Title: Link: "Where to Draw the Boundaries?"
Date: 2019-04-13 16:32
Category: other
-Tags: epistemology, linkposts
+Tags: epistemology, linkpost
It doesn't have anything to do with the topic focuses of this blog, but [this new post on _Less Wrong_ about the mathematical laws governing how to talk about dolphins](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/esRZaPXSHgWzyB2NL/where-to-draw-the-boundaries) is just _so good_ that I have to share it with my readers! I hope to read more from that author in the future!—it would be _really unfortunate_ if his writing productivity and mine turned out to be negatively correlated for some inexplicable reason.
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[...]
-(I'm avoiding naming anyone in this post even when linking to their public writings, in order to try to keep the _rhetorical emphasis_ on "true tale of personal heartbreak, coupled with sober analysis of the sociopolitical factors leading thereto" even while I'm ... ah, expressing disappointment with people's performance. This isn't supposed to be character/reputation attack on my friends and intellectual heroes—I just _need to tell the story_ about why I've been crazy all year—crazier than usual—so that I can _move on_.)
+(I'm avoiding naming anyone in this post even when linking to their public writings, in order to try to keep the _rhetorical emphasis_ on "true tale of personal heartbreak, coupled with sober analysis of the sociopolitical factors leading thereto" even while I'm ... ah, expressing disappointment with people's performance. This isn't supposed to be character/reputation attack on my friends and intellectual heroes—I just _need to tell the story_ about why I've been crazy all year—crazier than usual—so that I can stop grieving and _move on_ with my life.)
[...]
And these posts hammered home the point over and over and over and _over_ again—culminating in [the 37-part grand moral](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FaJaCgqBKphrDzDSj/37-ways-that-words-can-be-wrong)—that word and category definitions are _not_ arbitrary, because there are optimality criteria that make some definitions _perform better_ than others as "cognitive technology"—
-> ["It is a common misconception that you can define a word any way you like."](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3nxs2WYDGzJbzcLMp/words-as-hidden-inferences)
+> ["It is a common misconception that you can define a word any way you like. [...] If you believe that you can 'define a word any way you like', without realizing that your brain goes on categorizing without your conscious oversight, then you won't take the effort to choose your definitions wisely."](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3nxs2WYDGzJbzcLMp/words-as-hidden-inferences)
> ["So that's another reason you can't 'define a word any way you like': You can't directly program concepts into someone else's brain."](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HsznWM9A7NiuGsp28/extensions-and-intensions)
[...]
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we did not realize that _whether I should cut my dick off_ would become a politicized issue.
To be fair, it's not obvious that I _shouldn't_ cut my dick off! A lot of people seem to be doing it nowadays, and a lot of them seem to be pretty happy with their decision! But in order to _decide_ whether it's a good idea, I need _accurate information_. I need an _honest_ accounting of the costs and benefits of transition, so that I can cut my dick off in the possible worlds where that's a good idea, and not cut my dick off in the possible worlds where that's not a good idea.
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actively manufacture _fake rationality lessons_ that have been optimized to confuse me into cutting my dick off _independently_ of whether or not we live in a world
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Title: Promises I Can Keep
Date: 2020-01-01
Category: other
-Tags: interlude, romance
+Tags: romance
Status: draft
"I think if you show any indications of being an egg, you _need_ to marry someone who's OK with you eventually transitioning. Not because you necessarily _will_ want to transition, but because it's likely enough that you need to plan for it."
"I probably don't actually _disagree_. Keeping promises is very important. What a betrayal it would be—to take someone to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health—
/2017/Dec/lesser-known-demand-curves/
+/2017/Oct/select/
But in the spirit of [Policy Debates Should Not Appear One-Sided](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PeSzc9JTBxhaYRp9b/policy-debates-should-not-appear-one-sided), I would like to register a note of sadness that we're effectively thereby saying 'eggs don't deserve love.'"
