Help! Someone is making fun of nerds on the internet! And this guy you talked about occasionally writes on the same site!
In Mala Fide has all sorts of contrarian people. Some are silly, some are insightful. Sure many are mean but that’s more or less the point of the site—may as well complain that 4chan is mean.
Yeah, sure, just… he ain’t building much of a reputation in the groups that could benefit and update the most from his arguments, between that and the coat and the shaved head. My knee-jerk reaction 3 years ago would be: “Lol, a bonehead thinks he can say big words.” Now I can look past that and the horns effect from flipped-view generators like In Mala Fide (flipping views is great, it’s necessary, but you’ve got to filter the noise a little), and see that he’s a pretty damn reasonable man, but I know people who’d just get pissed off and leave because they’re pattern matching for associated crap like this.
And 4chan ain’t mean to its ingroup; it has often been pretty fucking cuddly to me.
Yeah, sure, just… he ain’t building much of a reputation in the groups that could benefit and update the most from his arguments, between that and the coat and the shaved head.
More or less the same complaint about optimizing your appearance can be levied at the wikipedia editors. In any case when I see someone has invested some effort into how they look, I try not to be too judgemental about the tribal attire of his particular subculture.
I’d argue that by mainstream standards many well respected LWers dress rather oddly. Not many of them manage to do so and look cool in a particular subculture though (which aurini definitely manages).
“Lol, a bonehead thinks he can say big words.”
Well its good that you’ve gotten over this. Stereotypes do carry real information, but don’t take them too seriously. For example Konkvistador’s comment is up voted enough that it should swamp any effect from the clothing if you trust the average LessWronger.
And 4chan ain’t mean to its ingroup; it has often been pretty fucking cuddly to me.
I did not have the average LessWronger in mind; I’m sure they/we have no problem with that, as I am a below average LWer. I’m thinking of a generally soft-hearted, liberally-minded guy on Reddit—or, yes, 4chan—who could, whatever he ends up updating to, find it useful to look at the people and ideas that he finds unfashionable and distasteful, and see how they’re human too, and not even the big horrible threat to his lifestyle and freedoms he feels them to be. I was a lot like that guy once, I thought the same things, and I’m confident that I’m a decent source on his perspective.
Yo, Charlie, if ever you need to wedge open the mind of a decent but tribally Right-hating guy like the one I described here, link this classic article by Orwell at them. Well, to me, anything by Orwell is a classic, but this one’s seriously kickass, paying real and sincere respect to one’s opponent while still attacking most of his values and beliefs (but also pointing out the considerable hypocrisy and moral cowardice of most people who slammed him merely out of fashion). Who said that the Left can’t do it… - well, sigh, we mostly can’t - …don’t know it’s possible?
Just, I’d exercise judgment in which of the thinkers you support to compare to Kipling in this way, you understand? Someone like Aurini, explicitly sharing basic priors, like reductionism and the value of human rights and an ordered society, is far less alien to our Hypothetical Left-Identifying Guy than Kipling was to Orwell’s circles.
On the other hand, if said guy, like me, will first try to see if there’s anything thoughtlessly hateful that fits his stereotype of the Right in the vicinity of whatever caught his eye—don’t waste the analogy on defending a really sadistic/retarded/etc thing said by someone on “your” side (hint: my link fucking counts, nigga!). Point out all the things that the Guy already believes stupid or worse (like supporting the USSR or making the iconoclastic hero that was MLK the lifeless object of America’s state cult) that “his” side has done over the years, then remind him of the need to evaluate every cluster of thought by the best ideas present in it, not the below-mainstream people latching on to it.
For the record, I really like what’s happening at InMalaFide. Even when they’re wrong (and I disagree pretty drastically on some issues, even with the domain owner) they’re at least getting it wrong in an interesting way. It’s the opposite of an echo chamber.
Is there any place in particular that you’d recommend I write for?
Write at LW, of course; it’s the only community site I can be bothered to monitor!
Lol. Seriously, I both respect your thoughts and convictions and just like your online persona; I’ve now read much of your site and while TBH I found some of the more ideological stuff either unclear/in bad faith (heh) or simply disagreeable from my own partisan perspective (I’m 60% socialist, 20% mainstream liberal, 15% conservative and 5% fascist, which adds up to be pretty damn statist and collectivist), a lot is of LW discussion quality. I’m also very OK with your style, even if you could benefit from much subtler signaling and more roundabout praise of tribal values on occasion.
’d be happy to see more of your views, to contemptate and maybe oppose, at ANY decent-status website, especially one where there’s a lot of folks closer to my worldview than yours; you give good food for thought and discussion both when it’s contrarian or non-partisan.
I agree with you that a site like In Mala Fide can also generate interesting thoughts and the right sort of controversy, but many of us just can’t stomach sifting through it all to find something worth thinking about—especially when 90% of articles contain invective aimed at the “leftists”, “feminists” or other such nebulous groups that a guy like me can often identify with, under a very different self-perception than the sincere or trolling contrarian writing the article.
Even when they’re wrong (and I disagree pretty drastically on some issues, even with the domain owner) they’re at least getting it wrong in an interesting way. It’s the opposite of an echo chamber.
How pathetic. The guy was so desperate for sympathy that he actually seemed to value the experience of being seriously assaulted by his girlfriend and the guilt based affection that came with it. Not something that lends his opinions on domestic violence in general much credibility.
Heh, you really think that’s squick? When I read that article I thought it was so incredibly self-evident that it was as interesting as pointing out the sky is blue. Women like Alicorn are the exception; most women are incredibly stupid, and quite useless without a strong male presence guiding them.
Now personally I have low tolerance for histrionic behaviour. I put my foot down at the first sign of it, and they turn from a whining scold into an a bubbly eager sex partner. Women aren’t happy with too much freedom; it makes their brain tubes hurt. They prefer to be around a strong male who lays down the rules, and rewards them for good behaviour.
I mean, jeez, have you seen how women behave in the workplace? They crave the occasional spanking.
For the record I’m currently dating two very sexy women, who are far too young for me. One’s relatively intelligent (I’m not an Alpha guy, I’m a Sigma—I hate picking up). And both of them come like firehoses while they’re with me. I think my track record speaks to the validity of my opinion. I like women—I just don’t respect them.
Edit: My major disagreement with Ferdinand is that he doesn’t fully understand Austrian economics.
Edit2: One of the comments on the post is describes the costs of not punishing your woman for misbehaviour:
“The truth is that sometimes it’s best for a man to hit his woman to get her to behave, just like Sean Connery said. There are two main problems today: 1) Society has taught men to be ashamed for disciplining their women, and 2) Men with guns are always at the ready to take men away who dare discipline their women. So the actual effect of this is that women have become more abusive, more controlling, more crazy in relationships, because few men are willing to lay down the law with them. So they keep going on in their lives, entitled, never being called on their bullshit, never being disciplined like they need to be.”
Edit3: Karma sink for saying the unspeakable in a thread about the unspeakable.
Quite apart from the content of the parent comment, I find this tactically interesting. I’m probably perceived as more likely than the average commenter to attack a post like this, so I’ve been preemptively identified as a mutant, which leaves me with little maneuvering room to refute the assertions about non-mutants. Even if I bring up people I know, they’re probably mutants too, since they’re people I know and not selected at random from the general population.
Quite apart from the content of the parent comment, I find this tactically interesting. I’m probably perceived as more likely than the average commenter to attack a post like this, so I’ve been preemptively identified as a mutant, which leaves me with little maneuvering room to refute the assertions about non-mutants.
I am probably perceived by some to be more likely than the average commenter to come down on a different side of an argument along these lines. In this case, however, I probably disagree with him at least as strongly as you do. My tactical consideration seems to be that if I disagree with Aurini I’m a “mangina”, not a “mutant”.
It is obviously true that you are psychologically atypical (nearly everyone on this site is), trying to frame this as a debating tactic instead of an accurate observation dosen’t sound like good faith discussion to me.
It is obviously true that you are psychologically atypical (nearly everyone on this site is), trying to frame this as a debating tactic instead of an accurate observation dosen’t sound like good faith discussion to me.
It seems to be both an accurate observation and a debating tactic.
I wouldn’t call the discussion one based on good faith. We should not expect Alicorn to pretend that Aurini is behaving as the perfect model of good faith instead of making accurate observations about the tactical difficulties she faces.
I’ve met a fair share of women who were extremely competent—female comedians, entrepreneurs, writers—and I would happily work alongside any of them.
They are the exceptions, however.
The present female participation in the workforce is only possible through a massive state system which ‘empowers’ women by disempowering men. This skews both the sexual and economic marketplace, ultimately to the misery of both genders.
I have a great deal of respect for individuals such as yourself—heck, it’s telling that I remember your name when I haven’t been on here in a year. I treat individuals as individuals—but stereotypes are cheap information.
Is there a particular point which you disagree with me on, or is what I said simply unspeakable? ;)
Is there a particular point which you disagree with me on, or is what I said simply unspeakable?
I’m hesitant to produce a point-by-point rebuttal. This thread is about unspeakable notions, but you have confounded the data about your own unspeakable notions by bringing in what sounds like real-life personal information. I’m not sure if I’d be rebutting a persona you’re putting on to play with the thread concept (nor what the point of rebutting a mere persona would be), or if you actually agree with the positions you’ve described.
That demographically women are less intelligent than men, with less variation (glass ceiling, dirt floor)?
That women—being beautiful and loved by default—have less need to act responsibility, in the modern world or the ancestral environment?
That women are more emotional and prone to manufacturing drama in relationships? ‘Shit tests’ as the PUAs say.
That women are evolutionarily programmed to seek out dominant men?
That some women repeatedly date domestic abusers, and appear to enjoy it?
The stereotype of the nagging wife didn’t arise ex-nihilo; women are very prone to verbal abuse, often continuing an argument long after their man has conceded. When a woman natters, natters, natters, then yes—as Sean Connery said—an open handed slap is justified (though ill advised in the present legal climate).
To clarify, I’m not trolling; I’m being quite sincere. I have an opinion based upon evidence and theoretical constructs, and furthermore (in my experience) it works when the rubber hits the road.
You’re using a cheap tactic here, listing fact-shaped opinions optimized to appear tolerable to the intended audience and pretending that a list of them covers all the inferential distance from the audience’s position to the one you stated. (”...most women are incredibly stupid, and quite useless without a strong male presence guiding them...”, etc).
However, that’s just a distraction. Your unspoken assumptions—e.g. that if a woman is even slightly sexually aroused by some male behavior, then, regardless of its other effects, this behavior is the best for her and she just doesn’t know it; her utility function can’t differ from her sexual instincts—are intended to do the real work here. We are to swallow them along with the spoken points. You know what? No sell!
Such unspoken assumptions are easy to find out. We take the mainstream LW position, apply all of the points listed above to it as if we had full confidence in each of them, then we look at the remaining gap between our “modified” attitude towards gender relations, women, etc and the position being forced upon us (that most women are stupid, immature and most importantly undeserving of freedom and respect).
As I have just demonstrated, in that gap lie the things that our opponent would like us to assume but can’t say out loud for fear of repulsing us. I have named one; let’s look for more.
I think you’re wrong; Aurini seems capable of good-faith debate, even if he has sunk pretty low at the moment. I say we should engage him and try to find some sanity.
That’s your right, of course. I still don’t think that having this conversation with him in this forum is more important than minimizing the amount of proud public misogyny that shows up in google searches of lesswrong, though. I mean, there’s always PMs.
Um… you’re concerned with perceived misogyny? In conversations like these, LW has come up with arguments in favor of infanticide, torture, overthrowing democracy, “right to discriminate”, terrorism… Goddamnit, people have been upvoting Sam0345 on occasion, when he’s pushing some reactionary-flavoured grand theory more eloquently than usual. I think that worrying about low-grade stuff like this is silly while we’ve all of the above going on.
It hasn’t been my experience that new members of a community google for mentions of infanticide while trying to decide whether they’re welcome there, but yes, I generally disapprove of most things like that on similar grounds.
