ArisKatsaris comments on The noncentral fallacy - the worst argument in the world? - Less Wrong

157 Post author: Yvain 27 August 2012 03:36AM

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Comment author: ArisKatsaris 12 September 2012 04:03:53PM *  3 points [-]

Yeah, we can say that it does not apply to me.

I'm surprised to see that feminist heterosexual men are implied to be able to escape the framework of social control. Either way I've always considered myself a feminist in ways that you probably find insufficient. For starters it seems to me that the more feminist the society the higher standard of living it roughly seems to have (e.g. Scandinavia better than rest of Northern Europe, which is better than Southern Europe, which is better than the Arab world, which is better than subSaharan Africa) -- so that's a significant plus in favour of feminism, after all.

I'm not immediately dismissive to the idea of destroying gender, but I highly disbelieve that it's completely a social concept. I think we'll have to destroy it biologically if we actually want to see it destroyed.

Comment author: [deleted] 12 September 2012 08:24:06PM *  8 points [-]

For starters it seems to me that the more feminist the society the higher standard of living it roughly seems to have (e.g. Scandinavia better than rest of Northern Europe, which is better than Southern Europe, which is better than the Arab world, which is better than subSaharan Africa) -- so that's a significant plus in favour of feminism, after all.

I think causation goes the other way.

Comment author: [deleted] 12 September 2012 04:22:53PM 4 points [-]

For starters it seems to me that the more feminist the society the higher standard of living it roughly seems to have (e.g. Scandinavia better than rest of Northern Europe, which is better than Southern Europe, which is better than the Arab world, which is better than subSaharan Africa) -- so that's a significant plus in favour of feminism, after all.

Correlation doesn't imply causation.

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 12 September 2012 04:24:42PM 3 points [-]

Correlation is significant evidence for causation.

It simply doesn't prove causation.

Comment author: [deleted] 12 September 2012 04:34:37PM 4 points [-]

Yeah, but it's as strong evidence for A causing B as for B causing A.

Comment author: siodine 12 September 2012 05:07:21PM *  2 points [-]

And that's if you didn't forget C through Z which all also correlate with B to varying degrees, or A_a through A_z which all fall under A and better explain B than simply A. Or maybe it was a combination of A, D, F, G, and Z that caused B. And so on and so on. The difficulty of finding causation scales with the complexity of the system directly encompassing the cause, and that makes finding significant evidence for causation from correlations like those mentioned by ArisKatsaris very hard.

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 12 September 2012 05:27:11PM -1 points [-]

On a practical level, we have to use something to evaluate the worth of political and social beliefs/movements/structures, and pure logic alone doesn't seem to work out okay regarding this.

Seeing whether they correlate in practice with healthy and prosperous populations seems a much better method of judgment.

Comment author: [deleted] 12 September 2012 10:16:58PM 3 points [-]

Okay, let me be more explicit: how do you know that feminism leads to higher standards of living rather than the other way round?

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 12 September 2012 11:14:42PM 0 points [-]

I actually think that both contribute to each other.

Comment author: siodine 12 September 2012 05:33:12PM 2 points [-]

we have to use something to evaluate the worth of political and social beliefs/movements/structures

Macroeconomics?

Comment author: Alicorn 12 September 2012 04:30:55PM 4 points [-]

Alas, "imply" is used to mean both things.

Comment author: [deleted] 12 September 2012 05:35:57PM -1 points [-]

This is a better treatment of the issue: https://radtransfem.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/the-ethical-prude-imagining-an-authentic-sex-negative-feminism/

In general, feminist heterosexual men cannot escape the framework of social control.

And yes, if you have relationships with women and are a man, it does apply to you given what you've said in this conversation.