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Vladimir_M comments on Epistle to the New York Less Wrongians - Less Wrong
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Comments (271)
Whatever you may think about Brazil84's opinion, this comment is being downvoted unreasonably. He has stated his preferences and the reasons for having them honestly and politely. You may disagree with him as much as you like, but he definitely didn't commit any fault that would warrant treating him as if he were a troll, spammer, rude, or nonsensical.
I downvoted because I want to see less of the grandparent.
Can you elaborate on what you would like to see less of?
I also downvoted for that reason. I want to see less of people posting without thinking about the results of their comments (e.g. the apparent surprise that Alicorn was offended - that should have been really obvious as a likely outcome). I want to see less of people trying to maximize their own comfort at the expense of others, the group as a whole, or specific subgroups of the group as a whole (I strongly suspect that having two rationality groups, divided on gender lines, will be non-optimal in several ways, and that that non-optimality will probably disproportionately affect the womens' group, since there tend to be fewer of us here). I want to see less rudeness. I want to see less non-meta focus on gender in the first place, though this particular desire is minor and would not have been sufficient to warrant a downvote on its own.
Exactly. This whole thing looks like someone generalized from one example, didn't think before they posted, made some errors, and got downvoted - and then some people jump to their defense because he's in a group that the lesswrong-persona empathizes with.
The comment that started this implies the poster didn't remember that homosexuals exist, thinks everyone is like himself, and doesn't know or care about the wider effects of excluding women from his rationality group. There are a lot of incorrect defenses of this, as well as 'technically correct' defenses that are being selectively applied ("don't criticize him because gender segregation is not in general a universally negative idea", "anything that doesn't have a universally agreed-upon objective definition is a bad criterion").
If someone came here and posted that they wanted a whites-only group because white people feel uncomfortable and irrational around black people (the only ethnicity other than white), I'd expect a very different response from the community.
Yes, putting something into the reference class of "things that are politically incorrect to say regardless of whether they are correct" would force a different response than putting it in the reference class of "things that can be considered on their literal merit".
I've noticed that differentiating speech based on nationality doesn't seem to warrant much protection at all while differentiation based on ethnicity is almost inconceivable. So people who want to play reference class tennis can take their pick.
I don't object to making something unacceptable to speak of due to the political implications, so long as it is clear that that is what is happening. It is the difference between claiming brazil's ideal is utterly impractical and has undesired consequences and saying it is offensive even to consider those consequences.
This particular mistake (unlike the other objections you mentioned) does not quite fit. Even if Brazil himself is a perfectly mature person immune to bias the group dynamics still influence his experience. If everyone else is a being an ass it sucks for him. (Of course it would be rather arrogant if his aversion is because he thinks everyone else is not like himself! :P)
He makes a claim about a possible general competitive tendencies associated with various combinations of subtypes of the human species. What he fails to consider is that there is more than one factor at play. Typically all male groups, all female groups, mixed groups and various combinations of gender-atypical groups will produce different kinds of competition. But there is bias inherent in the all-male and all-female groups too (again separating out the dynamics of gender atypical hybrids into your next objection, which I accept). Combining the sexes actually eliminates a whole swath of competition types because you can't get away with them in a mixed setting. In that way there is potential for the combination to be a stabilizing influence.
Interesting. You seem to be saying that the bias goes the other way - that we'd be irrationally rejecting racially segregated groups? (That is, not that we'd be irrational to reject the proposal, but that we'd be rejecting it without giving it fair consideration.)
I also intended to convey the other errors in that example - I think that in other circumstances, the comment would be considered (recognized?) to be below the standards of discourse for this community.
True! This seems like an unlikely reading of the comment, but not a precluded one.
Good point. Is there any literature on this issue? (Can we call up Lukeprog, the Minister of Citations?)
To be clear: I thought it was a poor suggestion, made in a comment that demonstrated a lack of thought on the issue. If in fact rationalist men abandon their training to butt skulls at the advice of promiscuous monkey ghosts when women are present, I agree that'd be worth studying! But I don't think it's worthwhile to exclude women from rationality groups to cater to these preferences without a serious analysis of the drawbacks.
Absolutely not! I would reject the idea of a gender segregated group and most certainly decline to participate in it or associate with it. The downsides are too great, both politically and practically and the advantages somewhat overstated.
What I would say is that it is important (to me) to either be consistent in applying a principle or to be clear about why there is a difference. The privilege of prohibition of exclusion is not universal and depends on the power that the group has claimed. To be clear I am not saying that the decision being political is bad, merely factual. I would apply it myself in this case.
