I.
We can divide groups into roughly three categories: the anti-evangelistic, the evangelistic, and the nonevangelistic.
The anti-evangelistic are groups that are actively uninterested in getting new, adult members. Many anti-evangelistic groups have some way of getting new members, but it’s difficult and you have to really want to, and they have no objections to arbitrary limitations designed to make getting in harder. Religions that prefer that new members be born into it, such as Judaism and many Native American religions, are often anti-evangelistic, as are many forms of mysticism.
The evangelistic are groups that are recruiting new members. Nearly all social movements and political parties are evangelistic. The most famous evangelistic group is, of course, Christianity.
The non-evangelistic are groups that don’t really care about new members: if new members come, great; if they don’t, fine. Think about fandoms. If your fandom consists of two people (and you know about each other– always an important caveat), you can have a great time arguing about the canon and making fan material for each other. Larger fandoms have some advantages (wikis; much, much more fan material) and some disadvantages (WHY IS EVERYONE SO BAD AT WATCHING TV). Nonevangelistic groups may have individual members who try to get their friends to join, but they’re unlikely to have recruitment drives. By far most groups– from birdwatching to basketball players– are non-evangelistic.
II.
Okay, so you’re a nonevangelistic group. Why should you exclude people? Excluding people is leaving people out! It’s mean! You shouldn’t be mean! Instructions from kindergarten and the Geek Social Fallacies drift through our heads. If someone wants to join the birdwatching group, shouldn’t they be able to?
The problem is that every action involves tradeoffs. A group is very well justified in excluding other people if excluding those people allows them to better cater to the group’s membership.
To pick the most obvious example: it would be very silly if a birdwatching group had to be inclusive of people who aren’t interested in looking at birds. It would not be a birdwatching group anymore!
Many groups– even those that seem, at first glance, to be simply hobbies– aren’t just intended to cater to people with particular interests, they’re also intended to cater to people with particular personality types and values. For instance, fandom typically caters to people who are smart, socially awkward, and obsessive about things that they’re interested in; that’s as much a part of the fandom’s mandate as catering to people who are really excessively concerned about their favorite TV shows.
So let’s imagine Joe comes in to his local anime convention. Joe likes watching anime! He would be very interested in the panels! But Joe thinks that all those people running around in costumes are very weird. It’s not even Halloween. They should get a life. Why are people hugging each other when they don’t even know each other? What’s this ‘pocky’ stuff? Why are fourteen-year-olds squealing about ‘yaoi’? That’s porn! You shouldn’t talk about porn in public! Why are there suddenly a bunch of people dancing? Why is that man selling body pillows? If you can’t get laid you should at least have the dignity not to mention it. Joe feels that anime conventions have a long way to go before they are inclusive of him.
I think that the otaku community would be perfectly justified in saying “Joe, cosplay, hugging, pocky, dancing, public conversation about porn, and body pillows are all part of what it means to be a member of our community. It’s fine if you watch anime and don’t want to be around people who like cosplay and body pillows, but we’re not going to change our community so it caters to Joe-like preferences.”
III.
You’re an evangelistic group. You want to recruit everyone. So inclusion is the most important thing, right?
It is a very rare group that only cares about membership (“Let’s Get A Million-Person Group On Facebook” groups aside). The Democratic Party wants lots of people to register as Democrats, but even more than that it wants lots of people to agree with the Democrats about policy issues.
I recently read a critique of the Giving What We Can pledge as classist. The GWWC pledge requires everyone with an income to donate 10% of their income. This disproportionately affects poor people: if you made $20,000 last year, giving 10% means potentially going hungry; if you made a million dollars last year, giving 10% means that instead of a yacht you will have to have a slightly smaller yacht. This is a true critique.
Of course, there’s another pledge that doesn’t have this problem. It was invented by the world’s most famous effective altruist. It even comes with a calculator. And I bet you half the people reading this haven’t heard of it.
The problem is that the Giving What We Can pledge is easy to remember. “Pledge to give 10% of your income” is a slogan. You can write it on a placard. “Pledge to give 1% of your before-tax income, unless charitable donations aren’t tax-deductible in your country in which case give 1% of your after-tax income, as long as you make less than $100,000/year adjusted for purchasing power parity, and after that gradually increase the amount you donate in accordance with these guidelines” is, um, not.
While effective altruism wants to recruit everyone, it is most interested in recruiting rich people, on account of rich people have more money. One person making $200,000 a year and giving 10% donates more than four people making $30,000; Dustin Moscovitz has done more for people in developing countries than the rest of the effective altruist movement put together. So it makes sense to go “well, a certain number of poor people will read this and go ‘shit, donate 10%, I might as well fly a rocket to the moon’, but if that makes it easier to put our ideas in front of one millionaire, it’s worth excluding the poor people from our movement.”
(P. S. if taking the Giving What We Can pledge would be a hardship, definitely take the Life You Can Save pledge instead)
IV.
Okay, then, so I’ve just spent a bunch of time arguing that inclusion isn’t that important. Why should we care about it at all?
Most obviously: if you don’t have some very strong motivation for people to join your group, and you don’t have people being born into your group, your group will die. People always leave groups; therefore, some people have to join them.
I think for a lot of nonevangelistic groups, the set of people they would ideally like to be members is larger than the set of people who are actually members. Fandom is for smart, socially awkward, obsessive people who are excessively concerned about their favorite media. Some of those people are not currently members of fandom. While fandom as a group doesn’t really care about whether there are more fans, an individual fan might very well think “wow! Fandom made my life so much better! I wish people like me before I knew fandom existed could be included.”
For that reason, a nonevangelistic group might make an effort to include people, even though it’s not part of their core mission. For instance, a convention might have some lower-cost memberships for people who can’t afford the full price. Fans may make fan translations of manga or record podfic of fanfic for fans who read slowly. These efforts allow the group to enrich the lives of more people without compromising its nature.
V.
There can be disagreement about whether the group should be evangelistic, non-evangelistic, or anti-evangelistic, and about who exactly should be members of the group.
For instance, I think Less Wrong should be nonevangelistic. I think my friends are awesome and I love hanging out with them, but I’m not convinced that we offer any unique insights that can’t be found just as well elsewhere, and I don’t think anyone has enough information to make correct predictions about the Singularity. On the other hand, someone who believes very strongly in raising the sanity waterline might think Less Wrong should be evangelistic: they believe the world would be a much better place if everyone had just read the Sequences.
Similarly, I think Less Wrong should be aimed at people who have what I called the not geek not autism thing. This is purely selfish: I like not-geek-not-autism people, I am one myself, and I would be annoyed at having to find a new community. On the other hand, someone else might have joined Less Wrong because they want to become more epistemically or instrumentally rational. They are probably going to spend a lot of time muttering to themselves about how half of these people aren’t interested in self-improvement at all, and there is all this low-hanging fruit just sitting there, and WHY ARE YOU PEOPLE CUDDLING ALL THE TIME WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING
I think a lot of fights about inclusion make more sense if you view them as fights about who should be a member of the group in the first place.
VI.
“Hey, Ozy,” you might be saying. “You are writing this whole long thing about inclusion, and you have failed to mention the thing that everyone actually talks about when they talk about inclusion. You know, women, black people, LGBT+ people, that sort of thing.”
And so I suppose I must do so.
I think the important thing about Social Justice Inclusion is that social justice inclusion is often a freebie: that is, a way you can include more people without having to pay any costs in terms of the fundamental values of your group. It is a very rare group whose fundamental values require misgendering trans people: therefore, if you encourage people in your group to not misgender trans people, then you can include trans people at almost no cost.
A lot of times, members of marginalized groups are marked: we might think of a black woman as “a black woman”, but we think of a white woman as “a woman.” So when we think about making welcome an ordinary member of our community, unless we’re deliberately thinking about inclusion, we tend to think about making welcome a cisgender, heterosexual, white, abled, middle-class man (or woman if the activity is one considered feminine in our culture). That means that, in general, it’s very likely that there are low-hanging fruit in including marginalized people.
There are two important caveats here. First, a lot of the people peddling advice about how to be inclusive to women are actually giving advice about how to be inclusive to feminists. (Similarly POC/anti-racists, disabled people/disability rights advocates.) Being inclusive of feminists may or may not fit the goals of your group but is definitely not a freebie. Consider the Less Wrong Feminism Wars (currently expanding into the Effective Altruist front). Feminists often give advice like “ban neoreactionaries, stop saying angry anti-feminist things, talk about sexism more.” However, when I asked a woman who runs a gender-balanced EA group about how to be inclusive to women, her advice was:
- don’t hit on people at meetings
- don’t make gender a marked group (for instance, by talking about ‘getting girls’ as if it’s a goal everyone shares or by lamenting the absence of women);
- take a break from arguing if it looks like the person you’re arguing with is getting stressed or defensive.
Which is somewhat different.
Second, social justice inclusion is only often a freebie. Focus on the Family– to pick an obvious example– would seriously compromise its mission if it included trans people. A less obvious example is women’s inclusion in STEM fields. While there is a fair amount of poor treatment of women in STEM, a large amount of whatever drives women away from STEM seems to have happened by high school. Fixing whatever thing happens to drive women from STEM seems well outside the purview of the average mathematician.
AJD said:
If you had asked me what advice feminists often give, “don’t hit on people at meetings” and “don’t make gender a marked category” would probably have been in the top 5; and I think when such advice is given, it still garners lots of attacks.
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stargirlprincess said:
“don’t make gender a marked group (for instance, by talking about ‘getting girls’ as if it’s a goal everyone shares or by lamenting the absence of women);”
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AJD said:
I think I don’t understand what your intent is in echoing this quote. Yes, I abbreviated it in my comment.
