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glengordon01 comments on Are You a Paralyzed Subordinate Monkey? - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (73)
Perhaps it's not important whether Yudkowsky is correct on this or not. Perhaps it's more important that this article provides us with a convincing excuse to avoid work. ;o)
Really? It seems to associate the null action rather directly with low status of the visceral masculine kind. ie. "If you aren't getting stuff done it might be because you are a supplicating pussy!"
Well, leaving all the status-signaling and meta-signaling aside, I do think this is basically true of me at least sometimes.
When I end up in leadership positions, an enormous amount of my energy gets wasted in managing the resulting anxiety around who I have, or will, inadvertently or unavoidably challenged. Because I am in fact a supplicating wimp, who is nevertheless often (for reasons that have always been unclear to me) treated by those around me as a leader.
And that anxiety is a major contributor to my not getting stuff done.
How tall are you? I've read that tall people (tall men?) are apt to be handed leadership.
5'10" or so. Not short, but not especially tall.
I'm 6'4". And a first child. And loud and extroverted. Pushing people around is obviously my destiny. If only I had something I wanted them to do ...
Females have hierarchies, too, you know.
Of course they do. And while there is overlap in the methods of signalling and enforcing dominance within the respective hierarchies the balance of competitive behaviours tends to be somewhat different.
In terms of this specific behaviour the penalty for not displaying sufficiently low initiative is less for a low status female than for a low status male while the rewards at the other end of the spectrum are also greater for the male showing leadership than the female doing the same. In respect to this particular trait and all else being equal this would lead to the expectation that there would be greater variance in male initiative taking behaviours than in females.
There are other forms of competition and signalling behaviour where the balance of importance leans more towards female hierarchies while the applicability to male competition is somewhat reduced.
The thing is, I have problems with acrasia which don't seem all that different from the men who describe it here.
For quite some time (with a partial reversal in the past century), passivity was taught as a quintessential female trait, which I'd say is confirmed by your use of "pussy" as meaning unduly subordinate-- for a male.
Nothing I previously said confirms, denies or in any way indicates interest in that trait's quintessentiality. Your historical observation does seem accurate, albeit orthogonal.
Come to think of it "meaning unduly subordinate-- for a male" isn't implied by my words or the context either."Male who is unduly subordinate and passive", perhaps. But there is a world of difference between a "male who is" prefix and "for a male" suffix. Even then the masculine identification is only loosely implied.
Mm?
This comment -- and in particular the emphasis on "pussy" and the labeling of the status in question as categorically masculine -- seems intended to imply female passivity.
If that implication really is orthogonal to your intended meaning, then I'm obliged to sharply reduce my confidence that I'm able to correctly infer what you mean from what you say, at least when it comes to gender.
Good to know, I guess.