Whenever something related to the gender comes up the result is an ugly 'sub standard' mess. (With the only a couple of exceptions to that rule being when HughRistik was the primary participant.) I have a slightly different model of the causal factors at play.
In a counterfactual world where there was no political hotspot over the issue my prediction is that Brazil's comment would remain stable at either 1 or 2 karma. There would be multiple comments replying to him variously pointing out the signalling implications of establishing such a group, the potential for negative externalities (particularly if only one of the sexes or gender atypical groups does not meet the population threshold to establish all three of all male, all female and mixed group), and an analysis of what the actual social dynamics at play involve. The high quality replies would reach around the 10 karma mark with perhaps one particularly good one making 20.
The problem with Brazil's comment is that it is insufficient. It doesn't go in to anything beyond expressing a desire for one thing that would remove a significant source of negative utility to him. That is ok, not every comment has to be an essay covering all the broader ramifications of a potential policy proposal. That is for posts.
In a different counterfactual where Brazil had made an actual policy proposal that we should establish gender segregated rationality groups - or an analogous proposal without the gender hotspot - then he would be downvoted significantly. Because once you make a policy proposal you have made a statement that should have considered all the pros and cons of the situation. But Brazil fell short of that - even if he may actually approve of such a policy he didn't advocate it.
The difference between what is said and 'all possible related things for which that statement could be associated' matters here far more than it does elsewhere. Going from "I'd like to join" to "we should establish" is a rubicon. As soon as something has a 'should' or especially a 'we should' the suggestion has to be something that I fully agree with or I'll launch a bucketload of punishment in that direction.
There is literature out there, but my mind is better with concepts than with bibliographies. Lukeprog or maybe Hugh could suggest something. But there certainly isn't as much literature out there as there ought to be!
Yes, and if that was done without an analysis of how analogous female competitive instincts work then I would claim offense! Because it is not just guys who have evolutionary incentives toward bias.
Nope, that'd be outright moronic. I'd like to think that nobody here with the initiative and influence to establish such a group would be dumb enough to actually do so.
I pretty much agree with Adelene Dawner's sibling comment here. I will go further and say that I find brazil84's comment to be exclusionary speech because of its connotations. Now, some commenters here are taking the denotation of brazil84's comment seriously and disagreeing with it; and I might be among them, if the comment had been phrased like so:
-- or that would warrant mocking him as one participant did (by her own admission).
Unfortunately, much like on Reddit, I think that a lot of people (myself included, though I am working to correct this) treat the up/down buttons as though they were agree/disagree buttons
Tell me about it. A newbie can only get enough karma to post by saying things people agree with, Nett result: groupthink.
I agree it's annoying and probably a problem, but I think there's still less groupthink than on most forums I've seen. I do agree that it can definitely be frustrating; I have a post I want to write up on the value of starting things sooner rather than later, and I was all set to start typing it up back when I had 19 karma (you need 20 to make a full post), but then I started posting in this thread, and my karma score drifted back down to a single digit. It's doubly frustrating because I can't tell if people legitimately think my posts there are without merit or if they're just using it as an agree/disagree button. If they do think my posts are terrible no one has said as such.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc? Looks like you actually came out ahead from that thread, karma-wise.
In fact, I think that thread illustrates LW's typical reaction to someone with an outlying opinion: initial rejection when it's poorly put, followed by upvotes when it's cogently fleshed out & defended. Looks OK to me.
This is the wrong metric to apply.
I had to impose myself the exact same warning. I was trying to use karma point to signal "rationalist status" instead of simply trying my best to comment intelligent things. There apparently is a little segment of my neurology that is constantly scanning what the median groupthink is and prompting me in that direction...
Nah. Even if you disagree with the LessWrong memes on just about everything, you can easily get to 20 karma with a few moderately interesting Rationality Quotes or some such.
I've seen plenty of forums / newsgroups / collective blogs / real-life social circles that developed a powerful groupthink despite the lack of any karma-like mechanic and despite a very hands-off or nonexisting moderation.
There's far more buggy code in our brains than in our servers.
I don't think so - comments seem much more likely to end up with positive karma than with negative karma, except on some hot-button topics (politics, gender relations and seduction ...). So getting enough karma shouldn't be a problem unless you're systematically talking about "unwanted" topics, or write particularly bad comments ... in which case, them not being able to post top-level posts is a feature, not a bug.
There's some of that, but it seems that "upvote for agreement" is much more common than "downvote for disagreement", except on hot-button topics (which covers brazil84' post). Downvoting generally requires disagreement + rudeness or stupidity.
I originally downvoted your comment but I'm reversing that to an upvote due to the reception it received. The behavior displayed in response to your comment demonstrated that the problem you mention is, in fact, a genuine one.