GabrielDuquette comments on Rationality and Relationships September 2011 - Less Wrong
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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.
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.