Plasmon comments on LW Women- Minimizing the Inferential Distance - Less Wrong

58 [deleted] 25 November 2012 11:33PM

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Comment author: lucidian 25 November 2012 01:13:31PM 9 points [-]

The truth is not immutable. It seems that many people on this site would elevate empirical facts (what is) into normative rules (what ought to be). Clearly, if X is just the Way Things Are, then there's no use fighting it; a good rationalist learns to accept that X is true, and work with that knowledge instead of ignoring its reality. (X could be anything from atheism to "black people statistically commit more crimes" to "most men refuse to marry a woman who can't cook".)

But just because something is empirically true now doesn't mean it has to be true forever. This is especially the case with social norms. Feminists aren't trying to say "men really don't care about a woman's cooking skills, and fathers who tell their daughters this are wrong". They're not denying that the world is this way, they're just denying that it ought to be this way. And a reliable way to change social norms is to teach new social norms to the next generation!

Be aware that when you speak a truth such as "Men only marry women who can cook", you are not just acknowledging a fact but perpetuating it. You are not just an objective scientific observer of a fact, but a subjective participant in that fact.

Comment author: Plasmon 25 November 2012 01:57:53PM 4 points [-]

It seems that many people on this site would elevate empirical facts (what is) into normative rules (what ought to be).

I don't think this is the case. In fact, most criticism of the original statement centres around the fact that it was insufficiently clear whether it was empirical or normative.

A cursory search reveals at least two relevant posts: 'Is' and 'Ought' and Rationality and SotW: Check Consequentialism

Nonetheless, people should indeed pick their battles, and fight those unpalatable truths they think most worth fighting.