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Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on A Rationalist's Account of Objectification? - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (325)
I hope this is being downvoted for the second paragraph and not the first paragraph. There are women out there whose fetish is their status being lowered, and they need boyfriends too.
Even if it were being downvoted for the first paragraph, this would not necessarily constitute disapproval of the existence of the fetish. It is an altogether too personal announcement, as opposed to something more appropriate like "Complicating the issue is the fact that objectification, like many other things, can be sexually fetishized; there is not an obvious solution for dealing with "leaks" from the fetish-oriented mindset into the rest of an individual's behavior."
(I downvoted the grandparent, mostly because I felt the comment was staggeringly inappropriate in its entirety, and it also put me in a position where I did not dare reply. Not out of any fear for my safety - I had none resulting from the comment - but because it prompted me to consider any reply I might make to be some kind of sexually-charged interaction however innocuous the content might be. After all, nick012000 does not claim to have achieved adequate compartmentalization. I feel like I'm entitled to not knowingly participate in someone else's sex life if I don't want to - that is, whatever they get off on thinking about later is fine, but as soon as they tell me that some ordinary thing I'm doing may be sexually charged for them, my choice is to end the interaction or to voluntarily have a sexual interaction. So effectively, informing me of such a thing is driving me away from a place I was otherwise interested in being.)
I'm sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable; that wasn't really my intent. Getting assistance in better compartmentalisation techniques was my intent, though I figured I'd get some downvotes given that the Less Wrong community usually tries to reduce compartmentalization, not increase it, though decreasing compartmentalisation does not seem like a good idea in this case for the reasons I laid out in my previous post.
I assure you, I did not post that for any sort of sexual thrill; it'd take something like cybersex or an erotic story for me to get a sexual thrill out of anything I've written, so unless you start cybering with me or something, you're safe, Alicorn. ;) I'm simply open about that part of my sex life, partly because of Asperger's Syndrome mind-blindness, and partly because I'm planning on working in a sensitive field once I finish university and I won't need to worry about being blackmailed about it if I'm not worried about people finding out.
This is not good enough.
That's not what a real apology looks like. Better would be "I'm sorry. I can see now that I shouldn't have said what I said in a forum such as this."
This is making matters worse. Don't backhandedly suggest that Alicorn 'cybers' you, or even 'put' the image of cybering 'out there'. This is doing exactly what Alicorn doesn't want, namely making your interaction on this forum "sexually charged".
(I want to help you, btw. I may very well have Asperger's myself, so to some extent this is a case of "there but for the grace of FSM go I".)
I can see what you mean, but I would be more likely to say something like "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." The reason I said it is because this thread seemed like the best place to say it, so saying that I shouldn't have said it here is obviously incorrect.
Huh? I was trying to do the opposite; to reassure her that it wasn't sexually charged, because she wasn't cybering with me. O_o
I think the problem is that you don't understand how you made a mistake. Therefore, you're unable to apologize.
The problem isn't that your intentions are wrong. Intentions aren't obvious things, and people are not authorities on their own intentions, especially when it comes to sex. A man will pursue a woman without realizing it; or they realize it "in the moment" but afterwords confabulate an alternative explanation.
But none of us are entirely in control of our desires, and nor should it be expected that, given certain desires, that we wouldn't try to satisfy them. But sexuality is full of ulterior motives, and this is what makes relations between the sexes so difficult. I upvoted Eliezer's post because the substance of what he said is correct, and if you said only the first paragraph I wouldn't have so much of a problem with it. Maybe it could have been said better, but it's only a blog comment.
But in the context of "making women more comfortable in online communities" I think we have to deal with the scenario where women have to adopt the heuristic of "guilty until proven innocent" whenever discussion seems to be the least bit sexually charged. This is the heuristic I think we all should adopt.
This may seem to be too complicated and error prone, or even unfair. But they say that our gesture of waving to each other came from when knights on horseback would wave their hand to signal that they didn't possess a weapon. The knight couldn't just object "But I don't have any weapons, why should I have to wave?" It has to be proven, because his intentions aren't clear.
