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steven0461 comments on Rational Romantic Relationships, Part 1: Relationship Styles and Attraction Basics - Less Wrong
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Blowups seem like they can be quite damaging even if they occur only a fraction of the time. Even without blowups, there's still the waste of space and collective attention. As I see it, the recent comments page is to some extent a commons that a minority of LWers are tempted to spend on their pet topic, and that a majority of LWers would like to see spent on topics more directly related to the site's theme, but the minority is here in the thread voting and the majority is not.
On the other hand, the vote numbers here are extreme enough that I find them surprising. Should I conclude that, as a community, we've decided to stop having on-topic and anti-mind-killing norms? Or is it the way I said it?
I'm not sure why you got so many downvotes-- I'm not one of the people who supplied them.
Since "women prefer jerks" is something which is commonly believed but which may not have a lot of evidence supporting it (especially if 'women' isn't quantified and 'jerks' isn't defined), I don't think it's off-topic to discuss it.
What topics would you like to see more of?
That could describe anyone's pet issue.
The math, psychology, philosophy, and economics of rationality, careful futurism, the singularity, existential risks, optimal philanthropy, strategies for rationalists and their organizations, considerations relevant to common life decisions that human biases cause to be ignored elsewhere or that benefit unusually from using our conceptual tools.
It seems to me that this topic falls squarely into the last category.
I disagree insofar as it's not obvious what that phrase means. Assuming everyone who believes "it" actually has beliefs that provide predictions, it's not obvious that those believers make common predictions.
I think the phrase stands in for widely varying sets of different actual beliefs, rather than either meaning just one sort of thing or usually being just emotive, but I don't believe that too firmly.
Women are, on average, more attracted to men who are more selfish and aggressive than they are compliant and cooperative.
I'm surprised this comment was made and is so highly upvoted because it doesn't meet your usual standards.
Specifically, the context is "it's not obvious what that phrase means. Assuming everyone who believes "it" actually has beliefs that provide predictions, it's not obvious that those believers make common predictions," and you responded with a paraphrase that I believe is close to the truest meaning of the phrase. Some problems:
It's not obvious what your comment's function is. You probably meant to assert at least that this is a true and near truest interpretation of the phrase. The context is my assertion that people mean different things by the phrase, do you (also) mean to imply that people using it are generally using it accurately?
"On average" isn't specific enough.
You missed saying the truer, deeper pattern behind the true statement, the {6, 6, 6, 6, 6, ...}, though it isn't something implied by the phrase. That deeper truth is that it is behaviors indicating high status that are attractive. Usually these are "selfish and aggressive", not showing concern with others' standards, but conspicuous vulnerability/non high-status behavior also shows high status by ignoring opportunities to display high status with selfishness and aggression. See e.g. John Mayer.
FWIW, I have it on good authority that he was a neighborhood bully when he was little.
I, surprisingly enough, disagree. In the context of casual conversation the meaning is well enough understood. Normal people having conversations don't use precise technical terms but they get along fine - and often wouldn't even understand the formal and precise terminology very well anyway.
It just isn't reasonable to dismiss "'women prefer jerks' is something which is commonly believed" as undefined.
Mind you I myself don't particularly find the "women prefer jerks" belief to be all that useful (or even necessarily have an opinion on just how common the belief is). It just isn't the most practical foundation on which to self-improve (even though it does work for some). Myself I recommend "quit being a pussy" alongside the kind of deeper insight that you allude to in "3."
I still a not sure if you are asserting that the phrase "women prefer jerks" has a single, commonly understood meaning among everyone, or among men, or what.
Their understanding of formal terminology is barely relevant. If a someone says that their printer "is shit", I want to know if they mean that it burns through ink cartridges, jams frequently, prints with low quality, or what. I am unsure as to what an informal phrasing means, specifically I am unsure about the extent to which it means the same thing to different people. I'm not blaming people for being informal, I'm questioning how much agreement there can be among the people around hundreds of thousands of water coolers in the world when such an imprecise phrase is used. That around any individual water cooler people communicate well enough is not in doubt.
