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This is a bit of a tangential ramble on why diversity might be kind of a good idea.
Different evidence accrues to people with different experiences.
A Bayesian agent who goes through an upbringing as a boy and one who goes through an upbringing as a girl will probably not possess identical beliefs about society, the world, humanity, and so on. This is not because one has been held back or misled, nor because one is less rational than the other ... but because two different partial explorations of the same territory do not yield the same map.
This does not mean that "men's truth" and "women's truth" (or "European truth" and "African truth") are different truths. Nor does it mean that any map is just as good as any other. Some people really do sit down and scribble all over their map until it is useless.
But since nobody's map is equivalent to the territory, overall we can expect that we will navigate the territory better if we can get help from people whose maps are different from our own.
That means that if we spend our time hanging out only with people whose experiences are a lot like our own, and going all Robber's Cave on anyone whose map doesn't look like ours, we are probably going to end up kinda ignorant. At the very least we will not have as complete a picture of the landscape as a group who has shared maps from lots of different paths.
This matters if we care about possessing accurate maps; and it also matters a great deal if what we are trying to map includes things like "the good of humanity" or "coherent extrapolated volition of humankind" or things like that.
The burning question is diversity in what exactly? I'm pretty sure there's good diversity and bad diversity, whatever your values happen to be. Then there's diversity that doesn't matter. I don't care how tall people here are.
Only if their maps are better than random. We should try to attract those people from the under-represented groups whose maps are better than random.
People with strong political identities usually have their maps systematically distorted. So while trying to attract the members of the under-represented groups, we should avoid political applause lights, to avoid attracting the most politically active members of these groups.
Specifically, I think LW would benefit from participation of many women, but we should avoid applause lights of feminism, social justice, or however it is called. Because that's just one specific subset of women. If a person with strong political opinions criticizes LW as not the best place for them... well, maybe in this specifical case, that's system working as intended.
Instead, invite all the smart women you know to the LW meetup, and encourage them to write an article on LW. Select them by smartness, not by political activity and willingness to criticize LW for not conforming to their party line. Analogically for any other under-represented groups. Invite them as individuals, not as political forces.
I can see the problem you're trying to avoid-- the assumption that one sort of feminism is typical for women. And I think it's worth avoiding.
However, you seem to be implying that men aren't excessively clustered by politics at LW.
Also, the problem pointed to in the Not on the Master List article doesn't generally manifest at that level of fear. I think the more common negative reaction to LW is moderate revulsion, and I suspect that just inviting more women isn't going to solve it.
If anyone tried the experiment of inviting more women, it might be world posting about how it worked out.
Maybe it's just that when someone says: "I feel uncomfortable about X", my natural reaction is thinking about a possible fix; but when someone says: "I am a member of a tribe T and we dislike X", my natural reaction is: Fuck you, and fuck your tribe T!
Only later comes the rationalization, that improving a situation for a specific person, especially for someone who feels some discomfort and yet wants to be a member of the community, is good for the community. But obeying demands made in the name of a different tribe, just helps the other tribe conquer this territory; and the complaining person probably wasn't interested in membership too much, just wanted to plant a flag of the tribe T here.
My model of a person who wrote this article is that even if LW changed according to their wishes, they wouldn't join LW anyway (they would just tick off another internet battle won), or they would join but would contribute mostly by criticizing other things they don't like, making some existing members (including women) uncomfortable.
Still, there is a question: If we change according to this person's wishes, maybe this person will not join us, but perhaps some other person would? In which case, I recommend thinking about making LW more comfortable to this hypothetical other person, whose wishes in fact don't have to be the same. Maybe this other person would actually prefer to express their opinions more freely.
According to the survey, it's 36% liberal, 30% libertarian, 27% socialist, (edit:) 3% conservative. (Okay, that's all members, but since men are 90%, I assume the numbers for men would be pretty much the same, plus or minus at most 10% in some category.) At worst that would be (edit:) three different clusters; and any specific of them would be a minority.
Still, some groups are louder than the others. For example, the Moldbug fans are impossible to overlook. On the other hand, I don't remember hearing much socialist opinions here; and I think I would have noticed. Not sure what it means. (Different average loudness of different groups?)
Common reaction among who? The people who decided to write a critical article about LW? That is not necessary a reaction of an average person.
