Despite being female, I generally find I could not give a damn about alleged ‘social’ pressures on women, since people who get all weepy because everyone doesn’t treat them nice are (in my opinion) laughable, regardless of their sex.
“Comments and posts that casually objectify women or encourage the objectification of women. ”
Human beings ARE objects. All of them. Whatever an ‘autonomous being is’, if it exists it is still an object in both the grammatical and ontological sense. I objectify everyone, and it seems absurd not to.
“If you need to use an example with a gender, there’s no reason to consider male the default—consider choosing randomly,”
This just seems silly to me. A total waste of effort. I can’t imagine being bothered by the gender of hypothetical people, and especially not by casual use of words which are unisex anyways (such as ‘man’ for ‘human’).
“Sweeping generalizations about women”
Most sweeping generalizations are flawed, but the amount of stupid things people believe about women is far less ridiculous than the stuff they believe about people they have literally no experience with—such as the Japanese, or Mormons.
“Fawning admiration of pickup artists who attain their fame by the systematic manipulation of women.”
‘Manipulation’? I though these were ‘autonomous’ beings? People who can’t look after their own social well-being get what coming to them.
“Attention to the privileges of masculinity and attempts to reduce that disparity.”
The law favors women just as often as it doesn’t, especially in various legal disputes. As far as the ‘privileges’ of men—insofar as they aren’t legally enforced, I couldn’t give a damn. No one owes you anything.
While I appreciate and share your brash disregard for social pressures, I don’t think it’s inappropriate to expect a modicum of politeness and tact in how people present ideas. Not everyone is immune to such pressure and I don’t think saying what amounts to “HTFU, noobcake” is a reasonable way to improve the level of discourse.
Well, I don’t very much care about those sorts of people. It’s not that I have any desire to aggravate them, but they’re usually useless to me as anything but vending machines.
Resistance to social pressure is, within reason, largely orthogonal to the ability to contribute useful information to an informed discussion, or cooperate with others on productive tasks.
If you really want to limit the set of people you can usefully interact with, be my guest, but it seems a tad suboptimal.
‘Suboptimal’ for what? There is no such thing as ‘general efficiency’, success and failure (and their degress) are meaningless without an actual framework of goals and preference. I simply do not enjoy socially interacting with people like that. I am aware that this includes most of the human race. I happen to find most of the human race useless beyond the buy-sell relationship.
There are a variety of social interactions from which one can derive value outside the context of a simple economic transaction. Discussing intellectual topics, like on LW or in an academic environment is one example; professional networking to gain connections for career advancement is another. Excluding people for reasons unrelated to these goals, such as susceptibility to social pressure, is suboptimal because potential gains scale with the number of people you interact with.
Who you choose to socially interact with is otherwise pretty much arbitrary. Personally, I generally like your attitude and think the world could use more people who share it—but I don’t feel justified to demand that they do.
“Excluding people for reasons unrelated to these goals, such as susceptibility to social pressure, is suboptimal because potential gains scale with the number of people you interact with.”
It’s quite the other way around—people who strongly conform to social pressure tend to be people who I will disagree with so much in theory and practice that I have no desire to attempt any sort of relationship. I find people who get ‘offended’, or care about ‘animal rights’, are far more likely to make me want to punch them than to contribute anything I have any interest in hearing.
“I don’t feel justified to demand that they do.”
Justification is phantom. I just couldn’t give a damn what they like or not. Why should I automatically have sympathy for these primates just because they happen to be related to me?
I don’t ‘demand’ anything of them, but I owe them nothing, either. I give them no more leave than I would a dog.
Why are you interacting with an un-filtered human? Your professed chances of a hit are far lower than a miss, unless you go someplace where the culture ups the odds.
Because it’s easy enough to ignore people who bore me, and there are a handful of you on here who are worth interacting with. What’s more, sometimes ‘normal’ people do produce something worth reading, I just wouldn’t want to share an apartment with them.
People who can’t look after their own social well-being get what coming to them.
How the heat of discussion can numb our basic sensibilities. I’m 90% sure that this wasn’t intended in a “leave the weak to die” way, and yet, if I were to take this phrase on its face, this is the attitude that I’d infer.
EDIT: nope, I’m only 50% sure. The lady has been quite frank; I’d be best off staying away from her and people like her, lest I can’t resist starting shit with her.
Not at all, as this isn’t something specific to women. I think most people are ‘whiners’ who complain as though somebody owed them something. They do not. Not appreciation, not respect, not deference, not friendship, not the time of day. People who get ‘offended’ because someone didn’t say what THEY wanted, or because someone doesn’t care about their feelings just annoy me.
You should meet some new people. Perhaps move. In my experience, most people aren’t’ ‘whiners’, though that might be subjective.
As for the advice in TFA, it isn’t primarily about anyone owing anything. Rather, we’d like to have the best community we can, and it’s pretty well-established that we’re in favor of community norms that serve that end.
“What are you, a Randian?”
Certainly not. I’m just amoral and not very keen on some of the typical elements of our primate tribalisms. On top of that, I think most people’s social ‘problems’ are self-inflicted.
“In my experience, most people aren’t’ ‘whiners’, though that might be subjective.”
By ‘whiner’ I mean simply what I said above. It’s not someone else’s fault you get offended or otherwise react emotionally, that’s your deal. If you can do something about it, do so. If not—what of it? Obviously if the other person thought they had a reason to treat you differently they would, and if they don’t—well, there is no higher authority of values or norms.
“Rather, we’d like to have the best community we can, and it’s pretty well-established that we’re in favor of community norms that serve that end.”
I’d just rather not deal with people who suffer from the sort of self-inflicted ‘problems’ outlined above, and do not sympathise with their ‘plight’.
