Remember that to name two parts of a community is to split that community
Gender’s far from the only division here, I would say. There’s also a difference in approach to rationalism, that may also have some overlap with gender differences.
I personally consider myself interested in rationalism for the practical benefits: models that are useful, for real-life definitions of useful… not useful for “Knowing The Absolute Truth And Being Right”. However, this doesn’t appear to be a common attitude on LW.
In the computing field, there’s a stereotype that says the difference between men and women is that men care about computing for its own sake, whereas women care about doing other things with computers, how computers can be used to interact with people, and so on. In other words, that women have a more instrumental view of computers than men.
Of course, some men take this to mean that women are therefore not as skilled as men with computers, but I have not found this to be true. The women I’ve known in computing were happy to develop as much skill as was required by their instrumental aims—quite often more skill than the men I knew! They just didn’t make a religion out of it.
Now, in the case of rationalism, I have to say I’ve seen what looks like the flip side of the stereotype: namely, a bunch of guys ranting about what’s true or right and correcting what they see as “mistakes” in a patronizing manner… whether their targets are male or female. (And I have to admit, I was doing some of that here myself at first… and maybe still am, relative to non-tech discussion norms.)
Anyway, I guess what I’m trying to say that LW is not (IMO) an especially friendly forum for instrumental rationalists at the present time. And if the gender stereotype from computing applies, then it is therefore also not a particularly friendly forum for women who haven’t already gotten thick-skinned through similar experiences in a technology field. (i.e., if we assume that women are statistically more likely to orient on practical and social applications of a field than men in that same field are.)
Strongly seconded. To sum up the most important points:
Instrumental rationality has its own skillset, related to but far from identical to the current OB/LW corpus. It’s a skillset we need if we want to deal well with the practical world.
Right now, folks with skill at instrumental rationality who come upon LW are likely to leave again. We aren’t set up to give them what they’re looking for, or to avoid misinterpreting them, or to ask for what they can teach us.
Adding a partial focus on practical, visible applications (i.e., including instrumental rationality in LW) might well improve the gender balance.
I’m pleased to note that there’s rather more instrumental rationality at LW (though perhaps not so much recently), with AnnaSalamon having contributed a good bit of it.
Gender’s far from the only division here, I would say. There’s also a difference in approach to rationalism, that may also have some overlap with gender differences.
I personally consider myself interested in rationalism for the practical benefits: models that are useful, for real-life definitions of useful… not useful for “Knowing The Absolute Truth And Being Right”. However, this doesn’t appear to be a common attitude on LW.
In the computing field, there’s a stereotype that says the difference between men and women is that men care about computing for its own sake, whereas women care about doing other things with computers, how computers can be used to interact with people, and so on. In other words, that women have a more instrumental view of computers than men.
Of course, some men take this to mean that women are therefore not as skilled as men with computers, but I have not found this to be true. The women I’ve known in computing were happy to develop as much skill as was required by their instrumental aims—quite often more skill than the men I knew! They just didn’t make a religion out of it.
Now, in the case of rationalism, I have to say I’ve seen what looks like the flip side of the stereotype: namely, a bunch of guys ranting about what’s true or right and correcting what they see as “mistakes” in a patronizing manner… whether their targets are male or female. (And I have to admit, I was doing some of that here myself at first… and maybe still am, relative to non-tech discussion norms.)
Anyway, I guess what I’m trying to say that LW is not (IMO) an especially friendly forum for instrumental rationalists at the present time. And if the gender stereotype from computing applies, then it is therefore also not a particularly friendly forum for women who haven’t already gotten thick-skinned through similar experiences in a technology field. (i.e., if we assume that women are statistically more likely to orient on practical and social applications of a field than men in that same field are.)
Strongly seconded. To sum up the most important points:
Instrumental rationality has its own skillset, related to but far from identical to the current OB/LW corpus. It’s a skillset we need if we want to deal well with the practical world.
Right now, folks with skill at instrumental rationality who come upon LW are likely to leave again. We aren’t set up to give them what they’re looking for, or to avoid misinterpreting them, or to ask for what they can teach us.
Adding a partial focus on practical, visible applications (i.e., including instrumental rationality in LW) might well improve the gender balance.
I’m pleased to note that there’s rather more instrumental rationality at LW (though perhaps not so much recently), with AnnaSalamon having contributed a good bit of it.