Kevin comments on Babies and Bunnies: A Caution About Evo-Psych - Less Wrong

52 Post author: Alicorn 22 February 2010 01:53AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (823)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Bindbreaker 25 February 2010 09:52:42AM 1 point [-]

Ali can be short for several female names, but it can also be a male name.

Comment author: Kevin 25 February 2010 11:02:51AM 2 points [-]

This is a cultural norm kind of thing, but in the cultural norms where Alicorn chose her name, I think it really was intended to be a feminine username. I think women do have a tendency to try and choose somewhat feminine usernames, because otherwise a lot of the time on the internet they will be mistaken for men which gets annoying quickly.

I think something that would allow us to definitely solve this problem is profile pictures (which don't have to be your actual picture) or user profiles.

Comment author: komponisto 25 February 2010 05:51:19PM *  7 points [-]

I think something that would allow us to definitely solve this problem is profile pictures (which don't have to be your actual picture) or user profiles.

User profiles good, pictures bad.

Frankly, the "problem" here really isn't very hard to solve: just don't assume you know a person's sex unless you actually know it!

Comment author: wnoise 25 February 2010 05:39:57PM 1 point [-]

I think women do have a tendency to try and choose somewhat feminine usernames, because otherwise a lot of the time on the internet they will be mistaken for men which gets annoying quickly.

This is undoubtedly the case. However, the opposite choice is also quite popular -- choosing masculine usernames to avoid being harassed for being female.