I post on LessWrong because I want people to evaluate my arguments on whether they will make the world better or not. I agree that there are many parts of the internet where I can post and people will play the “does this word give me the bad feels” game. I post on LessWrong to get away from that nonsense.
Actually improving your lives and the lives of others requires discussing what is true. Virtue signalling in my description of dating will just leave both me and my potential partners would just be lonely more often. It’s not worth it.
I think there are a few reasons this post got a comment like Rafael’s but your others didn’t.
Any community that is about dating seems to attract the kind of people needed to turn it into /r/theredpill. So I see the need to post places like here although they need to be more infrequent as not to turn this place sour in the same manner. This is perhaps the inflection point where it has hit too many posts in too short a time.
There does seem to be more risk of violating “do no harm” here than your other posts. You mention trying to seek out a positistion teaching GRE materials where you could flirt with someone you have some level of authority over and seeking out black women who often have insecurities over how they are viewed in regards to what is conventionally considered attractive in America. Seeking out a power imbalance can put you in positions where you hurt someone.
Signaling does have a use. Leaving the article the same, but adding 1-4 additional sentences with signaling stuff just showing you know pick up artist type stuff can hurt people and that isn’t your intention would change the entire tone. People here don’t know you in person and we can’t pick up on body language so sometimes you really do just need to type out the virtues you had hoped people would assume you had. You did have more signaling of that in your first post. The way you talked painted a picture of a honest confused guy whereas these more fleshed out plans paints a serial pick up artist even though I know that isn’t your intention.
Personally, I did just want to call out that you should question the potential power balance of the GRE teaching situation and other than that don’t have many comments. There are some things I think aren’t optimally effective, but I generally think this stuff needs to be discovered through experimentation and too much borrowed power is bad for both people in the relationship. I left my advice on your first post vague when I could have given you a flowchart for a reason. I stick to calling out potential areas you may regret rather than optimizing the actual plan.
I post on LessWrong because I want people to evaluate my arguments on whether they will make the world better or not. I agree that there are many parts of the internet where I can post and people will play the “does this word give me the bad feels” game. I post on LessWrong to get away from that nonsense.
I recognize that my comment was not kind toward you, and I’m sorry for that. But I posted it anyway because I’m more concerned with people seeing this post coming away with a strongly negative view of LW. I’ve already had discussions with someone who has these associations based on much weaker reasons before, and I believe they still hold a negative view of LW to this day, even though 99+% of the content has virtually no relation to gender issues.
My claim is that whatever benefit comes from discussing this topic is not large enough to justify the cost, not that the benefit doesn’t exist. I don’t expect the dating world to get any better, but I don’t think LW should get involved in that fight. There are many topics we would be more effective at solving and that don’t have negative side effects.
(And I’ve listened to every Rationally Speaking episode since Julia became the solo host.)
Thank you for the apology. I understand your motivations better now.
I disagree that the dating world cannot get any better. I think this is an incredibly neglected and moderately tractable area.
Here’s why I still think there is positive utility to discussing this -
1. The association exists because of Scott Alexander’s post. That post gets tons of views and is frankly a terrible introduction to rationalist thinking. A new reader can easily see it as an identity politics post and dismiss rationalism.
2. We best sell rationalism by showing how we think, not that we bite bullets, lots of other communities bite bullets. I try to highlight aspects of how rationalists think about problems in each post, so that visitors get a better image of us (experimentation, random trials, scholarship, etc.). Luke Progs romance posts are a great example.
If the public associated rationalist stuff w/ Luke Progs work there would be a better argument, but the Scott Alexander post is the real face.
Finally, google searches for rationality/less wrong/slate star codex are in a gradual decline, so the value of self-censorship to achieve mainstream adoption is lower. The barriers to mainstream adoption probably are not the dating stuff.
I did replace mating with dating throughout the post for availability heuristic reasons.
I disagree. The dating world doesn’t get better if we never think about it. I recommend listening to Dr. Diana Fleischman’s talk on rationally speaking for a transhumanist perspective.
I post on LessWrong because I want people to evaluate my arguments on whether they will make the world better or not. I agree that there are many parts of the internet where I can post and people will play the “does this word give me the bad feels” game. I post on LessWrong to get away from that nonsense.
Actually improving your lives and the lives of others requires discussing what is true. Virtue signalling in my description of dating will just leave both me and my potential partners would just be lonely more often. It’s not worth it.
I think there are a few reasons this post got a comment like Rafael’s but your others didn’t.
Any community that is about dating seems to attract the kind of people needed to turn it into /r/theredpill. So I see the need to post places like here although they need to be more infrequent as not to turn this place sour in the same manner. This is perhaps the inflection point where it has hit too many posts in too short a time.
There does seem to be more risk of violating “do no harm” here than your other posts. You mention trying to seek out a positistion teaching GRE materials where you could flirt with someone you have some level of authority over and seeking out black women who often have insecurities over how they are viewed in regards to what is conventionally considered attractive in America. Seeking out a power imbalance can put you in positions where you hurt someone.
Signaling does have a use. Leaving the article the same, but adding 1-4 additional sentences with signaling stuff just showing you know pick up artist type stuff can hurt people and that isn’t your intention would change the entire tone. People here don’t know you in person and we can’t pick up on body language so sometimes you really do just need to type out the virtues you had hoped people would assume you had. You did have more signaling of that in your first post. The way you talked painted a picture of a honest confused guy whereas these more fleshed out plans paints a serial pick up artist even though I know that isn’t your intention.
Personally, I did just want to call out that you should question the potential power balance of the GRE teaching situation and other than that don’t have many comments. There are some things I think aren’t optimally effective, but I generally think this stuff needs to be discovered through experimentation and too much borrowed power is bad for both people in the relationship. I left my advice on your first post vague when I could have given you a flowchart for a reason. I stick to calling out potential areas you may regret rather than optimizing the actual plan.
I recognize that my comment was not kind toward you, and I’m sorry for that. But I posted it anyway because I’m more concerned with people seeing this post coming away with a strongly negative view of LW. I’ve already had discussions with someone who has these associations based on much weaker reasons before, and I believe they still hold a negative view of LW to this day, even though 99+% of the content has virtually no relation to gender issues.
My claim is that whatever benefit comes from discussing this topic is not large enough to justify the cost, not that the benefit doesn’t exist. I don’t expect the dating world to get any better, but I don’t think LW should get involved in that fight. There are many topics we would be more effective at solving and that don’t have negative side effects.
(And I’ve listened to every Rationally Speaking episode since Julia became the solo host.)
Thank you for the apology. I understand your motivations better now.
I disagree that the dating world cannot get any better. I think this is an incredibly neglected and moderately tractable area.
Here’s why I still think there is positive utility to discussing this -
1. The association exists because of Scott Alexander’s post. That post gets tons of views and is frankly a terrible introduction to rationalist thinking. A new reader can easily see it as an identity politics post and dismiss rationalism.
2. We best sell rationalism by showing how we think, not that we bite bullets, lots of other communities bite bullets. I try to highlight aspects of how rationalists think about problems in each post, so that visitors get a better image of us (experimentation, random trials, scholarship, etc.). Luke Progs romance posts are a great example.
If the public associated rationalist stuff w/ Luke Progs work there would be a better argument, but the Scott Alexander post is the real face.
Finally, google searches for rationality/less wrong/slate star codex are in a gradual decline, so the value of self-censorship to achieve mainstream adoption is lower. The barriers to mainstream adoption probably are not the dating stuff.
I did replace mating with dating throughout the post for availability heuristic reasons.