My world is more male than female. I don’t just mean that I’m in a male-dominated field, but that my pleasure reading is mostly written by men, my deep friendships are mostly with men, and if I didn’t make a conscious effort to seek out women I might barely encounter them at all. This is also true of the typical techie guy—so I’m not totally unjustified in claiming that I am more familiar with men than the typical techie guy is with women.
Of course I’m different from men in some ways and I’m sure I don’t understand everything about them … but it just seems inaccurate to imagine men and women as equally alien from each other. In communities like LW, that’s just not the case.
This is absolutely true, and what’s more, the typical LW user is very, very male and much more likely to be on the autism spectrum than most men, meaning that he probably has more trouble than most men do in understanding women (and people in general).
If LW as a community is really interested in why women find it unwelcoming here, then, speaking for myself, this is the main reason: it’s tiring having to represent all women and try to explain the “female perspective” (though of course there is no such monolithic entity) to people many of whom really, really do not get it. I’m not saying you’re a bunch of misogynistic jerks; I’m sure your confusion is genuine, and I imagine many of you have had traumatic experiences with women that would do quite well to explain any hostility you may be expressing. It’s just hard work.
It’s a self-reinforcing problem, too, because if there were enough women here to contribute to the conversation, it wouldn’t be nearly so uncomfortable for any particular woman. I therefore tend to upvote any posts about sex/gender issues by other women that I even roughly agree with, because I would very much like to see more such contributions here.
This is also why I tend to post on all the gender-related issues. It just seems to be the helpful thing to do—male geeks are not going to get an explicit “woman’s perspective” very often.
I actually don’t feel uncomfortable here, and I’ll confess to not really understanding the discomfort that some women here express when the topic turns to gender issues. I respect it, but I don’t feel it myself. That’s the paradox of being a female geek—sometimes you just don’t identify with the “female perspective,” sometimes “femaleness” is defined in opposition to traits you happen to have, and all the same you like being a woman and want to help women out.
I did have an experience recently when a (male) professor really seemed to want me to agree with him that all feminists were ridiculous, and I found it troubling. It was uncomfortable to be expected to play the role of “the good kind of woman,” the kind whose allegiances are primarily to men, the kind who doesn’t agitate on behalf of women. There’s pressure in technical, male-dominated communities to disavow any kind of female solidarity. (This is what radicals many years ago called being an “Aunt Tom.”) And I’m not sure that’s the right thing to do—it feels like pulling the drawbridge up after myself. I’m an individualist, far more so than most feminists, but it just seems too opportunistic to say “Oh, no, I’m not like those women.”
I’ll confess to not really understanding the discomfort that some women here express when the topic turns to gender issues.
I have an explanation which, to be sure, certainly doesn’t cover every such instance of expressed discomfort that I’ve observed here and on OB, but in my opinion explains a non-negligible percentage of such incidents.
In many ideologically charged topics that are a matter of culture wars and political battles, a key strategy is to create an association in the public mind between one’s favored position and a vague and general feeling of righteousness and moral rectitude—so that in the future, ideological opponents can be defeated by attacking their moral character, regardless of the quality and accuracy of their arguments and positions. Once a certain side has achieved strategic progress in this regard, it opens the way for a highly effective tactic where they treat the topic of debate as a minefield, in which numerous possible claims and arguments by their opponents will trigger frantic protestations of shock and offense instead of a rational response, aiming to deprive the opponents of moral legitimacy in the eyes of the public.
If, as often happens, the opponents get scared of the public reaction, or perhaps even start thinking that they really must be bad people if they provoke such outrage, and react by becoming more cautious and walking on eggshells, this only opens the way for further intensification of the same tactic. Ultimately, they will be left altogether paralyzed by fear from treading on some such mine in the resulting impossibly dense minefield, and they’ll be neutralized within the respectable public sphere unless they effectively concede defeat.
Now, a key observation is that in a situation where this strategy has succeeded, such reactions of shock and offense will overwhelmingly not be due to any conscious Machiavellian dishonesty. That’s just not how people’s minds work. To be convincing, emotions have to be felt honestly, and an ideological current that pulls off the described strategy successfully will likely have convinced very large numbers of people—who may not even think of themselves as its adherents, and simply strive unconsciously to align themselves with respectable attitudes—that there is indeed something deeply shocking and despicable about many things that might be said by their opponents. Even the principal ideologues may well believe in most of what they’re preaching.
And now consider what happens in a venue such as this, in which lots of smart folks are hell-bent on discussing all kinds of things in a no-holds-barred critical and open-minded way, often naively unaware how awful reactions they can provoke without any actual malice. Clearly, there’s going to be lots of stepping on mines whenever an ideologically charged topic is opened. For reasons that would be interesting to speculate on, the number of people (primarily women) who are conditioned for outrage at gender-related ideological mines appears to be significantly higher here than for other topics that are similarly (or even more!) dangerous in the general public. This ends up creating an impression that people’s attitudes about gender here are somehow especially problematic. In reality, there’s lots of other un-PC stuff written here that could cause firestorms of outrage in more public and mainstream places; it’s just that the sorts of people who are conditioned to react with shock in these cases are way underrepresented here.
So basically you’re saying it’s a form of argumentative “cheating”?
Maybe because I grew up having discussions from a young age, I have a very strong taboo against “cheating” in a debate. For example, when I’m talking to a Marxist, I wouldn’t dream of mentioning the problems members of my family had under communism—that would be a sort of dishonest emotional trump card. But I’ve met people who have no sense of this at all and don’t perceive a difference between “honest” discussion and “cheating.”
Some feminist outrage seems like cheating, but I really don’t think it all is. The thing is, people belong to groups, with which they affiliate. Some groups have more internal coherence and affiliation than others—you’re likely to say “I’m proud to be an X and I support my X brothers/sisters.” When it becomes clear that you’re talking to somebody who doesn’t like the group you’re in, it is actually unsettling, on the primate level. Your nervous system prepares for war. I have experienced this very rarely so far (I’m privileged on a variety of axes) but when it has happened it is scary and disorienting and I’m sure I wouldn’t be a good debater of all things.
When it becomes clear that you’re talking to somebody who doesn’t like the group you’re in, it is actually unsettling, on the primate level.
The really tricky part here, however, is how one detects this dislike. If you suggest to an Elbonian nationalist that Ruritanians may perhaps have a better case in some obscure matter of dispute with Elbonia, this may well cause his group-dislike trigger to go off, and he’ll react as if you just described him and his entire people as the lowest scum of the Earth. Now, if you actually said the latter, I wouldn’t be holding his anger against him—what’s problematic is his extrapolation from a particular claim, which reasonable people should be able to discuss calmly, to an all-out dislike and hostility targeted at his group. Such unreasonable extrapolation is one of the principal sources of political and ideological passions in general.
(Analogously, notice how in gender-related discussions in our society, many sorts of claims are automatically met with accusations of “misogyny,” which is often a straightforward instance of this pattern—a particular claim or argument is treated as implying all-out irrational hatred against the whole group whose interests it supposedly impinges on. LW is, thank God, typically far above this level, but I do think that the same pattern is occasionally manifesting itself, if in more subtle ways.)
Let’s drop the hypotheticals and get down to brass tacks here.
I don’t think LW is all that mean to women compared to other communities. It’s just in the strange position of having some overlap between women who use women’s-studies vocabulary, and men who come from a technical, majority-male world. So there are people holding the site to a very high standard of sensitivity on gender issues (these are mostly women) and there are people holding the site to a very high standard of impartiality and disinterested rationality.
Those standards are in tension. On the one hand, sensitivity requires us to acknowledge that humans are social animals, that they have group loyalties, that they tend to believe in “halo effects” and “horn effects” about groups of people, and that in order to make people comfortable on this site we have to make it clear to them that we don’t bear them ill will based on their gender. We can’t reasonably expect people to take all statements one at a time and disregard their typical correlation with attitudes and biases. (For example, would you be convinced by someone who said “I’m not an anti-Semite! I have no problem with Jews; it’s simply a fact that they’re not as honest in business as the rest of us”?)
In other words, the standard of sensitivity calls on us to work with typical human biases, to treat humans as political/social animals as a matter of practical reality, and to consider it justifiable when people think within this framework (for example, by perceiving misogyny.)
The standard of impartiality (or “reasonableness”) calls on us to reduce biases and group loyalties, to not behave as political animals, to as nearly as possible go by universal principles and reasoning that can be universally shared. Sensitivity treats discussion as a negotiation (“Be nice, or I won’t feel comfortable and I’ll leave,”) while impartiality treats discussion as an attempt to find truth (“You have no good reason to be upset—I haven’t wronged you.”)
