I am not qualified to teach this subject, not even on the 101 “the stuff you are saying appears on bingo cards that anti-bigotry activists use to summarize common ignorance for crying out loud” level it seems to be on. Trying would be unpleasant, probably would have no positive effects on anyone, and would doubtless solidify the reputation I seem to have accumulated as a usually sane person who mysteriously loses her mind when bringing up “politics”.
I will, however, note that Othello took place in Italy, not England, and it would be bizarre if it reflected England’s demographics.
I think the two of you may be talking past each other here, namely that gwern overlooked the phrase “corpus of stories”. What gwern seems to be attacking is the thesis that every individual story should have a racial/cultural balance of characters that mirrors the general population. Your argument that the corpus as a whole should contain a reasonable balance is not one which I think gwern would refute.
Obviously every story need not be balanced. But it’s not obvious to me why the corpus should be balanced, and I can think of reasons why it either doesn’t matter or is a good thing (half the attraction of anime for people is, I think, that it borrows enough Western material to be relatively easy to understand, but the overall corpus is still very ‘unbalanced’ from a US perspective).
Arguments for either position would be good, but Alicorn’s original post just says being unbalanced is a problem and anything perpetuating the problem is bad, thus bans/taxes/withdrawal-of-subsidies is bad; I have no positive arguments in favor of new works from her, so I have to content myself with offering criticism and negative arguments in the hopes that she’ll offer back.
(Or I could just drop this whole thread, but then I’d leave unsatisfied because I wouldn’t know all the flaws with my approach, like the argument about works being enjoyable in different ways like being contemporary.)
If you’re interested in continuing this conversation with me in particular, I’d prefer to move to a private venue. I really don’t like the “mysteriously loses her mind over politics” thing, or the karma nosedive that comes with it, but I’m willing to assume that you as an individual won’t interpret me that way.
I’d really prefer not to. I’ve made a point of conducting all of my Wikipedia business on the wiki itself, and similarly for mailing lists. There seems to be only one person downvoting you in this thread, and that’s easy enough for me to cancel out.
The karma is only a secondary concern. It bothers me more than I would like it to that I am seen as suddenly and inexplicably turning irrational whenever stuff about -isms comes up. This is germane here in particular since to continue this conversation, I’d have to talk about (gasp) feeeeeeeeelings.
The comment that claimed you turn irrational has zero karma. My response that it was an ungenerous interpretation is +2. So I’m not sure you should conclude that a significant number of people see you as turning uniquely irrational, but obviously there is no need for you to say anything you don’t want to.
I don’t think it’s that many people (although I got the same reaction over the gender kerfluffle; it’s not just this one-time thing). But it’s enough to make me uncomfortable.
What’s inexplicable about it? We all turn at least somewhat irrational whenever stuff about -isms comes up. It’s human nature. Politics is the mind killer and all. That’s why discussion of contemporary politics is discouraged here, or at least was last I heard.
Okay, perhaps I’m seen as explicably losing my mind. That’s not a whole lot better. I don’t like to have conversations with people who start out presuming me insane, even if they have a lovely narrative about exactly how it happened.
You’re entitled to your emotional reactions, up to and including stonewalling unfavored commenters, but I see this behavior as a blatant self-defense mechanism for your beliefs. Likewise a theist could reject LW’s arguments for atheism because oooh those evil people say I’m crazy and it’s making me uncomfortable.
I don’t think I’d characterize calling one’s interlocutor crazy as “evil” so much as “mean”. I wouldn’t expect my theist friends to want to talk to me—about anything, really, much less religion—if I started out presuming them insane because they disagree with me! For the same reason, I don’t blame the theists I know from steering clear of this site. It’s a hostile environment for them, and they have no reason to enter any hostile environment, including this one. Similarly, I have precious little interest in having nonessential exchanges with or near people who have announced their intention to be mean to me. Calling it a “self-defense mechanism” looks like you think I need some reason to refrain from having conversations with or around you and those who agree with you, apart from predicting that they’ll be unfun.
