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Swimmer963 comments on Please don't vote because democracy is a local optimum - Less Wrong
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Well duh. Decaying institutional wisdom, the workplace is a hastily assembled modern construct from sawed up bits of older institutions banged together. If you set up a new institution the traditionalists will point out that of course it will suck. "New institution" also includes trying to use necromancy to resurrect one that has been completely demolished. Traditionalists are fucked because they are like archaeologists looking at preserved DNA in the gut of a mosquito trapped in amber thinking they can now build a working dinosaur out of cardboard cut outs.
We've had this conversation with regards to Christianity and its mainline descendant Progressivism. Best bet seems to be to try and figure out how to build a new institution building institution. Those are also know as religions. See Mormonism's impressive functionality.
You can't have patriarchy without the father having greater formal political and legal power than the rest of the family. The 1950s probably broke down partially because the father had informally greater political and legal power while formally having equal power which fucked shit up.
Remind me again which of these has had millions of years of data to hone their heuristics? Also which of these has the most obvious incentives for good outcomes for children themselves.
Edit: Why is this getting down voted?
That's probably true (especially if we add parallels sentences that say something about "whites" in place of "fathers.")
Given that, why should we return to the world where the father had great influence rather than abandon all the memes and ideas that remain that rely on that power disparity?
Made an argument for the viability of utilitarian pro-patriarchy position earlier, that you might have missed.
Because this egalitarian family does not seem to be working, or, indeed, even existing. The law proclaims equality, but instead of getting equality, gets family breakdown.
Find me a family where they equally share picking up the socks, and you will find a family where they do not share the main bed.
Egalitarian families suffer absolutely total dysfunction. Georgian era right, Victoria era wrong.
Why did this get down voted? The empirical evidence seems to be on his side when looking at most indicator of egalitarian norms. Like say sharing housework equally.
(Did not vote but) I expect it is because the author has a habit of hiding his nuggets of insight in behind the tone and presentation style of an insensitive ass.
And as a less tone-related complaint, sam0345 grossly overgeneralizes. (And if he's the J that I think he is, I suspect he's not much interested in being more nuanced, for much the same reason he's not interested in consensus.)
Because, as someone had already told you once when people got angry at your defense of Roissy's writing, sometimes the tone does tell us more than the denotation! I didn't downvote him originally, but now I'm going to. I'm not some tolerant liberal guy, and I'm absolutely not going to tolerate this.
I don't think the tone of the particular comment is out of the normal LW range on other subjects but naturally its your call as much as mine.
How then could the same facts be stated in a way that has acceptable "tone"?
How could one state in a tone that meets your approval that the socially conservative family structure that was the ideal endorsed by authority from the New Testament to the Georgian era worked and was good for everyone, and the new progressive emancipated family structure started not working in the Victorian era, and has been working less and less for everyone as it has become more and more progressive?
There's a serious cause and effect issue here: we still have a lot of memes from the men-dominant era, but formally that era is gone. What does you data show beyond a failure to relinquish all the memes?
Plus, Sam is not advocating for the next Schelling point in gender relations (relative to where we are), or even the one after that. And he denies that there are multiple Schelling points.
Why is someone who denies the coherent of moral progress defending someone who thinks moral regress has been happening for ~400 years? If moral drift is all there is, moral regress is no more coherent that moral progress.
Defending someone? I don't recalling being in combat recently. I thought I was commenting on an argument not the author.
Arguments for moral progress and moral regress aren't symetrical. If you have moral drift then naturally you will also have moral regress from the point of view of anyone who sticks to the older values.
Seriously, WTF? The lesson of "Arguments aren't soldiers" is not that meta-ethical or object-level moral debates shouldn't happen. It's that you shouldn't back an argument just because you agree with the results.
If politics is the mindkiller means what you say, then you are a significant and substantial violator.
I don't think that this is the norm, and such an interpretation is very silly on a site that wants to discuss moral values. But deploying any version of the norms to criticize people attacking any particular position is those norms losing purpose.