Sensitivity and impartiality are at odds. I tend to think that too much sensitivity keeps us from actually learning or getting anything done; but I also think that too much impartiality is unrealistic and will drive people away.
However, I’d like to build on your Elbonian example. Suppose that our defender-of-Ruritania-in-just-this-obscure-dispute happens to mention the Ruritania dispute during a discussion of Elbonian music. The subject is brought up again when Elbonian dairy products are mentioned. When the soccer match between Elbonia and Femurgia is being dissected, our friend again brings up that obscure dispute with Ruritania.
After a few weeks of this, would the Elbonian be completely irrational to reach the conclusion that this guy apparently doesn’t care much for Elbonia?
All sorts of patterns are visible to those who look for them.
After a few weeks of this, would the Elbonian be completely irrational to reach the conclusion that this guy apparently doesn’t care much for Elbonia?
No—but it is absolutely crucial in this case that the same person is involved in each interaction. If instead they involved three different people, it would be entirely unfair to transfer the (very slight) evidence of anti-Elbonia hostility on the part of the first two people to the third guy, so that he seems three times as hostile as the first person did.
(It’s also crucial that the topic of discussion was assumed to be unrelated specifically to the dispute.)
… it is absolutely crucial in this case that the same person is involved in each interaction.
As an abstract issue of fairness and rationality, you are of course correct. However, our Elbonian friend might be forgiven for seeing things differently if he is reminded of an old Elbonian proverb—something about failing to notice the wolf pack due to being distracted by the wolves.
Is it necessarily cheating to say “you think you’ve got a neutral speculation or a beneficial plan, but here’s how that sort of thing has worked out in practice and I was there”?
Yeah, it’s cheating. When you bring in an emotionally charged personal story, that implicitly associates your friend with evil, you’re dropping the presumption of mutual good will that makes a discussion civil.
I thought this was an insightful comment, and am disappointed that it hasn’t been better received.
The following in particular is a very good point:
there’s lots of other un-PC stuff written here that could cause firestorms of outrage in more public and mainstream places; it’s just that the sorts of people who are conditioned to react with shock in these cases are way underrepresented here.
Those who are of the opinion that attitudes on LW about gender are particularly problematic need to consider whether they feel similarly about other “un-PC stuff”, and if so, whether that indicates a general problem with LW; and if not, why not.
To take the most prominent example, every now and then someone touches on the topic of IQ in a way that doesn’t dismiss the possibility that there might be some genetic basis for the statistical group differences in it. The reactions, if any, are typically entirely calm and treat this as a legitimate hypothesis given the present state of knowledge on the subject, without any sign of shock and offense. Whereas in the mainstream, mentioning such things is a near-surefire way to set off a hurricane of outrage. (Just remember the recent case of media lynching against that Harvard law student.)
I’ve also seen well-accepted and upvoted arguments against democracy as a system of government, as another example of something that is impossible to argue in the mainstream without provoking shocked reactions.
Ok, I guess I can maybe see that. Perhaps I tend not to notice anti-religion activism here because I’ve spent too much time around talk.origins and Pharyngula. By the standards there, LW is positively “accomodationist” on religion.
So, let me try to plug that example into komponisto’s argument:
Those who are of the opinion that attitudes on LW about gender are particularly problematic need to consider whether they feel similarly about other “un-PC stuff”.
So, I am supposed to weigh my reactions to the statements “Religious people are irrational.” and “Women are irrational”. And if I react differently to those two statements, that demonstrates what, exactly?
I’m kind of amazed if you can’t think of several others with a few moment’s thought.
Sorry to have amazed you. I really can’t think of any. But perhaps I’m misunderstanding the point.
So, I am supposed to weigh my reactions to the statements “Religious people are irrational.” and “Women are irrational”. And if I react differently to those two statements, that demonstrates what, exactly?
I’ve never seen someone at LW say something like the second statement. The fact that you bring it up demonstrates a very different impression of LW discourse than mine.
It wasn’t intended as an example of LW discourse. It was a reductio ad absurdum of the suggestion that LW attitudes toward religion are an example of the “un-PC stuff” that Vladimir_M and komponisto were suggesting as thought experiment material.
I would be curious as to how you think that the thought experiment suggested by komponisto should be stated in this case.
It was a reductio ad absurdum of the suggestion that LW attitudes toward religion are an example of the “un-PC stuff” that Vladimir_M and komponisto were suggesting as thought experiment material.
Most of the value of a education is signalling. Differences in intelligence between individuals is significantly determined by genetics. Group differences. ect.
So, I am supposed to weigh my reactions to the statements “Religious people are irrational.” and “Women are irrational”. And if I react differently to those two statements, that demonstrates what, exactly?
I would encourage everyone here to follow komponisto’s advice and try to minimize the extent to which their ‘reactions’ colour their comments. In both cases you should address the truth or falsity of the claims and try to leave offense out of it. You are obviously entitled to react however you choose to anything you read but I will generally downvote comments where people express offense to indicate that I want to see fewer comments of that kind.
So, if someone says “You have just called me a bad person!” that would be an example of reacting with an expression of offense? And it should be discouraged by downvoting?
Disregard the exclamation point, and that’s just a statement of (possibly incorrect, but objectively discussable) fact, and so long as the person doesn’t object to it being handled as such, I think it’d be okay. I’d even consider ‘you have just called me a bad person, and I feel offended’ to be okay if handled as a fact; as far as I can tell, the situation turns problematic when people start handling emotions as problems to be solved rather than facts to be observed. This does intentionally imply that the problem can be caused by any member of the conversation: If I say I’m offended, and don’t intend that to be taken as anything but an observation, but the person I’m talking to takes it upon themselves to try to un-offend me, that’s also likely to derail the conversation, as is a third party trying to force the offender to un-offend me.
(That’s not to say that it’s never useful to try to avoid offending someone, but such situations also seem to work best when they’re primarily handled on a fact-based level. For example, someone can say ‘I find it very distracting when I’m offended, which will happen if this topic is discussed in that way; could we discuss it in this way instead? Otherwise, I’ll have a hard time contributing and may decide to leave the conversation’, and the answer to that can be yes or no depending on whether the other people in the conversation think that the change is worthwhile.)
He didn’t say should, he said ‘he will’. This is a distinction that is sometimes overlooked. Even though there was a clear should claim regarding the the practice of expressing offence.
Oops. I actually deleted the ‘good point’ because in this context there were multiple different levels of potential exhortation, normative assertion, statement of intended response and normative assertion regarding how other people should respond that could have been mixed and matched. I thought technical comments on the difference on “should be” and “I will” may have just been confusing.
Wouldn’t it make just as much sense to downvote expressions of any emotional reaction whatsoever? For example, if someone tells you that they love your idea, will you downvote them?
Expressions of offense—of the type being discussed here—are different in that they constitute the imposition of a social penalty on a person for expressing an idea. This—and not emotional expression per se—is what should be discouraged.
(Although unfortunately there are some people here who would downvote comments that express positive emotions, on the grounds that they are “noise”.)
Expressing offence causes emotional harm. Expressing appreciation causes emotional benefit. Neither of those increases the actual informational content of a discussion but the second option still makes the world a slightly better place.
This discussion is becoming more and more bizarre. We started with the topic of giving or causing offense and apparently came to the consensus that in our quest for the truth, we really shouldn’t worry to much about whether we give offense—the truth is just too important.
Now we are asked not to express the fact that we have been offended, because this truth is just too painful—it causes emotional harm. Does anyone else think that this is positively insane?
Now we are asked not to express the fact that we have been offended, because this truth is just too painful—it causes emotional harm. Does anyone else think that this is positively insane?
I have no fundamental objection to people expressing the fact that they have been offended. What I object to is the use of offense as a means to silence dissenting opinions or discussion. Religions use this tactic all the time and it disgusts me. I disagree with the ‘emotional harm’ argument except to the extent that it is the mechanism by which dissent is suppressed.
What I object to is the use of offense as a means to silence dissenting opinions or discussion.
Fine. I join you in your objection. As a comment on the current sorry state of American political discourse, it is right on.
But, do you really think it is a problem here on LW? Seriously? What I see here being used to silence people are objections to style or tone of argument. Which is certainly not completely inappropriate in a forum dedicated to rationality.
