I don’t think the length in words is a good thing to measure by, especially given the proportion of words I used offering metaphors to assist people in understanding the presented concepts or reinforcing that I’m not actually dangerous vs. actually presenting new concepts. I also think that the strength (rationality, coherency) of the explanation is more important than the number of concepts used, but it’s your heuristic.
Fine. Don’t count excess metaphors or disclaimers toward your explanation, and then compute the backpedal ratio. Would that be a fair metric? Even with this favorable counting, it still doesn’t look good.
I don’t think that evaluating the length of the explanation—or the number of new concepts used—is a useful heuristic at all, as I mentioned. I can go into more detail than I have regarding why, but that explanation would also be long, so I assume you’d disregard it, therefore I don’t see much point in taking the time to do so. (Unless someone else wants me to, or something.)
Given unlimited space, I can always outline plausible-sounding scenarios where someone’s outlandish remarks were actually benign. This is an actual cottage industry among people who want to show adherence to the Bible while assuring others they don’t actually want to murder homosexuals.
For this reason, the fact that you can produce a plausible scenario where Eliezer meant something benign is weak evidence he actually meant that. And it is the power of elaborate scenarios that implies we should be suspicious of high backpedal ratios. To the extent that you find length a bad measure, you have given sceanarios where length doesn’t actually correlate with backpedaling.
It’s a fair point, so I suggested you clip out such false positives for purposes of calculating the ratios, yet you still claim you have a good reason to ignore the backpedal ratio. That I don’t get.
More generally, I am still confused in that I don’t see a clean, simple reason why someone in the future would be confused as to why lots of rape would be a bad thing back in the 20th century, given that he’d have historical knowledge of what that society was like.
I wasn’t trying to explain how Eliezer’s world works—I upvoted the original comment specifically because I don’t know how it works, and I’m curious. If you were taking my explanation as an attempt to provide that information, I’m sure it came across as a poor attempt, because I was in fact specifically avoiding speculating about the world Eliezer created. What I was attempting to do was show—from an outsider’s perspective, since that’s the one I have, and it’s obviously more useful than an insider’s perspective in this case—the aspects how humans determine selfhood and boundaries that make such a change possible (yes, just ‘possible’), and also that Eliezer had shown understanding of the existence of those aspects.
If I had been trying to add more information to the story—writing fanfiction, or speculating on facts about the world itself—applying your backpedal-ratio heuristic would make some sense (though I’d still object to your use of length-in-words as a measurement, and there are details of using new-concepts as a measurement that I’m not sure you’ve noticed), but I wasn’t. I was observing facts about the real world, specifically about humans and how dramatically different socialization can affect us.
As to why the character didn’t understand why people from our time react so strongly to rape, the obvious (to me) answer is a simple lack of explanation by us. There’s a very strong assumption in this society that everyone shares the aspects of selfhood that make rape bad (to the point where I often have to hide the fact that I don’t share them, or suffer social repercussions), and very little motivation to even to consider why it’s considered bad, much less leave a record of such thoughts. Even living in this society, with every advantage but having the relevant trait in understanding why people react that way, I haven’t found an explanation that really makes sense of the issue, only one that does a coherent job of organizing the reactions that I’ve observed on my own.
So does your lack of a sexual self make it so you can’t see rape as bad at all, or “only” as bad as beating someone up? Presumably someone without a sexual self could still see assault as bad, and rape includes assault and violence.
Disregarding the extra physical and social risks of the rape (STDs, pregnancy, etc.), I expect that I wouldn’t find assault-plus-unwelcome-sex more traumatic than an equivalent assault without the sex. I do agree that assault is traumatic, and I understand that most people don’t agree with me about how traumatic assault-with-rape is compared to regular assault.
A note, for my own personal safety: The fact that I wouldn’t find it as traumatic means I’m much more likely to report it, and to be able to give a coherent report, if I do wind up being raped. It’s not something I’d just let pass, traumatic or no; people who are unwilling to respect others’ preferences are dangerous and should be dealt with as such.
