Only leftists consciously try to remake language. Conservatives do not,
I've never heard this before. Can you point me to some evidence?
The rest of your comment seems intentionally offensive. Am I correct in this assessment?
If so, feel free to pm me with your intended message without the offensive content, if you are trying to make a point with the offensive content. I don't know if anybody else is getting your intended message, but I know I am not, and I am curious, if you can reframe your content more constructively.
I don't want to get involved in the personal business between any two or three+ people, but I also do not mean to suggest that every arrangement that both parties agree to has a matching balance of stress and benefit to both parties. (Love your dream scenario! for me, that would totally be a nightmare.)
And I don't think any specific gender causes the harm for a pattern of gender differences, like a bias to favor male employees because people report more satisfaction with male employees.
But with a gender-based pay inequity, which couples benefit most? gay m...
Well, I totally agree that 'such work' (some paid and some unpaid work in the home) is absolutely undervalued, but I'm not sure what that has to do with any particular perspective.
I don't know how other people think about the unpaid housework that other people are doing. I personally am grateful for it, but I have never supported anyone who I shared housework with, nor the reverse, and I really do have trouble doing the part I actually recognize as my share. And I have never cared as much about how clean things 'ought' to be as any of these roommates and ...
OK. I consider negotiable tokens to be the only definition of financially recompensed. An optional reduction of financial expense, on an individual level is simply personal budgeting.
In the case of any particular couple, how the work, paid or unpaid, is divided, I don't really care. Unless the arrangement is a source of stress for that relationship.
I think that a gender-biased pay disparity can aggravate financial stress in heterosexual relationships. And I think that a high disparity in income level can cause a similar stress in any couple, no matter the...
To say that a situation is not wholly caused by enumerated factors is generally trivially true, so the question becomes how much connotation is intended, which means the question should probably be rephrased.
Very true, and I must pedantically point out that I did not ask a question about how much connotation was intended. I suggested that the connotation of 'harmless' seemed careless to me. Literally and seriously careless, especially given my trivial research into the subject revealed that there is bias for male employees that employers, rationally, re...
I absolutely agree that there are many statistical differences between men and women, and trying to deny this is actually ludicrous, whether or not it is harmful!
However, I object to the word ludicrous, because while I agree that there are statistical (as well as biological and almost certainly evolutionarily-based cultural) differences between men and women, the assumption of harmlessness, based on that claim you've often heard, suggests that there is no bias involved other than personal choice. And personal choice is biased by so many other factors!
And...
I feel like this is an accurate, thoughtful, and generous explanation of the confusion I have and the confusion I cause. If I could spend my few measly karma points upvoting this, I might!
After I read it, because it's late, and I can not take it all in right now. And I'm grateful for the effort, and the clarity of the parts I already understand!
Ah. I am abnormally careful about the question of 'who would' do something. People often take my serious suggestions as playful, and vice versa. I no longer recommend a new hairstyle to anyone because I have given this advice three times, it was always taken, and I only liked the results without qualification once.
I may be paranoid, but I do not like to worry about this. <-- also intentionally funny. I am trying to not to worry about whether it is true. <-- Also funny.
I am taking medication for insomnia. Seriously.
Mostly I was not sure what pedanterrific was arguing, but I asked him to clarify, and he did. I am often unintentionally funny to other people. Lately I am getting better at understanding what the 'subversion of expectations' I am committing.
I absolutely agree with your point, but I was not conscious of why the word innocuous bothered me when I made my comment, and I don't actually know if I read your comments before this moment. I don't always read every comment before I respond, and I don't 'notice' consciously everything I do read. Confusions galore!
Your 'horrible social skills' are almost as funny as mine! no apologies necessary! And your edits are a vast relief to me personally.
No, I am sure that they are normal, and partly because my mental problem which I have mentioned elsewhere, includes depression. In person, it is very hard to tell if a depressed person is sincere or sarcastic, I just wasn't aware until now that this problem (I think call it 'affect'?) is something I also ought to consider in a pure text situation.
