ineffective Sunday tap at "Challenges"

I just was not effective today!

diff --git a/content/drafts/challenges-to-yudkowskys-pronoun-reform-proposal.md b/content/drafts/challenges-to-yudkowskys-pronoun-reform-proposal.md
index bda0d11..8a0bc85 100644 (file)
--- a/content/drafts/challenges-to-yudkowskys-pronoun-reform-proposal.md
+++ b/content/drafts/challenges-to-yudkowskys-pronoun-reform-proposal.md
@@ -79,11 +79,9 @@ But given that pronouns _do_ convey sex-category information, as a _fact_ about
 
 In an article titled ["Pronouns are Rohypnol"](https://fairplayforwomen.com/pronouns/), Barra Kerr compares preferred pronouns to the famous [Stroop effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroop_effect). When color words are printed in text of a different color (_e.g._, <span style="color:blue;">red</span>, <span style="color:green">orange</span>, <span style="color:red">yellow</span>, <span style="color:purple">green</span>, <span style="color:orange">blue</span>, _&c._) and people are asked to name the color of the text, they're slow to respond: the meaning of the word interferes with their ability to name the color in front of our eyes.
 
-Kerr suggests that preferred pronouns have a similar effect, that "a conflict between what we see [...] and what we are expected to say, affects us." As an exercise, she suggests (privately!) translating sentences about transgender people to use natal-sex-based pronouns, and honestly asking oneself: "Do you feel differently, on reading it this way? Do you react differently?"
+Kerr suggests that preferred pronouns have a similar effect, that "a conflict between what we see [...] and what we are expected to say, affects us." As an exercise, she suggests (privately!) translating sentences about transgender people to use natal-sex-based pronouns.
 
-[TODO: I have a marketing problem here; the fact that Kerr chose a sexual violence example is actually kind of important here; if the sentence was about borrowing vacuum cleaners, then people in Berkeley _will_ play dumb]
-
-Unfortunately, I don't have a study with objective measurements on hand (let me know in the comments if you do!) but I think native English speakers who try this exercise and introspect will agree with Barr's assessment: "You can know perfectly the actual sex of a male person, and yet you will still react differently if someone calls them _she_ instead of _he_."
+Unfortunately, I don't have a study with objective measurements on hand (let me know in the comments if you do!), but I think most native English speakers who try this exercise and introspect—especially using examples where the trans person exhibits features or behavior typical of their natal sex—will agree with Barr's assessment: "You can know perfectly the actual sex of a male person, and yet you will still react differently if someone calls them _she_ instead of _he_."
 
 [TODO: Contrary to Yudkowskys' claims about lies, Kerr _isn't_ claiming that pronouns can be "lies"; the article is _very_ explicit about this; Yudkowsky is obviously completely unfamiliar with his opponents' arguments]
 
@@ -133,7 +131,7 @@ Okay, so Yudkowsky
  * "It can't be based on feelings"—hypocrisy, the only reason we're talking about this at all is because of genderspecial people's feelings, as explicitly acknowledged in the OP!!!
  * "Can't imagine a sympathetic protagonist"—lies, imagine a rape victim
  * "If there were unspeakable arguments against, we couldn't talk about them"—okay, then you and your rationalists are frauds
- * I know none of this matters, but one would have thought that the _general_ skills of correct argument would matter for saving the world ... right? / brief recap of my Whole Dumb Story, need the correct answer in order to decide
+ * I know none of this matters (If any professional alignment researchers wasting time reading this instead of figuring out how to save the world, get back to work!!), but one would have thought that the _general_ skills of correct argument would matter for saving the world.
 
 somewhere—
  * Douglas Hofstader also made fun of gendered pronouns with his "Person Paper"—but notice that he didn't even consider the self-chosen criterion!!
@@ -176,6 +174,7 @@ Fit in somewhere—
 • typographic attacks https://openai.com/blog/multimodal-neurons/  
 • singular     
 
+
 https://www.ehu.eus/seg/_media/gizt/5/5/brown-gilman-pronouns.pdf
 
 > In terms of important things?  Those would be all the things I've read - from friends, from strangers on the Internet, above all from human beings who are people - describing reasons someone does not like to be tossed into a Male Bucket or Female Bucket, as it would be assigned by their birth certificate, or perhaps at all.