AdeleneDawner is correct. I do not like it when people announce that they wish to form communities I would be unwelcome in because of a “protected” feature (sex/sexuality/race/whatever). (This is importantly different from forming communities based on non-protected features, like willingness to pay membership dues or expertise in a topic, and also importantly different from forming communities in which my presence would be pointless, e.g. I would have no reason whatsoever to be at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.)
I do not like it when people announce that they wish to form communities I would be unwelcome in because of a “protected” feature (sex/sexuality/race/whatever).
I would recommend that you make an attempt to free yourself of this dislike. While some ‘protected features’ have few real consequences (skin colour won’t make you out of place anywhere except possibly a tanning salon), many do, gender definitely being one of them. Sometimes it will be easy to ignore or work around those consequences, and sometimes it will not.
If brazil84 does sincerely find that his ability for rational discussion is hampered by female pheromones (metonymy), and you do happen to emit female pheromones, you certainly shouldn’t be blamed for that, but neither should he—it is a weakness of him, but one that falls well within the demands of a modern and open society. While you are absolutely required to behave in a civil manner even in the presence of romantic attraction, it is acceptable if it causes you to perform less than optimally.
As long as he (a) recognises that in a modern and open society, he will eventually need to learn to think and behave rationally even when surrounded by women, and (b) does not by his actions prevent women from joining a rationality club, I do not think he is going out of bounds when he wishes to establish a group that caters to this need of his.
I hate that I cannot come up with a better, less loaded example (I fall into a pretty damn privileged demographic), but: I would understand if I needed to join a rape victim support group and ran into one that wouldn’t let me in because the women members were uncomfortable to talk about these experiences around a 191cm / 90 kg bearded deep-voiced man. Of course, I would find it unacceptable if that were the only support group in my area and it chose to leave me completely in the cold rather than create some discomfort to other members.
I have nothing to say against this eminently upvotable comment, of course. It just so happens that (no doubt primed somewhat by a recent conversation with Vladimir_M) I feel the need to take note of a remarkable milestone:
the women members were uncomfortable to talk about these experiences
This is literally the very first non-native-English-speaker shibboleth that I’ve ever detected in any of your comments. (The more idiomatic construction is “uncomfortable talking”.) I think I’ve managed to “catch” all the other prominent near-perfect non-natives at some point long before now (Morendil, the various Vladimirs, even Kaj Sotala), but you were the last holdout, by a significant margin. Well done!
Can you say a little more about what a “protected” feature is in this context?
That is, suppose I wish to form a community in which Xes are unwelcome, and I want to predict whether you will dislike it if I announce that wish.
I’m pretty clear that you will dislike it if X in {woman, Caucasian, queer, attracted-to-men, attracted-to-women} and not (necessarily) if X in {unwilling-to-pay, non-expert-in-$FOO}.
What about X in {adult, American, non-recovering alcoholic, hearing, sighted}?
More generally: is there a rule I could apply to predict the result for given X, supposing I knew the relevant demographic facts about Alicorn?
I waver on to what extent age is a protected category but normally err on the side of not caring about age-specific community arrangements to the extent that these overlap with pointlessness or have equivalents for multiple age groups. (E.g. a nursing home is not obliged to have children’s classes if they have adult classes, because that would be silly, and a driving school does not need to admit twelve-year-olds, because for reasons that are not the school’s responsibility twelve-year-olds may not drive).
Disability status (sensory, mental, physical, and to a lesser extent disease/addiction related) is protected but interacts strongly with pointlessness. Disease/addiction are less protected to the point where one might exclude alcoholics from a wine tasting on that characteristic alone, or send a kid home from school because ey has a contagious disease which is incidentally causing a temporary disability.
Nationality is weakly protected but interacts (through geographic location and language/culture) with pointlessness and with non-protected features, so tends not to look protected in terms of my reaction to various items.
If I had to describe a rule, I’d describe it in terms of the voluntariness of the feature, the background likelihood that people discriminate against those with this feature (not just the individual likelihood that the community-former is being exclusive for discriminatory reasons), and the difficulty/intrusiveness of hiding the feature should one want to do so. So, for example, race is maximally protected, because it’s completely involuntary, racism is totally a thing humans do, and it’s difficult to conceal.
So if you moved to a community where people with your color hair were routinely discriminated against and hair dye illegal, you would dislike the idea of a not-your-hair-color-only club, but in a community without such constraints you would be all right with it?
