Framing useful skills as being primarily relevant insofar as they fulfill cultural imperatives that a dependent has probably not yet decided whether or not to comply with is harmful both in terms of denigrating the useful skill and in terms of reinforcing the expectation that the cultural imperative will be fulfilled. Assuming the speaker is someone the dependent believes has their best interests at heart, saying “it will help you” instead of “you need” is just a different way of being manipulative.
In a void, either statement is offensive regardless of the dependent’s gender. In actuality, I’d submit that it is somewhat more offensive to suggest cooking and cleaning to a female dependent simply because it does not do anything to encourage the dependent to question what everyone else is telling her, whereas I’d guess that there are plenty of cultural messages deterring males from cooking and cleaning.
Framing useful skills as being primarily relevant insofar as they fulfill cultural imperatives that a dependent has probably not yet decided whether or not to comply with is harmful both in terms of denigrating the useful skill and in terms of reinforcing the expectation that the cultural imperative will be fulfilled. Assuming the speaker is someone the dependent believes has their best interests at heart, saying “it will help you” instead of “you need” is just a different way of being manipulative.
Would you feel the same way about “It would help you to do your math homework so you can graduate high school and get a decent job?” After all, the idea that everyone should graduate high school is a cultural imperative, and some teenagers may not yet have decided whether this is important to them.
Would you feel the same way about “It would help you to do your math homework so you can graduate high school and get a decent job?” After all, the idea that everyone should graduate high school is a cultural imperative, and some teenagers may not yet have decided whether this is important to them.
I’ll sort of bite this bullet—I have to say “sort of”, because I know that social science is extremely difficult, and that radical changes that sound like a good idea to the speaker often have disastrous unforeseen consequences, such that I should be very prepared to modify my current opinions in light of new empirical evidence—but yes, the cultural imperative that everyone must graduate high school regardless of individual circumstances (e.g., “I want to devote myself to studying this particular topic that happens to not be taught at local high schools”) causes a lot of real harm for the same reasons that the cultural imperative that all women must learn domestic skills regardless of individual circumstances (e.g., “I don’t want to be a housewife”) causes a lot of real harm.
Currently-existing social norms do serve real functions, the details of which someone who knows more than me could no doubt elaborate on, but they aren’t intelligently designed for human well-being, either. On the current margin, would it be better to have more conformity, or less?---given my current info and preferences, my guess is less: if you can find a way to do better for yourself in an unconventional way that doesn’t actually seem to hurt anyone, then I say go ahead and take it.
(I don’t know; my own life has gotten a lot better (not monotonically, but the trendline is clear) over the last five years as I’ve learned to think for myself more and more, and trust my unreflective moral instincts and the local authorities less and less. Moreover, this process seems likely to continue as long as I make sure to abandon contrarian strategies when it looks like they’re not working. But your mileage may vary.)
I like that metaphor, but, you know, decision under uncertainty: we’re on the railroad tracks already, and I’m going to pick up as much free money as I think I can get away with, because I no longer trust the schoolteachers and cops who taught me to sit still and wait for the train.
When invoking that advice, check whether something really is a tradition!
This may be a good response to Zack’s general approach, but if you apply it to Yvain’s question, the conclusion is that Zack is not going far enough. Marriage is a very old and widespread tradition, while the imperative that everyone should graduate high school is extremely young, and schools themselves fairly young. Thus you should be much more willing to make marriage an imperative than school.
Marriage is a very old and widespread tradition, while the imperative that everyone should graduate high school is extremely young, and schools themselves fairly young. Thus you should be much more willing to make marriage an imperative than school.
Inter-subjective truths need not be Schelling points. And even if they are, that doesn’t make them actually true in an empirical sense. The fact that everyone does it, but no one can verify it (due to computational limits) might be meaningful, as long as one doesn’t use that to justify ignoring later evidence.
In short, what is the difference between firm commitment to inter-subjective truths notwithstanding evidence and moral relativism?
Isn’t the way to properly judge a civilization exactly what is under dispute in this discussion?
Measured by time, the Roman Republic lasted longer than the modern version of the United States government—dating from ~1865 or ~1936 depending on how one wants to count.
Measured by per-capita wealth, modern day Sweden might do better than the US in the 1950s.
I’m not opposed to measuring according to moral correctness, but first we need to agree on what actually is morally correct.
I didn’t mean how long the societies lasted, that raises issues about what constitutes the “same” society. I meant what happened to societies X years after they adopted various moral positions. Also, I agree that we can learn a lot from the Roman Republic.
I meant what happened to societies X years after they adopted various moral positions.
Do you have a specific example in mind? For X<20, no obvious examples leap to my mind.
