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nazgulnarsil comments on Of Exclusionary Speech and Gender Politics - Less Wrong
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Comments (647)
Why do you think the comment bothers you?
partially because if I was a female rationalist it would be offensive to me that Eliezer assumes I would respond differently to the same comment simply because of the gender of the commenter. Just like it would be offensive to me as a black person if the LW community thought that I would only respond positively to comments made by another black person.
there's absolutely nothing wrong with men making generalizations about women, nothing wrong with whites making generalizations about blacks or vice versa. allowing overly sensitive members of minority groups to dictate behavior is a waste of time.
See... that's where I'm not willing to go, there. That is a hole with no bottom. There's enough real trouble in the world without borrowing imaginary subjunctive counterfactual trouble on top of that. If I really said something offensive to a female rationalist, a female rationalist can tell me so.
I agree completely, and I'll add that it's still valid even though it's also an often used tactic of actual clods attempting to squirm out of censure.
I'm not sure Eliezer qualifies as an "overly sensitive member of a minority group" but I take your point. I think he's making a pragmatic decision but we can disagree.
In this particular case, I think Eliezer is arguing that the hypothetical woman who thinks all evolutionary psychology discussions are sexist is not a rationalist. As such she has no rationalist honor and would probably not respond as you (being a male rationalist) would. I think it's fair to give her (as a female assumed-non-rationalist) a little breathing room, which is what I think Eliezer is suggesting.
I think this is consistent with his narrative of trying to recruit/grow the rationalist pool, and as such trying to be more tolerant/welcoming of people who may not yet be rationalists but are interested and learning.
And you'd be wrong to be offended.
Because as far as we know, humans can't reliably switch off the biases that would make them act irrationally in such a circumstance, and a rationalist should be humble enough to acknowledge when his/her brain can't be expected to do the right thing.
That being said, I agree with your second paragraph: there's nothing wrong with making generalizations, per se. (Actually speaking about them, however, or otherwise revealing them to other persons, alas, is fraught with many perils.)
"there's absolutely nothing wrong with men making generalizations about women, nothing wrong with whites making generalizations about blacks or vice versa. allowing overly sensitive members of minority groups to dictate behavior is a waste of time."
Are you serious? Assuming that you are, you are treading on ground that is far from stable, especially in a place such as this...
http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
I fear I play a poor inquisitor, and you a poor Galileo. The thought that it's all right to make broad generalizations about large groups of people isn't some great new theory that society is trying to suppress-- it's just wrong. Indeed, such an idea is regressive, not revolutionary.
you're attaching a bunch of words with negative connotation without actually telling what's wrong. we all make generalizations all the time. we can't interface with reality without making generalizations. if it is clearly wrong then you have the entire apparatus of social statistics to debunk.
I'm quite surprised that this requires explanation, since this seems like basic-level rationality to me, but here we go:
Generalizations about people of a particular ethnicity, based solely on their ethnicity, are racist. Overt racism is not acceptable in modern civilized society. In the past, overt racism was acceptable, but we have moved beyond that. It is extremely unwise both from a personal belief perspective and from a general signalling perspective to hold or argue for such views.
generalizations about individuals based on their ethnicity is clearly dumb. inquiring into broad trends that correlate well with ethnic divisions is interesting and demands further research.
http://www.reason.com/news/show/116483.html
we're at the dawn of understanding genetics. to preemptively decide that a branch of inquiry will not be allowed simply because our ancestors were ignorant douche bags is silly. as rationalists I'd say it's our job more than most to take a mature, level headed look at the data that emerges. things are really going to heat up once we get cheap complete genome sequencing. we'll be able to look at actual allele distributions in ethnic sub-groups on a large scale for the first time in history (!)
I understand this research, view it as important, and know several people who are working in this field at the present time. That said, the work of geneticists is quite different from casual social observations and generalizations. When I speak out against sweeping generalizations based on gender or ethnicity, I do not speak out against the geneticists.
I'm not going to shout down people who make observations about group behavior just because their observations haven't been tested in a double blind trial yet. the data precludes us from making certain generalizations. it doesn't stop the tentative creation of new ones.
if I made a generalization about people with fingers of certain length it wouldn't generate nearly this much ire. we shouldn't treat race any differently just because people made stupid generalizations in the past.
We don't have enough data to make the case for OR against any racism (biological differences -> behavioral differences)