In some sense, this is kind of unobjectionable—what kind of monster could possibly be against _utility_?!—but it's an _incredibly vague_ sense. The decision of what kind of money we should have should be made on purely utilitarian grounds, but the set of possible solutions to that problem, and how well each solution performs with respect to the global utilitarian calculus, is _very tightly constrained_ by many _facts_ of economics and sociology.[ref]For example, fiat money lets central banks exert greater control over the money supply, but can suffer disastrous [hyperinflation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation) under the wrong conditions.[/ref]
-So too with gender. "Utilitarian grounds" does _not_ mean, "I and some other people have an [unconstrained utopian vision](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=A_Conflict_of_Visions&oldid=915640693#The_unconstrained_vision), and we'll be _very_ dysphoric if you don't implement it, so the global utilitarian calculus says you should obey us." To be sure, your dysphoria is _a_ cost under the global utilitarian calculus—but it's just one of _many_ possible costs and benefits in a complex system. If someone _actually_ wants to do a careful economically and sociologically-informed analysis of how a "fully consensual gender" regime could actually be implemented in real life,[ref]Although speaking of "real life", I happily concede that the social-engineering problem of fully consensual gender is _much_ easier in online communities, where pesky expensive-to-change secondary sex characteristics are hidden behind the fog of net. In other words, [on the internet, nobody knows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you%27re_a_dog) you're a [G.I.R.L.](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GIRL).[/ref] and what impact it would have in terms of QALYs, that would be really interesting to read!
+So too with gender. "Utilitarian grounds" does _not_ mean, "I and some other people have an [unconstrained utopian vision](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=A_Conflict_of_Visions&oldid=915640693#The_unconstrained_vision), and we'll be _very_ dysphoric if you don't implement it, so the global utilitarian calculus says you should obey us." To be sure, your dysphoria is _a_ cost under the global utilitarian calculus—but it's just one of _many_ possible costs and benefits in a complex system. If someone _actually_ wants to do a careful economically and sociologically-informed analysis of how a "fully consensual gender" regime could actually be implemented in real life,[ref]Although speaking of "real life", I happily concede that the social-engineering problem of fully consensual gender is _much_ easier in online communities, where pesky [easy-to-detect/expensive-to-change](http://unremediatedgender.space/2018/Feb/blegg-mode/) secondary sex characteristics are hidden behind the fog of net. In other words, [on the internet, nobody knows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you%27re_a_dog) you're a [G.I.R.L.](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GIRL).[/ref] and what impact it would have in terms of QALYs, that would be really interesting to read!
Until then, the question remains: how dumb do you think we are?!
But no one has the incentive to correct the mistake in public.
"Some people don't have penises" ... can you be a little more specific?!
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+politicizing the question of what 2 + 2 should equal
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+Aumann is an Orthodox Jew
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+https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ovvwAhKKoNbfcMz8K/on-expressing-your-concerns
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+If my actions (implausibly) represent a PR risk to someone else's Singularity strategy, then they're welcome to try to persuade or negotiate with me.
+
+stroop test
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+the extent to which I _anticipated_ needing to appeal to personal authority, is indicative of me already not believing in guided-by-the-beauty
https://www.reddit.com/r/itsafetish/comments/cp1tap/gender_euphoria_genital_engorgement_whats_the/
+https://humanvarieties.org/2017/07/01/measurement-error-regression-to-the-mean-and-group-differences/
-✓ Reply to Ozymandias on Fully Consensual Gender
+
Self-Identity Is a Schelling Point
On the Argumentative Form "Super-proton Things Tend to Come in Varieties"
+Anne Lawrence on Unapologetic Autogynephilic Transsexualism
+✓ Reply to Ozymandias on Fully Consensual Gender (add link back to Schelling pt)
"I Tell Myself to Let the Story End"; Or, A Hill of Validity in Defense of Meaning
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+Promises I Can Keep
+
Reading Comprehension Is Rape Culture
Reply to David R. MacIver on Gendering
Trying to Be Explicit
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Instrumental Categories, and War
A Science Fiction Story Idea I'm Not Skilled Enough to Write
_ I Mean, Yes, I Agree That Man Should Allocate Some More Categories, But
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https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4ZvJab25tDebB8FGE/you-have-about-five-words : well, that explains the TWAW mantra
The Parable of the Good Witch
_ "But I'm Not Quite Sure What That Means": Costs of Nonbinary Gender as a Social Technology
_ "I Will Fight [...]": LGBT Patriotism and the Moral Fine-Tuning Objection
-_ Interlude XVI (egg promises) (working title)
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_ ℝ40
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / commitdiff