I can only speak for myself, but the example used in this post decreased the affinity I feel for LW:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/ro/2place_and_1place_words/
The details of the function chosen as an example are pretty gratuitous. Couldn't we just have made it about food, or something?
(And not just the example -- some of the comments! This is what you call rational? What goes on here? They're pretty entertaining though.)
I didn't cherry pick this example after combing through many. It's one of the first and few things I've read here so far.
And I have noticed some people here think being offended is, without exception, A Bad Thing. But I also noticed that there isn't consensus on this point. So the question of whether or not it is irrational remains open. I would concede that it's useful to avoid being offended as much as possible, but there are obviously limits to this.
Anyway, the relevant question here isn't, "Is it wrong to be offended?" but, "Will reasonable and intelligent people who are new visitors to LW be potentially discouraged by examples like this?" I think the answer is yes. It's perhaps worth finding the time to use more gender-neutral examples in your posts.
Footnote: The reason this is discouraging is because it sends the message that the author and his community view men as intellectual peers and women as things for looking at and fucking. I'd rather be places where I am an intellectual peer though. I thought this was a really nice, relevant discussion: http://lesswrong.com/lw/4vj/a_rationalists_account_of_objectification/
And I have noticed some people here think being offended is, without exception, A Bad Thing. But I also noticed that there isn't consensus on this point. So the question of whether or not it is irrational remains open. I would concede that it's useful to avoid being offended as much as possible, but there are obviously limits to this.
A comrade agrees. Generally, I'm not quite certain where I stand myself, but quite certain that the mean (pardon the pun) LW reaction to people signaling "offense" is arrogant, privileged and sanctimonous - not to mention treating "offense" as a one-place word, etc.
Today's post, Of Gender and Rationality was originally published on 16 April 2009. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Bayesians vs. Barbarians, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
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