nerzhin comments on Sayeth the Girl - Less Wrong

47 Post author: Alicorn 19 July 2009 10:24PM

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Comment author: rhollerith_dot_com 20 July 2009 10:37:17AM *  10 points [-]

When Alicorn wrote, "some people seem to earnestly care about the problem", she accompanied it with a link to [a comment][1] made by me, in which I said that "I want to increase the female: male ratio [here]. So if you ever see me using language that objectifies women or that alienates you, please let me know."

Let me clarify that although I want to hear Alicorn's objections to my statements about women (especially since she is better than most feminists at explaining the grounds for her objections) I might not be able to cater to all her objections.

For example, most existential-risks activists (scientists doing networking and research about risks like unFriendly AI) are male, and I plan a top-level post to assert that not having reliable access to sex with the kind of sexual partners who can most improve the life of an existential-risks activist should be considered a large disability in a male prospective existential-risks activist -- in the same way that, e.g., an inability to stop rationalizing one's own personal agenda should be considered a large disability.

Note that recruiting existential-risks activists (though he did not use that exact phrase) is one of the stated goals in Eliezer's creating this web site.

Since a large fraction of the young men who have many of the other qualifications for existential-risks activism (such as extremely good mastery of math) do not currently have the knowledge necessary to obtain reliable access to sex with the kind of partners who can most improve their lives, I have a strong interest in trying to convey knowledge about it to them (because doing so decreases existential risk according to my current models of male psychology) and it is possible that despite persistent strenuous effort on my part, I will not be able to do a lot of that without alienating Alicorn and other feminists.

Maybe the correct course is for me to start another site where male prospective existential-risks activists can acquire this sort of knowledge, but sex is such a large part of life that it seems overly limiting for the 90 or 95% or so of the participants on this site who are heterosexual men to refrain from discussing how to identify the prospective sexual partners who can most improve their lives and how to increase one's sexual chances with those prospective partners.

Comment author: nerzhin 20 July 2009 06:09:02PM 5 points [-]

Since a large fraction of the young men who have many of the other qualifications for existential-risks activism [...] do not currently have the knowledge necessary to obtain reliable access to sex [...], I have a strong interest in trying to convey knowledge about it to them

You may think this is a great contribution you can make, but it's probably simpler and more effective to donate money.

Comment author: rhollerith_dot_com 20 July 2009 09:33:09PM 3 points [-]

Since a large fraction of the young men who have many of the other qualifications for existential-risks activism [...] do not currently have the knowledge necessary to obtain reliable access to sex [...], I have a strong interest in trying to convey knowledge about it to them

You may think this is a great contribution you can make, but it's probably simpler and more effective to donate money.

OK, nerzhin, I'll bite: donate money to whom?

Comment author: nerzhin 20 July 2009 10:00:38PM 5 points [-]

If your goal is to deal with existential risks, maybe the Lifeboat Foundation or, of course, the Singularity Institute. It just seems to me that handing out sex advice to potential existential-risk activists is a pretty indirect way to help.

Of course, I'm not helping either, so I should probably just be quiet.