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David_Gerard comments on [LINK] Why I'm not on the Rationalist Masterlist - Less Wrong Discussion
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Driving out the voices of the less privileged is potentially problematic when LW claims to be on a mission for the good of all of humanity.
Or to math this up, our mission is unlikely to succeed if we make joining harder and less pleasant for ~54% of the population (51% female, ~2-3% non-hetero male)
So, while agreeing with the principle of favoring open and blunt discourse, I for one intend to make more of a concerted effort to square the circle of being honest and blunt while being more welcoming.
Has joining actually been made harder and less pleasant for ~54% of the population? Has joining been made harder and less pleasant for ~54% of the population as a result of that ~54%'s membership in those two demographic groups?
There is no inherent quality of being female that would make one be viscerally repulsed by the use of the term 'sluttiness'. Apophemi cites that as an example of a term the use of which makes joining harder and less pleasant for... well, 55% of the population, as a direct result of their membership in those demographic groups:
I hope it's obvious that "women and/or queer people" aren't the operative groups here. I certainly haven't noticed any inherent property of my not being straight that makes me necessarily uncomfortable with the use of the word "sluttiness" and less likely to engage with arguments that use it, and I've heard women use the word in the exact same sense the reactionaries Yvain was arguing against in that post used it.
After rectifying the names, it emerges that the operative group is a political identity -- one that may be (and probably is) more likely to contain a higher percentage of those demographics than the population at large, but one that is neither identical to nor inherent in those demographics.
"I speak for the entirety of this demographic" is a really suspicious thing for a human to say -- triply so when it's about something politically charged.
Our mission already requires that we keep out ~95% of the population, i.e., the people who would destroy our ability to have rational discussions.
Why do you think that 95% of the population would destroy our ability to have rational discussions? This seems like a fairly subtle judgement, and it seems difficult to be confident a subtle judgement applies to 95% of the population.
Look at a randomly chosen discussion forum on the internet.
Randomly chosen discussion forums on the internet are not environments for rational discussions. While I remain what I think of as reasonable wherever I go, there are definitely fora where producing a rational discussion is not one of my priorities.
That's evidence that 70% of the population would destroy our ability to have rational discussions, but I don't see 95%. Perhaps I should read more randomly chosen discussion forums to understand your point of view.