This is why I have zero faith in the forum community on this website—no matter how many times they read “one argument against an army” or “substance screens off source,” they will continue to do those exact things whenever confronted with outgroup memes. Those arguments are soldiers, and they cannot be deployed against their homeland.
I don’t know how receptive this community would be to radical feminist arguments argued politely and in good faith.
I mean, I could walk up to someone and say “hey, big-nose, if you pulled your head out of your arse and had more brain cells you’d realize that rabbits should have the right to vote”, and then use his hostile reaction as evidence of people’s irrational and knee-jerk hostility to rabbit rights.
A few months ago a white nationalist posted a video of his on race relations or something, insulted everybody in the comments, and then claimed that he was being oppressed for his politically incorrect views.
It’s impossible to have “good faith” as a rationalist. I have an accurate understanding of LW, and if voicing that understanding as a prediction and being slightly snarky about it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, so be it.
But also, I think it’s false as a matter of simple fact to say that my only argument is the stupidity of LWers. That was an entirely tangential garnish of snark in my original post, and it wasn’t my decision to start focusing on it. It goes to show that the LW community isn’t capable of discussing things in these (or any other outgroup) spaces like calm and rational adults as discussed in the OP. They’ll use that as an applause light, but they won’t actually constrain their behavior.
Further, the best indicator of upvotes for my comments is the degree of buzzwords they use. I guess that white nationalist didn’t say “modeling” enough.
If you think that expressing this prediction (that LWers are essentially human) is somehow insulting, than perhaps you need to reconsider the degree to which you accept abstractions like honest criticism and crocker’s rules.
It’s impossible to have “good faith” as a rationalist. I have an accurate understanding of LW, and if voicing that understanding as a prediction and being slightly snarky about it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, so be it.
Others here contest that your understanding is accurate. Please recognize that you cannot fairly expect us to take the assertion that you are right and we are wrong as given.
People occasionally come here and make criticisms of ideas accepted by the in-group here, and are heavily upvoted for bringing well-formulated criticisms to the table (the highest voted post on Less Wrong is an example,) and some posters such as XiXiDu have gotten most of their karma in this way.
On other occasions, people come here and argue, for instance, that we should all reject Bayesianism because Popper proved induction is impossible, or that mainstream physics is completely wrong and science should be about making descriptions of the world that make intuitive sense rather than making accurate predictions about reality. And they argue fiercely that their poor reception is proof of how bad we are at evaluating ideas that challenge in-group beliefs.
Now, maybe we are rejecting key arguments of yours because we’re too biased, and you are completely right about these matters and we are wrong (I do not think this is the case, of course, while you have made it clear that you think it is,) but if you just come out and say as much in those words, then it should be no surprise if people start pattern matching you as a crank rather than a valuable contributor of outside ideas.
If, as a rationalist, you want to win, (and you’ve said before that feminism is your thing to protect,) then engaging in self fulfilling prophesies about your own poor reception is a bad idea. Seriously, really really try not to do that, unless you’re not actually trying to encourage people to oppose patriarchy, and are just venting or trying to try.
People occasionally come here and make criticisms of ideas accepted by the in-group here, and are heavily upvoted for bringing well-formulated criticisms to the table (the highest voted post on Less Wrong is an example,) and some posters such as XiXiDu have gotten most of their karma in this way.
Please do not introduce new people-who-are-displaying-trollish-behavior to XiXiDu as a role model.
People occasionally come here and make criticisms of ideas accepted by the in-group here, and are heavily upvoted for bringing well-formulated criticisms to the table (the highest voted post on Less Wrong is an example,) and some posters such as XiXiDu have gotten most of their karma in this way.
These are always the equivalent of small quibbles within the meme pool that is already accepted, not arguing for something totally outside that set (like feminism, or leftist politics, or in general social-constructivist hypotheses rather than biological hypotheses.
then engaging in self fulfilling prophesies about your own poor reception is a bad idea.
No, because the expected utility of wasting time on less wrong is negative to begin with. I don’t think anything I say could convince anyone of feminist politics. The strategies I think will win in politics have nothing to do with comments on a message board.
No, because the expected utility of wasting time on less wrong is negative to begin with. I don’t think anything I say could convince anyone of feminist politics.
....Then why are you doing it?