If I had to describe a rule, I’d describe it in terms of the voluntariness of the feature, the background likelihood that people discriminate against those with this feature (not just the individual likelihood that the community-former is being exclusive for discriminatory reasons), and the difficulty/intrusiveness of hiding the feature should one want to do so.
What about something like IQ? It satisfies all of your criteria for being maximally protected, but also seems relevant to many tasks. Plus somehow I don’t think you object to the existence on MENSA.
Using an arbitrary and subjective “pointlessness” exception, you can derive any conclusions you like. Just apply the general principle consistently as long as you like the conclusions, and otherwise proclaim that the “pointlessness” exception applies. And voila, you can bask in the glow of your high principles, which just happen to imply conclusions to your complete liking. (Of course, the general principle would produce absurd and impractical results if really applied consistently, so someone who subscribes to it has to operate with some such unprincipled exceptions.)
The distinction between “protected” and “non-protected” characteristics is of course similarly arbitrary and ultimately serves a similar purpose, though you don’t have personal control over that one, as the power of defining it is a prerogative of the state.
That said, I don’t mean to point a finger specifically at you by pointing this out. This mode of thinking is all-pervasive in modern society, and nobody is immune to it completely. But on a forum dedicated to exposing biases and fallacies, it should be pointed out.
Such criteria are always arbitrary, since there is no universally agreed definition. How exactly do you decide whether the presence and participation of a person in a group is “pointless” or not? Ask five different people, and you’ll get five different answers. Yes, you can point to extreme examples where almost all would agree, but the problem is that things are often not that clear.
The “protected” criterion is similarly arbitrary, except that the government gets to define that one. Even then, if you ask for a precise definition of when some category is considered protected in a given context, you must refer to a whole library of case law. (And you should also consult an expert lawyer who is knowledgeable about the unwritten norms and informal intricacies that usually apply.)
Unsurprisingly, humans being what they are, when they use such arbitrary criteria to answer problematic questions of law, ethics, etc., what they end up with are rationalizations for attitudes held for different reasons. Again, please note that I’m talking about something that practically everyone engages in, not some personal vice of yours.
And why exactly were you mocking me if you (mostly) weren’t making an argument? I really would like to know.
My guess is that my post pushed some emotional button with you.
This is a fairly predictable result of telling someone you don’t consider them welcome.
AdeleneDawner is correct. I do not like it when people announce that they wish to form communities I would be unwelcome in because of a “protected” feature (sex/sexuality/race/whatever). (This is importantly different from forming communities based on non-protected features, like willingness to pay membership dues or expertise in a topic, and also importantly different from forming communities in which my presence would be pointless, e.g. I would have no reason whatsoever to be at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.)
I would recommend that you make an attempt to free yourself of this dislike. While some ‘protected features’ have few real consequences (skin colour won’t make you out of place anywhere except possibly a tanning salon), many do, gender definitely being one of them. Sometimes it will be easy to ignore or work around those consequences, and sometimes it will not.
If brazil84 does sincerely find that his ability for rational discussion is hampered by female pheromones (metonymy), and you do happen to emit female pheromones, you certainly shouldn’t be blamed for that, but neither should he—it is a weakness of him, but one that falls well within the demands of a modern and open society. While you are absolutely required to behave in a civil manner even in the presence of romantic attraction, it is acceptable if it causes you to perform less than optimally.
As long as he (a) recognises that in a modern and open society, he will eventually need to learn to think and behave rationally even when surrounded by women, and (b) does not by his actions prevent women from joining a rationality club, I do not think he is going out of bounds when he wishes to establish a group that caters to this need of his.
I hate that I cannot come up with a better, less loaded example (I fall into a pretty damn privileged demographic), but: I would understand if I needed to join a rape victim support group and ran into one that wouldn’t let me in because the women members were uncomfortable to talk about these experiences around a 191cm / 90 kg bearded deep-voiced man. Of course, I would find it unacceptable if that were the only support group in my area and it chose to leave me completely in the cold rather than create some discomfort to other members.
Your point with the support group example is well-taken. I will reevaluate and possibly revise my dispositions here.
I have nothing to say against this eminently upvotable comment, of course. It just so happens that (no doubt primed somewhat by a recent conversation with Vladimir_M) I feel the need to take note of a remarkable milestone:
This is literally the very first non-native-English-speaker shibboleth that I’ve ever detected in any of your comments. (The more idiomatic construction is “uncomfortable talking”.) I think I’ve managed to “catch” all the other prominent near-perfect non-natives at some point long before now (Morendil, the various Vladimirs, even Kaj Sotala), but you were the last holdout, by a significant margin. Well done!
