From 03468d274f5f48fe5c89b46f1d4b4bd10d17da9b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "M. Taylor Saotome-Westlake" Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 23:19:41 -0800 Subject: [PATCH] check in --- content/2019/comp.md | 2 ++ .../2019/self-identity-is-a-schelling-point.md | 2 +- notes/i-tell-myself-notes.txt | 17 +++++++++++++++++ notes/notes.txt | 8 +++++++- notes/post_ideas.txt | 2 ++ 5 files changed, 29 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/content/2019/comp.md b/content/2019/comp.md index 6f20f03..500a10c 100644 --- a/content/2019/comp.md +++ b/content/2019/comp.md @@ -5,6 +5,8 @@ Tags: whimsical _(-romise, -ensation)_ +_(epistemic status: shitposting)_ + [Some radical feminists complain](https://archive.is/N1kM5) that males body-modding to become facsimiles of women is appropriation. They're obviously correct, but the claim doesn't seem strong enough to override the right to bodily autonomy. The Law in its majesty finds a precedent in the archives of copyright law: bands recording cover songs are appropriating the work of the original composer, but the composer's claim to control and be compensated for their work doesn't seem strong enough to override the band's right to artistic expression. The solution in either case: [compulsory licensing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_license)! A small tax is administered on transition services (hormone replacement therapy, facial feminization surgery, _&c_.), the proceeds of which are distributed equally amongst all natal females (as if they held a collective patent on the female form). diff --git a/content/2019/self-identity-is-a-schelling-point.md b/content/2019/self-identity-is-a-schelling-point.md index 6abab03..d82ecdb 100644 --- a/content/2019/self-identity-is-a-schelling-point.md +++ b/content/2019/self-identity-is-a-schelling-point.md @@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ As, um, [my favorite author on _Less Wrong_ explains](https://www.lesswrong.com/ The author gives the age of majority as an example. Presumably the right to vote should be based on _relevant_ features of a person (in a word, "maturity"), not how many times the Earth has gone around the sun since they were born. But it wouldn't be practical for everyone to come to consensus on how to assess "maturity", whereas it _is_ practical for everyone to come to consensus on how to subtract dates, so our _shared_ socially-constructed category of "legal adulthood" ends up being defined in terms of a semi-arbitrary age cut-off, at the cost of mature 16-year-olds and immature 20-year-olds losing out on or gaining privileges that they should or shouldn't have (respectively). -When people need to coordinate on making the _same_ arbitrary-on-the-merits choice, they tend to converge on an option that is (for whatever reason) unusually _salient_. This is the concept of a "Schelling point", after famed economist Thomas Schelling, who posed the question of where strangers should attempt to meet in New York, if they couldn't communicate to pick a rendezvous point in advance. The plurality answer turns out to be "noon at the information booth at Grand Central Station", not because of any properties that make Grand Central Station an objectively superior meeting place that you would pick even if you _could_ communicate in advance, but just because its centrality makes it the focus of reasonable mutual expectations about what you and your partner are likely to do. Similarly, noon is salient as the midpoint of the day. There's no particular reason to meet at noon rather than 9 _a.m._ or 11 _a.m._ or 3 _p.m._, _except_ that choosing 9 or 11 or 3 would seem to demand a particular reason that you expect your counterpart to be able to derive independently. +When people need to coordinate on making the _same_ arbitrary-on-the-merits choice, they tend to converge on an option that is (for whatever reason) unusually _salient_. This is the concept of a "Schelling point", after famed economist Thomas Schelling, who posed the question of where strangers should attempt to meet in New York, if they couldn't communicate to pick a rendezvous point in advance. The plurality answer turns out to be "noon at the information booth at Grand Central Station", not because of any properties that make Grand Central Station an objectively superior meeting place that you would pick even if you _could_ communicate in advance, but just because its centrality makes it the focus