I teach at a women’s college and whenever I mention my young son most of my students smile. The semester he was born I put a picture of him on the last page of my final exam and many students positively mentioned the picture in the following semesters. A way to increase the number of women who read LW would be to have more posts like this.
The post is currently at −5. I bet if he had basically the same content but it was about some robot he just created the post would have a positive rank.
A way to increase the number of women who read LW would be to have more posts like this.
It’s not as if we terminally value having more women around. Presumably this is an instrumental value in the service of some other value, and if so we should keep in mind whether attempts to satisfy this value interfere with that or other values, like maintaining a high level of discourse.
I agree. This is an important point. Even though I see no reason why it wouldn’t be a good thing to have more women posting on LW, I don’t think introducing more stuff that’s off topic is a good way to do so. If having more women around would be a good thing, as I assume it would be, this would suggest that there are mostly likely plenty of on-topic ways to do so.
I find this vaguely unsettling, because it seems to imply (though I doubt you intended this) that women have to be attracted via discussion of babies and other stereotypically “feminine” things. I’d rather see a change where more women realize that they can be interested in things other than babies, than a change where LW condescends to women by posting about babies.
As nerd-boys have been noticing for at least decades, women don’t have to be attracted at all! But jumping up in to rationality land, there are plenty of reasons to want them to be attracted, not the least of them being that providing useful information on how to improve reasoning is valuable approximately proportional to the number of people who receive it, and there are nearly as many women as men out there in the potential audience.
I certainly wasn’t saying that LW shouldn’t make an effort to attract women. I’m female myself, and I’d be happy to have more people who look like me around, and I agree with you about the reasons why as well.
The key part of my sentence there is “via discussion of babies,” because as a female, I wouldn’t like that particular method of attracting women at all. I think there might be other ways that would be more effective and that also wouldn’t dilute the substance of the common interests that bring us here.
“can be interested”
To what extent are interests choosable, and to what extent is it an obligation to do so inasmuch as current interests unsettle otherwise unconnected individuals?
The post is currently at −5. I bet if he had basically the same content but it was about some robot he just created the post would have a positive rank.
Creating a robot and creating a baby may be very broadly similar in output, but could hardly be less similar in input. Creating a robot requires extensive domain knowledge, whereas you can make a baby without even knowing how babies are made, although ideally you really shouldn’t.
The success of our species is gigantically driven by specialization. I do not need to know how a toilet and a sewage system work in order to use them. I do not have to know the details of creating food, storing it and transporting it without it going bad, in order to eat it, or even cook it. I do not need to know the circuit details of a cell=phone chip in order to create applications for smart phones.
It would be an amazingly high opportunity cost with little if any benefit if all people who had children were to know how babies are made in great detail. What are you thinking that you state as a moral truth that they should?
If you do not know what actions to engage in to make a baby, then you’re almost certainly not going to make one with an appropriate level of consideration, preparation and forethought.
The post is currently at −5. I bet if he had basically the same content but it was about some robot he just created the post would have a positive rank.
Creating a robot is easy. Everybody is born with the ability to create robots once they grow up so long as they can keep themselves alive and find a partner. In fact, not making robots is a harder task for many people and something that people fail at frequently, particularly if they lack education. If we started having people make posts every time someone made a robot we’d be overwhelmed with robot creation posts. Wait, no. Robots aren’t the same as babies after all.
(I am approximately neutral regarding this kind of post. I reject this particular argument but not the preceding observation that such sharing can be beneficial to a community.)
I bet if he had basically the same content but it was about some robot he just created the post would have a positive rank.
I don’t understand the analogy. The phrases “create a baby” and “create a robot” utilize the same syntax, but they’re certainly in no way analogous in this context. Having a kid is an achievement for sure, but it’s not what this forum is about. Creating a robot on the other hand though, this is related to some of the most salient topics on this forum—AI etc.
Edit: I missed the “same content” part of your point. Now that I see that I disagree with the assumption that it would be upvoted. I guarantee a post wouldn’t be upvoted if it’s about a new robot someone made but has no content about how it was programmed or made, or anything else but pictures that don’t really reveal anything and some sentences that don’t really explain anything.
Having a kid is an achievement for sure, but it’s not what this forum is about.
The connection between artificial intelligence and natural intelligence seems to escape many who post here. As an engineer, you would be a fool to ignore the natural experiments all around you in natural intelligence as you contemplate your artificial efforts.
Further, the site is set on adjusting human brains to be more rational. Of course this has to do with how we raise children. There is nothing trivial or boring or irrelevant to studies of friendly artificial intelligence in observations of how a baby turns in to a person under the influence of a tremendous amount of complex interaction with other persons.
Although it does seem to be the case that it would be helpful for the purpose of creating an artificial intelligence to consider how natural intelligence works, I don’t think this is something we’re in a shortage of here on LW. You say the connection between artificial and natural intelligence seems to escape many who post here, yet I see people talking about how human reasoning works much more often than I see people talk about how AI works, and when people discuss one, it’s not uncommon for them to draw analogies from the other.
This site is of course about how to adjust human brains to be more rational, and of course this has to do with how we raise children. And yeah, of course it’s relevant to consider how a baby turns into a person, and how the complex interpersonal interaction around them affects how this occurs. But here’s the problem: The OP says nothing about this. I don’t see even one word or phrase concerning how to raise children, or the mechanisms involved in raising children, or anything like that.
