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Dias comments on LW Women- Minimizing the Inferential Distance - Less Wrong
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Are statements about the current state of affairs in general objectionable? If I tell my child not to be openly homosexual in Saudi Arabia, is this bad advice, even though the current Saudi Arabian model stinks and I hope their generation will continue changing it?
It depends on how close things are to changing (or whether they have already changed). "You need to learn to cook and keep house" was more practical advice in the 1930s than in the 1980s. "Don't be openly gay" is practical advice in Saudi Arabia but probably not in New York.
Whenever possible, separate the normative from the objective, and consider costs as well as benefits. For example, "if you're considering being openly homosexual in Saudi Arabia, remember that however much more personally fulfilling a life it is, statistically and legally speaking, it's also going to be quite a bit shorter."
The issue is that language is often imprecise, and so people often make a descriptive statement which has normative connotations. Thus, when making that sort of thing it is important to be clear not just descriptively what is happening but normatively what one thinks about it.