I’m concerned (morally horrified as well as convinced of factual error) by quotes from two texts that are part of the “canon” here. The first advocates nonconsensual sadism; the second advocates sadism.
Warning: SEX AND CONSENT AND SADISM TO BE DISCUSSED:
From “Three Worlds Collide”:
The Confessor [, a rationality expert on a starship’s crew,] held up a hand. “I mean it, my lord Akon. It is not polite idealism. We ancients can’t steer. We remember too much disaster. We’re too cautious to dare the bold path forward. Do you know there was a time when nonconsensual sex was illegal?”
Akon wasn’t sure whether to smile or grimace. “The Prohibition, right? During the first century pre-Net? I expect everyone was glad to have that law taken off the books. I can’t imagine how boring your sex lives must have been up until then—flirting with a woman, teasing her, leading her on, knowing the whole time that you were perfectly safe because she couldn’t take matters into her own hands if you went a little too far—”
Nonconsensual sex is generally illegal and is obviously harmful, given the widely known, well documented negative consequences that I will not enumerate here. The quote about this is a transparently gender-reversed claim that the risk of sexual assault improves relationships by making them more exciting. This is obviously and offensively wrong. Does the risk of robbery improve living conditions? Does the risk of death improve life? Also, a future society where consent is optional appears to be a terrible dystopia: assuming a free democratic government, lack of consent implies that advertisers and corporations could force consumers to buy things. This quote needs A LOT of additional justification and qualification (and ideally deletion) to avoid implying that “raising the sanity waterline” means “abolishing liberty and ethics.”
From the April Fool’s Day 2014 Confession:
I’m very worried, in retrospect, that they all managed to cure themselves via standard self-modification techniques. It’s very obvious that if I’d realized in dath ilan [, an ideal rationalist society,] that I was a sexual sadist, I would have treated this as an error and probably not told anyone before I fixed it. It would not have occurred to me that sexual masochists were a thing or that I could find a willing victim to be sadistic at, I would have thought I was being sick and selfish.
Consensual sadism is (usually) legal. For the rationalist goal of “raising the sanity waterline”, being consensually sadistic appears to be a distraction at best. Inflicting pain for fun appears likely to harm empathy and sociability. I don’t know much about this community/practice. “Willing victim” implies victimization in a negative sense, while BDSM is intended to be positive for all participants.
Moral relativism awareness notice: I am aware that “should” cannot be derived from “is”, and that no one knows how or why anything exists except in relation to other things that exist.
Given that we’re trying to be “rational”, which presumably means “think in a way that gets the best outcome for the thinker given the situation and the available information”, I fail to see how sadism is anything but a harmful distraction, and sexual consent an essential good.
At least one point of Three Worlds Collide is to help the reader appreciate what Irreconcilable Moral Differences feel like from the inside. Humanity revising its view of consent contributes to this goal, and has the benefit of being nearer. With immortality to keep past generations alive, sufficient cumulative moral progress will feel to them about as alien and terrible as legalizing rape.
“ This is obviously and offensively wrong. Does the risk of robbery improve living conditions? Does the risk of death improve life? Also, a future society where consent is optional appears to be a terrible dystopia: assuming a free democratic government, lack of consent implies that advertisers and corporations could force consumers to buy things. This quote needs A LOT of additional justification and qualification (and ideally deletion) to avoid implying that “raising the sanity waterline” means “abolishing liberty and ethics.””
That part of the story wasn’t trying to say “this is something that needs to happen to raise the sanity waterline”. Remember, it’s just a fictional story. Rather, it was trying to show an example of something that we today would find incredibly offensive and morally unjustifiable, and yet that became a part of humanity.
Remember that for someone 500 years ago, many of our current practices seem absolutely repugnant and morally unjustifiable, even though today they’re just part of culture. Even 100 years ago, the idea of a black person sitting next to a white person on a bus was considered terrible, not to mention women having any kind of rights at home. In some parts of the world, a woman showing her hair is considered immoral and unjustifiable.
The story just wanted to give something that could happen but most people would think is wrong.
Consensual sadism isn’t a goal of raising the sanity waterline any more than having better sex is, but many people consider both to be enjoyable things. We can’t say anything that does not strictly raise the waterline is automatically bad, or even a neutral thing.
Inflicting pain for fun appears likely to harm empathy and sociability
In my experience, this is very much the opposite of what happens. As a sadist, I need to be more aware of what my bottoms are experiencing. In most cases, it isn’t that people who are bottoming enjoy all pain, I had to learn to recognize the difference in reactions between pleasure, good pain, bad pain that they like, and bad pain that they don’t like. This is much harder than in vanilla practices, which just needs to differentiate between any type of pain and pleasure.
As for sociability, the BDSM community is very much a social one, and I don’t see how being in it would decrease this.
For some people, certain types and amounts of pain is actually processed as a basically enjoyable thing. Other types of pain are still processed as pain, but is still something they want to happen and enjoy on a different level.
The distinction that I make is physically damaging versus not. So good pain that I like is pretty simple (hair-pulling, spicy food, moderate heat, etc.); good pain that I don’t like would include a lot of the pain caused by exercise; bad pain that I like would include excessive heat (for some reason damaging levels of heat are easier for me to enjoy than other sorts of injury; I’ve burned myself before by walking on hot pavement that wasn’t quite too hot to enjoy), and bad pain that I don’t like would include stubbed toes, sprained ankles, and the like.
That part in Three Worlds Collide is intended to show that future humanity is as far removed from us as the Baby-Eaters and the Superhappies are from future humanity. It’s not put forward as an example to follow. Shock and disgust are the intended reaction. (Also as a sidenote, I remember Yudkowsky saying that he probably should have put in a different example.)
I can’t comment about rationalists and BDSM since I’m not a part of the latter community. What I do know is that subs tend to be just as happy with the arrangement as doms are and that a sub not being happy with the thing is seen as a bad thing.
Also, BDSM isn’t just about inflicting (or receiving) pain for sexual pleasure. Aftercare is an important aspect of the relationships, from what I read.
I’m concerned (morally horrified as well as convinced of factual error) by quotes from two texts that are part of the “canon” here.
Neither is anything remotely resembling “canon”. TWC is an early attempt at metaethics fiction, and the Confession was reposted from Facebook, by popular (but misguided) demand. While a fun reading in context, they do not represent anything more. The LW site is certainly not the intended audience for the “confession”, as far as I understand, and this mismatch shows quite painfully.
If you feel like being “morally horrified” (whatever that might mean), at least consider looking at the Sequences.
I meant “morally horrified” as shorthand for “high confidence that what is described greatly reduces happiness”. If you have a decision-making process that operates without you feeling anything, I would like to hear about it. In that case, you might enjoy reading Gut Feelings, which describes how feelings typically help people accurately make decisions in a time-limited environment. In some scenarios, allowing time to think and reflect resulted in a less-accurate decision-making than relying on snap judgments, for example because time allowed people to assign too much meaning to unreliable information.
While a fun reading in context, they do not represent anything more.
This could be said about any text anyone disagrees with.
For the rationalist goal of “raising the sanity waterline”, being consensually sadistic appears to be a distraction at best.
You are not reading at a deep enough level to engage with the text. dath ilan is supposed to be a rationalist ideal world. It’s a world without sadists. The text doesn’t disagree with the claim that sadism is a distraction from following the rationalist goal.
Inflicting pain for fun appears likely to harm empathy and sociability. I don’t know much about this community/practice.
I also don’t know, but if you don’t know, why are you making the claim in the first place instead of doing a bit of background research?
This part was a jarring note in Three Worlds Collide for me, but for a different reason. If these people grok evolutionary theory so much that they can infer the evolutionary reason for an alien species’ Baby-eating behavior within the course of a day, and also evolutionary psychology concepts like “superstimulus” have permeated to be part of everyday language, then why do they have trouble understanding why unwanted sex might be a cause for discomfort? I can accept societal attitudes towards it changing given sufficiently advanced technology, but that people wouldn’t UNDERSTAND why it was once proscribed just breaks immersion for me.
For the rationalist goal of “raising the sanity waterline”, being consensually sadistic appears to be a distraction at best. Inflicting pain for fun appears likely to harm empathy and sociability.