Assault by itself is pretty traumatic. Not just the physical pain, but the stress, fear, and feeling of loss of control. I was mugged at knifepoint once, and though I wasn’t physically hurt at all, the worst part was just feeling totally powerless and at the mercy of someone else. I was so scared I couldn’t move or speak.
I don’t think your views on rape are as far from the norm as you seem to think. They make sense to me.
Rape can happen without assault, though—I know someone to whom such a rape happened, and she found it very traumatic, to the point where it still affects her life decades later.
There are also apparently other things that can evoke the same kind of traumatized reaction without involving physical contact at all; Eliezer gave ‘having nude photos posted online against your will’ as an example. (I mentioned that example in a discussion with the aforementioned friend, and she agreed with Eliezer that it’d be similarly traumatic, in both type and degree, for whatever one data-point might be worth.)
You seem confused about several things here. Unlike Biblical exegesis, in this conversation we are trying to elaborate and discuss possibilities for the cultural features of a world that was only loosely sketched out. You realize this is a fictional world we’re discussing, not a statement of morality, or a manifesto that would require “backpedaling”?
The point of introducing socially acceptable non-consensual sex was to demonstrate huge cultural differences. Neither EY nor anyone else is claiming this would be a good thing, or “benign” : it’s just a demonstration of cultural change over time.
Someone in the future, unless he was a historian, might not be familiar with history books discussing 20th century life. He might think lots of rape in the 20th century would be good (incorrectly) because non-consensual sex is a good thing by his cultural standards. He’d be wrong, but he wouldn’t realize it.
Your question is analogous to “I don’t see why someone now couldn’t see that slavery was a good thing back in the 17th century, given that he’d have historical knowledge of what that society was like.” Well, yes, slavery was seen (by some people) as a good thing back then, but it’s not now. In the story, non-consensual sex is seen (incorrectly) as a good thing in the future, so people in the future interpret the past through those biases.
I don’t think the length in words is a good thing to measure by, especially given the proportion of words I used offering metaphors to assist people in understanding the presented concepts or reinforcing that I’m not actually dangerous vs. actually presenting new concepts. I also think that the strength (rationality, coherency) of the explanation is more important than the number of concepts used, but it’s your heuristic.
Fine. Don’t count excess metaphors or disclaimers toward your explanation, and then compute the backpedal ratio. Would that be a fair metric? Even with this favorable counting, it still doesn’t look good.
I don’t think that evaluating the length of the explanation—or the number of new concepts used—is a useful heuristic at all, as I mentioned. I can go into more detail than I have regarding why, but that explanation would also be long, so I assume you’d disregard it, therefore I don’t see much point in taking the time to do so. (Unless someone else wants me to, or something.)
Given unlimited space, I can always outline plausible-sounding scenarios where someone’s outlandish remarks were actually benign. This is an actual cottage industry among people who want to show adherence to the Bible while assuring others they don’t actually want to murder homosexuals.
For this reason, the fact that you can produce a plausible scenario where Eliezer meant something benign is weak evidence he actually meant that. And it is the power of elaborate scenarios that implies we should be suspicious of high backpedal ratios. To the extent that you find length a bad measure, you have given sceanarios where length doesn’t actually correlate with backpedaling.
It’s a fair point, so I suggested you clip out such false positives for purposes of calculating the ratios, yet you still claim you have a good reason to ignore the backpedal ratio. That I don’t get.
More generally, I am still confused in that I don’t see a clean, simple reason why someone in the future would be confused as to why lots of rape would be a bad thing back in the 20th century, given that he’d have historical knowledge of what that society was like.