I’ve been bothering to engage with you at all out of a (waning) unwillingness to write you off as an unreasonable person incapable of holding a conversation with people you disagree with that leads to any productive conclusions. You started this conversation professing a conviction that everyone else here was too biased and irrational to engage with you, and you would simply be jumped on without consideration, and you have by all appearances become even more entrenched in that position. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I started participating out of the belief that there was a fair chance you were a largely reasonable person who held some positions I disagreed with, and through civil discussion one or both of us could learn something and change our minds. I have become convinced that I was mistaken, so I’m not going to engage with you any more.
So why are you, who have professed to believe that this was pointless all along, still bothering?
Wei_Dai is mostly correct—I sometimes have downtime during the day, and I think it’s moderately better for me to spend two or five minutes composing a counter-argument about feminism on less wrong than it is for me to spend that time looking at funny pictures on Reddit.
LW is almost entirely men, and men get very prickly when confronted with the concept of gender privilege, so my probability of success was virtually zero from the start, and almost certainly that given that I’m unwilling to do the requisite amount of hand-holding that you really have to do to get men to admit that there might be a point to feminism.
This whole meta-line has been incredibly boring, I have to say.
I’m unwilling to do the requisite amount of hand-holding that you really have to do to get men to admit that there might be a point to feminism.
To be fair, your task is much more difficult, since you’re attempting to convert us men to radical feminism, specifically. Thus, you must overcome not only our innate desire to keep our privilege, but also the efforts of liberal feminists who explicitly deny some of your claims.
Speaking as a non-feminist (radical or otherwise) man, though, I must say that I find your description of your views to be clear and coherent, which is a lot more than I can say for other sources. Thus, even though you may never convert me personally, I think you do have a non-zero chance of converting others.
But also, I think it’s false as a matter of simple fact to say that my only argument is the stupidity of LWers. That was an entirely tangential garnish of snark in my original post, and it wasn’t my decision to start focusing on it.
I agree that it was tangential to your point (it was much less so for that white nationalist guy); but that kind of thing—snark, accusations against the community in general, angry-sounding tone, etc. - are probably the biggest cause of the downvoting and deletion of your posts.
I agree that in an ideal world we should be able to look beyond such superficial things as tone and snarky side comments, and just focus on the meat and bones of the argument—but as things are there are still very good reasons to discourage distracting insults, and try to keep the discussion civil, les the discussion degenerates into one where only insults are exchanged.
I don’t think Crocker’s rules are supposed to apply to everybody here or to the community in general. And I don’t think calling it “honest criticism” makes anything acceptable.
I know I’ve downvoted several of your posts, and it was never for any argument related to feminism (I was interested in reading up on stuff like the kyriarchy (however you spell that) or intersectionality), but for saying stupid things about the community or about how you were going to be downvoted.
They’ll use that as an applause light, but they won’t actually constrain their behavior.
FWIW I think that the majority of people arguing with you on these threads have stayed on topic, and attacked your argument rather than yourself—which is much more than I can say about pretty much any other Internet forum. Of course, I am admittedly biased, since I myself do not support your position.
That said, when you say or imply things like “the only possible reason you’d downvote me is to express out-group hatred, so go ahead, make my day”—as you did in one of your opening posts—you do make it very easy for people to dismiss you as a troll, and downvote you accordingly. This is, as you said, a self-fulfilling prophecy, and is thus not indicative of whether “the LW community is capable of discussing things like calm and rational adults”. Even calm and rational adults would gladly kick out a disruptive and belligerent troll.
FWIW I personally do not believe that you are the kind of troll who deserves an automatic downvote or ban, but I’m just some random user, so my opinion doesn’t carry any weight.
I think that the majority of people arguing with [eridu] on these threads have stayed on topic, and attacked [eridu’s] argument rather than [eridu]-- which is much more than I can say about pretty much any other Internet forum.
Agreed, and this is a major reason why I am much less concerned about threads like these on LW than Eliezer is.
FWIW I think that the majority of people arguing with you on these threads have stayed on topic, and attacked your argument rather than yourself—which is much more than I can say about pretty much any other Internet forum. Of course, I am admittedly biased, since I myself do not support your position.
I think this is incorrect.
The discussion I originally started was, in keeping with the main original post of this thread, “evolutionary psychology continues the oppression of women, and as such is sexist in any meaningful sense.”
Quickly, it devolved into “what are eridu’s feminist politics,” which is a proxy for “how stupid is eridu.” “Feminist politics” are a property of “eridu,” much like “intelligence” might be, and by focusing on that property of myself rather than on the arguments I was making.
A counterfactual world where the argument stayed on-topic would mean that we’d be talking about evolutionary psychology now.
Quickly, it devolved into “what are eridu’s feminist politics,” which is a proxy for “how stupid is eridu.”
Being wrong is not the same as being stupid.
A counterfactual world where the argument stayed on-topic would mean that we’d be talking about evolutionary psychology now.
It would’ve been impossible to understand your opposition to evolutionary psychology without first understanding your feminist politics.
That said, IMO the on-topic discussion was over when you made it clear that you value advancing your cause more than you value acquiring true beliefs and talking about them. The resulting loss of credibility made it very difficult (and, for some of your interlocutors, impossible) to engage you in rational conversation on the topic of whether evolutionary psychology is capable of producing true beliefs.
That said, I am personally fascinated by your stated goal of eliminating gender outright; I’ve never heard any feminist describe their goals so clearly. Thus I did learn something during these discussions, and I don’t consider them a waste.
That said, IMO the on-topic discussion was over when you made it clear that you value advancing your cause more than you value acquiring true beliefs and talking about them.
I think this is a misguided reading of what I’ve been saying.
I value advancing feminism more than I value publishing true facts. I don’t have any particular affiliation for the truth as an ideal, just as an instrument to obtain my goals (which I think is true for most LWers).
When those two things conflict, I favor not publishing, and advancing feminism.
I see this as virtually identical to EY’s and the SIAI’s stance on AGI research. Most outcomes of AGI research are hugely negative to them, so they oppose the research taking place. I actually never thought of the idea of censoring (by any means) the scientific process until reading EYs tracts on the flaws of the scientific method, and the various stories where EY decries teaching things to those who cannot understand them.
It would’ve been impossible to understand your opposition to evolutionary psychology without first understanding your feminist politics.
I had already operationalized what I considered to be the bad outcome; people just thought it was so outlandish that they started trying to talk about my political beliefs instead, which brings us to
Being wrong is not the same as being stupid.
A political belief is a preference between world-states. A preference can’t be false (I could lie about my preferences, but I do have some set of preferences, and I known of no way to say that a preference for apples over oranges could be “false” in some way).
At about the third level of comments in this thread (some may be deleted, but I seem to be able to access them—I could give you my account password or save the .json if you want), you can start to see people switching over from discussing whether evolutionary psychology as currently practiced leads to the oppression (in some way operationally defined in that thread) of women, to interrogating me as to what I believe. The most blatent examples of this are people posting unrelated hypotheticals and links to blog posts, asking me to comment on them.
Further, though what was probably my own failure of communication, people started getting entirely the wrong messages from my posts, including:
rational conversation on the topic of whether evolutionary psychology is capable of producing true beliefs.
I hoped that I had made this clear before, but apparently I haven’t:
Evolutionary psychology is capable of producing beliefs that highly correlate to reality
These true beliefs, propagated in patriarchal society, extend its lifespan
Thus, evolutionary psychology tends to support patriarchy
Thus evolutionary psychology is sexist.
Maybe too many LWers conflate “true” with “non-sexist”, but the truth of evolutionary psychology is never something I cared about.
I hoped that I had made this clear before, but apparently I haven’t:
Evolutionary psychology is capable of producing beliefs that highly correlate to reality
These true beliefs, propagated in patriarchal society, extend its lifespan
Thus, evolutionary psychology tends to support patriarchy
Thus evolutionary psychology is sexist.
Something that perhaps you have made clear in other postings I have not read, but not in this one, is what consequences for action you derive from those bullet points. Given your attitude to the truth as “just” as instrument, and thus not especially to be valued above other instruments, such as falsehood, I am guessing that the consequences you would derive would be along these lines:
Since these true beliefs, propagated in patriarchal society, extend its lifespan, they should not be propagated.
The questions that were asked, the answering of which resulted in these true beliefs, should not be asked.
Or if asked, false answers should be propagated instead, answers which, if believed, would tend to undermine patriarchy.
And since the actual investigation of these matters tends to result in true answers rather than false ones, actual investigation should not be performed, but instead, false answers should first be decided on and then investigations designed to lead to these false answers.
Truth and lies are worth nothing in themselves. Each is to be valued from case to case only according to whether it supports or undermines patriarchy.
