tzachquiel comments on The outline of Maletopia - Less Wrong Discussion
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Why not give people the option to remove them if they want to? Why build an entire society based around the idea that men should fight each other, if not everyone wants to? I don't, for example!
I agree that if this were one of a subset of worlds, and only the people who wanted to live here could live here, then it could exist as part of the Archipelago. But I doubt more than a small minority of currently-existing people would want to live there for extended periods of time.
Status will always be a scarce resource.
Then why make your entire post about this one tiny aspect of the utopia, and neglect to mention that it is only a small part of it? And why do you assume that all men like fighting and violence? Not a single person I know likes violence, our culture is anti-violence already, and most people look down on it rightly because it causes harm by definition.
This appears to be a massive case of projection. Just as most people do not like violence, most people do not like war. And what would war without the shooting even be, anyway?
Again, if your world is just one of many subsets of a greater world, then I get your point. I fail to believe many people would want to live there, but as long as they had many options I guess it would be fine for it to be an option. But I don't believe your article should have focused on a single subset which isn't applicable to most of the existing population, when it is supposed to be a small part of a larger world.
Thanks for the archipelago idea, that is exactly it.
Status would be the cause of oppression? That is difficult to parse, unless you agree with the SJW kind of stuff that using slurs or inappropriate jokes constitutes oppression. I generally don't, I consider those things oppression when for people people get beaten up for their skin color or orientation or discriminated from a job. I am European and thankfully do not have to care about the incredibly thin-skinned over-sensitivitiy American SJWs developed in the last 10-15 years, microagressions and all that, so I focus on serious stuff like discriminating people in things that matter. And serious oppression I don't really think that can be explained merely by status. Given that usually the victim gains status and the people who make themselves look brutal bigots lose status, don't think so.
Did you read it carefully? The Mentsch sub-gender was made for exactly those men who don't.
WHAT culture? Is this a case of Everybody Is American On The InternetTM? Do you see an anti-violence culture in Donbass? Even in America, have you ever seen further than the Blue-Tribe, SWPL intellectual elites with college degrees? Ever talked with a blue-collar redneck who goes to destruction derbies and wrestling?
Based on videogames and films, that is kind of doubtful. These day you could write Total War on a potato and get a million pre-orders...
Using different weapons, obviously, such as hands and feet.
Again I saw no point to focus on the conventional (in the sci-fi sense) and common, I wanted to focus on the shocking and surprising, because that can teach something.
Yes, language can be a tool of oppression. It's the main mechanism of us/them dehumanization. It's at the border of the socially acceptable and serves as gateway for worse forms of aggression.
Yes, in extreme cases it is true. However, it is precisely those extreme cases that must be about something more important than just status. Merely status-challenging language does not dehumanize. E.g. status-challenging: "X are bad at math", dehumanizing: "X are murderous animals without conscience". I don't think merely status could be a motivation for the later - economics is IMHO more likely.
If you teach your little daughter that women are bad at math, a dozen branches of her possible futures tree are cut off.
Yes. This is a bad thing. This is also not dehumanization nor a gateway for worse aggression. This is something someone would do who would expect to compete with his own daughter in math-related status.
I'm no longer sure we're talking about the same species here.