Yesterday I was lying in bed thinking about the LW community and had a little epiphany, guessing the reason as to why discussions on gender relations and the traditional and new practices of inter-gender choice and manipulation (or “seduction”, more narrowly) around here consistently “fail” as people say—that is, produce genuine disquiet and anger on all sides of the discussion.
The reason is that both opponents and proponents of controversial things in this sphere—be it a techincal approach to romantic relations (“PUA”) or “traditional”/conservative gender relations or polyamory or other such examples—are inevitably almost completely correct in pointing out the most blatant and harmful effects of the opposing view’s practices. Put simply, all known solutions in the area of sexuality and gender relations, however they compare to each other, are quite awful on an absolute scale (by the vast majority of moral outlooks). Because of the fundamentally broken and irrational nature of how our psychology interacts with the non-ansectral environment, all of our imperfect arrangements will inevitably produce much psychological and/or social suffering and “dysfunction”. I use that word in quotes because, according to the view above, our society is inevitably and innately dysfunctional whatever you do with it.
Yet people, while seeing with some clarity the evils of the opposing view, are in denial about those of their own suggestions—just like most non-transhumanist atheists are in denial about many awful realities of the human condition, chiefly death. They simply refuse to allow themselves the thought that something so bad might be going on with no decent solution in sight. Thus, disquiet and misdirected anger.
Now, transhumanists are better off in this regard [1] because they know that humans can eventually be enhanced, and the vast disperancies between how we live and what evolution prepared us for, fixed. So I suggest that we don’t approach this topic without keeping in mind the possibilities of transhumanism, so as to eliminate the cognitive dissonance in observing problems that can’t be overcome at the level they arise on.
My idea could well be mistaken, generated by sudden intuition instead of methodical inquiry as it was; so would you please discuss it and consider it in more detail—but on a meta level at first, without getting into the usual failure mode?
[1] They might have their own issues, sure, but here’s a clear advantage for them.
Because of the fundamentally broken and irrational nature of how our psychology interacts with the non-ansectral environment, all of our imperfect arrangements will inevitably produce much psychological and/or social suffering and “dysfunction”
While I do agree we are worse off in this regard because of the strangeness of the modern world, there is no reason to think nature wouldn’t produce some or perhaps quite a bit of social and psychological suffering even with us being perfectly well adapted to our environment.
I mean we don’t expect it to do so with physical pain.
Yes, yes, I agree. By the local standards I might be a bit of a hippie, but the last thing I want to do is demonize the modern life and compare it negatively with the “natural” (mindless & chaos-spawned) alternative. I was merely focusing on the current problem.
Well, I certainly agree that the controversial topics you list have the property you describe—that is, no popular position on them is unflawed.
I don’t believe this significantly explains the low light:heat ratio of discussions about those topics, though. There are lots of topics where no popular position on them is unflawed that nevertheless get discussed without the level of emotional investment we see when gender relations or tribal affiliations (or, to a lesser extent, morality) get involved.
That said, it’s not especially mysterious that gender relations and tribal affiliations reliably elicit more emotional involvement than, say, decision theory.
There are lots of topics where no popular position on them is unflawed that nevertheless get discussed without the level of emotional investment we see when gender relations or tribal affiliations (or, to a lesser extent, morality) get involved.
The problem is that the positions on this topic (not just the popular ones, but all the conceivable non-transhumanist ones) are not just “unflawed”, they’re pretty damn horrible, absolutely speaking.
Consider everyone (who’s smart enough for it and cares to) unabashedly using “PUA”-style psychological manipulation (not the self-improvement bits there, what they call “inner game” and what’s found in all other self-help manuals, but specifically “outer game”, internalizing the “marketplace” logic and applying it to their love life) versus things staying as they are, with the sexual status race accelerating and getting more crazy. Clearly, both situations are not just “flawed” but fucking horrible, full of suffering and adversity and shit. That’s very easy to imagine, and that’s where the tension comes from.
(BTW, privately I’m so disgusted at those “seduction” tricks that it took some willpower not to heap abuse at such practices throughout this comment. Don’t talk to me about it.)
To make sure I understand… do you predict that for any question, if a group of people G has a set of possible answers A, and G is attempting to come to consensus on one of those answers, G’s ability to cooperate in that effort will anticorrelate (p > .95) with how unpleasant G’s expected results of implementing any of A are?
