ciphergoth comments on Open Thread, July 1-15, 2013 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Vaniver 01 July 2013 05:10PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 03 July 2013 02:38:25PM *  7 points [-]

What if it really was like that?

If you read any amount of history, you will discover that people of various times and places have matter-of-factly believed things that today we find incredible (in the original sense of “not credible”). I have found, however, that one of the most interesting questions one can ask is “What if it really was like that?”

... What I’m encouraging is a variant of the exercise I’ve previously called “killing the Buddha”. Sometimes the consequences of supposing that our ancestors reported their experience of the world faithfully, and that their customs were rational adaptations to that experience, lead us to conclusions we find preposterous or uncomfortable. I think that the more uncomfortable we get, the more important it becomes to ask ourselves “What if it really was like that?”

The true meaning of moral panics

In my experience, moral panics are almost never about what they claim to be about. I am just (barely) old enough to remember the tail end of the period (around 1965) when conservative panic about drugs and rock music was actually rooted in a not very-thinly-veiled fear of the corrupting influence of non-whites on pure American children. In retrospect it’s easy to understand as a reaction against the gradual breakdown of both legally enforced and de-facto racial segregation in the U.S.

Comment author: Alsadius 03 July 2013 06:20:38PM 5 points [-]

It seems fairly believable that an oppressed underclass that is intentionally deprived of education and opportunity will, on average, be cruder, less intellectually inclined, have less wealth and status, and more prone to failing at life in various ways due to the lack of a support structure. This is true of any group, whatever their intrinsic nature, simply due to the act of discrimination.

I remember once reading an essay about Jews in(IIRC) Rudyard Kipling's works, where they're portrayed in pretty appalling ways, while all sorts of other groups are portrayed positively. The author came to the conclusion that acting in cowardly and profiteering fashion was a survival tactic created by anti-semitic laws, and that Kipling was probably just conveying the reality of the time. (I'm not enough of an expert to judge the truth of this, but it seemed reasonable)

Comment author: fubarobfusco 03 July 2013 09:52:41PM 7 points [-]

Sure. Also see the recent follow-ups to the Stanford marshmallow experiment. It sure looks like some of what was once considered to be innate lack of self-restraint may rather be acquired by living in an environment where others are unreliable, promises are broken, etc.

Comment author: Desrtopa 08 October 2013 11:36:24PM 1 point [-]

Possibly, but the followup only tells us that, at least in the short term, kids will be less likely to delay gratification from specific individuals who have proven to be untrustworthy (and the protocol of that experiment kind of went for overkill on the "demonstrating untrustworthiness" angle.)

It might be that children become less able to delay gratification if raised in environments where they cannot trust promises from their guidance figures, but the same effect could very easily be caused by rational discounting of the value of promises from individuals who have proven unlikely to deliver on them.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 06 July 2013 05:02:26PM 2 points [-]

Your argument sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Yet I would advise against reversing stupidity. Just because there is a systematic influence that makes it worse for the opressed people, it does not automatically mean that without that influence all the differences would disappear. Although it is worth trying experimentally.

Comment author: Alsadius 08 July 2013 03:39:20AM 0 points [-]

Agreed, of course. I never claimed that there are no intrinsic group differences - FWIW, I believe that there are, they're just vastly smaller than intrinsic individual differences, and thus should be ignored in nearly all non-statistical circumstances. But group cultural differences are obviously very significant, as are group differences in education, opportunity, and support. We can do a fair bit about those, and we ought to.

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