From 5c39cf9b7f61f53da5d824e90c09de1ca60975f3 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "Zack M. Davis" Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2025 21:25:09 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] finish draft of "A Generic Ontological Finickiness" --- .../a-generic-ontological-finickiness.md | 70 +++++++------------ 1 file changed, 27 insertions(+), 43 deletions(-) diff --git a/content/drafts/a-generic-ontological-finickiness.md b/content/drafts/a-generic-ontological-finickiness.md index 844e929..824215e 100644 --- a/content/drafts/a-generic-ontological-finickiness.md +++ b/content/drafts/a-generic-ontological-finickiness.md @@ -1,18 +1,18 @@ Title: A Generic Ontological Finickiness -Date: 2025-09-15 11:00 +Date: 2025-09-14 11:00 Category: commentary -Tags: Eliezer Yudkowsky +Tags: Eliezer Yudkowsky, categorization, sex differences Status: draft On Twitter, [Eliezer Yudkowsky wonders](https://lightbrd.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1961782023573709003) why male-to-female transsexualism triggers more reactionary public opprobrium than female-to-male. -Yudkowsky proposes four potential explanatory factors, not mutually exclusive: (1) that modern liberal Society doesn't care about gatekeeping male roles the way its forbearers did, (2) that MtF triggers intuitions in men for the repression of specifically male homosexuality, (3) that FtM transitions are more effective on the merits of passability with extant technology, and (4) that MtF threatens sex-segregation conventions whose purpose is to protect females from males (as of, _e.g._, bathrooms and chess tournaments). +Yudkowsky proposes four potential explanatory factors, not mutually exclusive: (1) that modern liberal Society doesn't care about gatekeeping male roles the way its forbearers did, (2) that MtF triggers intuitions in men for the repression of specifically male homosexuality, (3) that FtM transitions are more effective on the merits of passability with existing technology, and (4) that MtF threatens sex-segregation conventions whose purpose is to protect females from males (as of, _e.g._, bathrooms and chess tournaments). I agree that to the extent that MtF faces more or different opposition than FtM, all four explanatory factors seem broadly plausible. I seem to disagree with Yudkowsky on the relative importance of the four factors, but the details are probably better relegated to a footnote.[^four-factors] -[^four-factors]: In [footnote 7 to "The Categories Were Made for Man to Make Predictions"](/2018/Feb/the-categories-were-made-for-man-to-make-predictions) (February 2018), I mentioned that "trans men tend to pass better, and because insofar as the intended purpose of many sex-segregated social contexts is to protect females from males, biologically-female trans men aren't perceived as a threat: cis men are assumed to be able to take care of their own interests"—precisely anticipating Yudkowsky's theories #3 and #4. I hadn't previously considered theories #1 and #2. +[^four-factors]: In [footnote 7 to "The Categories Were Made for Man to Make Predictions"](http://unremediatedgender.space/2018/Feb/the-categories-were-made-for-man-to-make-predictions/#the-categories-were-made-for-note-7) (February 2018), I mentioned that "trans men tend to pass better, and because insofar as the intended purpose of many sex-segregated social contexts is to protect females from males, biologically-female trans men aren't perceived as a threat: cis men are assumed to be able to take care of their own interests"—precisely anticipating Yudkowsky's theories #3 and #4. I hadn't previously considered theories #1 and #2. - Yudkowsky seems to put much less weight on theory #4 than I do, saying he mentions it "for completeness" and that he finds it "dubious as a complete account, because of how FtM used to produce more outrage back when men were higher-status." I'm cautiously skeptical of Yudkowsky's read of history, which would greatly benefit from specific examples of alleged FtM panic. [Deborah Sampson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Sampson) impersonated a man in order to serve in the American Revolutionary War, and successfully petitioned for back pay after being honorably discharged. Cases like those of the surgeon [James Barry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Barry_(surgeon)), coachman [Charley Parkhurst](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charley_Parkhurst), or politician [Murray Hall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Hall_(politician)) seem to have been met with more curiosity than disgust upon posthumous discovery. + Yudkowsky seems to put much less weight on theory #4 than I do, saying he mentions it "for completeness" and that he finds it "dubious as a complete account, because of how FtM used to produce more outrage back when men were higher-status." I'm cautiously skeptical of Yudkowsky's read of history, which would greatly benefit from specific examples of alleged FtM panic. [Deborah Sampson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Sampson) impersonated a man in order to serve in the American Revolutionary War, and successfully petitioned for back pay after being honorably discharged. Cases of females living as men like those of the surgeon [James Barry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Barry_(surgeon)), coachman [Charley Parkhurst](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charley_Parkhurst), or politician [Murray Hall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Hall_(politician)) seem to have been met with more curiosity than horror upon posthumous discovery. The occasion of the present post is that Yudkowsky goes on to say: @@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ The occasion of the present post is that Yudkowsky goes on to say: > > *mike drop* -With the important exception of the "as opposed to people reaching for that afterward as a rationalization" clause (as I'll explain momentarily), I agree with each of the sentences here, but I find it puzzling that Yudkowsky thinks this is a ["mic drop"](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mic%20drop) moment. Who exactly is being criticized here? _Is_ there anyone who thinks that anti-trans public sentiment is solely explained by a deep generic horror of things being described as other than what they are? To establish that he's not beating up on a strawman, Yudkowsky [would do better](https://x.com/TheDavidSJ/status/1858097225743663267) to quote some specific representative author actually making the claim that he's refuting. +With the important exception of the "as opposed to people reaching for that afterward as a rationalization" clause (as I'll explain momentarily), I agree with each of the sentences here, but I find it puzzling that Yudkowsky thinks this is a ["mic drop"](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mic%20drop) moment. Who exactly is being criticized here? _Is_ there anyone who thinks that anti-trans public sentiment is explained by a deep generic horror of things being described as other than what they are? To establish that he's not beating up on a strawman, Yudkowsky [would do better](https://x.com/TheDavidSJ/status/1858097225743663267) to quote some specific representative author actually making the claim that he's refuting. As someone who [_has_ expressed a deep generic horror of things being described as other than what they are and criticized gender identity ideology on those specific grounds](/2024/Mar/agreeing-with-stalin-in-ways-that-exhibit-generally-rationalist-principles/#it-matters-whether-peoples-beliefs-about-themselves-are-actually-true), perhaps I should clarify why I don't think Yudkowsky's rationalization accusation holds weight. @@ -40,11 +40,11 @@ When philosophers like the present writer or [Alex Byrne](https://en.wikipedia.o These things can all be true of these different people at the same time. The same person can belong to multiple groups. ([Kathleen Stock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Stock#Views_on_gender_self-identification), for example, is both a philosopher and a gender-critical feminist.) The same person can belong to one group but not others. (I am not a fan of Michael Knowles, and it seems safe to say that Meghan Murphy isn't, either.) There's no contradiction here to explain. -It might seem like there's a contradiction to explain if you project everyone's views down to a one-dimensional "pro-trans"/"anti-trans" subspace, divide the subspace into two buckets, and expect people in one bucket to answer for the views of everyone else in the same bucket. But that's an artifact of how much information you're throwing away by collapsing everyone into two buckets. Eliezer Yudkowsky and Timnit Gebru are both "anti-AI", but it would not make sense to reject a theory that some people are outraged about swiftly impending human extinction on the grounds that that theory predicts indifference to longer-term effects of global warming, which is not what we observe in anti-AI advocates. (Mic drop!) +It might seem like there's a contradiction to explain if you [project](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projection_(linear_algebra)) everyone's views down to a one-dimensional "pro-trans"/"anti-trans" subspace, divide the subspace into two buckets, and expect people in one bucket to answer for the views of everyone else in the same bucket. But that's an artifact of how much information you're throwing away by collapsing everyone into two buckets. Eliezer Yudkowsky and [Timnit Gebru](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timnit_Gebru) are both "anti-AI", but it would not make sense to reject a theory that some people are outraged about swiftly impending human extinction on the grounds that that theory predicts indifference to longer-term effects of global warming, which is not what we observe in anti-AI advocates. (Mic drop!) Yudkowsky acknowledges that his theories #1–4 aren't mutually exclusive. (Theory #2, for example, only tries to explain anti-MtF sentiment in men.) But _the same is true of theory #0_. Yudkowsky is correct to point out that theory #0 can't be the whole story of public anti-trans sentiment, because that would imply equal amounts of anti-MtF and anti-FtM sentiment, which isn't what we observe. But that only means that the philosophers are outnumbered by more political actors (like the gender-criticals and conservatives), which I don't think anyone would doubt—least of all the philosophers. -The problem here is not only that no one said theory #0 was the whole story. Theory #0 _wouldn't_ be the whole story even if the people described by theory #0 were objectively correct in their views, because it's possible for humans to arrive at correct beliefs for bad reasons. (The correctness of the theory of evolution isn't the whole story for why people believe it: some people express pro-evolution sentiments to express resentment of their repressive religious upbringing. But evolution still actually happened.) +The problem here is not just that no one said theory #0 was the whole story. Theory #0 _wouldn't_ be the whole story even if the people described by theory #0 were objectively correct in their views, because it's possible for humans to arrive at correct beliefs for bad reasons. (The correctness of the theory of evolution isn't the whole story for why people believe it: some people express pro-evolution sentiments to express resentment of their repressive religious upbringing. But evolution still actually happened.) It's not clear why Yudkowsky would argue against the position that theory #0 by itself explains most public anti-trans sentiment (without pointing to any examples of anyone who thinks that!), unless his goal were to minimize the gender-political relevance of the of the philosophy of language—to tar anyone expressing alarm about inaccurate descriptions as rationalizing bigotries held for less high-minded reasons. @@ -66,56 +66,40 @@ If someone develops a new chemical treatment that alters pyrite to have some but Fine. But it has to _actually_ be good enough. The shrug has to be genuine, not coerced: a shrug of "I can't be bothered to pay attention to this", rather than of accepting a social convention that it's none of your business.