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ozymandias said:
According to the person I consulted, talking about sexism is alienating to women because it makes gender a marked case.
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stargirlprincess said:
-Feminists draw alot of attention to the gender of community members. (“Girls who code” etc).
-Feminists spend an extreme amount of time trying to “get women” to join the community.
-Feminists complain quite alot about the lack of women in communities.
Hence feminists strongly controbute to gender being “marked.” At least for the definition of marked Ozy is using. I assumed you were perhaps thinking of “marked” in some other sense. Feminism does include alot of discussion of the idea of being “marked.” For example “there is no unmarked woman” is popular. But feminists generally do not follow the advice unitofcaring gave.
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Siggy said:
As I read that advice, it’s referring to the times when guys lament the absence of women (for them to date), or say they want to include women because of course they’re interested in “getting girls”.
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Anon said:
Siggy, I believe I know the person who gave that advise, and with high confidence your interpretation is incorrect and stargirlprincess’s is correct.
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thirqual said:
In part because the people giving such advice loudly have so often been shown to be gigantic hypocrites. On both the ‘hitting on’ and the ‘marked category’ fronts.
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Sylocat said:
Which is a classic example of the Noncentral Fallacy (AKA The Worst Argument In The World) in action.
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thirqual said:
No. What is the category, and how are the chosen members not central ?
Note also that from the rest of the comments here, others also think that the ‘don’t make gender a marked category’ is not done.
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Sylocat said:
The category is “people who give such advice,” and the central category is, “people who give such advice and are also hypocrites.”
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thirqual said:
Ah, good. You missed the bolded ‘loudly’, and we will have to disagree. Maybe I should have put ‘most famously’.
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Maxim Kovalev said:
Various online maternity communities seem to be another example of “inclusive to women” vs “inclusive to feminists”. While they’re quite obviously inclusive to women, and basically have no men, they often perpetuate values and memes so incredibly patriarchal that I expect not only self-identified feminists, but everyone sharing even mildly liberal values to run away screaming.
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Wirehead Wannabe said:
The only thing I want to add to this is that disability accommodations are often not free, and many people arguing for them act as though they are. Having transcripts and sign language interpretations just isn’t realistic for many smaller events. (I’m thinking of a particular post my realsocialskills which I’ll try to look up after work.)
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Paul Crowley said:
“I’m a Singularity agnostic”
Please don’t say this. It’s very unclear about what you actually think or don’t think, and sounds more like you just want to distance yourself from people like me by insultingly comparing something I’m concerned about to religion. State what your actual difference of opinion is, for example “I think that machine intelligence is much less likely than a lot of people on Less Wrong do” or something.
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Martha O'Keeffe said:
I think the important thing about Social Justice Inclusion is that social justice inclusion is often a freebie: that is, a way you can include more people without having to pay any costs in terms of the fundamental values of your group.
And Paul’s comment is a perfect example of why I don’t think inclusion is as obvious and cost-free as you make it sound there. I did not take your use of the phrase “Singularity agnostic” to be implying that belief in the Singularity is akin to religion or even is a religion, even though you were using “evangelistic” which does indeed count as a religious reference. I can’t presume to know what you were thinking, but I don’t think you intended “agnostic” as a religious reference.
Yet Paul so considered it, and was insulted by it. This is your anime attendee who points out to others that body pillows are actually a means of oppression and are insulting to them because of reasons. That’s what could happen when you try inclusion; sometimes it’s justified because people do have assumptions which they haven’t examined, but sometimes it’s not.
So do the long-time con goers give up body pillows or not?
I know you do acknowledge that Social Justice is only sometimes cost-free, but I’m afraid my cynical view of human nature has only been strengthened by working someplace related to the public service where we have to be inclusive, sensitive, non-judgemental, etc. etc. etc. because (a) someone is always going to be insulted, offended or angered by something, no matter what, no matter if it’s unintentional, no matter if it’s the sky is blue (b) there is a blithe assumption that providing all kinds of inclusive and accessible goods, services and spaces is easily done because there is a Magic Money Tree (particularly where The Government is concerned) and so what is stopping you from giving them everything they want?
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John said:
I think I agree w/ Paul on the singularity, but I agree with your response here… “singularity agnostic” seems fine and even if slightly not fine should be within the bounds of stuff that’s not worth calling out, I think.
BTW I might as well add that if we’re talking about “assumptions people haven’t examined”, the traditional SJ set of assumptions (about gender, race, etc.) have been trumpeted so loudly by this point that I think everyone has been exposed to the idea they should examine their assumptions about them and we’ve definitely hit the point of diminishing returns. (I might accept a counterargument along the following lines though: the trumpeters have mostly been unpleasant, confrontational people who haven’t *actually* succeeded in challenging assumptions because they prompt defensiveness, and there might be low hanging fruit for friendlier SJs who are collegial enough to actually get people to challenge their assumptions. But it’d still be an uphill battle ’cause the well has been poisoned by confrontational ones.)
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Sarah said:
It’s very clear to me what Ozy thinks. They believe that they don’t have enough information to say one way or another if the Singularity will happen. People use agnostic all the time to refer to non-religious stuff.
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ozymandias said:
Changed. The implication was not intended, but I don’t want to accidentally insult Singulatarians.
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Ginkgo said:
“Singulatarians.”
Aaaaaghhhh! You just called them a denomination!!! /s
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zz said:
This touches on a thing that happened earlier this week that I’d like feedback on.
I play in an ultimate [frisbee] summer league. There’s two tiers, both of which cost money (so the people who sign up are invested and actually show up for the team’s games each week): a lower one is aimed at newbies and experienced players who want a more relaxed atmosphere (play is competitive, but nobody gets angry when new players make dumb mistakes), and a higher one, aimed at experienced players who want supercompetitive play. I’m in the lower tier. Everyone on my team has some background: we all know the rules, nobody needs to be shown how to throw or what a cut is, etc.
Except this one girl, who we shall call Felicity, who played in the low-tier league last year. She’s obviously not new, but during our warmup drills, her throws were bad. Really bad. Like, literally 90 degrees off the receiver bad. And this is surprising, since she played last year, and she was obviously experienced. (I’ve worked with new throwers, and they all tend to make the same mistakes when first learning a new throw. Felicity’s throws were bad, just in different ways.)
(It’s important to know that one person with bad throws on the field screws the whole team. On offense, you usually should score without turning the disc, which is the almost-inevitable result of any one bad throw. Coming from a defensive standpoint, it works to our advantage to let you catch the disc, since that corresponds to a relatively easy turnover.)
Our first games starts. I notice that, when Felicity isn’t on the field, she seems kind of checked out. I’m further confused (you pay low-but-not-insubstantial money to play in this league!), but I’m more concerned about patching this gaping weakness, but am having trouble figuring out how to say “You really suck at throwing and will hold back the entire team until you improve, let’s practice” without, you know, being a horrible person.
(It’s also important to know that women are valuable, in the sense that we maintain an on-field gender ratio, so if you screw up and drive off the women on your team, you either have fewer players or the women you’ve retained don’t get to sub as much, which will generally lead to you losing as the other team’s women run circles around their exhausted counterparts.)
Eventually, I fall back on what the PUA literature suggests. I go about my business until both Felicity and I are on the sidelines (which takes not very long: 18 people on the team, 7 on the field at once.) The rest of the team is standing on the edge of the field, watching the game. Felicity is sitting a few yards back, checked out, not paying any attention to the game.
“Hey, Felicity, want to toss?”
“Sure.”
After a few minutes, I notice Felicity is (a) not stepping with the correct foot and (b) throwing both lefty and right (which is really uncommon, because even if you’re ambidextrous, as soon as you establish a pivot, you’re committed to throwing either lefty or righty.) I talk to her about footwork. Throws improve dramatically. (I suspect that Felicity decided to try learn to throw with both hands sometime after last year’s league ended, and, in absence of experienced coaches, that messed up her footwork.) Point ends, we sub in, ultimate [frisbee] goes on.
It’s fairly clear it turns out that I didn’t mess up horribly, although I’d appreciate feedback about what I maybe should have done better. More broadly, I wondering about some of the policies my local ultimate [frisbee] association has for getting more women signed up, which may fail “don’t make gender a marked thing” as I understand it but I think are reasonable (I ask because I don’t understand this as well as I’d like and think it’s most likely that I’m misunderstanding nuances of “don’t make gender a marked thing”.)
-Maintain an on-field gender ratio; teams that can’t field enough women play down players (gender ratio reflects the gender composition as closely as it can.)
-Have a third league exclusively for women
-Complimentary discs for new women who sign up (or if you get a woman to sign up)
-At some point, I think women had more baggaging power (baggage: if you want to play on the same team as, say, your wife, you two can “baggage” to ensure you’re drafted onto the same team), but can’t find any evidence of that this year*.
-Waitlisting men who sign up until there is adequate female registration
-Women’s league subsidized ($25 for 1 game/week; low-tier league is $45 for 1 game/week, the failed men’s league was $35 for 1 game/week. The high-tier league is $60 for 2 games/week.)
—-
And, while I’m writing an obnoxiously long comment, I’ll also say that there’s quite a few very fit young women in the league. I would like to have sex with them. I would like to not cause them to not attend games (this and subsequent seasons) quite a bit more. Is there any strategy for achieving the former without risking the latter, or should I focus my attention elsewhere? (Again, I ask out of ignorance. It seems strange that there exists no way of pursuing women in any group that tends towards being primarily male that won’t, on average, drive off women. Right now, I feel as if the only non-monstrous approach is to find a group that I can get into that’s naturally 90+% women (yoga works), wait until it’s neither raining nor an election year, scout the building to make sure it’s devoid of elevators, etc., which I’m pretty sure is also wrong, but I’m entirely unsure where the line.)
