X-Git-Url: http://unremediatedgender.space/source?p=Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=notes%2Fa-hill-of-validity-sections.md;h=f69bd6dd7f766d8dfc868b204a70b014dbe7280e;hp=b206e720a65d51b9bba31b99f6b63757a23b1a92;hb=bcd99a97623fdffcc594e5786f20cfb65a41d2ff;hpb=b940ce29ea5da3bbbf9fb78fb7e6e73e926da2b5 diff --git a/notes/a-hill-of-validity-sections.md b/notes/a-hill-of-validity-sections.md index b206e72..f69bd6d 100644 --- a/notes/a-hill-of-validity-sections.md +++ b/notes/a-hill-of-validity-sections.md @@ -1039,3 +1039,38 @@ The HEXACO personality model considers "honesty" and "humility" a single factor I'm not usually—at least, not always—so much of a scrub as to play chess with a pigeon (which shits on the board and then struts around like it's won), or wrestle with a pig (which gets you both dirty, and the pig likes it), or dispute what the Tortise said to Achilles (You might group things together _on the grounds_ of their similarly positive consequences—that's what words like _good_ do—but that's distinct from choosing _the categorization itself_ because of its consequences.) + +—and would be unforgivable if it weren't so _inexplicable_. + +... not _actually_ inexplicable. There was, in fact, an obvious explanation: that Yudkowsky was trying to bolster his reputation amongst progressives by positioning himself on the right side of history, and was tailoring a fake rationality lesson to suit that goal. But _Eliezer Yudkowsky wouldn't do that_. I had to assume this was a honest mistake. + +At least, a _pedagogy_ mistake. If Yudkowsky _just_ wanted to make a politically neutral technical point about the difference between fact-claims and policy claims _without_ "picking a side" in the broader cultural war dispute, these Tweets did a very poor job of it. I of course agree that pronoun usage conventions, and conventions about who uses what bathroom, are not, themselves, factual assertions about sex chromosomes in particular. I'm not saying that Yudkowsky made a false statement there. Rather, I'm saying that it's + + +Rather, previously sexspace had two main clusters (normal females and males) plus an assortment of tiny clusters corresponding to various [disorders of sex development](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disorders_of_sex_development), and now it has two additional tiny clusters: females-on-masculinizing-HRT and males-on-feminizing-HRT. Certainly, there are situations where you would want to use "gender" categories that use the grouping {females, males-on-feminizing-HRT} and {males, females-on-masculinizing-HRT}. + +[TODO: relevance of multivariate— + +(And in this case, the empirical facts are _so_ lopsided, that if we must find humor in the matter, it really goes the other way. Lia Thomas trounces the entire field by _4.2 standard deviations_ (!!), and Eliezer Yudkowsky feels obligated to _pretend not to see the problem?_ You've got to admit, that's a _little_ bit funny.) + +https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cu7YY7WdgJBs3DpmJ/the-univariate-fallacy +https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vhp2sW6iBhNJwqcwP/blood-is-thicker-than-water + +] + +[TODO: sentences about studies showing that HRT doesn't erase male advantage +https://twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1368176581965930501 +] + +[TODO sentences about Lia Thomas and Cece Tefler] https://twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1466044767561830405 (Thomas and Tefler's —cite South Park) +https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10445679/Lia-Thomas-UPenn-teammate-says-trans-swimmer-doesnt-cover-genitals-locker-room.html +https://twitter.com/sharrond62/status/1495802345380356103 Lia Thomas event coverage +https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/weekly-recap-lia-thomas-birth-certificates Zippy inv. cluster graph! + +] + +Writing out this criticism now, the situation doesn't feel _confusing_, anymore. Yudkowsky was very obviously being intellectually dishonest in response to very obvious political incentives. That's a thing that public intellectuals do. And, again, I agree that the distinction between facts and policy decisions _is_ a valid one, even if I thought it was being selectively invoked here as an [isolated demand for rigor](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/14/beware-isolated-demands-for-rigor/) because of the political context. Coming from _anyone else in the world_, I would have considered the thread fine—a solidly above-average performance, really. I wouldn't have felt confused or betrayed at all. Coming from Eliezer Yudkowsky, it was—confusing. + +Because of my hero worship, "he's being intellectually dishonest in response to very obvious political incentives" wasn't in my hypothesis space; I _had_ to assume the thread was an "honest mistake" in his rationality lessons, rather than (what it actually was, what it _obviously_ actually was) hostile political action. + +(I _want_ to confidently predict that everything I've just said is completely obvious to you, because I learned it all specifically from you! A 130 IQ _nobody_ like me shouldn't have to say _any_ of this to the _author_ of "A Human's Guide to Words"! But then I don't know how to reconcile that with your recent public statement about [not seeing "how there's scientific truth at stake"](https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1067482047126495232). Hence this desperate and [_confused_](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5JDkW4MYXit2CquLs/your-strength-as-a-rationalist) email plea.)