[^privacy] -[^privacy]: Note that social conventions about privacy exist precisely to conceal information that people _do_ care about. If it were something that no one cared about, like having an attached or detached earlobe, there would be no reason to insist that it's no one else's business. +[^privacy]: Note that social conventions about privacy exist precisely to conceal information that people _do_ care about. If it were something that no one cared about, like having an attached earlobe, there would be no reason to insist that it's no one else's business. -I write what I do because when I look at the world I see and compare it to how I'm expected to describe it in polite Society, _I am not shrugging_. If you, the reader, genuinely can't tell and don't care about the difference between males and females-on-testosterone, or between females and males-on-estrogen, then it makes sense for _you_ to shrug. But I can often tell. (No, not always, and yes, I know about the obvious selection effect.) +I write what I do because when I look at the world I see and compare it to how I'm expected to describe it in polite liberal Society, _I am not shrugging_. If you, the reader, genuinely can't tell and don't care about the difference between males and females-on-testosterone, or between females and males-on-estrogen, then it makes sense for _you_ to shrug. But I can often tell. (No, not always, and yes, I know about the obvious selection effect.) -And I care. I care! I care without knowing the full reasons, not in order to make any legible policy distinction solely on that basis—I have no public accomodations to police, no diversity scholarships to dole out—but because I care about modeling the world in all its little details. I think I would have to lobotomize myself to not care. +The other week I was in Seattle for [RustConf](https://rustconf.com/), which is [the kind of event](/2018/Oct/sticker-prices/) that has [a trans-woman-to-cis-woman ratio](/2017/Aug/interlude-vii/) higher than [Less Online](https://less.online/). At one point, I was sitting at a table with nine people, five or six of whom were trans women. -The other week I was in Seattle for [RustConf](https://rustconf.com/), which, to my eye, had [a trans-woman-to-cis-woman ratio](/2017/Aug/interlude-vii/) higher than [Less Online](https://less.online/). At one point, I was sitting at a table with nine people, five or six of whom were trans women. After the conference, I stopped in Portland to spend some time with three internet friends, all of whom were trans women. +_Why?_ The joint gender and assigned-sex-at-birth composition of that table can't possibly be a coincidence. Am I supposed to pretend not to notice? -_Why?_ The joint gender and assigned-sex-at-birth composition of that table, and of my friends, can't possibly be a concidence. Am I supposed to pretend not to notice? +In the comments on Twitter, [a user proposed a theory #5](https://lightbrd.com/pelvis_man/status/1961786999515545677) to Yudkowsky's puzzle, that FtMs are "indistinguishable from guys in the personality and mood and thought process and demeanor department. not so with mtf, they are more like a third different gender". [Yudkowsky replied](https://lightbrd.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1961797535938535858), "That's #3." -In the comments on Twitter, [a user proposed a theory #5](https://lightbrd.com/pelvis_man/status/1961786999515545677) to Yudkowsky's puzzle, that FtMs are "indistinguishable from guys in the personality and mood and thought process and demeanor department. not so with mtf, they are more like a third different gender". [Yudkowsky replied](https://lightbrd.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1961797535938535858), "That's #3." (That "[m]odern medtech makes it easier to go FtM, and the lack of FtM panic in modern times compared to earlier times is because in modern times the aspiring FtM can use T to actually grow a beard [...] That is: The uncanny valley does not need to be symmetrical or fair with respect to perceptual cues or current medical technology. Maybe if you grow a beard, cut the hair, and remove the breasts, that just works to cross the valley.") +(Theory #3 verbatim was that "[m]odern medtech makes it easier to go FtM, and the lack of FtM panic in modern times compared to earlier times is because in modern times the aspiring FtM can use T to actually grow a beard. [...] That is: The uncanny valley does not need to be symmetrical or fair with respect to perceptual cues or current medical technology. Maybe if you grow a beard, cut the hair, and remove the breasts, that just works to cross the valley.") -But if the medtech got much better, if perfect physical passing as an MtF were cheap and easy, I would probably transition—and then that table at RustConf would have six or seven trans women. Even if there were no overt uncanny-valley effect, even if nothing _looked_ visibly out of ordinary to the naked eye, The joint gender and assigned-sex-at-birth