—-
*This year we tried a men’s league, which garnered insufficient interest to actually run. The men’s league explicitly disallowed baggage, while I believe that the women’s league allows it.
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Sylocat said:
Well, if you’re playing in a hypercompetitive league, I think a bigger problem might be that no one else was apparently willing to deal with the problem at all. Someone on the team needs to be able to talk to struggling players by a more direct means than “Get her alone and trick her into giving you an excuse to bring the topic up.”
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ozymandias said:
Well, that is advice for EA groups; non-EA groups are probably going to have different best practices, because they’re probably aiming at different women. It would be very odd if the same advice worked for every possible group. If nothing else, feminism marks women as different from men all the time and has no problem attracting female members. 😛
That said, the rule at the EA group I mentioned is just not to hit on people at meetings; there’s nothing unacceptable about hanging out with someone and *then* hitting on them. 🙂
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osberend said:
How is “hitting on” defined, such that it is feasible to arrange hanging out with people (with ultimately amorous intent) without doing it?
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Emily Horner (@emhornerbooks) said:
Osberend: one possible strategy is “Hey, Pete and Lucy and I are going out for dinner/a drink after the meeting, do you want to come?” – after which contact information can be exchanged and one on one dates can be brought up.
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pocketjacks said:
Inviting someone out to a group event before inviting someone out one-on-one is an informal social norm I can get behind. I don’t like some of the implications – namely, that you have to be popular within a group before you’re allowed to ask someone out within it – but that’s a detail that can ironed out some which way.
Maybe I grew up at an inflection point in history or something, but the “how can you ask me out on a date? You don’t even know me!” type attitude had always struck me as strange. The reason for the date in the first place is to get to know one another and see if we fit, is it not?
But, norms shift. Part of the reason why it may have shifted is that a date today is not what it meant a generation ago, and sex on the first date is far more common. So it makes sense to screen for dates more from the typical het woman’s perspective. I feel like we’ve established a system of pre-dating that has effectively become the new dating, and what used to be dating has now become the serious relationship. So far, I don’t object to any of this.
But the core of osberend’s objection remains, however. What if this just ends up a treadmill? What if asking someone out to a group event, with the clear intent of a prelude to ask them out on a one-on-one event afterward, becomes the new “hitting on”? “How can he say he’ll meet me at the party? He doesn’t even know me!” After all, when one person is romantically interested in another, that intent is often clear.
People have the right to ask, and people have the right to reject. Rules made up by people who don’t fundamentally respect one or the other will only end up a treadmill.
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pocketjacks said:
Damn, no edit function. I should add that I don’t support that being the norm in all cases. In some cases, it’s too restrictive. Such as for most cases where hobbyists meet on their spare time. I was thinking more along the lines of asking someone out at work, which is something where some more restrictions would be justified.
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osberend said:
Even at work, I don’t see why “Hey, I’m single, and have noticed that you’re also single, and intelligent, capable, and attractive. You wanna go out for drinks or dinner some time?” should be objectionable. If you respond negatively to being turned down in an non-asinine fashion (or more negatively than is reasonable in response to a rejection that is asinine), then that’s objectionable, but the appropriate norm here is “don’t respond inappropriately to being turned down when hitting on people at work,” not “don’t hit on people at work.”
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LTP said:
You know, your question raises an interesting tension. On the one hand, one of the most common pieces of (substantive) advice for finding dates and sexual partners is to live an interesting life and pursue your interests, and through those you will meet compatible women. On the other hand, a very common refrain one hears as a man interested in women, more from feminist women but not always, is that women are hit on all the time! And why can’t you just leave them alone and let them enjoy their hobby without being seen as potential dates!?! Don’t you know that the reason *hobby x* is dominated by men is because women feel unwelcome!
Now, charitably, maybe the latter people are saying that one shouldn’t harass women, not make it weird if they turn you down, and also be cognizant of non-verbal cues before and during an approach, which means you won’t hit on as many women, and you may miss some opportunities, but not that you’ll never hit on women.
Still, I do find there is an interesting tension between these two common refrains, especially if you’re a man interested in women whose interests are mostly male-dominated.
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osberend said:
I am always baffled by this apparent sense that being hit on, by someone who is willing to take no for an answer, is somehow an imposition.
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Maxim Kovalev said:
I guess any offer can become annoying once it’s repeated often enough. Plus, if the overwhelming majority of offers are of immensely low quality (e.g. catcalling, lame pickup lines, etc.), this could probably lead to a knee-jerk repulsion to any offer, no matter how polite and considerate.
But then the conclusion follows that never expressing my sexuality would be an act of basic human decency, especially that as a Silicon Valley nerd I’m already liable for making women uncomfortable.
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Emily Horner (@emhornerbooks) said:
I think no one wants to join a new social group and feel like they’re instantly “fresh meat,” but I do feel like a club or hobby group is a perfectly fine context for finding people to date as long as you’re paying attention to social cues, and establishing some sort of rapport first rather than hitting indiscriminately on people — I’d have no problem getting hit on by “my interesting acquaintance from hobby group,” as opposed to “some random guy from hobby group.” That’s the advantage of hobby groups to me, as an introvert who deeply dislikes getting hit on — that you have a context for having friendly, platonic conversation until you have enough information to decide whether a person might be OK for dating.
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Creutzer said:
What about your uninteresting acquaintance from hobby group, though?
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osberend said:
@Maxim: It seems like the offer is only (in general) “repeated enough” if one treats individual men as mere instantiations of man. At the same time, a lot of those who object most vigorously also declare that hitting on strangers is sexist because it implies that they’re mere instantiations of woman. There seems to be a contradiction here . . .
And really, how much time per day does being hit on (as such, as opposed to assholery of various sorts that is adjacent to hitting on people) take, even for a highly attractive woman? A minute? Two?
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veronica d said:
Well, one night I was hit on like this:
I’m downstairs at a tranny bar watching a rock band play. It’s a small venue and I’ve dragged a chair over kinda in the middle of the floor. People are milling around, leaning against columns, standing by the bar or near the stage. No one is near me. There is plenty of room.
Some man comes in, bearded guy, late middle-age, not great looking, but not terrible. He proceeds to grab a chair, pull it over directly next to me, and sit. He says nothing to me. Just sits there. I give him an awkward smile. He smiles and nods. Then I look away, watch the band, and ignore him.
I mean, I’m not interested, but if he’s not going to say anything, I’m not. I’m just — well it’s hella awkward and I’m not sure what to say.
After a while he gets up and goes to the bar, which I guess he got the message I wasn’t interested. Fair enough, I suppose. So he begins to hit on my g/f, who is working behind the bar.
So, hitting on the wait staff — big time creeper move. Sorry guys. But whatevs. It’s a tranny bar. We don’t have a lot of rules.
My g/f brushes him off. He keeps it up. She gets loud, points to me, and says, “That’s my girlfriend and I’m pretty sure you don’t want to piss her off.”
I mean, I’m not likely to get pissed. I find it amusing.
In any case, he backs away.
Later I’m upstairs and he approaches me and says, “Are you the lucky girl dating that beautiful woman downstairs?”
I say I am.
“Nice. Look, I don’t get out much and I’m really looking to hook up tonight. Can you help?”
Now, on most nights there are a few trans sex workers hanging out at the bar, and had one been there, I would have sent him her way. I mean, I wouldn’t have said anything specific, cuz I don’t know if he’s a cop. But, nah, he’s prolly just a horny troll. In any case, none of the sex workers are there that night, so I say, “Sorry hon, it’s a slow night.”
He keeps pestering me, explaining how he was lonely and how he doesn’t get out much and how he was hoping to meet. I shrug. Not my problem. He keeps asking. He asks if my g/f and I will take him home. I brush him off again. Finally he gets the message.
So it goes.
#####
Osberend asks how long it takes for a woman to get asked out. Well, that depends. The thing is, asking people out is emotionally fraught, and people behave in various ways. And the simple “no” might not work, so it’s a guessing game as to how to field the advance, how to deliver the brush off, and so forth. And likewise the man doesn’t know how much effort he should expend. For example, I was slow to accept my g/f’s advances, but she won me over.
You can imagine these perfect, no-risk scripts, but people won’t play by such scripts, cuz social stuff is as complicated as the sum of human cognition.
For me that night, I didn’t want a scene with this guy. On the other hand, I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. He seemed a genuinely decent guy who just wanted to fuck a tranny — or more likely *get fucked* by a tranny, but whatevs; I don’t judge.
Honestly, I very much wish a sex worker had been there. Good money for her. A nice evening for him. Win-win. But that night capitalism failed.
I heard later that he had asked literally every trans woman and cross dresser in the club to hook up, and had been turned down by all of us. Which actually, that’s kinda sad.
This was a tranny bar, where hookups are common and a rule against men asking out women would be silly. For many people, hookups are the whole point of the place. (I was there to hang with my g/f and see the bands, but to each their own.)
But if this were a book club, for example, and the women get hit on constantly by the men — nope! It’s a fucking book club. And once someone asks someone out, things change between them. If a woman is getting asked out by most of the men, or even a fair number, it’s going to become a less comfortable environment for her, since that baggage does not disappear.
She might even switch to an all-women’s book club. After all, she’s there for the books. When she wants to meet, she goes to a place to meet.
Which doesn’t mean you should never ask anyone out at book club.
There’s no royal road to social calibration.