And in the modern era, X>5 means that any consequences could be so overdetermined that pointing to particular moral changes is hindsight basis at best—particularly because moral changes tend to be gradual rather than sudden. For example, Brown v. Bd. of Edu didn’t come out of nowhere, legally speaking.
I’m a big believer in the power of examining history to understand current society. For example, Gordon Craig makes an interesting case that the particular results of the Revolution of 1848 in Prussia were a substantial cause of the rise of the Nazis.
But it is important to recognize the limits of historical analysis across long periods of time. First, multiple causes blend together, making it very difficult to disentangle causation. More importantly for this conversation, moral changes are not discrete events.
Thus, trying to figure out the moral changes from the 1670s and 1680s that causes the French Revolution to have a Reign of Terror while the America Revolution did not seems to be asking too much of historical analysis. Looking before 1650 seems even worse.
Not quite—mainly because finishing high school even if you didn’t want to/really give it much thought is more likely to be an overall benefit, whereas getting married even if you didn’t want to/give it much thought is unlikely to turn out happily.
Without more information, I’m not sure that “do your math homework” is going to be as useful as “learn to cook and clean”.
I think the VERY best outcome would be to train children as early as possible to make independent and well-informed decisions, and then a better phrasing would be “If your plans [still] involve graduating high school, it would help you to do your math homework”, or possibly “it would help you to drop this class, since you are obviously not inclined to do your math homework”. But I’m not sure how long before ~graduating-age that’s even developmentally possible.
Given how much people use the skills they learned during math homework later in life I think it would be fair to argue that cooking and cleaning skills are more valuable for the majority of people.
The only skills I ever learned during math homework were:
“How do I rephrase this question so that the answer becomes retrospectively obvious?”
“I don’t know where to even start; let’s try something that’s been useful before to see if I can break down the problem and identify a path towards the solution.”
I might not quite be an unbiased, population-representative sample, but given how much I use these skills versus how much I use my cooking skills (about half an hour per month, on average), and the respective impacts they have on my life, I think it would be fair to argue that what I learned while doing math homework would be far more valuable for the majority of people.
The key turning point being that not all people learn the above from math homework—not all people learn the above at all.
“Not quite—mainly because finishing high school even if you didn’t want to/really give it much thought is more likely to be an overall benefit, whereas getting married even if you didn’t want to/give it much thought is unlikely to turn out happily”
The speaker isn’t trying to get his daughter to marry whether she wants to or not. He is trying to get her to want to, or to not question whether she wants to (or more likely not considering whether she wants to, but nevermind that at the moment). What influences the desires a person has? Few people choose to choose their desires, and while a lot is innate, I don’t think there is anything wrong, fundamentally, with trying to influence your childrens desires and assumptions toward what you understand to be good ends.
I don’t think there is anything wrong, fundamentally, with trying to influence your childrens desires and assumptions toward what you understand to be good ends.
I have friends who were protested outside of abortion clinics before they were old enough to vote, and I doubt one could swing a cat on LessWrong (if one were so inclined) and not hit someone who came to rationality feeling like they wasted (n) years of their life following Jesus and not asking questions.
So I am unconvinced that there couldn’t be rather a lot wrong with trying to influence your children’s desires & assumptions towards what you understand to be good ends. (eta:) I could be way off base here, but isn’t drawing your OWN conclusions kind of what rationality is about?
Well, because there’s a bad method of doing something doesn’t mean that there are no good methods, so I don’t think your example is a refutation. I’m not fond in general of using children as political props, even if that helps them to absorb those political ideas; but I don’t see that as analagous to presenting a normative situation in casual conversation.
However, on the broader point, it is worth thinking about. I assume by “drawing your own conclusions”, you mean each person independently arriving at the truth, rather than each person arriving at a unique set of conclusions, because the latter strikes me as more postmodernism than rationality.
Upon reflection, I’ll say that children as children I don’t expect to be rational enough to draw their own conclusions, but as they get more so I do expect them to question my conclusions that I try to impart, and then either to convince me I am wrong or vice versa. I’d rather we both be right than both be independent, but I don’t want them to be unquestioning of imparted ‘knowledge’ either. Does that make sense?
The speaker isn’t trying to get his daughter to marry whether she wants to or not. He is trying to get her to want to, or to not question whether she wants to (or more likely not considering whether she wants to, but nevermind that at the moment).
These seem pretty significantly different to me. Also, why are we neverminding consideration of what the daughter wants?
Not quite what I meant; sorry for being unclear. I meant, the most likely case is that the words weren’t very thoughtfully spoken in general, but I wanted to address the sentiment that might have been behind them if they were designed for effect.
I’ll speak for myself, here. I wouldn’t verbally or physically force a daughter of mine (I have two or three) to get married, but I will present it as normative because I believe she will be happier if she does so (after careful selection of a mate, etc.). So I could easily see myself saying “Wow, I’m glad to see you learning to cook, that’s something your husband will really appreciate one day.” If I have a son, I’ll likely expect him to pick up some cooking skills as well, but I don’t think that those skills are as attractive to a potential wife as vice versa.
