I can see the problem you’re trying to avoid—the assumption that one sort of feminism is typical for women. And I think it’s worth avoiding.
However, you seem to be implying that men aren’t excessively clustered by politics at LW.
Also, the problem pointed to in the Not on the Master List article doesn’t generally manifest at that level of fear. I think the more common negative reaction to LW is moderate revulsion, and I suspect that just inviting more women isn’t going to solve it.
If anyone tried the experiment of inviting more women, it might be world posting about how it worked out.
Maybe it’s just that when someone says: “I feel uncomfortable about X”, my natural reaction is thinking about a possible fix; but when someone says: “I am a member of a tribe T and we dislike X”, my natural reaction is: Fuck you, and fuck your tribe T!
Only later comes the rationalization, that improving a situation for a specific person, especially for someone who feels some discomfort and yet wants to be a member of the community, is good for the community. But obeying demands made in the name of a different tribe, just helps the other tribe conquer this territory; and the complaining person probably wasn’t interested in membership too much, just wanted to plant a flag of the tribe T here.
My model of a person who wrote this article is that even if LW changed according to their wishes, they wouldn’t join LW anyway (they would just tick off another internet battle won), or they would join but would contribute mostly by criticizing other things they don’t like, making some existing members (including women) uncomfortable.
Still, there is a question: If we change according to this person’s wishes, maybe this person will not join us, but perhaps some other person would? In which case, I recommend thinking about making LW more comfortable to this hypothetical other person, whose wishes in fact don’t have to be the same. Maybe this other person would actually prefer to express their opinions more freely.
you seem to be implying that men aren’t excessively clustered by politics at LW.
According to the survey, it’s 36% liberal, 30% libertarian, 27% socialist, (edit:) 3% conservative. (Okay, that’s all members, but since men are 90%, I assume the numbers for men would be pretty much the same, plus or minus at most 10% in some category.) At worst that would be (edit:) three different clusters; and any specific of them would be a minority.
Still, some groups are louder than the others. For example, the Moldbug fans are impossible to overlook. On the other hand, I don’t remember hearing much socialist opinions here; and I think I would have noticed. Not sure what it means. (Different average loudness of different groups?)
the more common negative reaction to LW is moderate revulsion
Common reaction among who? The people who decided to write a critical article about LW? That is not necessary a reaction of an average person.
just inviting more women isn’t going to solve it
Assuming that more women on LW would mean more articles and comments written by women, it would either mean that the content gets less repulsive on average… or that LW fans are repulsive to outsiders whether they are male or female, so at least it cannot be blamed on gender disparity anymore.
Maybe it’s just that when someone says: “I feel uncomfortable about X”, my natural reaction is thinking about a possible fix; but when someone says: “I am a member of a tribe T and we dislike X”, my natural reaction is: Fuck you, and fuck your tribe T!
Not sure if you meant to imply this, but did the linked article read to you like, “I am a member of tribe T and we dislike X”? To me it just sounded like, “I feel uncomfortable about X.”
Uhm, after reading the article again, I think you are right. It was written as: “I feel uncomfortable about X.”
Yet I somehow perceived it completely differently. I wonder why exactly. Probably because it was long and not going to the point (which made the real point less obvious) and contained a lot of keywords typical for a specific tribe (so I assumed it was speaking in the name of the tribe).
Ah that makes sense. Maybe also because it was worded as a response to a particular tribe (ours), it may have been natural to assume that it was positioned as coming from a particular other tribe.
″ moderate revulsion” is a reaction I’ve seen from people who I would like to be party of the community and I thought had a reasonable chance of being interested.
According to the survey, it’s 36% liberal, 30% libertarian, 27% socialist, 25% conservative....At worst that would be four different clusters; and any specific of them would be a minority.
Math. Conservatives are 3%.
Just 3 labels make up roughly 93%, and I’d say only two real clusters, as libertarian vs. socialist/liberal. I haven’t noticed substantive debates here between liberals and socialists. It would be interesting to see, if someone can point some out.
