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TheOtherDave comments on LW Women Submissions: On Misogyny - Less Wrong
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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.
My provisional solution for this: I want to maximize net aggregated benefits. I don't want to minimize net inequality per se, but a useful heuristic is that if X is worse off than Y, then you can probably get more net aggregated benefits per unit resources by helping X (or refraining from harming X) than by helping Y (or refraining for harming Y).
Yeah, I've considered this. It doesn't work for me, because I do seem to want to minimize inequality (in addition to maximizing benefit), and simply ignoring one of my wants is unsatisfying.
That said, I'm not exactly sure why I want to minimize inequality. I'm pretty sure I don't just value equality for its own sake, for example, though some people claim they do.
One answer that often seems plausible to me is because I am aware that inequalities create an environment that facilitates various kinds of abuse, and what I actually want is to minimize those abuses; a system of inequality among agents who can be relied upon not to abuse one another would be all right with me.
Another answer that often seems plausible to me is because I want everyone to like me, and I'm convinced that inequalities foster resentment.
Other answers pop up from time to time. (And of course there's always the potential confusion between wanting X and wanting to signal membership in a class characterized by wanting X.)
There are even more actions that will increase both net aggregate benefits and inequality.
(nods) That's true.
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.
The "consistency and refusal to be evasive about unfortunate implications", if you're taking that as a jibe, wasn't directed at you (or anybody here on Less Wrong, for that matter), but rather the Dark Arts that currently constitute the majority of social justice conversations.
To be honest, I'm uncertain whether or not the line of conversation here parallels the line of conversation you and I were having (although it's possible I've lost track of another line of conversation - searched, couldn't find one). Our conversation drifted considerably in purpose, my apologies for that.
I was attempting to ascertain whether your belief was that social disapproval could correct a natural violent tendency in males, or whether your belief was that social approval/lack of social disapproval was creating a violent tendency in males. Probably would have been simpler to ask, in retrospect; my debate skills were largely honed with people who don't know what they believe, and asking such questions tends to commit them to the answers. My apologies.
No problem.
To answer your question, I suspect that social approval / lack of social disapproval creates most tendencies. At least on the margins.
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.
But you expect some secondary sociological/reputational benefit, at least in this case?
Expect? No. Just acknowledging that anti-X-ism doesn't necessarily harm X, nor does it necessarily only harm X.
But sure, it happens. The phrase "get off my side!" is often used in these cases.For example, the Westboro Baptist Church folks have probably done more good than harm for queers (net, aggregated over agents), despite being (I think) anti-queer.
By the same token, anti-Y-ism doesn't necessarily harm Y?
Well, sure. That's true of everything. But is it especially true of misandry?
You're response to one of those cases is what started this discussion.
Yup.
Beats me. I certainly didn't mean to imply that it was. You went from my statement about acts that cause harm to X and Y to a superficially similar statement about 'isms'. My point here is that going from endorsing FOO to endorsing 'FOOism' is not necessarily a truth-preserving operation for any 'ism', since 'isms' tend to carry additional baggage with them.
With respect to terms like 'misandry,' 'misogyny,' 'misanthropy,' 'feminism,' 'masculism', 'sexism', etc. I find it is almost always preferable to discard the term and instead talk about things like reducing harm to women, reducing harm to men, increasing benefits to women, increasing benefits to men, reducing net differentials between benefits to women and men, and similar concepts.
Yes. And?
Ah. I was still responding to the comment where you said comparing misogyny to misandry was like comparing a rich man and a poor man stealing bread and sleeping on the streets.
Just noting.