I voted “equally offensive”.
Framing useful skills as being primarily relevant insofar as they fulfill cultural imperatives that a dependent has probably not yet decided whether or not to comply with is harmful both in terms of denigrating the useful skill and in terms of reinforcing the expectation that the cultural imperative will be fulfilled. Assuming the speaker is someone the dependent believes has their best interests at heart, saying “it will help you” instead of “you need” is just a different way of being manipulative.
In a void, either statement is offensive regardless of the dependent’s gender. In actuality, I’d submit that it is somewhat more offensive to suggest cooking and cleaning to a female dependent simply because it does not do anything to encourage the dependent to question what everyone else is telling her, whereas I’d guess that there are plenty of cultural messages deterring males from cooking and cleaning.
Would you feel the same way about “It would help you to do your math homework so you can graduate high school and get a decent job?” After all, the idea that everyone should graduate high school is a cultural imperative, and some teenagers may not yet have decided whether this is important to them.
I’ll sort of bite this bullet—I have to say “sort of”, because I know that social science is extremely difficult, and that radical changes that sound like a good idea to the speaker often have disastrous unforeseen consequences, such that I should be very prepared to modify my current opinions in light of new empirical evidence—but yes, the cultural imperative that everyone must graduate high school regardless of individual circumstances (e.g., “I want to devote myself to studying this particular topic that happens to not be taught at local high schools”) causes a lot of real harm for the same reasons that the cultural imperative that all women must learn domestic skills regardless of individual circumstances (e.g., “I don’t want to be a housewife”) causes a lot of real harm.
Currently-existing social norms do serve real functions, the details of which someone who knows more than me could no doubt elaborate on, but they aren’t intelligently designed for human well-being, either. On the current margin, would it be better to have more conformity, or less?---given my current info and preferences, my guess is less: if you can find a way to do better for yourself in an unconventional way that doesn’t actually seem to hurt anyone, then I say go ahead and take it.
I think you may be underestimating how hard it is to do better than tradition.
(I don’t know; my own life has gotten a lot better (not monotonically, but the trendline is clear) over the last five years as I’ve learned to think for myself more and more, and trust my unreflective moral instincts and the local authorities less and less. Moreover, this process seems likely to continue as long as I make sure to abandon contrarian strategies when it looks like they’re not working. But your mileage may vary.)
Implicit in Szabo’s argument is that you may be doing the equivalent of picking up pennies on railroad tracks.
I like that metaphor, but, you know, decision under uncertainty: we’re on the railroad tracks already, and I’m going to pick up as much free money as I think I can get away with, because I no longer trust the schoolteachers and cops who taught me to sit still and wait for the train.
When invoking that advice, check whether something really is a tradition!
This may be a good response to Zack’s general approach, but if you apply it to Yvain’s question, the conclusion is that Zack is not going far enough. Marriage is a very old and widespread tradition, while the imperative that everyone should graduate high school is extremely young, and schools themselves fairly young. Thus you should be much more willing to make marriage an imperative than school.
I’m inclined to agree.
Inter-subjective truths need not be Schelling points. And even if they are, that doesn’t make them actually true in an empirical sense. The fact that everyone does it, but no one can verify it (due to computational limits) might be meaningful, as long as one doesn’t use that to justify ignoring later evidence.
In short, what is the difference between firm commitment to inter-subjective truths notwithstanding evidence and moral relativism?
There are ways to judge inter-subjective truths, e.g., look at how successful societies holding them have been over various time scales.
Isn’t the way to properly judge a civilization exactly what is under dispute in this discussion?
Measured by time, the Roman Republic lasted longer than the modern version of the United States government—dating from ~1865 or ~1936 depending on how one wants to count.
Measured by per-capita wealth, modern day Sweden might do better than the US in the 1950s.
I’m not opposed to measuring according to moral correctness, but first we need to agree on what actually is morally correct.
The US government (and many others) have lasted as long as they’re had a chance to last, so it seems unfair to judge by duration.
I didn’t mean how long the societies lasted, that raises issues about what constitutes the “same” society. I meant what happened to societies X years after they adopted various moral positions. Also, I agree that we can learn a lot from the Roman Republic.
Do you have a specific example in mind? For X<20, no obvious examples leap to my mind.
And in the modern era, X>5 means that any consequences could be so overdetermined that pointing to particular moral changes is hindsight basis at best—particularly because moral changes tend to be gradual rather than sudden. For example, Brown v. Bd. of Edu didn’t come out of nowhere, legally speaking.
I had in mind X on the order of 100.
