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sixes_and_sevens comments on Politics Discussion Thread January 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Does it not seem odd to you to view the case of an unarmed person being stabbed by an armed assailant as an issue of social justice by default?
This is perhaps an unfair question, because I placed it in that context to begin with, but one of the things that's so maddening about the whole subject is how (for want of a better term) privilege is so privileged as an explanatory mechanism. There are certainly circumstances where it has merit, but it seems a ridiculous weapon of choice in circumstances where more appropriate explanatory mechanisms exist.
Perhaps? :)
I choose not to fight your hypothetical and you get upvotes for closing the trap. Not a big deal, but not cool.
I'm interested in hearing about them, and using them to figure out how to be more effective in figuring out what social changes are better for my terminal values and causing those changes.
Edit: Also, let's not forget that there are high status locals who deny that the problem we are talking about even exists.
It wasn't intended as a trap. Part of the point of the hypothetical was that "sword-privilege" is a bit of a silly idea, and not an obvious go-to choice for reasoning about people stabbing other people. I genuinely didn't expect you to put up a defence for it.
As for explanatory mechanisms, I tend to favour explanations from economics and systems-based sciences, as they have a rich catalogue of unusual behaviour patterns that arise from interacting parties being given different choices. I'm generally quite cautious in their application, though, because it doesn't take much for an elegant and aesthetically-pleasing model to be subtly wrong.
Fair enough. As you noted, the risk with any analytical framework is that it intentionally or unintentionally becomes a single variable analysis - and thus useless. My sense is that economics applied to social interactions is particularly at risk for this type of problem - leading either to Marxism or blogosphere ev. psych.
Ah, I see. You were trying to change the topic - and I missed it.
I certainly agree that privilege is a terrible framework for analyzing actual swords-in-unarmed-people situations. But that wasn't the topic and I didn't want to talk about those situations - so I assumed you were making a somewhat hostile metaphor and choose not to call you on the hostility in order to keep engaging in the conversation. Talk about long inferential distance. :)
I think I'm going to start explicitly stating my discussion goals in advance. If it doesn't keep me on topic, it will at least keep me honest.