You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Psy-Kosh comments on A Rationalist's Account of Objectification? - Less Wrong Discussion

43 Post author: lukeprog 19 March 2011 11:10PM

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

Comments (325)

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

Comment author: Psy-Kosh 24 March 2011 10:26:27PM 1 point [-]

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. ;))

Comment author: ciphergoth 25 March 2011 01:51:29PM 0 points [-]

Speaking as a member of both groups, I don't think this is going to be a problem in practice :-)

Comment author: Psy-Kosh 25 March 2011 04:25:50PM 0 points [-]

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?

Comment author: Strange7 18 April 2011 12:15:02AM 3 points [-]

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'.

Comment author: AdeleneDawner 18 April 2011 12:26:29AM 3 points [-]

(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.)

Comment author: Strange7 18 April 2011 12:47:08AM 2 points [-]

This does not surprise me in the slightest. People who find a different way of thinking/defining identity, and benefit by it, tend to check out at least a few other paradigm-shift subcultures just to see what else they've been missing out on, with the result that: http://healthymultiplicity.com/Zyfron/Gemini/?webcomic_post=episode-77-%E2%80%9Cnormal%E2%80%9D