In the quoted part I was objecting to your language not the content. I disliked how you used "defending someone". The second paragraph was where I thought I engaged your argument. I notice that I am confused. Most of your comment is flying over my head right now, can you please rephrase what you wanted to say with it?
"From the point of view" elides the central issue. Either there are moral facts or there aren't. If there are not moral facts, moral progress and regress are not well defined concepts. If there are moral facts, the concepts are well defined - although if one believes in conflicts in moral facts, then the concepts are much less impressive.
It's very clear that Sam is a moral realist, sub-type value monist. For purposes of this discussion, I'm an anti-realist, sub-type error theorist. I thought you were an anti-realist, but your response here suggests you are a moral realist, sub-type value pluralist. If you are a value monist, then I don't see how you advance your object level values by defending Sam's different values.
I'm wasn't trying to promote any value set in this branch of the conversation. I was trying to via discussion learn more about the arguments for egalitarian vs. non-egalitarian family arrangements.
I've written extensively on my current position on morality elsewhere. Like I said in the other comment I think we're having a misunderstanding but I'm not sure where. I think its most plausible I'm missing some context.
As to moral regress, value drift seems to me obviously bad for any set of values that seeks to impact the world. I think we might mean different things by moral regress. It to me seemed the same thing as values changing from your own, which seemed an obviously bad thing from the perspective of nearly any set of morality because of instrumental reasons in the absence of the assumption of moral progress.
Edit: Oh now I get it!
Just had to read this with a cleared memory cache. I misused moral regress, not keeping with the terminology you established. Now for the sake of argument assuming moral realism moral regress is not surprising, since morality is complex and most possible changes in our understanding of it probably are for the worse, just like most possible changes in our map of other parts of reality would be for the worse so would most possible changes in our understanding of morality. Thus all else being equal with these assumptions I think moral regress to be more likely than moral progress.
But if there are moral facts, there are external constraints on the viable changes to our understanding. If such external constraints don't exist, what do the moral facts cause? And if they don't cause anything, what does it mean to call them facts?
Here's a discussion of a parallel issue: scientific regress. What's interesting about the account of the loss of knowledge about how to prevent scurvy is (1) how rare these regresses are, (2) how easy it is with the benefit of hindsight to point to the scientific errors that caused the regression. In short, there's a one-way ratchet on scientific knowledge because the external facts constrain the viability of different scientific beliefs.
If there really are moral facts, shouldn't a similar one-way ratchet exist?
You talked about things "from the point of view" of different object-level moral theories. There's nothing particularly wrong with relativism as a meta-ethic, but it is an anti-realist meta-ethic.
But if you look earlier in history we see much clearer and common examples of technological and even scientific regress. See the loss of technology and science that occured with the decline of Roman civilization or the Greek dark age over a millenium earlier.
This is naturally the default explanation that our society uses for such results, it seems plausible but why are we so quick and so confident to jump to it as the explanation? Do I even need to point out that other explanations seem just as plausible?
For example the model of attraction build by the PUA community predicts this result. Also basic economics suggests that if the partners specialize in task they are more productive, maybe we aren't seeing traditional marriage roles validated as much as economics. And why don't more traditional couples suffer more from residual patriarchal memes? Shouldn't the people in those relationship have even more of them than the society at large? Based on the evidence we are just as justified saying that they are happier because they have more patriarchal memes than the norm.
Wait am I just getting down voted for arguing for patriarchy as plausibly not evil? People not wearing their rationalist hats and voting based on the bottom line they wrote before thinking about the arguments they are evaluating is lame. Really lame.
I find it hilarious I didn't have this problem when doing devil's advocacy for infanticide or slavery.. but traditional marriage roles? Wowjustwowhowcanheargueforthat! Ewww! That's like something an inbred redneck would say. Onward social justice, lets end the war on women!
