From 6c04dc9a29502fbfba1e734b75679ec6f22ea78b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "M. Taylor Saotome-Westlake" Date: Sat, 28 Sep 2019 23:11:13 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] check in --- ...ommentary-on-david-maciver-on-gendering.md | 6 ++-- ...-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning.md | 35 +++++++++++-------- .../self-identity-is-a-schelling-point.md | 2 +- notes/i-tell-myself-notes.txt | 10 ++++++ notes/notes.txt | 1 + notes/post_ideas.txt | 2 +- notes/ragequit_linkpost.md | 3 ++ 7 files changed, 38 insertions(+), 21 deletions(-) create mode 100644 notes/ragequit_linkpost.md diff --git a/content/drafts/commentary-on-david-maciver-on-gendering.md b/content/drafts/commentary-on-david-maciver-on-gendering.md index 357210a..cba600d 100644 --- a/content/drafts/commentary-on-david-maciver-on-gendering.md +++ b/content/drafts/commentary-on-david-maciver-on-gendering.md @@ -14,11 +14,9 @@ Right? The question of what gender is "seems to be a very hard one to answer wel Is it a mathematician thing? It feels cleaner to prove a abstract theorem "For all genders _g_ ...", eliding as irrelevant any details about the specific _g_ that are known to exist? -MacIver is clearly not a biological sex denialist. He explicitly gives strength and height as examples of differences between women and men, and later acknowledges that many traits will continue to be gendered due to "underlying biological differences." +MacIver is clearly not a biological sex denialist. He explicitly gives strength and height as examples of differences between women and men, and later acknowledges that many traits will continue to be gendered due to "underlying biological differences." -The problem is that it's a conflationary to identify height as a "gender" difference in the context of a discourse where you're also [asserting that you believe that people are whatever gender they identify as](TODO: linky prior MacIver). - -Height is a statistical _sex_ difference (at Cohen's _d_≈1.7). +The problem is that it's conflationary to identify height as a "gender" difference in the context of a discourse where you're also [asserting that "very strongly believe that [one's] gender is whatever [they] choose or believe it to be"](https://www.drmaciver.com/2019/05/the-inner-sense-of-gender/). Height is a statistical _sex_ difference (at Cohen's _d_≈1.7). [...] diff --git a/content/drafts/i-tell-myself-to-let-the-story-end-or-a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning.md b/content/drafts/i-tell-myself-to-let-the-story-end-or-a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning.md index 1875b99..1c917f1 100644 --- a/content/drafts/i-tell-myself-to-let-the-story-end-or-a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning.md +++ b/content/drafts/i-tell-myself-to-let-the-story-end-or-a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning.md @@ -14,13 +14,11 @@ Status: draft > > —Sara Barellies, ["Gonna Get Over You"](https://genius.com/Sara-bareilles-gonna-get-over-you-lyrics) -I mostly haven't been doing so well for the past ten months or so. I mean, I've always been a high-neuroticism person, but this has probably been a below-average year even by my standards, with hours of lost sleep, occasional crying bouts, _many, many_ hours of obsessive ruminating-while-pacing instead of doing my dayjob, and too long with a Sara Barellies song on loop to numb the pain. I've been reluctant to write about it in too much detail for poorly-understood psychological reasons. Maybe it would feel too much like attacking my friends? +I haven't been doing so well for a lot of the past ten months or so. I mean, I've always been a high-neuroticism person, but this has probably been a below-average year even by my standards, with hours of lost sleep, occasional crying bouts, _many, many_ hours of obsessive ruminating-while-pacing instead of doing my dayjob, and too long with a Sara Barellies song on loop to numb the pain. I've been reluctant to write about it in too much detail for poorly-understood psychological reasons. Maybe it would feel too much like attacking my friends? But this blog is not about _not_ attacking my friends. This blog is about the truth. For my own sanity, for my own emotional closure, I need to tell the story as best I can. If it's an _incredibly boring and petty_ story about me getting _unreasonably angry_ about philosophy-of-language minutiæ, well, you've been warned. If the story makes me look bad in the reader's eyes (because you think I'm crazy for getting so unreasonably angry about philosophy-of-language minutiæ), then I shall be happy to look bad for _what I actually am_. (If _telling the truth_ about what I've been obsessively preoccupied with all year makes you dislike me, then you probably _should_ dislike me. If you were to approve of me on the basis of _factually inaccurate beliefs_, then the thing of which you approve, wouldn't be _me_.) -So, I've spent basically my entire adult life in this insular little intellectual subculture that was founded in the late 'aughts on an ideal of _systematically correct reasoning_. Sure, anyone will _say_ that their beliefs are true, but you can tell most people