Assuming that more women on LW would mean more articles and comments written by women, it would either mean that the content gets less repulsive on average... or that LW fans are repulsive to outsiders whether they are male or female, so at least it cannot be blamed on gender disparity anymore.
Math. Conservatives are 3%.
Just 3 labels make up roughly 93%, and I'd say only two real clusters, as libertarian vs. socialist/liberal. I haven't noticed substantive debates here between liberals and socialists. It would be interesting to see, if someone can point some out.
Note the predominance of the Anglosphere - with the 4 top represented countries making up around 75% of the survey respondents, and those 4 countries being 4 of the top six in per capita terms.
This doesn't matter for your point; I'm just letting you know: the survey results showed 3% conservative, not 35%. There were 35 total conservatives, which was 3% of respondents.
Not sure if you meant to imply this, but did the linked article read to you like, "I am a member of tribe T and we dislike X"? To me it just sounded like, "I feel uncomfortable about X."
Uhm, after reading the article again, I think you are right. It was written as: "I feel uncomfortable about X."
Yet I somehow perceived it completely differently. I wonder why exactly. Probably because it was long and not going to the point (which made the real point less obvious) and contained a lot of keywords typical for a specific tribe (so I assumed it was speaking in the name of the tribe).
Also because members of that tribe frequently argue that making them uncomfortable should be a punishable offense.
Ah that makes sense. Maybe also because it was worded as a response to a particular tribe (ours), it may have been natural to assume that it was positioned as coming from a particular other tribe.
" moderate revulsion" is a reaction I've seen from people who I would like to be party of the community and I thought had a reasonable chance of being interested.
Oh, certainly. Feminism points out, though, that the social mainstream is also a strong political identity which systematically distorts people's maps. They use somewhat unfortunate historical words for this effect, like "patriarchy". That's just a label on their maps, though; calling a stream a creek doesn't change the water.
So combining this with your guideline, we should be careful not to invite anyone who has a strong political identity ... but we cannot do that, because "ordinary guy" (and "normal woman") is a strong political identity too. It's just a strong political identity one of whose tenets is that it is not a strong political identity.
We don't have the freedom to set out with an undistorted map, nor of having a perfect guide as to whose maps are more distorted. Being wrong doesn't feel like being wrong. A false belief doesn't feel like a false belief. If you start with ignorance priors and have a different life, you do not end up with the same posteriors. And as a consequence, meeting someone who has different data from you can feel like meeting someone who is just plain wrong about a lot of things!
Also ... I wonder what a person whose maps of the social world were really "no better than random" would look like. I think he or she would be vastly more unfortunate than a paranoid schizophrenic. He or she would certainly be grossly unable to function in society, lacking any ability to model or predict other people. As a result, he or she would probably have no friends, job, or political allies. Lacking the ability to work with other people at all, he or she would certainly not look like a member of any political movement.
As such, I have to consider that when applied to someone who clearly does not have these attributes, that expression is being used as merely a crude insult, akin to calling someone a "drooling moron" or "mental incompetent" because they disagree with you.
tldr: Having strong political opinions feels like common sense from the inside.
Even if everyone's map is distorted, I think there is an important difference whether people try to update, or don't even try. Which is part of what this website is about.
In other words, I would be okay with an X-ist who says they could be convinced against X-ism by evidence, even if they obviously consider such evidence very unlikely.
(And I obviously wouldn't be okay with people suggesting that presenting an evidence against X-ism should be punished.)
Right. Refusing beforehand to consider certain types of argument/conclusion without looking at their merits, and having freely-acknowledged yet apparently-not-seen-as-a-problem-and-even-actively-justified emotional reactions to those arguments that trigger that refusal[1], seem like exactly the sort of things this site -- or any community dedicated to generating quality thought -- would want to discourage as much as possible. And when the justification is given in the language of a thede/tribe/political movement/identity that is opposed to the types of argument/conclusion being rejected... well, creating/promoting/incentivizing those emotional reactions is very useful to the movement, but not at all conducive to generating quality thought.
(The fun part about all of this is that it looks like it leads straight to a version of Marcuse's paradox (tolerance requires intolerance of intolerance): you have to refuse to update toward refusing to update.)
