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TimS comments on Can the Chain Still Hold You? - Less Wrong
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I don't think we have significant theoretical disagreement. I endorse the view that one of the social functions of gender constructions is to act as a firebreak for attempts to changes to sex constructions. That is, a strategy for improving the public's opinions of sex reassignment surgery (both consensual and non-consensual) that doesn't address boy-in-the-girl's-bathroom or marriage equality issues is doomed to failure.
I'm making an assertion about tactics - that gender constructions are the low hanging fruit to target. I expect them to be easier to change because they are not as entangled with the biological facts (and history suggests that they are slightly easier to change). More broadly, I don't think that the only purpose of gender constructions is to preserve sex constructions. For example, the guy-as-jock meme is independent of any modern biological facts about men, as far as I can tell.
No worries, mon :)
I think our disagreement is primarily a methodological one. You are aiming at the low hanging fruit, but I feel like if we don't dig up the roots of the problem similar fruit will eventually grow again. I want a new tree.
I want a new tree, too. I think uprooting the current tree doesn't guarantee that a better tree will grow in its place. In fact, I worry that the backlash from uprooting the tree will help plant the seeds for a worse tree.
Yeah that is a valid worry. I concede my point. The potential impact from uprooting the tree combined with the multitude of potential unknowns make strategic clipping of the fruit seem the better option. I never imagined that I would find an argument for moderate change in such a progress oriented community.
Yeah, this community's meaning of progress doesn't align well with a politically active feminist's meaning of progress. For the most part, the majority of members of this community hope for scientific advances that make our questions moot. That's not a totally unreasonable hope, in the abstract: many advances in female empowerment follow from the invention of The Pill - a reliable method for separating sex from procreation. Once that separation occurred, it became much more obvious how disconnected from physical fact many gender constructs really were.
That said, I think that the LessWrong community as a whole underestimates the impact of constructed social meaning. Part of that is unexamined traditionalism and part of it is the community's well settled aversion to discussing practical social engineering.
I am not completely against change. I just think progress ceases to be progress if it accelerates to the point where humans are unable to acclimate to it.
I don't think I understand.
A new technology is useful if it is serves a specific purpose for human manipulation of territory. The more unknown the technology the more dangerous it is to human survival, and thus can no longer be seen as progressive. Furthermore the introduction of new technology reshapes the social topography of a territory. If erosion/alteration of social topography happens at too fast a rate it becomes impossible to navigate based off the experiences of others. Just as if all the currents and depths of a channel suddenly changed the built up knowledge of generations of fishers would become irrelevant.
Whether technological/scientific advancement is progress or just impact depends on these two factors
1.) The degree of unknowns involved with the technology 2.) The extent to which social topography is eroded/altered.
If we look at cell phones and other types of information-technologies they have completely reconstructed the social topography of the world, and they continue to develop at an astonishing rate. As to the degree of unknowns, cell phones have already been completely integrated into everyday life, despite their relatively short lifespan. What happens when a person lives 70 years with a cellphone in their pocket, or an i-pad? We have no idea because they have not been around long enough to have any cases. There is still a huge degree of unknowns with these new technologies, yet we are already completely dependent on them.
I am not saying that this is not progress, it is not possible to say at this point; but I will say that we are walking a fine line between true progress and unrestrained impact.
Here is a genuine disagreement between us.
I don't think increasing our ability to control the world is an inherently good or bad thing (somewhat like how concepts like equality don't have a particular political affiliation). The Spaniards did terrible things to the natives of the New World, but the proximate cause of their behavior was their extreme aversion to Otherness (like Orientalism, but worse). Spain's technological superiority made their oppressive behavior possible, but it is insufficient to explain what happened.
To your specific point about cell phones, the data is pretty clear they are fairly safe. We have a good understanding of what radiation of various kinds can and can't do. And social topography has nothing to do with this risk.
I don't think he means the biological effects of radiation, but the psychological/sociological effects of always being available for conversation. (Being unable to talk to me for one freakin' day would bother the living crap out of my mother, for example. I'm not sure that's a healthy thing.)
I didn't thumbs down you, just saying.
I agree that our ability to control the world is not inherently good or bad. What I am saying is that the rate at which we use this ability can be beneficial or harmful. In my mind it is analogous to a person running through a forest to win a race. There is no path, but they have a pretty good idea of the general direction they want to go. The faster the run the quicker they close the distance between themselves and their objective, but at the same time, if they run too fast they risk stumbling into a pitfall, shooting off a sudden drop, tripping, building up too much momentum on a downhill run. All these things are potentially dangerous. The cellphones causing cancer was the wrong point to focus on. But it cannot be denied that cell phones in general have changed the structure of society at an alarming pace. Again, I am not saying this is inherently good or bad. It could be that our barreling through the forest brings us to our destination in the least possible time. I guess I am just a somewhat pessimistic person. I think rather than getting there faster, it would be better to minimize any chance of tragedy.