fact that the Simpsons reflects the culture that produced it.
Note that I’m not actually sharing Eugine_Nier’s position, I’m just defending it as at the very least not obviously useless.
I’d like to know what you think my position is, since in the above discussion I’ve found PhilGoetz’s posts to be closer to my position then your posts.
I’m not sure what this is supposed to show besides the fact that the Simpsons reflects the culture that produced it.
It wasn’t meant to show anything beyond tracing back the asymmetry concerning the two items in the culture that produced the Simpsons to a point where they might possibly be connected to non-status causes such as logistics.
I’d like to know what you think my position is, since in the above discussion I’ve found PhilGoetz’s posts to be closer to my position then your posts.
That the restatement of the observation as “in our current culture, enjoying sex is considered high status, whereas enjoying punishment is considered low status” would contribute to finding the mechanism that causes the observation instead of being the type of word magic Eliezer saw it as, which implies that status mechanisms are part of the of the causal chain.
I am aware that you disagree with the particulars of the causal chain elements I suggested, but you haven’t proposed an alternative yet. If the restatement wasn’t meant to help explain I’ll retract my upvote.
That the restatement of the observation as “in our current culture, enjoying sex is considered high status, whereas enjoying punishment is considered low status” would contribute to finding the mechanism that causes the observation instead of being the type of word magic Eliezer saw it as, which implies that status mechanisms are part of the of the causal chain.
I interpreted Eliezer’s comment as meaning that “high status” and “low status” are approximately synonymous with the things they’re being invoked to explain. (Or, at least, that no special motivation was given to expect status to play a role. It’s a reasonable heuristic for every social behavior to say, “Look for an explanation involving status”—but that also means it does not explain anything to say that; it’s the default assumption.)
That’s pretty much what I meant with “restatement” and “word magic”. As for default assumptions, that’s true if you don’t require the word status to do useful work compared to an equivalent explanation without that word, but “the word “status” will do useful work here” would be a productive statement to make if true.
I’m not sure what this is supposed to show besides the fact that the Simpsons reflects the culture that produced it.
I’d like to know what you think my position is, since in the above discussion I’ve found PhilGoetz’s posts to be closer to my position then your posts.
It wasn’t meant to show anything beyond tracing back the asymmetry concerning the two items in the culture that produced the Simpsons to a point where they might possibly be connected to non-status causes such as logistics.
That the restatement of the observation as “in our current culture, enjoying sex is considered high status, whereas enjoying punishment is considered low status” would contribute to finding the mechanism that causes the observation instead of being the type of word magic Eliezer saw it as, which implies that status mechanisms are part of the of the causal chain.
I am aware that you disagree with the particulars of the causal chain elements I suggested, but you haven’t proposed an alternative yet. If the restatement wasn’t meant to help explain I’ll retract my upvote.
I interpreted Eliezer’s comment as meaning that “high status” and “low status” are approximately synonymous with the things they’re being invoked to explain. (Or, at least, that no special motivation was given to expect status to play a role. It’s a reasonable heuristic for every social behavior to say, “Look for an explanation involving status”—but that also means it does not explain anything to say that; it’s the default assumption.)
That’s pretty much what I meant with “restatement” and “word magic”. As for default assumptions, that’s true if you don’t require the word status to do useful work compared to an equivalent explanation without that word, but “the word “status” will do useful work here” would be a productive statement to make if true.