I wasn’t trying to explain how Eliezer’s world works—I upvoted the original comment specifically because I don’t know how it works, and I’m curious. If you were taking my explanation as an attempt to provide that information, I’m sure it came across as a poor attempt, because I was in fact specifically avoiding speculating about the world Eliezer created. What I was attempting to do was show—from an outsider’s perspective, since that’s the one I have, and it’s obviously more useful than an insider’s perspective in this case—the aspects how humans determine selfhood and boundaries that make such a change possible (yes, just ‘possible’), and also that Eliezer had shown understanding of the existence of those aspects.
If I had been trying to add more information to the story—writing fanfiction, or speculating on facts about the world itself—applying your backpedal-ratio heuristic would make some sense (though I’d still object to your use of length-in-words as a measurement, and there are details of using new-concepts as a measurement that I’m not sure you’ve noticed), but I wasn’t. I was observing facts about the real world, specifically about humans and how dramatically different socialization can affect us.
As to why the character didn’t understand why people from our time react so strongly to rape, the obvious (to me) answer is a simple lack of explanation by us. There’s a very strong assumption in this society that everyone shares the aspects of selfhood that make rape bad (to the point where I often have to hide the fact that I don’t share them, or suffer social repercussions), and very little motivation to even to consider why it’s considered bad, much less leave a record of such thoughts. Even living in this society, with every advantage but having the relevant trait in understanding why people react that way, I haven’t found an explanation that really makes sense of the issue, only one that does a coherent job of organizing the reactions that I’ve observed on my own.
So does your lack of a sexual self make it so you can’t see rape as bad at all, or “only” as bad as beating someone up? Presumably someone without a sexual self could still see assault as bad, and rape includes assault and violence.
Disregarding the extra physical and social risks of the rape (STDs, pregnancy, etc.), I expect that I wouldn’t find assault-plus-unwelcome-sex more traumatic than an equivalent assault without the sex. I do agree that assault is traumatic, and I understand that most people don’t agree with me about how traumatic assault-with-rape is compared to regular assault.
A note, for my own personal safety: The fact that I wouldn’t find it as traumatic means I’m much more likely to report it, and to be able to give a coherent report, if I do wind up being raped. It’s not something I’d just let pass, traumatic or no; people who are unwilling to respect others’ preferences are dangerous and should be dealt with as such.
Assault by itself is pretty traumatic. Not just the physical pain, but the stress, fear, and feeling of loss of control. I was mugged at knifepoint once, and though I wasn’t physically hurt at all, the worst part was just feeling totally powerless and at the mercy of someone else. I was so scared I couldn’t move or speak.
I don’t think your views on rape are as far from the norm as you seem to think. They make sense to me.
Rape can happen without assault, though—I know someone to whom such a rape happened, and she found it very traumatic, to the point where it still affects her life decades later.
There are also apparently other things that can evoke the same kind of traumatized reaction without involving physical contact at all; Eliezer gave ‘having nude photos posted online against your will’ as an example. (I mentioned that example in a discussion with the aforementioned friend, and she agreed with Eliezer that it’d be similarly traumatic, in both type and degree, for whatever one data-point might be worth.)
You seem confused about several things here. Unlike Biblical exegesis, in this conversation we are trying to elaborate and discuss possibilities for the cultural features of a world that was only loosely sketched out. You realize this is a fictional world we’re discussing, not a statement of morality, or a manifesto that would require “backpedaling”?
The point of introducing socially acceptable non-consensual sex was to demonstrate huge cultural differences. Neither EY nor anyone else is claiming this would be a good thing, or “benign” : it’s just a demonstration of cultural change over time.
Someone in the future, unless he was a historian, might not be familiar with history books discussing 20th century life. He might think lots of rape in the 20th century would be good (incorrectly) because non-consensual sex is a good thing by his cultural standards. He’d be wrong, but he wouldn’t realize it.
Your question is analogous to “I don’t see why someone now couldn’t see that slavery was a good thing back in the 17th century, given that he’d have historical knowledge of what that society was like.” Well, yes, slavery was seen (by some people) as a good thing back then, but it’s not now. In the story, non-consensual sex is seen (incorrectly) as a good thing in the future, so people in the future interpret the past through those biases.