skeptical_lurker comments on Welcome to Less Wrong! (7th thread, December 2014) - Less Wrong

16 Post author: Gondolinian 15 December 2014 02:57AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (635)

Comments (635)

Sort By: Best

Show:

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 23 July 2015 12:51:54PM 2 points [-]

But of course, neoreactionaries hate feminists, so I suppose they'll all stop listening as soon as I use the word.

Do you think that anyone who is against multiculturalism is a neoreactionary?

But the problem isn't Pakistani people, the problem is that the culture they were brought up in is sexist. We don't need to get rid of multiculturalism; there's a lot of evidence that second-generation and third-generation immigrants' views shift, as the generations go by, towards egalitarian.

I.e. the immigrants adopt the culture of the host country. Are you sure you don't mean 'We don't need to get rid of multiracialism'?

Comment author: hairyfigment comment score below threshold [+] (19 children)

Comment author: Jiro 23 July 2015 07:19:47PM 5 points [-]

I've been objecting to what Acty said and I get downvoted too.

Comment author: VoiceOfRa 23 July 2015 11:40:45PM 1 point [-]

Well hairyfigment's definition of "sockpuppet" appears to be anyone who disagrees with him, so by his definition however downvoted you wasn't a "sockpuppet".

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 23 July 2015 08:05:46PM * 3 points [-]

So there is at least one person in this thread who has read Moldbug, and might be using sockpuppets (which is wrong, of course). Yet Acty's comment says "they'll all stop listening". Plural.

Plus Acty assumes that people who have a different ideology to her hate her and will just stop reading, which isn't very charitable when we should all be trying to avoid confirmation bias.

Comment author: Acty 23 July 2015 09:07:48PM * 2 points [-]

Comment author: VoiceOfRa 24 July 2015 01:36:52AM 3 points [-]

knowing lots of idiot conservatives IRL whose opinions amount to "an immigrant looked at me the wrong way once!!!11!!1!"

I seriously doubt this. Rather I suspect you're, either intentionally or unconsciously, replacing opinions disagreeing with yours with ones that are easier for you to dismiss.

Comment author: Username 25 July 2015 10:23:35PM 4 points [-]

I think you and Acty each live in your own filter bubbles, constructed mostly through subconscious intent. (Beware of believing your enemies are innately evil and intentionally causing themselves to be biased.) Everyone is subconsciously inclined to read authors they agree with; it's more pleasurable and less painful. In your filter bubble, you read thoughtful conservative thinkers, along with cherry-picked bits of poorly-reasoned liberal extremist thinking, that those conservatives tear apart. And the reverse is true for Acty.

I suspect the internet is increasing the ease of forming these sort of bubbles, which seems like a huge problem.

FWIW, I am disappointed to see political discussion drift from object-level political disagreements to person-level disagreements about who is more biased. I virtually never see a good outcome from such a discussion. I suppose it's an occupational hazard participating in discussions on a website about bias.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 25 July 2015 01:13:37PM 2 points [-]

I'm going to be cynical here, and say that most conservative opinions are idiotic, and most liberal opinions are idiotic. Its an instance of the '90% of everything is shit' principle.

Comment author: Good_Burning_Plastic 24 July 2015 04:06:04PM 2 points [-]

You could have said something to the effect of "not all conservatives have such dumb opinions, they aren't representative of all conservatism, and there also are liberals with even dumber opinions, and anyway it's not a good idea to judge memeplexes from their worst members" -- but no, you chose to go for James A. Donald-level asshattery -- "if you say you know conservatives with dumb opinions, you're probably lying or confabulating". (And somehow even got seven upvotes for that.) What does make you think it's so unlikely that Acty actually knows conservatives with dumb opinions? Are you familiar with all groups of conservatives worldwide?

Comment author: advael 24 July 2015 06:58:11PM * 3 points [-]

Because those vectors of argument are insufficiently patronizing, I'm guessing.

