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.

epursimuove comments on [LINK] Why I'm not on the Rationalist Masterlist - Less Wrong Discussion

21 Post author: Apprentice 06 January 2014 12:16AM

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

Article Navigation

Comments (866)

Comments (866)

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

Comment author: epursimuove 15 June 2014 08:29:14AM 3 points [-]

You're assuming that the new arrival has more information to offer than the departing one. I suspect the opposite is true. There's probably a sizable negative correlation between one's reluctance to hear uncomfortable ideas and the quality of the information one has to offer.

Comment author: fubarobfusco 15 June 2014 03:10:57PM -2 points [-]

I think you missed the argument.

If you have a subculture or other group of people whose experience is strongly correlated with one another, and their conduct repels or silences anyone whose experience disagrees with theirs, then their view of the world will be missing a lot of information and will contain systematic biases.

We have words for this in various areas, such as "groupthink", "filter bubble", "circlejerk" ....

Comment author: ChristianKl 21 June 2014 07:14:48PM 4 points [-]

If you have a subculture or other group of people whose experience is strongly correlated with one another

I don't think that LW is such a space. On LW people disagree on many issues and we do have controverse discussions.

I'm no neoreactionary. If we have a safe space policy that doesn't allow neoreactionary thought than I'm not exposed to the neoreactionary perspective which is quite different from my own.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 21 June 2014 04:59:26PM 5 points [-]

So let me get this straight? You're trying to argue that we should avoid saying things that make people feel uncomfortable in order to prevent groupthink?

Comment author: epursimuove 26 September 2014 02:11:37AM 1 point [-]

It doesn't repel "anyone whose experience disagrees", it repels anyone unwilling to hear opposing viewpoints. While having had different experiences may correlate with an unwillingness to hear opposing viewpoints, it's highly dubious that this correlation is strong enough to completely exclude the former category.

Comment author: fubarobfusco 26 September 2014 08:51:17AM 0 points [-]

Imagine that you are a Foo — a member of some arbitrary demographic group. (You can't stop being a Foo.)

Now, imagine that there exists an online community — let's call it Open Minds — that you're moderately interested in. But when you go there, you find that (alongside the interesting parts), viewpoints such as "Foos are not really people", "it's okay to torture Foos for fun", and "non-Foos who speak up in defense of Foos are traitors" are repeatedly aired there by a minority of community members.

Many others in Open Minds disagree strongly with these anti-Foo views; and consider them nasty, false, and uninformative. But for this disapproval, those folks are often denounced as closed-minded — even by others who do not themselves hold anti-Foo views.

Meanwhile, there are other communities, perhaps just as interesting as Open Minds, where treating Foos as non-persons is considered obviously wrong both as a matter of moral norms and as a matter of self-evident fact. In those communities, a person who expresses the idea "Foos are not really people" thereby excludes him- or herself from reasonable discussion. That person is considered a troll or an asshole, and possibly banned if they don't shape up — or, at least, shut up on that particular topic.

Given that you are a Foo, where would you choose to spend your time? In Open Minds, the community where a small minority repeatedly calls you a non-person, and "open-mindedness" is taken to include considering that possibility? Or in the community where calling you a non-person is considered to be obviously wrong?

(Consider also that you know that you are a person, and that it is not okay with you if someone tortures you for fun. In other words, you know that the anti-Foo views are false. As far as you are concerned, those views aren't a matter of abstract speculation; they really are people using obviously false ideas to justify doing horrible things to you and others like you. Besides, you've heard those ideas before, and you don't learn anything from hearing them again.)

Now, consider further that Foos may have particular experience or information that non-Foos lack — merely because two paths through the same territory do not yield the same map. (It isn't that Foos are better or smarter than non-Foos, and it certainly isn't that everything Foos believe is true ... just that they have had access to different data.)

In effect, Open Minds has chosen to prioritize ensuring the community's access to anti-Foo views over ensuring the community's access to any information that Foos themselves may possess.

How open-minded is that?

Comment author: Azathoth123 28 September 2014 01:58:34AM *  2 points [-]

Now, imagine that there exists an online community — let's call it Open Minds — that you're moderately interested in. But when you go there, you find that (alongside the interesting parts), viewpoints such as "Foos are not really people", "it's okay to torture Foos for fun", and "non-Foos who speak up in defense of Foos are traitors" are repeatedly aired there by a minority of community members.

I fail to see the relevance of your example.

Comment author: gjm 28 September 2014 10:43:35AM -2 points [-]

It's an exaggerated version of how (e.g.) some women or black people might feel on coming to LW and finding (e.g.) people vigorously defending the idea that it's perfectly sensible for an otherwise identical job application to be viewed as evidence of lower competence if it comes from a woman, because women are so much less able than men that all the other information on the application doesn't screen off sex from competence. Or writing in a manner that simply takes it for granted that black people are unintelligent and prone to crime.

I repeat, it's an exaggeration. I'm pretty sure fubarobfusco isn't claiming that there are actual demographic groups that are actually seriously regarded by a lot of LW people as non-persons or fit objects for torture. But I think it's entirely defensible to say that some real demographic groups are likely to experience something similar in kind, although distinctly less in intensity, here, and to be concerned that that will produce an effect similar to the one fubarobfusco describes.

