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.

gjm comments on Subjective vs. normative offensiveness - Less Wrong Discussion

2 Post author: casebash 25 September 2015 04:10AM

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

Comments (86)

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

Comment author: gjm 28 September 2015 09:05:15AM 2 points [-]

That isn't "another theory", because what ChristianKI was saying wasn't a theory about what determines whether people freak out when approached (but yours is), and it was a theory about how to adjust your expectations concerning freakouts (but yours isn't).

How frequently you make romantic/sexual overtures to women (and how "intense" they are) is not a thing that others can readily observe unless they're with you all the time, and making such overtures and getting turned down flat because you creep the women out is ... not obviously higher-status-looking than leaving them alone.

Even if it turns out that making such overtures, freaking their recipient out, and getting turned down flat is a small overall status gain for you, it still doesn't follow that you should do it -- unless you simply don't care about the women involved except as pawns in your status game. I would guess that being freaked out is an unpleasant experience for most women, and that consequently not freaking women out is a goal for most not-perfectly-selfish men. (It won't and shouldn't be the only goal, of course.)

Comment author: VoiceOfRa 28 September 2015 10:28:23PM 1 point [-]

How frequently you make romantic/sexual overtures to women (and how "intense" they are) is not a thing that others can readily observe unless they're with you all the time

How intense a romantic overtone is can be readily observed while it is being made.

Comment author: gjm 28 September 2015 11:07:33PM -1 points [-]

Yes, but unless your associates are following you around all the time and looking over your shoulder whenever you talk to a woman, none of them is going to see enough examples to get much idea of exactly what you're doing.