So I think it is useful to find some sort of anti-erotic wave, a way of signaling to women, or others, that they don't possess any sexual intent. I think, when the subject of sex is touched, this is done by speaking in a way that isn't liable to produce a mental image. Just as when the knight waves, he proves he isn't carrying a weapon; by signaling an anti-erotic wave, you prove that you aren't carrying any erotic intent. And you do this by producing discussion which is erotically inert.
I understand completely why your discussion made sense to you, there's no indication that you were directing your post to any of the women here, and your first paragraph seems particularly on-topic in an enthymematic way. I don't think you did anything immoral; just next time, be sure to signal your anti-erotic wave.
This is also my attempt at a rational justification for this principle, so critique is welcome.
Good work actually explaining to nick about social norms. Readers should note that he identifies as having Asperger's Syndrome and "mind blindness," and is trying to learn.
Well, I'm just coming to understand them at an intellectual level. Thank you for your posts related to PUA. I've found many of them insightful, and I'm trying to put something together that works for me.
I'm glad; you're welcome.
I worry a little that you might dismiss some of the reaction as motivated by a problem with the fetish itself, so I wanted to say that, speaking as someone who has similar fetishes, who has acted on them many times, and who is out and proud about it: you should listen to what people are saying here about why what you've said here was inappropriate.
This suggests - yes, very indirectly - that that's a thing that could plausibly happen. Also, the wink suggests 'there is subtext here'. Taken together, they imply things that I assume you weren't intending to imply - along the lines of 'I am talking with you about sex in part because we have a relationship where that kind of discussion happens, rather than purely for instrumental reasons'.
I see that you want to make an honest apology. Here is a suggestion for an honest apology that hopefully won't sound like a faux apology:
"Sorry. I did not intend to make you upset. I acknowledge that it was my post that made you upset (I take your word for it. I don't completely understand how, but that's my own problem). I regret that I was not able to make my point without upsetting anyone."
An apology requires accepting responsibility for what you are apologizing for. It would be better to include a concession towards avoiding similar problems in the future ("I shouldn't have ...", "I'll ... next time" ), but I don't know which such statements you can honestly make.
I haven't tried anything like the suggestion myself so I can't guarantee results. It should work here, but I'm doubtful about other contexts. You probably shouldn't include the part in parentheses if the other person doesn't know you have Asperger's.
Also consider "I will work on figuring out how to avoid that mistake in the future", if you're not sure what you actually did wrong. Figuring out where the mistake was in the first place is an early step in figuring out how to avoid it in the future, so this covers that, without highlighting just how close to the beginning of the process you are (which tends to make people uncomfortable). It also implies but doesn't state that you will actually take steps to avoid the mistake in the future, so if you decide that the effort of avoiding that mistake is not worth the inconvenience to others, you won't have lied.
suggests that the point could not have been made without causing upset, which isn't true.
Perhaps "... did not manage to make my point ..." ?
I hope that they don't learn that here is the place to find them.
Not that one fetish in particular, no. But speaking much more generally, part of the concept behind the rationalist mate is that we're supposed to do a bit of consequentialist reasoning before going "Ew!", and try to set things up so that people are happy instead of making them do the ideologically correct thing.
The main way "objectifying women as sexual fetish" is a problem ("problem": something that prevents people from being happy) is if (1) the person doesn't understand the difference between having a sexual fetish and stating an ethical value or (2) if there's a large difference between the number of men who have that fetish and the number of women, so that they can't pair up.
Hrm... just a thought re point 2: in the case of group1 of gender A enjoying lowering the status of their partners, and group2 of gender B enjoying having their status lowered, if size group 1 < size group 2, that could work out.
ie, I'd imagine that a situation where members of group 1 having harems of members of group 2 could potentially work well on both sides of the equation.
size group 1 > size group 2, however, could potentially be more of a problem since in that case the analogous solution does not seem to present itself as working as well for both groups.
(Or did I miss some obvious aspect of the relevant psychology?)
Well, the problem with e.g. the number of women who enjoy lowering male status and the number of men who enjoy their status being lowered is that group 1 << group 2 to a degree unsolvable with any realistic harem size.