of reasonable mutual expectations about what you and your partner are likely to do. Similarly, noon is salient as the midpoint of the day. There's no particular reason to meet at noon rather than 9 _a.m._ or 11 _a.m._ or 3 _p.m._, _except_ that choosing 9 or 11 or 3 would seem to demand a particular reason that you expect your counterpart to be able to derive independently. We usually expect the question of what sex (or "gender") a person is to have a _canonical answer_ that everyone agrees on: it would be pretty confusing for bystanders if I thought Pat was a woman and said "Pat ... she" and you thought Pat was a man and said "Pat ... he." diff --git a/notes/i-tell-myself-notes.txt b/notes/i-tell-myself-notes.txt index c10adb3..9d5c4df 100644 --- a/notes/i-tell-myself-notes.txt +++ b/notes/i-tell-myself-notes.txt @@ -561,3 +561,20 @@ inside views are just outside views against a finer-grained method of constructi ["Fear not to touch the best / The truth shall be thy warrant"](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/trb9HPWFk8Gy9MBdN/less-wrong-poetry-corner-walter-raleigh-s-the-lie) more of my Overcoming-Bias-era sex differences denialism: https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/XM9SwdBGn8ATf8kq3/c/comment/Evc7xKXjd4LaRR26c + +"Preferences about how other people model you" is very general, though! Lots of people would prefer that others model them as smart and funny and attractive, and feel genuine pain when other people don't see them that way. It might be tempting to say, "Ah! We can alleviate that pain by redefining 'smart' and 'funny' and 'attractive' to include the people who are hurt by not being included in those categories" ... and in the short term, if you only look at the emotional state of the people who are now being acclaimed as smart/funny/attractive who previously weren't, it works. But the reason it works is what, from an AI-design perspective, we would call "wireheading": manipulating the map, not the territory; it works because of equivocating between the old cutoff for smart/funny/attractive (what people were originally sad about not having) and the new, artificially lowered bar (which you'll be happy about meeting if you don't realize that it's not the same as the old cutoff). +smart transhumanism is about keeping the map as accurate as possible (don't destroy language in order to wirehead ourselves) and then using the accurate map to actually make the territory better (e.g., by developing nootropics and cosmetic surgeries to actually make people smarter/funnier/more-attractive, in real life, and not just by linguistic fiat) + +> 'that in 10 to 20 years, every male with some kind of autogynephilia will "transition" if something isn't done stop reverse things. That is about 2-3% of the male population.' https://twitter.com/TransRadically/status/1212102282499829761 + +getting in repetitive arguments on Discord is a form of culture change maybe???? + +http://benjaminrosshoffman.com/judgment-punishment-and-the-information-suppression-field/ + +karaoke "some cis women sing bass" + +What I'm up against: "you can have a social context wherein nobody is incentivized to figure out who's deserving of Real Woman Status and who's not." + +speaking in Sequences links: in my review of "Origins of Unfairness", the phrase "suggestively named Lisp tokens" just came out + +Nice Job Breaking It Hero feels relevant to my about-face on sex differences diff --git a/notes/notes.txt b/notes/notes.txt index 3c5614d..de79bbe 100644 --- a/notes/notes.txt +++ b/notes/notes.txt @@ -1,3 +1,8 @@ +— + +I don't think we're in equilibrium; I don't think everyone knows what's going on + + fragments— O Wad Some Power the Giftie Gie Us; Or, the Identity Dysphoria Trap (school dysphoria) @@ -1466,5 +1471,6 @@ https://www.reddit.com/r/GenderCritical/comments/ehy9td/transwomen_in_the_change four studies using multivariate methodology in personality: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/12/sex-differences-in-personality-are-large-and-important.html - Yglasis's mask slips: https://archive.md/jf7ur + +bronies: https://twitter.com/TransSalamander/status/1045911272670339072 diff --git a/notes/post_ideas.txt b/notes/post_ideas.txt index a5e2816..0a7d7d1 100644 --- a/notes/post_ideas.txt +++ b/notes/post_ideas.txt @@ -8,6 +8,8 @@ address accusation that I conflate "passing" and biosex ----- + + The Strategy of "Apartment Patty" A Science Fiction Story Idea I'm Not Skilled Enough to Write -- 2.17.1