[LINK] Why I'm not on the Rationalist Masterlist

Apprentice

A long blog post explains why the author, a feminist, is not comfortable with the rationalist community despite thinking it is "super cool and interesting". It's directed specifically at Yvain, but it's probably general enough to be of some interest here.

http://apophemi.wordpress.com/2014/01/04/why-im-not-on-the-rationalist-masterlist/

I'm not sure if I can summarize this fairly but the main thrust seems to be that we are overly willing to entertain offensive/taboo/hurtful ideas and this drives off many types of people. Here's a quote:

In other words, prizing discourse without limitations (I tried to find a convenient analogy for said limitations and failed. Fenders? Safety belts?) will result in an environment in which people are more comfortable speaking the more social privilege they hold.

The author perceives a link between LW type open discourse and danger to minority groups. I'm not sure whether that's true or not. Take race. Many LWers are willing to entertain ideas about the existence and possible importance of average group differences in psychological traits. So, maybe LWers are racists. But they're racists who continually obsess over optimizing their philanthropic contributions to African charities. So, maybe not racists in a dangerous way?

An overly rosy view, perhaps, and I don't want to deny the reality of the blogger's experience. Clearly, the person is intelligent and attracted to some aspects of LW discourse while turned off by other aspects.

http://apophemi.wordpress.com/2014/01/04/why-im-not-on-the-rationalist-masterlist/

In other words, prizing discourse without limitations (I tried to find a convenient analogy for said limitations and failed. Fenders? Safety belts?) will result in an environment in which people are more comfortable speaking the more social privilege they hold.

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.]

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, mo

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[LINK] Why I'm not on the Rationalist Masterlist

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[LINK] Why I'm not on the Rationalist Masterlist

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