In person I usually fake enthusiasm, but I am fortunately not that good at it. <--serious and funny, yet again. at least it was intentional.
let me just say that 'like, really?' comes across as dismissive of all my efforts to explain what I care about, in the context of my original remark, and why I care about the word 'innocuous' in the hypothetical statement.
I am generous to assume that are not trying to crush my will to respond with irony, and are seriously confused.
But it is more difficult for me to maintain this generosity of spirit after you have already dismissed something relevant to the hypothetical argument and my objection to the word 'innocuous' as 'trivialy true and not in disput...
Apparently so. Can you explain why it is interesting?
Edited to add: I assume you may be trying to explain what is interesting about my comments in the more serious and complicated response you may still be working on, but of which I have only seen the placeholder. I'd say that I can't wait, but I have already had to...
In the self-referentially intentionally funny comment I make above, I was absolutely serious about having a mental problem. And about being easily confused. And about being painfully aware that I am not a mind reader. Absolutely intentionally serious, and, for a change, intentionally funny at the same time. Irony is LOST on me. or everybody else, and I have no way of telling which!
Actually, 'this comment' was self-referential. The comment you reviewed was intentionally serious, and unintentionally ridiculous. I get that a lot.
But ridiculous is funny, and I totally agree with your last judgement of funny, and wish I had noticed that it was funny, BEFORE I posted. I am trying to get comfortable with being accidentally funny.
I should really just stick with a pretense that everything funny I say is intentionally hilarious, instead of just occasionally patently ridiculous. Apparently.
Than you for making clear that you do not agree that my point is valid or valuable criticism.
My objection to the word choice of harmless is based on my feelings, which I have not fully examined, that there may be harm.
...Point the second - Hypothetically, if this:
the difference in average pay between women and men is mostly attributable to differences in ambition and time voluntarily spent at home with children.
is true, then gender pay inequities do have an innocuous explanation- namely, the above. Kaj_Sotala made no claims beyond that, certainly not
And you call yourself pedantic? There were a number of referents in my comment which could have applied, and while I usually feel at no disadvantage in a battle of wits, I have a mental problem that either renders me easily confused, or fully aware that I am not a mind reader.
This comment is supposed to be serious and funny. Can you guess which parts I think are funny, and why?
I am really enjoying this discussion. And I respect the fact that you are reserving judgment, as you haven't thought it out very thoroughly.
I didn't think my objection to the use of the word innocuous through before I voiced it, and I absolutely don't regret it.
But I am literally having trouble figuring out what else I am supposed to object to. I am willing to try to explain. And I think I can better understand my position, if I understand IF or HOW people disagree with my original objection about word choice. I have not stated this confusion often or cle...
I am trying to be clear about the fact that the ONLY part of this thread I care about was the use of the word 'innocuous'. All these other questions are good questions that people are asking, and answering, for themselves, and for other people, every day. Which I have no quarrel with.
I do not want to answer these questions for other people. This question:
Who would compensate them? Whose benefit is it for?
is an excellent question that I actually do not want to answer, because noone has acknowledged that my point about the word innocuous is valid or val...
I really sympathize. I use reality checking constantly to keep my strong tendency to believe in mystic resonance stuff to an absolute minimum.
This line I found especially poignant:
If nothing else, I'm more afraid of the dark or being alone than I used to be.
because while I don't usually have those fears, I think they are a natural response. You are more alone than you used to be, if you have one person who moved from a great propinquity of relations, to hardly any contact. And in the dark you can not see what's coming for you. knowing that the likelyh...
I think that calling the choice to spend more or less time doing financially unrecompensed work in the home an innocuous gender difference, is careless. The harms of the various choices have not been evaluated that well. And it may be impossible to evaluate that harm without bias.
The actual choices people make are often very carefully calculated with regard to benefits. And this includes both the choice to leave 'home' work to paid professionals, or unpaid amateurs. And the choice to become a well-paid professional (or self-employed professional).
I tot...
