If you uncover differences it may be a good idea to look at their origins...
I think it’s pretty obvious that there are many differences between genders. Even eridu would agree to this, IMO, since his stated objective is to eliminate gender in order to eliminate the differences.
Any difference large and widespread enough to make group-level rather than individual-level policy should hit you between the eyes.
That’s just a recipe for indulging your own biases, IMO. That said, I doubt that differences between gender currently justify group-level policy (other than in specialized cases such as medical treatment, etc.). We’re not arguing over whether gender bias exists (I believe that it does) or whether we should adopt patriarchal policies (I believe that we should not).
Rather, the argument is over whether the very act of studying specific aspects of human biology and/or psychology constitutes an extremely harmful act and should immediately be stopped. I believe that it does not.
I think it’s pretty obvious that there are many differences between genders. Even eridu would agree to this, IMO, since his stated objective is to eliminate gender in order to eliminate the differences.
This is why I think the distinction between gender and sex is so helpful. It is not obvious to me that there are gender differences, even though I agree with you that there are obvious sex differences. Eridu appears to want to eliminate sex differences, while I merely want to abolish gender differences.
Consider the taboo in modern society against female chest nudity. It’s obvious to any subscriber to National Geographic that this norm is not an inherent part of human society. So I think the norm is a gender-norm, not a sex-norm.
Properly speaking, evo. psych has nothing to say about gender and gender-norms. Only sex and sex-norms. But society as a whole resists the distinct, and scientists rely on the halo effect to support that blurring of what should be relatively distinct concepts.
Someone more radical than I would like point out that the distinction is much fuzzier than I suggest. (Consider social pressure to perform surgery to “fix” intersex infants). (shrug). There’s a lot of low hanging fruit in social engineering before a precise resolution of that issue is really necessary.
It is not obvious to me that there are gender differences, even though I agree with you that there are obvious sex differences. … Eridu appears to want to eliminate sex differences, while I merely want to abolish gender differences.
I don’t think I get what you mean by “sex differences” vs. “gender differences”; eridu claims he wants to eliminate gender, not sex. Can you explain your definitions ? You bring up the example below:
It’s obvious to any subscriber to National Geographic that this norm is not an inherent part of human society. So I think the norm is a gender-norm, not a sex-norm.
I agree with you there, and this is a gender difference, but I’m not sure how your view on this contrasts with eridu’s. Surely eridu doesn’t want to eliminate secondary sexual characteristics… does he ?
I think eridu wants secondary sex characteristics to stop being morally relevant (i.e. never treat women different than men). I think that’s impossible—but society is not careful about what really is a secondary sex characteristic.
I think eridu wants secondary sex characteristics to stop being morally relevant (i.e. never treat women different than men). I think that’s impossible...
As far as I can tell, so does he, which is why he wants to destroy gender altogether. Once he’s done, we won’t have “men” and “women” at all; we’d just have “people with sexual organs A” and “people with sexual organs B” (plus a small number of others with C, D, etc.). By analogy, today we (mostly) don’t have separate identities for different hair or eye colors; it’s just a meaningless biological quirk (again, mostly).
One problem with this goal is that if gender truly is dependent on sex to any meaningful extent, then the goal cannot be achieved through purely social means. This is one of the reasons why I believe that evo-psych specifically, and evolutionary biology in general, should not be banned, despite its possible negative consequences.
I should also mention that I am sympathetic to the goal; it’s not a bad idea. However, it would be an immense undertaking, and you don’t want to commit an immense amount of resources to a goal unless you can be reasonably sure it’s achievable at least in principle.
(On a sidenote, eridu did claim that “treating women different than men” is impossible, because the patriarchy is pervasive and omnipresent. Even when you think you’re treating women the same as men, you aren’t—which is why he’s against liberal feminism.)
(On a sidenote, eridu did claim that “treating women different than men” is impossible, because the patriarchy is pervasive and omnipresent. Even when you think you’re treating women the same as men, you aren’t—which is why he’s against liberal feminism.)
A very small piece of evidence that eridu might have a point: A while ago, I was faced with a person who I didn’t know at the time was a transexual in transition. I felt like I didn’t know what to do or say to them. (I’m reasonably sure I just looked blank at the time, or at least we’re on decent terms since then. I haven’t mentioned that reaction to the person, and they’ve since tranisitioned to a standard gender.)
It did feel to me as though I had separate behavior sets for dealing with men and with women, and was at a loss when I didn’t know which set to apply. I haven’t explored how the sets might be different, but maybe I should.