But consider. Person A offers an arational and emotional argument. Person A is roundly criticized and downvoted for this. Has person A’s dissenting opinion been “silenced”? Of course not. Person A is free to make his/her point in a more rational style.
Now let’s look at Person B who offers a speculation which person C finds offensive.
Person C expresses offense. Has person B been silenced? Of course not. Person B is free to go on to back up the speculation with data, argument, and even evolutionary psychology. I just cannot see person C’s complaints as “the mechanism by which dissent is suppressed.”
But, do you really think it is a problem here on LW? Seriously?
LW is about as good as it gets in this regard and I’d very much like to keep it that way, hence my concern when I see anything that looks to me like movement in the wrong direction.
Does anyone else think that this is positively insane?
Who specifically is it that you think holds an insane conjunction of beliefs? You seem to be treating several different commenters as if they were one person. (Cf. my other comment.)
Experiencing offense silently causes emotional harm as well; depending upon the situation, expression of that experience may help to alleviate the cause of the problem.
To put it another way: if something heavy lands on my foot and I need help lifting it off, it may cause some sympathetic pain and suffering in other people if I yell out loudly… but assuming the people around aren’t jerks, yelling out will lead in the longer term to less total pain than suffering in silence.
True, but it’s possible to yell without blaming one of the people around from dropping it on your foot. And if you can tell that one of them did it, you might be able to yell for help without accusing that person of dropping it intentionally.
Expressing offense might also cause emotional benefit
Possibly. But in most cases it wouldn’t. And I simply wanted to point out a significant difference between two things that, according to your argument, should be equated.
Sidenote: if a native speaker of English wants to make the world a slightly better place, then please tell me whether finishing the sentence with “that you argued should be equated” would make sense?
Possibly. But in most cases it will be like I said. Which is by no means a watertight argument in defense of mattnewport’s position but I wasn’t trying to provide that. I just pointed out an obvious, significant difference between things that, according to your argument, should be treated equally.
Or maybe women are offended for the reasons they themselves give. In either case, you aren’t going to have much luck un-offending them by telling them they’re being irrational.
If you believe that other human beings are a useful source of insight, you would do well to make some effort not to offend. If you believe women are worth having around and value our contributions to discussions of gender, then women being offended is a problem. It may or may not be a problem you have caused, or could have avoided, or are to blame for, but it is still your problem, and one you should be willing to help fix if you can do so without undue inconvenience to your other goals.
If you don’t care what women (or people in general) think, then this is irrelevant to you, and indeed I have no reason to be talking to you at all.
I agree with every word of this comment (with the possible exception of the last sentence).
However, I would really like to see the development of a general norm on LW against being offended. About anything. I would like for someone to be able to post the most unthinkably offensive comment you can imagine and have the replies consist only of dispassionate corrections of false statements. (Perhaps with downvoting as appropriate.)
Think about this seriously for a moment. LW is already like this to a greater extent than any other place I know. Does this make it better or worse than other places? My intuition is that the priority that folks here give to questions of truth and falsity at the expense of other considerations is a large part of what makes this place special. I feel that , ideally, there really ought to be somewhere where “offense” just doesn’t enter into the social dynamics at all.
Now of course, that would be extremely difficult to implement; LW already does better than anywhere else, and we still have to deal with these issues now and then. But to find out what direction we should head in, ask yourself what the ideal state of affairs would really be. Reflect on why “offense” exists—what purposes, biological or otherwise, this psychological mechanism serves. Then consider what our goals are here. Does allowing the offense mechanism to operate in its normal way tend more to serve these goals, or does it tend more to get in the way?
As you can probably tell, I incline toward the latter view. If what we’re primarily interested in is believing true things and disbelieving false things, then we have to contemplate the possibility that, once in a while—perhaps only rarely, but sometimes nonetheless—an offensive hypothesis will turn out to be true. Sometimes, even—still more rarely, but it will occasionally happen—an offensive fact will turn out to be important. If we do not permit ourselves to consider whether offensive hypotheses are true, and whether offensive facts are important, then we run the risk of making serious errors in cases where they are. And if we do not permit others to express their private deliberations about offensive hypotheses, then not only do we sacrifice the opportunity to hear suggestions we ourselves might not have considered, but we also sacrifice the opportunity to prevent them from developing false beliefs. (“Promoting less than maximally accurate beliefs is an act of sabotage. Don’t do it to anyone unless you’d also slash their tires.”.)
There have been times when I have come dangerously close to expressing offense or indignation; and afterward, I have always felt better the more I restrained myself, and stuck to the ideal of dispassionate correction. Facts and arguments do after all tend to speak for themselves—at least in a place like this. Since we don’t gloat around here (another norm that should be maintained as much as possible), people will usually accept corrections fairly readily. This is good. I’m having a hard time thinking of any occasion where I have regretted showing insufficient indignation.
However, I would really like to see the development of a general norm on LW against being offended.
Your reasons for this seem sound, but how do you intend to accomplish it? To train ourselves not to feel the instinct is a high bar, and I’m pessimistic about the efficacy of that approach. To encourage backing off and cooling down before replying to an inflammatory post is more plausible, but still very difficult. In any case, I think Molybdenumblue was dead on here:
If you believe that other human beings are a useful source of insight, you would do well to make some effort not to offend.
These two ideas shouldn’t be seen in conflict, but in concert. If I make extra effort not to offend you, and you make extra effort not to be offended, we might just do all right.
However, I would really like to see the development of a general norm on LW against being offended. About anything.
Amen!
I might change that phrasing a bit, though, since it’s more about expression than the actual being offended part. For example, one can say, “When you said X, I felt personally offended for reasons Y and Z”, and this is not in the same category as accusing the commenter of being a bad person.
Is that an intentional reference to NVC or are you just independently clever? :)
Neither. ISTM this sort of statement is seen in a lot of self-help, communication, and related works. Where it originated, I don’t know, but I’ve seen similar things stated as far back as 1985, and most recently I’ve seen an excellent explanation and set of demonstrations of it in AMP’s “Foundations of Inner Game” program… and I’ve stolen their formulation of it as the format for giving feedback in Mind Hackers’ Guild practice circles.
Fair enough. I suppose it also fits the basic i-statement syntax I learned long before I’d heard of NVC. You can treat my reply just as generic agreement and approval, then.
I have regretted not acting in situations where my indignation was what would have driven me to act. Showing my indignation through the stereotypical manners would not have helped though.
If you believe that other human beings are a useful source of insight, you would do well to make some effort not to offend.
Trouble is, this goes both ways. If one wishes to get genuinely novel insight from others, one would do well to make some effort not to react with protestations of offense before first giving some rational consideration to the supposedly offending claims and arguments, and without considering the possibility that one’s instinctive triggers for offense might be a source of insight-precluding bias.
We can of course dispute what exactly went wrong in each particular problematic situation, but I don’t think it can be plausibly denied that the problem I described above was behind at least some incidents that have prompted this discussion.
Trouble is, this goes both ways. If one wishes to get genuinely novel insight from others, one would do well to make some effort not to react with protestations of offense before first giving some rational consideration to the supposedly offending claims and arguments, and without considering the possibility that one’s instinctive triggers for offense might be a source of insight-precluding bias.
Oh yes, I absolutely agree. But to be offended is only to experience an emotion; it is not to reject a claim or to act aggressively.
If I tell you that I am uncomfortable, and explain (what I believe are) the reasons for my discomfort, there is no need to defend yourself. I am not making an accusation. The appropriate response is to express concern, or to propose a solution. If you tell me that I am wrong to feel the way I do, you only escalate the conflict.
I think Vladimir_M would say that people can hack society by taking offense at anything counter to their own values, and remain agnostic about whether or not it is “fake.” Fake offense might not even serve one’s interests as well as real offense, or be as powerful a signal. So it could be in one’s interests to be biased to take real offense at distasteful speech.
We all want to believe that our positions are so well established that others are being bad people for questioning them, or committing some sort of error, and that we are justified in taking offense because they should know better. See also: every cause wants to be a cult.
If these are the only options, then I can hack society by faking offense at every opportunity.
Not really. If you tell me that you’re offended by the letter “s”, I would express regret at having offended you, but also point out that for all of us to give up using words with “s” in them is really quite onerous, and suggest that you give up reading, or use some kind of hack to replace “s” with another letter. I would also be very curious to know why a single character offends you, but I wouldn’t expect to make things better by disbelieving your explanation.