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LTP said:
But clearly the woman *is* there to meet people, at least in part,. If she was just in it for the books, she’d read at home alone. Maybe not meet people to date or hook-up with specifically, but certainly to meet people in the general sense.
I get that your saying social calibration is hard and that there shouldn’t be a prohibition against asking people out in such settings. I also totally get the frustration at being asked out a lot when you’re not looking for that. It’s also frustrating from the other end, though. Let’s face it, literally all the places people “go to meet” ( bars, clubs, concerts, singles mixers, large parties) are not fun places to be for many people. If you’re not an extrovert and don’t like drinking in excess, well, you won’t enjoy those places and you’re told to meet people through your interests.
I’m not sure how to reconcile these two sets of frustrations, though.
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Fossegrimen said:
In my experience, if you join a yoga group, and don’t look really horrible, you can just wait around until some of the women hit on you. (I do yoga because I do extreme endurance sports and without the yoga and other stretching sessions, I would probably not be able to walk by now due to cramped up muscles.)
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Loki said:
I think that there is a degree of hitting on that is cool at meetings but I think the things to watch are privacy and (for want of a better word) sincerity.
Like, if you are telling some woman in front of everyone that her boobs looked great when she caught that throw, that’s not private, and it corresponds to a type of ‘hitting on girls’ that guys do that has very little to do with actually wanting to date said girls – it’s about signalling confidence and heterosexuality, and in isolation implies that you don’t so much care about her as a player or a person (because you’re commenting on her tits, not her play style or personality or wev).
If instead, you catch a woman off to one side at a meeting and say something like ‘I enjoyed playing with you and you seem cool – do you want to meet up outside of game some time?’, that’s private and sincere. If she doesn’t want to, then there may be a degree of awkward because that’s just how asking people out goes in our social culture, but you can ameliorate that by signalling that you will do your best not to make it awkward if she refuses. The best strategy to retain that player if she declines your invitation would be a response that acknowledges her decision without bad feelings, and then moves on to something like you hope to see her next week at the game, or you’re gonna kick the other team’s ass next (event where that is a possibility) or something.
I can’t speak for all women because we’re 50% of the human race and we can’t all be reasonable people or it could just be a bad time for reasons you had no way of knowing about, but certainly *I’ve* never got pissed off or offended at someone privately and sincerely hitting on me who was prepared to take no for an answer.
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Nita said:
Wow, did you really need PUA tips to say “Wanna practice?” instead of “You suck”? Anyway, I’m glad it helped. Well done on helping her improve so quickly, too.
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zz said:
The PUA insight was more about stepping up and taking a leadership role. There was a HPMOR author’s note about how the people who affect important changes aren’t necessarily those most qualified to do it (any of several better throwers on my team), or those who are supposed to (the two co-captains), but those who actually do so, but PUA’s are much more explicit: if you’re going to a restaurant, count the members of your party so you’re prepared when you’re asked how many are in your party, etc.
PUA is the reason I took action and the other 16 people on my team didn’t.
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zz said:
Upon rereading, I realize the most reasonable reading of my original comment said something I didn’t mean to say; the above reply is what I meant to say.
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Nita said:
@ zz
Ah, thanks for the explanation. You’ve been reading better PUA stuff than I 🙂
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veronica d said:
@zz — Thanks for your thoughtful comment.
I think you handled yourself well. You saw she had a weakness. You wanted to help her. You didn’t want to seem creepy. You did okay.
(I’m not sure if the “PUA” thing is a valid analogy, but whatever.)
Women are people. We have thoughts and feelings and each of us is unique. It is useful to be aware of the *kinds of things* that bother women, but in the end your relationship with *some particular woman* is between you and her.
It would be fine to ask out a teammate. In fact, one or more of your teammates might be totally wishing-hoping-dreaming that you will ask her out. It would be silly to not do so because some other woman (who knows neither of you) said something on the Internet.
Of course, getting “hit on” can become tiresome for women, especially given how clumsy so many men handle it. This is hard. But people do ask each other out. It is not some magical thing only available to the anointed few.
Okay, so you like *her*. She might like you. Talk to her and try to read her social cues. Smile a lot. Use body language. Be honest.
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LTP said:
By the way, are you a Day9 fan?
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Vadim Kosoy said:
>I’m not convinced that we offer any unique insights that can’t be found just as well elsewhere
Wow, seriously? Like where?
> I don’t think anyone has enough information to make correct predictions about the Singularity
Well, the importance of MIRI’s research seems rather robust with respect to assumptions on singularity. Many people miss this point which is probably a failure of MIRI’s marketing. I can explain on object level but Im not sure it wont be too much off topic.
>Similarly, I think Less Wrong should be aimed at people who have what I called the not geek not autism thing
Whats that? The link you provided has a lot of discussion, but where is the term introduced?
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ozymandias said:
To phrase it differently, I would be *extremely* surprised if the LW community caused more improvement to people’s lives than a competent therapist.
This is my position on the Singularity.
The term was introduced in the discussion that I kept track of in that tag.
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Vadim Kosoy said:
>To phrase it differently, I would be *extremely* surprised if the LW community caused more improvement to people’s lives than a competent therapist.
Well, I dont have any experience with therapists, but to my limited understanding the two are almost orthogonal. Therapists are supposed to make you more emotionally blanced and content (I think?). LW is about tools for forming correct beliefs and acting on them. For example, I doubt that many therapists will convince a patient to abandon political opinions zie professes because of zir social circle rather than rational arguments.
>This is my position on the Singularity
Thank you, this is a very good explanation.
Your mention of futurologists reminds me of a personal story. During my service in IDF, I attended an IDF conference where a futurologist from Bar Ilan university was invited to give a talk (it was completely off topic, just for the hack of it). This person said more and more insane things as the talk progressed, including using textbook crackpottery like Podkletnov antigravity as examples of groundbreaking technologies. I became furious and started to ask openly critical questions. The futurologist tried to laughingly dismiss my “naivete”. Some officers in the audience became agitated over the 20 year old solider disrupting the talk with his wise ass remarks.
So Im totally on board with you regarding futurology. However, I think MIRI is in a completely different reference class.
You are completely right that predicting the future is very difficult. It is also very important, which is why we need to create powerful tools for doing it. Which approaches have a good track record? The law of energy conservation and the second law of thermodynamics saved a lot of money and effort by predicting that perpetum mobile of bothe kinds are impossible. Virtually all of modern cryptography is based on predictions from complexity theory that certain problems can only be solved by certain amounts of computing resources. These are predictions based on theories of very broad scope.
Another theory of very broad scope we still dont have is the mathematical theory of abstract intelligence. This theory will allow us to make predictions regarding feasibility and time schedule of superintelligence, multipole vs singelton scenarios, soft vs hard takeoff, de novo AI vs upgraded humans etc. MIRI’s work on building this theory (through exploring problems like logical uncertainy, decision theory and self-modification) is in some sense a continuation of research done in the academia by people like Hutter, Legg and Schmidhuber. The difference is that those other people are confused about the moral consequences of their research.
>The term was introduced in the discussion that I kept track of in that tag.
OK, I think I understood what you mean. I usually call it “cool people” but I understand why the term is not universally understandable 🙂
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babaganusz said:
@V.K. –
>>I dont have any experience with therapists, but to my limited understanding the two are almost orthogonal. Therapists are supposed to make you more emotionally blanced and content (I think?). LW is about tools for forming correct beliefs and acting on them.
>>
cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has arguably the best non-pharmaceutical track record in the brief history of psychology, and one of its core principles is correcting beliefs/habits that impair function/reason.
therapy in general is no more mysterious than the genuinely appealing/functional elements of religious schemes like the confessional, auditing, etc. – i.e. talking through your problems and [ideally] resolving, or at least correctly identifying, sources of stress, conflict, etc. GIGO, likewise with abusive leadership, but given honest, non-delusional actors across the board, it’s just personal problem-solving.
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Fossegrimen said:
>>Feminists often give advice like “ban neoreactionaries, stop saying angry anti-feminist things, talk about sexism more.”
>> other advice <<
This is my main gripe with modern feminism. I don't disagree with much of the stated goals, but I do think the current methods that I see in use are terribly counter productive. If you want to be a feminist, why be a terribly ineffective one?
Either a lot of feminists are incapable of seeing the damage they do, or they are actually not trying to accomplish what they say they are.
btw, is there a list of which markup/down tag this blog supports in comments handily available?
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Nita said:
What damage do those particular things do?
I suspect the reason why theunitofcaring didn’t include “stop saying angry anti-feminist things” in her tips for inclusiveness was that people already don’t say such things in her gender-balanced EA group organized and moderated by an anti-racist, anti-ableist lesbian. Of course, I might be wrong, and maybe the carefully guided discussions of effective altruism frequently involve comparing feminism to Voldemort. Please correct me if so.
And how do you explain why discussions on getting chicks are unwelcome without bringing up gender?
Personally, I’m not against anti-feminist or even neoreactionary rants in common spaces. But I don’t see any harm from banning them where they’re off-topic, either.
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Forlorn Hopes said:
“What damage do those particular things do?”
Just in Ozy’s post alone there are two strong examples.
1) “don’t make gender a marked group”. Feminists are frequently promoting things like women in technology events – which make women a marked group. If the women Ozy is quoting is correct; this actually discourages women.
2) Compare “social justice inclusion is often a freebie” to “Being inclusive of feminists may or may not fit the goals of your group but is definitely not a freebie.” By convincing people that the way to include women is to do things that are actually about including feminists; you’re also convincing people that including women is not a freebie.