It did feel to me as though I had separate behavior sets for dealing with men and with women
Me too, but 1) the sets do overlap by a substantial amount, and 2) I think it’s more a case of potential sexual partners vs everyone else than of women vs men—with women I’m not sexually attracted to at all, I behave pretty much the same as if they were male (except for different cultural norms such as—in Italy—kissing them on the cheek instead of shaking hands, which I don’t consider any more relevant that the use of different pronouns). (Edited to replace ″romantic″ with ″sexual″ -- I’ve introspected myself and ISTM that the set of people with whom I’d use the first set of behaviours almost exactly coincide with the set of people with whom I’d want to have protected sex if they offered, and promised not to tell anybody and to try not to let that affect our future interactions in any way—which is a somewhat broader criterion than me being willing to have a monogamous romantic relationship with them.)
FWIW, I doubt I treat men I’m attracted to and women I’m attracted to the same way. Though introspection is a decidedly unreliable source of information about this sort of thing.
There’s much less commonality in how I treat people I’m not attracted to. Or at least less salient commonality. I really don’t know what to say about it. I mean, sure, there are women I’m not attracted to whom I treat differently than men I’m not attracted to… but there are also men I’m not attracted to whom I treat differently than men I’m not attracted to. Introspection fails to provide even unreliable hints on that question.
Also, the fact that there exist both men and women I’m not attracted to doesn’t make me particularly unique; I expect that’s true of everybody. So I wouldn’t have felt especially motivated to share that data point, even were it crisper. You had started out drawing the distinction between “potential sexual partner vs everyone else” and “women vs men,” though, so I thought the perspective of someone for whom “potential sexual partner” included both women and men (well, in principle, anyway; after 20 years of monogamy it’s somewhat theoretical) might be relevant.
Your comment was also immediately voted down. I brought it back to neutral karma. I haven’t been following this conversation, but it doesn’t seem worthy of immediate downvotes...
I guess you missed the part where people (not me personally, it was just made pretty clear) are downvoting everything in this thread in the hope that everyone would stop talking?
I’d considered the possibility, but the fact that the parents were significantly net-upvoted made it seem churlish to attribute downvotes simply to the thread it’s in. It seems more plausible now that you (and at least one other person) have endorsed it.
“Gender should be removed from society” is not a particularly rare opinion—unfortunately it is also not a particularly feasible one, at least not in the short term.
I should clarify that it seems not only infeasible in the short term but lacks anything resembling a clear path to get there. And while an uncharitable person might say the same about CEV, SIAI working on CEV doesn’t involve forcing everyone else to change their patterns of social interaction in service of goals that are not clearly defined.
The path from here to there is wildly unclear. But history shows social changes as large as the one I advocate for have actually happened. So there’s that.
I think it’s pretty obvious that there are many differences between genders. Even eridu would agree to this, IMO, since his stated objective is to eliminate gender in order to eliminate the differences.
That’s just a recipe for indulging your own biases, IMO. That said, I doubt that differences between gender currently justify group-level policy (other than in specialized cases such as medical treatment, etc.). We’re not arguing over whether gender bias exists (I believe that it does) or whether we should adopt patriarchal policies (I believe that we should not).
Rather, the argument is over whether the very act of studying specific aspects of human biology and/or psychology constitutes an extremely harmful act and should immediately be stopped. I believe that it does not.
This is why I think the distinction between gender and sex is so helpful. It is not obvious to me that there are gender differences, even though I agree with you that there are obvious sex differences. Eridu appears to want to eliminate sex differences, while I merely want to abolish gender differences.
Consider the taboo in modern society against female chest nudity. It’s obvious to any subscriber to National Geographic that this norm is not an inherent part of human society. So I think the norm is a gender-norm, not a sex-norm.
Properly speaking, evo. psych has nothing to say about gender and gender-norms. Only sex and sex-norms. But society as a whole resists the distinct, and scientists rely on the halo effect to support that blurring of what should be relatively distinct concepts.
Someone more radical than I would like point out that the distinction is much fuzzier than I suggest. (Consider social pressure to perform surgery to “fix” intersex infants). (shrug). There’s a lot of low hanging fruit in social engineering before a precise resolution of that issue is really necessary.
I don’t think I get what you mean by “sex differences” vs. “gender differences”; eridu claims he wants to eliminate gender, not sex. Can you explain your definitions ? You bring up the example below:
I agree with you there, and this is a gender difference, but I’m not sure how your view on this contrasts with eridu’s. Surely eridu doesn’t want to eliminate secondary sexual characteristics… does he ?
I think eridu wants secondary sex characteristics to stop being morally relevant (i.e. never treat women different than men). I think that’s impossible—but society is not careful about what really is a secondary sex characteristic.
