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Registered to post this.

I was linked to the Sequences and was going through them, mostly impressed, when I hit this post.

Eliezer's assessment that the human species can be clearly divided into exactly two sexes, and that dealing with the one you are not a member of is like dealing with an alien species, struck me in an extremely analogous way to how Robert Aumann's Orthodox Judaism struck Eliezer: a usually intelligent person buying wholeheartedly into a local cultural construct that, to my fairly simple observation and deduction, should be assigned very negative log odds.

I've assigned a considerably lower weighting to my Bayesian updates from the Sequences since. I very nearly stopped reading but realized that wasn't the right plan (since, after all, Aumann's agreement theorem is still true).

See in context

4 [SEQ RERUN] The Opposite Sex

by MinibearRex

18th Jun 2012

1 min read

4

Today's post, The Opposite Sex was originally published on 28 June 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

A few thoughts from Eliezer Yudkowsky about a discussion of sexism on Overcoming Bias.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).

This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was 2-Place and 1-Place Words, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.

Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.

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5[SEQ RERUN] What Would You Do Without Morality?

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[-]pragmatist12y170

Men look at other men and see people of various sorts and types; when they look at women they see women of various sorts and types. Likewise women looking at women and men.

Robin Hanson committed no sin greater than openly talking about women as if they were a strange incomprehensible unsympathetic Other that he was trying to figure out. Which is just the same way that most women talk about men, and the way that most men think about women. This breaks no pockets, picks no legs, sells no wives and mutilates no genitalia, so I have to question whether this is womankind's most urgent problem.

This kind of othering is not symmetric. If we were in the state of nature, it might have been. But we're actually part of a culture in which the male perspective has been regarded as the default for millennia. There has been a huge outpouring of work in various media that reduces the cognitive distance of men for women. It is only recently that any work has been produced that reduces the cognitive distance of women for men, and men are still often discouraged from consuming this work. So while I think it is probably true that men see different kinds of people when they see men and different kinds of women when they see women, I don't think this can be symmetrically extrapolated to women. There are messages embedded throughout our culture that the default person is male, and I would be surprised if these messages had not been absorbed by women as well as men. I haven't really looked at research in this area, but I suspect if you asked men and women to imagine an average person, most of them, regardless of gender, would imagine a man.

On a completely unrelated note: A few days ago I was filling out an application form for a visa. There were a number of multiple choice questions on the form (such as "Reason for visit?"), and in each case the options were listed in alphabetical order. With one exception. Any guesses about which question didn't have the options in alphabetical order?

[-]Viliam_Bur12y30

It is only recently that any work has been produced that reduces the cognitive distance of women for men, and men are still often discouraged from consuming this work.

I think a big problem in reducing the cognitive distance is that when you describe many different details, people will automatically label some of these differences as good or bad. Then, acknowledging these difference makes you connotationally sexist.

This is how trying to reverse the stupidity of sexism sometimes lead to people not understanding each other, and actually not being socially allowed to understand.

[-]NancyLebovitz12y30

Gender:
Male
Female

Apologies for the triple post-- I was fighting it out with Markdown to get my layout to work, and for some reason, the earlier efforts seemed to be evaporating rather than showing up, so I'd start another comment.

In any case, if you want to force a new line, end the preceding line with two spaces.

[-]Viliam_Bur12y00

You can edit your comments, using one of the buttons in lower right corner of the comment. The edit button appears only at your comments (for obvious reasons) and it looks like a pencil.

Also, clicking a "Show Help" button (when editing) opens a short help that contains a link to Markdown sandbox.

[-]NancyLebovitz12y00

You can edit your comments, using one of the buttons in lower right corner of the comment. The edit button appears only at your comments (for obvious reasons) and it looks like a pencil.

I know that, and I normally don't have any problems with editing. I still don't know what went wrong with that comment.

I posted my explanation because I had a bet with myself that at least one person reading didn't know how to force a new line, and would like to.

The information for that is under Markdown syntax, an link which is cleverly concealed under the more help link in the help info under each comment.

This is progress, actually, compared to the days when it seemed as though LW had an unnamed and unexplorable mark-up system.

[-]drethelin12y00

I think this is a trick question. Was Caucasian first on the race list?

[-]NancyLebovitz12y00

Gender

Male
Female

[This comment is no longer endorsed by its author]Reply

[-]NancyLebovitz12y-20

Gender: Male . Female

[This comment is no longer endorsed by its author]Reply

[-]Michelle_Z12y100

A man's attitude towards other men vs. women differs from a woman's attitude towards other women vs. men. Among men and women, the way they relate to the opposite sex and each other has to do with their cultural background. I've met men who I can relate to very well, and who can relate to me easily. I've also met men who I have a very hard time understanding, and who seem to have a very hard time understanding me. In addition I've met women who I can relate to easily, and others who I cannot relate to at all.