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NN said:
If you want specific examples of what damage this kind of thing can do, here is an unedited excerpt from the forum rules of rpg.net, after an April 2013 rules update:
—–
Derailing and suppression of sexism-related discussion
We’ve previously had a serious problem with female gamers being made to feel unwelcome on the forum by systematic derailment and suppression of discussions of sexism. As a result we have identified a number of behaviours that we will infract.
These behaviours are largely covered by Rule 1 anyway, and not limited to the area of sexism, but we are devoting extra scrutiny to their contribution to this particular problem. They include:
– Threadjacking discussion from the female to the male experience of an issue
– Denying the experiences of female posters
– Demanding to be educated on the subject
– Concern trolling (such as “But I’m concerned discussion of sexism will drown out discussion of the good things about $GAME”)
– Questioning the validity of sexism as a phenomena or a topic of discussion at RPGnet
– Demanding that the debate be reframed (e.g. “This debate is too emotional”/”This should only be about solutions, not criticisms” etc.)
– Accusing other posters of looking to be offended
– Accusing male posters of “White-Knighting” or otherwise arguing against sexism solely for the approval of women
—–
These rules were used to justify the banning of RPG writer Zak S, over a post where he politely asked if there was any actual evidence that cheesecakey art drove woman away (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?698051-Infraction-for-Zak-S-17%29-Permanent-Ban). The reasons for the ban included “you post anecdotes as facts, you tell people that things can’t be sexist because you know ~females~ who would disagree.” Because I guess some female experiences are more equal than others.
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ninecarpals said:
@NN
You’re an rpg.netter, too? 😀
There are a few of us who have been (politely) pushing for a symmetrical sexism policy. It wouldn’t solve the problem you’re listing, but it would be a start.
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Nita said:
@ Forlorn Hopes
1) You’re assuming that without the events women would be unmarked. If that were true, no one would be asked “so, whose girlfriend are you?” at mixed-gender tech events.
2) Here’s my comparison:
“Being inclusive of feminists may or may not fit the goals of your group but is definitely not a freebie” is true,
“social justice inclusion is often a freebie” is wishful thinking.
Lots of people will gender police, make fun of anyone weird, equate “borderline” with “evil manipulative monster” and so on without a second thought. That’s not very SJ-inclusive.
@ NN
Thanks for the example. I’m afraid that incident just seems weird to me, though? I mean, if your mods post a 5-paragraph rant accusing the banned user of being, basically, tedious to argue with (instead of the “You broke rule X.” I would expect), I don’t think different rules would have helped.
On the other hand, if he really did say that something can’t be sexist because some women don’t think it is, then he is considering their experiences “more equal”. After all, I can find a few men who believe than all men are worthless worms who should be subordinate to women, but that doesn’t mean that misandry don’t real 😛
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ninecarpals said:
@Nita
I don’t know if you’re a member, but modding on rpg.net is…complicated. For the most part the moderators are wonderful, and their decisions are consistently made with the best interests of the forum in mind. However, the board isn’t immune to political clashes, and that’s where the sexism policy comes in.
Again, I can’t emphasize enough that the modding is generally fair. People who go out of their way to be obnoxious are banned regardless of their feelings on feminism. However, it doesn’t take much squinting to see that the bar is set lower for those of us who don’t hold the majority viewpoint. I don’t doubt that the banned poster in the example was obnoxious, and probably shouldn’t have been there; on the other hand, I’ve copped red text (been scolded by the moderators) exactly twice, and both times were for requesting better inclusion of male rape victims. (I was accused of derailing a thread that was not explicitly about women by requesting that in broad discussions of rape posters try not to generalize with the female victim/male perpetrator model; then, when I started my own thread, I was told it was too aggressive, when it didn’t reach anything near the level of heated that posters angry about issues from the popular side are permitted.)
The culture’s shifted somewhat since those two incidents, but from my perspective – and the perspective of a number of other posters, including some prominent feminists – the asymmetry of the site’s sexism policy is unfair and deleterious to the board at large.
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veronica d said:
Right. The idea that woman would be magically “unmarked” but for the foolish feminists is completely idiotic.
I’m sure I can find hundreds of forums where hundreds of people have been banned for various reasons, some of which would seem silly to me. I haven’t hung out on RPG.net for a long time, so I don’t know if this Zak fellow was in fact tedious to argue with, but that is hardly some “great harm” from Social Justice. It just means RPG.net has imperious mods, just as many forums do.
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thirqual said:
Nita, veronica, you are missing a lot of context here. I spoke about this and the related treatment towards Monte Cook and Shanna Germain in the Open Thread 5 on ToT ( there). Included, a link to an rpg.net moderator supporting slander “for the giggles”.
Zak S is far from a random fellow, especially at the intersection of RPG and opening up the hobby. He was also a consultant for the last edition of D&D and there was another slander campain (a good starting point here).
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veronica d said:
Honestly, I’ve been out of the RPG scene for some time, and I don’t remember Zak S, but I remember the RPG Pundit very well, and I would ban him on any forum I ran. So there is that. If Zak S is anything like him in tone or character, then yeah, show him the door.
(Funny story, I have a close friend who actually met the RPG Pundit and gamed with him one time. Can you imagine!)
The comment section on your first link is delightful. Honestly, there is no way these guys are going to get along with folks like me, and banning them seems a fine thing. The Pundit has his shitty forum. Let them play there.
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veronica d said:
*sigh*
In a fit of poor judgement, I decided to Google around about that Ben Lehman/James Desborough — mostly cuz Polaris is pretty much the best thing ever and I’d like to think well of Lehman. Anyway, lotsa posts. I found this link, which I suspect is about right:
http://nelc.dreamwidth.org/297794.html
At least, that matches how I am used to people behaving, which is a mix of virtue and vice.
Note this is not the shitty one-sided characterization of the episode your link provides.
The second Google link was the RPG Pundit ranting in his normal stupid way.
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ozymandias said:
Ben Lehman used to be a close friend of mine and I can testify that nelc’s description matches well with what I know of his character. (And Polaris is the best thing ever. 🙂 )
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ninecarpals said:
I’ll back up the link Veronica posted as an accurate compilation of the facts of the case (at least when you strip it of the opinionated language).
Every so often the incident with Ettin will be raised on rpg.net as evidence of mod bias/mod misbehavior/mod what-have-you. Regular posters have no way of knowing what – if any – discipline was meted out as a result of the “giggles” post because the mods generally keep their workings to themselves. I’m with the mods on the privacy aspect of it (and mod conspiracy theories are absurd), but I also remember the viciousness of the Desborough conversations as an example of the uneasy gender politics on the site.
(The absolutism around not having rape in games was strange to me because I primarily play a game where both the flavor and some of the mechanics are designed as metaphors for abuse, and every character is expected to have gone through some kind of horror, sexual violence being one of many options. To make rape and rape alone taboo to engage with in that system would be bizarre, and frankly off-putting to me.)
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thirqual said:
Right. Notice that the factual elements about the Lehman/Desborough exchange are the same in both accounts (with one exception), and only tone and charity extended differ?
That is:
– Desborough (D) has the same opinions as the GoT scenarists on rape as a plot device (and yuck).
– A blogger said that D said “rape is awesome”
EXCEPTION: the link you provide says the blogger received rape threats, but did not believe they were from D. The link I provide said that the blogger sought and obtained permission to launch a thread for the boycott of D’s company on RPG.net
– One year later Lehman publicly says that D threatens his critics with rape.
– This is actually shown to be incorrect.
– Zak S demands that the people who supported the accusation make amends, and he names them.
– A moderator at RPG.net said people should instead share it more, for the giggles.
– RPG Pundit is an ass. A complete ass, not just the hole (TBH, I do not know anyone who does not believe that Pundit is an ass).
(also, the link I provided is more about the second “incident”)
(finally, Polaris will always be Tessier’s Polaris. Gimme more post-apo underwater adventures with bioengineering and existential threats. Thanks for the pointer to a no-GM game, though)
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veronica d said:
Heck, I’ve written explicit rape erotica — although with the focus on the victim’s POV. So anyway, I think rape can be handled well, but usually it becomes a pretty stale cliche motivator not much better than “Red orcs killed my parents, so now I hate red orcs.”
Boring!
With the added bonus that many more players have personally experienced rape than who have had both parents murdered by gangs. (Of course, on a global scale that is not so clear cut as it is among suburban Americans. For example, I wouldn’t want to argue that case in Iraq or Syria. But anyway.)
Rape really does feel ham-fisted to me, much of the time, and I’d rather people chose a different topic for clumsy narratives.
I mean, for me this is an aesthetic thing, and it has as much to do with shallow “edgedark” and boring cliches as it does about social justice. For example, I feel the same way about “soldier guy with PTSD,” even if I feel much less connected to such people than I do to sexual assault victims. But still! It’s trite.
Which doesn’t mean that no one should ever write about a soldier with PTSD. But we can wonder, is the author saying anything new? Do they have any idea what they are talking about? Are they repeating some nonsense that others have said, but not anything actually insightful about what a former soldier experiences?
The world is full of people who want to repeat bogus viewpoints they learned from movies written by people who repeat bogus nonsense they learned from other movies and on and on. Cliche on top of cliche with each generation more detached from real lives. It’s all shallow and gross.
On the other hand, if a rape survivor or former soldier want to write about their experiences, they should!
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ninecarpals said:
@Veronica
You and I have yet to have a productive conversation, and I’m not interested in speaking with someone who sees me as “one of the bad ones”. Do not expect any future replies from me.
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veronica d said:
Your link left out the fact that Lehman admitted his error and apologized. That seems important.
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Protagoras said:
@Ozy: Huh. Ben Lehman also used to be a friend of mine (not that we’ve had a falling out or anything, but I haven’t seen him since he relocated). Always a little surprised when my internet interests and RL connections intersect.