[1] I've been calling this sort of thing a memetic immune reaction, extending the memes-as-viruses metaphor. The justification for it isn't always present, and the emotional trigger to the refusal isn't always acknowledged, so that blog post is really an excellent case study. (edit: whoops, asterisks are bullet points, can't footnote that way)
I strongly suspect that people who make the claim "no amount of evidence could convince me of not-X" have simply absorbed the meme that X must be supported as much as possible and not the meme that all beliefs should be subject to updating. I very much doubt that expressing the above claim is much evidence that the claim is true. And it's hard to absorb memes like "all beliefs should be subject to updating" if you are made to feel unwelcome in the communities where those memes are common.
This sounds awfully like "if you're not with me, you're my enemy." Any advice how to untangle myself from this web that seems inescapable? I already don't vote or read the news from any particular source, nor do I actively try to change political opinions.
People with agendas seem to want to make everything about politics and me as their pawn as a consequence. When they try to take my passiveness IRL as a sign of opposition to their political agenda, I usually proceed to explain how much more of a political enemy I could be just to demonstrate my point if I cared to.
If everyone has a strong political identity, then the phrase “strong political identity” is meaningless.
Exactly. Reversed stupidity is not intelligence.
Let me try to unpack it a bit:
People who do not claim a named gender-related political identity (like "feminist" or "MRA") nonetheless typically explicitly teach and reinforce ideas about gender ... and get defensive about them in pretty much the same way that people get defensive about political ideas.
Taboo "diversity". Specifically are you saying that having norms that prevent certain views from being expressed increases diversity by making the community more welcoming for members of minorities or are you saying that preventing certain views from being expressed decreases diversity.
The apparent inconceivability (in this thread) of the notion that someone might disagree on a deep level with local memes without being insane is quite amazing. Typical mind fallacy, the lack of realisation that there exist unknown unknowns.
Yes. This thread reads like LW is aimed at realising the CEV of well-off programmers in the Bay Area. If you're serious about working for all of humanity, it may conceivably be useful to seriously listen to some who don't already agree with you.
I don't think that's the case. If people would find that notion inconceivability I doubt that the thread would be upvoted to 19 at the point of this writing.
I would also point out that the kind of ideology that expressed in the linked post comes from the Bay Area. As far as core differences in ideologies goes pitting one Bay Area ideology against another Bay Area ideology isn't real diversity of opinion.
I considered posting a third-hand account in the rationality quotes of a blind couple who, in a public park and not hearing anyone else nearby, decided to have sex. They told the judge they did not know that anyone could see them; maybe they didn't, what with plausibly having no idea what vision is capable of.
It felt too lengthy, and it wasn't originally intended as a parable, so I decided against posting it. I think it more easily explains itself in this context, though.
I don't see where those who disagree with local memes are being accused of insanity, and not noticing something like that scares me. Could you please point out where it's happening?
http://lesswrong.com/lw/jfr/link_why_im_not_on_the_rationalist_masterlist/aakh - found with a quick Ctrl-F for "insan".
Oh, well that actually looks fine and I think I agree with it. I was worried the comment you were replying to implied some stuff that was invisible to me due to biases.
Well, in several places Eliezer uses "insane" and synonyms to mean irrational (according to his view). Search for "people are insane".
Another example
That post is at negative karma, and is about US conservatives rather than about people who disagree with local memes.
To be fair to Lumifer, that comment now has zero karma, and US conservatives plausibly are a group of "people who disagree with local memes", given that they're in a tiny minority here (about 2%; in the 2012 survey there were 20 self-identified US conservatives, out of 1001 responses giving both a country and a political alignment).
Your argument is cogent, and yet I find the overwhelming majority of calls for diversity to be somehow underhanded. I suspect that your true motives are invisible to you. Consider this: is your motivation for valuing diversity really a product of your philosopher's thirst for pure, pristine knowledge, or do you just want every social group you see as important to be loaded with demographics which support your political faction? (Think carefully--the truth might not be obvious from casual introspection; we are masters at self-delusion when politics is at play.)