Edit: Which isn’t to say I disagree with all of them. If Aurini had taken out the gendered language from his claim “most people are immature idiots and need firm direction in their lives” (or whatever) I might have upvoted him. It’s the aggressive depersonalization of the traditionally oppressed half of the population that I think is toxic.
Just out of curiosity: do you think that people who are idiots but not immature or immature but not idiots need “firm direction”? And what is your idea of “firm direction”, anyway?
do you think that people who are idiots but not immature or immature but not idiots need “firm direction”?
Smart children and dumb adults? Sure.
And what is your idea of “firm direction”, anyway?
Yeah, that’s where the disagreement starts (i.e. slapping is a big no-no). Bear in mind I include myself in “most people”. I guess I’m (over?)generalizing from my childhood experience shuttling between a home with an extremely permissive parent and a home with a more authoritarian parent who set goals and boundaries and so on. Akrasia’s a big problem for me.
Me too, but I’d hate, hate, hate someone running my life beyond the basic (friendly) pressure to study and give a helping hand that my parents put on me, so I’d consider it hypocritical to support a system of direct coercion in society, like the apprenticeship in medieval guilds.
Of course it’s a shame if people, through mistakes or demotivation, can’t set foot upon a path contributive to society, but I consider it to be beneath the modern civilization to just drag people to where some expert wants them to be. There should be some kind of positive stimulus for everyone that’s simultaneously not turning things into a ruthless meritocratic race (e.g. the government coaxing some performance out of unmotivated young people with harmless drugs instead of the career and status they don’t care about would still be unethical at the core).
That’s one of the reasons why I’m so attracted to Socialist thought; it has wrestled long and hard with the problem of motivation, although it has produced nothing solid but various criticism of the existing solutions.
a more authoritarian parent who set goals and boundaries and so on
It’s very understandable that you don’t want to disclose private things, but this sentence tells nothing. What kinds of “goals” or “boundaries” would you consider acceptable, and from whom? (If the answers are like “Don’t smoke weed while you live with your parents if they order you not to, although it shouldn’t concern the government”, then your view is utterly mainstream, of course. If it’s “Parents can forbid you to look at any porn until you’re 18 just because it’s in the law”, then I disagree. Sexual excitement is a basic human need while drugs aren’t. Although some personality types DO seem to need an addiction, maybe for an additional reward structure in their life, more than others. Mine is INFP by the way, what’s yours?)
EDIT: Dear downvoter, please cut this out. If you really, really want to punish me for “feeding the troll”, look through my post history and downvote the less worthy ones, or reserve the downvote for future bad comments, but don’t screw with the community’s assessment of these ones. If my comment feels like an 1 or a −1 to LW, I hate it when someone turns it into a 0 and −2 according to some general principle unrelated to the content.
That’s one of the reasons why I’m so attracted to Socialist thought; it has wrestled long and hard with the problem of motivation, although it has produced nothing solid but various criticism of the existing solutions.
The reason it’s spent so long wrestling with the problem is that it refuses to accept the solution, namely holding people responsible for their actions.
I bet that, if you saw a world where all people were truly “held responsible for their actions” (and treated as agents, of course—a cardinal sin from my perspective), you’d recoil in horror and take that back.
I bet that, if you saw a world where all people were truly “held responsible for their actions” [...], you’d recoil in horror and take that back.
Why? In this world the laws of nature already hold people responsible for people’s actions, just not necessarily their own actions.
(and treated as agents, of course—a cardinal sin from my perspective)
From my perspective it is a cardinal sin not to, and given the results of capitalism vs. socialism I would argue I have a better case. Remember whether you model them as agents or not, people respond to incentives. If you refuse to treat them as agents, the incentives you give them are very likely to be perverse.
Also, I couldn’t help but notice that you’re treating both Aurini and myself as agents especially in this thread where you’re trying to get me to repudiate Aurini’s statements.
Then I disapprove of your policy, and most of those participating in the mentioned conversations would be on my side. Self-censorship is very easy to carry too far.
So if I’d caveated that most men are stupid, and that a greater proportion of women are stupid? I’m honestly baffled as to whether you’re intentionally misunderstanding me, or if you’re seriously that locked down into current ideology.
I’m really not saying anything that radical; you seem to think it is though.
So if I’d caveated that most men are stupid, and that a greater proportion of women are stupid?
...
Huh?
...
(Surely I misread that. But I reread it 5 times. Hopefully I missed some context which somehow negates the meaning, but assuming I haven’t:)
That doesn’t strike me as a particularly useful caveat if the purpose of the caveat is to reduce perceptions of ignorant misogyny. Sometimes it is better to not say all the things that you think, for signalling purposes. (ie. For the purpose of signalling that you aren’t an ass that it is socially deleterious to be affiliated with.)
I don’t think aurini’s purpose is to reduce the perception of ignorant misogyny.
I certainly wouldn’t infer that purpose from his behavior—that makes his recent claims here and elsewhere that he is (not taking radical positions and is just misunderstood) stand out somewhat.
Ah, I see. I read those claims as asserting that the inferiority of women is not a radical position (that is, asserting that many people, perhaps most people, hold it), rather that asserting it is not a position that will cause (many/most) people to perceive aurini as an ignorant misogynist.
Mostly, aurini seems content to have people make such perceptions and to then judge such people as ignorant conformists.
Also eloquent rational reactionary thought is bad and unwelcome on LW? Why? I though rationality dosen’t come with a political package. If we are worried about signalling ditching our support for Cryonics would probably help more.
I though rationality dosen’t come with a political package. If we are worried about signalling ditching our support for Cryonics would probably help more.
It comes with an intention to not treat questions of fact and policy as political packages that can be ditched for reasons other than evidence about their truth and utility.
Naturally, I don’t see how I implied they wouldn’t be. I just said that we are under no automatic obligation to signal our preferences for cryonics when we put up our rationalist hats. Even if one is convinced that cryonics would be an excellent policy according to one’s values one can still judge the cost of agitating for it or advertising it to be too high.
Quietly agreeing that cryonics is the best course of action without making main posts about how awesome it is and everyone should do it might be better for our community than doing so.
At the very least, the assertion that the behavior is the result of evolutionary programming is quite controversial, and is far beyond what state of the art science can assert.
Can you think of any society where women pursue weak, supplicating men?
Just because behaviour is malleable doesn’t mean it isn’t based upon an innate template. Are you advocating the blank slate theory? And if so, would you also advocate the blank slate for animal behaviour and mating patterns?
I agree that the “best” men got their pick of the most desirable women. The women were rewarded for complying, and they did. It’s hard to separate that effect from the one you describe.
More generally, the meaning of “best” has changed over time. I don’t agree that best and dominant were always identical through history, and I don’t agree that your intended meaning of dominant necessarily matches the historical meaning of that term.
I mean, jeez, have you seen how women behave in the workplace? They crave the occasional spanking.
Indeed, what workplace could be without discipline? Be assured that your boss, just like you, regrets the rotten and degenerate liberal age we are living in and looks forward to the day when he can properly discipline you.
2) Men with guns are always at the ready to take men away who dare discipline their women.
You are stronger than “your women” so you can discipline them at your pleasure.
I don’t see why you complain when the men with guns, who are stronger than you, discipline you.
You are stronger than “your women” so you can discipline them at your pleasure. I don’t see why you complain when the men with guns, who are stronger than you, discipline you.
Strawman. Aurini isn’t arguing for disciplining women because their weaker. He’s argument is that you should discipline women when they resort to histrionics.
Men often fall prey to their emotions too, and when they do, they’re not a pretty sight either. Yet he said nothing about women having the right to physically assault them when they don’t like the man’s display of emotion.
Dude, let me be honest. I was testing you with those two links. The result was far below my expectations. I’m not going to speak too much about it, looks like Less Wrong has already told you the basics anyway ITT.
I think that your behaviour, while influence-seeking, is unwise to dismiss as that of a “Troll”. Moreover, I don’t believe you to be outright “evil” (we have plenty of incompatible values, though, but I’ve first to examine the nature and pattern of these values to see where a clash is inevitable and where a compromise is worth it).
However, I basically support those attacks on you. Everything which consigns ANY group to a higher or lower perch on humanity’s imaginary “moral order” on the sole basis of its genes, however those genes might influence abilities and behavior—especially if it tries to look fair by giving members of a lower group the chance to redeem themselves and be treated like “normals”, but the entire burden of proof is upon them, and only the group who demoted their status might make the exception; anyone else, especially a known egalitarian, and it’s “white knighting”, or “nigger-loving pinko subversive”, or “bought by the Jews”, etc (which you pulled on Alicorn, *whom you would’ve never brought up as a positive example if you knew her in the exact same way, through the exact same writings, but not as a high-status regular of the community you’re targeting; you could only be expected to attack and complain about her then)…
it all fucking stinks to me. It is vile. There can be no compromise about this particular issue.
And I maintain that if the diverse collection of the highly predictable contrarians who want to spread the gospel of innate genetic differences don’t soon change their tune to underscore the importance of equal moral significance for groups in the larger society’s eyes—why, then the supposed corrupt and subversive order which steers mainstream discourse would be entirely justified in treating such contrarians as short-sighted, destructive meddlers who are too smart for society’s unspoken agreements, and I’ll feel obliged to do my part in censuring them, even if I might perceive their factual claims to be more correct than the mainstream view.
*(even sociopaths; I used to dream of governments wising up and treating them like fourth-class citizens, but I changed my mind)
What do you mean by “equal moral significance”? Do you mean equal intrinsic value or equal instrumental value? Because Aurini’s position only requires unequal instrumental value.
It also requires him being apriori a better judge of instrumental value than the vast majority of women, and some truly vast good being created that outweighs the ugliness of publicly disrespecting and humiliating any entire gender in such away. Also, he never once even mentioned the dangers of judging moral significance as a caveat.
(To answer your question directly: I maintain that a person’s total instrumental value as perceived by others is, especially in social relations, often nearly impossible to detach from intristic value, and an attempt to treat them separately can be very harmful for the subject and society at large. At risk of being downvoted, I’d like to mention once again that left-wing thought has been grappling with this problem since Marx.)
Anyway, would you mind elaborating? What is the precise position under which what’s best for women requires treating them like third-class citizens?
Suppose there’s a research project to do something important, say cure cancer, build FAI, etc. You will agree that it’s best for everyone if it’s staffed by the best people, even though it’s in some sense “unfair” to the people who will be denied the chance to participate in such a prestigious project because of their genes and/or upbringing.
The same principal applies to other projects where for the same reason it makes sense to assign people based to their comparative advantage. Now you may be asking, “Who decides what someone’s comparative advantage is and what about their biases?” Turns out there is a system that does a reasonably good job allocating people base on their comparative advantage and also avoids the problem of having a central judge of people’s value. It’s called the free market.
How the flying fuck does this have anything to do with publicly expressing disrespect and contempt for a genetically determined group of people, anyway? I agree that the issue of perceived fairness vs. market efficiency isn’t clear-cut, but our attitude towards the people who get unlucky must be particularly sensitive.
Would you want Yudkowsky to call anyone who can’t work on FAI or get qualified to do so a useless dullard whose only worth to society is donating to SIAI? If you wouldn’t, why wouldn’t you condemn Aurini’s words?
How the flying fuck does this have anything to do with publicly expressing disrespect and contempt for a genetically determined group of people, anyway?
Sorry, I was responding to your question about the difference between instrumental and intrinsic value.
As for Aurini’s comment, he’s arguing that people (ok in his case women, but I’m generalizing) should be disrespected and treated with contempt when they behave in histrionic or otherwise inappropriate ways, as this will cause them to stop it. Note that if someone is genetically or otherwise predisposed to act in such ways then it’s necessary to apply even more pressure for them to stop.
Would you want Yudkowsky to call anyone who can’t work on FAI or get qualified to do so a useless dullard whose only worth to society is donating to SIAI?