Anyway, as Veronica says, it seems kind of important that Ben apologized.
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Forlorne Hopes said:
@Nita, @veronica d
You’re both attacking a strawman. It doesn’t matter if anyone apart from feminists is making gender marked. Nor did I say they weren’t.
If Ozy’s source is correct and marking gender is exclusionary, then feminists promoting the idea that gender is marked is wrong.
If other people are also marking gender then femnists doing so is still wrong. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
In terms of actual harm – feminists are making the marks larger (presumably that’s bad) and pushing people looking for a solution in the wrong direction.
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Nita said:
@ Forlorne Hopes
Women are marked because:
1) They (mostly) look different enough from men to be distinguishable,
2) The image of “an ordinary member of the tech community” in most people’s heads is the image of a man.
Not talking about it is not going to change either of those things. The corresponding solutions are:
1) Make all women try to pass as men (not very freedom-friendly),
2) Expand the “ordinary” image to make room for a bit more diversity — e.g., by talking about individual women who are exemplary members of the community, or by bringing several women together in one place, which will counteract the “isolated oddity” effect.
I do think that it’s possible to push for inclusion too hard, which can create tension in the community. But pretending that everyone is already gender-blind hasn’t worked all that well so far, either.
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Forlorn Hopes said:
@Nita
Your proposing an impossible circle. You say women are marked becaues they’re a miority, and the solution (it’s obvious you prefer solution number two) is to mark women by expicitly singling them out in presentations about women in tech; etc.
That’s great for feminists – not only do they get to talk about their favourite subject, but by talking about women they create the problem that in turn creates more oppotunities to talk about women.
For actually getting more women into technology, probably not so great.
——————–
The one thing I do agree with you is that pretending everyone is already gender-blind will solve the problem. However I think things that will help include:
# Emphasisng the flexibility and family friendlness of careers in tech work.
# Talking about how tech improves people’s lives, not just tech for the love of tech.
# Getting oppotunities for creative tech play before very young girls.
# Working with teachers and parents to stop them explicitly discouraging women.
# Stop shouting from the rooftops that tech is a horrible place for women.
You will notice that none of those actually require making women a marked gender. Nor are they suggesting that pretending everyone is gender blind will magically solve the problem without effort on our part.
That said, I think encouraging gender blindness among the rank and file tech workers would help.
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Nita said:
@ Forlorn Hopes
Those are all great ideas for getting girls and women into tech, of course. But I contend that, at least in the current non-gender-blind atmosphere, visible role models, mentors and peers of minority genders are also beneficial.
Also, although outright hostility is rare, it tends to be rather discouraging and paranoia-inducing, so some friendly interaction and experience-sharing among women can help them stay in tech.
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Forlorn Hopes said:
@ Nita
Mentors and role models are always a good thing. But you don’t need to mark gender by having a big banner saying “female mentors here, becuase girls are different and need girl mentors”.
A gender neutral method for connecting mentors and mentees would allow girls who want same gender mentors to find one without louldy saying that the tech industry sees women as different and a special case with special requirements.
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osberend said:
@Nita, Forlorn Hopes: To generalize Forlorn’s last point a bit:
I think SJ-y people tend to see problems of the sort SJ aims to deal with, and view the choice of how to deal with them as being between dealing with them in SJ fashion and not dealing with them at all, and then view criticism of the SJ approach as an implicit assertion that the problem shouldn’t be dealt with at all. But in fact, for most if not all such problems[1], there’s another option. For example:
Situation: At your local RPG group, you observe John being an asshole to Jane, and either know or suspect that his motivations are sexist.
Responses:
Don’t-care-about-justice: So fucking what?
SJ: Call John out for being sexist, and possibly go off on a rant about how nerd sexism is a problem in the RPG community.
Individual Justice: Call John out for being an asshole to another player. Tell him to shut the fuck up and get his head on straight. Sometimes, this will require talking about sexism. But most of the time it won’t.
The latter makes gender a lot less marked, and also gets more directly at the fundamental problem: John is being an asshole to another player without a good reason. It also requires making fewer assumptions, in the frequent case where John is definitely being an asshole, but his motives are less clear.
Situation: You notice that there aren’t a lot of women in the local RPG scene, and for whatever reason (justice-based or simply preference) would like to change this.
Responses:
SJ: Make a campaign to “get more women to play RPGs” with attendent discussion of Inclusion and Representation.
Individualist: Simply invite women you know who you’d think would be a good fit to come to games.
[1] I, being anti-SJ, would say that if there are any exceptions, they’ll just have to not be dealt with, but that’s a somewhat separate issue.
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Patrick said:
Are mentors actually a thing in STEM culture? I always assumed that the whole “we need mentors” thing was a cheap excuse to justify attacking STEM HR departments when the real issues were elsewhere.
I always viewed this issue as being kind of like the way education reformers always attack teachers- parents and students don’t care what you say, so there’s no point in attacking them. But you can savage teachers and get a response. You can even threaten to fire them! So teachers are the thing you go after. It might only be 10% as effective as changing any other mechanism in the social machine, but it’s the only one you CAN change, so you attack as hard as you can.
But this seems the place to ask- are STEM mentors actually at thing? Or is this as cynical as I always thought?
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osberend said:
@veronica: Zak S is very different from Pundit, and frankly, I think that targeting them both (instead of just the Pundit) was, quite apart from the moral offense, a huge tactical error on the part of the “get angry about 5e consultants” crowd.
Zak S is (former? I’m not sure) alternative porn star who runs a meatspace group that plays a homebrewed hybrid of AD&D (I think 1e, but maybe 2), 3.5, and 5e, while also running or playing in a variety of campaigns on the internet. Most or all of his home group players are also current or former porn stars, most or all of them are women, a couple are non-white, and at least one is trans. He’s loudly pro-sex and pro-freaky weirdness (in the sense of “pretty much anything that Max Nordau described or would have described as ‘degenerate'” — a topic he made a very long post on) in RPGs, and fairly combative (and has a real berserk button about people attacking Mandy Morbid, his girlfriend), but is also in favor of what most rationalists would regard as pretty good debate norms. He did a really positive interview (possibly NSFW just by virtue of the blog it’s on; that page does not have anything graphic on it) with the founder of ConTessa, a virtual con with all female GMs. He’s thrown down with unambiguously sexist or racist folks on multiple occasions. He’s a good guy.
@Nita: He didn’t say that something can’t be sexist because women don’t think it is; what he has frequently said (some variant on) is that you can’t claim that something “obviously” on net drives women away from the hobby based solely on some women being repelled by it if some women are attracted by it. The standard form of argument, which I’ve seen on multiple forums now is:
SJW: Foo[1] is a big part of why there are so few women in the hobby, because it drives them away with its obvious sexism/elitism/neckbeardiness.
Zak: Do you have any statistics to back that up?
SJW: I don’t need statistics, it’s obvious. I know plenty of women who are bothered by it.
Zak: Sure, and I know plenty of women who aren’t, some of whom actively delight in it. So, like just about everything else, it attracts some women and repels others. Again: Do you have any statistics to support the claim that it repels more than it attracts?
Mods: Zak S is banned for demanding statistics to prove the obvious, and for claiming that something can’t be sexist if some women are okay with it.
[1] Often “rape as a plot element” or “cheesecake art,” but also just about anything else the SJW does not like, including in one case, I shit you not, writing “Damage: 2-8” instead of “Damage: 2d4.” That particular conversation then took a turn for the weird when Zak stated that a specific player of his (who is apparently open about her limitations) would not know which does more damage, a 3d4 weapon or a 2d8 spell (or something of that nature), but can easily parse 3-12 vs 2-16, and therefore each notation is better for some purposes . . . and got accused of sexism (because obviously he was just assuming this based on her being female) and ableism (because obviously he was mocking her on the internet for (allegedly) being stupid) as a result. He still gets accused of ableism periodically, and I have yet to see any citation for that whatsoever that doesn’t ultimately trace back to that conversation. Meanwhile, he’s got a girlfriend in a wheelchair . . . and whenever she says anything aggressive online, people attribute it to Zak, who obviously told him to say it. Because that’s not sexist at all.
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thirqual said:
I would say that a PhD advisor is (or should be) a mentor. In a larger sense, if you are a young intern, there should be a person in the lab tasked with taking care of your questions and helping you out (and for lack of a better term are sometimes called mentor — at least I was called when I was in charge of helping a young summer intern, but that was only for the duration of her internship).
But the term is vague enough in the expected functions of the mentor that there is room for attack, yes.
In France, I was assigned a ‘mentor’ outside of an internship context, who was supposed to check in with me every few months and help me choose my course load and stuff like this. But
1) it was in a very unusual institution
2) he left academia for a job in the private sector after 5 months and was not replaced
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osberend said:
Erm . . . that penultimate sentence should end “who obviously told her to say it.” Not really sure what happened there.
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thirqual said:
Oh about the other business: it speaks highly of L. to have made amends and modified the first post. It did not, however, stop the attacks, and the first post was reproduced by a Ettin (who was still attacking D. last fall).
A bit miffed at seeing the instant shield raising and witnesses of good character. Wish that will happen in the future for honest mistakes by other persons.
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sniffnoy said:
Forlorne Hopes, Nita, regarding markedness: I’m not sure you two are really contradicting each other. I think we can summarize as follows:
Yes, women are already marked. Doing nothing will not change this. However, it’s not clear that the solution is will run through making them temporarily more marked, at least not in every situation. There may be a number of alternatives here. For instance, the “talking about individual women who are exemplary members of the community” solution doesn’t necessarily run through increasing markedness. Problem isn’t feminists trying to do something, it’s trying to do things blindly or thoughtlessly, and focusing on markedness-increasing solutions, when better alternatives may be available, at least in the particular context.