That would surprise me, if so, but it wouldn’t vastly shock me. Call it ~.6 confidence that the above is false.
I’m ~.7 confident that G’s ability to cooperate in that effort would anticorrelate more strongly with the standard deviation within G of pre-existing individual identifications with political or social entities associated with a particular member of A.
It’s partly so in my opinion. I expect a modest effect like that for most issues, but in a much more dramatic fashion on the most painful problems, where our instincts are highly involved and can easily tell us that all the answers are going to hurt—like sex.
Why else ’d you think that most of European classical tragic/dramatic literature touches on intimate dissatisfaction/suffering, and irrational behavior in regards to it?
Because intimate relations are really important to us, so we tell lots of stories about it. It’s also why so many popular stories are about couples getting together and living happily ever after.
You’re saying that technology—tinkering with human biology and human psychology—can supply a technical fix for problems with sex and death. But the imperfection and dysfunction of social and cultural solutions will also extend to technological solutions. Some methods of life extension will be lethal. Some hopes will be deluded. Some scientific analyses of psychology will be wrong, but they will supply the basis of a subculture or a technological intervention anyway.
Rather than discuss it on a meta level first—whatever that means—it would be better if you supplied one or two concrete examples of what you have in mind.
Rather than discuss it on a meta level first—whatever that means
It means that we should not just start discussing whether e.g. polyamory is good, but instead discuss how we, in practice, think and make value judgments about such things—without dwelling too much on concrete examples.
You’re saying that technology—tinkering with human biology and human psychology—can supply a technical fix for problems with sex and death.
I hope that it will, but it might well not, or the cure might be as bad as the disease. That’s an useful thought in our current discussions because it puts things in perspective and by contrast illuminates the hard-wired, “inevitable” aspects of baseline humanity, that’s what I mean.
But the imperfection and dysfunction of social and cultural solutions will also extend to technological solutions.
Absolutely, but my main point is not that we should wait for 50 years/100 years/the Singularity and it’ll all be great, but that we should imagine a “good” condition of people and society that’s unachievable by “ordinary” means (e.g. hacking ourselves to negate men’s attraction to body shape and women’s attraction to tribal chieftains) and use it as an example of a desirable outcome when we’re talking policy—because this should allow us to notice the imperfection of all those “ordinary” means we’re considering. We should allow ourselves a ray of hope to notice the darkness that we’re in.
Yesterday I was lying in bed thinking about the LW community and had a little epiphany, guessing the reason as to why discussions on gender relations and the traditional and new practices of inter-gender choice and manipulation (or “seduction”, more narrowly) around here consistently “fail” as people say—that is, produce genuine disquiet and anger on all sides of the discussion.
The reason is that both opponents and proponents of controversial things in this sphere—be it a techincal approach to romantic relations (“PUA”) or “traditional”/conservative gender relations or polyamory or other such examples—are inevitably almost completely correct in pointing out the most blatant and harmful effects of the opposing view’s practices. Put simply, all known solutions in the area of sexuality and gender relations, however they compare to each other, are quite awful on an absolute scale (by the vast majority of moral outlooks). Because of the fundamentally broken and irrational nature of how our psychology interacts with the non-ansectral environment, all of our imperfect arrangements will inevitably produce much psychological and/or social suffering and “dysfunction”. I use that word in quotes because, according to the view above, our society is inevitably and innately dysfunctional whatever you do with it.
Yet people, while seeing with some clarity the evils of the opposing view, are in denial about those of their own suggestions—just like most non-transhumanist atheists are in denial about many awful realities of the human condition, chiefly death. They simply refuse to allow themselves the thought that something so bad might be going on with no decent solution in sight. Thus, disquiet and misdirected anger.
Now, transhumanists are better off in this regard [1] because they know that humans can eventually be enhanced, and the vast disperancies between how we live and what evolution prepared us for, fixed. So I suggest that we don’t approach this topic without keeping in mind the possibilities of transhumanism, so as to eliminate the cognitive dissonance in observing problems that can’t be overcome at the level they arise on.
My idea could well be mistaken, generated by sudden intuition instead of methodical inquiry as it was; so would you please discuss it and consider it in more detail—but on a meta level at first, without getting into the usual failure mode?
