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Confused about what an Intellectual Turing Test is? Click here! Please read, then vote at the end of the post. Feel free to speculate in the comment section about this person’s identity!
What discourse norms do you tend to follow? Why? Do you think everyone else should follow them, and why?
My discourse norms: (1) Do your best to tell the truth (or if telling the truth won’t do any good, it is nearly always acceptable to say nothing) ; (2) don’t offend people unnecessarily, and be civil wherever possible; (3) try not to take offense, and take a break when you’re mad; and (4) try to challenge your own preconceptions wherever you can. I’m also a huge fan of Wikipedia’s “Assume Good Faith” norm, in which the exercise of at least appearing to treat your correspondents as if they are acting in good faith leads to a lot more positive resolutions than trying to figure out who are bad people and can therefore be excluded.
There are definitely SJ folks who follow these norms, so I identify as ASJ in this regard only because there are some strains of SJ discourse, such as call-outs, specific rules for discourse based on race, gender etc., shouting down viewpoints perceived as offensive, anti-”tone policing,” that I think are contrary to my preferred norms. I tend to oppose norms that limit discussion apart from encouraging civility/preventing shout-downs, or that argue that civility is itself a tool of oppression.
Should everyone conform to my preferred discourse norms? I’m inclined to say yes. I think they are utilitarian, in that I believe it’s more likely to lead to each of us reaching beliefs that more closely approach true facts, which in turn leads to overall utility.
I’ll grant the possibility that there are individuals who are upset by hearing people disagree with them, and where we can help by listening or increasing inclusiveness, I’m all for expanding the conversation. On the other hand, I think reducing discourse to the point where people can avoid confronting contrary opinions, or where because it’s upsetting is net harmful.
What is the true reason, deep down, that you believe what you believe? What piece of evidence, test, or line of reasoning would convince you that you’re wrong about your ideology?
What a good question! I think I have some basic theses about human nature that arise from some combination of my observations and some a priori reasoning. There are historical examples and science that support many of my views, but I suspect that there’s enough history and science on both sides that I could probably support moderate SJ views nearly as easily if I started with SJ priors.
The best way to convince me I’m wrong is for me to get a prediction badly wrong enough that I have to update. Particularly for slippery slope arguments – “will gay marriage accelerate the coarsening of society/will open carry legalization increase or decrease crime”, more observation helps. I’m sceptical of individual studies both for and against my position, but if I see experts reach a conclusion through dialogue, that tends to sway me over time. That’s a lot more true in physical science than social science, though.
As to individual policy reforms that might appeal to both SJ and ASJ people, I think I’m pretty open to solutions if I’m convinced they are strongly likely to lead to positive results, although I’d rather move slowly and experiment in many cases. I like the idea of police body cameras, and I’m more sensitive to trans issues because I know more about what might offend people. I also find the anecdotes about gay and trans kids who grew up in oppressive homes pretty convincing that gay and trans kids shouldn’t be shamed or forced to live a life they can’t. Those are all pretty universal solutions though – knowing more about what happened in police encounters helps white people, POC, and unjustly accused police, and not being forced to express a sexuality or gender that’s untenable helps everyone too.
I think it’s a harder road to convince me of non-universal values – that we can productively make judgments about people based on their race, gender, disability status, etc., and then have different rules for who can have insights into problems, or who gets to use an angry tone in discussions, whether to believe any particular individual about police misconduct based on the victim’s race, etc.
On an individual level, if consistent studies showed that disadvantaged groups perform better objectively (higher IQ, better informed about verifiable facts, more productive job performance, lower behavioral health expenses, etc.) when educated or employed in a SJ environment, that would force me to look closely at all my beliefs around SJ, especially if Scott Alexander and similar science-oriented sceptics told me they found the studies convincing.
