drethelin comments on LW Women Entries- Creepiness - Less Wrong

7 [deleted] 28 April 2013 03:43PM

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Comment author: drethelin 29 April 2013 02:42:40PM 1 point [-]

give me three simple examples on the order of length of sequence posts of what there is to be gained from these vast intellectual currents there.

Comment author: Multiheaded 29 April 2013 03:01:44PM * 6 points [-]

Again, please understand that this is a little frustrating for me. Just throwing some goddamn links without further comment for now, OK? The below is entirely random, just the stuff I had in nearby tabs - I have no idea of what links to pick for a proper LW-style introduction to a subject.

Structural power as applied to decision theory:

http://personal.lse.ac.uk/Kanazawa/pdfs/AJS1994.pdf

Erik Olin Wright's works on Marxist social analysis:

http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/selected-published-writings.htm

Gender:

http://isreview.org/issues/02/engles_family.shtml

Econ:

http://unlearningeconomics.wordpress.com/2012/10/27/a-brief-anti-economist-history/

http://unlearningeconomics.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/why-does-capital-have-more-bargaining-power-than-labour/

http://unlearningeconomics.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/is-economics-a-gun-that-only-fires-left/

(Also check out Chris Dillow's blog.)

Comment author: drethelin 29 April 2013 03:30:27PM 1 point [-]

Responding to these in the order I look at them which is not the order you linked them: The gender one fails literally in the first 2 paragraphs.

Women aren't oppressed and haven't STARTED being oppressed due to 18th or 19th century cultural regimes like the bourgeois. This is like explaining black oppression as a consequence of the KKK despite african slavery having been a thing for centuries before that.

can you show me ONE post you read (not at random) that seemed as awesome and sense-making as http://lesswrong.com/lw/np/disputing_definitions/ or http://lesswrong.com/lw/nu/taboo_your_words/ or http://lesswrong.com/lw/ny/sneaking_in_connotations/ or etc.

Comment author: drethelin 29 April 2013 03:56:39PM 0 points [-]

http://personal.lse.ac.uk/Kanazawa/pdfs/AJS1994.pdf this seems good but not actually about Marxism?

Comment author: drethelin 29 April 2013 03:50:25PM 0 points [-]

http://unlearningeconomics.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/why-does-capital-have-more-bargaining-power-than-labour/ This is good but seems pretty self-evident to me?

Comment author: Unlearningecon 29 April 2013 09:00:06PM 3 points [-]

Hi,

In the interests of policing every comment about my blog anywhere on the internet thought I'd comment.

@drethelin

It is self evident, but posts like that are intended to communicate the point to libertarians in a way they can understand (eg weird reductionist economist speak). I wish we lived in a world where nobody denied employers have power over their employees, but alas it is not the case.

@orphan

Work is necessary; working for a man in a moustache under hierarchical conditions is by no means natural (in fact, historically people have been incredibly resistant to wage labour and in many cases were effectively forced into it). It isn't about people being free from consequence; it's about their livelihoods and even life depending on whether someone who happens to own, legally, the means of production, decides to 'grant' them the 'privilege' of enough money for basic rights.

Comment author: [deleted] 30 April 2013 01:23:41AM 1 point [-]

In the interests of policing every comment about my blog anywhere on the internet thought I'd comment.

Holy shit, that sounds exhausting. How do you find the time?

Comment author: Unlearningecon 30 April 2013 04:57:43PM 6 points [-]

I was semi-joking, sometimes I just don't bother.

But the short answer to your question is: I'm a student.

Comment author: OrphanWilde comment score below threshold [+] (6 children)

Comment author: drethelin 29 April 2013 04:00:58PM 3 points [-]

It revolves around what now? I really don't know what you're saying here.

Comment author: OrphanWilde 29 April 2013 04:10:58PM -1 points [-]

Freedom from consequence. The fundamental argument there is that workers have little freedom because, for example, they have to eat, they have to pay their bills, etc. It's the argument, at its root, that the price we pay for our decisions shouldn't be too high - and, to recycle my words, that our decisions should be fundamentally trivial. Whether or not we go to work today shouldn't affect us too much more than whether or not we wear a red shirt or a blue shirt.

And by this I don't mean such individuals want to be -completely- free of consequence, just free of any consequence that substantially burdens them, that makes their lives substantively worse. They're fine with consequence, so long as the consequence is inconsequential. (The precise extent varies by individual, but the basics exist there in some extent.)

Comment author: drethelin 29 April 2013 04:15:06PM 7 points [-]

you're moralizing altogether too hard. The argument isn't that workers should be FREE of consequences, it's that the consequences are disproportionately on them for the decisions of others. This is an argument of fact, and whatever you think may be the correct moral response to this is up to you, but I think it's definitely true that holders of capital have more power in employment decisions than laborer and that this works out badly for the laborers because they suffer from coordination problems in bargaining.

Comment author: OrphanWilde 29 April 2013 04:32:35PM -1 points [-]

I don't regard freedom as a morally desirable state, but rather a state necessary to morality.

And the author doesn't make that argument. He/she states that obligations such as "debts, families, and of course social obligations" put workers in a weaker bargaining position. The argument is heavily detached from its implications, but those implications are no less there for it - until workers are without such obligation, without the need to work for food and board, they are in a state of coercion. Until the decisions of workers do not actually matter, they - being in a state of coercion - have little freedom of their own.

The author is the one moralizing, with cautious implications, exacting connotations, and carefully evaded implications. My response is merely to point out what it is.

Comment author: bogus 29 April 2013 04:41:49PM 5 points [-]

obligations such as "debts, families, and of course social obligations" put workers in a weaker bargaining position. The argument is heavily detached from its implications, but those implications are no less there for it - until workers are without such obligation, without the need to work for food and board, they are in a state of coercion.

The word 'coercion' might be slipping in some unwarranted connotations, but this seems roughly correct to me. There's a reason that having enough wealth saved up to live comfortably for an extended period of time is popularly known as having 'f**k you money'.

Comment author: OrphanWilde comment score below threshold [+] (0 children)

drethelin comments on LW Women Entries- Creepiness - Less Wrong

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