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byrnema comments on Babies and Bunnies: A Caution About Evo-Psych - Less Wrong
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This is sort of where I'm at on the issue. I understand that you don't like being referred to as 'he', and I agree that you shouldn't be.
However, my perspective is that 'he' is the default, and if someone refers to me as 'he', that is the only reason. With the handle 'byrnema', I expect people to assume I'm male. Well, it's more subtle than that. I don't expect anyone to make a positive prediction that I'm male -- they shouldn't know -- but since people assign gender in their minds when they consider a person, I expect that assignment to be male.
Does it bother you, specifically, that the default assignment is male?
Or in your case, with the handle Alicorn, that it seems unusual not to update the probability that you're female? If the latter then you really must just ask this person to find out what they were thinking (if they were). Possibly the person is either a little linguistically/socially naive or they were thinking of the name 'Ali' perhaps with an Arabic origin and the 'orn' ending is unclear -- if you don't think of unicorns.
(Why should it be though that a unicorn-associated handle must be a female? Nevertheless, that's the way it is.)
I'd never heard of the word 'alicorn' until I started reading lesswrong and I'm comfortable saying that I am not linguistically naive. It didn't occur to me that it was an actual word until Alicorn posted in a thread that it should be obvious she is female with that user name. Consider that for the same reasons a unicorn-associated handle is associated with being female it might not be an effective handle to signal to males that one is female.
It is probably wise if one is particularly offended by incorrect gender assumptions to pick a username that clearly signals ones gender to the majority of ones audience.
I was not, when I started using this handle, aware of how non-present in popular vocabulary the word "alicorn" is. I thought it was a pretty girly username - maybe not up there with, I dunno, "PinkFlowerPrincess", but perhaps on a par with "Cerise" (a shade of pink), or something subtler like "Purl" (a knitting stitch, also hinting at "Pearl"). It doesn't and was never meant to declare my gender, but I always thought it suggested it. If nothing else, I think "Allison" is a more likely sound-alike than "Ali"-plus-unidentified-suffix, because that actually happened.
It bothers me that there is a default assignment. If one were going to make a brand new default in a situation where none existed, it's my impression that there would be a better (if still very weak) case for making it female instead, but I don't think it's appropriate to make such assumptions.
Thanks for the not-particularly-annoyed-by-"he" datum - but I worry that you imply Alicorn should not be annoyed. Even if this is not your intent, I think it's a good idea to support the right to have a berserk button.
I don't, and here's why: having a negative emotional response to something kills rationality dead. It causes people to forget their well-thought out goals and engage in compulsive, stereotyped behaviors attached to the specific emotion involved, whether it's going off to sulk in a corner, flaming, plotting revenge, or loudly lecturing everyone on proper behavior... ALL of which are unlikely to support rational goals, outside the evolutionary environment that drove the development of those emotions.
(And let's not even get started on motivated reasoning... which, AFAICT, is motivated almost exclusively to avoid negative emotions rather than to obtain positive ones.)
Anyway, if you allow yourself to have a "berserk button" that hijacks your rationality on a regular basis, (and aren't doing anything about it), you're only giving lip service to rationality. Okay, modify that slightly: maybe you don't know HOW to get rid of or work around your button. But you sure as heck shouldn't be arguing for a right to keep it!
(I expect that objections to this comment will largely focus on individual boo lights that people will put forth in support of the idea that some things should be allowed to set off "berserk buttons". But I hope that those people won't bother, unless they can explain why their particular boo light requires them to have a compulsive, fixated response that's faster than their conscious minds can consider the situation and evaluate their options. And I also hope they'll consider why they feel the need to use boo lights to elevate their failings as a rationalist to the status of a moral victory! Lacking a compulsive emotional response to a boo light doesn't alter one's considered outlook or goals, only one's immediate or compulsive reactions.)
With all due respect, I (not at all calmly) disagree. The mistakes that you can make by being emotional are not inevitable, and they are not mistakes because of your emotion - a true emotion is true - they are mistakes because you didn't say, "I can feel my heart racing - did this person just say what I thought they said, or am I misreading?" And so forth.