On a community level, I’d look for evidence that free speech and discussion aren’t as valuable as I think they are, and that the more extreme SJ values aren’t as destructive as I think they often are and/or that the moderate SJ values can dominate without creating space for the extreme values. It’s a tough evidentiary problem, though – if you show me San Francisco or Oberlin and say “Look! Here’s an SJ-oriented community that’s thriving”, then I’ll pick out examples of left-on-left or left-on-right injustices and tell myself that it’s not thriving in the way I want, even though I know I’m probably cherry picking. Maybe there is some way to show that SJ leads to better communities, but I’m currently pretty skeptical.
Explain Gamergate.
It’s an internet flame war. Two communities got super defensive and yelled at each other for two years. Neither side took much time to listen to the other, and both just yelled increasingly loudly that the other side wasn’t listening, encouraged by trolls on both sides. Eventually, everyone got tired of yelling and went home. Numerous people on both sides got mean emails, doxxed, or just generally made miserable.
When our story begins, there were a few people who cared a lot about the future of game, specifically whether games and gamers were sexist and had to change or whether SJWs were trying to remake gaming’s existing norms for the worse. There were some “gaming journalists” who thought something or other, and some 4-chan kids who thought everyone was taking themselves too seriously and should be teased. Probably everybody had a point.
Then Zoe Quinn’s ex-boyfriend wrote a long piece about all the ways she allegedly wronged him, which included an accusation that she had slept with somebody at Kotaku. In addition to the standard Gawker-style “Hey, look – someone got embarrassed by sex” interest, there was a chain reaction of people offending other people by expressing their opinion on the Internet. Everybody claimed to be doxxed, everybody claimed to be harassed, and everybody claimed that the other side was exaggerating or faking. A lot of people seemed to take sides based on their existing feelings pro or con about modern feminism or the gamer community, and any serious discussion of either sexism in gaming or ethics in gaming journalism seemed impossible with all the finger pointing.
If anything, the whole mess showed the futility of using internet mob justice as a weapon against the relatively powerless. It might work against someone if they have a job and you can threaten to get them fired, but a gang of largely anonymous and potentially questionably employed gamers, SJWs, and pranksters responded to call outs and sarcastic Facebook postings by just feeling angrier and more victimized, so nobody ever lost on either side, and the fight went on and on. Worse, sooner or later, both sides end up using all the weapons the other side is using, so you have the internet version of total war. It was like being in a videogame version of the Battle of the Somme – vicious, unrelenting, and unproductive, and because it was rare that anyone hurt much more than each others’ feelings, it didn’t end until people got bored.
Lawrence D'Anna said:
This one is a breath of fresh air. I’m pretty sure it’s real too.
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Doyle said:
Lol “video game version of the battle of the Somme”
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silver and ivory said:
Looks like we’ve got a broad-ish consensus about this one in the poll. 🙂
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silver and ivory said:
I like whoever wrote this and think they sound quite reasonable.
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dantobias (@dantobias) said:
A kinda-geeky, pro-civility, pro-rationality, position, opposed to some of the excesses of SJ and also thinking both sides of GamerGate had both decent points and obnoxious trolling nature; this is somebody who could have come down on either side of the SJ/anti-SJ issue depending on how the things are defined. I’ll go with “sincere” and vote anti-SJ.
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jdbreck said:
I voted Pro on this one. This person sounds like a rationalist or rationalist adjacent person who’s kind of moderately SJ and maybe middle-aged and finds the extremists in SJ and the kids these days to be a bit much and perhaps thinks they could tone it down a bit. Honestly I see this as an essay that would need very few tweaks to have been included in the ITT on the other side.
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San said:
I believe this is sincere, but I’m not sure I’d really describe this person as anti-SJ.
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jossedley said:
This is another one where if it’s fake, the author put in enough work to deserve a true vote. 🙂
I’ve tallied the results so far here:
http://bit.ly/2fCzJpq
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ozymandias said:
Thank you so much!
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Walter said:
Thanks Joss!