Most of us have probably known people who seem to constantly use fake offense as a rhetorical weapon, and in my experience the result tends to be that these people have few friends. People may defer to them in the short run to spare themselves a nuisance (which is a good idea), but they also avoid further interactions.
Just to clarify, are you talking about incidents here on LW, or over on OB? If here, could you provide a couple examples of that which cannot be plausibly denied? I’d like to take a shot at plausibly denying.
I’d rather not get into discussions of individual cases, since it would get too close to mounting a personal attack. Yes, this does weaken my argument somewhat, but I hope you understand that I honestly believe that it wouldn’t be worth it.
Well, I guess you were right. I simply cannot plausibly deny them.
I guess I can understand a wish not to engage in something that might be interpreted as a personal attack. It is far safer to attack groups. But I would appreciate an attempt to answer my first question:
Just to clarify, are you talking about incidents here on LW, or over on OB?
Because Robin steps in it often enough over at OB that he does frequently collect reactions that are long on emotion but a bit short on logic. I see that only rarely here. And to be honest, I see it more frequently from the male side than from the female side.
It’s not about “safety” (whatever you might precisely mean by that), but about genuine desire not to upset people. Being singled out as a bad example is always unpleasant and inherently looks like a personal attack. Even if we were talking about uncontroversial errors of scientific fact, I would still be reluctant to start singling out concrete instances of people committing them here, for fear that it might look like I’m trashing their intellectual abilities in general.
Because Robin steps in it often enough over at OB that he does frequently collect reactions that are long on emotion but a bit short on logic. I see that only rarely here. And to be honest, I see it more frequently from the male side than from the female side.
You’re right that it’s much more frequent on OB, but that’s because OB is often linked from all sorts of more mainstream blogs, and also because it requires no registration for commenting. Out of all places on the internet that present genuine contrarian views, OB is among the most visible ones for people who otherwise stick to mainstream venues.
As for such incidents here, I agree that they happen on all sides. Unfortunately, I don’t think it would be feasible to settle the question of their relative frequency by concrete numerical comparisons.
Unfortunately, I don’t think it would be feasible to settle the question of their relative frequency by concrete numerical comparisons.
I don’t find that especially unfortunate, because I don’t see what purpose it would serve. If we found it came more often from men, or more often from women, it wouldn’t make us any more or less interested in avoiding the problem.
I think it’s worth noting that if a person who is sensible, fair, and interested in gender equality issues came to LW and was greeted by the backlog of heated debate on the topic, I would not blame that person for feeling some discomfort about discussing gender issues here. Nor for thinking that there is no group consensus about such issues like there is about, say, religion—because there does not appear to be one. Presumably we all believe that men and women are of equal moral value, but LWers have demonstrated a variety of attitudes about what that means in the modern world and how it should rationally correspond to behavior. If I didn’t know whether a comment about feminism would bring the response “all men are misogynistic and can’t be trusted” or “sexism has reversed, women have the power these days,” I’d be reluctant to talk about it as well.
(I haven’t seen anybody say either of those things on LW, which I hope is because they’re both really stupid. I’m just using them to illustrate extremes.)
I also agree with SarahC’s point about “people talking about a group you’re in,” although I’d take it in a different direction. Things which happen to and affect women and not men (or rarely affect men) are a foreign experience to the majority of LW readers. They can talk amongst themselves about these things in the abstract. Between that fact and the suggestion I’ve seen several times that LWers are disproportionately on the autism spectrum, I can see it being very difficult for them to remember that they’re talking about the real lives of people present, and to ensure that the tone of the discussion is respectful to those people. Thus, people who really are respectful and considerate and want to make good things happen don’t come off that way, and then we get flamewars.
The way for people-who-are-upset-by-these-conversations (often women, but certainly not always) to help would be to make an effort to assume good faith and unravel miscommunications before they occur. Their obstacle is their instinct to defend, which may mean stepping back and taking breathers sometimes … which is another reason we might currently see less of their participation.
People-who-are-upsetting-to-the-above-people can help by examining their choice of wording and ensuring that not only their point, but also their respect, is clear. (Anyone who would rather communicate disrespect has no business in the conversation.) Their obstacle is not knowing how and when to do so; if they start with a good faith effort, practice and good feedback will help.
Both groups can help by knocking it the hell off with the anecdotes. On a subject we all can consider in the abstract, it’s acceptable to be a little less rigorous while exploring an idea, but something which is personal for some participants requires more care. The enemy of the emotional argument is evidence.
On a side note, I’d be interested in the results of a new demographic survey, to see if anything had changed. I think I’ll mention that in the open thread.
Are you sure you are not doing an unjustified pattern-completion here? The picture you paint of feminazi brownshirts winning their battles thru mass action and moral bullying may apply to places like Overcoming Bias where Robin Hanson periodically trips over his tongue (or whatever). I don’t see it as even close to the truth here on LW.
Here, the relative numbers are so disproportionate that the bullying goes in the opposite direction. Any woman who would react with instinctive moral outrage at, say, a suggestion of inherent sexual differences in aptitudes or attitudes, … any such woman has been driven elsewhere. Here, even rational women, who are willing to discuss the facts, but insist on evidence (rather than pop evo psych rationalizations), are attacked by packs of boars.
On the contrary, I wasn’t talking about ideological extremists at all, but about regular decent people who don’t have any dishonest motive whatsoever, but merely carry a widespread bias in the form of developing an instinctive reaction that makes further rational discussion impossible whenever a conversation about certain topics deviates from what is considered the mainstream respectable view in our culture.
My observation about politics and ideology in general is that in our society, one of the main mechanisms by which ideologies establish dominance is the development of such reactions among wide swaths of the population, which then places any opponents in the position where they have no realistic chance of having their arguments heard and evaluated fairly. If one happens to be among the people in whom the propensity for such reactions has been instilled by the education, media, etc., it is by no means a sign of dishonesty or a personality defect, merely of cognitive bias.
I wasn’t talking about ideological extremists at all
Neither was I actually. The language of American political discourse has become so polarized that a term like “feminazi” no longer denotes an extremist—it merely denotes someone the speaker disagrees with.
… an instinctive reaction that makes further rational discussion impossible whenever a conversation about certain topics deviates from what is considered the mainstream respectable view in our culture.
I’m curious. Do you think that this cognitive bias is only possible in defense of the “mainstream respectable view” or is it also possible to develop this cognitive bias in defense of a “minority subculture view”?
Have you, yourself, ever found yourself victim to this kind of cognitive bias?
I’m curious. Do you think that this cognitive bias is only possible in defense of the “mainstream respectable view” or is it also possible to develop this cognitive bias in defense of a “minority subculture view”?
Of course it’s possible. Many contrarian groups develop their own internal strangely inverted forms of political correctness, to the point where someone among them who suggests that there might me some merit to a mainstream view after all will be faced with mindless outrage and personal attacks. I’ve seen this happen in various contrarian online venues.
Have you, yourself, ever found yourself victim to this kind of cognitive bias?
In the past, yes, but I do try actively to overcome this sort of thing. (For example, by regularly reading stuff written by people whose positions are radically opposed to my own ones, and who are openly hostile to various groups I happen to belong to.)
I do try actively to overcome this sort of thing. (For example, by regularly reading stuff written by people whose positions are radically opposed to my own ones, and who are openly hostile to various groups I happen to belong to.)
Sounds like a good practice. I sometimes do this sort of thing myself. But sometimes I find myself reading simply to find the flaws, rather than reading to understand the PoV. Do you have any suggestions to avoid this trap?
But sometimes I find myself reading simply to find the flaws, rather than reading to understand the PoV. Do you have any suggestions to avoid this trap?
One interesting exercise is to imagine that you’re explaining the issue to a space alien, and try hard to avoid imagining that alien as excessively similar to yourself.
Well, imagine you’re reading something you radically disagree with, perhaps even getting angry and offended in the process, but then you wonder if maybe you’ve been reading it in a biased way, eagerly looking for flaws while failing to consider the arguments seriously. Then you imagine that a space alien visits you at that moment, who is altogether ignorant of humans and their ways but interested in them in an anthropological sort of way, and asks what exactly the disagreement is about and why you believe that this stuff you’re reading is so wrong.
The key is to avoid unintentionally assuming that the alien shares a lot of your knowledge and presumptions. If you can come up with a coherent explanation under these assumptions, chances are you’ve gone a long way towards actually understanding the opponent’s point of view, rather than just dismissing it in an instinctive and biased way.
I’m curious. Do you think that this cognitive bias is only possible in defense of the “mainstream respectable view” or is it also possible to develop this cognitive bias in defense of a “minority subculture view”?