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Sniffnoy said:
I guess basically what I’m saying is beware the Politician’s Syllogism, it’s surprisingly easy to actually fall for.
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Sniffnoy said:
Sorry, I should probably add — the example Nita used (“talking about individual women who are exemplary members of the community”) could easily of course make women more marked in the minds of the actual individuals of the group. But we have to distinguish between this and them becoming more marked “in the mind of the group”, by which I mean people having common knowledge of this. The former may be harmful but it won’t cause the particular problem here (well, unless someone’s just a jackass, in which case, see osberend’s note on that). Disrupting common knowledge may be easier than actually changing individual minds.
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Forlorn Hopes said:
@ Patrick
Where I work mentors are definately a thing – but we’ve got a strong internal culture so I can’t say for sure how common they are in general STEM.
I can’t really see how mentors could be that cynical. Maybe they won’t work, but they’re worth a shot and it shouldn’t cost STEM HR departments much to set them up.
@ Sniffnoy
I thought Nita was explicitly supporting policies that make women more marked – “by bringing several women together in one place” sounds impossible to do without marking women – and it made me think of “women in technology subconfrences” which several women have complained about as isolating them from the real action.
But that just gives context to where I’m coming from; Nita knows her position better than I do.
P.S. I may be without internet for a while.
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Nita said:
@ Forlorn Hopes
Huh? Did those women get forcibly segregated into a women-only section or something? I’ve never heard of that.
Anyway, the problem is that “tech” is not a homogeneous space. Different people have different experiences. So, the same action can simultaneously help people who are struggling with minority-specific issues, feel like a step back to someone who’s doing fine already, and feel like a threat to someone whose individual coping mechanism is actively trying to pass as “one of the guys”.
And in parallel, some of the majority group will see these measures as fair and useful, others will be baffled because their peers are already diverse, and a few will be angry because entryist scum are trying to take over their space.
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skye said:
“I think that the otaku community would be perfectly justified in saying ‘Joe, cosplay, hugging, pocky, dancing, public conversation about porn, and body pillows are all part of what it means to be a member of our community. It’s fine if you watch anime and don’t want to be around people who like cosplay and body pillows, but we’re not going to change our community so it caters to Joe-like preferences.'”
That seems like an unreasonably high threshold. What if Joe likes some of these things but not others? What if, for instance, he’s not trying to stop anyone from cuddling and hugging, but he’d like it if once in a while the discussions he wants to be part of took place outside a high-physical-contact space? Where is the line? Is said line different if Joe is already a member of the community but wants to institute some changes?
I’m just really uncomfortable with the idea that liking some aspects of a community means I have to sign up wholesale.
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Lambert said:
There are tradeoffs to be made & no easy answers. This is one of the central problems of running/partaking in a group.
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Patrick said:
You don’t have to do that. But when you ask for the group to change to suit your needs, you need to accept that other people have opinions to which might conflict with yours, and this doesn’t make them evil or wrong. You need to accept that “this group should be more inclusive, by which I mean, I feel excluded because I don’t enjoy this groups norms so they should change” is not some magical trump card.
“I don’t like the way this group operates” is valid, but “then deal with it or leave, because we’re happy this way” is also valid.
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skye said:
I guess my issue with that would be “is there a collective ‘we’ that is happy this way?” It depends on the size and cohesion of the group. If it’s, like, a D&D campaign of a few people and they’re all perfectly happy, that’s one thing. But I bet Joe isn’t the only person at this hypothetical con who isn’t necessarily happy with everything. I think for big groups like that, glossing over outside criticism with “we’re happy this way” can be a way to shut down internal criticism too.
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yacheritsi said:
Some degree of “freaking the norms” would be useful to help internal cohesion. You have to do things that outsiders wouldn’t like in order to show that you are an insider. Obviously, marginal members like Joe disliking this is one of the tradeoffs, as is getting an unkind Encyclopedia Dramatica entry.
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Patrick said:
Skye- yep, it’s tough. And sorting this sort of thing out can be a bit of a brawl. Sometimes longstanding members of a community can end up being shown the door. Schisms, they’re a thing too.
The modern “solution” is to proclaim that your preferences are normative, and to leverage social pressure and shaming against anyone who disagrees, while crafting elaborate internally consistent but empirically shady theories about how awful it is when you don’t get your way.
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Somebody said:
@Skye
It can be a way of shitting down internal criticism but one thing to bear in mind is whether or not there are other places that the discontented participants and would be participants can go to fulfil their needs.
Take a comedy club for example. Some people might not like the raw jokes that are told, but a comedy club is the only acceptable venue for such performances whereas dissenters have a great many options for avoiding dead baby jokes or what have you.
Another (related) thing to consider is whether the people who wish to change the group culture are demanding changes that are more or less acceptable to wider society than what is currently the case. People who want a subculture to be a little more normal are going to have plenty of opportunities to carve out a more respectable space of there is demand for it, and they will be assisted in policing that space by society at large.
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stargirlprincess said:
I do not understand people. Why would people talking about things you do not like make you uncomfortable. I do not personally like many geeky things. among them: Role-playing, games with any number of players except 2 (or two teams), Pocky, Action movies, dancing, body pillows and Star wars. Why would OTHER people near me liking those things bother me. My girlfriend for example plays quite alot of D&D and was once on the US team in Bridge. I do not really want to play Bridge/D&D but I do not mind occasionally discussing those topics. At least as long as the discussions are not too technical.
I think I can name one current NBA player (the Lebron James fellow). But people talking about the NBA does not make me uncomfortable. My best friend loves the NBA. It does not even bother me if he wants to play the game on TV while we talk. sometimes he requests this if it is an “important” game. Perhaps something to do with the playoffs. I do not see why other people liking things is a problem. But other people seem to find this offputting. Even many people in the LW-sphere found the name “Palantir” to be problematic. Apparently a large comapny being named after the Lord of the Rings is excluding people somehow.
I am however basically uncomfortable with some groups, but only for practical reasons. For example someone being “feminist” is rather correlated with them insulting me. In a large number of communities the people who are the least kind to me often turn out to be feminists. If a group contains too high a percentage of feminists it is almost suicide for me to join. At some point I will say something they find offensive and will get openly mocked and insulted. It is very painful for people who were/are your “Friends” to treat you like a joke. Perhaps by repeatedly making “parody” threads of what you said or just repeatedly wondering if “maybe” you should be banned or (in person) excluded.
However I have never proposed a group kick out all the feminists.
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Nita said:
Well, being a LW-rationalist does seem to correlate with insulting feminists, and being a neoreactionary seems to correlate with insulting both feminists and women, so…
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stargirlprincess said:
There is a pretty big difference. Many LW-rationalists are critical and perhaps insulting of feminism as a movement. But I do not see many LW-rationalists being openely demeaning and aggressive toward the feminists on Lesswrong. Ozy and Alicorn seem to be liked not hated. No one posts “parody” threads trying to make Ozy/Alicorn look like idiots.
LW seems rather tolerant of criticism. For example Su3Su2Su1 and Nostalgiabrist are very critical of LW and do make fun of it. But they aren’t normally mocking and belittling LW members (besides Yudkowsky). Again I constantly see feminists treying to get people they disagree with banned from groups (happened to me for example). I have never seen the LW forums suggest banning feminists.
Neo-reactionaries are different. Neo-reaction actually do try to get rid of people they disagree with. At least within “neo-reactionary spaces.” Since Neo-reactionary seem very concerned with “entryism.” So I do not care if people try to get rid of neo-reactionaries, its treating neo-reactionaries the way they treat others. However I find it quiote a stretch to say that LW-rationalists insult feminists in the same way feminists insult neo-reactionaries.
I will note I am certainly not criticizing all feminists. Lots of feminists do not attack LW-people. Also feminists as a group have alot of great beliefs and have done alot of good. But they, as a group, do not like LW-types and they certainly are not civil to us in general.
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stargirlprincess said:
Edit:
Thinking more I do remember Su3Su2Su1 saying he got alot of hateful messages. So possibly only some of the rationalist community (the part I like) is ok with criticism (and Su3su2su1) in particular. Notably SA who is something of a leader in the rationalist community is friends with Nostalgiabrist and su3su2su1.
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slatestarcodex said:
The way I handle all of this is that I don’t care what you think on your own time, but if you’re part of something useful, you shut up about your most divisive unrelated opinions and concentrate on the useful stuff.
I am happy to be in an organization with both feminists and neoreactionaries as long as there are norms in place to prevent the former from turning every discussion into a shouting match about disgusting creeps, and the latter from turning every discussion into a shouting match about how we need a king. Both of them should participate in the meeting, interact with everyone else in normal human ways, and then go home and blog about their controversial opinions.
This becomes more difficult if there’s some reason why the thing needs to be brought up – for example, if there’s a person who’s sexually harassing someone in the group, then the issue needs to be brought up, and could be mistaken for feminism. I have no problem with this as long as everyone involved handles it responsibly and while trying to minimize political point-scoring.
I realize this is really hard to define in practice, and that obviously our controversial opinions are going to inform everything we do (a feminist EA might think solving domestic violence is a very effective charity, a neoreactionary EA might think that we should limit our donations to countries with effective institutions that can make use of them), but again I’m pretty happy as long as people can demonstrate a good faith effort to minimize drama rather than maximize it.
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Nita said:
@ stargirlprincess
Well, politics is off-limits on LW, and lazy mockery is (mostly) frowned upon, so any political parody threads are unlikely.