It's not being dismissed, it's being partitioned according to my best estimation of what its speakers and listeners actually mean. There are probably different meanings because the phrase is not very specific.
Meta-statements about something like "the belief shared by people who believe this statement is true" are being dismissed.
If we must have these sorts of conversations could we while doing so please refrain from using terms for female genitalia as negative descriptors? Although the linked SMBC is amusing thist really doesn't help keeping things calm or help the signal to noise ratio.
Eh? That term means "cat" to me.
EDIT: In fact, wedrifid's meaning has a different etymology from either yours or mine.
Huh. Interesting. I did not realize what the etymology of that word was. The fact that it is used almost exclusively to target males rather than females suggests that there's been some etymological bleed over.
And at no niggardly pace, either.
While I don't doubt that there has been some bleed over, I am not sure this is actually suggestive of it; typical gender roles would have "pampered" or "soft" also be seen as more negative when directed at a male, and I don't think there is any related bleeding going on there.
Terms meaning cat have been slang for the female genitalia in more than one language, or so The Great Cat Massacre claims about "le chatte" in French, at any rate..
Thanks, I wasn't aware of the origins of, well, any of the various usages for that word.
I prefer to avoid them, for approximately this reason.
Objecting to the use of unsophisticated terms is one thing - it would be pointless to argue with that. But if you are moving to a claim about "signal to noise ratio" then you are simply wrong. The signal there is extremely important.
I think the comment is being upvoted in the context of it being a translation of the claim, not in the context of it being an assertion that the claim is true.
Obviously, mind-killingness is a joint property of an idea and a mind, and not the sole property of ideas.
This thread has gone well.
Or disagree that it is off-topic or mind-killing.
Why would anyone so disagree? If this topic isn't off-topic and mind-killing, is there any topic that is?
I don't find "do women dig jerks?" particularly mind-killing, or at least, not here (much less than the ethics of PUA, political parties, elections, welfare, taxes, Occupy Wall Street, race and intelligence, Israel and Palestine ...); I don't have strong opinions on the issue, and hearing someone speak on that topic doesn't allow me to categorize them into a clearly-defined group.
I can't clearly see any "sides" on the issue (two possible sides are of course "women are stupid and dig jerks so I hate them" and "anybody who criticizes women is stupid", but I'm not seeing either of those here, the sides are more "it's complicated" and "it's not that simple").
There's no "that" for it to be either that simple or not that simple.
(Implicit modifier A) women (implicit modifier B) dig (whatever that means exactly) jerks (whatever that means exactly).
Modifier A can be "all", or "most", or "the most attractive ones", or whatever.
Modifier B can be "most days of the week", "most years of their lives", or whatever.
"Dig" can mean "prefer ceteris paribus", "will only have one night stands with", "will stay with them even if the guy hits them", "strongly prefer at all times", "prefer for all types of relationships", or whatever.
"Jerks" can mean "people who are more assertive than average", "people who try and make them feel bad about themselves", "people who have killed a man", "people who wear motorcycle jackets", "people who frequently brag", or whatever.
"Women dig jerks" provides an opportunity to construct an obviously (or not obviously) true or false meaning to something other people say, depending on how right or wrong one wants them to be. It allows room to always easily be able to interpret an interlocutor's words to mean that they are innately evil or hopelessly misguided.
That said, people actually do disagree on the substance of the issue.
I would say yes. I mean, it's clearly on topic relative the main post, and if instrumental rationality is going to be one of the focuses of the site, then "on topic" for top level posts is necessarily going to be pretty broad.
As for mind-killing, there are certainly topics I think it's harder to hold a productive conversation on.
I think a comment can be off-topic even though it's on-topic relative to the main post and the main post is itself on-topic. I'm also worried that people are using too broad a definition of "instrumental rationality".