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TheOtherDave comments on LW Women Submissions: On Misogyny - Less Wrong
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Well alright, as long as you're consistent ;)
Personally, I would say most "sexism" is less taking from Y and giving to X and more just harming Y, which benefits X only through weaker competition. I suppose if you view the battle of the sexes to be a zero-sum game, that yardstick doesn't make much sense. However, if you thing misogyny and misandry hurt everyone, it does. Looks like there was an inarticulated assumption in OrphanWilde's post, I guess.
I don't necessarily think the distribution of social benefits is a zero sum game; in fact, I find that unlikely.
However, it's also irrelevant to my point. I can value equalizing the net playing field for X and Y whether that playing field is on average rising, on average lowering, or on average staying the same. My point is simply that if I value equalizing the net playing field between X and Y, I should endorse reducing the (net) differential in distribution of social benefits between X and Y.
One of the many benefits a society can provide its members is protection from harm. So differentially harming Y is one of many ways that a (net) differential in distribution of social benefits to X and Y can manifest.
And, again, if we want to label reducing the (net) differential in distribution of social benefits between men and women, with the goal of ultimately altering our society so that it provides women and men with the same level of benefits, "sexism", I won't argue with that labeling, but I also won't care very much about avoiding things labeled that way.
Unless I've misunderstood the term, what you describe is, in fact, a zero-sum game.
If I had persuaded you by changing the label, I'd be pretty ashamed of myself for using Dark Arts in a LW discussion.
One of us is misunderstanding the term, then.
It might be me.
We might do best to not use the term, given that.
Taboo time!
"A situation where harming one side is equivalent to helping the other - perhaps because the first to pull ahead by a certain number of points wins, or because they both derive utility from the disutility of the other side."
Thank you for clarifying.
OK, soo you're claiming that when I say that one of the many benefits a society can provide its members is protection from harm, so differentially harming Y is one of many ways that a (net) differential in distribution of social benefits to X and Y can manifest, I'm implicitly asserting that harming Y is equivalent to helping X?
If I understood that, then no, I think this is simply false.
For example, suppose there are dangerous insects about and I have a supply of insect-repellent, which I choose to give only to group X. This is a differential distribution of social benefits (specifically, insect repellent) to X and Y, and sure enough, Y is differentially harmed by the insects as a manifestation of that differential distribution of insect repellent. But it doesn't follow that harming group Y is equivalent to helping group X... it might well be that if I gave everyone insect repellent, both X and Y would be better off.
But if you're trying to optimize the net inequality ... surely that means that you'll treat harming the better-off one as equivalent to aiding the worse-off one?
Ah! I understand what you're saying, now. Thanks for clarifying further.
Yes, you're right, if the only thing I wanted to do was reduce the net inequality, I could achieve my goals most readily by harming X until it was just as bad off as Y (which would be a negative-sum game), and that would be equivalent to benefiting Y. Or I could use some combination of benefit-to-Y and harm-to-X.
And no, reducing the net inequality is not the only thing I want to do, for precisely this reason.
But it is a thing I want to do. And as a consequence, I don't treat actions that benefit Y the same way as actions that improve X's situation, and I don't treat actions that harm Y the same way as actions that harm X.
I admire your consistency and refusal to be evasive about unfortunate implications. Upvoted. This is where conversations about social justice should have began.
Yeah, agreed about where the conversation should start.
I have struggled for years about what I want to say about maximizing net aggregated benefits vs minimizing net inequality in cases where tradeoffs are necessary. I am not really happy with any of my answers.
In practice, I think there's a lot of low-hanging fruit where reducing inequality increases net aggregated benefits, so I don't consider it a critical question right this minute, but it's likely to be at some point.
Crocker's Rules
I get the sense that you think I disagree with TheOtherDave's statement above, particularly:
If you are willing, can you identify what I say that makes you think that. For example, if you think I've been mindkilled or such, feel free to tell me so.
Ah, right.
So you consider anti-X-ism better than anti-Y-ism, but both are worse than having neither?
If the only expected effects of anti-X-ism and anti-Y-ism are harm to X and harm to Y (respectively), yes, that's correct.