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Alicorn comments on I've had it with those dark rumours about our culture rigorously suppressing opinions - Less Wrong
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Comments (857)
Quite apart from the content of the parent comment, I find this tactically interesting. I'm probably perceived as more likely than the average commenter to attack a post like this, so I've been preemptively identified as a mutant, which leaves me with little maneuvering room to refute the assertions about non-mutants. Even if I bring up people I know, they're probably mutants too, since they're people I know and not selected at random from the general population.
(Regarding the content, WrongBot has it.)
I am probably perceived by some to be more likely than the average commenter to come down on a different side of an argument along these lines. In this case, however, I probably disagree with him at least as strongly as you do. My tactical consideration seems to be that if I disagree with Aurini I'm a "mangina", not a "mutant".
And if anyone else brings up women they know, well, they're probably like you, too. No true woman is worthy of respect.
It is obviously true that you are psychologically atypical (nearly everyone on this site is), trying to frame this as a debating tactic instead of an accurate observation dosen't sound like good faith discussion to me.
It seems to be both an accurate observation and a debating tactic.
I wouldn't call the discussion one based on good faith. We should not expect Alicorn to pretend that Aurini is behaving as the perfect model of good faith instead of making accurate observations about the tactical difficulties she faces.
I've met a fair share of women who were extremely competent - female comedians, entrepreneurs, writers - and I would happily work alongside any of them.
They are the exceptions, however.
The present female participation in the workforce is only possible through a massive state system which 'empowers' women by disempowering men. This skews both the sexual and economic marketplace, ultimately to the misery of both genders.
I have a great deal of respect for individuals such as yourself - heck, it's telling that I remember your name when I haven't been on here in a year. I treat individuals as individuals - but stereotypes are cheap information.
Is there a particular point which you disagree with me on, or is what I said simply unspeakable? ;)
I'm hesitant to produce a point-by-point rebuttal. This thread is about unspeakable notions, but you have confounded the data about your own unspeakable notions by bringing in what sounds like real-life personal information. I'm not sure if I'd be rebutting a persona you're putting on to play with the thread concept (nor what the point of rebutting a mere persona would be), or if you actually agree with the positions you've described.
I'm really not sure what's so controversial.
That demographically women are less intelligent than men, with less variation (glass ceiling, dirt floor)?
That women - being beautiful and loved by default - have less need to act responsibility, in the modern world or the ancestral environment?
That women are more emotional and prone to manufacturing drama in relationships? 'Shit tests' as the PUAs say.
That women are evolutionarily programmed to seek out dominant men?
That some women repeatedly date domestic abusers, and appear to enjoy it?
The stereotype of the nagging wife didn't arise ex-nihilo; women are very prone to verbal abuse, often continuing an argument long after their man has conceded. When a woman natters, natters, natters, then yes - as Sean Connery said - an open handed slap is justified (though ill advised in the present legal climate).
To clarify, I'm not trolling; I'm being quite sincere. I have an opinion based upon evidence and theoretical constructs, and furthermore (in my experience) it works when the rubber hits the road.
You're using a cheap tactic here, listing fact-shaped opinions optimized to appear tolerable to the intended audience and pretending that a list of them covers all the inferential distance from the audience's position to the one you stated. ("...most women are incredibly stupid, and quite useless without a strong male presence guiding them...", etc).
However, that's just a distraction. Your unspoken assumptions - e.g. that if a woman is even slightly sexually aroused by some male behavior, then, regardless of its other effects, this behavior is the best for her and she just doesn't know it; her utility function can't differ from her sexual instincts - are intended to do the real work here. We are to swallow them along with the spoken points. You know what? No sell!
Such unspoken assumptions are easy to find out. We take the mainstream LW position, apply all of the points listed above to it as if we had full confidence in each of them, then we look at the remaining gap between our "modified" attitude towards gender relations, women, etc and the position being forced upon us (that most women are stupid, immature and most importantly undeserving of freedom and respect).
As I have just demonstrated, in that gap lie the things that our opponent would like us to assume but can't say out loud for fear of repulsing us. I have named one; let's look for more.
(Why the downvote?)
I want to discourage further troll-feeding. I don't actually disagree with anything you said, though.
I think you're wrong; Aurini seems capable of good-faith debate, even if he has sunk pretty low at the moment. I say we should engage him and try to find some sanity.
That's your right, of course. I still don't think that having this conversation with him in this forum is more important than minimizing the amount of proud public misogyny that shows up in google searches of lesswrong, though. I mean, there's always PMs.
Um... you're concerned with perceived misogyny? In conversations like these, LW has come up with arguments in favor of infanticide, torture, overthrowing democracy, "right to discriminate", terrorism... Goddamnit, people have been upvoting Sam0345 on occasion, when he's pushing some reactionary-flavoured grand theory more eloquently than usual. I think that worrying about low-grade stuff like this is silly while we've all of the above going on.
Yes. Misogyny is much easier to engage in overthrowing democracy, and has a larger short-term social effect.
The other piece of it is that misogyny has a very bad reputation these days, so it does have an effect on how a site is perceived.
It hasn't been my experience that new members of a community google for mentions of infanticide while trying to decide whether they're welcome there, but yes, I generally disapprove of most things like that on similar grounds.
Edit: Which isn't to say I disagree with all of them. If Aurini had taken out the gendered language from his claim "most people are immature idiots and need firm direction in their lives" (or whatever) I might have upvoted him. It's the aggressive depersonalization of the traditionally oppressed half of the population that I think is toxic.
Sam0345 is sometimes right.
Also eloquent rational reactionary thought is bad and unwelcome on LW? Why? I though rationality dosen't come with a political package. If we are worried about signalling ditching our support for Cryonics would probably help more.
Presumably because people don't like the subject matter.
At the very least, the assertion that the behavior is the result of evolutionary programming is quite controversial, and is far beyond what state of the art science can assert.
Can you think of any society where women pursue weak, supplicating men?
Just because behaviour is malleable doesn't mean it isn't based upon an innate template. Are you advocating the blank slate theory? And if so, would you also advocate the blank slate for animal behaviour and mating patterns?
I agree that the "best" men got their pick of the most desirable women. The women were rewarded for complying, and they did. It's hard to separate that effect from the one you describe.
More generally, the meaning of "best" has changed over time. I don't agree that best and dominant were always identical through history, and I don't agree that your intended meaning of dominant necessarily matches the historical meaning of that term.