Comment author: Azathoth123 28 September 2014 06:48:10PM 3 points [-]

It's an exaggerated version of how (e.g.) some women or black people might feel on coming to LW and finding (e.g.) people vigorously defending the idea that it's perfectly sensible for an otherwise identical job application to be viewed as evidence of lower competence if it comes from a woman, because women are so much less able than men that all the other information on the application doesn't screen off sex from competence.

Would you apply the same logic to someone with a low IQ who objects to people thinking that its acceptable to reject an otherwise identical low IQ applicant to favor of a high IQ applicant? Also quite frankly the application you described had very little other useful information that its not at all surprising that it doesn't screen of sex.

Or writing in a manner that simply takes it for granted that black people are unintelligent and prone to crime.

Is your argument that if we pretend these differences don't exist they'll go away. Also as far as crime, as a rational black person should be more worried about getting killed by my fellow blacks than by "white racists".

But I think it's entirely defensible to say that some real demographic groups are likely to experience something similar in kind, although distinctly less in intensity, here, and to be concerned that that will produce an effect similar to the one fubarobfusco describes.

Just out of curiosity, would you be willing to apply the same logic to all the stuff on LW that could make Christians feel uncomfortable?

Comment author: gjm 28 September 2014 07:47:23PM -1 points [-]

Would you apply the same logic to someone with a low IQ who objects [...]?

I'm not sure what specific logic you mean. The particular reason fubarobfusco described for trying not to make Foos feel too unwelcome was that they might contribute useful insights less correlated with non-Foos' than that of the non-Foos who might be discouraged by being asked not to be too mean about the Foos. That doesn't seem to apply very well to "people with low IQ", who -- whatever else may be said about them -- are probably not well equipped to contribute novel insights into the topics discussed on Less Wrong.

The evidence that (at least for many jobs) IQ correlates strongly with job performance is rather stronger than the alleged evidence that sex correlates strongly with job performance, so saying "it's OK to be reluctant to hire people with lower IQs" would likely be less hurtful to someone with (admittedly) low IQ than saying "it's OK to be reluctant to hire women" sounds to many women.

the application you described had very little other useful information

I don't want to re-litigate that one in this thread, so I'll just mention that I disagree.

Is your argument that if we pretend these differences don't exist they'll go away.

Obviously not. (This is not the first time you've speculated about what thinking underlies something I'm saying, and got it badly wrong. You might want to stop doing it; it doesn't seem to work well.)

My argument is that if, every time any question related to race comes up, the thread in question is flooded with people saying "those awful black people are stupid and criminal -- stay away from them!" then black people who are not stupid or criminal (of which there are plenty) are likely to be put off, and that would be a shame because they are likely to have useful things to say.

would you be willing to apply the same logic to all the stuff on LW that could make Christians feel uncomfortable?

I think there's rather less of that these days than there was once. If you want, you can read what I wrote on roughly that topic back in 2009. Other than that: Yes, I would apply the same logic. No, that doesn't mean I think no one on LW should ever criticize religion. (Neither do I think that no one on LW should ever express the opinion that women, or black people, or people called Eugine, or people with blue eyes, are less intelligent / more criminal / etc. than the rest of the population. In particular, I certainly don't think they should be forbidden to.)

Comment author: epursimuove 29 September 2014 10:32:39AM 2 points [-]

Or writing in a manner that simply takes it for granted that black people are unintelligent and prone to crime.

If someone can't distinguish between a categorical statement ("all demographic X people have trait T") and a statement about statistical tendencies ("the demographic X average for trait T is N standard deviations below that of demographic Y") , I question their ability to contribute to any community that's based around rigorous thinking.

Comment author: gjm 29 September 2014 11:32:17AM *  -1 points [-]

Unfortunately,

  • many people, when intending to make the statistical sort of statement, will write in a way that looks exactly the same as if they were affirming the categorical statement, and
  • many people, whose actual opinions and feelings are more in line with the categorical statement, may write something more like the statistical statement because it's easier to defend, and
  • when someone writes something that could be interpreted either way, even the most rational of readers belonging to demographic X is liable to find it hurtful, and
  • even when someone writes something that sticks carefully to statements about statistical tendencies, readers belonging to demographic X (and others) may reasonably suspect that what they're actually thinking is something more like the categorical statement -- and they may well be right, especially in cases where prejudice is widespread and well entrenched.

So, although it would be nice if everyone here always thought carefully and clearly in terms of quantitative statistics, and no one here harboured any prejudices about traditionally-disfavoured groups, and everyone here knew that those things were true, and everyone could therefore take all ambiguous statements as statistical and evidence-based ... well, that isn't the world we're actually in, and I don't see any possible way we could get there.

[EDITED to clarify some poorly-written bits. No intentional changes of meaning.]

Comment author: epursimuove 30 September 2014 06:48:57AM 1 point [-]

Do you have any evidence that any of these things actually happen to a significant extent? Virtually everyone is able to distinguish claims about tendencies from absolute claims, even if they lack the knowledge to express this distinction formally. Here's Steven Pinker summarizing research on stereotypes:

Moreover, even when people believe that ethnic groups have characteristic traits, they are never mindless stereotypers who literally believe that each and every member of the group possesses those traits. People may think that Germans are, on average, more efficient than non-Germans, but no one believes that every last German is more efficient than every non-German. And people have no trouble overriding a stereotype when they have good information about an individual. Contrary to a common accusation, teachers’ impressions of their individual pupils are not contaminated by their stereotypes of race, gender, or socioeconomic status. The teachers’ impressions accurately reflect the pupil's performance as measured by objective tests.

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit