Generally some information is better than no information and I would say that for all intents and purposes mainstream advice on dating and relations between the sexes is more or less no information.
Actually, I’d say there’s a whole lot of strongly misleading information, and the situation is much worse than in most other areas of life. For example, in the conventional wisdom about job hunting there is certainly a lot of trite and suboptimal information, and truly great advice is always a matter of insider information to which few people are privy—but there is nothing like, say, the respectable opinion telling you that it’s best to show up for the job interview drunk and puke on the interviewer’s desk. Whereas in dating and inter-sex relations in general, a lot of the respectable opinion, if taken at face value, advises equivalently bad acts of self-sabotage.
Now, a body of advice whose quality is a mixed bag may be on the net either good or bad. If you’re given ten tips about driving, nine of which will make you a somewhat better driver but one of which will vastly increase your probability of getting killed in an accident, we’d probably agree that the “some information is better than no information” conclusion doesn’t apply. However, if the tenth one merely increases your parking fines slightly, it may well be the case.
So, what about the quality of advice that will be produced by a LW discussion on these topics operating under such constraints of respectability, where disreputable sources of accurate information are tabooed, a pretense must be maintained that the discourse is grounded in officially accredited scholarship and other high-status sources of information, and—most important of all—the entire discourse and its bottom line must produce a narrative that is in line with the respectable, high-status views of humanity and society? I am not at all optimistic, especially having seen what has been produced so far!
Now I would say that what would be welcomed is a clear acknowledgement of what occurred and what the situation is. [...] But to not clearly acknowledge the situation will lead only to a false consensus emerging, and arguably to a certain extent it already has!
Yes, I think this is an important issue even aside from the question of the quality of the generated advice. The whole tone of these supposedly successful LW discussions about dating, relationships, and related topics assumes that the relevant high-status ideological views and official scholarship are a product of genuine free-thinking and rationality, so that a truly rational debate about these matters simply cannot lead to anything that respectable and accredited people would frown on. (And, by extension, that people who purportedly try to break the happy death spirals and draw the discourse closer to reality must be dishonest and delusional, and are thus obnoxiously stirring up bad blood without good reason.) This represents delusional wishful thinking of a sort that would be seen as unacceptable on LW if practiced about many other topics.
So, what about the quality of advice that will be produced by a LW discussion on these topics operating under such constraints of respectability, where disreputable sources of accurate information are tabooed, a pretense must be maintained that the discourse is grounded in officially accredited scholarship and other high-status sources of information, and—most important of all—the entire discourse and its bottom line must produce a narrative that is in line with the respectable, high-status views of humanity and society?
In the past people have obviously retrospectively looked for academic sources to support PUA ideas. It’s instrumentally fine, just a bad habit. Also, it is easy to hint at what is unsaid by saying it would be offensive, and hinting at exactly how offensive it would or wouldn’t be. Imagine a map of the world where every feature north of 35 degrees latitude was only described (Canada? Way north, I can’t put that on the map, it’s not even close! Korea? Look, that’s just not the sort of thing that can be boldly painted on the map. I’ll sketch a rough outline in pencil, OK?) Such a map would not be misleading.
Actually, I’d say there’s a whole lot of strongly misleading information, and the situation is much worse than in most other areas of life. For example, in the conventional wisdom about job hunting there is certainly a lot of trite and suboptimal information, and truly great advice is always a matter of insider information to which few people are privy—but there is nothing like, say, the respectable opinion telling you that it’s best to show up for the job interview drunk and puke on the interviewer’s desk. Whereas in dating and inter-sex relations in general, a lot of the respectable opinion, if taken at face value, advises equivalently bad acts of self-sabotage.
Now, a body of advice whose quality is a mixed bag may be on the net either good or bad. If you’re given ten tips about driving, nine of which will make you a somewhat better driver but one of which will vastly increase your probability of getting killed in an accident, we’d probably agree that the “some information is better than no information” conclusion doesn’t apply. However, if the tenth one merely increases your parking fines slightly, it may well be the case.
So, what about the quality of advice that will be produced by a LW discussion on these topics operating under such constraints of respectability, where disreputable sources of accurate information are tabooed, a pretense must be maintained that the discourse is grounded in officially accredited scholarship and other high-status sources of information, and—most important of all—the entire discourse and its bottom line must produce a narrative that is in line with the respectable, high-status views of humanity and society? I am not at all optimistic, especially having seen what has been produced so far!
Yes, I think this is an important issue even aside from the question of the quality of the generated advice. The whole tone of these supposedly successful LW discussions about dating, relationships, and related topics assumes that the relevant high-status ideological views and official scholarship are a product of genuine free-thinking and rationality, so that a truly rational debate about these matters simply cannot lead to anything that respectable and accredited people would frown on. (And, by extension, that people who purportedly try to break the happy death spirals and draw the discourse closer to reality must be dishonest and delusional, and are thus obnoxiously stirring up bad blood without good reason.) This represents delusional wishful thinking of a sort that would be seen as unacceptable on LW if practiced about many other topics.
In the past people have obviously retrospectively looked for academic sources to support PUA ideas. It’s instrumentally fine, just a bad habit. Also, it is easy to hint at what is unsaid by saying it would be offensive, and hinting at exactly how offensive it would or wouldn’t be. Imagine a map of the world where every feature north of 35 degrees latitude was only described (Canada? Way north, I can’t put that on the map, it’s not even close! Korea? Look, that’s just not the sort of thing that can be boldly painted on the map. I’ll sketch a rough outline in pencil, OK?) Such a map would not be misleading.