If the blank slate doctrine isn't _scientifically_ compelling—it's not something you would invent while trying to build shared maps that reflect the territory—then its appeal must have something to do with some function it plays in _conflicts_ over the shared map, where no one trusts each other to be doing Actual Social Science rather than lying to fuck everyone else over.
-And that's where the blank slate doctrine absolutely _shines_—it's the [Schelling point](/2019/Oct/self-identity-is-a-schelling-point/#schelling-point) for preventing group conflicts! (A [_Schelling point_](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points) is a choice that's salient as [a focus for mutual expectations](/2019/Dec/more-schelling/): what I think that you think that I think ... _&c._ we'll choose.) If you admit that there could differences between groups, you open up the questions of in what exact traits and of what exact magnitudes, which people have an incentive to lie about to divert resources and power to their group by [establishing unfair conventions and then misrepresenting those contingent bargaining equilibria](/2020/Jan/book-review-the-origins-of-unfairness/) as some "inevitable" natural order.
+<a id="schelling-point-for-preventing-group-conflicts"></a>And that's where the blank slate doctrine absolutely _shines_—it's the [Schelling point](/2019/Oct/self-identity-is-a-schelling-point/#schelling-point) for preventing group conflicts! (A [_Schelling point_](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points) is a choice that's salient as [a focus for mutual expectations](/2019/Dec/more-schelling/): what I think that you think that I think ... _&c._ we'll choose.) If you admit that there could differences between groups, you open up the questions of in what exact traits and of what exact magnitudes, which people have an incentive to lie about to divert resources and power to their group by [establishing unfair conventions and then misrepresenting those contingent bargaining equilibria](/2020/Jan/book-review-the-origins-of-unfairness/) as some "inevitable" natural order.
If you're afraid of purported answers being used as a pretext for oppression, you might hope to _make the question un-askable_. Can't oppress people on the basis of race if race _doesn't exist!_ Denying the existence of sex is harder—which doesn't stop people from occasionally trying. "I realize I am writing in an LGBT era when some argue that 63 distinct genders have been identified," Murray notes at the beginning of Appendix 2. But this oblique acerbity fails to pass the [Ideological Turing Test](https://www.econlib.org/archives/2011/06/the_ideological.html). The language of _has been identified_ suggests an attempt at scientific taxonomy—a project, which I share with Murray, of fitting categories to describe a preexisting objective reality. But I don't think the people making 63-item typeahead select "Gender" fields for websites are thinking in such terms to begin with. The specific number 63 [is ridiculous and can't exist](/2019/Dec/on-the-argumentative-form-super-proton-things-tend-to-come-in-varieties/); it might as well be, and often is, a fill-in-the-blank free text field. Despite being insanely evil (where I mean the adjective literally rather than as a generic intensifier—evil in a way that is of or related to insanity), I must acknowledge this is at least good game theory. If you don't trust taxonomists to be acting in good faith—if you think we're trying to bulldoze the territory to fit a preconceived map—then [destroying the language](/2019/Aug/the-social-construction-of-reality-and-the-sheer-goddamned-pointlessness-of-reason/#re-collapse-the-sex-gender-distinction) that would be used to be build oppressive maps is a smart move.
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / commitdiff