It tends to relate to whichever culture you are currently trying to affiliate yourself to. I’ve known people with a particular ability in well defined compartnentalisation who can comfortably and sincerely maintain contradictory biasses depending on location and present company.
I feel very similarly to you on this. I think I understand some women’s discomfort with the gender discussions here more than you appear to, perhaps because I was brought up to try to be aware of privilege and bias, but much of the rest rings true.
my deep friendships are mostly with men
I’m curious: are the exceptions women who also have mostly male friends (for whom you are an exception)? I ask because I’m the same way, and when I ask my few female friends, they tend to agree. I’m interested in that phenomenon, and I’d love to have a data point outside my own social circle.
Not exactly—my closest girlfriends actually live in a very female world. But there were always things I wasn’t comfortable telling them.
For what it’s worth, my sister and my mother are very much like me. My sister, especially, experiences that same tension between being a feminist and being a geek/tomboy/”one of the guys.” I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if genetics have something to do with it.
I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if genetics have something to do with it.
I wouldn’t be surprised either, although I don’t trust similar observations about my own family as evidence for it (since they’re almost by definition the people culturally closest to me).
I was going to ask what kind of ideas about gender roles dominate in the area where you grew up, exploring another theory, but then I remembered that a lot of my current friends didn’t grow up anywhere near me either. Although I suppose they all made a choice to live here now, so maybe it does have some meaning after all.
This is absolutely true, and what’s more, the typical LW user is very, very male and much more likely to be on the autism spectrum than most men, meaning that he probably has more trouble than most men do in understanding women (and people in general).
If LW as a community is really interested in why women find it unwelcoming here, then, speaking for myself, this is the main reason: it’s tiring having to represent all women and try to explain the “female perspective” (though of course there is no such monolithic entity) to people many of whom really, really do not get it. I’m not saying you’re a bunch of misogynistic jerks; I’m sure your confusion is genuine, and I imagine many of you have had traumatic experiences with women that would do quite well to explain any hostility you may be expressing. It’s just hard work.
It’s a self-reinforcing problem, too, because if there were enough women here to contribute to the conversation, it wouldn’t be nearly so uncomfortable for any particular woman. I therefore tend to upvote any posts about sex/gender issues by other women that I even roughly agree with, because I would very much like to see more such contributions here.
This is also why I tend to post on all the gender-related issues. It just seems to be the helpful thing to do—male geeks are not going to get an explicit “woman’s perspective” very often.
I actually don’t feel uncomfortable here, and I’ll confess to not really understanding the discomfort that some women here express when the topic turns to gender issues. I respect it, but I don’t feel it myself. That’s the paradox of being a female geek—sometimes you just don’t identify with the “female perspective,” sometimes “femaleness” is defined in opposition to traits you happen to have, and all the same you like being a woman and want to help women out.
I did have an experience recently when a (male) professor really seemed to want me to agree with him that all feminists were ridiculous, and I found it troubling. It was uncomfortable to be expected to play the role of “the good kind of woman,” the kind whose allegiances are primarily to men, the kind who doesn’t agitate on behalf of women. There’s pressure in technical, male-dominated communities to disavow any kind of female solidarity. (This is what radicals many years ago called being an “Aunt Tom.”) And I’m not sure that’s the right thing to do—it feels like pulling the drawbridge up after myself. I’m an individualist, far more so than most feminists, but it just seems too opportunistic to say “Oh, no, I’m not like those women.”
SarahC:
I have an explanation which, to be sure, certainly doesn’t cover every such instance of expressed discomfort that I’ve observed here and on OB, but in my opinion explains a non-negligible percentage of such incidents.
In many ideologically charged topics that are a matter of culture wars and political battles, a key strategy is to create an association in the public mind between one’s favored position and a vague and general feeling of righteousness and moral rectitude—so that in the future, ideological opponents can be defeated by attacking their moral character, regardless of the quality and accuracy of their arguments and positions. Once a certain side has achieved strategic progress in this regard, it opens the way for a highly effective tactic where they treat the topic of debate as a minefield, in which numerous possible claims and arguments by their opponents will trigger frantic protestations of shock and offense instead of a rational response, aiming to deprive the opponents of moral legitimacy in the eyes of the public.
If, as often happens, the opponents get scared of the public reaction, or perhaps even start thinking that they really must be bad people if they provoke such outrage, and react by becoming more cautious and walking on eggshells, this only opens the way for further intensification of the same tactic. Ultimately, they will be left altogether paralyzed by fear from treading on some such mine in the resulting impossibly dense minefield, and they’ll be neutralized within the respectable public sphere unless they effectively concede defeat.
Now, a key observation is that in a situation where this strategy has succeeded, such reactions of shock and offense will overwhelmingly not be due to any conscious Machiavellian dishonesty. That’s just not how people’s minds work. To be convincing, emotions have to be felt honestly, and an ideological current that pulls off the described strategy successfully will likely have convinced very large numbers of people—who may not even think of themselves as its adherents, and simply strive unconsciously to align themselves with respectable attitudes—that there is indeed something deeply shocking and despicable about many things that might be said by their opponents. Even the principal ideologues may well believe in most of what they’re preaching.
And now consider what happens in a venue such as this, in which lots of smart folks are hell-bent on discussing all kinds of things in a no-holds-barred critical and open-minded way, often naively unaware how awful reactions they can provoke without any actual malice. Clearly, there’s going to be lots of stepping on mines whenever an ideologically charged topic is opened. For reasons that would be interesting to speculate on, the number of people (primarily women) who are conditioned for outrage at gender-related ideological mines appears to be significantly higher here than for other topics that are similarly (or even more!) dangerous in the general public. This ends up creating an impression that people’s attitudes about gender here are somehow especially problematic. In reality, there’s lots of other un-PC stuff written here that could cause firestorms of outrage in more public and mainstream places; it’s just that the sorts of people who are conditioned to react with shock in these cases are way underrepresented here.
So basically you’re saying it’s a form of argumentative “cheating”?
Maybe because I grew up having discussions from a young age, I have a very strong taboo against “cheating” in a debate. For example, when I’m talking to a Marxist, I wouldn’t dream of mentioning the problems members of my family had under communism—that would be a sort of dishonest emotional trump card. But I’ve met people who have no sense of this at all and don’t perceive a difference between “honest” discussion and “cheating.”
Some feminist outrage seems like cheating, but I really don’t think it all is. The thing is, people belong to groups, with which they affiliate. Some groups have more internal coherence and affiliation than others—you’re likely to say “I’m proud to be an X and I support my X brothers/sisters.” When it becomes clear that you’re talking to somebody who doesn’t like the group you’re in, it is actually unsettling, on the primate level. Your nervous system prepares for war. I have experienced this very rarely so far (I’m privileged on a variety of axes) but when it has happened it is scary and disorienting and I’m sure I wouldn’t be a good debater of all things.
SarahC:
The really tricky part here, however, is how one detects this dislike. If you suggest to an Elbonian nationalist that Ruritanians may perhaps have a better case in some obscure matter of dispute with Elbonia, this may well cause his group-dislike trigger to go off, and he’ll react as if you just described him and his entire people as the lowest scum of the Earth. Now, if you actually said the latter, I wouldn’t be holding his anger against him—what’s problematic is his extrapolation from a particular claim, which reasonable people should be able to discuss calmly, to an all-out dislike and hostility targeted at his group. Such unreasonable extrapolation is one of the principal sources of political and ideological passions in general.
(Analogously, notice how in gender-related discussions in our society, many sorts of claims are automatically met with accusations of “misogyny,” which is often a straightforward instance of this pattern—a particular claim or argument is treated as implying all-out irrational hatred against the whole group whose interests it supposedly impinges on. LW is, thank God, typically far above this level, but I do think that the same pattern is occasionally manifesting itself, if in more subtle ways.)
Let’s drop the hypotheticals and get down to brass tacks here.
I don’t think LW is all that mean to women compared to other communities. It’s just in the strange position of having some overlap between women who use women’s-studies vocabulary, and men who come from a technical, majority-male world. So there are people holding the site to a very high standard of sensitivity on gender issues (these are mostly women) and there are people holding the site to a very high standard of impartiality and disinterested rationality.