But since the truth on these particular matters tends to support patriarchy, while lies can be crafted to point in any direction as easily as any other, so long as the patriarchy exists a concern with truth is itself supportive of patriarchy.
Only when we have achieved the feminist paradise can we safely seek the truth in all things. Until then, truth is lies and lies are truth.
Is that an accurate extrapolation of what you believe?
And since the actual investigation of these matters tends to result in true answers rather than false ones,
Patriarchal bias will reliably cause most of these investigations to return false results.
Further, false results that are more in line with existing patriarchal ideas will be propagated further than any true result.
This is true:
Only when we have achieved the feminist paradise can we safely seek the truth in all things. Until then, truth is lies and lies are truth.
But for the opposite reason you claim: “Truth” is a social process rather than an Aristotelian absolute, and under the social regime of patriarchy, “truth” will be mostly false, similarly to how in 1850, white supremacy was simply “truth.”
I see this as virtually identical to EY’s and the SIAI’s stance on AGI research.
I agree, which is why I think that both you and EY/SIAI are equally wrong. I believe that the utility of “publishing true facts”—and, by extension, learning which facts are true to begin with—greatly exceeds the utility of advancing any given cause (at least, in the long term). Without having accurate models at your disposal, you cannot effectively pursue your goals.
For example, consider quantum physics. Given its potential for unimaginable destruction, would you have supported suppressing all research in this area of physics, circa 1911 or so ?
you can start to see people switching over from discussing whether evolutionary psychology as currently practiced leads to the oppression (in some way operationally defined in that thread) of women, to interrogating me as to what I believe. The most blatent examples of this are people posting unrelated hypotheticals...
Guilty as charged. In my defence, though, I could not understand your beliefs about evolutionary psychology without understanding what you mean by “oppression of women”; and, more generally, without understanding your views on gender relations in general. As I said earlier, “oppression” is a word that can mean very different things to different people.
...Thus, evolutionary psychology tends to support patriarchy … Thus evolutionary psychology is sexist.
I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t understand where you’d draw the line. For example, consider discrete mathematics. Its applications allow us to generate and distribute text, video, audio, and other media in increasingly more efficient ways. Much of this media—if not most of it—directly supports patriarchy in one way or another. Does this mean that discrete math is sexist ? My guess is that you’d answer “no” (I know I would), but I’m not sure why you would come to that conclusion, given your line of reasoning.
For example, consider quantum physics. Given its potential for unimaginable destruction, would you have supported suppressing all research in this area of physics, circa 1911 or so ?
I agree with EY on this, I believe—I think that the world would be a better place if Manhattan Project scientists, German scientists, and all other scientists had realized the destructive implications of fission research and kept the information required to make nuclear weapons secret.
My guess is that you’d answer “no” (I know I would), but I’m not sure why you would come to that conclusion, given your line of reasoning.
I’d say no, because most people don’t see discrete math as providing evidence as to why patriarchy is natural and therefore good.
But on the other hand, I’d say yes, because all of society is patriarchal, and so the destruction of patriarchy will affect all of society.
If you asked me whether the existing reality (composing textbooks, teachers, research journals, etc.) of discrete math is sexist, I’d certainly say yes, and point to the ways that women are systematically excluded from those social groups.
The fundamental thing that most LW commenters, including you, are getting, is that I don’t care about platonic abstractions of things like “truth” or “discrete mathematics.” I care about humans in the real world.
I think that the world would be a better place if Manhattan Project scientists, German scientists, and all other scientists had realized the destructive implications of fission research and kept the information required to make nuclear weapons secret.
Makes sense, but I disagree with both EY and yourself about this.
Yes, the world would be better off if we never invented nuclear weapons. However, the same exact knowledge that enables the construction of nuclear weapons also enabled the construction of all modern electronics, as well as this Internet itself (just to bring up a few examples). The utility of these applied technologies, as well as the potential utility of future technologies that will build upon sciences that themselves are built on top of modern physics, greatly outweighs the (admittedly huge) disutility of nuclear weapons.
One possible answer is, “well, in this case the scientists should’ve advanced their science in secret”, but I don’t believe that such a thing is possible, for a variety of reasons.
...I don’t care about platonic abstractions of things like “truth” or “discrete mathematics.” I care about humans in the real world.
