JonahSinick comments on Reasons for being rational - Less Wrong

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

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Comment author: Swimmer963 04 July 2013 09:58:58PM 2 points [-]

It may be unpleasant to realize that most people don't particularly care about your thoughts or feelings capability or even your well-being except instrumentally, but it is true.

Do you mean that this is true of how people interact with other people in general, or specifically how men interact with women?

You have to explain to people why they should see you as a human being, and what seeing you as a human being actually looks like, or they will simultaneously fail to understand why they should, and fail to understand how they are not doing so already.

They should because it's self-evident that I am a human being? To me, at least. I spend a lot of time in a male-dominant community (atheists/skeptics/rationalists cluster), and even more time in a female-dominated domain (nursing), and my conversations among females are no more dominated by emotion than those among males. We have conversations to share useful information and ask for practical advice, to tell morbid anecdotes that we all find hilarious, to share personal goals, to point out new discoveries in medicine that we think are fascinating and exciting, etc etc etc. It's so freaking obvious to me that this whole gender thing just Does. Not. Matter.

Most people in my immediate social circle already do this right, including the local Less Wrong group. It's all the more jarring when I'm reminded that right, this whole feminism thing isn't a moot point yet after all.

you will not unlock the puzzle-box that has ownership of me as the prize.

If that is someone's goal in talking to women in general, they are doing it wrong, no matter the content and tone of their discussion.

I get that some women's revealed preferences seem to indicate that they expect and want to be treated this way. This is deeply confusing to me. Anyone who wants ownership of me as a prize for their interesting conversation is going to be disappointed, because that prize is not on the table.

Comment author: JonahSinick 04 July 2013 10:50:39PM *  0 points [-]
  1. I find your interlocutors' comments to be very insensitive, and think that they're being hyperbolic.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
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