I do not really understand your questions. Can you define 'who' 'them' 'whose' and 'it'? Would, compensate, benefit, is, and for I get.
I do not have any objection to your use of the word innocuous, here.
I think that calling the choice to spend more or less time doing financially unrecompensed work in the home an innocuous gender difference, is careless. The harms of the various choices have not been evaluated that well. And it may be impossible to evaluate that harm without bias.
you do not address my point of the word choice 'innocuous'.
I don't think I'd use the word innocuous with the example of this reason for this gender difference. If it is a rational choice, why don't both genders make similar choices?
I like to watch movies and decide who is the smartest person, who is the most compassionate person, and who is the meanest person. And then ask myself: Why? Some mean behavior is actually an irrational self-protective response, for example.
While most rationalists would happily and quickly plan [...], anecdotally many seem hesitant or even hostile to the idea of using fashion as a tool to achieve their objectives.
This point is essentially the point of having your article here on LW, but it is not emphasized strongly enough, in my opinion.
Additionally, I think the point that "the tool of fashion is one you are using to convey some information, whether you intend a message or not" is an essential point that I did not see in your text.
Ah. I see consciousness as the ability to interrupt 'instinctive' response with a measured or planned response. And feelings as the middle stage between action and reaction, conscious or no.
I do not privilege conscious experience, just because I absolutely enjoy it. It sounds like you do.
I think it is an important point to distinguish between feelings (aka response) and consciousness. I am not sure how to distinguish these two things. And elevation of 'consciousness' does not dismiss 'feelings'.
Since when have neurologists studied rocks? The whimsical suggestion that rocks might have feelings is somewhat akin to the less whimsical suggestion that there are lots of things that may have 'feelings' that we do not easily or usually detect, or can not detect without special equipment.
And some of these feelings (like bio-communication in plants), while measurable, we usually don't care that much about, and empathy for the pain of plants (and animals) may interfere with empathy for the pain of people, if you take compassion fatigue into consideration.
If the flaw lies in your choices, choose differently. If the flaw lies in your habits, practice better habits. If the flaw lies in your cognitive habits, you must do something higher up on this list in order to be able to develop different cognitive habits.
Your existing habits and choices (and arguably genetics and environment) may not be what created the situation which is becoming intolerable, but they are the easiest thing to work on.
You do not have to worry about making the right change or practices--start with whatever seems easiest. And try not to go against your 'better' judgement.
You make a good point, but I doubt she believed his assertion for long, if at all. Though it probably offended her.
I am trying to suggest that lukeprog's assertions about why he didn't feel like he liked her the right amount any more are totally irrelevant to her reaction. Their accuracy is, in fact, arguable.
Evolution, as it applies to men, suggests that just often enough, some of them will try to impregnate someone. Cross-cultural standards of physical beauty in women suggest who most men are most likely to try to approach. This is statistical. "W...
Well, I'm no expert on how women think, but there is no thought control.
This breakup story is so unusual in the amount of rational preparation for it, I'm sure that I would be able to see that most other men are not much like lukeprog, on that point if no other.
I am not sure there is any way to convince someone you do not want to date (at all / any longer) that they are likeable, except by proving it over time.
I like the photo, but the deviation point is a good one, which you did not address. Was that purposeful?
Can you clarify what the harm is, in her thinking 'just like a man'
Or what her thinking would actually be, if that is not what you're suggesting?
And for the record, I killed that first relationship by telling my BF that I wasn't sure I loved him anymore, but that I didn't actually want to break up. Which was totally true, and had predictable results. I turned a normal healthy and cute math-classics major/computer science nerd into a clingy and demanding person, because I didn't understand why I wasn't happier with myself. He had no recourse to any pat generalizations, like 'just like a woman'.
I would think that her thinking would be that if evolution made lukeprog not like me because of xyz, then it would make all men not like me because of that. I must not be a likeable person.
That would be bad.
I don't see any evidence that suggests that she would draw any conclusion about evolution from a breakup like that. Is that in the text or your own conclusion?
