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I'm surprised that test-preparation companies haven't picked up on this. Training people to understand calibration and loss aversion could be very helpful on standardized tests like the SATs. I've never taken a Kaplan or Princeton Review course, but those who have tell me this topic isn't covered. I'd be surprised if the people involved didn't know the science, so maybe they just don't know of a reliable way to teach such things?
They were in SAT prep books 25-27 years ago. (I took the SAT's while I was still 15.) The explanation given was something along the lines of, "Most people say that the SAT penalizes you for guessing, but this is wrong. Rather, it simply makes sure that, on average, guessing won't get you any extra points if you don't know anything about the question. If you can eliminate even one wrong answer out of five, you will always come out ahead by guessing. If you can't, then you still won't lose anything by guessing." They then showed math and examples to back it up.
It was actually in a very early part of the book I read, because they wanted you to understand how important it was to be able to identify even one wrong answer, and thus why the methods you were going to learn for doing that were important.
As you request, so I comply.
She has started name-calling against the other side ("Jerkitude" "disincentivize being piggish")
Guilty, I suppose.
started to attempt to form a political band of feminist allies
I really wouldn't think of it or put it like that. I was hoping to alert the group that I still suspect is the majority (the group who, prior to said alert, were sympathetic but oblivious). I do consider making friends a great side effect of participating in this community, but apart from the fact that I mostly make friends with people who don't say rude and stupid things about women, I don't think I could call them "a political band of feminist allies".
implicitly asked these new allies to downvote anyone who disagrees with her position
Since this accusation is leveled at something "implicit", asking me to respond to it is asking me to take responsibility for Roko's interpretation of what I said, but all right. Disagreement is not the problem. If we were having serious discussions about whether certain language is okay, that would be disagreement, and I would not downvote or ask anyone else to downvote polite and thoughtful arguments in favor of talking more or less the way Roko et. al. have been. I will downvote and hope that others will downvote comments that operate under the assumption that the status quo of language (namely, one in which sexist ideas slide in unobtrusively without people generally batting an eye) is unassailably correct. Posts and comments that use sexist language and express sexist ideas without disclaiming them or acknowledging that they might be identified that way should not be seen as the typical way of things in need of no thought from anyone about their hurtful effects.
and asks her faction to begin enforcing her ideas, specifically by criticising, ostracizing or downvoting
I have a faction? Cool! I didn't realize I had a faction. I always wanted to lead a faction when I grew up!
I will charitably assume that "specifically" crept in there by accident, since I never said anything about ostracism, I think it should go without saying that everyone is subject to criticism, and as far as downvoting goes - see above.
anyone who engages in a perfectly standard use of langage and thought: modeling the generic human female as a mechanical system and using that model to make predictions about reality.
The idea that the language I complain about is "perfectly standard" is exactly what I want to attack. "Seems normal to Roko" is not the criterion for perfect standardization.
She has billed this effort as a moral crusade ("unethical").
I'd really not like to be associated with anything termed a "crusade". I do think that ethical concerns are highly relevant when discussing how gendered language is used.
I am sure she isn't doing this on purpose
The things I do, I mostly do on purpose. It isn't very kind of Roko to assume that I do things he doesn't like because it's an accident and I just can't help myself, instead of because I don't agree with him and actually intend to do things differently than he would.
A reply to your other comment, Rings_of_Saturn, will be along shortly. Your interest in what I have to say, even if you don't like all of it, is appreciated.
How many dresses do you have?
My figure's no good for a dress, but I do have more than one good-sized closet full of clothes.
How many shoes?
Due to a condition, I mostly just wear sneakers. However, I do have a couple of other pairs of shoes for when it's really important to look good or match an outfit.
How many shampoos?
I have one, which is as many as my wife has. How many do you need? I did an evaluation of which shampoo works best with my hair several years ago, and technology really hasn't advanced enough in the past decade and a half to bother re-evaluating Pantene Pro-V (though knock-off brands do perform just about as well). I also use the same brand of conditioner, and a couple different kinds of hair product.
Do you regularly shave your arms and legs?
Not anymore. Cutting oneself shaving is an avenue for infection, and I've had problems with skin infection in my legs. Also, my hair grows too quickly so I have serious stubble just a couple hours after shaving. Armpits, though, are a must.
Did you ever try to wax any part of your body, and do you have any idea how it feels?
Yes. Really not impressed with the performance as compared to depilatory creams, which are much less painful.
Did you ever dye your hair?
No way. That's terrible for your hair. I have tried colored gels, but haven't found any that really work with my color.
Were you ever seriously concerned that the tips of your hair were splitting ever-so-slightly and you must do something about that?
Yes, but it's always a cost-benefit analysis, as I don't want to cut my hair shorter than I have to, and Pantene does a decent job of 'repairing' those sorts of problems, to some extent.
Was there a point to these questions?
First of all I must say that I do not know if there is in fact a problem on LW, and it is not my goal to definitely say so, I only ask for introspection. There are not enough women on this site to make a proper analysis of how the (obvious) male orientation of some language used generates negative sentiment. However, I think that the simple fact that one person thinks there is a problem is a big indicator of a problem. It takes a great deal of courage (or, I admit, contrariness) to go against an established group consensus, and as far as I can tell, alicorn is not prone to the second. Humans have a tendency to feel protective of in groups, which may account for alicorn's feelings, but the same goes for the men who feel she is overreacting.