Fair enough, but then, you have a case of conflicting goals. For example, do you believe that resources should be spent on studying discrete math, in its present form ? On the one hand, its potential applications are quite useful for improving the quality of life of all people, women included. On the other hand, a (possibly large) portion of every dollar and every hour you spend on studying discrete math will go toward reinforcing the patriarchal structures inherent in “textbooks, teachers, research journals, etc.”. So, should we study discrete math, or not ?
I don’t have any particular affiliation for the truth as an ideal, just as an instrument to obtain my goals
Then you undervalue the instrument. Truth, and knowing how to find it, is the instrument, above all others, which makes possible everything else that we do.
I disagree with the claim that the entire LW community, or even a majority of it, is incapable of discussing this subject rationally, and I also disagree with the claim that most LWers will assign karma to your posts based on buzzword content.
However, I find your other claims and the overall assessment of the situation minus the above to correlate rather strongly with what has experimentally actually happened so far in the discussion in the majority of what I observed.
It goes to show that the LW community isn’t capable of discussing things in these (or any other outgroup) spaces like calm and rational adults as discussed in the OP. They’ll use that as an applause light, but they won’t actually constrain their behavior.
Further, the best indicator of upvotes for my comments is the degree of buzzwords they use. I guess that white nationalist didn’t say “modeling” enough.
I agree with this part. LessWrong really really really likes its buzzwords. The most charitable interpretation that I can give is that there’s short inferential differences involved, but I wouldn’t be very surprised if it had to do with that “insight addiction” theory someone mentioned earlier in one of the discussion threads. In-group and out-group signalling is probably also related to this, because LessWrongers are human.
It’s probably this overuse of buzzwords which leads to the relatively widespread perception that LessWrongers are a groupthinking cult that worships Eliezer, so I think LessWrong should maybe start to move away from the buzzwords a bit.
I also agree that LessWrongers respond to criticism badly, and use tone arguments as an excuse too often, but I don’t really have anything to add to the discussion on that score; I just wanted to note my agreement.
I don’t know how receptive this community would be to radical feminist arguments argued politely and in good faith.
I mean, I could walk up to someone and say “hey, big-nose, if you pulled your head out of your arse and had more brain cells you’d realize that rabbits should have the right to vote”, and then use his hostile reaction as evidence of people’s irrational and knee-jerk hostility to rabbit rights.
A few months ago a white nationalist posted a video of his on race relations or something, insulted everybody in the comments, and then claimed that he was being oppressed for his politically incorrect views.
It’s impossible to have “good faith” as a rationalist. I have an accurate understanding of LW, and if voicing that understanding as a prediction and being slightly snarky about it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, so be it.
But also, I think it’s false as a matter of simple fact to say that my only argument is the stupidity of LWers. That was an entirely tangential garnish of snark in my original post, and it wasn’t my decision to start focusing on it. It goes to show that the LW community isn’t capable of discussing things in these (or any other outgroup) spaces like calm and rational adults as discussed in the OP. They’ll use that as an applause light, but they won’t actually constrain their behavior.
Further, the best indicator of upvotes for my comments is the degree of buzzwords they use. I guess that white nationalist didn’t say “modeling” enough.
If you think that expressing this prediction (that LWers are essentially human) is somehow insulting, than perhaps you need to reconsider the degree to which you accept abstractions like honest criticism and crocker’s rules.
Others here contest that your understanding is accurate. Please recognize that you cannot fairly expect us to take the assertion that you are right and we are wrong as given.
People occasionally come here and make criticisms of ideas accepted by the in-group here, and are heavily upvoted for bringing well-formulated criticisms to the table (the highest voted post on Less Wrong is an example,) and some posters such as XiXiDu have gotten most of their karma in this way.
On other occasions, people come here and argue, for instance, that we should all reject Bayesianism because Popper proved induction is impossible, or that mainstream physics is completely wrong and science should be about making descriptions of the world that make intuitive sense rather than making accurate predictions about reality. And they argue fiercely that their poor reception is proof of how bad we are at evaluating ideas that challenge in-group beliefs.
Now, maybe we are rejecting key arguments of yours because we’re too biased, and you are completely right about these matters and we are wrong (I do not think this is the case, of course, while you have made it clear that you think it is,) but if you just come out and say as much in those words, then it should be no surprise if people start pattern matching you as a crank rather than a valuable contributor of outside ideas.