What do you think the gender demographics are for lesswrong?
To clarify: I would expect that a men-only rationality club would indeed limit women’s access to rationality clubs.
Can you say a little more about what a “protected” feature is in this context?
That is, suppose I wish to form a community in which Xes are unwelcome, and I want to predict whether you will dislike it if I announce that wish.
I’m pretty clear that you will dislike it if X in {woman, Caucasian, queer, attracted-to-men, attracted-to-women} and not (necessarily) if X in {unwilling-to-pay, non-expert-in-$FOO}.
What about X in {adult, American, non-recovering alcoholic, hearing, sighted}?
More generally: is there a rule I could apply to predict the result for given X, supposing I knew the relevant demographic facts about Alicorn?
I waver on to what extent age is a protected category but normally err on the side of not caring about age-specific community arrangements to the extent that these overlap with pointlessness or have equivalents for multiple age groups. (E.g. a nursing home is not obliged to have children’s classes if they have adult classes, because that would be silly, and a driving school does not need to admit twelve-year-olds, because for reasons that are not the school’s responsibility twelve-year-olds may not drive).
Disability status (sensory, mental, physical, and to a lesser extent disease/addiction related) is protected but interacts strongly with pointlessness. Disease/addiction are less protected to the point where one might exclude alcoholics from a wine tasting on that characteristic alone, or send a kid home from school because ey has a contagious disease which is incidentally causing a temporary disability.
Nationality is weakly protected but interacts (through geographic location and language/culture) with pointlessness and with non-protected features, so tends not to look protected in terms of my reaction to various items.
If I had to describe a rule, I’d describe it in terms of the voluntariness of the feature, the background likelihood that people discriminate against those with this feature (not just the individual likelihood that the community-former is being exclusive for discriminatory reasons), and the difficulty/intrusiveness of hiding the feature should one want to do so. So, for example, race is maximally protected, because it’s completely involuntary, racism is totally a thing humans do, and it’s difficult to conceal.
(nods) I think I follow.
So if you moved to a community where people with your color hair were routinely discriminated against and hair dye illegal, you would dislike the idea of a not-your-hair-color-only club, but in a community without such constraints you would be all right with it?
Actually, I disapprove of hair dye for unrelated reasons, but yeah, you seem to have the gist of it.
What about something like IQ? It satisfies all of your criteria for being maximally protected, but also seems relevant to many tasks. Plus somehow I don’t think you object to the existence on MENSA.
Using an arbitrary and subjective “pointlessness” exception, you can derive any conclusions you like. Just apply the general principle consistently as long as you like the conclusions, and otherwise proclaim that the “pointlessness” exception applies. And voila, you can bask in the glow of your high principles, which just happen to imply conclusions to your complete liking. (Of course, the general principle would produce absurd and impractical results if really applied consistently, so someone who subscribes to it has to operate with some such unprincipled exceptions.)
The distinction between “protected” and “non-protected” characteristics is of course similarly arbitrary and ultimately serves a similar purpose, though you don’t have personal control over that one, as the power of defining it is a prerogative of the state.
That said, I don’t mean to point a finger specifically at you by pointing this out. This mode of thinking is all-pervasive in modern society, and nobody is immune to it completely. But on a forum dedicated to exposing biases and fallacies, it should be pointed out.
It’s reasonable for people to care about how much of the world they’re welcome in.
What is your evidence that my pointlessness criterion is arbitrary?
Such criteria are always arbitrary, since there is no universally agreed definition. How exactly do you decide whether the presence and participation of a person in a group is “pointless” or not? Ask five different people, and you’ll get five different answers. Yes, you can point to extreme examples where almost all would agree, but the problem is that things are often not that clear.
The “protected” criterion is similarly arbitrary, except that the government gets to define that one. Even then, if you ask for a precise definition of when some category is considered protected in a given context, you must refer to a whole library of case law. (And you should also consult an expert lawyer who is knowledgeable about the unwritten norms and informal intricacies that usually apply.)
Unsurprisingly, humans being what they are, when they use such arbitrary criteria to answer problematic questions of law, ethics, etc., what they end up with are rationalizations for attitudes held for different reasons. Again, please note that I’m talking about something that practically everyone engages in, not some personal vice of yours.
Could you characterize what you mean by a “protected” feature?
Most likely one that is difficult to change / not obviously under conscious control.
Aren’t most human “features” of such a nature?
“Most” depends on what set of features you consider, but I would happily agree with “many.”