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tcheasdfjkl said:
Lol you were giving assessments of your own entry! Too sneaky 😛
Anyway, I voted this one fake solely because it reminded me so much of my own fake anti-SJ entry (especially answer 1, and to a slightly lesser extent 3).
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jossedley said:
Ha. I wanted to talk about other people’s posts, but didn’t want dropping out of my own to be a tell, so I came up with some true but misleading comments on both.
I voted your ASJ as real and your SJ as fake, and I think I might actually have assumed you yourself were ASJ-leaning until the discussions, so my meter obviously needs some calibration.
Your fake was good – you had a lot of SJ tells, but you plausibly looked like a Will Shetterly style SJ convert. (Well, not as frustrated as WS, but in that vein).
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tcheasdfjkl said:
Heh, I solved that by being silent on some posts besides my own, when I didn’t have that much to contribute.
I’m actually quite curious about why. My impression is that in the context of this blog I predictably find myself in disagreements that map pretty well to SJ vs. anti-SJ where I’m on the SJ side. (In more SJ-y contexts I am sometimes the contrarian voice when I feel comfortable doing that.)
Thanks! I don’t actually know who that is, but ok 🙂
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Walter said:
Bonus points for mentioning unjustly accused people, that’s a thing we think about a lot.
This comes across as a very technocratic kind of ASJ. Sort of “Unfortunately, SJ can be destroyed by the truth, so it should be”, kind of vibe.
Ultimately I buy it. I don’t think this would be super hard to fake, very middle of the road, but this sounds just like the people on my side in most internet fights.
Walter’s ASJ picks
#1: ASJ, unsure
#2: ASJ, certain
#3: ASJ, certain
#4: ASJ, unsure
#5: ASJ, certain
#6: SJ, certain
#7: ASJ, certain
#8: ASJ, certain
#9: SJ, certain
#10: SJ, unsure
#11: ASJ, unsure
#12: ASJ, certain
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Fisher said:
I’m voting fake because of answer #3.
According to Le Monde, not only is Gamergate still going on, they just got Trump elected!
They are very sophisticated in France, therefore this must be true.
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Anonymous said:
> I’m also a huge fan of Wikipedia’s “Assume Good Faith” norm
I have not laughed so hard in a long time.
(Why? I’ve been to Wikipedia.)
Also, based on that line alone, I’m almost certain this is fake. The standard GamerGate narrative is that Wikipedia is infested with so-called SJWs; I very much doubt that a critic of social justice would sincerely consider it a moral authority. (Which it shouldn’t be even regardless of SJ issues.)
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argleblarglebarglebah said:
Voted genuine anti, but I’m very unsure. I don’t think there are any real tells in this, but that doesn’t really tell me anything.
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jossedley said:
” I don’t think there are any real tells in this, but that doesn’t really tell me anything.”
That’s probably why they call them that. 😉
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Pingback: SJ and Anti-SJ ITT: The Results! | Thing of Things
jossedley said:
Some quick author’s thoughts. I apologize for being rushed for time, but am going to just bang this out and hope for the best.
1) Thanks to everyone who said nice things.
2) “Assume Good Faith” is IMHO the most brilliant thing to come out of Wikipedia, and I don’t know if it’s genius or just Darwinian chance. I could write pages about it, but you really have to take a look at Wikipedia and hope for the best.
3) My process was just to think about how I felt, and you can see particularly in #2 that I kept thinking of different things that might cause me to change my mind, then trying to rewrite the essay to integrate them. Ozy also let me offer a rewrite about halfway through the SJ entries – the original had more typos and was more pessimistic. I tried not to be infleuenced by the original discussion, but probably was.
4) There’s an interesting question that kept coming up – why do the rationalist-adjacent ASJs see themselves as ASJ, and the SJs see us as sincere but not really that far from SJ?