Those standards are in tension. On the one hand, sensitivity requires us to acknowledge that humans are social animals, that they have group loyalties, that they tend to believe in “halo effects” and “horn effects” about groups of people, and that in order to make people comfortable on this site we have to make it clear to them that we don’t bear them ill will based on their gender. We can’t reasonably expect people to take all statements one at a time and disregard their typical correlation with attitudes and biases. (For example, would you be convinced by someone who said “I’m not an anti-Semite! I have no problem with Jews; it’s simply a fact that they’re not as honest in business as the rest of us”?)
In other words, the standard of sensitivity calls on us to work with typical human biases, to treat humans as political/social animals as a matter of practical reality, and to consider it justifiable when people think within this framework (for example, by perceiving misogyny.)
The standard of impartiality (or “reasonableness”) calls on us to reduce biases and group loyalties, to not behave as political animals, to as nearly as possible go by universal principles and reasoning that can be universally shared. Sensitivity treats discussion as a negotiation (“Be nice, or I won’t feel comfortable and I’ll leave,”) while impartiality treats discussion as an attempt to find truth (“You have no good reason to be upset—I haven’t wronged you.”)
Sensitivity and impartiality are at odds. I tend to think that too much sensitivity keeps us from actually learning or getting anything done; but I also think that too much impartiality is unrealistic and will drive people away.
Upvoted. Good point.
However, I’d like to build on your Elbonian example. Suppose that our defender-of-Ruritania-in-just-this-obscure-dispute happens to mention the Ruritania dispute during a discussion of Elbonian music. The subject is brought up again when Elbonian dairy products are mentioned. When the soccer match between Elbonia and Femurgia is being dissected, our friend again brings up that obscure dispute with Ruritania.
After a few weeks of this, would the Elbonian be completely irrational to reach the conclusion that this guy apparently doesn’t care much for Elbonia?
All sorts of patterns are visible to those who look for them.
No—but it is absolutely crucial in this case that the same person is involved in each interaction. If instead they involved three different people, it would be entirely unfair to transfer the (very slight) evidence of anti-Elbonia hostility on the part of the first two people to the third guy, so that he seems three times as hostile as the first person did.
(It’s also crucial that the topic of discussion was assumed to be unrelated specifically to the dispute.)
As an abstract issue of fairness and rationality, you are of course correct. However, our Elbonian friend might be forgiven for seeing things differently if he is reminded of an old Elbonian proverb—something about failing to notice the wolf pack due to being distracted by the wolves.
Is it necessarily cheating to say “you think you’ve got a neutral speculation or a beneficial plan, but here’s how that sort of thing has worked out in practice and I was there”?
Yeah, it’s cheating. When you bring in an emotionally charged personal story, that implicitly associates your friend with evil, you’re dropping the presumption of mutual good will that makes a discussion civil.
I thought this was an insightful comment, and am disappointed that it hasn’t been better received.
The following in particular is a very good point:
Those who are of the opinion that attitudes on LW about gender are particularly problematic need to consider whether they feel similarly about other “un-PC stuff”, and if so, whether that indicates a general problem with LW; and if not, why not.
What other “un-PC stuff” do you have in mind? I’m drawing a blank.
And I thought you had sworn off this particular can of worms (i.e. gender politics).
Perplexed:
To take the most prominent example, every now and then someone touches on the topic of IQ in a way that doesn’t dismiss the possibility that there might be some genetic basis for the statistical group differences in it. The reactions, if any, are typically entirely calm and treat this as a legitimate hypothesis given the present state of knowledge on the subject, without any sign of shock and offense. Whereas in the mainstream, mentioning such things is a near-surefire way to set off a hurricane of outrage. (Just remember the recent case of media lynching against that Harvard law student.)
I’ve also seen well-accepted and upvoted arguments against democracy as a system of government, as another example of something that is impossible to argue in the mainstream without provoking shocked reactions.
Typical LW attitudes to religion are an example. I’m kind of amazed if you can’t think of several others with a few moment’s thought.
Ok, I guess I can maybe see that. Perhaps I tend not to notice anti-religion activism here because I’ve spent too much time around talk.origins and Pharyngula. By the standards there, LW is positively “accomodationist” on religion.
So, let me try to plug that example into komponisto’s argument:
So, I am supposed to weigh my reactions to the statements “Religious people are irrational.” and “Women are irrational”. And if I react differently to those two statements, that demonstrates what, exactly?
Sorry to have amazed you. I really can’t think of any. But perhaps I’m misunderstanding the point.
I’ve never seen someone at LW say something like the second statement. The fact that you bring it up demonstrates a very different impression of LW discourse than mine.
It wasn’t intended as an example of LW discourse. It was a reductio ad absurdum of the suggestion that LW attitudes toward religion are an example of the “un-PC stuff” that Vladimir_M and komponisto were suggesting as thought experiment material.
I would be curious as to how you think that the thought experiment suggested by komponisto should be stated in this case.
Most of the value of a education is signalling. Differences in intelligence between individuals is significantly determined by genetics. Group differences. ect.
I would encourage everyone here to follow komponisto’s advice and try to minimize the extent to which their ‘reactions’ colour their comments. In both cases you should address the truth or falsity of the claims and try to leave offense out of it. You are obviously entitled to react however you choose to anything you read but I will generally downvote comments where people express offense to indicate that I want to see fewer comments of that kind.
So, if someone says “You have just called me a bad person!” that would be an example of reacting with an expression of offense? And it should be discouraged by downvoting?
Disregard the exclamation point, and that’s just a statement of (possibly incorrect, but objectively discussable) fact, and so long as the person doesn’t object to it being handled as such, I think it’d be okay. I’d even consider ‘you have just called me a bad person, and I feel offended’ to be okay if handled as a fact; as far as I can tell, the situation turns problematic when people start handling emotions as problems to be solved rather than facts to be observed. This does intentionally imply that the problem can be caused by any member of the conversation: If I say I’m offended, and don’t intend that to be taken as anything but an observation, but the person I’m talking to takes it upon themselves to try to un-offend me, that’s also likely to derail the conversation, as is a third party trying to force the offender to un-offend me.
(That’s not to say that it’s never useful to try to avoid offending someone, but such situations also seem to work best when they’re primarily handled on a fact-based level. For example, someone can say ‘I find it very distracting when I’m offended, which will happen if this topic is discussed in that way; could we discuss it in this way instead? Otherwise, I’ll have a hard time contributing and may decide to leave the conversation’, and the answer to that can be yes or no depending on whether the other people in the conversation think that the change is worthwhile.)
He didn’t say should, he said ‘he will’. This is a distinction that is sometimes overlooked. Even though there was a clear should claim regarding the the practice of expressing offence.
Good point.
Oops. I actually deleted the ‘good point’ because in this context there were multiple different levels of potential exhortation, normative assertion, statement of intended response and normative assertion regarding how other people should respond that could have been mixed and matched. I thought technical comments on the difference on “should be” and “I will” may have just been confusing.
No problem. I’ll just delete my compliment. ;)
Bother. I like being complimented! :)
Well then, let me know the next time you delete one of your comments, and I will compliment it.
Wouldn’t it make just as much sense to downvote expressions of any emotional reaction whatsoever? For example, if someone tells you that they love your idea, will you downvote them?
Expressions of offense—of the type being discussed here—are different in that they constitute the imposition of a social penalty on a person for expressing an idea. This—and not emotional expression per se—is what should be discouraged.
(Although unfortunately there are some people here who would downvote comments that express positive emotions, on the grounds that they are “noise”.)
Expressing offence causes emotional harm. Expressing appreciation causes emotional benefit. Neither of those increases the actual informational content of a discussion but the second option still makes the world a slightly better place.
This discussion is becoming more and more bizarre. We started with the topic of giving or causing offense and apparently came to the consensus that in our quest for the truth, we really shouldn’t worry to much about whether we give offense—the truth is just too important.
Now we are asked not to express the fact that we have been offended, because this truth is just too painful—it causes emotional harm. Does anyone else think that this is positively insane?
I have no fundamental objection to people expressing the fact that they have been offended. What I object to is the use of offense as a means to silence dissenting opinions or discussion. Religions use this tactic all the time and it disgusts me. I disagree with the ‘emotional harm’ argument except to the extent that it is the mechanism by which dissent is suppressed.
Fine. I join you in your objection. As a comment on the current sorry state of American political discourse, it is right on.
But, do you really think it is a problem here on LW? Seriously? What I see here being used to silence people are objections to style or tone of argument. Which is certainly not completely inappropriate in a forum dedicated to rationality.
But consider. Person A offers an arational and emotional argument. Person A is roundly criticized and downvoted for this. Has person A’s dissenting opinion been “silenced”? Of course not. Person A is free to make his/her point in a more rational style.