But if you're right? And if your response is proportionate? Your anger (or ebullience, or jubilation, or bewilderment, if you really want to be rational about analyzing the effects of emotion on rationality) is your power. Do you think Eliezer Yudkowsky works as hard as he does on FAI because, oh, it's a way to spend the time? Do you think that his elegy* for Yehuda Yudkowsky was written out of a sedate sense of familial responsibility? Do you somehow imagine that anything of consequence has ever been accomplished without the force of passion behind it?
I pity your cynicism, if you do.
Edit: I will concede instantly that "berserk button" is a deceptive term, however - what I am discussing is not an instant trigger for unstoppable rage, but merely something which infuriates.
* Edit 2: The term "cri de coeur" was suggested over the message system in place of "elegy" - I think it may well hit nearer the mark as a description.
If your heart weren't racing, you wouldn't have needed to ask the question.
Meanwhile, "true emotion" is rhetoric: the feeling of fear as the hot poker approaches is not rational, unless blind struggling will get it away from your face... and mostly in modern life, it will not... which means you're simply adding unnecessary insult to your imminent injury.
Passion != anger. If it feels bad, you're doing it wrong.
Doesn't matter to my argument: at least a rage trigger is over relatively quickly, while being infuriated over a principle can ruin your life for days or weeks at a time. ;-)
Bad feelings feel bad for a reason: they are actually bad for you.
In regards to the right to have a berzerk button: This depends at least partly on what you mean by a right.
People do have berzerk buttons. I hear "don't have the right to have a berzerk button" as "should make it go away right now-- shouldn't have had it in the first place". On the other hand, "do have the right to have a berzerk button" is problematic in the sense that it can imply that berzerk buttons are a sort of personal property which should never be questioned.
It occurs to me that this is a problem with English which is at least as serious as gendered pronouns. A sense of process isn't built into the language in some places where it would be really useful.
The problem is there in the word "can". Does "you can do it" mean you can do it right now, perhaps if you just tried a bit harder? If you tried a lot harder (and you really should)? After ten years of dedicated work? Something in between?
It is hard to extract that implication given:
You're right - I tried to reread byrnema's comment to avoid that kind of error, but I must have missed that sentence twice. I should not have been so pointed. Thank you for catching my mistake.
Truthfully, it doesn't matter what a person declares in the second sentence if they then negate that sentence with the body of their comment. Perhaps you read for feeling and tone, as I do -- that's why I didn't point to a specific sentence as a defense in my reply.
However, what I was explaining was that while I don't question that Alicorn should feel the way she does, I have a tendency to overly reduce problems (which feels like I'm trivializing them) and that's probably what you were reading. I didn't intend to do that, but since my friends say I always do that, that's probably what I did. (Outside view.)
I would question whether it doesn't count - I believe your statement was sincere, and that counts for an awful lot - but the feeling and tone was definitely what I responded to. On the gripping hand, I was being quite precise when I said "should not have been so pointed" - I think emphasizing the right to be angry is important in several contexts (example), and I would want to have still said something about the right to a berserk button ... but not the slanted "even if this was not your intent".
(Incidentally, I appreciate the degree of nuance you've been employing in your replies - I suspect this is one of the more valuable benefits you gain from your penchant to reduce problems!)
I hope that my comment wouldn't be interpreted that way -- I support how Alicorn feels about the issue even if I don't feel the same way. (I might anyway if my handle name was Alicorn -- or Cerise.)
However, I've been told by close friends that the most annoying trait about me is that I'm a "spin doctor" -- that I think that problems can be 'fixed' just by framing them differently.
Y'know, given the quote wedrifid pulled out, I don't think it should be except by a careless reader - mea culpa.
That "spin doctor" thing makes me wonder, though: is there some substantial variance* in the ability of people to reframe their way away from berserk buttons? It would explain some comments I have received if I personally am lacking in that attribute.
* Edited to add link.