composition of that table would still _not be a coincidence_. Again, why? +But theory #3's focus on visibility and perceptual cues is missing the commenter's point. If the medtech got much better, if it were cheap and easy to swap into a real female body, I would absolutely transition—and then that table at RustConf would have six or seven trans women. Even if there were no uncanny-valley effect, even if nothing looked visibly out of ordinary to the naked eye, The joint gender and assigned-sex-at-birth composition of that table would still _not be a coincidence_. Again, why? -It still feels ugly to say even now—it's not something I _want_ to be true—but if I'm being honest, I have to put a decent chunk of probability on the hypothesis that +It still feels ugly to say even now—it's not something I _want_ to be true—but if I'm being honest, I have to put a decent chunk of probability on the hypothesis that women on average have less of whatever [cognitive repertoires](/2020/Apr/book-review-human-diversity/) make people to want to spend their lives writing Rust code.[^implied-misogyny] +[^implied-misogyny]: If true, is the fact that it feels ugly to say a form of implied misogyny on my part? Am I regarding women as defective men, being disappointed in them for not sufficiently exhibiting the traits I idolize? Somehow it doesn't feel ugly to notice that men are worse empathizers and caregivers. +If we're going to fantasize about improved transition medtech, should the tech do something about _that?_ Alter the brain/mind as well as the body to give a more female-typical pattern of behavior, such that tables of six trans women and three cis men would not be a naturally occurring phenomenon in groups that are not explicitly selecting on gender and assigned-sex-at-birth status?[^multivariate-clarification] +[^multivariate-clarification]: To be clear, the argument here is _not_ "liking coding makes you male." [The argument is about the properties of high-dimensional probability distributions.](/2023/Dec/beyond-the-binary/) The property of being 6'2" tall is more male-typical than female-typical, but 6'2" women are still women. But in all philosophical strictness, what it means to say that 6'2" women "are still women", is that we can confidently predict they'll be more female-typical on average among the innumerable other measurable properties of a person. +If the goal is to be a true sex change, then it should, right? +But I don't think most trans women actually _want_ that! I think we like being the kind of status-seeking gynephilic systematizers that we largely are. [Without prematurely committing myself to any particular policy decision](/2021/Sep/i-dont-do-policy/), I think this has a lot of implications for how we should plan our lives and how the rest of Society should relate to us! +Is this a "generic ontological finickiness", "a deep generic horror of things being described as other than what they are"? -[TODO: ... bridge] - -Yudkowsky writes that he could only dream of a world where human beings cared that much about exact descriptive accuracy. - -But why only dream? Maybe sometime in the last sixteen years, Yudkowsky has abandoned his sense that more is possible. - -But I haven't. Maybe human beings don't always, inherently, consistently care—but rationalists _should_. - - - - +It depends on what you mean by [_generic_](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/generic). I certainly don't spend an equal amount of time blogging about all possible [misrepresentations-via-suboptimal-categorization](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/onwgTH6n8wxRSo2BJ/unnatural-categories-are-optimized-for-deception). That's obviously not possible and it's not even clear what it would mean. I selfishly focus on the topics that are important to me. +In another sense, I suppose it is "generic" in the sense that I think [there are general laws of cognition](https://www.readthesequences.com/No-One-Can-Exempt-You-From-Rationalitys-Laws) governing [language](https://www.readthesequences.com/Mutual-Information-And-Density-In-Thingspace) and [thought](https://www.readthesequences.com/Conditional-Independence-And-Naive-Bayes), which I seek to understand and apply in my work in the hopes of improving the accuracy of shared maps. The methodology is general even if the choice of topic is idiosyncratic and personal. +Yudkowsky writes that he could only dream of a world where human beings cared that much about exact descriptive accuracy. -[TODO: but it is an empirical case, and ontological finickiness is _correct_; I write more about MtF, because I care more] - -[TODO— -A deeper level for why I don't take the rationalization charge seriously: it's _because_ there's a real difference, _that_ people have objections that aren't about high-minded truth; people object to lies not just because of the sanctity of their map, but because they need a map that reflects the territory to make decisions - -"Generic hardness" isn't actually the real argument; the "blood is thicker than water" argument is empirical - -Aella on lying - -> Therefore, I care tons about MtFs in women's bathrooms or chess matches, and nevery say anything about FtMs one way or another - -Joan of Arc in history footnote? - -https://www.readthesequences.com/Reversed-Stupidity-Is-Not-Intelligence +But why only dream? Why not care, yourself, and exhort others to care, in public, on Twitter? Maybe sometime in the last sixteen years, Yudkowsky has abandoned his [sense that more is possible](https://www.readthesequences.com/A-Sense-That-More-Is-Possible). -explain why the rationalization clause is wrong -] +But I haven't. Maybe human beings don't always, inherently, consistently care about exact descriptive accuracy—but rationalists _should_. -- 2.17.1