Hi! I believe I’m the only person to try shunning them, which happened on Facebook a month ago (since Zack named himself in the comments, see here, and here). The effort more or less blew up in my face and got a few people to publicly say they were going to excluded me, or try to get others to exclude me from future community events, and was also a large (but not the only) factor in getting me to step down from a leadership position in a project I’m spending about half of my time on. To be fair, there are a couple of places where Zack is less welcome now also, (I don’t think either of us have been successfully excluded from anything other than privately hosted events we weren’t likely to go to anyways), and someone with the viewpoint that shunning him was the wrong thing for me to do also stepped down from an equivalent leadership position in order to maintain a balance. So, I guess we’re in a stalemate-like de facto ceasefire, though I’d be happy to pick up the issue again.
I still stand by my response to Zack. It would have been better if I’d been skilled enough to convince him to use a less aggressive tone throughout his writing by being gentler myself; that’s an area where I’m still trying to grow. I think that collaborative truthseeking is aided rather than hindered by shunning people who call others “delusional perverts” because of their gender. This is, at least in part, because keeping discussions focused on truthseeking, impact, etc. is easier when there are social incentives (i.e. small social nudges that can later escalate to shunning) in place that disincentivize people from acting in ways that predictably push others into a state where they’re hurt enough that they’re unable to collaborate with you, such as by calling them delusional perverts. I know that the process of applying said social incentives (i.e. shunning) doesn’t look like truthseeking, but it’s instrumental to truthseeking (when done with specificity and sensitivity/by people with a well-calibrated set of certain common social skills).
a large (but not the only) factor in getting me to step down from a leadership position in a project I’m spending about half of my time on. [...] and someone with the viewpoint that shunning him was the wrong thing for me to do also stepped down from an equivalent leadership position in order to maintain a balance.
I wasn’t aware of this, but it seems unfortunate. If successfully ostracizing me isn’t going to happen anyway, “both of you step down from something that you previously wanted to do” seems like a worse outcome than “neither of you step down.”
(For my own part, while I wouldn’t invite you to any parties I host at my house, I have no interest in trying to get other people to exclude you from their events. I consider my goal in this whole affair as simply to make it clear that I don’t intend to let social pressure influence my writing—a goal at which I think I’ve succeeded.)
shunning people who call others “delusional perverts” because of their gender
I hadn’t bothered addressing this earlier, because I wanted to emphasize that my true rejection was “I don’t negotiate with emotional blackmailers; I’m happy to listen and update on substantive criticism of my writing, but appeal to consequences is not a substantive criticism”, but since it is relevant, I really think you’ve misunderstood the point of that post: try reading the second and third paragraphs again.
What I’m trying to do there is highlight my disapproval of the phenomenon where the perceived emotional valence of language overshadows its literal content. I understand very well that the phrase “delusional pervert” constitutes fighting words in a way that “paraphilic with mistaken views” doesn’t, but I’m interested in developing the skill of being able to simultaneously contemplate framings with different ideological/emotional charges, especially including framings that make me and my friends look bad (precisely because those are the ones it’s most emotionally tempting to overlook). People who aren’t interested in this skill probably shouldn’t read my blog, as the trigger warning page explains.
(Seriously, why isn’t the trigger warning page good enough for you? It’s one thing to say my writing to should have a label to protect the sensitive, but it’s another thing to say that you don’t want my thoughts to exist!)
It would have been better if I’d been skilled enough to convince him to use a less aggressive tone throughout his writing by being gentler myself
Not all goals are achievable by sufficiently-skilled gentle social manipulation. If you can show me an argument that can persuade me to change my behavior given _my_ values, then I’ll do so. If no such argument exists, then your skill and gentleness don’t matter. (At least, I hope I’m not that hackable!)
I appreciate your offer to talk things out together! To the extent that I’m feeling bad and would feel better after talking things out, I’m inclined to say that my current feelings are serving a purpose, i.e. to encourage me to keep pressing on this issue whenever doing so is impactful. So I prefer to not be consoled until the root issue has been addressed, though that wouldn’t have been at all true of the old version of myself. This algorithm is a bit new to me, and I’m not sure if it’ll stick.
Overall, I’m not aware that I’ve caused the balance of the discussion (i.e. pro immediate abrasive truthseeking vs. pro incentives that encourage later collaborative truthseeking & prosociality) to shift noticeably in either way, though I might have made it sound like I made less progress than I did, since I was sort of ranting/acting like I was looking for support above.
encourage me to keep pressing on this issue whenever doing so is impactful. So I prefer to not be consoled until the root issue has been addressed
Is this really a winning move for you? I’m not budging. It doesn’t look like you have a coalition that can deny me anything I care about. From my perspective, any activity spreading the message “Zack M. Davis should be shunned because of his writing at http://unremediatedgender.space/″ is just free marketing.