Now let’s look at Person B who offers a speculation which person C finds offensive. Person C expresses offense. Has person B been silenced? Of course not. Person B is free to go on to back up the speculation with data, argument, and even evolutionary psychology. I just cannot see person C’s complaints as “the mechanism by which dissent is suppressed.”
LW is about as good as it gets in this regard and I’d very much like to keep it that way, hence my concern when I see anything that looks to me like movement in the wrong direction.
Fair enough.
Downvoted for expressing your offense.
Upvoted for being witty. Downvoted again for missing the point.
Who specifically is it that you think holds an insane conjunction of beliefs? You seem to be treating several different commenters as if they were one person. (Cf. my other comment.)
I was responding to Gabriel.
Why do you suggest that?
Experiencing offense silently causes emotional harm as well; depending upon the situation, expression of that experience may help to alleviate the cause of the problem.
To put it another way: if something heavy lands on my foot and I need help lifting it off, it may cause some sympathetic pain and suffering in other people if I yell out loudly… but assuming the people around aren’t jerks, yelling out will lead in the longer term to less total pain than suffering in silence.
True, but it’s possible to yell without blaming one of the people around from dropping it on your foot. And if you can tell that one of them did it, you might be able to yell for help without accusing that person of dropping it intentionally.
Expressing offense might also cause emotional benefit, if the source of offense is easily remedied, and the expression avoids unnecessary shaming.
Possibly. But in most cases it wouldn’t. And I simply wanted to point out a significant difference between two things that, according to your argument, should be equated.
Sidenote: if a native speaker of English wants to make the world a slightly better place, then please tell me whether finishing the sentence with “that you argued should be equated” would make sense?
It makes sense, but it’s more confusing than the way you wrote it above.
Possibly. But in most cases it will be like I said. Which is by no means a watertight argument in defense of mattnewport’s position but I wasn’t trying to provide that. I just pointed out an obvious, significant difference between things that, according to your argument, should be treated equally.
Or maybe women are offended for the reasons they themselves give. In either case, you aren’t going to have much luck un-offending them by telling them they’re being irrational.
It is not my goal to offend or un-offened anyone, but to achieve insight about the true state of affairs.
If you believe that other human beings are a useful source of insight, you would do well to make some effort not to offend. If you believe women are worth having around and value our contributions to discussions of gender, then women being offended is a problem. It may or may not be a problem you have caused, or could have avoided, or are to blame for, but it is still your problem, and one you should be willing to help fix if you can do so without undue inconvenience to your other goals.
If you don’t care what women (or people in general) think, then this is irrelevant to you, and indeed I have no reason to be talking to you at all.
I agree with every word of this comment (with the possible exception of the last sentence).
However, I would really like to see the development of a general norm on LW against being offended. About anything. I would like for someone to be able to post the most unthinkably offensive comment you can imagine and have the replies consist only of dispassionate corrections of false statements. (Perhaps with downvoting as appropriate.)
Think about this seriously for a moment. LW is already like this to a greater extent than any other place I know. Does this make it better or worse than other places? My intuition is that the priority that folks here give to questions of truth and falsity at the expense of other considerations is a large part of what makes this place special. I feel that , ideally, there really ought to be somewhere where “offense” just doesn’t enter into the social dynamics at all.
Now of course, that would be extremely difficult to implement; LW already does better than anywhere else, and we still have to deal with these issues now and then. But to find out what direction we should head in, ask yourself what the ideal state of affairs would really be. Reflect on why “offense” exists—what purposes, biological or otherwise, this psychological mechanism serves. Then consider what our goals are here. Does allowing the offense mechanism to operate in its normal way tend more to serve these goals, or does it tend more to get in the way?
As you can probably tell, I incline toward the latter view. If what we’re primarily interested in is believing true things and disbelieving false things, then we have to contemplate the possibility that, once in a while—perhaps only rarely, but sometimes nonetheless—an offensive hypothesis will turn out to be true. Sometimes, even—still more rarely, but it will occasionally happen—an offensive fact will turn out to be important. If we do not permit ourselves to consider whether offensive hypotheses are true, and whether offensive facts are important, then we run the risk of making serious errors in cases where they are. And if we do not permit others to express their private deliberations about offensive hypotheses, then not only do we sacrifice the opportunity to hear suggestions we ourselves might not have considered, but we also sacrifice the opportunity to prevent them from developing false beliefs. (“Promoting less than maximally accurate beliefs is an act of sabotage. Don’t do it to anyone unless you’d also slash their tires.”.)
There have been times when I have come dangerously close to expressing offense or indignation; and afterward, I have always felt better the more I restrained myself, and stuck to the ideal of dispassionate correction. Facts and arguments do after all tend to speak for themselves—at least in a place like this. Since we don’t gloat around here (another norm that should be maintained as much as possible), people will usually accept corrections fairly readily. This is good. I’m having a hard time thinking of any occasion where I have regretted showing insufficient indignation.
Your reasons for this seem sound, but how do you intend to accomplish it? To train ourselves not to feel the instinct is a high bar, and I’m pessimistic about the efficacy of that approach. To encourage backing off and cooling down before replying to an inflammatory post is more plausible, but still very difficult. In any case, I think Molybdenumblue was dead on here:
These two ideas shouldn’t be seen in conflict, but in concert. If I make extra effort not to offend you, and you make extra effort not to be offended, we might just do all right.
Amen!
I might change that phrasing a bit, though, since it’s more about expression than the actual being offended part. For example, one can say, “When you said X, I felt personally offended for reasons Y and Z”, and this is not in the same category as accusing the commenter of being a bad person.
Is that an intentional reference to NVC or are you just independently clever? :)
Neither. ISTM this sort of statement is seen in a lot of self-help, communication, and related works. Where it originated, I don’t know, but I’ve seen similar things stated as far back as 1985, and most recently I’ve seen an excellent explanation and set of demonstrations of it in AMP’s “Foundations of Inner Game” program… and I’ve stolen their formulation of it as the format for giving feedback in Mind Hackers’ Guild practice circles.
Fair enough. I suppose it also fits the basic i-statement syntax I learned long before I’d heard of NVC. You can treat my reply just as generic agreement and approval, then.
I have regretted not acting in situations where my indignation was what would have driven me to act. Showing my indignation through the stereotypical manners would not have helped though.
Molybdenumblue:
Trouble is, this goes both ways. If one wishes to get genuinely novel insight from others, one would do well to make some effort not to react with protestations of offense before first giving some rational consideration to the supposedly offending claims and arguments, and without considering the possibility that one’s instinctive triggers for offense might be a source of insight-precluding bias.
We can of course dispute what exactly went wrong in each particular problematic situation, but I don’t think it can be plausibly denied that the problem I described above was behind at least some incidents that have prompted this discussion.
Oh yes, I absolutely agree. But to be offended is only to experience an emotion; it is not to reject a claim or to act aggressively.
If I tell you that I am uncomfortable, and explain (what I believe are) the reasons for my discomfort, there is no need to defend yourself. I am not making an accusation. The appropriate response is to express concern, or to propose a solution. If you tell me that I am wrong to feel the way I do, you only escalate the conflict.
If these are the only options, then I can hack society by faking offense at every opportunity.
I think Vladimir_M would say that people can hack society by taking offense at anything counter to their own values, and remain agnostic about whether or not it is “fake.” Fake offense might not even serve one’s interests as well as real offense, or be as powerful a signal. So it could be in one’s interests to be biased to take real offense at distasteful speech.
We all want to believe that our positions are so well established that others are being bad people for questioning them, or committing some sort of error, and that we are justified in taking offense because they should know better. See also: every cause wants to be a cult.
Not really. If you tell me that you’re offended by the letter “s”, I would express regret at having offended you, but also point out that for all of us to give up using words with “s” in them is really quite onerous, and suggest that you give up reading, or use some kind of hack to replace “s” with another letter. I would also be very curious to know why a single character offends you, but I wouldn’t expect to make things better by disbelieving your explanation.
Most of us have probably known people who seem to constantly use fake offense as a rhetorical weapon, and in my experience the result tends to be that these people have few friends. People may defer to them in the short run to spare themselves a nuisance (which is a good idea), but they also avoid further interactions.
Just to clarify, are you talking about incidents here on LW, or over on OB? If here, could you provide a couple examples of that which cannot be plausibly denied? I’d like to take a shot at plausibly denying.
