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 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.