As for Aurini’s comment, he’s arguing that people (ok in his case women, but I’m generalizing) should be disrespected and treated with contempt when they behave in histrionic or otherwise inappropriate ways
Hmm, let’s see...
most women are incredibly stupid, and quite useless without a strong male presence guiding them (says nothing about inappropriate behavior, only judges ability and character in a very aggressive way)
So do you agree with the line above, or not? Do you think that this is a good thing to feel and believe?
People like you are savage and destructive, and a symptom of just how badly feminism has poisoned our culture… I’m glad I live in Canada; we have far fewer violent, passive aggressive, wrecks of masculinity here than there seem to be in the United States.
What about this style of “argument”? Do you endorse it?
most women are incredibly stupid, and quite useless without a strong male presence guiding them (says nothing about inappropriate behavior, only judges ability and character in a very aggressive way)
He goes on to talk about “histrionic behaviour” in the next paragraph.
So do you agree with the line above, or not?
I’d assign it a lower probability then Aurini but probably higher then you.
People like you are savage and destructive, and a symptom of just how badly feminism has poisoned our culture… I’m glad I live in Canada; we have far fewer violent, passive aggressive, wrecks of masculinity here than there seem to be in the United States.
What about this style of “argument”? Do you endorse it?
My main (but not the only) motherfucking problem with the whole thing is that Aurini holds men to be a superior species: i.e. they can’t be disciplined by women when they act stupidly or rashly, they aren’t said to be largely stupid while women are actually less likely to have an IQ below the mean (and defining “stupid” as just 100 IQ or above is pretty damn unjustified), etc. He completely avoids criticizing his own gender, but seizes upon every opportunity to insult the other one. And by the looks of it you’re acting in the same hypocritical and unfair manner.
I’d assign it a lower probability then Aurini but probably higher then you.
What the flying fuck. So in your worldview women are largely “useless” and men have to “guide” them, but there are no situations where men are useless, and women have to influence them? E.g. to make them calm down, prevent them from acting on emotion, etc.
Not to accidentally insult your parents or upbringing, but haven’t you seen your own mother and father helping each other to make the better decision or resolve a problem when one spouse is acting irrationally? I’m aware, of course, that in many poorly functioning families children only get to see the father dictating the mother what to do, but not the mother helping him make decisions as a valued and respected partner. But this is clearly a wrong and appaling relationship model to learn!
In any case, even holding a belief such a nasty thing (objectively “nasty” by our culture’s standards, not as a judgment of the believer) is very dangerous in itself.
I’d assign it a lower probability then Aurini but probably higher then you.
What the flying fuck. So in your worldview women are largely “useless” and men have to “guide” them, but there are no situations where men are useless, and women have to influence them? E.g. to make them calm down, prevent them from acting on emotion, etc.
I don’t see how this flows from my quote. In any case, I don’t agree with it.
In any case, even holding a belief such a nasty thing (objectively “nasty” by our culture’s standards, not as a judgment of the believer) is very dangerous in itself.
So you’re saying that the belief is so “nasty” that assigning it any non-zero probability is a bad idea.
So you’re saying that the belief is so “nasty” that assigning it any non-zero probability is a bad idea.
No. I’m only saying that it’s dangerous, and that even if you truly think that such a belief would have the advantage of reflecting reality better, you still have to trade that against the disadvantage of it being extremely unsuited to your cultural environment.
No. I’m only saying that it’s dangerous, and that even if you truly think that such a belief would have the advantage of reflecting reality better, you still have to trade that against the disadvantage of it being extremely unsuited to your cultural environment.
How is this even relevant outside some weird partisan definition of “socialist” and “cultural environment”? And how is this not a purely political jab at all?
My point is that I don’t believe this constitutes your true rejection, and was trying to argue by pointing to a belief you hold that isn’t exactly mainstream.
I find it ironic that I’m being yelled at in a thread that’s about ‘ideas which are unspeakable’.
In practice, I’m very loving of the women in my life, and I treat them well. I know how to make them feel special. Did you read the original article by Ferd?
This is a thread about unspeakable ideas, not unspeakable behavior. You are advocating domestic violence and (I infer) admitting to committing it as well.
Reread what I wrote; I never said I hit my women, or any woman for that matter. Quite frankly, even if a woman deserves a slap (as Sean Connery advocated, calling this DV is ridiculous), I’ll just kick her out of my life—the present legal climate ignores female-on-male violence, and loves prosecuting the male. No woman is worth it, even if she enjoys it.
I said I laid down the law with women. When they’re being bratty or rude, I inform them that such behaviour is unnacceptable. I’m not going to tolerate it, and the door’s right over there if they don’t like it. Refusing to take abuse from somebody is not being abusive oneself.
Furthermore, I said that women appreciate a man who won’t put up with their hysterics. Women seek out that sort of calming influence for the maelstrom of emotions they have flowing through their veins.
Go reread what I just wrote: I advocate against domestic violence. The legal system is utterly biased against men, and no woman is worth it.
Unless if you equate the slap as domestic violence? Go watch Connery’s video, and read the article which you think advocates domestic violence. Hint: it doesn’t. If your boyfriend has to wake up for work in the morning, and you spend hours yelling at him about nonsense, even though he admitted you were right earlier in the day—what do you think is going to happen? Act like an adult and take responsibility for your actions. If you coninuously yell at somebody, you’re likely to get hit.
Except the whole point of what I wrote is that women have a lot of trouble acting like adults and taking responsibility, let alone understanding simple logic.. You’re actually a perfect example of what I was talking about.
Not at all; I’ve run into plenty of white knights and manginas, and they all revert to female histrionics and passive aggressive behaviour, and—just like you—they’re secretly quite violent people.
Tell me to GTFO without addressing any of my statements (on a rationality forum, no less).
Misinterpret my statements (purposefully?) and accuse me of being a violent criminal offender.
Ignore my replys, and play the victim card.
This is classic mobbing (bullying) behaviour. I suspect you are doing this to win status and sexual favours from the women you’re ‘sticking up for’ against the big, bad boogie man (subconsciously—obviously noone’s going to fly out to meet you). People like you are savage and destructive, and a symptom of just how badly feminism has poisoned our culture.
I’m glad I live in Canada; we have far fewer violent, passive aggressive, wrecks of masculinity here than there seem to be in the United States.
My comments on this topic after the first one were a mistake. Apologies for feeding the troll.
I affirm your judgement. Aurini appeared to be a user in good standing, at 700 votes but seems to have transitioned to troll.
If, for some reason Aurini is not ostracised while he behaves like this it would be necessary to refute his willfully obnoxious sexist drivel point by point. I know people hate to read debates about sex politics but either the nonsense must be countered through argument or (preferably) it needs to be made clear through downvotes/ignore/dontfeeds that nothing Aurini is saying here should be considered remotely like a position that lesswrong supports.
Replying to you rather than the ancestor out of respect for your point.
Is this why you were making personal attacks on me, rather than addressing anything I actually said?
It should be understood that positioning Aurini as a troll isn’t personal. It’s crude politics. Usually when sexism talk comes up it consists of incoherent accusations that the lesswrong is populated by people who have opinions along the lines of those Aurini is presenting. Those allegations are almost impossible to counter with mere reason yet also shouldn’t be left to stand. That leaves me in an unpleasant position. I want to avoid being in said unpleasant position.
The last thing lesswrong needs is for accusations that it is populated by obnoxious sexist bigots to actually have an element of truth.
I don’t know how someone can address something like “it makes their brain-tubes hurt”. What are brain-tubes?
Your post is designed and worded as to offend, not to list points that can be addressed and to be shown factually right or wrong.
To say nothing of challenging one’s audience to equate themselves with a “white knight” or a “mangina” if only they show disagreement with a point, and describing emotionally what a despicable, pathetic strawman they’re going to be in such a case.
The chan equivalent of “If you like X, then you’re a faggot” is actually *more fair and high-handed than the shit Aurini’s slinging here; at least, unlike “mangina”, “faggot” is a widely used insult with no small clique monopolizing its denotation and connotations, and there have been attempts to weaken it by knocking the negativity out of both homosexuality and acting “unmanly”.
That term should definitely be considered offensive when used as an insult. (Most humanslike vaginas, in one way or another. It should not form a term of contempt!)
If your boyfriend has to wake up for work in the morning, and you spend hours yelling at him about nonsense, even though he admitted you were right earlier in the day—what do you think is going to happen?
Um… he’s going to realize that there can be no relationship between us, and break up that very day? Why the fuck would he cling to me, especially sinking to using emotional or physical violence himself?
Heh, you really think that’s squick? When I read that article I thought it was so incredibly self-evident that it was as interesting as pointing out the sky is blue.
Do you realize that the domestic abuse described in the article and then commented on by me is a guy being physically abused by his girlfriend but liking it because she gave him attention? That then forms the basis of a rant that encourages domestic violence.
You are trying to signal how alpha you are by demonstrating how sexist and offensive you can be but in this case you seem to have affiliated with a pussy.
Think for a moment, and quit with the ad hominems, my rationalist friend.
Why would I try and signal anything on here? Being ‘Alpha on the Internet’ will not get me laid in real life; I have no investment on whether anyone here thinks I’m sexy or not. The example I gave was to pre-empt the “You’re a lonely, bitter loser in your mother’s basement”—pointing out that I am far from that was my only reason for bringing it up.
Quite frankly, I appreciate this community, and though I haven’t been on here in some time, my karma score should point out that I’m not a troll, or a johnny-come-lately. If anything, I’d rather be on good-standing here, because that means more readers of my blog, and more viewers of my video.
That said, i’m not going to censor myself and parrot the party-line for the sake of popularity. Particularly not on a thread about subversive ideas (apparently I found the one that was too subversive).
Do you think that I’m advocating domestic violence? Improve on your reading comprehension; I’m not. Try and read between the lines—and stop getting emotional on a rationality forum.
Signaling is not done consciously. As a human, you are not capable of not signaling. It seems to be the primary cause of the existence of speech. So,
Why would I try and signal anything on here?
It’s because humans are adaptation executors, not fitness maximizers. You find yourself doing things. You do them because they served ancestral purposes. They don’t necessarily still serve those purposes, but you still do them.
Now personally I have low tolerance for histrionic behaviour. I put my foot down at the first sign of it, and they turn from a whining scold into an a bubbly eager sex partner. Women aren’t happy with too much freedom; it makes their brain tubes hurt. They prefer to be around a strong male who lays down the rules, and rewards them for good behaviour.
I mean, jeez, have you seen how women behave in the workplace? They crave the occasional spanking.
Don’t see a good reason for this to be down voted. Sexually social dominance turns most women on, quite simply many early arguments in a relationship with a woman are just shit tests. Often when young women are being difficult in general those are shit tests too. Winning or confidently sidestepping an argument causes gina tingles. Duh. This is so obviously true that the idea someone might think it not so makes my brain hurt.
Lets put this post into perspective. Some really offensive stuff where said in this thread, that was the point dammit! Dear lord what people might term holocaust denial was considered, yet this, basically just noticing women are sometimes difficult in order to get sexual attention and often crave the presence of socially dominant men gets down voted to −15?
Gee I don’t know why I’m surprised at mobbing like this, considering people like Robin Hanson get scolded and denounced for their supposed “sexism” which amounts to nothing more than some intellectual honesty and not bending backwards to make women seem high status in ever argument. Gods forbid some posters might like male social norms more than female social norms, a perfectly valid preference for all groups which somehow magically becomes evil when the two sets of individuals mostly have different genitals. LW can’t discuss basic game at all, it can’t discuss fundamental criticism of feminism at all. Gender and relationships are the one reliable failure mode of this site’s community and I’m far from alone in noticing that.
Just to be perfectly clear as I understand what Aurini meant by this post in the context of his previous writing I endorse it.
basically just noticing women are sometimes difficult in order to get sexual attention and often crave the presence of socially dominant men gets down voted to −15?