Note the predominance of the Anglosphere—with the 4 top represented countries making up around 75% of the survey respondents, and those 4 countries being 4 of the top six in per capita terms.
This doesn’t matter for your point; I’m just letting you know: the survey results showed 3% conservative, not 35%. There were 35 total conservatives, which was 3% of respondents.
I can see the problem you’re trying to avoid—the assumption that one sort of feminism is typical for women. And I think it’s worth avoiding.
However, you seem to be implying that men aren’t excessively clustered by politics at LW.
Also, the problem pointed to in the Not on the Master List article doesn’t generally manifest at that level of fear. I think the more common negative reaction to LW is moderate revulsion, and I suspect that just inviting more women isn’t going to solve it.
If anyone tried the experiment of inviting more women, it might be world posting about how it worked out.
Maybe it’s just that when someone says: “I feel uncomfortable about X”, my natural reaction is thinking about a possible fix; but when someone says: “I am a member of a tribe T and we dislike X”, my natural reaction is: Fuck you, and fuck your tribe T!
Only later comes the rationalization, that improving a situation for a specific person, especially for someone who feels some discomfort and yet wants to be a member of the community, is good for the community. But obeying demands made in the name of a different tribe, just helps the other tribe conquer this territory; and the complaining person probably wasn’t interested in membership too much, just wanted to plant a flag of the tribe T here.
My model of a person who wrote this article is that even if LW changed according to their wishes, they wouldn’t join LW anyway (they would just tick off another internet battle won), or they would join but would contribute mostly by criticizing other things they don’t like, making some existing members (including women) uncomfortable.
Still, there is a question: If we change according to this person’s wishes, maybe this person will not join us, but perhaps some other person would? In which case, I recommend thinking about making LW more comfortable to this hypothetical other person, whose wishes in fact don’t have to be the same. Maybe this other person would actually prefer to express their opinions more freely.
According to the survey, it’s 36% liberal, 30% libertarian, 27% socialist, (edit:) 3% conservative. (Okay, that’s all members, but since men are 90%, I assume the numbers for men would be pretty much the same, plus or minus at most 10% in some category.) At worst that would be (edit:) three different clusters; and any specific of them would be a minority.
Still, some groups are louder than the others. For example, the Moldbug fans are impossible to overlook. On the other hand, I don’t remember hearing much socialist opinions here; and I think I would have noticed. Not sure what it means. (Different average loudness of different groups?)
Common reaction among who? The people who decided to write a critical article about LW? That is not necessary a reaction of an average person.
Assuming that more women on LW would mean more articles and comments written by women, it would either mean that the content gets less repulsive on average… or that LW fans are repulsive to outsiders whether they are male or female, so at least it cannot be blamed on gender disparity anymore.
Not sure if you meant to imply this, but did the linked article read to you like, “I am a member of tribe T and we dislike X”? To me it just sounded like, “I feel uncomfortable about X.”
Uhm, after reading the article again, I think you are right. It was written as: “I feel uncomfortable about X.”
Yet I somehow perceived it completely differently. I wonder why exactly. Probably because it was long and not going to the point (which made the real point less obvious) and contained a lot of keywords typical for a specific tribe (so I assumed it was speaking in the name of the tribe).
Also because members of that tribe frequently argue that making them uncomfortable should be a punishable offense.
Ah that makes sense. Maybe also because it was worded as a response to a particular tribe (ours), it may have been natural to assume that it was positioned as coming from a particular other tribe.
″ moderate revulsion” is a reaction I’ve seen from people who I would like to be party of the community and I thought had a reasonable chance of being interested.
Math. Conservatives are 3%.
Just 3 labels make up roughly 93%, and I’d say only two real clusters, as libertarian vs. socialist/liberal. I haven’t noticed substantive debates here between liberals and socialists. It would be interesting to see, if someone can point some out.
Note the predominance of the Anglosphere—with the 4 top represented countries making up around 75% of the survey respondents, and those 4 countries being 4 of the top six in per capita terms.
This doesn’t matter for your point; I’m just letting you know: the survey results showed 3% conservative, not 35%. There were 35 total conservatives, which was 3% of respondents.