If, as a rationalist, you want to win, (and you’ve said before that feminism is your thing to protect,) then engaging in self fulfilling prophesies about your own poor reception is a bad idea. Seriously, really really try not to do that, unless you’re not actually trying to encourage people to oppose patriarchy, and are just venting or trying to try.
Please do not introduce new people-who-are-displaying-trollish-behavior to XiXiDu as a role model.
These are always the equivalent of small quibbles within the meme pool that is already accepted, not arguing for something totally outside that set (like feminism, or leftist politics, or in general social-constructivist hypotheses rather than biological hypotheses.
No, because the expected utility of wasting time on less wrong is negative to begin with. I don’t think anything I say could convince anyone of feminist politics. The strategies I think will win in politics have nothing to do with comments on a message board.
....Then why are you doing it?
I’ve been bothering to engage with you at all out of a (waning) unwillingness to write you off as an unreasonable person incapable of holding a conversation with people you disagree with that leads to any productive conclusions. You started this conversation professing a conviction that everyone else here was too biased and irrational to engage with you, and you would simply be jumped on without consideration, and you have by all appearances become even more entrenched in that position. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I started participating out of the belief that there was a fair chance you were a largely reasonable person who held some positions I disagreed with, and through civil discussion one or both of us could learn something and change our minds. I have become convinced that I was mistaken, so I’m not going to engage with you any more.
So why are you, who have professed to believe that this was pointless all along, still bothering?
In one of the comments Eliezer banned, which you can still see here, eridu said:
Wei_Dai is mostly correct—I sometimes have downtime during the day, and I think it’s moderately better for me to spend two or five minutes composing a counter-argument about feminism on less wrong than it is for me to spend that time looking at funny pictures on Reddit.
LW is almost entirely men, and men get very prickly when confronted with the concept of gender privilege, so my probability of success was virtually zero from the start, and almost certainly that given that I’m unwilling to do the requisite amount of hand-holding that you really have to do to get men to admit that there might be a point to feminism.
This whole meta-line has been incredibly boring, I have to say.
To be fair, your task is much more difficult, since you’re attempting to convert us men to radical feminism, specifically. Thus, you must overcome not only our innate desire to keep our privilege, but also the efforts of liberal feminists who explicitly deny some of your claims.
Speaking as a non-feminist (radical or otherwise) man, though, I must say that I find your description of your views to be clear and coherent, which is a lot more than I can say for other sources. Thus, even though you may never convert me personally, I think you do have a non-zero chance of converting others.
I agree that it was tangential to your point (it was much less so for that white nationalist guy); but that kind of thing—snark, accusations against the community in general, angry-sounding tone, etc. - are probably the biggest cause of the downvoting and deletion of your posts.
I agree that in an ideal world we should be able to look beyond such superficial things as tone and snarky side comments, and just focus on the meat and bones of the argument—but as things are there are still very good reasons to discourage distracting insults, and try to keep the discussion civil, les the discussion degenerates into one where only insults are exchanged.
I don’t think Crocker’s rules are supposed to apply to everybody here or to the community in general. And I don’t think calling it “honest criticism” makes anything acceptable.
I know I’ve downvoted several of your posts, and it was never for any argument related to feminism (I was interested in reading up on stuff like the kyriarchy (however you spell that) or intersectionality), but for saying stupid things about the community or about how you were going to be downvoted.
If I attached a prediction to it predictionbook-style, would you upvote, downvote, or be neutral?
My posts have been deleted? Interesting.
Mostly. They no longer appear in the threads in which you made them, but are still visible in your user history.
FWIW I think that the majority of people arguing with you on these threads have stayed on topic, and attacked your argument rather than yourself—which is much more than I can say about pretty much any other Internet forum. Of course, I am admittedly biased, since I myself do not support your position.
That said, when you say or imply things like “the only possible reason you’d downvote me is to express out-group hatred, so go ahead, make my day”—as you did in one of your opening posts—you do make it very easy for people to dismiss you as a troll, and downvote you accordingly. This is, as you said, a self-fulfilling prophecy, and is thus not indicative of whether “the LW community is capable of discussing things like calm and rational adults”. Even calm and rational adults would gladly kick out a disruptive and belligerent troll.
FWIW I personally do not believe that you are the kind of troll who deserves an automatic downvote or ban, but I’m just some random user, so my opinion doesn’t carry any weight.