I am not qualified to teach this subject, not even on the 101 “the stuff you are saying appears on bingo cards that anti-bigotry activists use to summarize common ignorance for crying out loud” level it seems to be on. Trying would be unpleasant, probably would have no positive effects on anyone, and would doubtless solidify the reputation I seem to have accumulated as a usually sane person who mysteriously loses her mind when bringing up “politics”.
I will, however, note that Othello took place in Italy, not England, and it would be bizarre if it reflected England’s demographics.
I think the two of you may be talking past each other here, namely that gwern overlooked the phrase “corpus of stories”. What gwern seems to be attacking is the thesis that every individual story should have a racial/cultural balance of characters that mirrors the general population. Your argument that the corpus as a whole should contain a reasonable balance is not one which I think gwern would refute.
Obviously every story need not be balanced. But it’s not obvious to me why the corpus should be balanced, and I can think of reasons why it either doesn’t matter or is a good thing (half the attraction of anime for people is, I think, that it borrows enough Western material to be relatively easy to understand, but the overall corpus is still very ‘unbalanced’ from a US perspective).
Arguments for either position would be good, but Alicorn’s original post just says being unbalanced is a problem and anything perpetuating the problem is bad, thus bans/taxes/withdrawal-of-subsidies is bad; I have no positive arguments in favor of new works from her, so I have to content myself with offering criticism and negative arguments in the hopes that she’ll offer back.
(Or I could just drop this whole thread, but then I’d leave unsatisfied because I wouldn’t know all the flaws with my approach, like the argument about works being enjoyable in different ways like being contemporary.)
If you’re interested in continuing this conversation with me in particular, I’d prefer to move to a private venue. I really don’t like the “mysteriously loses her mind over politics” thing, or the karma nosedive that comes with it, but I’m willing to assume that you as an individual won’t interpret me that way.
I’d really prefer not to. I’ve made a point of conducting all of my Wikipedia business on the wiki itself, and similarly for mailing lists. There seems to be only one person downvoting you in this thread, and that’s easy enough for me to cancel out.
The karma is only a secondary concern. It bothers me more than I would like it to that I am seen as suddenly and inexplicably turning irrational whenever stuff about -isms comes up. This is germane here in particular since to continue this conversation, I’d have to talk about (gasp) feeeeeeeeelings.
The comment that claimed you turn irrational has zero karma. My response that it was an ungenerous interpretation is +2. So I’m not sure you should conclude that a significant number of people see you as turning uniquely irrational, but obviously there is no need for you to say anything you don’t want to.
I don’t think it’s that many people (although I got the same reaction over the gender kerfluffle; it’s not just this one-time thing). But it’s enough to make me uncomfortable.
What’s inexplicable about it? We all turn at least somewhat irrational whenever stuff about -isms comes up. It’s human nature. Politics is the mind killer and all. That’s why discussion of contemporary politics is discouraged here, or at least was last I heard.
Okay, perhaps I’m seen as explicably losing my mind. That’s not a whole lot better. I don’t like to have conversations with people who start out presuming me insane, even if they have a lovely narrative about exactly how it happened.
You’re entitled to your emotional reactions, up to and including stonewalling unfavored commenters, but I see this behavior as a blatant self-defense mechanism for your beliefs. Likewise a theist could reject LW’s arguments for atheism because oooh those evil people say I’m crazy and it’s making me uncomfortable.
I don’t think I’d characterize calling one’s interlocutor crazy as “evil” so much as “mean”. I wouldn’t expect my theist friends to want to talk to me—about anything, really, much less religion—if I started out presuming them insane because they disagree with me! For the same reason, I don’t blame the theists I know from steering clear of this site. It’s a hostile environment for them, and they have no reason to enter any hostile environment, including this one. Similarly, I have precious little interest in having nonessential exchanges with or near people who have announced their intention to be mean to me. Calling it a “self-defense mechanism” looks like you think I need some reason to refrain from having conversations with or around you and those who agree with you, apart from predicting that they’ll be unfun.
Indeed, categorizing one’s enemies as “insane” seems like a bad epistemic move—a bit closer to deciding they’re evil mutants.