I would not downvote someone for saying that. I did downvote Aurini. Accordingly I don’t think this is an accurate summary of the meaning of the words in the grandparent.
This is not merely a case of intellectual honesty being branded sexism.
The truth is that sometimes it’s best for a man to hit his woman to get her to behave
I fully endorse this sentence because I see it not as advice but as stating whether something is or isn’t a fact. In a thread about ugly truths!
sometimes it’s best for a man to hit his woman to get her to behave
I don’t endorse this as universal advice because it can be unethical to tell this to someone. For example if I stand next to someone and tell them that sometimes the only ethical course of action is to kill another human being, this is trivially true, but it could be my ethical obligation to say this, or it could be very very wrong for me to say this. Context is everything.
It is still a true statement though.
And if any reader is still wondering and wants it spelled out, yes sometimes a man hitting a woman is the right thing to do. We can casually without disclaimers talk infanticide, abortion, euthanasia, war, deicide, murder, genocide and constantly implicitly break intuitive moral rules and plain politeness with all sorts of nasty sounding but true utilitarian statements …. yet from all that deontological framework the “don’t hit girls!” rule seems to be implanted the strongest and least likley to be challenged. Makes sense since our brain seem to be built to see the default woman as worth more than the default man by virtue of her existence. I can understand why people fail (or maybe not—maybe our CEV genuinely does care more about the welfare of regular women than regular men) their moral calculus that way. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.
Just as an experiment I challenge the reader to consider the well know trolley problem. Be honest to yourself. Make up a random man on the street. Name him Joe. Joe can save plenty of other people if you push him on the track. Imagine average Joe. Now wait 10 minutes, by the clock. Now imagine a random woman. Lets call her Jane.
Are you really going to tell me you aren’t seeing it there? Scurrying about in the dark back of your mind, registering on your warm fuzzy evaluation function, before you suppress it in shame or to win an argument. You would spend more time before pushing Jane compared to Joe and you know it. Ceteris paribus for some values of numbers of lives saved you might push Joe but not Jane.
it’s best for a man to hit his woman to get her to behave
This is no longer a true statement, because it implies it is always so, I do not endorse it. Funny how I think most people seem to have read the first sentence as this, when it clearly wasn’t.
Just as an experiment I challenge the reader to consider the well know trolley problem. Be honest to yourself. Make up a random man on the street. Name him Joe. Joe can save plenty of other people if you push him on the track. Imagine average Joe. Now wait 10 minutes, by the clock. Now imagine a random woman. Lets call her Jane.
Are you really going to tell me you aren’t seeing it there? Scurrying about in the dark back of your mind, registering on your warm fuzzy evaluation function, before you suppress it in shame or to win an argument. You would spend more time before pushing Jane compared to Joe and you know it. Ceteris paribus for some values of numbers of lives saved you might push Joe but not Jane.
I thought it would be something like this. These are not reasons “for a man to hit his woman to get her to behave”. These are reasons why anyone might need to hit anyone else to avoid something worse happening.
In the original context, by “behave” Aurini means “be compliant to the man’s desires”. This in the context of another person’s blog posting elsewhere advocating, right up in the title of the post, “the necessity of domestic violence”. This is what you are endorsing.
In the original context, by “behave” Aurini means “be compliant to the man’s desires”.
Well obviously it is sometimes best for a person to use violence for their own gains if the person dosen’t mind such violence and can escape punishment. I interpreted your question as asking me when I though this is appropriate or right. The question of whether use of violence is the optimal tactic to get people to act according to one’s goals is a different one depending, heavily on what preferences that person has.
For a person with different ethics (more selfish for example) there are plenty of theoretical opportunities when it is rational to use violence to get one’s way.
Given the concept “sometimes it’s best for a man to hit his woman to get her to behave”, you generalised the words “man”, “woman”, and “behave” to “someone”, “someone” and “do something”, and ignored the word “his” altogether. Now you’re generalising “best” to mean serving to get whatever the first someone wants.
This reduces the whole matter to fatuity: the optimal tactic to get people to act according to one’s goals is whatever will achieve those goals. Duh. The original question was about certain specific goals and specific ways of getting them.
Anyone’s ethics, including yours, must have a subgoal of aiming to influence others’ behavior in some ways, in order to have consistency. If, like any decent person, you believe that violence in less extreme situations, especially for selfish gain, is unacceptable, you can’t just fold your hands and say “Oh well” when others endorse such violence! Otherwise your morals in this regard become just an aesthetic choice for your private behavior, and not a consistent consequentialist position.
Hmm, maybe. Anyway, my point still stands; all of us, including Charlie, should come down like a ton of bricks on top of anyone who seriously hints about using violence for selfish gain; doubly so when it constitutes domestic abuse. To endorse or tolerate unacceptable physical or emotional violence is in itself immoral.
should come down like a ton of bricks on top of anyone who seriously hints about using violence for selfish gain;
Does this statement also hold true for those who would vote themselves the tax dollars of others?
Spare me your hypocrisy; repeating the current Myths of our Age does not make you holy. You disgusting, malevolent hypocrite; I never suggested hitting a woman—I outright advised against it, as did the original blog post. I simply acknowledged—as did Ferdinand—that stupid women who date stupid men enjoy being hit by them.
People such as you - ‘rationalists’ who believe all the myths of our modern era—are precisely the reason that this community has declined since Eliezer’s leaving, into obscure contests to post the most inscrutable mathematics.
Go comment on the Amazing Atheist’s Youtube channel; you’ll fit right in there.
I don’t think you understood my position in the above post. I don’t approve of clippy using my atoms for paper-clips, yet I can’t deny that for him that may very well be the rational choice. If that is the case it is hard argue that the regular meaning of the words “best for him” dosen’t includes turning me into paper-clips.
Clearly from the perspective of someone slightly more selfish or less altruistic or different (for example non-Western) values sometimes the application of violence is the rational course of action.
Clearly from the perspective of someone slightly more selfish or less altruistic or different (for example non-Western) values sometimes the application of violence is the rational course of action.
I don’t think I understand why this particular post is down voted. Seems to be true to me.
So long as she wants to be compliant to my desire.
Do you have zero understanding of the sexual market, my friend? The moment she no longer wants me, that is the point where I leave her to the Alpha Males she has chosen as superior.
I… it’s like talking to an idiot. You misinterpret my words to impress others. I have zero interest in hitting a woman, and for that matter—dating a woman who needs to be hit.
I demand that my women act like ladies. If they want to be whores? They are more than welcome. They immediately get discounted from the marriage market. I would never hit them, but I’m not going to ‘forgive’ that gangbang (a gangbang I orchestrated would be another thing). I am simply recognizing that prole women enjoy being hit, and prole men need to hit them to keep their dumb vaginas in line. Do I think this admirable? Do I seek this out as my Utopia? Of course not!
I think most people are stupid, and stupid people enjoy the drama of violence—in a cathartic manner.
You idiot leftists have banned all violence, and now all entertainment is vicarious violence because real-life hatred has been banned.
Get over yourself; I’m far more civilized, and far less likely to hit a woman, than you could ever hope to be.
You idiot leftists have banned all violence, and now all entertainment is vicarious violence because real-life hatred has been banned.
While this is political and thus mind-killing language I think it is only fair that if Alicorn has the opportunity to talk about “tactical difficulties” in the debate Aurini should too. I think this hatefest he has attracted has strawmaned and demonized him to ridiculous proportions and that he is indeed right about the reasons for why this happened.
You idiot leftists have banned all violence, and now all entertainment is vicarious violence because real-life hatred has been banned.
Frankly, I don’t understand. Would someone here who’s not an Idiot Leftist—you, or Aurini, or whoever, clear that up, please? How do we get a real-life outlet for violent instincts that’s more safe, moral and convenient than entertainment? What precisely is he complaining about, and why is he so angry about it?
I’m an idiot leftist, who’s just wandered by from here. I don’t think Aurini or Sheen think real-life violence outlets can be more safe, moral, or convenient than watching simulated violence on TV or performing simulated violence in a video game. They (or at least Aurini) argues that a large social class finds a lot of value in cathartic violence, both the giving of it and the receiving of it, and that this value outweighs the physical and emotional damage.
I hadn’t considered it before, but I do think it’s not obvious which is correct.
This “value” is only an issue if you have utilitarian ethics in the first place. I don’t. Enforcing happiness against subjects’ will is usually insane, but enforcing virtue makes a scary amount of sense. I’d be willing to, in some form.
Yes, yes, I’m a creepy intolerant liberal-fascist who thinks that everything in the world is his business.
(Speaking objectively? Welcome to the human tradegy, where both action and inaction have such huge downsides that each one is very easy to construe as evil! We should all just hate ourselves even more, epistemically that’s my only advice here.)
Please stop being so disingenious and twisting your allies’ words to give a likeable pseudo-summary. You aren’t dumb, so you must be doing it on purpose. To quote my other comment:
My whole motherfucking problem with the whole thing is that Aurini holds men to be a superior species: i.e. they can’t be disciplined by women when they act stupidly or rashly, they aren’t said to be largely stupid while women are actually less likely to have an IQ below the mean (and defining “stupid” as just 100 IQ or above is pretty damn unjustified), etc. He completely avoids criticizing his own gender, but seizes upon every opportunity to insult the other one. And by the looks of it you’re acting in the same hypocritical and unfair manner.
For example:
most women are incredibly stupid, and quite useless
Most people are incredibly stupid, and quite useless. Women are people. QED.
See how coy you’re being? Aurini specifically excluded men from his comment; in his thinking, much less men must be “incredibly stupid” than women. And as that’s absurd for any reasonable value of “incredibly stupid” (men of IQ>140 might indeed far outnumber women, but, had he meant that, he would probably be calling himself, most of LW and most scientists stupid) - why, it must’ve been meant solely as a mean-spirited, irresponsible insult.
Likewise, if women always physically assaulted men when they considered it to be reasonable self-defense, and so did men when they felt that they’re defending themselves fron an aggressive woman, much more men would get hit by women than vice versa. But that’s unacceptable, he’d say; bitches can’t do this to me whenever something gets into their brain tubes!
See how coy you’re being? Aurini specifically excluded men from his comment; in his thinking, much less men must be “incredibly stupid” than women.
I wasn’t coy at all if you don’t take that quote out of context.
Most people are incredibly stupid, and quite useless. Women are people. QED.
Are women in my social circle generally less intelligent than the men in them? Yes, because women have lower IQ variance and I don’t generally stick around with the left half of the Gaussian.
If you need it spelled out:
Men have greater IQ variance and I don’t hang out with men on the left side of the bell curve. If anything I spend more time socializing with women than men and am perhaps even less selective. Quite clearly yes the women I run into in my daily life will tend to be less intelligent and competent than the men, simply because of these factors.
And yes among the extremely capable subset of the entire population (not my social circle) there will be more men than women.
And as that’s absurd for any reasonable value of “incredibly stupid” (men of IQ>140 might indeed far outnumber women, but, had he meant that, he would probably be calling himself, most of LW and most scientists stupid)
That sounds perfectly reasonable. Humans are not very good at thinking. Ever heard that quote about John von Neumann?
“only he was fully awake.”—Eugene Wigner
Spend some time with 140+ people, you will soon see that you and I and most of humanity are incredibly stupid.
why, it must’ve been meant solely as a mean-spirited, irresponsible insult.
But yes the way it was phrased it probably was a stylistic move to lower women’s status.
Likewise, if women always physically assaulted men when they considered it to be reasonable self-defense, and so did men when they felt that they’re defending themselves fron an aggressive woman, much more men would get hit by women than vice versa. But that’s unacceptable, he’d say; bitches can’t do this to me whenever something gets into their brain tubes!
Are you really going to tell me you aren’t seeing it there? Scurrying about in the dark back of your mind, registering on your warm fuzzy evaluation function, before you suppress it in shame or to win an argument. You would spend more time before pushing Jane compared to Joe and you know it. Ceteris paribus for some values of numbers of lives saved you might push Joe but not Jane.