But in all seriousness, the "judging memeplexes from their worst members" issue is pretty interesting, because politicized ideologies and really any ideology that someone has a name for and integrates into their identity ("I am a conservative" or "I am a feminist" or "I am an objectivist" or whatever) are really fuzzily defined.

To use the example we're talking about: Is conservatism about traditional values and bolstering the nuclear family? Is conservatism about defunding the government and encouraging private industry to flourish? Is conservatism about biblical literalism and establishing god's law on earth? Is conservatism about privacy and individual liberties? Is conservatism about nationalism and purity and wariness of immigrants? I've encountered conservatives who care about all of these things. I've encountered conservatives who only care about some of them. I've encountered at least one conservative who has defined conservatism to me in terms of each of those things.

So when I go to my internal dictionary of terms-to-describe-ideologies, which conservatism do I pull? I know plenty of techie-libertarian-cluster people who call themselves conservatives who are atheists. I know plenty of religious people who call themselves conservatives who think that cryptography is a scary terrorist thing and should be outlawed. I know self-identified conservatives who think that the recent revelations about NSA surveillance are proof that the government is overreaching, and self-identified conservatives who think that if you have nothing to hide from the NSA then you have nothing to fear, so what's the big deal?

I do not identify as a conservative. I can steelman lots of kinds of conservatism extremely well. Honestly I have some beliefs that some of my conservative-identifying friends would consider core conservative tenets. I still don't know what the fuck a conservative is, because the term gets used by a ton of people who believe very strongly in its value but mean different things when they say it.

So I have no doubt that not only has Acty encountered conservatives who are stupid, but that their particular flavor of stupid are core tenets of what they consider conservatism. The problem is that this colors her beliefs about other kinds of conservatives, some of whom might only be in the same cluster in person-ideology-identity space because they use the same word. This is not an Acty-specific problem by any means. I know arguably no one who completely succeeds at not doing this, the labels are just that bad. Who gets to use the label? If I meet someone and they volunteer the information that they identify as a conservative, what conclusions should I draw about their ideological positions?

I think the problem has to stem from sticking the ideology-label onto one's identity, because then when an individual has opinions, it's really hard for them to separate their opinions from their ideology-identity-label, especially when they're arguing with a standard enemy of that ideology-label, and thus can easily view themselves as standing in for the ideology itself. The conclusion I draw is that as soon as an ideology is an identity-label, it quickly becomes pretty close to useless as a bit of information by itself, and that the speed at which this happens is somewhat correlated to the popularity of the label.

Comment author: VoiceOfRa 24 July 2015 10:03:32PM 1 point [-]

Because those vectors of argument are insufficiently patronizing, I'm guessing.

Right, it's only OK to be patronizing to people who aren't present to defend themselves.

Comment author: advael 24 July 2015 10:13:50PM * 1 point [-]

I'd argue that that little one-off comment was less patronizing and more... sarcastic and mean.

Yeah, not all that productive either way. My bad. I apologize.

But I think the larger point stands about how these ideological labels are super leaky and way too schizophrenically defined by way too many people to really even be able to meaningfully say something like "That's not a representative sample of conservatives!", let alone "You probably haven't met people like that, you're just confabulating your memory of them because you hate conservatism"

Comment author: VoiceOfRa 24 July 2015 10:21:54PM 2 points [-]

"That's not a representative sample of conservatives!", let alone "You probably haven't met people like that, you're just confabulating your memory of them because you hate conservatism"

One of those statements refers to a concrete event (or series of events), the other depends on the exact definition of conservative.

Comment author: VoiceOfRa 24 July 2015 10:02:17PM 2 points [-]

What does make you think it's so unlikely that Acty actually knows conservatives with dumb opinions?

Well the fact that Acty has a tendency to not read/listen to what her opponents say and replace it with something easy to dismiss, as she has previously demonstrated in this very thread.

