GabrielDuquette comments on Rationality and Relationships September 2011 - Less Wrong

1 [deleted] 01 September 2011 03:05PM

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Comment author: Vladimir_M 01 September 2011 07:03:23PM *  12 points [-]

However, I'll also note that previous discussions were often specifically about PUA and/or feminism. More recent posts were about relationships without either of those topics directly connected, which may be way they had higher quality discussion.

Trouble is, I can hardly see how these discussions can remain sufficiently close to reality without getting into issues where the problematic "PUA and/or feminism" stuff becomes relevant. In fact, from what I see, attempts to do so are one of the principal ways in which I observe the death spirals forming. People write things that are strong applause lights, including in response to each other, and this results in a happy death spiral whose drift away from reality could be stopped only by criticizing the assumptions behind these applause-lights assertions -- but no such criticism is possible without bringing up relevant points that trigger the dreaded "PUA and/or feminism" mind-killers.

If nobody even attempts such criticism, what follows is something that may superficially look like a "higher quality discussion," but is in fact a festival of applause lights and happy death spirals -- and on the whole even worse than a quarrel, in which it's at least clear that something's gone badly wrong. In my honest opinion, this is in fact what has been happening.

Comment author: [deleted] 01 September 2011 07:13:06PM *  1 point [-]

I don't think it's a bad thing for people to enjoy agreeing with each other. I do think it's a bad thing if they don't do anything else, or if they only talk about stuff that's so vague that substantial disagreement is impossible.

Please feel free to point out if/when such talk occurs on this thread.