Actually, my System 1 feelings wouldn’t push either of them (I guess—I’ve never been in such a situation before with System 1 being aware of it; I think the Implicit Association Test would be a better test of what you’re trying to test).
(FWIW, my System 2 reasoning wouldn’t either, for TDT reasons—if the answer to “If someone is offered $10,000 to murder someone, should they accept and then give the proceeds to AMF thereby saving five lives?” were “Yes”, I would have to be more careful about not displeasing rich people, for example.)
The truth is that sometimes it’s best for a man to hit his woman to get her to behave
Do you endorse these lines, or not?
I’d have to agree, for a suitably literal definition of ‘sometimes’. Let’s see… If my wife has had a psychotic meltdown, is wielding an axe and thinks our children are actually alien-clone-spies.
That should serve to signal disdain for absolute moral rules while also indicating abhorrence of domestic violence in all but the most extreme circumstances.
most women are incredibly stupid, and quite useless
Most people are incredibly stupid, and quite useless. Women are people. QED.
Are women in my social circle generally less intelligent than the men in them? Yes, because women have lower IQ variance and I don’t generally stick around with the left half of the Gaussian.
They aren’t. Which shows that “most X are Y” and “all Z are X” doesn’t entail “most Z are Y” (even though the conclusion might still happen to be true, for some values of Z and Y).
Yeah, sure, just… he ain’t building much of a reputation in the groups that could benefit and update the most from his arguments, between that and the coat and the shaved head.
This is a relevant argument. But the thing is I’m not sure that is his intended audience. Also he could do much worse style wise even going for that audience, he could have dressed up in that detestable young republican look. Smug hispterism just dosen’t go with such opinions either, right wing hipsters tread a fine line at best.
Shaved head and coat are fundamentally also statement, rather than subculture and it carries connotations of class. And I dare claim that it is precisely the statement of class that disturbs the “groups that could benefit most”, they can excuse the wretched of the earth since they are mere symbols, but they can not excuse the working man, for he is far too real for their tastes. Being a fellow reader of Orwell I think we both know where he would stand on that. Why must he and those like him be so very dead?
But regardless, the statement of class combined with contrarian opinions are together a very expensive signal of rebellion and freedom. Smart enough to be a Brahim but refuses to! Arguably that attracts a certain kind of quality audience. And aren’t they in need of rationality too?
But I’m biased in this, since I refuse to be Brahim as well.
Help! Someone is making fun of nerds on the internet! And this guy you talked about occasionally writes on the same site!
In Mala Fide has all sorts of contrarian people. Some are silly, some are insightful. Sure many are mean but that’s more or less the point of the site—may as well complain that 4chan is mean.
Yeah, sure, just… he ain’t building much of a reputation in the groups that could benefit and update the most from his arguments, between that and the coat and the shaved head. My knee-jerk reaction 3 years ago would be: “Lol, a bonehead thinks he can say big words.” Now I can look past that and the horns effect from flipped-view generators like In Mala Fide (flipping views is great, it’s necessary, but you’ve got to filter the noise a little), and see that he’s a pretty damn reasonable man, but I know people who’d just get pissed off and leave because they’re pattern matching for associated crap like this.
And 4chan ain’t mean to its ingroup; it has often been pretty fucking cuddly to me.
Oh? Go right ahead, I’ve got karma to spare.
This is the wrong way to take down votes.
I’m arguing about people’s tone, politeness and image here, not something important to my life.
Well kept gardens die by pacifism.
More or less the same complaint about optimizing your appearance can be levied at the wikipedia editors. In any case when I see someone has invested some effort into how they look, I try not to be too judgemental about the tribal attire of his particular subculture.
I’d argue that by mainstream standards many well respected LWers dress rather oddly. Not many of them manage to do so and look cool in a particular subculture though (which aurini definitely manages).
Well its good that you’ve gotten over this. Stereotypes do carry real information, but don’t take them too seriously. For example Konkvistador’s comment is up voted enough that it should swamp any effect from the clothing if you trust the average LessWronger.
Oldfag.
I did not have the average LessWronger in mind; I’m sure they/we have no problem with that, as I am a below average LWer. I’m thinking of a generally soft-hearted, liberally-minded guy on Reddit—or, yes, 4chan—who could, whatever he ends up updating to, find it useful to look at the people and ideas that he finds unfashionable and distasteful, and see how they’re human too, and not even the big horrible threat to his lifestyle and freedoms he feels them to be. I was a lot like that guy once, I thought the same things, and I’m confident that I’m a decent source on his perspective.
Yo, Charlie, if ever you need to wedge open the mind of a decent but tribally Right-hating guy like the one I described here, link this classic article by Orwell at them. Well, to me, anything by Orwell is a classic, but this one’s seriously kickass, paying real and sincere respect to one’s opponent while still attacking most of his values and beliefs (but also pointing out the considerable hypocrisy and moral cowardice of most people who slammed him merely out of fashion). Who said that the Left can’t do it… - well, sigh, we mostly can’t - …don’t know it’s possible?
Just, I’d exercise judgment in which of the thinkers you support to compare to Kipling in this way, you understand? Someone like Aurini, explicitly sharing basic priors, like reductionism and the value of human rights and an ordered society, is far less alien to our Hypothetical Left-Identifying Guy than Kipling was to Orwell’s circles.
On the other hand, if said guy, like me, will first try to see if there’s anything thoughtlessly hateful that fits his stereotype of the Right in the vicinity of whatever caught his eye—don’t waste the analogy on defending a really sadistic/retarded/etc thing said by someone on “your” side (hint: my link fucking counts, nigga!). Point out all the things that the Guy already believes stupid or worse (like supporting the USSR or making the iconoclastic hero that was MLK the lifeless object of America’s state cult) that “his” side has done over the years, then remind him of the need to evaluate every cluster of thought by the best ideas present in it, not the below-mainstream people latching on to it.
Upvoted for linking to an essay by Orwell, I hadn’t read that particular one before.
I appreciate the backhanded compliment.
For the record, I really like what’s happening at InMalaFide. Even when they’re wrong (and I disagree pretty drastically on some issues, even with the domain owner) they’re at least getting it wrong in an interesting way. It’s the opposite of an echo chamber.
Is there any place in particular that you’d recommend I write for?
Write at LW, of course; it’s the only community site I can be bothered to monitor!
Lol. Seriously, I both respect your thoughts and convictions and just like your online persona; I’ve now read much of your site and while TBH I found some of the more ideological stuff either unclear/in bad faith (heh) or simply disagreeable from my own partisan perspective (I’m 60% socialist, 20% mainstream liberal, 15% conservative and 5% fascist, which adds up to be pretty damn statist and collectivist), a lot is of LW discussion quality. I’m also very OK with your style, even if you could benefit from much subtler signaling and more roundabout praise of tribal values on occasion.
’d be happy to see more of your views, to contemptate and maybe oppose, at ANY decent-status website, especially one where there’s a lot of folks closer to my worldview than yours; you give good food for thought and discussion both when it’s contrarian or non-partisan.
I agree with you that a site like In Mala Fide can also generate interesting thoughts and the right sort of controversy, but many of us just can’t stomach sifting through it all to find something worth thinking about—especially when 90% of articles contain invective aimed at the “leftists”, “feminists” or other such nebulous groups that a guy like me can often identify with, under a very different self-perception than the sincere or trolling contrarian writing the article.
How about this?
http://www.inmalafide.com/blog/2012/02/27/the-necessity-of-domestic-violence/
(warning: high squick, especially for ladies)
How pathetic. The guy was so desperate for sympathy that he actually seemed to value the experience of being seriously assaulted by his girlfriend and the guilt based affection that came with it. Not something that lends his opinions on domestic violence in general much credibility.
Another dark self-parody gem from the guy. Well, somewhat unconscious self-parody.
Heh, you really think that’s squick? When I read that article I thought it was so incredibly self-evident that it was as interesting as pointing out the sky is blue. Women like Alicorn are the exception; most women are incredibly stupid, and quite useless without a strong male presence guiding them.
Now personally I have low tolerance for histrionic behaviour. I put my foot down at the first sign of it, and they turn from a whining scold into an a bubbly eager sex partner. Women aren’t happy with too much freedom; it makes their brain tubes hurt. They prefer to be around a strong male who lays down the rules, and rewards them for good behaviour.
I mean, jeez, have you seen how women behave in the workplace? They crave the occasional spanking.
For the record I’m currently dating two very sexy women, who are far too young for me. One’s relatively intelligent (I’m not an Alpha guy, I’m a Sigma—I hate picking up). And both of them come like firehoses while they’re with me. I think my track record speaks to the validity of my opinion. I like women—I just don’t respect them.
Edit: My major disagreement with Ferdinand is that he doesn’t fully understand Austrian economics.
Edit2: One of the comments on the post is describes the costs of not punishing your woman for misbehaviour:
“The truth is that sometimes it’s best for a man to hit his woman to get her to behave, just like Sean Connery said. There are two main problems today: 1) Society has taught men to be ashamed for disciplining their women, and 2) Men with guns are always at the ready to take men away who dare discipline their women. So the actual effect of this is that women have become more abusive, more controlling, more crazy in relationships, because few men are willing to lay down the law with them. So they keep going on in their lives, entitled, never being called on their bullshit, never being disciplined like they need to be.”
Edit3: Karma sink for saying the unspeakable in a thread about the unspeakable.
Quite apart from the content of the parent comment, I find this tactically interesting. I’m probably perceived as more likely than the average commenter to attack a post like this, so I’ve been preemptively identified as a mutant, which leaves me with little maneuvering room to refute the assertions about non-mutants. Even if I bring up people I know, they’re probably mutants too, since they’re people I know and not selected at random from the general population.
(Regarding the content, WrongBot has it.)
And if anyone else brings up women they know, well, they’re probably like you, too. No true woman is worthy of respect.
I am probably perceived by some to be more likely than the average commenter to come down on a different side of an argument along these lines. In this case, however, I probably disagree with him at least as strongly as you do. My tactical consideration seems to be that if I disagree with Aurini I’m a “mangina”, not a “mutant”.
It is obviously true that you are psychologically atypical (nearly everyone on this site is), trying to frame this as a debating tactic instead of an accurate observation dosen’t sound like good faith discussion to me.
It seems to be both an accurate observation and a debating tactic.
I wouldn’t call the discussion one based on good faith. We should not expect Alicorn to pretend that Aurini is behaving as the perfect model of good faith instead of making accurate observations about the tactical difficulties she faces.
I’ve met a fair share of women who were extremely competent—female comedians, entrepreneurs, writers—and I would happily work alongside any of them.
They are the exceptions, however.
The present female participation in the workforce is only possible through a massive state system which ‘empowers’ women by disempowering men. This skews both the sexual and economic marketplace, ultimately to the misery of both genders.
I have a great deal of respect for individuals such as yourself—heck, it’s telling that I remember your name when I haven’t been on here in a year. I treat individuals as individuals—but stereotypes are cheap information.
Is there a particular point which you disagree with me on, or is what I said simply unspeakable? ;)
I’m hesitant to produce a point-by-point rebuttal. This thread is about unspeakable notions, but you have confounded the data about your own unspeakable notions by bringing in what sounds like real-life personal information. I’m not sure if I’d be rebutting a persona you’re putting on to play with the thread concept (nor what the point of rebutting a mere persona would be), or if you actually agree with the positions you’ve described.
I’m really not sure what’s so controversial.
That demographically women are less intelligent than men, with less variation (glass ceiling, dirt floor)?
That women—being beautiful and loved by default—have less need to act responsibility, in the modern world or the ancestral environment?
That women are more emotional and prone to manufacturing drama in relationships? ‘Shit tests’ as the PUAs say.
That women are evolutionarily programmed to seek out dominant men?
That some women repeatedly date domestic abusers, and appear to enjoy it?
