If being an oblivious science nerd isn't an option, half-measures won't suffice. I think we can do better by going meta and analyzing the _functions_ being served by the constraints on our discourse and seeking out clever self-aware strategies for satisfying those functions _without_ [lying about everything](/2017/Jan/im-sick-of-being-lied-to/). We mustn't fear opening the dread meta-door in front of whether there actually _are_ dread doors that we must fear opening.
-Why _is_ the blank slate doctrine so compelling, that so many feel the need to protect it at all costs? It's not—if you've read this far, I assume you _will_ forgive me—it's not _scientifically_ compelling. If you were studying humans the way an alien superintelligence would, trying to _get the right answer for the right reasons_, you wouldn't put a whole lot of prior probability on the hypothesis "Both sexes and all ancestry-groupings of humans have the same distribution of psychological predispositions; any observed differences in behavior are solely attributable to differences in their environments." _Why_ would that be true? We _know_ that sexual dimorphism exists. We _know_ that reproductively isolated populations evolve different traits to adapt to their environments. We could certainly imagine that none of the relevant selection pressures happened to touch the brain—but why? Wouldn't that be kind of a weird coincidence?
+Why _is_ the blank slate doctrine so compelling, that so many feel the need to protect it at all costs? It's not ... if you've read this far, I assume you _will_ forgive me—it's not _scientifically_ compelling. If you were studying humans the way an alien superintelligence would, trying to _get the right answer for the right reasons_, you wouldn't put a whole lot of prior probability on the hypothesis "Both sexes and all ancestry-groupings of humans have the same distribution of psychological predispositions; any observed differences in behavior are solely attributable to differences in their environments." _Why_ would that be true? We _know_ that sexual dimorphism exists. We _know_ that reproductively isolated populations evolve different traits to adapt to their environments, like [those birds with differently-shaped beaks that Darwin saw on his boat trip](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin%27s_finches). We could certainly imagine that none of the relevant selection pressures on humans happened to touch the brain—but why? Wouldn't that be kind of a weird coincidence?
+
+[TODO: maybe address Gould's argument for contingency?]
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/) for preventing group conflicts! If you admit that there are differences between groups,
+And that's where the blank slate doctrine absolutely _shines_—it's the [Schelling point](/2019/Oct/self-identity-is-a-schelling-point/) for preventing group conflicts! If you admit that there could differences between groups, you open up the questions of in what exact traits and of what exact magnitude, which people have an incentive to lie about to divert resources and power to their group by establishing [unfair conventions](/2020/Jan/book-review-the-origins-of-unfairness/) and misrepresenting those contingent bargaining equilibria as the inevitable natural order.
-You 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—
+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—
my Culture War struggle is actually structurally similar to AI alignment: the economy/social-justice provides vast riches in the process of eating your soul. (I can have my hair long, I can get HRT and surgeries—but at the cost of not being able to explain why.)
+sneaking a copy of MTIMB into the MIRI library after visiting Eliezer (Jessica was outside), because it was what Harry would do (but notably, not Hermione)
disanalogy of cis/trans to gay/straight: https://twitter.com/radicalhag/status/1235623170339672065
-https://twitter.com/0xCAFEBEEF/status/1235595792481570816
+"this is the existence the people that want me to be trans want for me" https://twitter.com/0xCAFEBEEF/status/1235595792481570816
NRx koans: https://archive.is/rFDZA
This is actually a pretty clear example of no-win prejudice: https://www.reddit.com/r/GenderCritical/comments/fe9rp8/asking_if_its_okay_to_join_a_sub_when_you_are_not/ (if asked, assumed to be seeking validation—but what if they were actually trying to respect the boundary?)
+http://web.archive.org/web/20120717073425/http://www.james-g.com/
+
+You know, when a random Twitter person does it, it doesn't bother me much: https://twitter.com/ericlinuskaplan/status/1236740431427203073 It's specifically when it's impinging on rationalist-land that I'm at war.
+
+The motte-and-bailey: https://twitter.com/SwipeWright/status/1236894909547724800
+
+alleged gender dysphoria from cis ppl taking hormones? read later (I doubt) https://twitter.com/BringerOfRot/status/1237018352360579072
+
+https://twitter.com/epsalon/status/1237833281631993856 YOU KNOW GODDAMNED WELL WHAT THEY MEANT
+
+Vancouver Rape Relief https://twitter.com/piscesgurl69/status/1236884846858752000
+
+> Intelligence is competence at winning games and leftism-as-intelligence is a set of strategies for winning games where the victory condition is majority consensus
+https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1064256082506203137
+
+> It's like a newborn duck with wheels
+https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/ffprqc/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_march_09_2020/fk83n3k/
+
+it turns out to be surprisingly useful to model the world as being made out of three things: people (who can be friends, enemies, or strangers), evolved social-control mechanisms (which use people as components as well as trains, pieces of paper, credit cards, web forms, &c.), and rocks. Instead of taking the things that people say about the evolved social-control mechanisms literally with respect to what _you_ think the words mean, you should constantly be making predictions (preferably predictions that you can get feedback about on the timescale of seconds or minutes) about what will happen if you interact with the social-control mechanisms in a particular way, and then noticing if the predictions come true or not. It turns out that non-nerds—you know, those people we disdain for being stupid or sexist or voting for Donald Trump or whatever your favorite excuse is—already knew this; they just didn't tell you because they were—correctly—modeling you as a component in the evolved social-control mechanisms rather than as a person.
_ Contra Scott Alexander on Mental Illness; Or, Oh God, Please Don't (aAL/LW)
+Angelic Irony
+
+Memetics vs. Discourse
+
Honesty Is Activism
The Motte-and-Bailey Doctrine as Compression Artifact
Elision _vs_. Choice
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / commitdiff