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JoshuaZ comments on Is Less Wrong discouraging less nerdy people from participating? - Less Wrong
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Hmm, this is a good point. It is possible that I'm engaging in pattern completion or reading more negativity in than is present. It is also possible that that is connected to my own pretty negative attitude towards much of spectator sports. (What is this cognitive error called? If it doesn't have a name I'd suggest The Modest Proposal Bias.)
I don't think that's a correct reading of his remarks. The point is precisely the opposite as I read it, Mass Driver doesn't want to change their hobbies even as he looks down on them.
It is realistic for a certain subset, but there's extraneous details that render it disparaging. There are a lot of smart people who went to very good universities who also are fanatics about their local sports team. The apparent working assumption is that those people don't exist or exist in negligible numbers.
It sounds like it may be a case of Generalizing from One Example.
It wasn't intended as a "reading" of his remarks; it was a statement of my own view, an argument that I was making that was premised on his remarks. I claim it is a contradiction to "look down on them" and simultaneously not wish to change their hobbies. It thus follows from Mass_Driver's remarks that he doesn't "look down on them" -- he can't, because he says he's okay with them as they are!
This is what you need to explain. I did not find a single "blameworthy" attribute in the description, and nor do I understand how the conjunction of any subset of those attributes could render a person blameworthy.
Again, I don't see how this follows. Is it your contention that if Mass_Driver believed the numbers were more than negligible he would necessarily have used such a person as the example?
(It seems to me that one could, with considerably more justice, accuse you of believing that "smart people" only go to "very good universities".)
There may be connotations of "look down on" that we don't share. or there may be other hidden issues, such as the nature of what it means to change opinions. Thus for example, I'd say that I might look down on an adult who thinks that the card game "War" is worthwhile and fun to play but at the same time I might have something resembling an ideological belief that humans have a right to do their own things even if I find them silly. I think that's what Mass Driver was getting at when he talked about egalitarianism.
He could have avoided all of the biographical that simply didn't impact the point at all. Once you choose to add extraneous biographic details, what those details are reflects pre-existing conceptions.
(Also I don't know why you are now using the term "blameworthy" since no one else has. I'm not sure what precisely you mean by it.)