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RobinZ comments on What is missing from rationality? - Less Wrong
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And this is where differing perceptions are probably causing issues. I haven't seen any posts here from anyone who is anything nearing the worst advocates, but then I've hung around places where these topics are discussed much more confrontationally. I've seen nothing I deem worthy of censorship from the advocates, even the 'worst', but I have seen examples of what I view as completely unacceptable over-reaction, revulsion and guilt tripping from a small but vocal minority who claim offense.
I am very unsympathetic by nature to people who claim the right to block any conversation that they personally find offensive. My natural reaction to such people is to become more offensive, which while it has some merit from a game-theoretic standpoint is generally not conducive to social decorum so I make an effort to restrain such impulses. So for me, those people are the ones who cause revulsion, and we as a community need to deny them the spotlight when they act up until they learn better. Otherwise the community comes off as not being a rationalist community, and aspiring rationalists who might be interested walk away. So far people who share your perceptions seem to carry the support of the majority but I think there is a significant minority that share my perceptions.
It's not an either-or proposition, I think. I'll freely concede that I haven't been particularly sensitive to those sharing your revulsion for political correctness*, but it would be a mistake to offend either group to flatter the other. It's possible - it's even been done here - to hold these discussions in a way which is fair to both sides.
It's just hard. Which is why it's usually a bad idea to go there.
* I apologize if my terminology is incorrect.
Agree with first quoted sentence. Disagree with second one.
In my view, LessWrong should be a place where we rationally attempt to discuss subjects that would be too controversial to discuss anywhere else. On LessWrong, we can hold arguments in such discussions to higher standards of scrutiny than anywhere else.
I don't agree with the "it's hard, so we should give up" approach to discussing controversial subjects on LessWrong. Controversial, mind-killing subjects are exactly where rationalist scrutiny is most needed.
Here's a potential conflict in our views of LW's purpose. I think of it as being about discussing rationality, and things that touch directly on rationality and being rational. In that case discussing controversial, mind-killing subjects is only relevant inasmuch as they cast light on rationality - they're not inherently interesting.
I've posted here before about race/IQ and global warming, and for both of those I've felt as if I was covering territory that's basically offtopic. This didn't stop me from posting about them, or make me feel bad about it, but I did feel that if I had picked arguments about those topics just because I could, that wouldn't have suited LW's purpose. I would avoid writing a top-level post about subjects like that unless I thought it was a good way to make a compelling, more general point about rationality - otherwise I'd likely just be axe-grinding.
To me, it seems obvious that there a lot of links between pickup and rationality (both positive and negative). It's occurred to me that perhaps I've been over-estimating the obviousness of those links to others who don't have the same background in the subject matter, so I've tried to sketch out a bunch of them in my reply to RobinZ.
I'm down with a "one does not simply walk into PUA" attitude. I apologize for not saying so.
We may need a category of "this is too hard for us now", with the possibility left open that as more of us get better at rationality, more difficult topics can be addressed well.
Your terminology is fine. The asymmetry that disturbs me is that while 'political correctness' annoys the hell out of me I'm not demanding for it to be a banned topic of conversation to avoid offending my delicate sensibilities. I don't consider the causing of offense by particular views or topics to be a valid reason to avoid them. Note that this is different from discussing them in a deliberately offensive manner. I generally dislike an unnecessary impolite or aggressive tone to discussions but objecting to an entire topic is going too far in my opinion.
You're correct. My "usually" was an attempt to acknowledge this - in retrospect, not a competent one.