I have spent a great deal of time attempting to figure out whether or not I am sexist. All I can say for certain is that I am able to avoid certain very egregious examples of it. Eliezer recently asked what systemic biases prevent humans from ever seeing really obvious things. I must ask if the men in the audience can be certain that they aren't making a similar mistake. Most people are unaware of many biases and will defend their misconceptions even when provoked.
To conclude my plea for introspection I will state a fact then ask a few questions. At least one woman is offended by examples of sexism on LW. Is it okay to offend anyone? If it is not your intent to offend, is it your responsibility to not offend or the responsibility of your audience to not be offended?
I hope that unlike the "Culture Wars", the interested parties here would take the hyperbolic designation as a signal to get less rather than more confrontational in their exchange. Then again, priming still works on aspiring rationalists. What might be a better way to designate this cluster of recent arguments?
I didn't say being "uniquely human" is all that's required for something to be good - rather, that discarding such things entirely is certainly bad.
Having a bad back is uniquely human, too, as are male pattern baldness and HIV. Is discarding these things "certainly bad"?
I also notice you haven't actually corrected the begging-the-question problem: you still haven't established that bad feelings belong to the class of "uniquely human", and you certainly haven't established that being uniquely human is good.
If you go with "part of our nature" instead, then it's also part of our nature to be stupid and irrational, biased and fallacious. Shall we not discard those either?
And of course, you're still begging the question of why "part of our nature" equals "certainly bad" to "discard". Sickness is part of our nature; shall we not cure it? Must we linger in ill health for as long as our ancestors, instead of getting well more quickly?
If not, how is it different from getting over a bad emotion more quickly?
Your #2 is even more disappointing -- "what is actually good flows from our nature" -- WTF? That's as much begging the question as saying there must be a God because he's good, and all the good we have in the world must therefore flow from His love. You're just babbling here, not making a case for anything. It's good because good flows from our nature, and our nature is good because discarding it is bad? Perhaps it contains a dormative principle, too?
The amount of rationalization in this thread is disturbing me. Seriously... apply equally? How many dresses do you have? How many shoes? How many shampoos? Skin care products? Do you regularly shave your arms and legs? Did you ever try to wax any part of your body, and do you have any idea how it feels? Were you ever seriously concerned that the tips of your hair were splitting ever-so-slightly and you must do something about that? Do you want me to go on?
I don't know who Leon Kass is, but
Trying to think more like a mathematician, whose empiricism resides in the realm of pure thought, does not predispose these 'rationalists' to collect evidence from the real world. Neither does the downplaying of personal experiences. Many are computer science majors, used to being in the comfortable position of being capable of testing their hypotheses without needing to leave their office. It is, then, an easy temptation for them to come up with a nice-sounding theory which appears to explain the facts, and then consider the question solved. Reason must reign supreme, must it not?
is a definite temptation we need to avoid. We do seem to like coming up with such theories, and I know that I personally rarely seek out a way to test them, but I don't think we consider the question solved when we do, and that seems to be the problematic part.
I'm just here to have fun, though, so I don't really mind the "not testing" part.
You didn't answer. Why would women play status games? Men play status games to rise in the dominance hierarchy and ultimately get many girls; that's the obvious evolutionary reason.
My working hypothesis for now is simply that women claim they strive to look good primarily to show off to other women, and you're accepting this claim uncritically. The reason they claim that (and actually believe that, evolution's weird) is that explicitly admitting that you dress up to steal high status men from other women would make those other women feel threatened, so this behavior has evolved into a harmless "game". That also addresses your objection why women adopt those ornate displays instead of just undressing.
Just as obviously, we are not talking about uniqueness in that sense.
We seem to be talking past each other. I am saying that each person offers a unique experience of interaction. Some more preferable than others, of course.
Thus, the PUGs who profess to "love all women" state that they wish to have as many of those experiences as possible, and extend their contact with the women who their lifestyle is compatible with.
And AFAICT, their behavior is consistent with this. Soporno claims to have around 30 girlfriends at any one time -- all of whom are required to know and accept this fact, or else aren't allowed to be his girlfriend in the first place.
Rose states that so-called PUAs who only do one-night stands are depriving themselves of the depth and intensity of sexual and emotional intimacy possible in a longer-term relationship... and he also has been involved in "multi LTRs", though not to the same extent as Soporno.
There's a British PUG who talks about having dozens of female friends he doesn't sleep with, but goes clubbing with.. and they help him "chat up" the women he does intend to sleep with. Many other PUGs lecture guys on the importance of genuinely being interested in women and wanting to spend time on them, because if you don't , then it's sort of a waste to spend time learning how to talk to them.
Meanwhile, PUG Eben Pagan (stage name "David DeAngelo", author of the "Double Your Dating" product line) has spoken in his marketing classes about his typical customer really just wanting to know how to talk to a woman and ask her out without being embarrassed... and since his is probably the largest internet dating advice business out there (at $20million annual gross), I would guess that means that most guys buying "pickup" training just want to learn how to talk to someone they're attracted to without feeling like an idiot... not how to say some magic words and get laid. Other gurus have also noted that most of the men in their classes are looking for "the one" -- they just want to know what to say when they meet her, and they know they're not going to meet her by sitting at home and not talking to anybody.
So, all of this strikes me as a considerable amount of evidence in favor of the proposition that there are a significant number of men who actually do believe each woman is unique, are not primarily interested in one-night stands, and yet also believe in knowing what they're doing, and/or meeting more than one woman.
I don't really wanna rock the boat here, but in the words of one of my professors, it "needs more math".
I predict it will go somewhat like this: you specify the problem in terms of A implies B, etc; you find out there's infinite recursion; you prove that the solution doesn't exist. Reductio ad absurdum anyone?
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