The stereotype of the nagging wife didn’t arise ex-nihilo; women are very prone to verbal abuse, often continuing an argument long after their man has conceded. When a woman natters, natters, natters, then yes—as Sean Connery said—an open handed slap is justified (though ill advised in the present legal climate).
To clarify, I’m not trolling; I’m being quite sincere. I have an opinion based upon evidence and theoretical constructs, and furthermore (in my experience) it works when the rubber hits the road.
You’re using a cheap tactic here, listing fact-shaped opinions optimized to appear tolerable to the intended audience and pretending that a list of them covers all the inferential distance from the audience’s position to the one you stated. (”...most women are incredibly stupid, and quite useless without a strong male presence guiding them...”, etc).
However, that’s just a distraction. Your unspoken assumptions—e.g. that if a woman is even slightly sexually aroused by some male behavior, then, regardless of its other effects, this behavior is the best for her and she just doesn’t know it; her utility function can’t differ from her sexual instincts—are intended to do the real work here. We are to swallow them along with the spoken points. You know what? No sell!
Such unspoken assumptions are easy to find out. We take the mainstream LW position, apply all of the points listed above to it as if we had full confidence in each of them, then we look at the remaining gap between our “modified” attitude towards gender relations, women, etc and the position being forced upon us (that most women are stupid, immature and most importantly undeserving of freedom and respect).
As I have just demonstrated, in that gap lie the things that our opponent would like us to assume but can’t say out loud for fear of repulsing us. I have named one; let’s look for more.
(Why the downvote?)
Presumably because people don’t like the subject matter.
I want to discourage further troll-feeding. I don’t actually disagree with anything you said, though.
I think you’re wrong; Aurini seems capable of good-faith debate, even if he has sunk pretty low at the moment. I say we should engage him and try to find some sanity.
That’s your right, of course. I still don’t think that having this conversation with him in this forum is more important than minimizing the amount of proud public misogyny that shows up in google searches of lesswrong, though. I mean, there’s always PMs.
Um… you’re concerned with perceived misogyny? In conversations like these, LW has come up with arguments in favor of infanticide, torture, overthrowing democracy, “right to discriminate”, terrorism… Goddamnit, people have been upvoting Sam0345 on occasion, when he’s pushing some reactionary-flavoured grand theory more eloquently than usual. I think that worrying about low-grade stuff like this is silly while we’ve all of the above going on.
It hasn’t been my experience that new members of a community google for mentions of infanticide while trying to decide whether they’re welcome there, but yes, I generally disapprove of most things like that on similar grounds.
Edit: Which isn’t to say I disagree with all of them. If Aurini had taken out the gendered language from his claim “most people are immature idiots and need firm direction in their lives” (or whatever) I might have upvoted him. It’s the aggressive depersonalization of the traditionally oppressed half of the population that I think is toxic.
Just out of curiosity: do you think that people who are idiots but not immature or immature but not idiots need “firm direction”? And what is your idea of “firm direction”, anyway?
Smart children and dumb adults? Sure.
Yeah, that’s where the disagreement starts (i.e. slapping is a big no-no). Bear in mind I include myself in “most people”. I guess I’m (over?)generalizing from my childhood experience shuttling between a home with an extremely permissive parent and a home with a more authoritarian parent who set goals and boundaries and so on. Akrasia’s a big problem for me.
Me too, but I’d hate, hate, hate someone running my life beyond the basic (friendly) pressure to study and give a helping hand that my parents put on me, so I’d consider it hypocritical to support a system of direct coercion in society, like the apprenticeship in medieval guilds.
Of course it’s a shame if people, through mistakes or demotivation, can’t set foot upon a path contributive to society, but I consider it to be beneath the modern civilization to just drag people to where some expert wants them to be. There should be some kind of positive stimulus for everyone that’s simultaneously not turning things into a ruthless meritocratic race (e.g. the government coaxing some performance out of unmotivated young people with harmless drugs instead of the career and status they don’t care about would still be unethical at the core).
That’s one of the reasons why I’m so attracted to Socialist thought; it has wrestled long and hard with the problem of motivation, although it has produced nothing solid but various criticism of the existing solutions.
It’s very understandable that you don’t want to disclose private things, but this sentence tells nothing. What kinds of “goals” or “boundaries” would you consider acceptable, and from whom? (If the answers are like “Don’t smoke weed while you live with your parents if they order you not to, although it shouldn’t concern the government”, then your view is utterly mainstream, of course. If it’s “Parents can forbid you to look at any porn until you’re 18 just because it’s in the law”, then I disagree. Sexual excitement is a basic human need while drugs aren’t. Although some personality types DO seem to need an addiction, maybe for an additional reward structure in their life, more than others. Mine is INFP by the way, what’s yours?)
EDIT: Dear downvoter, please cut this out. If you really, really want to punish me for “feeding the troll”, look through my post history and downvote the less worthy ones, or reserve the downvote for future bad comments, but don’t screw with the community’s assessment of these ones. If my comment feels like an 1 or a −1 to LW, I hate it when someone turns it into a 0 and −2 according to some general principle unrelated to the content.
For the record, I downvoted you once, which I later retracted.
The reason it’s spent so long wrestling with the problem is that it refuses to accept the solution, namely holding people responsible for their actions.
I bet that, if you saw a world where all people were truly “held responsible for their actions” (and treated as agents, of course—a cardinal sin from my perspective), you’d recoil in horror and take that back.
Why? In this world the laws of nature already hold people responsible for people’s actions, just not necessarily their own actions.
From my perspective it is a cardinal sin not to, and given the results of capitalism vs. socialism I would argue I have a better case. Remember whether you model them as agents or not, people respond to incentives. If you refuse to treat them as agents, the incentives you give them are very likely to be perverse.
Also, I couldn’t help but notice that you’re treating both Aurini and myself as agents especially in this thread where you’re trying to get me to repudiate Aurini’s statements.
Then I disapprove of your policy, and most of those participating in the mentioned conversations would be on my side. Self-censorship is very easy to carry too far.
I’m aware I’m in the minority on this one, yeah. Though I notice PUA doesn’t get talked about much anymore.
So if I’d caveated that most men are stupid, and that a greater proportion of women are stupid? I’m honestly baffled as to whether you’re intentionally misunderstanding me, or if you’re seriously that locked down into current ideology.
I’m really not saying anything that radical; you seem to think it is though.
...
Huh?
...
(Surely I misread that. But I reread it 5 times. Hopefully I missed some context which somehow negates the meaning, but assuming I haven’t:)
That doesn’t strike me as a particularly useful caveat if the purpose of the caveat is to reduce perceptions of ignorant misogyny. Sometimes it is better to not say all the things that you think, for signalling purposes. (ie. For the purpose of signalling that you aren’t an ass that it is socially deleterious to be affiliated with.)
I don’t think aurini’s purpose is to reduce the perception of ignorant misogyny.
I certainly wouldn’t infer that purpose from his behavior—that makes his recent claims here and elsewhere that he is (not taking radical positions and is just misunderstood) stand out somewhat.
Ah, I see. I read those claims as asserting that the inferiority of women is not a radical position (that is, asserting that many people, perhaps most people, hold it), rather that asserting it is not a position that will cause (many/most) people to perceive aurini as an ignorant misogynist.
Mostly, aurini seems content to have people make such perceptions and to then judge such people as ignorant conformists.
Yes. Misogyny is much easier to engage in overthrowing democracy, and has a larger short-term social effect.
The other piece of it is that misogyny has a very bad reputation these days, so it does have an effect on how a site is perceived.
Sam0345 is sometimes right.
Also eloquent rational reactionary thought is bad and unwelcome on LW? Why? I though rationality dosen’t come with a political package. If we are worried about signalling ditching our support for Cryonics would probably help more.
It comes with an intention to not treat questions of fact and policy as political packages that can be ditched for reasons other than evidence about their truth and utility.
Naturally, I don’t see how I implied they wouldn’t be. I just said that we are under no automatic obligation to signal our preferences for cryonics when we put up our rationalist hats. Even if one is convinced that cryonics would be an excellent policy according to one’s values one can still judge the cost of agitating for it or advertising it to be too high.
Quietly agreeing that cryonics is the best course of action without making main posts about how awesome it is and everyone should do it might be better for our community than doing so.
Of course he’s sometimes right, and of course no ideological label is bad in itself, judged in a vacuum.
At the very least, the assertion that the behavior is the result of evolutionary programming is quite controversial, and is far beyond what state of the art science can assert.
Can you think of any society where women pursue weak, supplicating men?
Just because behaviour is malleable doesn’t mean it isn’t based upon an innate template. Are you advocating the blank slate theory? And if so, would you also advocate the blank slate for animal behaviour and mating patterns?
I agree that the “best” men got their pick of the most desirable women. The women were rewarded for complying, and they did. It’s hard to separate that effect from the one you describe.
More generally, the meaning of “best” has changed over time. I don’t agree that best and dominant were always identical through history, and I don’t agree that your intended meaning of dominant necessarily matches the historical meaning of that term.
Indeed, what workplace could be without discipline? Be assured that your boss, just like you, regrets the rotten and degenerate liberal age we are living in and looks forward to the day when he can properly discipline you.
You are stronger than “your women” so you can discipline them at your pleasure. I don’t see why you complain when the men with guns, who are stronger than you, discipline you.
Strawman. Aurini isn’t arguing for disciplining women because their weaker. He’s argument is that you should discipline women when they resort to histrionics.
Men often fall prey to their emotions too, and when they do, they’re not a pretty sight either. Yet he said nothing about women having the right to physically assault them when they don’t like the man’s display of emotion.
Dude, let me be honest. I was testing you with those two links. The result was far below my expectations. I’m not going to speak too much about it, looks like Less Wrong has already told you the basics anyway ITT.
I think that your behaviour, while influence-seeking, is unwise to dismiss as that of a “Troll”. Moreover, I don’t believe you to be outright “evil” (we have plenty of incompatible values, though, but I’ve first to examine the nature and pattern of these values to see where a clash is inevitable and where a compromise is worth it).
However, I basically support those attacks on you. Everything which consigns ANY group to a higher or lower perch on humanity’s imaginary “moral order” on the sole basis of its genes, however those genes might influence abilities and behavior—especially if it tries to look fair by giving members of a lower group the chance to redeem themselves and be treated like “normals”, but the entire burden of proof is upon them, and only the group who demoted their status might make the exception; anyone else, especially a known egalitarian, and it’s “white knighting”, or “nigger-loving pinko subversive”, or “bought by the Jews”, etc (which you pulled on Alicorn, *whom you would’ve never brought up as a positive example if you knew her in the exact same way, through the exact same writings, but not as a high-status regular of the community you’re targeting; you could only be expected to attack and complain about her then)…
it all fucking stinks to me. It is vile. There can be no compromise about this particular issue.
And I maintain that if the diverse collection of the highly predictable contrarians who want to spread the gospel of innate genetic differences don’t soon change their tune to underscore the importance of equal moral significance for groups in the larger society’s eyes—why, then the supposed corrupt and subversive order which steers mainstream discourse would be entirely justified in treating such contrarians as short-sighted, destructive meddlers who are too smart for society’s unspoken agreements, and I’ll feel obliged to do my part in censuring them, even if I might perceive their factual claims to be more correct than the mainstream view.
*(even sociopaths; I used to dream of governments wising up and treating them like fourth-class citizens, but I changed my mind)
What do you mean by “equal moral significance”? Do you mean equal intrinsic value or equal instrumental value? Because Aurini’s position only requires unequal instrumental value.
It also requires him being apriori a better judge of instrumental value than the vast majority of women, and some truly vast good being created that outweighs the ugliness of publicly disrespecting and humiliating any entire gender in such away. Also, he never once even mentioned the dangers of judging moral significance as a caveat.
(To answer your question directly: I maintain that a person’s total instrumental value as perceived by others is, especially in social relations, often nearly impossible to detach from intristic value, and an attempt to treat them separately can be very harmful for the subject and society at large. At risk of being downvoted, I’d like to mention once again that left-wing thought has been grappling with this problem since Marx.)