Hrm... Fair enough then. (Actually, to what extent are there stats on that sort of thing available? ie, do we actually know that in that case the the ratio is that bad?)
IIRC there are stats and it is that bad.
Yet another way in which the world fails to be optimized, in that case. To borrow a reddit meme: "Scumbag Reality"
If group1 > group2, then group1 members can agree between themselves to share members of group2 with each other, which seems like it might be satisfactory given enough flex in the relationship preferences of those involved.
That occurred to me, but I see a problem with that outcome like so: From the perspective of members of group 2, being traded around/used like that would be enjoyably status lowering...
However, from the perspective of members of group 1, if you have a small subgroup of them sharing a member of group 2, then if they perceived that at all as part of the sexual interaction, then they might have a problem with the fact that each of them are failing to lower the status of the majority of others in the interaction. (ie, members of group 1 interacting with other members of group 1, having to do so on an equal basis only getting to dominate/degrade the (fewer) members of group 2.)
(Or did I misunderstand a key aspect of this sort of thing?)
We need a mathematical theory to analyze optimal arrangements for these sorts of relationships given various input demographics! :) (Why yes, I am in a rather silly mood at the moment. ;))
Speaking as a member of both groups, I don't think this is going to be a problem in practice :-)
You're a member of group 1 of gender A and group 2 of gender B?
*ducks*
Seriously though, which part are you claiming wouldn't be a problem? Eliezer's suggestion that the numbers are sufficiently different as to cause a problem? My suggestion as to a problem that occurs when the numbers are skewed in a certain direction?
That may sound flippant, but consider: http://healthymultiplicity.com/Zyfron/Gemini/?webcomic_post=episode-67-d-none-of-the-above http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switch_%28BDSM%29
There probably is at least one person in exactly that situation, and it would be very important to clarify if they were, because their optimal solution is likely to be different from most peoples'.
(Interestingly enough, I can confirm that LW has at least one (set of) fairly regular reader(s) who is (are) multiple and significantly genderqueer (in several senses!) and involved in BDSM. Not sure how many of the BDSM roles are relevant, tho.)
Ew!
Okay, but you did the consequentialist reasoning first, right?
I believe so, but I'm not totally sure how to formulate and communicate the reasons for my disagreement. I'm pretty sure though that the proper way to characterize the alternatives here is not "setting things up so that people are happy" vs "making them do the ideologically correct thing".
If you want to engage on this, I suppose I would start with a question: is there something special about sexual fantasies that makes them deserving of being indulged - something that would not apply to other fantasies that people would prefer not to see carried out in fact? For example, if I enjoy fantasizing about brutalizing and terrorizing people while wearing a white robe and hood, is that something I should indulge as fantasies, so long as I don't act on them? Does it matter whether these fantasies are classified as sexual fantasies?
Sex fantasies are usually indulged when people are engaged in sex activity and not otherwise. Your example would be less disturbing, at least to me, if you qualified it with something similar--someone who enjoys fantasizing about brutalizing people while playing video games sounds less dangerous than someone who enjoys fantasizing about brutalizing people full stop.
Would it be less disturbing still if I told you that I don't fantasize about brutalizing people - full stop? Would people here be congratulating me and asking how I did it if I said I used to have such fantasies, but had managed to hack my utility function so that I no longer find such fantasies attractive? If I did that hacking, would I not only seem less dangerous - would I not also be less dangerous?
I feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland here.
Alice: What is that horrible ALL CAPS noise in this well-tended garden? If I downvote it, will there be less of it?
Humpty Dumpty: Oh, I hope you are not going to downvote that! It is the mating call of Homo lesswrongis. Think of it as the sound of people striving to become happy.
Alice: But the question is: Can you make a garden mean so many different things to so many different people?
Humpty Dumpty: The question is: who is to be the master? NEXT!
This is a weird way to follow up on:
What do you do about the people who have a fetish for analytically considering the subject of fetishes?
Of course, one eventually runs into a bit of a technical difficulty. :)