I will say that the number of men I can relate to well is much smaller than the men I cannot relate to at all, though the same goes for women.

[-][anonymous]12y100

Because humans are a sexually reproducing species, human brains are nearly identical. All human beings share similar emotions, tell stories, and employ identical facial expressions. We naively expect all other minds to work like ours, which cause problems when trying to predict the actions of non-human intelligences. 24 June 2008 [1]

Four days later:

Understanding the opposite sex is hard. Not as hard as understanding an AI, but it's still attempting empathy across a brainware gap: trying to use your brain to understand something that is not like your brain. [2]

Perhaps not incompatible claims, if the difference in men's and women's brains is small but significant. 'Nearly identical' is the point where the claims could be incompatible.

[1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/d1j/seq_rerun_the_psychological_unity_of_humankind/

[2] http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/d54/seq_rerun_the_opposite_sex/

[-]A1987dM12y60

You need to escape underscores by putting a backslash before them.

[-]MinibearRex12y40

The first quote you mention is the summary I wrote of "The Psychological Unity of Humankind". The full post contains this section:

Let's go back to biology for a moment. What if, somehow, you had two different adaptations which both only assembled on the presence, or alternatively the absence, of some particular developmental gene? Then the question becomes: Why would the developmental gene itself persist in a polymorphic state? Why wouldn't the better adaptation win - rather than both adaptations persisting long enough to become complex?

So a species can have different males and females, but that's only because neither the males or the females ever "win" and drive the alternative to extinction.

This creates the single allowed exception to the general rule about the psychological unity of humankind: you can postulate different emotional makeups for men and women in cases where there exist opposed selection pressures for the two sexes. Note, however, that in the absence of actually opposed selection pressures, the species as a whole will get dragged along even by selection pressure on a single sex.

[-]hairyfigment12y60

Note, however, that in the absence of actually opposed selection pressures, the species as a whole will get dragged along even by selection pressure on a single sex.

For example, this likely explains the female orgasm.

[-]buybuydandavis12y40

More or less "the same" will depend on the metric you're using. Very much identical compared to a chicken's brain. Easily distinguished population averages by sexual behavior.

[-]SamLL12y70

Registered to post this.

I was linked to the Sequences and was going through them, mostly impressed, when I hit this post.

[-]Incorrect12y70

Understanding the opposite sex is hard. Not as hard as understanding an AI, but it's still attempting empathy across a brainware gap: trying to use your brain to understand something that is not like your brain.

As Eliezer so often asks, could you be more specific?

I'm having trouble thinking of specific examples of the opposite sex being harder to understand than my own and thus I don't really understand EY's statement.

[-]CommanderShepard12y70

Makes sense if you assume EY had a poor model of women's sexuality and romantic preferences, which is remarkably easy since most of pop culture is basically disinformation on the subject.

[-]Viliam_Bur12y40

I have read today a good article about a male privilege. I link it here because in my opinion it is much better written that all other articles I read about the same topic; and it's relevant to our topic of understanding the people of opposite sex. But I still have some questions about the whole thing.

The article suggests that as a man I simply cannot imagine the situation of women, because some things either don't happen to me, or I wouldn't mind them because of my different preferences, or both of that. If I try to estimate the impact of those things on a woman's utility function, I am almost certainly wrong. Thus the best cognitive strategy is, if a woman tells me something hurts her so much, just trust her, even if it does not make much sense to me.

This strategy would work great for a man who only ever communicates with women that have absolutely no cognitive biases and would never lie to gain unfair advantage. Because I don't expect such perfection from men around me, I also don't expect it from women. Any information I get can be wrong, whether intentionally or unintentionally, even if it comes from a woman.

So what should I do as a rationalist that cares about other people's utility functions? Perhaps I could assign a high prior probability that I am wrong about things related to male privilege. (How high? 90%? 99%) Also I should discount opinions of other men (unless they already discounted it themselves, in which case I will not count the same evidence twice). But there is still a chance that considering this I will come to a conclusion that a woman is wrong.

By the way, perhaps there is a female privilege, too. (I do not think that it has the same magnitude as the male privilege and that things are somehow fair and balanced. No. I just say that it exists.) If you are a woman and you think I am wrong, I would like to remind you that if such things exist, by definition you wouldn't recognize it, neither would other women, so you should trust me. As a rationalist I admit that you can still get enough evidence against this hypothesis.

Back to the original topic; what should I do if two women disagree with each other? One of them says: "You shouldn't do this, because it is bad for women," and the other says: "There is nothing wrong about that; she is probably oversensitive or making things up." As I am not able to judge it directly, should I assign equal weight to both evidence, or should I always treat the complaining woman more seriously?