[1] They might have their own issues, sure, but here’s a clear advantage for them.
Before I comment a nitpick:
While I do agree we are worse off in this regard because of the strangeness of the modern world, there is no reason to think nature wouldn’t produce some or perhaps quite a bit of social and psychological suffering even with us being perfectly well adapted to our environment.
I mean we don’t expect it to do so with physical pain.
Yes, yes, I agree. By the local standards I might be a bit of a hippie, but the last thing I want to do is demonize the modern life and compare it negatively with the “natural” (mindless & chaos-spawned) alternative. I was merely focusing on the current problem.
Well, I certainly agree that the controversial topics you list have the property you describe—that is, no popular position on them is unflawed.
I don’t believe this significantly explains the low light:heat ratio of discussions about those topics, though. There are lots of topics where no popular position on them is unflawed that nevertheless get discussed without the level of emotional investment we see when gender relations or tribal affiliations (or, to a lesser extent, morality) get involved.
That said, it’s not especially mysterious that gender relations and tribal affiliations reliably elicit more emotional involvement than, say, decision theory.
The problem is that the positions on this topic (not just the popular ones, but all the conceivable non-transhumanist ones) are not just “unflawed”, they’re pretty damn horrible, absolutely speaking.
Consider everyone (who’s smart enough for it and cares to) unabashedly using “PUA”-style psychological manipulation (not the self-improvement bits there, what they call “inner game” and what’s found in all other self-help manuals, but specifically “outer game”, internalizing the “marketplace” logic and applying it to their love life) versus things staying as they are, with the sexual status race accelerating and getting more crazy. Clearly, both situations are not just “flawed” but fucking horrible, full of suffering and adversity and shit. That’s very easy to imagine, and that’s where the tension comes from.
(BTW, privately I’m so disgusted at those “seduction” tricks that it took some willpower not to heap abuse at such practices throughout this comment. Don’t talk to me about it.)
To make sure I understand… do you predict that for any question, if a group of people G has a set of possible answers A, and G is attempting to come to consensus on one of those answers, G’s ability to cooperate in that effort will anticorrelate (p > .95) with how unpleasant G’s expected results of implementing any of A are?
That would surprise me, if so, but it wouldn’t vastly shock me. Call it ~.6 confidence that the above is false.
I’m ~.7 confident that G’s ability to cooperate in that effort would anticorrelate more strongly with the standard deviation within G of pre-existing individual identifications with political or social entities associated with a particular member of A.
It’s partly so in my opinion. I expect a modest effect like that for most issues, but in a much more dramatic fashion on the most painful problems, where our instincts are highly involved and can easily tell us that all the answers are going to hurt—like sex.
Why else ’d you think that most of European classical tragic/dramatic literature touches on intimate dissatisfaction/suffering, and irrational behavior in regards to it?
Because intimate relations are really important to us, so we tell lots of stories about it.
It’s also why so many popular stories are about couples getting together and living happily ever after.
You’re saying that technology—tinkering with human biology and human psychology—can supply a technical fix for problems with sex and death. But the imperfection and dysfunction of social and cultural solutions will also extend to technological solutions. Some methods of life extension will be lethal. Some hopes will be deluded. Some scientific analyses of psychology will be wrong, but they will supply the basis of a subculture or a technological intervention anyway.
Rather than discuss it on a meta level first—whatever that means—it would be better if you supplied one or two concrete examples of what you have in mind.
It means that we should not just start discussing whether e.g. polyamory is good, but instead discuss how we, in practice, think and make value judgments about such things—without dwelling too much on concrete examples.
I hope that it will, but it might well not, or the cure might be as bad as the disease. That’s an useful thought in our current discussions because it puts things in perspective and by contrast illuminates the hard-wired, “inevitable” aspects of baseline humanity, that’s what I mean.
Absolutely, but my main point is not that we should wait for 50 years/100 years/the Singularity and it’ll all be great, but that we should imagine a “good” condition of people and society that’s unachievable by “ordinary” means (e.g. hacking ourselves to negate men’s attraction to body shape and women’s attraction to tribal chieftains) and use it as an example of a desirable outcome when we’re talking policy—because this should allow us to notice the imperfection of all those “ordinary” means we’re considering. We should allow ourselves a ray of hope to notice the darkness that we’re in.