I think it might be urgency. I see people being mobbed for political contributions (Brendan Eich), or for a perception that they’re creeps (nice shirt gate) or for starting a discussion on whether it’s subversive play and therefore OK to wear a sexy sombrero outfit (Christakis) and it seems to me that it’s dangerously illiberal to advance social goals by mobbing people. I think it’s hard to control, there’s no real process to decide when we want a particular goal, there’s no process to detect reform innovations that are causing more harm than good, and that it’s likely to go out of control. It also leads to a world of conflict – if the only way we figure out whether French university students or French truck drivers should have a larger share of GDP is who can strike most effectively, then we’re in a world of strikes.
. . . but it works! I live and work in corporate America, and we freeze, then walk very thoughtfully, when trans issues come up, because we don’t know when even listening to a joke will come back to bite us five years from now. It’s easy for me to say that things are better than they’re ever been, and that even though I’ll gladly advocate and vote for both, if it takes an extra ten years to get gay marriage or transgender bathroom access, it’s probably worth it. So I don’t have a lot of confidence. I stand with what I said in essay 1 – I think a free discourse where even Steve Bannon gets heard is a better process than deciding factual issues by identifying and excluding bad people, but man, that identifying and excluding works pretty well when your side has the upper hand.
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Aapje said:
I agree that the priorities of SJ and anti-SJ often appear to differ. For example, I would prefer that even people with fairly extreme opinions get freedom of speech without strong negative repercussions like losing their job. Only when people actually harm others in clear ways (like discriminating against them or actual harassment) should there be repercussions. I believe that people ought to have a fairly high level of resilience when encountering unpleasant opinions.
Only when people feel free to state their opinions, can we debate them and convince them most effectively.
Many SJs seem far more willing to repress certain speech and seem to believe less in the power of debate and more in the power of social norms (which I see as a little bit ironic, to replace old strict norms with new strict norms). Now, I do get that when people feel validated in their (nasty) opinions, they may be more likely to act on those opinions. However, when there are social norms that people don’t want to openly flout because of the repercussions, but they don’t actually believe in, people tend to misbehave as soon as they won’t face the repercussions. So I think that SJ social norms with severe enforcement only can achieve limited results.
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Toggle said:
Agreed that it’s primarily an issue of tactics rather than goals per se. But at least part of that is *because* the tools of social justice are so effective. Activism forces engagement, and the issue du jour of social justice is the issue that I am going to end up spending a lot of time on. I won’t necessarily come to the same conclusions, on a case-by-case basis, sure. But the issues we spend time on are the issues we’re more likely to see in a complex way and be persuaded of, at least for the rationalist-adjacent introspective types that post here. That’s enough for most people to agree with social justice at the object level most of the time, even if there’s individual dissent on particular issues like fat or trans acceptance. On issues that social justice doesn’t promote and coordinate, such as the economic malaise in rural towns, you’d probably end up seeing a wider difference of opinion. The cultural weight of social justice isn’t just in the scare tactics- it’s in the ability to present some groups and not others for consideration, and even the ability to decide which things are ‘natural categories’.
That said, I *do* think that the use of fear is an effective strategy. As much as I would prefer to live in the universe where positive engagement also happens to be the most effective rhetorical device, that seems suspiciously like it’s the most morally convenient universe. Plus it’s hard to believe that social justice is using sub-par tools and also, by crazy coincidence, is unbelievably successful. The argument against threats that enforce ideological conformity isn’t that they don’t work, it’s that they work regardless of who’s using them or the truth value of your orthodoxy. Consider an ethical system that denounces the doxxing of feminists and celebrates the ‘getting racists fired’ tumblr. It’s a given that people who are fired for being racist (and their friends) will not be sympathetic to this set of laws, and are quite likely to retaliate in kind. Thus you end up with a self-defeating ethical system that increases the number of feminists being doxxed, in direct proportion to its popularity, even as it condemns feminist-doxxing in the abstract. So if your true goal really is to reduce the amount of doxxing that feminists receive, and care somewhat less about getting racists fired, then the equilibrium is to promote an ethic where doxxing is generally forbidden.
(With some wiggle room for powerless victims that lack the ability or organization to retaliate.)
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