JonahSinick comments on Reasons for being rational - Less Wrong

57 Post author: Swimmer963 01 July 2011 03:28PM

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Comment author: JonahSinick 04 July 2013 10:50:39PM * 0 points [-]

I find your interlocutors' comments to be very insensitive, and think that they're being hyperbolic.
I think that their descriptive characterizations of the world are true to some degree, but that this is highly contingent on culture. Our culture places very high emphasis on women's physical appearance to the exclusion of most other things. I don't think that this is biologically engrained. I think that men have small genetically rooted tendencies to view women in a more sexualized way than they view men, and that these tendencies have been greatly exacerbated by self-reinforcing runaway cultural feedback loops. I think that your interlocutors have (whether knowingly or unknowingly) reinforced these with their comments.
Their comments contain a valid overarching point which isn't specific to gender relations at all: people greatly exaggerate their own and others' prosocial motivations, deluding themselves into believing that they play a greater role than they do. The things that superficially appear to be altruistic often turn out not to be upon further investigation. People have some concern for others, but when they have conflicting motivations, they'll generally succumb to them. I do believe that it's possible to overcome these tendencies to a substantial degree, but most people aren't sufficiently self-aware to recognize that there's an issue that needs to be corrected, or interested enough to put effort into it.