aren't being very serious about it. _We_ were going to be serious: starting with the shared canon of knowledge of cognitive biases, reflectivity, and Bayesian probability theory bequeathed to us by our founder, _we_ were going to make serious [collective](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XqmjdBKa4ZaXJtNmf/raising-the-sanity-waterline) [intellectual progress](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Nu3wa6npK4Ry66vFp/a-sense-that-more-is-possible) in a way that had [never been done before](https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/07/yes-we-have-noticed-the-skulls/). - -[TODO: find a better way to summarize the core minds-as-engines that construct maps that reflect the territory] +So, I've spent basically my entire adult life in this insular little intellectual subculture that was founded in the late 'aughts on an ideal of _systematically correct reasoning_. Starting with the shared canon of knowledge of cognitive biases, reflectivity, and Bayesian probability theory bequeathed to us by our founder, _we_ were going to make serious [collective](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XqmjdBKa4ZaXJtNmf/raising-the-sanity-waterline) [intellectual progress](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Nu3wa6npK4Ry66vFp/a-sense-that-more-is-possible) in a way that had [never been done before](https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/07/yes-we-have-noticed-the-skulls/)—and not just out of a duty or passion for some philosophical ideal of Truth, but as a result of _understanding how intelligence works_, the _reduction_ of "thought" to _cognitive algorithms_. Intelligent systems that construct predictive models of the world around them—that have "true" "beliefs"—can _use_ those models to compute which actions will best achieve their goals. (Oh, and there was also this part about how [the entire future of humanity and the universe depended on](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GNnHHmm8EzePmKzPk/value-is-fragile) our figuring out how to reflect human values in a recursively self-improving artificial superintelligence. That part's complicated.) @@ -28,12 +26,11 @@ I guess I feel pretty naïve now, but—I _actually believed our own propoganda_ [...] -(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." This isn't supposed to be character/reputation attack on my friends and intellectual heroes. I just don't _know how_ to tell the true tale of personal heartbreak without expressing some degree of disappointment in some people's characters. It is written that ["almost no one is evil; almost everything is broken."](https://blog.jaibot.com/). And [the _first_ step](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uHYYA32CKgKT3FagE/hold-off-on-proposing-solutions) towards fixing that which is broken, is _describing the problem_.) - +(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_.) [...] -So, I think this is a bad argument. But specifically, it's a bad argument for _completely general reasons that have nothing to do with gender_. And more specifically, it's a bad argument for completely general reasons that have been explained in exhaustive, _exhaustive_ detail in _our own foundational texts_. +So, I think this is a bad argument. But specifically, it's a bad argument for _completely general reasons that have nothing to do with gender_. And more specifically, completely general reasons that have been explained in exhaustive, _exhaustive_ detail in _our own foundational texts_. In 2008, the Great Teacher had this really amazing series of posts explaining the hidden probability-theoretic structure of language and cognition. Essentially, explaining _natural language as an AI capability_. What your brain is doing when you [see a tiger and say, "Yikes! A tiger!"](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dMCFk2n2ur8n62hqB/feel-the-meaning) is governed the [simple math](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HnPEpu5eQWkbyAJCT/the-simple-math-of-everything) by which intelligent systems make observations, use those observations to assign category-membership, and use category-membership to make predictions about properties which have not yet been observed. _Words_, language, are an information-theoretically efficient _code_ for such systems to share cognitive content. @@ -59,24 +56,32 @@ And these posts hammered home the point over and over and over and _over_ again > ["One may even consider the act of defining a word as a promise to \[the\] effect [...] \[that the definition\] will somehow help you make inferences / shorten your messages."](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yLcuygFfMfrfK8KjF/mutual-information-and-density-in-thingspace) -Similarly, the Popular Author himself has written extensively about [the noncentral fallacy](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yCWPkLi8wJvewPbEp/the-noncentral-fallacy-the-worst-argument-in-the-world), which he called _the worst argument in the world_, so +Similarly, the Popular Author himself has written extensively about [the noncentral fallacy](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yCWPkLi8wJvewPbEp/the-noncentral-fallacy-the-worst-argument-in-the-world), which