I strongly disagree with a lot of your argument, but the level of downvoting here is still interesting. I suspect that this is happening for three reasons: 1) The belief in question is as you correctly note associated with some people who still exist and are pretty low status. 2) Unlike something like infanticide or slavery, there's a perceived chance that this sort of thing might actually go back to being this way (see the existence of people mentioned in 1) and thus this feels to people like it is much closer to an actual political mindkilling issue. (Robin Hanson might say that infanticide is far but patriarchy is near.) 3) There's been some problems in the past with a perception that there's a cadre on LW of people who have essentially implied that women are of less moral worth than men (I can point to multiple threads where this occurred) and so people are downvoting either due to the association with those threads, or due to a perceived need to protect LW's reputation.
It is possible that the arguments being made are simply weaker than those favoring infanticde and slavery, and they do seem to be somwhat weaker, but not so so much weaker as to explain by themselves the size of the downvotes.
Yes, everyone is downvoting you for stupid, non-rational reasons that you fully understand, and so you don't need to consider the implicit rebuke or indeed think about this any further at all.
I think about this stuff quit a lot and generally seek out strong counterarguments. I dislike people down voting a comment I'm certain stands up to the level of discourse here while not exposing their own reasoning on the matter.
If you think I don't have a good idea about the level of discourse here, well then people should have been down voting me much more aggressively over the past few years I've spent in this community, people seem to have generally liked my contributions.
My comment complaining over this might was in hindsight perhaps inappropriate and I've retracted it, however the reason I'm not as phased as I once was by down votes is because I think the quality of the LessWrong community is slowly degrading and only aggressive counter measures can stop it.
There's a crowd that is mind-killed, disagrees with your general philosophy, and down-votes you basically at random when you articulate it - without regard for quality of a particular post or even if you are really trying to make controversial assertions?
Hey, me too! :)
But my crowd and your crowd don't seem to agree very much. :(
Maybe both sides should stop trying to silently suppress contrary views?
Nah, that would never work.
SIAI needed to improve as an organization, so they brought in people who they thought could run a successful non-profit. What they got was a better non-profit plus the whole accompanying spectrum of philanthropy status divas, professional beggars and related hangers-on.
Most of the original thinkers have left, replaced by those who believe in thinking, but only for fashionable thoughts.
Now you feel the feels that I feel all the time when I'm ideological on LW!
Have not downvoted you (or anyone else) yet in this thread, but am downvoting this comment of yours now. Feel free to project whatever reasons you want onto me. They'll probably be wrong.
Disincentivize whining about down votes?
I expect Konkvistador to be able to speculate a list of reasons that quickly exhausts all the acceptable reasons to make a publicly announced downvote. Indeed, he has already listed the most notable one. That being the case your prediction must imply either inaccurate insult of Konkvistador or that you are publicly announcing an undesirable motivation for your downvoting.
(ie. Downvoted for poorly calibrated snark!)
Yeah, that last sentence was not appropriate, so your downvote is. Lest I leave you all people in suspense my complete list of reasons was:
- Disincentivize whining about downvotes
- Disincentivize sarcasm
- Disincentivize uncharitably interpreting the actions of other people.
Why are we quick to blame the predecessor? Trick question?
Well, firstly, there are all the fully general Burkean arguments. Not sure if those Burkean arguments can't likewise apply to the more established aspects of the "modern" family, though - it often fails, but it works even more often. E.g. traditionalists complain - loudly - both about single motherhood and two working parents... yet the second innovation doesn't seem to directly wreck anything.
I think Konkvistador's point was that the disconnect between formal and informal rules meant that some change was going to happen. At that point, I'm not sure that Burkean arguments tells us anything about which way to jump.
But it's possible that I'm misinterpreting Burkean reasoning, which I've always understood as saying "Don't court change for its own sake."
Okay, I confess: we have so little honest, trusted, hands-on information about old institutions, I just snap to assuming the worst about them even after adjusting for less decay.
OK, what if "the rest of the family" is somehow weak/timid/socially clueless/foreign/under-networked/from a disliked minority/whatever, and can't bring informal/"soft" power to bear in a dispute with the father? Seen lots and lots of times in literature! Works with the wicked stepmother and the spineless father, too. I fear some kind of Stepford Wives shit, but replicated with Singaporean efficiency!
