Azathoth123 comments on [LINK] Why I'm not on the Rationalist Masterlist - Less Wrong

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Comment author: Azathoth123 28 September 2014 01:58:34AM *  2 points [-]

Now, imagine that there exists an online community — let's call it Open Minds — that you're moderately interested in. But when you go there, you find that (alongside the interesting parts), viewpoints such as "Foos are not really people", "it's okay to torture Foos for fun", and "non-Foos who speak up in defense of Foos are traitors" are repeatedly aired there by a minority of community members.

I fail to see the relevance of your example.

Comment author: gjm 28 September 2014 10:43:35AM -2 points [-]

It's an exaggerated version of how (e.g.) some women or black people might feel on coming to LW and finding (e.g.) people vigorously defending the idea that it's perfectly sensible for an otherwise identical job application to be viewed as evidence of lower competence if it comes from a woman, because women are so much less able than men that all the other information on the application doesn't screen off sex from competence. Or writing in a manner that simply takes it for granted that black people are unintelligent and prone to crime.

I repeat, it's an exaggeration. I'm pretty sure fubarobfusco isn't claiming that there are actual demographic groups that are actually seriously regarded by a lot of LW people as non-persons or fit objects for torture. But I think it's entirely defensible to say that some real demographic groups are likely to experience something similar in kind, although distinctly less in intensity, here, and to be concerned that that will produce an effect similar to the one fubarobfusco describes.

Comment author: Azathoth123 28 September 2014 06:48:10PM 3 points [-]

It's an exaggerated version of how (e.g.) some women or black people might feel on coming to LW and finding (e.g.) people vigorously defending the idea that it's perfectly sensible for an otherwise identical job application to be viewed as evidence of lower competence if it comes from a woman, because women are so much less able than men that all the other information on the application doesn't screen off sex from competence.

Would you apply the same logic to someone with a low IQ who objects to people thinking that its acceptable to reject an otherwise identical low IQ applicant to favor of a high IQ applicant? Also quite frankly the application you described had very little other useful information that its not at all surprising that it doesn't screen of sex.

Or writing in a manner that simply takes it for granted that black people are unintelligent and prone to crime.

Is your argument that if we pretend these differences don't exist they'll go away. Also as far as crime, as a rational black person should be more worried about getting killed by my fellow blacks than by "white racists".

But I think it's entirely defensible to say that some real demographic groups are likely to experience something similar in kind, although distinctly less in intensity, here, and to be concerned that that will produce an effect similar to the one fubarobfusco describes.

Just out of curiosity, would you be willing to apply the same logic to all the stuff on LW that could make Christians feel uncomfortable?

Comment author: gjm 28 September 2014 07:47:23PM -1 points [-]

Would you apply the same logic to someone with a low IQ who objects [...]?

I'm not sure what specific logic you mean. The particular reason fubarobfusco described for trying not to make Foos feel too unwelcome was that they might contribute useful insights less correlated with non-Foos' than that of the non-Foos who might be discouraged by being asked not to be too mean about the Foos. That doesn't seem to apply very well to "people with low IQ", who -- whatever else may be said about them -- are probably not well equipped to contribute novel insights into the topics discussed on Less Wrong.

The evidence that (at least for many jobs) IQ correlates strongly with job performance is rather stronger than the alleged evidence that sex correlates strongly with job performance, so saying "it's OK to be reluctant to hire people with lower IQs" would likely be less hurtful to someone with (admittedly) low IQ than saying "it's OK to be reluctant to hire women" sounds to many women.

the application you described had very little other useful information

I don't want to re-litigate that one in this thread, so I'll just mention that I disagree.

Is your argument that if we pretend these differences don't exist they'll go away.

Obviously not. (This is not the first time you've speculated about what thinking underlies something I'm saying, and got it badly wrong. You might want to stop doing it; it doesn't seem to work well.)

My argument is that if, every time any question related to race comes up, the thread in question is flooded with people saying "those awful black people are stupid and criminal -- stay away from them!" then black people who are not stupid or criminal (of which there are plenty) are likely to be put off, and that would be a shame because they are likely to have useful things to say.

would you be willing to apply the same logic to all the stuff on LW that could make Christians feel uncomfortable?

I think there's rather less of that these days than there was once. If you want, you can read what I wrote on roughly that topic back in 2009. Other than that: Yes, I would apply the same logic. No, that doesn't mean I think no one on LW should ever criticize religion. (Neither do I think that no one on LW should ever express the opinion that women, or black people, or people called Eugine, or people with blue eyes, are less intelligent / more criminal / etc. than the rest of the population. In particular, I certainly don't think they should be forbidden to.)

Comment author: epursimuove 29 September 2014 10:32:39AM 2 points [-]

Or writing in a manner that simply takes it for granted that black people are unintelligent and prone to crime.

If someone can't distinguish between a categorical statement ("all demographic X people have trait T") and a statement about statistical tendencies ("the demographic X average for trait T is N standard deviations below that of demographic Y") , I question their ability to contribute to any community that's based around rigorous thinking.

Comment author: gjm 29 September 2014 11:32:17AM *  -1 points [-]

Unfortunately,

  • many people, when intending to make the statistical sort of statement, will write in a way that looks exactly the same as if they were affirming the categorical statement, and
  • many people, whose actual opinions and feelings are more in line with the categorical statement, may write something more like the statistical statement because it's easier to defend, and
  • when someone writes something that could be interpreted either way, even the most rational of readers belonging to demographic X is liable to find it hurtful, and
  • even when someone writes something that sticks carefully to statements about statistical tendencies, readers belonging to demographic X (and others) may reasonably suspect that what they're actually thinking is something more like the categorical statement -- and they may well be right, especially in cases where prejudice is widespread and well entrenched.

So, although it would be nice if everyone here always thought carefully and clearly in terms of quantitative statistics, and no one here harboured any prejudices about traditionally-disfavoured groups, and everyone here knew that those things were true, and everyone could therefore take all ambiguous statements as statistical and evidence-based ... well, that isn't the world we're actually in, and I don't see any possible way we could get there.

[EDITED to clarify some poorly-written bits. No intentional changes of meaning.]

Comment author: epursimuove 30 September 2014 06:48:57AM 1 point [-]

Do you have any evidence that any of these things actually happen to a significant extent? Virtually everyone is able to distinguish claims about tendencies from absolute claims, even if they lack the knowledge to express this distinction formally. Here's Steven Pinker summarizing research on stereotypes:

Moreover, even when people believe that ethnic groups have characteristic traits, they are never mindless stereotypers who literally believe that each and every member of the group possesses those traits. People may think that Germans are, on average, more efficient than non-Germans, but no one believes that every last German is more efficient than every non-German. And people have no trouble overriding a stereotype when they have good information about an individual. Contrary to a common accusation, teachers’ impressions of their individual pupils are not contaminated by their stereotypes of race, gender, or socioeconomic status. The teachers’ impressions accurately reflect the pupil's performance as measured by objective tests.

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