Bo102010 comments on Of Exclusionary Speech and Gender Politics - Less Wrong

62 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 21 July 2009 07:22AM

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Comment author: Bo102010 22 July 2009 01:30:58AM 3 points [-]

Come now. "Less willing to take risks" is a probabilistic statement, not a statement about every female or any individual female. To consider that disempowering is wrong (though some might mistakenly).

I would encourage prefacing potentially mis-interpreted statements with a reminder genetic or evolutionary pressures do not determine any individual's behavior.

It should be the responsibility of the person who presents a fact or theory to at least take steps to make sure it's not intentionally or unintentionally misused. If you discover something about ethnicity and IQ, or nurture and homosexuality, or anything else that's potentially explosive, you should be sure you make an effort to disarm the dark side from abusing it.

Comment author: SilasBarta 22 July 2009 02:24:19AM 2 points [-]

Come now. "Less willing to take risks" is a probabilistic statement, not a statement about every female or any individual female. To consider that disempowering is wrong (though some might mistakenly).

Sure, just like to consider it disempowering to say, "getting rich will get you women" is wrong.

But you don't get to make that call. It will be up to the special class of feminist censors to (arbitrarily) decide what counts as "objectifying". Who can then use that power to taboo any argument they don't like, since that topic is "beyond the pale". Because who's going to stop them, right?

Comment author: Bo102010 22 July 2009 02:56:01AM *  3 points [-]

I understand your objection to granting immunity from criticism certain ideological preferences (and I didn't vote your comment down). However, my thought is that here at LW we can identify the difference between "women can't do the same jobs as men" and "many women don't do the same jobs as men, perhaps in part because of prehistorical environments."

"Getting rich will get you women" isn't disempowering; it's just lame. "Research/theory suggests that getting rich will make you more attractive to potential mates, if you are male" is at least defensible.