Anyway, would you mind elaborating? What is the precise position under which what’s best for women requires treating them like third-class citizens?
Suppose there’s a research project to do something important, say cure cancer, build FAI, etc. You will agree that it’s best for everyone if it’s staffed by the best people, even though it’s in some sense “unfair” to the people who will be denied the chance to participate in such a prestigious project because of their genes and/or upbringing.
The same principal applies to other projects where for the same reason it makes sense to assign people based to their comparative advantage. Now you may be asking, “Who decides what someone’s comparative advantage is and what about their biases?” Turns out there is a system that does a reasonably good job allocating people base on their comparative advantage and also avoids the problem of having a central judge of people’s value. It’s called the free market.
How the flying fuck does this have anything to do with publicly expressing disrespect and contempt for a genetically determined group of people, anyway? I agree that the issue of perceived fairness vs. market efficiency isn’t clear-cut, but our attitude towards the people who get unlucky must be particularly sensitive.
Would you want Yudkowsky to call anyone who can’t work on FAI or get qualified to do so a useless dullard whose only worth to society is donating to SIAI? If you wouldn’t, why wouldn’t you condemn Aurini’s words?
Sorry, I was responding to your question about the difference between instrumental and intrinsic value.
As for Aurini’s comment, he’s arguing that people (ok in his case women, but I’m generalizing) should be disrespected and treated with contempt when they behave in histrionic or otherwise inappropriate ways, as this will cause them to stop it. Note that if someone is genetically or otherwise predisposed to act in such ways then it’s necessary to apply even more pressure for them to stop.
Well, he’s more or less done something like that.
Hmm, let’s see...
So do you agree with the line above, or not? Do you think that this is a good thing to feel and believe?
What about this style of “argument”? Do you endorse it?
He goes on to talk about “histrionic behaviour” in the next paragraph.
I’d assign it a lower probability then Aurini but probably higher then you.
No, I don’t like bulverism.
My main (but not the only) motherfucking problem with the whole thing is that Aurini holds men to be a superior species: i.e. they can’t be disciplined by women when they act stupidly or rashly, they aren’t said to be largely stupid while women are actually less likely to have an IQ below the mean (and defining “stupid” as just 100 IQ or above is pretty damn unjustified), etc. He completely avoids criticizing his own gender, but seizes upon every opportunity to insult the other one. And by the looks of it you’re acting in the same hypocritical and unfair manner.
What the flying fuck. So in your worldview women are largely “useless” and men have to “guide” them, but there are no situations where men are useless, and women have to influence them? E.g. to make them calm down, prevent them from acting on emotion, etc.
Not to accidentally insult your parents or upbringing, but haven’t you seen your own mother and father helping each other to make the better decision or resolve a problem when one spouse is acting irrationally? I’m aware, of course, that in many poorly functioning families children only get to see the father dictating the mother what to do, but not the mother helping him make decisions as a valued and respected partner. But this is clearly a wrong and appaling relationship model to learn!
In any case, even holding a belief such a nasty thing (objectively “nasty” by our culture’s standards, not as a judgment of the believer) is very dangerous in itself.
I don’t see how this flows from my quote. In any case, I don’t agree with it.
So you’re saying that the belief is so “nasty” that assigning it any non-zero probability is a bad idea.
No. I’m only saying that it’s dangerous, and that even if you truly think that such a belief would have the advantage of reflecting reality better, you still have to trade that against the disadvantage of it being extremely unsuited to your cultural environment.
And yet, you claim to be a socialist.
How is this even relevant outside some weird partisan definition of “socialist” and “cultural environment”? And how is this not a purely political jab at all?
My point is that I don’t believe this constitutes your true rejection, and was trying to argue by pointing to a belief you hold that isn’t exactly mainstream.
If you actually believe this, please go away and never come back.
If you don’t actually believe this, would you mind explaining why you’re trolling?
I find it ironic that I’m being yelled at in a thread that’s about ‘ideas which are unspeakable’.
In practice, I’m very loving of the women in my life, and I treat them well. I know how to make them feel special. Did you read the original article by Ferd?
This is a thread about unspeakable ideas, not unspeakable behavior. You are advocating domestic violence and (I infer) admitting to committing it as well.
Reread what I wrote; I never said I hit my women, or any woman for that matter. Quite frankly, even if a woman deserves a slap (as Sean Connery advocated, calling this DV is ridiculous), I’ll just kick her out of my life—the present legal climate ignores female-on-male violence, and loves prosecuting the male. No woman is worth it, even if she enjoys it.
I said I laid down the law with women. When they’re being bratty or rude, I inform them that such behaviour is unnacceptable. I’m not going to tolerate it, and the door’s right over there if they don’t like it. Refusing to take abuse from somebody is not being abusive oneself.
Furthermore, I said that women appreciate a man who won’t put up with their hysterics. Women seek out that sort of calming influence for the maelstrom of emotions they have flowing through their veins.
Okay, so you’re just advocating it, then.
I’ve been in an abusive relationship. You greatly underestimate the amount of psychological damage the occasional slap can do.
So have I: http://youtu.be/BVTfEiz4Nbc
Go reread what I just wrote: I advocate against domestic violence. The legal system is utterly biased against men, and no woman is worth it.
Unless if you equate the slap as domestic violence? Go watch Connery’s video, and read the article which you think advocates domestic violence. Hint: it doesn’t. If your boyfriend has to wake up for work in the morning, and you spend hours yelling at him about nonsense, even though he admitted you were right earlier in the day—what do you think is going to happen? Act like an adult and take responsibility for your actions. If you coninuously yell at somebody, you’re likely to get hit.
Except the whole point of what I wrote is that women have a lot of trouble acting like adults and taking responsibility, let alone understanding simple logic.. You’re actually a perfect example of what I was talking about.
You want to normalize domestic violence and make it legal. That’s the only reasonable inference I can draw from what you’ve written.
Pro tip: I’m a dude. Does that falsify anything you believe?
Not at all; I’ve run into plenty of white knights and manginas, and they all revert to female histrionics and passive aggressive behaviour, and—just like you—they’re secretly quite violent people.
Tell me to GTFO without addressing any of my statements (on a rationality forum, no less).
Misinterpret my statements (purposefully?) and accuse me of being a violent criminal offender.
Ignore my replys, and play the victim card.
This is classic mobbing (bullying) behaviour. I suspect you are doing this to win status and sexual favours from the women you’re ‘sticking up for’ against the big, bad boogie man (subconsciously—obviously noone’s going to fly out to meet you). People like you are savage and destructive, and a symptom of just how badly feminism has poisoned our culture.
I’m glad I live in Canada; we have far fewer violent, passive aggressive, wrecks of masculinity here than there seem to be in the United States.
My comments on this topic after the first one were a mistake. Apologies for feeding the troll.
I affirm your judgement. Aurini appeared to be a user in good standing, at 700 votes but seems to have transitioned to troll.
If, for some reason Aurini is not ostracised while he behaves like this it would be necessary to refute his willfully obnoxious sexist drivel point by point. I know people hate to read debates about sex politics but either the nonsense must be countered through argument or (preferably) it needs to be made clear through downvotes/ignore/dontfeeds that nothing Aurini is saying here should be considered remotely like a position that lesswrong supports.
Is this why you were making personal attacks on me, rather than addressing anything I actually said?
Engaging in academic mobbing, and then calling me a troll, is hardly a testament to your ability of free thought.
Didn’t you just attack a few billion people as stupid, histrionic, and not worthy of respect? You suddenly disagree with attacks?
And didn’t you also just call a “mangina” every guy who disagrees with you?
I don’t know how someone can address something like “it makes their brain-tubes hurt”. What are brain-tubes?
Your post is designed and worded as to offend, not to list points that can be addressed and to be shown factually right or wrong.
Do not feed the troll.
Replying to you rather than the ancestor out of respect for your point.
It should be understood that positioning Aurini as a troll isn’t personal. It’s crude politics. Usually when sexism talk comes up it consists of incoherent accusations that the lesswrong is populated by people who have opinions along the lines of those Aurini is presenting. Those allegations are almost impossible to counter with mere reason yet also shouldn’t be left to stand. That leaves me in an unpleasant position. I want to avoid being in said unpleasant position.
The last thing lesswrong needs is for accusations that it is populated by obnoxious sexist bigots to actually have an element of truth.
To say nothing of challenging one’s audience to equate themselves with a “white knight” or a “mangina” if only they show disagreement with a point, and describing emotionally what a despicable, pathetic strawman they’re going to be in such a case.
The chan equivalent of “If you like X, then you’re a faggot” is actually *more fair and high-handed than the shit Aurini’s slinging here; at least, unlike “mangina”, “faggot” is a widely used insult with no small clique monopolizing its denotation and connotations, and there have been attempts to weaken it by knocking the negativity out of both homosexuality and acting “unmanly”.
That term should definitely be considered offensive when used as an insult. (Most humanslike vaginas, in one way or another. It should not form a term of contempt!)
Yeah, sure.
I think he is referring to the other post where wedrifid implied Aurini has sex with and beats his dog.
Um… he’s going to realize that there can be no relationship between us, and break up that very day? Why the fuck would he cling to me, especially sinking to using emotional or physical violence himself?
Do you realize that the domestic abuse described in the article and then commented on by me is a guy being physically abused by his girlfriend but liking it because she gave him attention? That then forms the basis of a rant that encourages domestic violence.
You are trying to signal how alpha you are by demonstrating how sexist and offensive you can be but in this case you seem to have affiliated with a pussy.
Think for a moment, and quit with the ad hominems, my rationalist friend.
Why would I try and signal anything on here? Being ‘Alpha on the Internet’ will not get me laid in real life; I have no investment on whether anyone here thinks I’m sexy or not. The example I gave was to pre-empt the “You’re a lonely, bitter loser in your mother’s basement”—pointing out that I am far from that was my only reason for bringing it up.
Quite frankly, I appreciate this community, and though I haven’t been on here in some time, my karma score should point out that I’m not a troll, or a johnny-come-lately. If anything, I’d rather be on good-standing here, because that means more readers of my blog, and more viewers of my video.
That said, i’m not going to censor myself and parrot the party-line for the sake of popularity. Particularly not on a thread about subversive ideas (apparently I found the one that was too subversive).
Do you think that I’m advocating domestic violence? Improve on your reading comprehension; I’m not. Try and read between the lines—and stop getting emotional on a rationality forum.
Signaling is not done consciously. As a human, you are not capable of not signaling. It seems to be the primary cause of the existence of speech. So,
It’s because humans are adaptation executors, not fitness maximizers. You find yourself doing things. You do them because they served ancestral purposes. They don’t necessarily still serve those purposes, but you still do them.
Don’t see a good reason for this to be down voted. Sexually social dominance turns most women on, quite simply many early arguments in a relationship with a woman are just shit tests. Often when young women are being difficult in general those are shit tests too. Winning or confidently sidestepping an argument causes gina tingles. Duh. This is so obviously true that the idea someone might think it not so makes my brain hurt.
Lets put this post into perspective. Some really offensive stuff where said in this thread, that was the point dammit! Dear lord what people might term holocaust denial was considered, yet this, basically just noticing women are sometimes difficult in order to get sexual attention and often crave the presence of socially dominant men gets down voted to −15?
Gee I don’t know why I’m surprised at mobbing like this, considering people like Robin Hanson get scolded and denounced for their supposed “sexism” which amounts to nothing more than some intellectual honesty and not bending backwards to make women seem high status in ever argument. Gods forbid some posters might like male social norms more than female social norms, a perfectly valid preference for all groups which somehow magically becomes evil when the two sets of individuals mostly have different genitals. LW can’t discuss basic game at all, it can’t discuss fundamental criticism of feminism at all. Gender and relationships are the one reliable failure mode of this site’s community and I’m far from alone in noticing that.
Just to be perfectly clear as I understand what Aurini meant by this post in the context of his previous writing I endorse it.
