komponisto comments on Being Wrong about Your Own Subjective Experience - Less Wrong
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First of all, maybe I'm misremembering, but I thought Swimmer963 was a "she".
Secondly, I can understand if maybe it doesn't bother you that people instinctively, automatically associate "composers" with "the past", but I am entitled to be bothered by it, and to correct it when I come across it.
The error of this is not in being epistemically cautious, it is in drawing the distinction between "past composers" and "present composers", thereby privileging the hypothesis that the two groups may differ with regard to the characteristics under discussion.
Here is a way that Swimmer963 could have expressed the thought without communicating the implication that contemporary composers (some of whom read Less Wrong) are too low-status to be acknowledged:
"Some composers (Mozart being a famous historical example) have incredible capacities to do this..."
Thanks for pointing that out; I've changed the 'he's to 'they's.
Ok, but emotionally satisfying responses are rarely strategic responses. The positive advice in your post (this ability can be trained) seems like an afterthought. If you led off with that, you would impart the same content (modern composers exist and have comparable or superior skill levels) and far superior context ('I am confident and helping' instead of 'I am offended and correcting').
True, but I enjoyed komponisto's style in this case.
It doesn't actually bother me what gender people think I am; I would like to think the ideas in my posts don't depend on the fact that I'm female to be relevant.