I’d rather not get into discussions of individual cases, since it would get too close to mounting a personal attack. Yes, this does weaken my argument somewhat, but I hope you understand that I honestly believe that it wouldn’t be worth it.
Well, I guess you were right. I simply cannot plausibly deny them.
I guess I can understand a wish not to engage in something that might be interpreted as a personal attack. It is far safer to attack groups. But I would appreciate an attempt to answer my first question:
Because Robin steps in it often enough over at OB that he does frequently collect reactions that are long on emotion but a bit short on logic. I see that only rarely here. And to be honest, I see it more frequently from the male side than from the female side.
Perplexed:
It’s not about “safety” (whatever you might precisely mean by that), but about genuine desire not to upset people. Being singled out as a bad example is always unpleasant and inherently looks like a personal attack. Even if we were talking about uncontroversial errors of scientific fact, I would still be reluctant to start singling out concrete instances of people committing them here, for fear that it might look like I’m trashing their intellectual abilities in general.
You’re right that it’s much more frequent on OB, but that’s because OB is often linked from all sorts of more mainstream blogs, and also because it requires no registration for commenting. Out of all places on the internet that present genuine contrarian views, OB is among the most visible ones for people who otherwise stick to mainstream venues.
As for such incidents here, I agree that they happen on all sides. Unfortunately, I don’t think it would be feasible to settle the question of their relative frequency by concrete numerical comparisons.
I don’t find that especially unfortunate, because I don’t see what purpose it would serve. If we found it came more often from men, or more often from women, it wouldn’t make us any more or less interested in avoiding the problem.
I think it’s worth noting that if a person who is sensible, fair, and interested in gender equality issues came to LW and was greeted by the backlog of heated debate on the topic, I would not blame that person for feeling some discomfort about discussing gender issues here. Nor for thinking that there is no group consensus about such issues like there is about, say, religion—because there does not appear to be one. Presumably we all believe that men and women are of equal moral value, but LWers have demonstrated a variety of attitudes about what that means in the modern world and how it should rationally correspond to behavior. If I didn’t know whether a comment about feminism would bring the response “all men are misogynistic and can’t be trusted” or “sexism has reversed, women have the power these days,” I’d be reluctant to talk about it as well.
(I haven’t seen anybody say either of those things on LW, which I hope is because they’re both really stupid. I’m just using them to illustrate extremes.)
I also agree with SarahC’s point about “people talking about a group you’re in,” although I’d take it in a different direction. Things which happen to and affect women and not men (or rarely affect men) are a foreign experience to the majority of LW readers. They can talk amongst themselves about these things in the abstract. Between that fact and the suggestion I’ve seen several times that LWers are disproportionately on the autism spectrum, I can see it being very difficult for them to remember that they’re talking about the real lives of people present, and to ensure that the tone of the discussion is respectful to those people. Thus, people who really are respectful and considerate and want to make good things happen don’t come off that way, and then we get flamewars.
The way for people-who-are-upset-by-these-conversations (often women, but certainly not always) to help would be to make an effort to assume good faith and unravel miscommunications before they occur. Their obstacle is their instinct to defend, which may mean stepping back and taking breathers sometimes … which is another reason we might currently see less of their participation.
People-who-are-upsetting-to-the-above-people can help by examining their choice of wording and ensuring that not only their point, but also their respect, is clear. (Anyone who would rather communicate disrespect has no business in the conversation.) Their obstacle is not knowing how and when to do so; if they start with a good faith effort, practice and good feedback will help.
Both groups can help by knocking it the hell off with the anecdotes. On a subject we all can consider in the abstract, it’s acceptable to be a little less rigorous while exploring an idea, but something which is personal for some participants requires more care. The enemy of the emotional argument is evidence.
On a side note, I’d be interested in the results of a new demographic survey, to see if anything had changed. I think I’ll mention that in the open thread.
Are you sure you are not doing an unjustified pattern-completion here? The picture you paint of feminazi brownshirts winning their battles thru mass action and moral bullying may apply to places like Overcoming Bias where Robin Hanson periodically trips over his tongue (or whatever). I don’t see it as even close to the truth here on LW.
Here, the relative numbers are so disproportionate that the bullying goes in the opposite direction. Any woman who would react with instinctive moral outrage at, say, a suggestion of inherent sexual differences in aptitudes or attitudes, … any such woman has been driven elsewhere. Here, even rational women, who are willing to discuss the facts, but insist on evidence (rather than pop evo psych rationalizations), are attacked by packs of boars.
On the contrary, I wasn’t talking about ideological extremists at all, but about regular decent people who don’t have any dishonest motive whatsoever, but merely carry a widespread bias in the form of developing an instinctive reaction that makes further rational discussion impossible whenever a conversation about certain topics deviates from what is considered the mainstream respectable view in our culture.
My observation about politics and ideology in general is that in our society, one of the main mechanisms by which ideologies establish dominance is the development of such reactions among wide swaths of the population, which then places any opponents in the position where they have no realistic chance of having their arguments heard and evaluated fairly. If one happens to be among the people in whom the propensity for such reactions has been instilled by the education, media, etc., it is by no means a sign of dishonesty or a personality defect, merely of cognitive bias.
Neither was I actually. The language of American political discourse has become so polarized that a term like “feminazi” no longer denotes an extremist—it merely denotes someone the speaker disagrees with.
I’m curious. Do you think that this cognitive bias is only possible in defense of the “mainstream respectable view” or is it also possible to develop this cognitive bias in defense of a “minority subculture view”?
Have you, yourself, ever found yourself victim to this kind of cognitive bias?
Perplexed:
Of course it’s possible. Many contrarian groups develop their own internal strangely inverted forms of political correctness, to the point where someone among them who suggests that there might me some merit to a mainstream view after all will be faced with mindless outrage and personal attacks. I’ve seen this happen in various contrarian online venues.
In the past, yes, but I do try actively to overcome this sort of thing. (For example, by regularly reading stuff written by people whose positions are radically opposed to my own ones, and who are openly hostile to various groups I happen to belong to.)
Sounds like a good practice. I sometimes do this sort of thing myself. But sometimes I find myself reading simply to find the flaws, rather than reading to understand the PoV. Do you have any suggestions to avoid this trap?
Perplexed:
One interesting exercise is to imagine that you’re explaining the issue to a space alien, and try hard to avoid imagining that alien as excessively similar to yourself.
I’m sorry, I don’t understand. What am I explaining to the alien? How does that exercise help me to benefit from reading stuff that I disagree with?
Well, imagine you’re reading something you radically disagree with, perhaps even getting angry and offended in the process, but then you wonder if maybe you’ve been reading it in a biased way, eagerly looking for flaws while failing to consider the arguments seriously. Then you imagine that a space alien visits you at that moment, who is altogether ignorant of humans and their ways but interested in them in an anthropological sort of way, and asks what exactly the disagreement is about and why you believe that this stuff you’re reading is so wrong.
The key is to avoid unintentionally assuming that the alien shares a lot of your knowledge and presumptions. If you can come up with a coherent explanation under these assumptions, chances are you’ve gone a long way towards actually understanding the opponent’s point of view, rather than just dismissing it in an instinctive and biased way.
It tends to relate to whichever culture you are currently trying to affiliate yourself to. I’ve known people with a particular ability in well defined compartnentalisation who can comfortably and sincerely maintain contradictory biasses depending on location and present company.
It seems to me that this phenomenon could be more punnily titled “Aunt Tomboy”.
I feel very similarly to you on this. I think I understand some women’s discomfort with the gender discussions here more than you appear to, perhaps because I was brought up to try to be aware of privilege and bias, but much of the rest rings true.
I’m curious: are the exceptions women who also have mostly male friends (for whom you are an exception)? I ask because I’m the same way, and when I ask my few female friends, they tend to agree. I’m interested in that phenomenon, and I’d love to have a data point outside my own social circle.
Not exactly—my closest girlfriends actually live in a very female world. But there were always things I wasn’t comfortable telling them.
For what it’s worth, my sister and my mother are very much like me. My sister, especially, experiences that same tension between being a feminist and being a geek/tomboy/”one of the guys.” I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if genetics have something to do with it.
I wouldn’t be surprised either, although I don’t trust similar observations about my own family as evidence for it (since they’re almost by definition the people culturally closest to me).
I was going to ask what kind of ideas about gender roles dominate in the area where you grew up, exploring another theory, but then I remembered that a lot of my current friends didn’t grow up anywhere near me either. Although I suppose they all made a choice to live here now, so maybe it does have some meaning after all.