I say this because I cannot help but notice that the cry of "Diversity!" is invoked exclusively by those who are trying to import to a group those demographics which tend to offer political support to the left. What's more, the frequency which with this cry is invoked correlates positively with the degree to which that demographic supports the left. Consider the following data from the 2012 presidential election:
Whites voted 39% for Obama, and 59% for Romney. Blacks voted 93% for Obama, and 6% for Romney. Hispanics voted 71% for Obama, and 27% for Romney. Asians voted 73% for Obama, and 26% for Romney.
Source
When I encounter someone singing the praises of diversity, I more often find that they are lobbying for Blacks than Hispanics, rarely for Asians, and never for Whites. Blacks offer overwhelming support to the left, Hispanics are more lukewarm, Asians' support proportionally resembles that of Hispanics' (but they are a smaller group overall so it is less important for the left to signal respect for their faction), and Whites support the right. Coincidence? Unlikely.
Now consider gender (same source as above):
Men voted 45% for Obama, 52% for Romney. Women voted 55% for Obama, 44% for Romney.
Again, women support the left and men do not. Again, the cry of "Diversity!" is invoked for those trying to add women to a group, and rarely for men. I seem to encounter such arguments invoked as often for women as I do for racial minorities. While women do not favor the left as heavily as Hispanics or Blacks do, they are a larger group than all racial minorities combined, and so it is highly important for the left to signal respect for this demographic, and to ensure that they occupy positions of prestige and influence.
The overwhelming majority of people shouting, "Diversity!" are not motivated by epistemology at all. They are subconsciously (sometimes even consciously) making a power grab. That is all. You can tell by who, exactly, they are trying to include and in what they are trying to include them. For one, they are always lobbying for a demographic on the grounds that said demographic will bring additional knowledge to a discussion, but not for someone from a specific field of expertise which would be relevant to said discussion. There is likely to be more intellectual diversity between an exclusively middle class white male group comprising a physicist, a lawyer, a mathematician, a programmer, a chemist, a politician, an economist, and a businessman than there is between a demographically diverse group of eight people randomly selected from the general population. And you regularly see the pro-diversity crowd lobbying for their favored demographics to occupy positions in which being demographically distinct cannot possibly be an advantage, such as in the hard sciences. I find the champions of diversity disingenuous in the extreme.
I wouldn't mind "importing a demographics which tends to support X" assuming that we continue using the existing filters on content, and require rational comments and avoiding mindkilling politics. The difference between 55% and 44% seems unimportant, because we don't use majority voting in LW anyway. It's not like a 5% advantage would make someone win or lose an election. Unless we really lose our basic community values, it wouldn't even mean that the minority group would automatically get negative karma for every comment.
I am more concerned about "importing a subset of a demographics, selected by its support for X". As a strawman example, by suggesting that we need more Obama-voting women, but we actually don't care about Romney-voting women. As a more realistic example, by trying to optimize LW for women from the feminist / social justice warrior cluster, instead of for women in general. (Because, you know, there are also women who prefer free speech, and some changes would make LW even less attractive for them.)
Therefore I think new demographics should be invited here, but in a way that does not signal preference for a political group X. Specifically, we should invite women, not feminists. (If some of those women who come happen to be feminists, that's perfectly okay. As long as they are equally invited if they are libertarian, conservative, neoreactionary, or whatever.) If we want to invite the demographics, let's really invite a demographics, instead of making a power grab for a political group X in the name of inviting the demographics.
At first I agreed, but, well...
(Reply to old post.)
That would allow a "getting out the vote in the white sector of town" sort of abuse, where either
Consider these two theories:
How would you tell which of these theories is true?
I have said nothing of the left promoting the well-being of minorities, and I have said nothing of why minorities support the left. I have said that the left tries to place left-leaning demographics in positions of power and influence (which is not always the same thing as actually helping those demographics, although helping them may be a side effect), and that leftists try to populate their social circles with those same demographics. Obviously, the right tries to place right-leaning demographics in positions of power and influence as well. For that matter, anyone who identifies with faction X tries to place likely X-ists in positions of power and influence. However, an attempt to do such a thing rarely feels like a power grab from the inside, regardless of your political orientation. Inside the mind of a leftist, a power grab of this form feels like promoting the noble cause of diversity.
in what way are those theories exclusive of each other?
His claim, to my understanding, is that the first theory completely explains the interaction between minorities and liberal politicians.
Seems obviously true.