As far as I can tell, so does he, which is why he wants to destroy gender altogether. Once he’s done, we won’t have “men” and “women” at all; we’d just have “people with sexual organs A” and “people with sexual organs B” (plus a small number of others with C, D, etc.). By analogy, today we (mostly) don’t have separate identities for different hair or eye colors; it’s just a meaningless biological quirk (again, mostly).
One problem with this goal is that if gender truly is dependent on sex to any meaningful extent, then the goal cannot be achieved through purely social means. This is one of the reasons why I believe that evo-psych specifically, and evolutionary biology in general, should not be banned, despite its possible negative consequences.
I should also mention that I am sympathetic to the goal; it’s not a bad idea. However, it would be an immense undertaking, and you don’t want to commit an immense amount of resources to a goal unless you can be reasonably sure it’s achievable at least in principle.
(On a sidenote, eridu did claim that “treating women different than men” is impossible, because the patriarchy is pervasive and omnipresent. Even when you think you’re treating women the same as men, you aren’t—which is why he’s against liberal feminism.)
A very small piece of evidence that eridu might have a point: A while ago, I was faced with a person who I didn’t know at the time was a transexual in transition. I felt like I didn’t know what to do or say to them. (I’m reasonably sure I just looked blank at the time, or at least we’re on decent terms since then. I haven’t mentioned that reaction to the person, and they’ve since tranisitioned to a standard gender.)
It did feel to me as though I had separate behavior sets for dealing with men and with women, and was at a loss when I didn’t know which set to apply. I haven’t explored how the sets might be different, but maybe I should.
Me too, but 1) the sets do overlap by a substantial amount, and 2) I think it’s more a case of potential sexual partners vs everyone else than of women vs men—with women I’m not sexually attracted to at all, I behave pretty much the same as if they were male (except for different cultural norms such as—in Italy—kissing them on the cheek instead of shaking hands, which I don’t consider any more relevant that the use of different pronouns). (Edited to replace ″romantic″ with ″sexual″ -- I’ve introspected myself and ISTM that the set of people with whom I’d use the first set of behaviours almost exactly coincide with the set of people with whom I’d want to have protected sex if they offered, and promised not to tell anybody and to try not to let that affect our future interactions in any way—which is a somewhat broader criterion than me being willing to have a monogamous romantic relationship with them.)
FWIW, I doubt I treat men I’m attracted to and women I’m attracted to the same way. Though introspection is a decidedly unreliable source of information about this sort of thing.
What about men you’re not attracted to and women you’re not attracted to?
There’s much less commonality in how I treat people I’m not attracted to. Or at least less salient commonality. I really don’t know what to say about it. I mean, sure, there are women I’m not attracted to whom I treat differently than men I’m not attracted to… but there are also men I’m not attracted to whom I treat differently than men I’m not attracted to. Introspection fails to provide even unreliable hints on that question.
Also, the fact that there exist both men and women I’m not attracted to doesn’t make me particularly unique; I expect that’s true of everybody. So I wouldn’t have felt especially motivated to share that data point, even were it crisper. You had started out drawing the distinction between “potential sexual partner vs everyone else” and “women vs men,” though, so I thought the perspective of someone for whom “potential sexual partner” included both women and men (well, in principle, anyway; after 20 years of monogamy it’s somewhat theoretical) might be relevant.
Did this comment go from +2 to −1 in, like, five minutes? Why? (Upvoted back to zero—I don’t think it deserves being negative.)
Your comment was also immediately voted down. I brought it back to neutral karma. I haven’t been following this conversation, but it doesn’t seem worthy of immediate downvotes...
Apparently? Not sure why.
I guess you missed the part where people (not me personally, it was just made pretty clear) are downvoting everything in this thread in the hope that everyone would stop talking?
I’d considered the possibility, but the fact that the parents were significantly net-upvoted made it seem churlish to attribute downvotes simply to the thread it’s in. It seems more plausible now that you (and at least one other person) have endorsed it.
“Gender should be removed from society” is not a particularly rare opinion—unfortunately it is also not a particularly feasible one, at least not in the short term.
Agreed, but the short-term infeasibility alone should not disqualify the goal completely; if that was the case, the SIAI wouldn’t exist.
(to be fair, I personally don’t endorse donating money to SIAI, but I have additional reasons)
I should clarify that it seems not only infeasible in the short term but lacks anything resembling a clear path to get there. And while an uncharitable person might say the same about CEV, SIAI working on CEV doesn’t involve forcing everyone else to change their patterns of social interaction in service of goals that are not clearly defined.
The path from here to there is wildly unclear. But history shows social changes as large as the one I advocate for have actually happened. So there’s that.
Shouldn’t we draw up a better map of the road from here to there before beginning our journey?
Agreed.
Edited to add: I am just such an uncharitable person :-/