Also, I don’t just mean the modern era.
I’m a big believer in the power of examining history to understand current society. For example, Gordon Craig makes an interesting case that the particular results of the Revolution of 1848 in Prussia were a substantial cause of the rise of the Nazis.
But it is important to recognize the limits of historical analysis across long periods of time. First, multiple causes blend together, making it very difficult to disentangle causation. More importantly for this conversation, moral changes are not discrete events.
Thus, trying to figure out the moral changes from the 1670s and 1680s that causes the French Revolution to have a Reign of Terror while the America Revolution did not seems to be asking too much of historical analysis. Looking before 1650 seems even worse.
I can agree that there are some serious problems with the current educational system.
Not quite—mainly because finishing high school even if you didn’t want to/really give it much thought is more likely to be an overall benefit, whereas getting married even if you didn’t want to/give it much thought is unlikely to turn out happily.
Without more information, I’m not sure that “do your math homework” is going to be as useful as “learn to cook and clean”.
I think the VERY best outcome would be to train children as early as possible to make independent and well-informed decisions, and then a better phrasing would be “If your plans [still] involve graduating high school, it would help you to do your math homework”, or possibly “it would help you to drop this class, since you are obviously not inclined to do your math homework”. But I’m not sure how long before ~graduating-age that’s even developmentally possible.
Given how much people use the skills they learned during math homework later in life I think it would be fair to argue that cooking and cleaning skills are more valuable for the majority of people.
The only skills I ever learned during math homework were:
“How do I rephrase this question so that the answer becomes retrospectively obvious?”
“I don’t know where to even start; let’s try something that’s been useful before to see if I can break down the problem and identify a path towards the solution.”
I might not quite be an unbiased, population-representative sample, but given how much I use these skills versus how much I use my cooking skills (about half an hour per month, on average), and the respective impacts they have on my life, I think it would be fair to argue that what I learned while doing math homework would be far more valuable for the majority of people.
The key turning point being that not all people learn the above from math homework—not all people learn the above at all.
I don’t think I’ve ever thought explicitly like that before encountering Less Wrong.
What pretty much everybody (including me) complained about http://xkcd.com/1050/.
“Not quite—mainly because finishing high school even if you didn’t want to/really give it much thought is more likely to be an overall benefit, whereas getting married even if you didn’t want to/give it much thought is unlikely to turn out happily”
The speaker isn’t trying to get his daughter to marry whether she wants to or not. He is trying to get her to want to, or to not question whether she wants to (or more likely not considering whether she wants to, but nevermind that at the moment). What influences the desires a person has? Few people choose to choose their desires, and while a lot is innate, I don’t think there is anything wrong, fundamentally, with trying to influence your childrens desires and assumptions toward what you understand to be good ends.
I have friends who were protested outside of abortion clinics before they were old enough to vote, and I doubt one could swing a cat on LessWrong (if one were so inclined) and not hit someone who came to rationality feeling like they wasted (n) years of their life following Jesus and not asking questions.
So I am unconvinced that there couldn’t be rather a lot wrong with trying to influence your children’s desires & assumptions towards what you understand to be good ends. (eta:) I could be way off base here, but isn’t drawing your OWN conclusions kind of what rationality is about?
Well, because there’s a bad method of doing something doesn’t mean that there are no good methods, so I don’t think your example is a refutation. I’m not fond in general of using children as political props, even if that helps them to absorb those political ideas; but I don’t see that as analagous to presenting a normative situation in casual conversation.
However, on the broader point, it is worth thinking about. I assume by “drawing your own conclusions”, you mean each person independently arriving at the truth, rather than each person arriving at a unique set of conclusions, because the latter strikes me as more postmodernism than rationality.
Upon reflection, I’ll say that children as children I don’t expect to be rational enough to draw their own conclusions, but as they get more so I do expect them to question my conclusions that I try to impart, and then either to convince me I am wrong or vice versa. I’d rather we both be right than both be independent, but I don’t want them to be unquestioning of imparted ‘knowledge’ either. Does that make sense?
These seem pretty significantly different to me. Also, why are we neverminding consideration of what the daughter wants?
Not quite what I meant; sorry for being unclear. I meant, the most likely case is that the words weren’t very thoughtfully spoken in general, but I wanted to address the sentiment that might have been behind them if they were designed for effect.
I’ll speak for myself, here. I wouldn’t verbally or physically force a daughter of mine (I have two or three) to get married, but I will present it as normative because I believe she will be happier if she does so (after careful selection of a mate, etc.). So I could easily see myself saying “Wow, I’m glad to see you learning to cook, that’s something your husband will really appreciate one day.” If I have a son, I’ll likely expect him to pick up some cooking skills as well, but I don’t think that those skills are as attractive to a potential wife as vice versa.