Doubting that a person is honestly and accurately relating their experiences is one thing, doubting that the generalizations they draw are accurate is another. I upvoted the post, but I think V_V brings some legitimate considerations to the table here.
Women and men tend to have somewhat different experiences in life, and it’s useful for them to be exposed to each others’ experiences and learn from them. But I don’t think we can assume that the generalizations any particular woman draws from her experiences will be accurate, any more than we can assume that the generalizations that a man draws will be accurate. We just take them all for the evidence they’re worth.
If someone says “Joe did bad things X, Y, and Z to me because he plays violent video games,” we can take it as true that X, Y, and Z actually happened without thereby agreeing that video games have anything to do with it. Being unconvinced of the conclusion (or even rejecting it) does not license us to disregard the evidence of that person’s experience.
General note: let’s not do that thing where we don’t like an argument someone is presenting and so we fail to update on the evidence they present in favor of it.
Yeah, if we could use these posts to learn about women’s experiences instead of constantly doubting everything these they say...that would be great.
I think that this would make women more willing to describe their experiences. I also think on LW learning and engagement often look like doubt and criticism, and that epistemic hygiene is very important.
A comment is supposed to be upvoted for making a relevant contribution. A relevant contribution to the discussion of a statement is more likely to be criticism than it is to be a presentation of further corroboration. So, the most upvoted comments are likely to be critical ones. Mere voicing of agreement will necessarily be perceived as less relevant to the conversation and thus receive fewer upvotes; to change that, the norms about upvoting would have to be changed, so that being nice is considered more valuable than making a relevant contribution.
It’s not clear why a relevant contribution is more likely to be a criticism than further corroboration. There is a point in your comment where you seem to be a conflating two spectrums...agreement/disagreement and thoughtfulness/ simplicity.
Just like there is simple dissent (a comment with only the words, “I disagree”) and thoughtful criticism (like the linked comment) and there is both “mere voicing of agreement” (“Good post”) and thoughtful agreement ( “I agree with this, these are some particularly strong points you make, here’s some more supporting evidence”). I find the latter to be very useful.
It’s unfortunate that thoughtful agreement is not more valued than it is.
I think this kind of thoughtful agreement is valued very highly. But situations where someone has additional evidence they can present to corroborate a poster’s point simply have a much lower base rate than situations where someone comes up with a potential criticism. That’s because for the first, you have to come up with a potential criticism and produce the evidence to refute it.
Yeah, if we could use these posts to learn about women’s experiences instead of constantly doubting everything they say...that would be great.
Doubting that a person is honestly and accurately relating their experiences is one thing, doubting that the generalizations they draw are accurate is another. I upvoted the post, but I think V_V brings some legitimate considerations to the table here.
Women and men tend to have somewhat different experiences in life, and it’s useful for them to be exposed to each others’ experiences and learn from them. But I don’t think we can assume that the generalizations any particular woman draws from her experiences will be accurate, any more than we can assume that the generalizations that a man draws will be accurate. We just take them all for the evidence they’re worth.
And even that has it’s place since people do in fact exaggerated their experience.
No, we take their experiences as fact.
It is not clear, though, why we must automatically take their interpretation of the policy relevance of their experiences as fact.
Well, no.
If someone says “Joe did bad things X, Y, and Z to me because he plays violent video games,” we can take it as true that X, Y, and Z actually happened without thereby agreeing that video games have anything to do with it. Being unconvinced of the conclusion (or even rejecting it) does not license us to disregard the evidence of that person’s experience.
See also Qiaochu_Yuan’s comment here:
I think that this would make women more willing to describe their experiences. I also think on LW learning and engagement often look like doubt and criticism, and that epistemic hygiene is very important.
Unfortunately, the most upvoted comment so far is an example of LW’s culture of disagreement.
A comment is supposed to be upvoted for making a relevant contribution. A relevant contribution to the discussion of a statement is more likely to be criticism than it is to be a presentation of further corroboration. So, the most upvoted comments are likely to be critical ones. Mere voicing of agreement will necessarily be perceived as less relevant to the conversation and thus receive fewer upvotes; to change that, the norms about upvoting would have to be changed, so that being nice is considered more valuable than making a relevant contribution.
Why is this unfortunate?
It’s not clear why a relevant contribution is more likely to be a criticism than further corroboration. There is a point in your comment where you seem to be a conflating two spectrums...agreement/disagreement and thoughtfulness/ simplicity.
Just like there is simple dissent (a comment with only the words, “I disagree”) and thoughtful criticism (like the linked comment) and there is both “mere voicing of agreement” (“Good post”) and thoughtful agreement ( “I agree with this, these are some particularly strong points you make, here’s some more supporting evidence”). I find the latter to be very useful.
It’s unfortunate that thoughtful agreement is not more valued than it is.
I think this kind of thoughtful agreement is valued very highly. But situations where someone has additional evidence they can present to corroborate a poster’s point simply have a much lower base rate than situations where someone comes up with a potential criticism. That’s because for the first, you have to come up with a potential criticism and produce the evidence to refute it.