While studies of SM are lacking, other activities involving inflicting pain are shown to reduce empathy. Examples include violent video games (study) and fighting in a war (article). I don’t have a source for sociability impact beyond my self-interested desire to avoid people who enjoy causing pain.
Maybe those are not comparable. E.g. anna anthropy writes
you think about violence differently when it’s asked for, and when the person receiving it is someone that you care about – it has consequences. you start checking in, paying attention to her physical and emotional state.
I’m concerned (morally horrified as well as convinced of factual error) by quotes from two texts that are part of the “canon” here. The first advocates nonconsensual sadism; the second advocates sadism. Warning: SEX AND CONSENT AND SADISM TO BE DISCUSSED:
From “Three Worlds Collide”:
Nonconsensual sex is generally illegal and is obviously harmful, given the widely known, well documented negative consequences that I will not enumerate here. The quote about this is a transparently gender-reversed claim that the risk of sexual assault improves relationships by making them more exciting. This is obviously and offensively wrong. Does the risk of robbery improve living conditions? Does the risk of death improve life? Also, a future society where consent is optional appears to be a terrible dystopia: assuming a free democratic government, lack of consent implies that advertisers and corporations could force consumers to buy things. This quote needs A LOT of additional justification and qualification (and ideally deletion) to avoid implying that “raising the sanity waterline” means “abolishing liberty and ethics.”
From the April Fool’s Day 2014 Confession:
Consensual sadism is (usually) legal. For the rationalist goal of “raising the sanity waterline”, being consensually sadistic appears to be a distraction at best. Inflicting pain for fun appears likely to harm empathy and sociability. I don’t know much about this community/practice. “Willing victim” implies victimization in a negative sense, while BDSM is intended to be positive for all participants.
Moral relativism awareness notice: I am aware that “should” cannot be derived from “is”, and that no one knows how or why anything exists except in relation to other things that exist.
Given that we’re trying to be “rational”, which presumably means “think in a way that gets the best outcome for the thinker given the situation and the available information”, I fail to see how sadism is anything but a harmful distraction, and sexual consent an essential good.
At least one point of Three Worlds Collide is to help the reader appreciate what Irreconcilable Moral Differences feel like from the inside. Humanity revising its view of consent contributes to this goal, and has the benefit of being nearer. With immortality to keep past generations alive, sufficient cumulative moral progress will feel to them about as alien and terrible as legalizing rape.
Creating a fictional society in which people do X does not imply advocating X.
“ This is obviously and offensively wrong. Does the risk of robbery improve living conditions? Does the risk of death improve life? Also, a future society where consent is optional appears to be a terrible dystopia: assuming a free democratic government, lack of consent implies that advertisers and corporations could force consumers to buy things. This quote needs A LOT of additional justification and qualification (and ideally deletion) to avoid implying that “raising the sanity waterline” means “abolishing liberty and ethics.””
That part of the story wasn’t trying to say “this is something that needs to happen to raise the sanity waterline”. Remember, it’s just a fictional story. Rather, it was trying to show an example of something that we today would find incredibly offensive and morally unjustifiable, and yet that became a part of humanity.
Remember that for someone 500 years ago, many of our current practices seem absolutely repugnant and morally unjustifiable, even though today they’re just part of culture. Even 100 years ago, the idea of a black person sitting next to a white person on a bus was considered terrible, not to mention women having any kind of rights at home. In some parts of the world, a woman showing her hair is considered immoral and unjustifiable.
The story just wanted to give something that could happen but most people would think is wrong.
Consensual sadism isn’t a goal of raising the sanity waterline any more than having better sex is, but many people consider both to be enjoyable things. We can’t say anything that does not strictly raise the waterline is automatically bad, or even a neutral thing.
In my experience, this is very much the opposite of what happens. As a sadist, I need to be more aware of what my bottoms are experiencing. In most cases, it isn’t that people who are bottoming enjoy all pain, I had to learn to recognize the difference in reactions between pleasure, good pain, bad pain that they like, and bad pain that they don’t like. This is much harder than in vanilla practices, which just needs to differentiate between any type of pain and pleasure.