Obvious counterpoint. Unless it's a TDT-using family (and we don't see much practical TDT used in real life... besides the evolved pseudo-TDT of religious/Universalist ethics, that is), every family has incentives to have its children compete and beat other children in zero-sum games. A big church or a state have incentives to discourage zero-sum games for all children, and promote cooperation instead.
And that does happen in practice, I think: most everyone who lived in the USSR would agree that its brainwashing of children was benign in that particular area - teaching cooperation and suppressing zero-sum games. That was only the official intent, of course; policies to that intent might have been as inefficient as everything Soviet.
I don't think so.
Compare East Germans with West Germans. Started off the same race and same culture, yet socialism made them subhuman. Germany has all the problems in assimilating East Germans that a conservative would plausibly attribute to an inferior race with inherently inferior genetics, except that in this case the problems are obviously 100% caused by recent environmental differences.
Socialism did not make them good cooperators, it made them layabouts and criminals.
And, come to think of it, that is a good parallel to the social decay we have seen following state attempts to impose egalitarianism on the family.
Wait, what? So you're OK with the hierarchy of a medieval guild or an Ancient Greek well-off household (meaning a household with 1-2 domestic slaves)? Because I'm categorically not. Those are basically examples of what power structures I'd like to avoid as much as the modern workplace!
How much do you know about medieval guilds? They are totally 13th century safety nets and trade unions.
Also your guild's rules are controlled by a council of people who have spent the largest fraction of their life mastering your trade.
You're an apprentice, but dad sold (contracted) you to a guy who doesn't like you for some reason? Good luck ever getting his daughter's hand to inherit his shit - hell, after you learn the trade, he might even fail you all the time at the (expensive and demanding) test of craftsmanship, and you'll either be his bitch for life, or run away and live in poverty because of your debt and lack of recognition. Hell, God help you if you run away at all! (And, while you're still a teenager, hope you enjoy how fists/kicks/belts feel, because you might be getting plenty of those.)
Can hardly talk about industry-related innovations. Good at rationality and optimizing production? Either make it all your trade secret as a master, in the privacy of your own workshop, or kiss your ass goodbye.
Do I even need to bring up comparably bad situations created by modern institutions? I mean we even have ones that are perfectly analogous. coughcrushingstudentdebtcough
The question is what results a institution typically produces and what would exist in their stead. Take a pro and con view of the guild and its various replacements today, subtract better technology increasing living standards, you may be surprised by the results.
Quite so. I am fond of pointing out that an eighteen year old girl cannot commit herself to always be sexually available to one man and never to any other, in return for a promise of undying love and guaranteed life long support for her and her children, but can commit herself a gigantic debt that can never be expunged by bankruptcy in return for a credential of uncertain, and frequently negative, value.
Why not go one step further with the debt system, and allow people to pledge themselves into debt slavery? That would remove the feckless from circulation, and ensure that they had responsible supervision.
The supposition is that if someone goes into debt for a post graduate degree in English literature or a master of fine arts in advanced basket weaving, they are making a responsible decision, so should be allowed freedom of contract, but if someone goes into debt for food and stuff, they are making an irresponsible decision, so should not be allowed freedom of contract.
Seems to me the reverse supposition is wiser - that it is more desirable to allow the stupid to voluntarily choose to restrict their future freedom of action than it is to allow the smart. And I am also inclined to doubt that those who go into debt for a postgraduate degree in English literature are the cognitive elite.
I agree. We have lost the right to marry as Sister Y says.
Can the end of the guild system and technological progress be untangled like that? My limited understanding was that the guilds were major opponents of certain kinds of technological progress.
Yep, I would've mentioned it, but here, in our rather scholastic debate, I'm assuming the least convenient possible world for my values - one where technical progress either naturally forms a positive feedback loop with right-wing tyranny/oppression/whatever, or simply moves at a pre-industrial speed. Otherwise I'd just skip ahead & invoke the perspectives of transhumanity, the event horizon, etc.
Soo... the US healthcare industry on steroids?