Rationality Quotes November 2009

Eliezer Yudkowsky

A monthly thread for posting rationality-related quotes you've seen recently (or had stored in your quotesfile for ages).

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

A monthly thread for posting rationality-related quotes you've seen recently (or had stored in your quotesfile for ages).

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

I do not agree. Without the lampshading the sexist implication (that is, "women are more worthy recipients of love than men are") is negligible. Claiming that the quote is sexist while saying it increases the extent that this implication is present and so gives men more cause to feel slighted.

I don't take offence at the possible slight but do find the lamp-shading distasteful.

The implication you've mentioned isn't present, with or without the "lampshading".

5Alicorn16y

You say "the sexist implication" like that's the only one there. Anyway, drawing attention to a sexist implication doesn't increase the extent to which it's present - only the extent to which it's consciously noticed. The quote would carry on being exactly as sexist as it is without the lampshade. With more conscious noticing, there is both more offense taken and less chance for the statement to have insidious subconscious influence (on which level most -isms operate). Without the lampshade, it could feasibly pass without notice, and join a host of similar statements in the back of the brain that combine to form dispositions that yield more sexist statement. With the lampshade, conscious effort can go into de-sexismifying the statement, or rejecting it whole-cloth, and reduce its long-term effect, even if it makes it more unpleasant to hear in the short term.