Agreed, and this is a major reason why I am much less concerned about threads like these on LW than Eliezer is.
I think this is incorrect.
The discussion I originally started was, in keeping with the main original post of this thread, “evolutionary psychology continues the oppression of women, and as such is sexist in any meaningful sense.”
Quickly, it devolved into “what are eridu’s feminist politics,” which is a proxy for “how stupid is eridu.” “Feminist politics” are a property of “eridu,” much like “intelligence” might be, and by focusing on that property of myself rather than on the arguments I was making.
A counterfactual world where the argument stayed on-topic would mean that we’d be talking about evolutionary psychology now.
Being wrong is not the same as being stupid.
It would’ve been impossible to understand your opposition to evolutionary psychology without first understanding your feminist politics.
That said, IMO the on-topic discussion was over when you made it clear that you value advancing your cause more than you value acquiring true beliefs and talking about them. The resulting loss of credibility made it very difficult (and, for some of your interlocutors, impossible) to engage you in rational conversation on the topic of whether evolutionary psychology is capable of producing true beliefs.
That said, I am personally fascinated by your stated goal of eliminating gender outright; I’ve never heard any feminist describe their goals so clearly. Thus I did learn something during these discussions, and I don’t consider them a waste.
I think this is a misguided reading of what I’ve been saying.
I value advancing feminism more than I value publishing true facts. I don’t have any particular affiliation for the truth as an ideal, just as an instrument to obtain my goals (which I think is true for most LWers).
When those two things conflict, I favor not publishing, and advancing feminism.
I see this as virtually identical to EY’s and the SIAI’s stance on AGI research. Most outcomes of AGI research are hugely negative to them, so they oppose the research taking place. I actually never thought of the idea of censoring (by any means) the scientific process until reading EYs tracts on the flaws of the scientific method, and the various stories where EY decries teaching things to those who cannot understand them.
I had already operationalized what I considered to be the bad outcome; people just thought it was so outlandish that they started trying to talk about my political beliefs instead, which brings us to
A political belief is a preference between world-states. A preference can’t be false (I could lie about my preferences, but I do have some set of preferences, and I known of no way to say that a preference for apples over oranges could be “false” in some way).
At about the third level of comments in this thread (some may be deleted, but I seem to be able to access them—I could give you my account password or save the .json if you want), you can start to see people switching over from discussing whether evolutionary psychology as currently practiced leads to the oppression (in some way operationally defined in that thread) of women, to interrogating me as to what I believe. The most blatent examples of this are people posting unrelated hypotheticals and links to blog posts, asking me to comment on them.
Further, though what was probably my own failure of communication, people started getting entirely the wrong messages from my posts, including:
I hoped that I had made this clear before, but apparently I haven’t:
Evolutionary psychology is capable of producing beliefs that highly correlate to reality
These true beliefs, propagated in patriarchal society, extend its lifespan
Thus, evolutionary psychology tends to support patriarchy
Thus evolutionary psychology is sexist.
Maybe too many LWers conflate “true” with “non-sexist”, but the truth of evolutionary psychology is never something I cared about.
Something that perhaps you have made clear in other postings I have not read, but not in this one, is what consequences for action you derive from those bullet points. Given your attitude to the truth as “just” as instrument, and thus not especially to be valued above other instruments, such as falsehood, I am guessing that the consequences you would derive would be along these lines:
Since these true beliefs, propagated in patriarchal society, extend its lifespan, they should not be propagated.
The questions that were asked, the answering of which resulted in these true beliefs, should not be asked.
Or if asked, false answers should be propagated instead, answers which, if believed, would tend to undermine patriarchy.
And since the actual investigation of these matters tends to result in true answers rather than false ones, actual investigation should not be performed, but instead, false answers should first be decided on and then investigations designed to lead to these false answers.
Truth and lies are worth nothing in themselves. Each is to be valued from case to case only according to whether it supports or undermines patriarchy.
But since the truth on these particular matters tends to support patriarchy, while lies can be crafted to point in any direction as easily as any other, so long as the patriarchy exists a concern with truth is itself supportive of patriarchy.
Only when we have achieved the feminist paradise can we safely seek the truth in all things. Until then, truth is lies and lies are truth.
Is that an accurate extrapolation of what you believe?
No. It breaks down here:
Patriarchal bias will reliably cause most of these investigations to return false results.
Further, false results that are more in line with existing patriarchal ideas will be propagated further than any true result.
