HughRistik comments on Mate selection for the men here - Less Wrong

13 Post author: rhollerith 03 June 2009 11:05PM

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Comment author: HughRistik 04 June 2009 05:42:45AM 1 point [-]

I'm thinking of "rationalist" in the sense that is used here (such as actually self-identifying as "rationalist"), which may be, as you have argued, overly disdainful of some forms of instrumental rationality (I'm still thinking through that issue).

And note that my post acknowledges that it is based on this premise which may well be false:

If an interest or proficiency in rationality is related to cognitive or personality traits that show sex differences in mean or variance, such as systemizing or Openness to Ideas, then the pool of female rationalists would be lower that the pool of male rationalists.

It could be that rationality has many components, some of which are more common in males and some of which are more common in females.

Comment author: pjeby 04 June 2009 05:52:40AM 4 points [-]

actually self-identifying as "rationalist"

That's actually a good example of the sort of obsession I notice rational females avoiding. ;-) (To be fair, I certainly know of women who irrationally obsess on other labels and causes, I just try not to hang out with them.)

Comment author: AdeleneDawner 04 June 2009 06:08:47AM 6 points [-]

This is actually exactly the attitude I take. 'Doing rationality' is the good part, 'being a rationalist' just makes me more likely to want to signal stuff, or to disregard other useful viewpoints. I don't have to be a rationalist to do rationality, so why would I?

Comment author: Annoyance 05 June 2009 07:55:10PM -1 points [-]

But using rationality makes you a rationalist, in the same way that using science makes you a scientist.

Whether you label yourself that, or consider yourself to belong to some social category, is irrelevant.

Comment author: Alicorn 05 June 2009 07:58:43PM *  4 points [-]

But using rationality makes you a rationalist, in the same way that using science makes you a scientist.

This is like saying that because an insectivore eats insects, a locavore must eat locations (like some sort of kaiju), ignoring the fact that the word is used to mean "person who eats locally grown food". Words have meanings based on things other than their etymology and grammatical construction.

Comment author: Annoyance 05 June 2009 08:11:43PM 1 point [-]

Acknowledged. However, I think it's a bad idea to make 'rationalist' mean something other than "one who consistently uses rationality".

I don't like 'locavore'.