(and I must add that though I didn't write a 20 page document for my first breakup, I arguably did no better.)
I agree with your point about "difficulty of engaging the enemy's armed forces". But I still understand the frustrations of suicide bombers, because of the difficulty of significantly or meaningfully engaging some enemy's armed forces. Especially if you respect warriors, but not their guidance.
What is the brave action to take in that case? Simply suicide, and not suicide-attacks? Or better-targeted suicide-attacks? I am befuddled.
I am far more comfortable condemning suicide-attacks as irrational than cowardly.
I like your information, but I disagree with your conclusion. I don't think it is beyond the reach of empathy to understand them as thinking of themselves as heros. Steven_Bukal and TuviaDulin make very persuasive arguments, above. Years later, I admit, but think I remember detecting some empathy for the bombers at the time. Because I was looking for it.
And also, "How do you know."
Your question is more helpful, of course. Any person who believes that there is a non-evidentiary dragon in a garage will have some way to answer mine, hopefully without going through too much more stress.
Do you believe in anything, or is it all feeling and knowing?
I find this article bewildering, but intriguing.
Education is valuable, money is (among other things) a token of exchange for value... Getting a good value for your time and tokens of value is a great plan.
Getting a good value for producing educational materials is hopefully not a primary incentive. But it is not an insignificant incentive.
I do acknowledge that it is a corrupting influence. One of my professors admitted in class that he revised his textbook every two years because the value of used copies of textbooks stayed too high for him feel like the ...
Are you instinctively also only choosing questions with easy answers? Or are your doubts raising a different kind of question?
Hello! I'm here because a reference to Less Wrong that Nancy Lebovitz made on another forum intrigued me, and I love the last line of the FAQ: there's nothing in the laws of physics that prevents reality from sounding weird.
I disagree that perfectionism as described on the About page is always a good idea, but my imagination can easily come up with an ideal standard which no living person can actually meet. And stay alive. Usually because of slippery-slope arguments, but if an ideal cannot be taken to the extreme example, can it really be that ideal?
I do ...
I took a stab at defining the terms.
An intimate relationship is at least an exchange of trust and vulnerability. Other things of value can add stability to this transaction, if investment is balanced.
A Romance is an Intimate Relationship, PLUS.
-Potential which may turn into an intention to create ‘family’ with each other. -A ‘false’ impression that one is getting far more out of the relationship than one is putting in. (Any exchange can be evaluated rationally, but value received can not be predicted when receptivity and interest fluctuate.)
I am absolutely not sure! And if my strategy for correcting my behavior in order to achieve my goals matches the optimal strategy for the actual problem, and achieved positive results, would it matter?
I can see the advantage to a correct diagnosis if the optimal strategy had no positive benefits.
I am not very familiar with the diagnostic criteria for sub-clinical OCD, but it would not surprise me to find out that I used to qualify, and may still. But it's not a big worry for me right now.
I don't know. For me, most of my life, I think I have been irrationally afraid of harm from the people I am interested in. In a PTSD sort of way, without any really traumatic experiences, that I know of.
And for most of this time I have been very interested in having an intimate relationship. (I've had a few, all 'serious'.) And at the same time rarely attracted on a physical level, to anyone. Which is a problem that may resolve itself, for me, now that I acknowledge and work on the irrational parts of my fears, or it may not.
I think this physical level is essential, and that my awareness of it has been hampered by my fears. Is this clear?
If you want to increase participation on Less Wrong, converting irrational thinkers to rational thinkers is the only way.
Less wrong does not have a mandate to educate the merely interested, probably because most of that kind of interest seems temporary. The educational efforts that seem required are rarely intrinsically rewarding. And the bar for valued participation is so high, it discourages the unprepared.
Less Wrong seems to be trying to create plenty of tools for self-education on the subject of rationality, so I don't know that a mandate to educate i...
What dangers are you referring to, specifically? Can you point me to a specific source that measures these harms? I have never heard your concluding suggestion before, though I think I have heard the opposite claim.