SilentCal comments on 2014 Less Wrong Census/Survey - Less Wrong

88 Post author: Yvain 26 October 2014 06:05PM

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Comment author: RichardKennaway 27 October 2014 08:47:13PM *  21 points [-]

Nine of the questions ask which of various options you "identify with": country, race, gender, political category, moral philosophy, political category (subdivided), effective altruism, gender again, and meta-ethics. I am unclear about this concept, and for the purpose of making a choice, mentally replaced it by respectively "reside in long-term", "are", "are", "believe", etc. Would such rephrasings have changed anyone's answers to any of the questions?

"Identify with" reminds me of the Discworld's Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson, who is a six-foot-six human who "identifies as" a dwarf, and who is accepted as such by the dwarves, even though everyone, including him, knows he's human. I don't know Terry Pratchett's thinking behind the character, but Carrot strikes me as a reductio ad absurdum of the concept.

Comment author: SilentCal 11 November 2014 06:29:06PM 1 point [-]

FYI I don't think your view matches Pratchett's intention (which of course doesn't make you wrong). At one point Vimes (I think) asks Carrot about this, and Carrot replies that having dwarves for parents has never been a dwarfish definition of being a dwarf.

Ultimately the sensitivity of these question comes from the fear of hidden inferences--the concern that when you say Carrot is not a dwarf, you're implying that it's wrong for him to observe dwarfish customs. I suppose you have the equal and opposite worry, that once we start calling Carrot a dwarf we'll build him a house with four-foot ceilings?

Another job for taboo.