Hi! I believe I’m the only person to try shunning them, which happened on Facebook a month ago (since Zack named himself in the comments, see here, and here). The effort more or less blew up in my face and got a few people to publicly say they were going to excluded me, or try to get others to exclude me from future community events, and was also a large (but not the only) factor in getting me to step down from a leadership position in a project I’m spending about half of my time on. To be fair, there are a couple of places where Zack is less welcome now also, (I don’t think either of us have been successfully excluded from anything other than privately hosted events we weren’t likely to go to anyways), and someone with the viewpoint that shunning him was the wrong thing for me to do also stepped down from an equivalent leadership position in order to maintain a balance. So, I guess we’re in a stalemate-like de facto ceasefire, though I’d be happy to pick up the issue again.
I still stand by my response to Zack. It would have been better if I’d been skilled enough to convince him to use a less aggressive tone throughout his writing by being gentler myself; that’s an area where I’m still trying to grow. I think that collaborative truthseeking is aided rather than hindered by shunning people who call others “delusional perverts” because of their gender. This is, at least in part, because keeping discussions focused on truthseeking, impact, etc. is easier when there are social incentives (i.e. small social nudges that can later escalate to shunning) in place that disincentivize people from acting in ways that predictably push others into a state where they’re hurt enough that they’re unable to collaborate with you, such as by calling them delusional perverts. I know that the process of applying said social incentives (i.e. shunning) doesn’t look like truthseeking, but it’s instrumental to truthseeking (when done with specificity and sensitivity/by people with a well-calibrated set of certain common social skills).
(Just noticed this.)
I wasn’t aware of this, but it seems unfortunate. If successfully ostracizing me isn’t going to happen anyway, “both of you step down from something that you previously wanted to do” seems like a worse outcome than “neither of you step down.”
(For my own part, while I wouldn’t invite you to any parties I host at my house, I have no interest in trying to get other people to exclude you from their events. I consider my goal in this whole affair as simply to make it clear that I don’t intend to let social pressure influence my writing—a goal at which I think I’ve succeeded.)
I hadn’t bothered addressing this earlier, because I wanted to emphasize that my true rejection was “I don’t negotiate with emotional blackmailers; I’m happy to listen and update on substantive criticism of my writing, but appeal to consequences is not a substantive criticism”, but since it is relevant, I really think you’ve misunderstood the point of that post: try reading the second and third paragraphs again.
What I’m trying to do there is highlight my disapproval of the phenomenon where the perceived emotional valence of language overshadows its literal content. I understand very well that the phrase “delusional pervert” constitutes fighting words in a way that “paraphilic with mistaken views” doesn’t, but I’m interested in developing the skill of being able to simultaneously contemplate framings with different ideological/emotional charges, especially including framings that make me and my friends look bad (precisely because those are the ones it’s most emotionally tempting to overlook). People who aren’t interested in this skill probably shouldn’t read my blog, as the trigger warning page explains.
(Seriously, why isn’t the trigger warning page good enough for you? It’s one thing to say my writing to should have a label to protect the sensitive, but it’s another thing to say that you don’t want my thoughts to exist!)
Not all goals are achievable by sufficiently-skilled gentle social manipulation. If you can show me an argument that can persuade me to change my behavior given _my_ values, then I’ll do so. If no such argument exists, then your skill and gentleness don’t matter. (At least, I hope I’m not that hackable!)
it sounds like something happened and there was some miscommunication and things are not fully healed. Would you like help with that?
I appreciate your offer to talk things out together! To the extent that I’m feeling bad and would feel better after talking things out, I’m inclined to say that my current feelings are serving a purpose, i.e. to encourage me to keep pressing on this issue whenever doing so is impactful. So I prefer to not be consoled until the root issue has been addressed, though that wouldn’t have been at all true of the old version of myself. This algorithm is a bit new to me, and I’m not sure if it’ll stick.
Overall, I’m not aware that I’ve caused the balance of the discussion (i.e. pro immediate abrasive truthseeking vs. pro incentives that encourage later collaborative truthseeking & prosociality) to shift noticeably in either way, though I might have made it sound like I made less progress than I did, since I was sort of ranting/acting like I was looking for support above.
Is this really a winning move for you? I’m not budging. It doesn’t look like you have a coalition that can deny me anything I care about. From my perspective, any activity spreading the message “Zack M. Davis should be shunned because of his writing at http://unremediatedgender.space/″ is just free marketing.