he called _the worst argument in the world_. [...] -You see the problem. +You see the problem. If "You can't define a word any way you want" is a good philosophy lesson, it should be a good philosophy lesson _independently_ of the particular word in question and _independently_ of the current year. + + + +If we've _learned something new_ about the philosophy of language in the last ten years + + This is _basic shit_. As we say locally, this is _basic Sequences shit_. +[...] + + + + + we did not realize that _whether I should cut my dick off_ would become a politicized issue. -Now, 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. +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. -[virtue of scholarship, so many fields of knowledge that are relevant] -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 -The "I can define the word 'woman' any way I want" argument is bullshit. All the actually-smart people know that it's bullshit at _some_ level, perhaps semi-consciously buried under a lot of cognitive dissonance. But it's _socially load-bearing_ bullshit that _not only_ does almost no one have an incentive to correct— +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 -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?! diff --git a/content/drafts/self-identity-is-a-schelling-point.md b/content/drafts/self-identity-is-a-schelling-point.md index 72fc7f1..a13a6d1 100644 --- a/content/drafts/self-identity-is-a-schelling-point.md +++ b/content/drafts/self-identity-is-a-schelling-point.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ Category: commentary Tags: game theory, sociology Status: draft -Previously on _The Scintillating But Ultimately Untrue Thought_, we've [considered]() at [length]() the ways in which the self-identity criterion for gender ("Women (respectively men) are people who identify as women (respectively men)") fails to +Previously on _The Scintillating But Ultimately Untrue Thought_, we've considered at length the ways in which the self-identity criterion for gender ("Women are people who identify as women") fails to diff --git a/notes/i-tell-myself-notes.txt b/notes/i-tell-myself-notes.txt index d70e200..5a3eec7 100644 --- a/notes/i-tell-myself-notes.txt +++ b/notes/i-tell-myself-notes.txt @@ -305,3 +305,13 @@ getting a reversal was improbable, but: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/st7DiQP2 TWAW is a positive-valence instance of the worst-argument-in-the-world, but it's still the SAME THING; if you can't see that, you're dumb + +[I have seen the destiny of my neurotype, and am putting forth a convulsive effort to wrench it off its path. My weapon is clear writing.](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/i8q4vXestDkGTFwsc/human-evil-and-muddled-thinking) + +I just don't _know how_ to tell the true tale of personal heartbreak without expressing some degree of disappointment in some people's characters. It is written that ["almost no one is evil; almost everything is broken."](https://blog.jaibot.com/). And [the _first_ step](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uHYYA32CKgKT3FagE/hold-off-on-proposing-solutions) towards fixing that which is broken, is _describing the problem_.) + +The "I can define the word 'woman' any way I want" argument is bullshit. All the actually-smart people know that it's bullshit at _some_ level, perhaps semi-consciously buried under a lot of cognitive dissonance. But it's _socially load-bearing_ bullshit that _not only_ does almost no one have an incentive to correct— + +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?! diff --git a/notes/notes.txt b/notes/notes.txt index d862b1e..a4036d3 100644 --- a/notes/notes.txt +++ b/notes/notes.txt @@ -1402,3 +1402,4 @@ I felt especially awkward being at a table with him in public in the context of I guess I see your point that if I can't trust these clowns to even put a "social trust" term into their utilitarian pseudo-calculation for open bathrooms, then I shouldn't trust them on open borders, either https://www.reddit.com/r/itsafetish/comments/cp1tap/gender_euphoria_genital_engorgement_whats_the/ + diff --git a/notes/post_ideas.txt b/notes/post_ideas.txt index e07b267..46d8b55 100644 --- a/notes/post_ideas.txt +++ b/notes/post_ideas.txt @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@ +✓ Reply to Ozymandias on Fully Consensual Gender Self-Identity Is a Schelling Point -Reply to Ozymandias on Fully Consensual Gender On the Argumentative Form "Super-proton Things Tend to Come in Varieties" "I Tell Myself to Let the Story End"; Or, A Hill of Validity in Defense of Meaning diff --git a/notes/ragequit_linkpost.md b/notes/ragequit_linkpost.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..74e9943 --- /dev/null +++ b/notes/ragequit_linkpost.md @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +**Backstory to:** [Where to Draw the Boundaries?](), [The Univariate Fallacy](), [Schelling Categories, and Simple Membership Tests](), [Heads I Win, Tails?—Never Heard of Her]() + +Oh, in case anyone was wondering why I've been doing so much philosophy-of-language blogging this year, I wrote up the (long, personal) backstory on my secret ("secret") blog. -- 2.17.1