This is true:
But for the opposite reason you claim: “Truth” is a social process rather than an Aristotelian absolute, and under the social regime of patriarchy, “truth” will be mostly false, similarly to how in 1850, white supremacy was simply “truth.”
I agree, which is why I think that both you and EY/SIAI are equally wrong. I believe that the utility of “publishing true facts”—and, by extension, learning which facts are true to begin with—greatly exceeds the utility of advancing any given cause (at least, in the long term). Without having accurate models at your disposal, you cannot effectively pursue your goals.
For example, consider quantum physics. Given its potential for unimaginable destruction, would you have supported suppressing all research in this area of physics, circa 1911 or so ?
Guilty as charged. In my defence, though, I could not understand your beliefs about evolutionary psychology without understanding what you mean by “oppression of women”; and, more generally, without understanding your views on gender relations in general. As I said earlier, “oppression” is a word that can mean very different things to different people.
I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t understand where you’d draw the line. For example, consider discrete mathematics. Its applications allow us to generate and distribute text, video, audio, and other media in increasingly more efficient ways. Much of this media—if not most of it—directly supports patriarchy in one way or another. Does this mean that discrete math is sexist ? My guess is that you’d answer “no” (I know I would), but I’m not sure why you would come to that conclusion, given your line of reasoning.
I agree with EY on this, I believe—I think that the world would be a better place if Manhattan Project scientists, German scientists, and all other scientists had realized the destructive implications of fission research and kept the information required to make nuclear weapons secret.
I’d say no, because most people don’t see discrete math as providing evidence as to why patriarchy is natural and therefore good.
But on the other hand, I’d say yes, because all of society is patriarchal, and so the destruction of patriarchy will affect all of society.
If you asked me whether the existing reality (composing textbooks, teachers, research journals, etc.) of discrete math is sexist, I’d certainly say yes, and point to the ways that women are systematically excluded from those social groups.
The fundamental thing that most LW commenters, including you, are getting, is that I don’t care about platonic abstractions of things like “truth” or “discrete mathematics.” I care about humans in the real world.
Makes sense, but I disagree with both EY and yourself about this.
Yes, the world would be better off if we never invented nuclear weapons. However, the same exact knowledge that enables the construction of nuclear weapons also enabled the construction of all modern electronics, as well as this Internet itself (just to bring up a few examples). The utility of these applied technologies, as well as the potential utility of future technologies that will build upon sciences that themselves are built on top of modern physics, greatly outweighs the (admittedly huge) disutility of nuclear weapons.
One possible answer is, “well, in this case the scientists should’ve advanced their science in secret”, but I don’t believe that such a thing is possible, for a variety of reasons.
Fair enough, but then, you have a case of conflicting goals. For example, do you believe that resources should be spent on studying discrete math, in its present form ? On the one hand, its potential applications are quite useful for improving the quality of life of all people, women included. On the other hand, a (possibly large) portion of every dollar and every hour you spend on studying discrete math will go toward reinforcing the patriarchal structures inherent in “textbooks, teachers, research journals, etc.”. So, should we study discrete math, or not ?
Then you undervalue the instrument. Truth, and knowing how to find it, is the instrument, above all others, which makes possible everything else that we do.
Is there anything you would not do to obtain some truth?
If so, you value that thing more than you value that truth.
I disagree with the claim that the entire LW community, or even a majority of it, is incapable of discussing this subject rationally, and I also disagree with the claim that most LWers will assign karma to your posts based on buzzword content.
However, I find your other claims and the overall assessment of the situation minus the above to correlate rather strongly with what has experimentally actually happened so far in the discussion in the majority of what I observed.
I agree with this part. LessWrong really really really likes its buzzwords. The most charitable interpretation that I can give is that there’s short inferential differences involved, but I wouldn’t be very surprised if it had to do with that “insight addiction” theory someone mentioned earlier in one of the discussion threads. In-group and out-group signalling is probably also related to this, because LessWrongers are human.
It’s probably this overuse of buzzwords which leads to the relatively widespread perception that LessWrongers are a groupthinking cult that worships Eliezer, so I think LessWrong should maybe start to move away from the buzzwords a bit.
I also agree that LessWrongers respond to criticism badly, and use tone arguments as an excuse too often, but I don’t really have anything to add to the discussion on that score; I just wanted to note my agreement.