I would not downvote someone for saying that. I did downvote Aurini. Accordingly I don’t think this is an accurate summary of the meaning of the words in the grandparent.
This is not merely a case of intellectual honesty being branded sexism.
Do you endorse these lines, or not?
Depends on what you mean by endorse.
I fully endorse this sentence because I see it not as advice but as stating whether something is or isn’t a fact. In a thread about ugly truths!
I don’t endorse this as universal advice because it can be unethical to tell this to someone. For example if I stand next to someone and tell them that sometimes the only ethical course of action is to kill another human being, this is trivially true, but it could be my ethical obligation to say this, or it could be very very wrong for me to say this. Context is everything.
It is still a true statement though.
And if any reader is still wondering and wants it spelled out, yes sometimes a man hitting a woman is the right thing to do. We can casually without disclaimers talk infanticide, abortion, euthanasia, war, deicide, murder, genocide and constantly implicitly break intuitive moral rules and plain politeness with all sorts of nasty sounding but true utilitarian statements …. yet from all that deontological framework the “don’t hit girls!” rule seems to be implanted the strongest and least likley to be challenged. Makes sense since our brain seem to be built to see the default woman as worth more than the default man by virtue of her existence. I can understand why people fail (or maybe not—maybe our CEV genuinely does care more about the welfare of regular women than regular men) their moral calculus that way. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.
Just as an experiment I challenge the reader to consider the well know trolley problem. Be honest to yourself. Make up a random man on the street. Name him Joe. Joe can save plenty of other people if you push him on the track. Imagine average Joe. Now wait 10 minutes, by the clock. Now imagine a random woman. Lets call her Jane.
Are you really going to tell me you aren’t seeing it there? Scurrying about in the dark back of your mind, registering on your warm fuzzy evaluation function, before you suppress it in shame or to win an argument. You would spend more time before pushing Jane compared to Joe and you know it. Ceteris paribus for some values of numbers of lives saved you might push Joe but not Jane.
This is no longer a true statement, because it implies it is always so, I do not endorse it. Funny how I think most people seem to have read the first sentence as this, when it clearly wasn’t.
This is a disturbingly effective demonstration.
What are the circumstances in which you think it is best for a man to hit his woman to get her to behave?
Self-defence when there is a risk of bodily harm or death
Defence of another when there is a risk of bodily harm or death
While attempting to restrain her when trying to stop her from hurting herself
ect.
I thought it would be something like this. These are not reasons “for a man to hit his woman to get her to behave”. These are reasons why anyone might need to hit anyone else to avoid something worse happening.
In the original context, by “behave” Aurini means “be compliant to the man’s desires”. This in the context of another person’s blog posting elsewhere advocating, right up in the title of the post, “the necessity of domestic violence”. This is what you are endorsing.
Well obviously it is sometimes best for a person to use violence for their own gains if the person dosen’t mind such violence and can escape punishment. I interpreted your question as asking me when I though this is appropriate or right. The question of whether use of violence is the optimal tactic to get people to act according to one’s goals is a different one depending, heavily on what preferences that person has.
For a person with different ethics (more selfish for example) there are plenty of theoretical opportunities when it is rational to use violence to get one’s way.
The more you talk, the less you say.
Given the concept “sometimes it’s best for a man to hit his woman to get her to behave”, you generalised the words “man”, “woman”, and “behave” to “someone”, “someone” and “do something”, and ignored the word “his” altogether. Now you’re generalising “best” to mean serving to get whatever the first someone wants.
This reduces the whole matter to fatuity: the optimal tactic to get people to act according to one’s goals is whatever will achieve those goals. Duh. The original question was about certain specific goals and specific ways of getting them.
Anyone’s ethics, including yours, must have a subgoal of aiming to influence others’ behavior in some ways, in order to have consistency. If, like any decent person, you believe that violence in less extreme situations, especially for selfish gain, is unacceptable, you can’t just fold your hands and say “Oh well” when others endorse such violence! Otherwise your morals in this regard become just an aesthetic choice for your private behavior, and not a consistent consequentialist position.
(It is likely that all humans do have such ethics. It is not actually a requirement for consistency.)
Hmm, maybe. Anyway, my point still stands; all of us, including Charlie, should come down like a ton of bricks on top of anyone who seriously hints about using violence for selfish gain; doubly so when it constitutes domestic abuse. To endorse or tolerate unacceptable physical or emotional violence is in itself immoral.
Does this statement also hold true for those who would vote themselves the tax dollars of others?
Spare me your hypocrisy; repeating the current Myths of our Age does not make you holy. You disgusting, malevolent hypocrite; I never suggested hitting a woman—I outright advised against it, as did the original blog post. I simply acknowledged—as did Ferdinand—that stupid women who date stupid men enjoy being hit by them.
People such as you - ‘rationalists’ who believe all the myths of our modern era—are precisely the reason that this community has declined since Eliezer’s leaving, into obscure contests to post the most inscrutable mathematics.
Go comment on the Amazing Atheist’s Youtube channel; you’ll fit right in there.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/i0/are_your_enemies_innately_evil/
It would be wise for some of the other participants to mind that advice, since I think Aurini started out in good faith in this debate.
Why don’t you try applying the lessons of that post to your own thought process?
Um… he’s being more loud about it? ;)
I don’t think you understood my position in the above post. I don’t approve of clippy using my atoms for paper-clips, yet I can’t deny that for him that may very well be the rational choice. If that is the case it is hard argue that the regular meaning of the words “best for him” dosen’t includes turning me into paper-clips.
Clearly from the perspective of someone slightly more selfish or less altruistic or different (for example non-Western) values sometimes the application of violence is the rational course of action.
I don’t think I understand why this particular post is down voted. Seems to be true to me.
So long as she wants to be compliant to my desire.
Do you have zero understanding of the sexual market, my friend? The moment she no longer wants me, that is the point where I leave her to the Alpha Males she has chosen as superior.
I… it’s like talking to an idiot. You misinterpret my words to impress others. I have zero interest in hitting a woman, and for that matter—dating a woman who needs to be hit.
I demand that my women act like ladies. If they want to be whores? They are more than welcome. They immediately get discounted from the marriage market. I would never hit them, but I’m not going to ‘forgive’ that gangbang (a gangbang I orchestrated would be another thing). I am simply recognizing that prole women enjoy being hit, and prole men need to hit them to keep their dumb vaginas in line. Do I think this admirable? Do I seek this out as my Utopia? Of course not!
I think most people are stupid, and stupid people enjoy the drama of violence—in a cathartic manner.
You idiot leftists have banned all violence, and now all entertainment is vicarious violence because real-life hatred has been banned.
Get over yourself; I’m far more civilized, and far less likely to hit a woman, than you could ever hope to be.
While this is political and thus mind-killing language I think it is only fair that if Alicorn has the opportunity to talk about “tactical difficulties” in the debate Aurini should too. I think this hatefest he has attracted has strawmaned and demonized him to ridiculous proportions and that he is indeed right about the reasons for why this happened.
Frankly, I don’t understand. Would someone here who’s not an Idiot Leftist—you, or Aurini, or whoever, clear that up, please? How do we get a real-life outlet for violent instincts that’s more safe, moral and convenient than entertainment? What precisely is he complaining about, and why is he so angry about it?
I’m an idiot leftist, who’s just wandered by from here. I don’t think Aurini or Sheen think real-life violence outlets can be more safe, moral, or convenient than watching simulated violence on TV or performing simulated violence in a video game. They (or at least Aurini) argues that a large social class finds a lot of value in cathartic violence, both the giving of it and the receiving of it, and that this value outweighs the physical and emotional damage.
I hadn’t considered it before, but I do think it’s not obvious which is correct.
This “value” is only an issue if you have utilitarian ethics in the first place. I don’t. Enforcing happiness against subjects’ will is usually insane, but enforcing virtue makes a scary amount of sense. I’d be willing to, in some form.
Yes, yes, I’m a creepy intolerant liberal-fascist who thinks that everything in the world is his business.
(Speaking objectively? Welcome to the human tradegy, where both action and inaction have such huge downsides that each one is very easy to construe as evil! We should all just hate ourselves even more, epistemically that’s my only advice here.)
Please stop being so disingenious and twisting your allies’ words to give a likeable pseudo-summary. You aren’t dumb, so you must be doing it on purpose. To quote my other comment:
For example:
See how coy you’re being? Aurini specifically excluded men from his comment; in his thinking, much less men must be “incredibly stupid” than women. And as that’s absurd for any reasonable value of “incredibly stupid” (men of IQ>140 might indeed far outnumber women, but, had he meant that, he would probably be calling himself, most of LW and most scientists stupid) - why, it must’ve been meant solely as a mean-spirited, irresponsible insult.
Likewise, if women always physically assaulted men when they considered it to be reasonable self-defense, and so did men when they felt that they’re defending themselves fron an aggressive woman, much more men would get hit by women than vice versa. But that’s unacceptable, he’d say; bitches can’t do this to me whenever something gets into their brain tubes!
Neat! I didn’t know I had allies. What’s the war?
I wasn’t coy at all if you don’t take that quote out of context.
If you need it spelled out:
Men have greater IQ variance and I don’t hang out with men on the left side of the bell curve. If anything I spend more time socializing with women than men and am perhaps even less selective. Quite clearly yes the women I run into in my daily life will tend to be less intelligent and competent than the men, simply because of these factors.
And yes among the extremely capable subset of the entire population (not my social circle) there will be more men than women.
That sounds perfectly reasonable. Humans are not very good at thinking. Ever heard that quote about John von Neumann?
“only he was fully awake.”—Eugene Wigner
Spend some time with 140+ people, you will soon see that you and I and most of humanity are incredibly stupid.
But yes the way it was phrased it probably was a stylistic move to lower women’s status.
This is a straw man.
Actually, my System 1 feelings wouldn’t push either of them (I guess—I’ve never been in such a situation before with System 1 being aware of it; I think the Implicit Association Test would be a better test of what you’re trying to test).
(FWIW, my System 2 reasoning wouldn’t either, for TDT reasons—if the answer to “If someone is offered $10,000 to murder someone, should they accept and then give the proceeds to AMF thereby saving five lives?” were “Yes”, I would have to be more careful about not displeasing rich people, for example.)
I’d have to agree, for a suitably literal definition of ‘sometimes’. Let’s see… If my wife has had a psychotic meltdown, is wielding an axe and thinks our children are actually alien-clone-spies.
That should serve to signal disdain for absolute moral rules while also indicating abhorrence of domestic violence in all but the most extreme circumstances.
Most people are incredibly stupid, and quite useless. Women are people. QED.
Are women in my social circle generally less intelligent than the men in them? Yes, because women have lower IQ variance and I don’t generally stick around with the left half of the Gaussian.
Most people are incredibly stupid, and quite useless. Nobel laureates are people.
Clearly average Nobel laureates are much like average women.
They aren’t. Which shows that “most X are Y” and “all Z are X” doesn’t entail “most Z are Y” (even though the conclusion might still happen to be true, for some values of Z and Y).
This is a relevant argument. But the thing is I’m not sure that is his intended audience. Also he could do much worse style wise even going for that audience, he could have dressed up in that detestable young republican look. Smug hispterism just dosen’t go with such opinions either, right wing hipsters tread a fine line at best.
Shaved head and coat are fundamentally also statement, rather than subculture and it carries connotations of class. And I dare claim that it is precisely the statement of class that disturbs the “groups that could benefit most”, they can excuse the wretched of the earth since they are mere symbols, but they can not excuse the working man, for he is far too real for their tastes. Being a fellow reader of Orwell I think we both know where he would stand on that. Why must he and those like him be so very dead?
But regardless, the statement of class combined with contrarian opinions are together a very expensive signal of rebellion and freedom. Smart enough to be a Brahim but refuses to! Arguably that attracts a certain kind of quality audience. And aren’t they in need of rationality too?
But I’m biased in this, since I refuse to be Brahim as well.