I know that for a perfect Bayesian reasoner all these suggestions would be irrelevant, because they would look at the available evidence and draw the most probable conclusion. However as a human, I need a heuristic.

[-]TheOtherDave12y10

You're focusing on a special case here, but I find the general case a useful one to consider: some person P reports that some action A harms them, where I do not consider A harmful. As you say, I can't know what underlies that report. Maybe P is more vulnerable to A than I am, maybe P is lying to gain unfair advantage, maybe P isn't as aware of what actually harms them as I am, maybe I'm not as aware of what actually harms P as P is. All I know is the report itself.

What do you do in that case? P doesn't have to be a woman; that's just a special case. For example, suppose I report that I am terribly allergic to strawberries, and on that basis I want you not to serve me strawberries. Or suppose I report that behaving as though all men are exclusively attracted to women diminishes my status in our community, and on that basis I want you not to behave that way. Or suppose I report that God doesn't want me to eat pork, and on that basis I want you not to serve me pork.

What do you do?

The heuristic I generally use goes something like this...

First, I attend to the evidence I'm being given and see if my belief about the harmfulness of A changes. E.g., I ask myself "Now that he's reported that he's allergic to strawberries, do I believe that he's allergic to strawberries?" or "Now that he's reported that heteronormativity diminishes his social status, do I believe that heteronormativity diminishes his social status?" or "Now that he's reported that God doesn't want him to eat pork, do I believe that God doesn't want him to eat pork?"

Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't.

When it does, I either don't do A to P, or if I do, I do so in the awareness that I'm harming P.

When it doesn't, I ask myself whether refraining from A does any harm.
If it doesn't, I generally refrain from A.

A common form of harm in this case is that not being subject to A seems likely to give P an unfair advantage over other people (including me). In that case, I generally try to avoid subjecting anyone to A, which eliminates the advantage.

Another common form of harm is that eliminating A from my behavior, either with respect to P or more generally, puts me or people I care about at a significant disadvantage. In that case I generally go on performing A.

There are other possibilities, but those cover most cases in my life.

[-]bcoburn12y40

Just as an exercise, and mostly motivated by the IRC channel: Can anyone find a way to turn this post into a testable prediction about the real world?

In particular, it would be nice to have a specific way to tell the difference between "understanding the opposite sex is impossible" and "understanding the opposite sex is harder than the same sex" and "understanding types of people you haven't been in enough contact with is hard/impossible"

[-]Eugine_Nier12y50

What do we mean by "understand"?

[-]fubarobfusco12y30

This doesn't seem to me to be a "sequences" post; it's a response to a particular incident on Overcoming Bias ...

[-]komponisto12y40

"The Sequences" customarily designates the entire corpus of EY's essays on Overcoming Bias.

[-]Oscar_Cunningham12y60

I agree with fubarobfusco's usage.

[-]MinibearRex12y20

I was inclined to agree as well, but there was enough connected to the recent discussion of difficulties empathizing with artificial intelligences that I thought it was worth including.

[-]maia12y10

Agreed, and I'm also concerned about the potential for mindkilling in this topic.

[-]maia12y10

Can someone please tell me why this comment was downvoted?

[-]evand12y60

Probably because the original "politics as mindkiller" article is about avoiding non-critical politically charged examples, and says nothing about avoiding any and all political discussion. In fact, it says at the end that it's ok to talk about politically charged subjects.

(Of course, the whole thing is just EY's opinion, and we're certainly allowed to have new norms like "no politics ever". But the original post frequently gets invoked as if it says things that it in fact says the opposite of.)

[-]maia12y00

Fair enough. Thanks for the clarification!

[-]Tyrrell_McAllister12y20

This breaks no pockets, picks no legs

That's a pretty low bar.

[-]Roho10y00

Is it just me, or has that article disappeared? I always get a "Forbidden" page: "You aren't allowed to do that."

PS: The Wayback Machine still has it.

[-]Incorrect12y00

Maybe that's just my incompetence... but I am skeptical that any man fully understands women or vice versa

Does this include people who change gender?

[-]TheOtherDave12y150

I would say so, but then again I'm equally skeptical that any man fully understands men, or woman women, or person people.

[-]NancyLebovitz12y80

And one of the underlying premises of this blog is that people don't even understand themselves very well.

[-]TheOtherDave12y40

They're all mad bar thee and me and thee's a little queer. Come to that, so is me.

[-]wedrifid12y50

Does this include people who change gender?

Probably. People who change gender are significantly outside the norm with respect to how their gender instincts are wired. This introduces similar other-mind modelling difficulties that those of the other sex have. Of course, most men don't fully understand men and most women don't fully understand women either so the question is mostly moot.

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