Now I’m curious which of your views have had such negative reactions from feminists. You seem like a fairly benign libertarian to me?
Ah, good. Scott is here. So I can say this without worrying that I’m talking behind his back.
Here’s what I saw recently [paraphrased for brevity]:
Beh Kuhn: I would like our community to be more diverse. How can we become more welcoming?
Anonymous commenter: Well, to me personally, not linking to Scott’s “Untitled” in the epigraph of this post would have been more welcoming.
Ben Kuhn: No problem. It’s unrelated anyway.
Other commenters: OMG, how dare she say that! Scott is a saint!
Chris Hallquist: Look, she just honestly responded to Ben’s question. I think yelling at her like that was a little unfair 😦 Also, Scott may be a paragon of charity on most subjects, but feminism happens to be an exception.
Scott Alexander: Dear followers, Chris Hallquist is trying to ruin my reputation!!!
That’s not exactly what I would call handling criticism well. Luckily, the kind of people who like to read blog posts the size of a small book are unlikely to hunt down their beloved writer’s detractors in real life.
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osberend said:
@Nita: Speaking as someone who is not Scott, but is broadly on his side here (and who may have missed something; feel free to provide links to relevant comments in other places), here’s how I would paraphrase:
Ben Kuhn: I would like our community to be more diverse. How can we become more welcoming?
Anonymous: Scott’s writings about feminism are vitriolic; seeing them endorsed by people in EA makes me question whether I can stay in the movement.
Ben Kuhn: No problem. It’s unrelated anyway.
Other commenters: “In order to be more diverse, we need to not endorse viewpoints that I disagree with, or people who hold them!?” Seriously? Also, vitriolic? Compared to how feminists address their enemies, he’s a saint! [I see no “How dare she?” just a lot of “What the fuck?”]
Chris Hallquist: People have been seriously discussing whether to ban all anti-feminists from EA. I disagree, since we shouldn’t exclude, for example, sex workers upset with SWEFs [which Scott Alexander is not], even though they’re still overreacting. People criticizing Anonymous were unreasonable. Scott is vitriolic about feminism. “For a lot of people, it speaks a lot about him” that he is more charitable to neo-reactionaries than feminism. But we don’t need to ban Scott, it’s sufficient for everyone else to be “careful” not to endorse what he says. Also, people defending Scott are just being knee-jerk defensive. There are anti-feminists I can sympathize with [but Scott is not one of them]. People need to stop claiming that the anti-Scott folks are doing anything wrong here.
Scott Alexander: Aaaaaaaaa! Aaaaaaaaa! Aaaaaaaa! People who know better are slandering me, why are they doing that!? . . . But fine, here’s the reality, including the bits that I am appalled that I even have to say.
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slatestarcodex said:
Nita: I assume that there are very few people who will get turned off from EA by me directly, in the sense that anyone who understands EA well enough to know what it is, and understands me well enough to figure out what I believe in things and what my association with EA is, isn’t going to be too concerned, and besides I don’t really write much anti-feminist stuff any more so no one will see it unless they stumble across my old archives. This isn’t really a threat to EA or anyone else.
But deliberately signal-boosting the message “HEY, THERE’S AN ANTI-FEMINIST GUY IN EA, MAYBE EA IS HOSTILE TO WOMEN, HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT OF THAT?!” is a big threat to EA. Everyone else seems to have understood this – Ben closed comments in the blog post where that was brought up, I posted my self-defense about it on an invisible page that didn’t appear to most of my blog readers – except Topher, who didn’t just signal-boosted it but took it out of context and misrepresented my views to make me look much worse than I actually was and like the issue was a really big deal to everybody. Not only do I expect people to be turned away from EA because of this, I expect them to be turned away in a way that is indirectly my fault, which makes me feel terrible and super-guilty.
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osberend said:
@Scott: I think you just might have an excessive propensity to feel terrible and super-guilty.
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Nita said:
@ osberend
That’s also a fair paraphrase. But I still don’t understand what’s so heinous about either the original comment or Chris’s post.
@ Scott
The comment was not about you, all of your posts ever, or the posts you are currently writing. They did not say, “Every time anyone mentions Scott, I feel unwelcome, because he’s an evil anti-feminist.” They said, “Every time people praise extremely angry posts about people like me (such as ‘Untitled’), I feel unwelcome.”
And yes, I have seen people link ‘Untitled’ with comments along the lines of, “This is the best piece anyone has ever written about feminism! So true! And Scott is really charitable, by the way.”
You did say you would regret writing it.
I think Chris’s post is actually positive for the image of EA because it counteracts the impression that almost everyone in the movement hates feminists, which someone might have got from the outrage at the anonymous commenter.
When people see a lot of approval of anti-feminist rants, but none of pro-feminist rants, they might start to worry that even the nicest-seeming people in the group secretly believe that feminists are evil. And since, to them, a feminist is someone who wants gender equality, they might draw rather terrible conclusions.
All three posts — Ben’s, Chris’s and yours — counteract that effect, which is great! But some of the comments were pretty shocking, especially the one where you accuse Chris of deliberately trying to harm both you and EA.
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Ampersand said:
I haven’t been at all turned off from EA by Scott’s involvement, or by the “Untitled” post, and it might be the case that I am literally the person most critical of that post in the entire world.
What did turn me off from EA, temporarily, is seeing some (#notall) EA folks sneer at the idea of giving money to the arts. Most of the (little) money I give goes to charities EA approves of, but I also sometimes give to the arts, and it was alienating to see something I care about treated as ridiculous. It made me feel like EA people wouldn’t welcome someone who cares about art.
But that was a year or two ago. And honestly, I got over it.
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pocketjacks said:
There’s a reason why politics isn’t acceptable dinner table talk. With the exception of those places that are specifically meant for political discussion, there should be hefty social norms against political discussion.
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pocketjacks said:
Err… this comment is misthreaded and is replying to the wrong post.
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osberend said:
Fuck that noise. Politics everywhere and always! Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead!
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osberend said:
I should note, lest I be accused of hypocrisy, that “politics everywhere” != “everything is political.”
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Matthew said:
There’s a reason why politics isn’t acceptable dinner table talk.
Really? We grew up in very different environments, apparently.
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osberend said:
@Matthew: I know, right?
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Maxim Kovalev said:
Let’s for brevity and abstraction say that we have a group Y, and a group Yists (mostly a subset of Y, but also has some members from outside of Y), who believe that group Y is oppressed, and they are acting against this oppression in Y’s best interests. Non-Yist members of Y may either be oblivious about Yism, believe that the status quo is the best, believe that the perfect society is neither what status quo is nor what Yists say, believe that Yists are acting counterproductively while sharing their core values, or be non-Yist for any other reason.
Under these conditions, wouldn’t it make sense for Yists to want everyone to be primarily inclusive of Yists rather than Ys in general? First, there is a very strong selection pressure for any movement to be at least a little bit selfish, and it may be even the best thing to do to give in to this pressure. If no one except for Yists is serving Y’s best interests, then survival becomes an instrumental goal in the fight for Y’s interests. Second, and most important, Yists believe that they’re morally and epistemically right, and non-Yists are wrong. The very existence of non-Yists is the main source of Y’s problems. And non-Yist members of Y create just as much problems – even if they create these problems for themselves – as non-Y non-Yists. Why then would they want communities to be inclusive of non-Yists? The correct action would be making communities more inclusive of Yists, and making sure that most Y members share Yist beliefs, instead of including everyone alike.
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Ampersand said:
What are EA groups for?
I’m not trying to be obnoxious, I’m just curious. I don’t self-identify as EA, but I think I could. if I took the 1% pledge it wouldn’t require me to change anything; I gave way over that amount to the charities listed on http://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/ last year, and plan to keep on giving.
I’m really glad websites like http://www.thelifeyoucansave.org and givewell exist; they are really useful tools. But since the EA folks already share the important info on the web (and thank you for that, EA folks!), I don’t understand what the utility is of attending a meeting.
I mean, is it just a social thing, where like-minded people can have fun hanging out together? In which case, that’s fine and awesome, and I approve without planning to attend. 🙂 Or is there more to it?
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ozymandias said:
A lot of EA meetups are at college campuses, and the primary goal is to get a bunch of people early in their careers and with high expected earnings on board with EA. But I do think a fair amount of it is the social aspect– people who really like nerding out about effective charity. 🙂
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theunitofcaring said:
Meetings include discussion over which charity to donate to, particularly in areas like factory farming or effectiveness research where which charity to donate to is a harder problem than in global poverty. I’ve found those discussions tremendously helpful in helping me decide where to donate, and donated thousands of dollars on the basis of conclusions drawn from these discussions. Eventually the conclusions of these discussions will end up online, but I think it’s valuable to be part of them as they happen.
Meetings also include support, networking, advice and suggestions for people who are uncertain where they can do the most good (which is especially relevant to college students).
At meetings we also plan outreach events, invite speakers, host collaborations with other student groups, and get more people on board with EA. Many of the people in our group who are now EAs started out by coming to the meetings.
I suspect, though the numbers aren’t yet in, that meetings also dramatically increase the amount that people will actually donate. I really endorse using social pressure to help people do things they already believe in doing!
But as Ozy said, there’s also lots of community bonding! For example recently we had a discussion to the effect that, if we value beings exponentially in the number of neurons they have, sperm whales are basically the only important thing in the world. I think it is good for there to be places where these conversations happen, because they make me happy, but I’d be happy to make such a place Not At EA Meetups if it turned out they’re hurting us.
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Ampersand said:
Thanks for the responses, Ozy and tUoC! That all makes perfect sense, and sounds like a really nice time, too. Curiosity satisfied.
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