Recognizing that a berzerk button (I had to google that by the way, not everyone is a tvtropes fanatic contrary to what seems to be a common assumption here) is a fact about you and not a flaw in the external world is probably part of it. From an instrumental rationality point of view it is often easier to control or adjust your own reaction than it is to change the world to avoid your triggers.
It's on TvTropes? I just assumed "less stigmatised way of saying tantrum" based off context.
The thing is that these triggers exist only for the purpose of changing the world. The most significant emotions are a way to have a credible precomittment to do a mutually destructive thing if the other(s) do(es) not comply. For example, by damaging one's own body with excess adrenalin and cortisol while causing similar distress to those who defected in your constructed game.
Quite often the triggers are actually well calibrated to serve our interests and it isn't always wise to mess with them.
Fixed that for you. ;-)
Good, but let me fix it further to what I really mean, ancestral environment included. ;)
In the specific case of our socially-driven negative emotions -- those associated with status and status threats, especially -- they rarely overlap with our considered interests, unless we either
In most other situations, actually having a negative emotional reaction will not serve our goals.
Interestingly enough, even in the event that a display of anger is tactically useful, a fake display of anger is actually even more effective and can even be status-enhancing. (I've heard it said that this is true of horses as well: that a trainer acting angry gets respect from the horse, but a trainer who's actually angry loses their place in the pecking order.)
This is probably why sociopaths are especially effective in the corporate tribal jungle, but I've also known a few very nice, non-sociopathic company presidents who had no problem yelling when something needed yelling about... without actually being angry about it.
are literally dependent upon our social circle for physical survival
That one is complex. A small status threat does not, in itself, threaten survival, but a large number of status threats may well affect one's chances of making money, getting medical care (or getting decent medical care), or being attacked by police and/or imprisoned-- these are a matter of physical survival.
In most situations I encounter people's emotional reactions tend to be rather useful. It takes a lot of experience in machiavelian thinking before you can replace instincts with raw strategic manipulation.
This I have to concur with:
I find that a lot of people (over the age of three) who use the 'berzerk button', particularly those who do it effectively, are using it strategically rather than merely being at the mercy of their emotions.
I also agree that negative emotional reactions are more useful for those who already have high status than those who do not.
I guessed at the meaning but it sounded like a specific reference to me, TVTropes is the first hit on Google.
True, the tactic can also backfire however. I respond badly to such tactics, presumably partially an evolved defense to their widespread use.
Absolutely, and so do I. In fact I am myself emotionally precommitted to not be swayed by the implied threat of 'berzerk buttons' even though the immediate payoff structure may make submission have a lesser penalty to me than the mutually destructive punishment. This seems to work for me on net.
I apologize for not defining the term - links to TV Tropes spell trouble for a lot of people.
True - but I prefer to advocate for adaptive behavior, rather than altered emotional response, in many cases. Pronouns is one such.
The problem with that is that the behaviour that needs adapting is that of other people (in this case, to a first approximation, all English speakers). The emotional response is ones own and therefore easier to change.
You might continue to lobby for others to change their behaviour once the emotional response has been brought under control but unless you think the emotional response is actually the optimal way to change the behaviour of others it is not desirable.
Not what I meant, surprisingly! The example I had in mind was someone changing their macroscopic reaction from "VERBAL HULK SMASH" to "icy courtesy" in order to leave a better impression without compromising the fervor of their principle. If you want to change the behavior of those around you - and you're right, sometimes you don't - then the emotional response is a good source of motivation.
That depends on what you define as "good" and "motivation". Most kinds of negative emotional responses don't promote taking positive actions, and they're strressful and harmful to the body as well.
Note that this ignores the ongoing personally detrimental effect on the person having the reaction, which is unchanged by the change in external behavior. Even if nobody knows you're angry, you still get to keep the health detriments (and reasoning deficits) of being angry.
Most people who are using the fervor of principle to motivate themselves would be better off having goals, instead. The distinction is that a principle's Platonic purity can never truly be satisfied in an imperfect world, but goals actually have a chance.
