This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
http://unremediatedgender.space/2018/Feb/the-categories-were-made-for-man-to-make-predictions/
The problem with this response has always been is that categories vary wildly between groups.
Even something as simple as "what is a sound?" gets a fierce debate when you ask if a tree falling in a forest with no one around makes one. No one contests the base level reality, that the air around the tree vibrates. They disagree over whether or not the vibrations itself counts as sound, or if it's the perception of said vibrations that do.
We see this everywhere. Is water wet? Is a hot dog a sandwich? Is a palm tree a tree?
And the words themselves can shift depending on the context they're used in. The tomato as a fruit vs a vegetable is a common example of this. And Scott's own example of whales and dolphins as dag for the department of dag.
And words change over time too. And it's not just trans activists who commit this either. When someone refers to Caster Semenya, Imane Khelif or other intersex individuals with female presenting genital as a man, they have changed the definition of man and woman. They are applying a new modern definition over words far far older than chromosomes were known to exist for. Historically intersex people like Semenya and Khelif would have been women, it is the changed definition that says otherwise.
The trans debate is often like this. A debate over categories, a debate if sound is the vibrations or the perception. A debate if a tree is the morphological structure of a tall perinnial plant with a trunk and crown and thus the palm tree is included, or if a tree is that but also as a woody plant with secondary growth. Or if we wanted to define it even more exclusively, we could do a woody dicot with secondary growth and exclude stuff like conifers as well since they're of a different lineage. We can do all sorts of things like that! And we do. And we argue about them all the time. Categories are made for man, not man for the categories.
The problem is that Scott's essay was silly, socially motivated, and shot a hole through the chest of Rationalism as being anything more than postmodern word games with a nerd's coat of hobby paint.
HA! You know, I just realized that in context the phrasing highlights quite explicitly the TERF complaint that most trans discourse is inherently misogynistic. Indeed, the categories were made for man.
Can't believe it took me this long. I wish I could think Scott was being subtly Straussian but no chance of him being less than a true believer.
In other words, you just don't like it. Meta discussions about words and meaning have been here since the beginning of rationalism https://www.lesswrong.com/s/SGB7Y5WERh4skwtnb
Speaking of, that's an example! "Man" in Scott's case is referring to humans, homo sapiens.
If you want to be reductive, sure. I don't like murder either, or green bell peppers.
Does it make sense to put all those in one category?
That is what I call damning with faint praise.
I can give actual substanted reasons for why I don't like murder, like "having people live in fear of violence makes them less economically efficient" or "allowing murder dismantles a functional society" or even just the basic "I think murder is morally wrong".
What you provide here is just fluff. Pure ad hominem.
It's disguised in a wordy way to appear sophisticated, but there is nothing substantial said here.
But even with the fluff, it's still wrong. These "word games" have been a part of rationalism since at least the sequences, thus Scott playing word games couldn't have blown a hole open, if there is a hole it was already there. So even the fluff is wrong.
How dare you, my prose is meant to be playfully purple, not sophisticated!
Fine, this particular instantiation of word games was the final straw to a portion of the rationalist-adjacent crowd that had never bothered with Yud's masturbatory sequences, and proved that the considerations of the Bay Arean Social Influence were more important than anything a normal person would call rationalism or utilitarianism for the greatest good of the greatest number of people, and virtually stamped approval of utility monsters- so long as they are utility monsters approved by the Bay Arean Society.
Let's try again: redefining the categories of "man" and "woman" to be useless circular referents makes people less economically efficient and dismantles a functional society that broadly continues to find significant moral, ethical, and economic value in having some legal separation of the sexes.
Better?
Isn't 'rationalist', in this sense at least, practically defined as 'fan of Yudkowsky and the Sequences'?
Personally I agree that the Sequences are garbage, and that reading them is an immense waste of time, and I have always taken that to immediately rule me out of the rationalist crowd. Rationalist just means "people who buy into Yudkowsky's silliness".
Arguably it's expanded a bit beyond that, and now it also includes "people who are Scott Alexander fans", or perhaps in general, people who like or identify with the extremely weird subculture around people like Yudkowsky or Alexander. But I would still tend to think, just intuitively, that if you don't like the Sequences, you're not a rationalist. Rationalism is a movement with a guru.
(I would actually nuance it a bit more than that - liking Scott Alexander's writing is not enough. If that was how it worked then e.g. Ross Douthat would be a rationalist, and he's pretty clearly not. Treating Scott Alexander like a guru, perhaps?)
I've always thought of it is a certain contrarian approach to questions and attempting to think through things from first principles, which makes it more glaring when you do hit an unquestionable topic. Reading the Sequences and Scott is part of that, but not necessarily required.
Then again I only ever considered myself "rationalist-adjacent" because of the other weird sex stuff that seemed to be a cultural signifier. Rather like EA, I like rationalism as an idea, not as a movement or culture.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link