My impression is that the negative response to Hanson’s comments was not prompted by the apparent uncertainty he displayed. In fact, it was prompted by the apparent certainty he displayed. “Is Overcoming Bias Male?” listed two possible explanations for OB’s lack of female readership, and described these as “two main possibilities,” with the implication that these were the only main possibilities. The comments on the post seem to be bothered by how far Robin was able to pare down the “main possibilities.” The commenters seem to think there are “main possibilities” other than (or instead of) these two. That’s different from saying that Robin found women too incomprehensible, and is sort of the opposite (he found them too comprehensible and homogenous, after too little explicit argument).
One thing that I think is important, and was not mentioned in this post: the majority of the human population is (exclusively or almost exclusively) heterosexual, so there is an entire sphere of interactions that many people only have with the opposite sex, and not with the same sex. If we assume that romantic and sexual interactions make people more confused about each others’ motives than the average interaction—which seems reasonable enough, and of course “romance is confusing” is a popular meme on par with “women/men are confusing”—then that could be one factor in why the opposite sex tends to seem more confusing. This claim is pretty easily testable, just by studying people with different sexual orientations. I wonder if there is already data out there on this kind of thing?
This claim is pretty easily testable, just by studying people with different sexual orientations.
Not testable that particular way (because I’d expect mindware differences between gay men and straight men to be non-negligible compared to those between straight men and straight women), but only considering people one wouldn’t even consider having sex/romance with. Can (straight) men understand their grandfathers better than their grandmothers, for example, or male politicians better than female politicians?
My impression is that the negative response to Hanson’s comments was not prompted by the apparent uncertainty he displayed. In fact, it was prompted by the apparent certainty he displayed. “Is Overcoming Bias Male?” listed two possible explanations for OB’s lack of female readership, and described these as “two main possibilities,” with the implication that these were the only main possibilities. The comments on the post seem to be bothered by how far Robin was able to pare down the “main possibilities.” The commenters seem to think there are “main possibilities” other than (or instead of) these two. That’s different from saying that Robin found women too incomprehensible, and is sort of the opposite (he found them too comprehensible and homogenous, after too little explicit argument).
One thing that I think is important, and was not mentioned in this post: the majority of the human population is (exclusively or almost exclusively) heterosexual, so there is an entire sphere of interactions that many people only have with the opposite sex, and not with the same sex. If we assume that romantic and sexual interactions make people more confused about each others’ motives than the average interaction—which seems reasonable enough, and of course “romance is confusing” is a popular meme on par with “women/men are confusing”—then that could be one factor in why the opposite sex tends to seem more confusing. This claim is pretty easily testable, just by studying people with different sexual orientations. I wonder if there is already data out there on this kind of thing?
Not testable that particular way (because I’d expect mindware differences between gay men and straight men to be non-negligible compared to those between straight men and straight women), but only considering people one wouldn’t even consider having sex/romance with. Can (straight) men understand their grandfathers better than their grandmothers, for example, or male politicians better than female politicians?