I teach at a women’s college and whenever I mention my young son most of my students smile. The semester he was born I put a picture of him on the last page of my final exam and many students positively mentioned the picture in the following semesters. A way to increase the number of women who read LW would be to have more posts like this.
The post is currently at −5. I bet if he had basically the same content but it was about some robot he just created the post would have a positive rank.
It’s not as if we terminally value having more women around. Presumably this is an instrumental value in the service of some other value, and if so we should keep in mind whether attempts to satisfy this value interfere with that or other values, like maintaining a high level of discourse.
I agree. This is an important point. Even though I see no reason why it wouldn’t be a good thing to have more women posting on LW, I don’t think introducing more stuff that’s off topic is a good way to do so. If having more women around would be a good thing, as I assume it would be, this would suggest that there are mostly likely plenty of on-topic ways to do so.
I find this vaguely unsettling, because it seems to imply (though I doubt you intended this) that women have to be attracted via discussion of babies and other stereotypically “feminine” things. I’d rather see a change where more women realize that they can be interested in things other than babies, than a change where LW condescends to women by posting about babies.
As nerd-boys have been noticing for at least decades, women don’t have to be attracted at all! But jumping up in to rationality land, there are plenty of reasons to want them to be attracted, not the least of them being that providing useful information on how to improve reasoning is valuable approximately proportional to the number of people who receive it, and there are nearly as many women as men out there in the potential audience.
I certainly wasn’t saying that LW shouldn’t make an effort to attract women. I’m female myself, and I’d be happy to have more people who look like me around, and I agree with you about the reasons why as well.
The key part of my sentence there is “via discussion of babies,” because as a female, I wouldn’t like that particular method of attracting women at all. I think there might be other ways that would be more effective and that also wouldn’t dilute the substance of the common interests that bring us here.
“can be interested” To what extent are interests choosable, and to what extent is it an obligation to do so inasmuch as current interests unsettle otherwise unconnected individuals?
Creating a robot and creating a baby may be very broadly similar in output, but could hardly be less similar in input. Creating a robot requires extensive domain knowledge, whereas you can make a baby without even knowing how babies are made, although ideally you really shouldn’t.
The success of our species is gigantically driven by specialization. I do not need to know how a toilet and a sewage system work in order to use them. I do not have to know the details of creating food, storing it and transporting it without it going bad, in order to eat it, or even cook it. I do not need to know the circuit details of a cell=phone chip in order to create applications for smart phones.
It would be an amazingly high opportunity cost with little if any benefit if all people who had children were to know how babies are made in great detail. What are you thinking that you state as a moral truth that they should?
If you do not know what actions to engage in to make a baby, then you’re almost certainly not going to make one with an appropriate level of consideration, preparation and forethought.
Creating a robot is easy. Everybody is born with the ability to create robots once they grow up so long as they can keep themselves alive and find a partner. In fact, not making robots is a harder task for many people and something that people fail at frequently, particularly if they lack education. If we started having people make posts every time someone made a robot we’d be overwhelmed with robot creation posts. Wait, no. Robots aren’t the same as babies after all.
(I am approximately neutral regarding this kind of post. I reject this particular argument but not the preceding observation that such sharing can be beneficial to a community.)
And we’ve already given new posts a pink border. Nearly there!
Oh snap, someone broke out their color wheel (in order to find a complementary color for green and grey).
I don’t understand the analogy. The phrases “create a baby” and “create a robot” utilize the same syntax, but they’re certainly in no way analogous in this context. Having a kid is an achievement for sure, but it’s not what this forum is about. Creating a robot on the other hand though, this is related to some of the most salient topics on this forum—AI etc.
Edit: I missed the “same content” part of your point. Now that I see that I disagree with the assumption that it would be upvoted. I guarantee a post wouldn’t be upvoted if it’s about a new robot someone made but has no content about how it was programmed or made, or anything else but pictures that don’t really reveal anything and some sentences that don’t really explain anything.
The connection between artificial intelligence and natural intelligence seems to escape many who post here. As an engineer, you would be a fool to ignore the natural experiments all around you in natural intelligence as you contemplate your artificial efforts.
Further, the site is set on adjusting human brains to be more rational. Of course this has to do with how we raise children. There is nothing trivial or boring or irrelevant to studies of friendly artificial intelligence in observations of how a baby turns in to a person under the influence of a tremendous amount of complex interaction with other persons.
Although it does seem to be the case that it would be helpful for the purpose of creating an artificial intelligence to consider how natural intelligence works, I don’t think this is something we’re in a shortage of here on LW. You say the connection between artificial and natural intelligence seems to escape many who post here, yet I see people talking about how human reasoning works much more often than I see people talk about how AI works, and when people discuss one, it’s not uncommon for them to draw analogies from the other.
This site is of course about how to adjust human brains to be more rational, and of course this has to do with how we raise children. And yeah, of course it’s relevant to consider how a baby turns into a person, and how the complex interpersonal interaction around them affects how this occurs. But here’s the problem: The OP says nothing about this. I don’t see even one word or phrase concerning how to raise children, or the mechanisms involved in raising children, or anything like that.