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brazil84 comments on Epistle to the New York Less Wrongians - Less Wrong
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Most people are heterosexual. Anyway, you obviously are angry at me from our exchange in the racism thread. Please don't go around digging up my old posts to respond to just out of anger. Instead, you might ask yourself why exactly you are feeling angry. Could there be cognitive dissonance at work?
Most people demonstrate heterosexual behavior in modern heteronormative society. There is a huge difference between this and the generalization "most people are heterosexual". In ancient Greece, "most people" (or men, anyway) were capable of having both pederastic relationships and productive heterosexual marriage. I have no data but I'd really like to see some, on how much societal norms affect orientation. Which is itself a relatively new concept.
If "is heterosexual" is determined by "sexually attracted to given gender" and sexual attraction to genders is mostly controlled by the sexual normativity of a society (is this the case? I believe so but I notice I have no evidence) then there is less of a difference between the two than you'd think.
Basically I distinguish "capable of experiencing sexual feelings towards" from "will ever actually have an experience with", here. It's like saying that "I'll, like, never fall in love with a black man" (due to the demographics of my current location) versus "I never could fall in love with a black man". It seems to me that the logical extension of these principles is that people may be capable of sexual feelings differing from the sexual norms of their society, to a greater extent than deviation already present, but do not articulate, understand, acknowledge, or have opportunity to experience these feelings. (There has to be a more sophisticated way to phrase this than "almost everyone is secretly a little bisexual", because that of course dramatically oversimplifies the matter and gives the wrong mouthfeel, but.)
I guess "secretly a little bisexual, but due to society's constraints will never consider or pursue a same-sex relationship" strikes me as heterosexual, not bisexual.
Sexuality is one of those areas where people want an abstract 'core' that is held separate and above environmental factors. For example a person may like to believe "I am the kind of person who could fall in love with a black man" and feel that never having fallen in love with a black man is a fact about their environment, not about their ability to love. I was wary of the difference you elucidated being something like "I like to believe that I am the kind of person who would be sexually attracted to both genders if only society was more permitting".
I approve of the ideological stand you are taking. Unfortunately evolution isn't nearly as open minded. Of all the prevalent trends in human behavior to say "but it could just be cultural" sexual attraction is the most absurd. Evolution cares about babies, not political convenience.
Because it's not like there's clear evolutionary evidence for other potential reasons to have sexual attraction, right?
Well my comment was kinda focused on modern society. I'm not sure how things were in Ancient Greece. Would Socrates or Plato have been particularly distracted if a Greek girl in a short toga had wandered into one of their Socratic sessions?
Probably! My intuition is that your art as a rationalist is most in need when it's hardest to exercise (HJPEV, I think, possibly also in the Sequences) and that you shouldn't expect the world to give you the peace of mind to apply all your skill to a question. I can bench-press more weight with a proper safety bar and a spotter, but the real world doesn't often offer safety bars and spotters so I press less weight, without the bar and spotter, and have a better estimate of my capabilities.
Would the same reasoning apply to noises, like jackhammering, people talking on their cell phones, etc?
Yes. Also to time-pressured situations like a question requiring an immediate answer, and emotionally charged situations.
I disagree, I think it's better to practice stuff without distractions, at least at first. So for example I wouldn't prefer to have rational club meetings at a construction site; or to have people talking on their cell phones during the meeting.
That's unexpected. In this comparison of sex based distractions to construction sites jackhammers turn out to be analogous to breasts. I'd usually expect something different.
It's not so much a matter of comparison as a matter of applying shokwave's reasoning to other distractions.
He didn't make the argument that simply having girls present is only a mild distraction. Instead, his argument is that one should accept distractions because they are present in normal life.
I know, I agree with your argument. (Without supporting sex segregated lesswrong meetups as being a remotely practical idea!)
Ah. The male-only problem is pretty much a permanent decision - it's a Hard Problem to attract females to an all-male group. So if you had to decide between never any distractions or always distractions... I would pick distractions. Otherwise I feel training caps out too early.
Actually, I came upon this post and this thread while digging around the site for posts relevant to rationalist community. Your post caught my attention while checking the comments thread.