As for sociability, the BDSM community is very much a social one, and I don’t see how being in it would decrease this.
What do you mean by “bad” for that to make sense?
For some people, certain types and amounts of pain is actually processed as a basically enjoyable thing. Other types of pain are still processed as pain, but is still something they want to happen and enjoy on a different level.
The distinction that I make is physically damaging versus not. So good pain that I like is pretty simple (hair-pulling, spicy food, moderate heat, etc.); good pain that I don’t like would include a lot of the pain caused by exercise; bad pain that I like would include excessive heat (for some reason damaging levels of heat are easier for me to enjoy than other sorts of injury; I’ve burned myself before by walking on hot pavement that wasn’t quite too hot to enjoy), and bad pain that I don’t like would include stubbed toes, sprained ankles, and the like.
That part in Three Worlds Collide is intended to show that future humanity is as far removed from us as the Baby-Eaters and the Superhappies are from future humanity. It’s not put forward as an example to follow. Shock and disgust are the intended reaction. (Also as a sidenote, I remember Yudkowsky saying that he probably should have put in a different example.)
I can’t comment about rationalists and BDSM since I’m not a part of the latter community. What I do know is that subs tend to be just as happy with the arrangement as doms are and that a sub not being happy with the thing is seen as a bad thing.
Also, BDSM isn’t just about inflicting (or receiving) pain for sexual pleasure. Aftercare is an important aspect of the relationships, from what I read.
Neither is anything remotely resembling “canon”. TWC is an early attempt at metaethics fiction, and the Confession was reposted from Facebook, by popular (but misguided) demand. While a fun reading in context, they do not represent anything more. The LW site is certainly not the intended audience for the “confession”, as far as I understand, and this mismatch shows quite painfully.
If you feel like being “morally horrified” (whatever that might mean), at least consider looking at the Sequences.
I meant “morally horrified” as shorthand for “high confidence that what is described greatly reduces happiness”. If you have a decision-making process that operates without you feeling anything, I would like to hear about it. In that case, you might enjoy reading Gut Feelings, which describes how feelings typically help people accurately make decisions in a time-limited environment. In some scenarios, allowing time to think and reflect resulted in a less-accurate decision-making than relying on snap judgments, for example because time allowed people to assign too much meaning to unreliable information.
This could be said about any text anyone disagrees with.
No, it really couldn’t—not with a similar degree of justification, anyway.
(Why is this a bad comment? Not everything is a fully general counterargument, and the context here is definitely nontrivial!)
You are not reading at a deep enough level to engage with the text. dath ilan is supposed to be a rationalist ideal world. It’s a world without sadists. The text doesn’t disagree with the claim that sadism is a distraction from following the rationalist goal.
I also don’t know, but if you don’t know, why are you making the claim in the first place instead of doing a bit of background research?
I didn’t read dath ilan as an ideal world, just a better one.
You are missing a word in my sentence. The key word isn’t “ideal” but “rationalist”.
I didn’t miss it and my response would be the same. Dath ilan is optimized better than our world, but certainly not maximally optimized.
This part was a jarring note in Three Worlds Collide for me, but for a different reason. If these people grok evolutionary theory so much that they can infer the evolutionary reason for an alien species’ Baby-eating behavior within the course of a day, and also evolutionary psychology concepts like “superstimulus” have permeated to be part of everyday language, then why do they have trouble understanding why unwanted sex might be a cause for discomfort? I can accept societal attitudes towards it changing given sufficiently advanced technology, but that people wouldn’t UNDERSTAND why it was once proscribed just breaks immersion for me.
People very often use the phrase “I don’t understand x” to express disapproval and to mean “I haven’t even TRIED to understand x”
Are you talking about me or the characters?
The characters.
This doesn’t seem at all obvious to me. Source?
While studies of SM are lacking, other activities involving inflicting pain are shown to reduce empathy. Examples include violent video games (study) and fighting in a war (article). I don’t have a source for sociability impact beyond my self-interested desire to avoid people who enjoy causing pain.
Maybe those are not comparable. E.g. anna anthropy writes
Makes sense. I wish more people had such self-awareness and empathy!
Or at least rationalized as such.