Despite being female, I generally find I could not give a damn about alleged ‘social’ pressures on women, since people who get all weepy because everyone doesn’t treat them nice are (in my opinion) laughable, regardless of their sex.
“Comments and posts that casually objectify women or encourage the objectification of women. ” Human beings ARE objects. All of them. Whatever an ‘autonomous being is’, if it exists it is still an object in both the grammatical and ontological sense. I objectify everyone, and it seems absurd not to.
“If you need to use an example with a gender, there’s no reason to consider male the default—consider choosing randomly,” This just seems silly to me. A total waste of effort. I can’t imagine being bothered by the gender of hypothetical people, and especially not by casual use of words which are unisex anyways (such as ‘man’ for ‘human’).
“Sweeping generalizations about women” Most sweeping generalizations are flawed, but the amount of stupid things people believe about women is far less ridiculous than the stuff they believe about people they have literally no experience with—such as the Japanese, or Mormons.
“Fawning admiration of pickup artists who attain their fame by the systematic manipulation of women.” ‘Manipulation’? I though these were ‘autonomous’ beings? People who can’t look after their own social well-being get what coming to them.
“Attention to the privileges of masculinity and attempts to reduce that disparity.” The law favors women just as often as it doesn’t, especially in various legal disputes. As far as the ‘privileges’ of men—insofar as they aren’t legally enforced, I couldn’t give a damn. No one owes you anything.
While I appreciate and share your brash disregard for social pressures, I don’t think it’s inappropriate to expect a modicum of politeness and tact in how people present ideas. Not everyone is immune to such pressure and I don’t think saying what amounts to “HTFU, noobcake” is a reasonable way to improve the level of discourse.
Well, I don’t very much care about those sorts of people. It’s not that I have any desire to aggravate them, but they’re usually useless to me as anything but vending machines.
Resistance to social pressure is, within reason, largely orthogonal to the ability to contribute useful information to an informed discussion, or cooperate with others on productive tasks.
If you really want to limit the set of people you can usefully interact with, be my guest, but it seems a tad suboptimal.
‘Suboptimal’ for what? There is no such thing as ‘general efficiency’, success and failure (and their degress) are meaningless without an actual framework of goals and preference. I simply do not enjoy socially interacting with people like that. I am aware that this includes most of the human race. I happen to find most of the human race useless beyond the buy-sell relationship.
There are a variety of social interactions from which one can derive value outside the context of a simple economic transaction. Discussing intellectual topics, like on LW or in an academic environment is one example; professional networking to gain connections for career advancement is another. Excluding people for reasons unrelated to these goals, such as susceptibility to social pressure, is suboptimal because potential gains scale with the number of people you interact with.
Who you choose to socially interact with is otherwise pretty much arbitrary. Personally, I generally like your attitude and think the world could use more people who share it—but I don’t feel justified to demand that they do.
“Excluding people for reasons unrelated to these goals, such as susceptibility to social pressure, is suboptimal because potential gains scale with the number of people you interact with.” It’s quite the other way around—people who strongly conform to social pressure tend to be people who I will disagree with so much in theory and practice that I have no desire to attempt any sort of relationship. I find people who get ‘offended’, or care about ‘animal rights’, are far more likely to make me want to punch them than to contribute anything I have any interest in hearing.
“I don’t feel justified to demand that they do.” Justification is phantom. I just couldn’t give a damn what they like or not. Why should I automatically have sympathy for these primates just because they happen to be related to me? I don’t ‘demand’ anything of them, but I owe them nothing, either. I give them no more leave than I would a dog.
Why are you interacting with an un-filtered human? Your professed chances of a hit are far lower than a miss, unless you go someplace where the culture ups the odds.
Because it’s easy enough to ignore people who bore me, and there are a handful of you on here who are worth interacting with. What’s more, sometimes ‘normal’ people do produce something worth reading, I just wouldn’t want to share an apartment with them.
How the heat of discussion can numb our basic sensibilities. I’m 90% sure that this wasn’t intended in a “leave the weak to die” way, and yet, if I were to take this phrase on its face, this is the attitude that I’d infer.
EDIT: nope, I’m only 50% sure. The lady has been quite frank; I’d be best off staying away from her and people like her, lest I can’t resist starting shit with her.
Looks like someone didn’t read the disclaimer.
ETA: I seem to be in ‘peanut gallery’ mode. Maybe I should call it a night.
Not at all, as this isn’t something specific to women. I think most people are ‘whiners’ who complain as though somebody owed them something. They do not. Not appreciation, not respect, not deference, not friendship, not the time of day. People who get ‘offended’ because someone didn’t say what THEY wanted, or because someone doesn’t care about their feelings just annoy me.
What are you, a Randian?
You should meet some new people. Perhaps move. In my experience, most people aren’t’ ‘whiners’, though that might be subjective.
As for the advice in TFA, it isn’t primarily about anyone owing anything. Rather, we’d like to have the best community we can, and it’s pretty well-established that we’re in favor of community norms that serve that end.
“What are you, a Randian?” Certainly not. I’m just amoral and not very keen on some of the typical elements of our primate tribalisms. On top of that, I think most people’s social ‘problems’ are self-inflicted.
“In my experience, most people aren’t’ ‘whiners’, though that might be subjective.” By ‘whiner’ I mean simply what I said above. It’s not someone else’s fault you get offended or otherwise react emotionally, that’s your deal. If you can do something about it, do so. If not—what of it? Obviously if the other person thought they had a reason to treat you differently they would, and if they don’t—well, there is no higher authority of values or norms.
“Rather, we’d like to have the best community we can, and it’s pretty well-established that we’re in favor of community norms that serve that end.” I’d just rather not deal with people who suffer from the sort of self-inflicted ‘problems’ outlined above, and do not sympathise with their ‘plight’.