Fervently-held principles are also often a convenient excuse to avoid doing the sometimes-difficult job of thinking about what results one would like to have existing in the real world, and what tradeoffs or compromises might have to be made in order to create those results.
In effect, I see "fervent" principles as a form of wireheading... one that, not incidentally, wasted many more years of my life than I care to think about.
(This should not be construed to be against acting on reasoned principles, just to choosing one's principles based on fervor.)
Reading this comment this instant, I think we are talking past each other to some degree. I argue for two related propositions:
On occasion, anger is an appropriate response to a stimulus.
It is the right and responsibility of each person to determine what stimuli deserve to be responded to with anger.
I will grant that anger has negative effect on quality of life, but I maintain that anger is effective on many occasions, and can be wielded without compromising the powers of rational reason. And I argue that it is the right of the individual to decide when to do so.
Edit: If we agree on these propositions, whatever remains is minor.
It can also cloud judgement and lead to responding in a way likely to alienate your audience. I'm not convinced it is a net win in general, though it might be in the right circumstances / given the right audience.
And I am in complete agreement. My only caveat is that I grant each person the right to make that judgement call. ;)
And instrumental rationality suggests that a non-berserk advocate is a more convincing advocate... so often the best way to successfully get people to change their behavior is to first get rid of your button(s).
(Being happily married to a fellow mindhacker, I have much experience with this phenomenon, as both the advocate and advocatee. ;-) )
Not always. I posted a link to Greta Christina's "Atheists and Anger" elsewhere in this thread:
It is a fact of the matter - and this is me, RobinZ, speaking now - that "anger is false power" is a popular cached thought. (Those exact words are used in a bus advertisement in my area.) What I am telling you is that you should question that one - it is less general than is commonly supposed.
What you quoted isn't really relevant to my point, which is that anger over a principle is not very beneficial to you as an individual, vs. passion or even faked anger in the pursuit of your concrete goals.
(I'd also strongly question whether e.g. Gandhi and MLK were motivated by anger over a principle, or the passionate pursuit of concrete goals.)
In general, fervor over principles is perhaps the most anti-rational emotional response that human beings have... and there's an evolutionary reason for that. Our genes need a way to get us to do things that are stupid for us as individuals, but good for our relatives and descendants or as moves in iterated PD.
I can't speak about Gandhi, but a case could be made for MLK. More to the point, these social movements have included more than two people - and some were quite explicitly angry.
I don't care about evolutionary reasons. If I want to wreck my health for a cause, you can advise me on how to be more effective in my tactics or you can advise me on how much of an effect is possible, and either of these things may mean choosing equilibrium over anger ... but I have the right to calculate the cost-benefit ratio myself, and if you disagree about the terms in my equation, I have the right to tell you to shove it.
And you have the right to shake your head and say I'm a fool. All I claim is that we have the right to draw our own conclusions, and that sometimes the correct conclusion is be angry.
Yes, reframing is a learnable skill. Family therapist Virginia Satir had a reputation as an exemplar of that skill. One book I've read, "The patterns of her magic", goes a little into the details of how it's done.
I think so. It seems to depend on personality (innate emphasis on practical vs political thinking for example), education (cognitive behavioral therapy emphazises reframing things away from awfulising and suchlike) and status ('berzerk button' is a high status only option).
(I should note that I am not trying to label the berzerk button as defective by observing that it is trained away from in CBT. CBT is intended for people who's existing thought process is not working for them. If going berzerk or otherwise allowing things to make you angry gets you what you want then CBTing it away is not advocated.)
It would surprise me if there were some psychological trait which didn't show a lot of variance.
We probably wouldn't even call it a trait.
Really, that's the best way to fix problems. Funny enough, when our brains aren't reacting to something as though it's some kind of threat to our life or status, our higher reasoning actually functions and lets us change the outside world in a more sensible way.
I don't think this makes you a "spin doctor", unless you're attempting to reframe others' problems for your benefit at their expense.