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.
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.