I am going to attempt to summarise this, hopefully fairly. A warning, for anyone to whom it applies: a cis white male is going to try and say what you said, but better.

I am doing this because I think social justice / equality is 1) important, 2) often written with an extreme inferential distance.

Parentheses with "ed:" are my own addition, usually a steelman of the author's position or an argument they didn't make but could have, although sometimes a critique. They aren't what the author said.

This is inspired by Yvain's writing, in particular a part where he said "I like eugenics". However, it also should explain why I can't join the LessWrong community. I am confident that this explanation generalises to most potential readers who are part of some marginalised group.

The issue is that I have a fight-or-flight response to this community. However, the only other times I have this response to a community are when the community contains someone who repeatedly disrespects my identity (for example, in a particular social group, one person consistently misgendered me; this made me unable to feel comfortable with that entire social group). That I have this response suggests that LessWrong is doing something wrong.

I do want to join the LessWrong community, I think it has value, but that desire seems to be in the category of "fanciful wishes".

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Certain topics are very sensitive issues for me. LessWrong commenters are almost certainly going to want to discuss these topics. I cannot take part in that discussion unless everyone agrees with my position - or at least, doesn't explicitly disagree. It sounds irrational, but this is because if you disagree on those topics, you're likely to be bad for my health, sanity, and/or safety (ed: many of those who disagree with me would do me harm, even unintentionally. The prior on LW commenters being that kind of person is thus high). Given that disagreeing will cause me to fear potential harm, I think this no-disagreeing rule is necessary.

A concrete example: the argument that in third world countries "people should have heterosexual marriages early, the man provides, the woman does childcare, the family prioritises having many children " is made, on the grounds that this will provide the biggest improvement in their quality of life. I cannot accept any social system that doesn't respect the individual's gender and sexual identity, even if it truly is the best way to improve their quality of life.

A person endorsing these kinds of arguments is evidence that they will disrespect my personhood, either passively or actively. That disrespect is extremely dangerous to me (ed: I would have liked an example for this). So the danger prevents me from intellectually engaging with the argument sans emotion. I could engage emotionally but that would be unproductive and upsetting.

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I am reasonably confident that this "unable to have a discussion with a disagreeing person" attitude is caused in part by the kind of specific risks experienced by marginalised persons, so I expect this attitude is widespread amongst the marginalised population. Thus, in a community that expects you to evaluate any argument (ed: ignoring social taboos and examining the merits of unpopular positions, let's call it "rational discussion"), those of us who are unable to discuss these topics opt out or avoid the discussion. So the less marginalised you are, the more you are able to talk. The more marginalised you are, the less you are able to talk.

Communities that avoid this rational discussion, in favour of conversations that the more marginalised are able to talk in, are often denigrated by communities that seek it out, and vice versa. Likely this is mostly due to social signalling reasons; each is the other's outgroup, so mock them to fit in! This is another deterrent to crossover.

The main deterrent is simply that the loudest members of the community are unintentionally signalling that marginalised persons will not have many comfortable conversations here. When you push rational discourse to the extreme (ed: as LessWrong arguably is proud of doing), you will signal to all the marginalised groups that they will not have many comfortable conversations here. Then you may wonder why LessWrong is so very homogenous. (ed: Yvain's survey said 90% white male, I think? Correct me if I'm wrong)

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(Ed note: this section entertains the possibility that we might argue that marginalised people are somehow inherently incapable of rationality. I deem it unworthy of a summary.)

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Addendum: even with rules against allowing discussion of these sensitive topics, passively allowing slurs from those topics (ed: such as using "insane", "crippled" to describe ideas that are wrong or limited. There is a fuller list in the original if you ctrl-F "ableist"), or even reacting negatively to accusations of sexism, will signal this same "you won't be comfortable with our conversations" to marginalised persons.

Arguing that this is an overreaction to use of these terms is also itself a signal of "uncomfortable conversations ahead". When you use these terms in your rational discourse, it sends that scary signal regardless of what you mean by it. So if you want diversity, why are you using it?(ed: the author has a point, saying you mean insane as in bad idea, not insane as in mentally ill isn't a good argument.)

In conclusion, Yvain, even though you are a fantastic and thought-provoking writer, if you say "I like eugenics" you cause me to fear for my safety and I can't read your blog. (ed: "In conclusion, LessWrong, even though you are a fantastic community with a lot of value, your commenters often say things that frighten marginalised people, so they can't join your community.")