What? (What I mean is that, assuming “improves” means “becomes closer to that of the whole population”, and considering that the sex ratio is close to 1 in the whole population but more like 10 in Less Wrong, five men leaving would improve the sex ratio, but not if one woman also leaves.) I guess you were making a joke, which I don’t get.
I interpreted your comment to mean something like “talking about creepiness might make women leave faster.”
I will now attempt to thoroughly dissect what I said after I thought you said that. Because why not :P
“Security through obscurity” is a model of security where talking about security makes you less secure—it’s generally agreed to be pretty suboptimal. Drawing the analogy between not talking about creepiness to have people not leave and not talking about security to be secure is the surface point of my post.
But there are several flaws in the analogy between not talking about security and not talking about creepiness, which I refer to pretty subtly and form the main point of the post.
The first word is ambiguous: “security” for who? The analogy-ey interpretation would be for LW users, but the problem the “creepy obscurity” is directed at isn’t keeping people secure, it’s not making people leave, so the analogy breaks down. If we look at the part of reality where the analogy breaks down, the security that would be granted by not talking about problematic behavior is actually the “security” of the people who don’t want to have to deal with the problem or worry about their community getting smaller, not the security of LW users in general.
Also, “creepy obscurity” serves two purposes. The first is to modify “security through obscurity” to talk about creepiness, thus drawing the analogy. The second is to be a little threatening by referring to the obscurity that gets granted to creepy people, and also referring to literal creepy obscurity. This second interpretation turns the sentence into a bit of an oxymoron, since “creepy obscurity” doesn’t sound very secure at all. The oxymoron here could be considered a joke, like “jumbo shrimp” or “anarchy rules.” But calling this an oxymoron also contains a rhetorical claim that keeping creepy people in the community obscure could not actually be secure.
And, of course the ”, eh?” is there to imply that there’s a joke. This is mostly just to say that I’m willfully misunderstanding you a little, but that I think it’s fun to draw the connection from your post to “security through creepy obscurity.”
What? (What I mean is that, assuming “improves” means “becomes closer to that of the whole population”, and considering that the sex ratio is close to 1 in the whole population but more like 10 in Less Wrong, five men leaving would improve the sex ratio, but not if one woman also leaves.) I guess you were making a joke, which I don’t get.
I interpreted your comment to mean something like “talking about creepiness might make women leave faster.”
I will now attempt to thoroughly dissect what I said after I thought you said that. Because why not :P
“Security through obscurity” is a model of security where talking about security makes you less secure—it’s generally agreed to be pretty suboptimal. Drawing the analogy between not talking about creepiness to have people not leave and not talking about security to be secure is the surface point of my post.
But there are several flaws in the analogy between not talking about security and not talking about creepiness, which I refer to pretty subtly and form the main point of the post.
The first word is ambiguous: “security” for who? The analogy-ey interpretation would be for LW users, but the problem the “creepy obscurity” is directed at isn’t keeping people secure, it’s not making people leave, so the analogy breaks down. If we look at the part of reality where the analogy breaks down, the security that would be granted by not talking about problematic behavior is actually the “security” of the people who don’t want to have to deal with the problem or worry about their community getting smaller, not the security of LW users in general.
Also, “creepy obscurity” serves two purposes. The first is to modify “security through obscurity” to talk about creepiness, thus drawing the analogy. The second is to be a little threatening by referring to the obscurity that gets granted to creepy people, and also referring to literal creepy obscurity. This second interpretation turns the sentence into a bit of an oxymoron, since “creepy obscurity” doesn’t sound very secure at all. The oxymoron here could be considered a joke, like “jumbo shrimp” or “anarchy rules.” But calling this an oxymoron also contains a rhetorical claim that keeping creepy people in the community obscure could not actually be secure.
And, of course the ”, eh?” is there to imply that there’s a joke. This is mostly just to say that I’m willfully misunderstanding you a little, but that I think it’s fun to draw the connection from your post to “security through creepy obscurity.”