What does make you think it's so unlikely that Acty actually knows conservatives with dumb opinions?

What makes you think it's so unlikely that Acty is giving an inacurate report of their arguments?

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 25 July 2015 01:03:09PM 0 points [-]

Yes, I think that subconsciously I have an assumption that all conservatives are either idiots or extreme neoreactionary types, based mostly on my personal experience of a) knowing lots of idiot conservatives IRL whose opinions amount to "an immigrant looked at me the wrong way once!!!11!!1!" and b) arguing really loudly with extreme neoreactionaries online. I'm not assuming you hate me, I've just somehow managed to subconsciously accumulate a really low prior for someone I'm arguing with being a smart normal conservative. I will update and endeavour to correct that.

I'm not sure I would class myself as a conservative, but I can understand your assumption that conservatives are idiots, in that there was a time when I would have said that anyone who is against gay rights is a fascist theocrat. Now I realise, on a more intuitive level, that just because many arguments for a position are idiotic doesn't mean that there isn't a somewhat intelligent argument out there.

Oddly enough, IRL I mostly meet fairly intelligent people with opinions that amount to "anyone who disagrees with my left-wing politics is evil! That person supports a right wing party, I'd like to burn their house down!"

My theory is that facebook and twitter have ruined discourse because people can't fit opinions more complex into 140 characters.

I've been refreshing my page ten times a minute to check my karma hasn't gone down any further and that is a really terrible use of my time.

You're new here, I guess you'll get used to the karma system in time? In the meantime, have an upvote :)

Comment author: hairyfigment 24 July 2015 02:46:25AM -2 points [-]

We have little reason to think Journeyman is the same as Eugine Nier, who is almost certainly calling himself VoiceOfRa. Here is the puppeteer's previous account, ending 7 April. Here is VR's first comment on the site, jumping right into a discussion of decision theory. Here he is the same week talking about the purpose of LW/MIRI, linking an old thread in which he was active as Eugine Nier, repeating his old political views, and posting quotes as Nier was wont to do. Here is the dishonest piece of shit defector claiming I call anyone who disagrees with me a sockpuppet, rather than just him and his sockpuppets.

Comment author: Lumifer 24 July 2015 02:19:56PM 1 point [-]

Can we skip the middle-school drama?

I downvoted your last couple of posts on the "vote down what you like to see less of" principle. I would like to see less whining and ideological witchhunts.

The downvotes will continue until the morale improves.

Comment author: hairyfigment 24 July 2015 09:17:34PM -2 points [-]

A fine example of how trying to stop "politics" can serve as a political move in favor of the status quo. You're not treating the cause.

Comment author: Lumifer 24 July 2015 11:06:29PM 2 points [-]

I am not trying to stop "politics". Evidently I was insufficiently explicit, let me quote myself, now with bolded parts:

I would like to see less whining and ideological witchhunts.

Comment author: [deleted] 23 July 2015 03:11:22PM 0 points [-]

Do you think that anyone who is against multiculturalism is a neoreactionary?

Do you really think that proponents or opponents of "multiculturalism" are arguing over a well-defined program of action?

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 23 July 2015 03:53:42PM 2 points [-]

To some extent. Increase or decrease the rate of immigration, require criteria to be met for immigration or not, enforce speaking the native language or not, ban or allow faith schools, ban or allow child circumcision & FGM and so forth. Obviously, not all people on each side of the debate agree on which policies to pursue, but that's true of all politics.

skeptical_lurker comments on Welcome to Less Wrong! (7th thread, December 2014) - Less Wrong

Article Navigation

Comments (635)

Nearest Meetups

Virtual Study Room

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Recent Rationality Quotes

Recent Wiki Edits

Top Contributors, 30 Days

Recent Karma Awards

Comments (635)

Top Contributors, 30 Days

You'll need to login or register to do that

(Don't worry, it only takes a few seconds)

Create

Login