Edit: this comment has been rewritten; please see wnoise’s comment below for original context.
I feel that the topic of gender identity is not as important as this discussion and others like it on LW seem to make it. In a text based environment, using pseudonyms, we are genderless until we reveal ourselves. And unless we intend to employ mating signals between posters here, it has little relevance even after it has been revealed.
I have operated for years in communities where the gender of participants is highly relevant, but where there were taboos against attempts to discover true genders (online, text-based roleplaying). In such environments, I’ve developed a severe lack of concern for the topic at large, and instead read what the person has to say and contribute without a gender filter. Many times, I don’t even read the name of a poster except as a pattern that allows me to place the comment in context with those around it.
Alicorn’s focus on gender identity has, several times now, generated very large discussion threads and at least one top level post. I do not understand why this is accepted by the rest of the LW community as important and relevant to the topic of rationality.
It’s because we want more women to post here so we need to listen to Alicorn and keep her happy!!! We respect her opinions. Diversity is good. If we can’t keep Alicorn happy, we’re generally screwed as far as attracting (and subsequently not alienating) more women to this site.
Being non-anglo-saxon, I’m in a minority here. So you need to listen to me and keep me happy!!! You have to respect my opinions. Diversity is good. If you can’t keep me happy, you’re generally screwed as far as attracting (and subsequently not alienating) more non-anglo-saxons to this site.
I don’t perceive Alicorn as “focusing” on “gender identity”. I perceive Alicorn as getting annoyed when people (out of carelessness) get her gender identity wrong.
Annoyance is one thing, and I have no problem with it; expressing that annoyance in such a way as to fuel a 118 post thread (and growing) on the topic in an otherwise unrelated article is what I disagree with.
Surely if the thread’s grown unwieldy, that’s not simply because Alicorn expressed her annoyance? There’s a whole bunch of other people involved here, whose contribution matters even if it all stems off of one of her comments.
Alicorn’s focus on gender identity has, several times now, generated very large discussion threads and at least one top level post. I do not understand why this is accepted by the rest of the LW community as important and relevant to the topic of rationality.
Questions of appropriate standards for our community are on-topic to a limited extent. If you disagree, please refrain from making comments like this one, on pain of contradiction.
As pointed out by Kevin, this discussion has been had several times before on LW, and community norms should have already been established, in which case continued large threads on the topic are likely unproductive.
I also do not see why contradiction should be painful.
I would categorize it as 10 percent humor, 60 percent temporary interest in the vague threat implied by the “don’t do this… or else” definition and why that context was appropriate when applied to the topic of contradiction, and 30 percent etymological interest, as I have “on pain of death” as the most-associated thought when hearing the phrase (Google agrees, with that as the top suggestion to complete “on pain of”), and was curious as to how the permutation may have originated.
ETA: I disagree with the sentiment that contradiction is a negative, undesirable, or potentially painful event; instead, I view it as an opportunity to update maps, assuming that the contradiction is supported by the weight of the evidence.
“Pain” in this expression means “penalty”. Though I haven’t looked it up to confirm, I’m pretty confident the word “pain” itself comes from Latin poena via French peine, meaning just that.
(The first time I heard this idiom, the phrase was “on pain of imprisonment”.)
If you downvoted this comment, please explain why you feel that the topic of gender identity is so important as to merit top level posts and long discussions in many other posts.
I have not downvoted it. But the original phrasing “You are too focused on the topic of gender identity; I suggest that the topic is not nearly so worthy of concern.” differs from the one here in that it suggests concern to oneself, rather than the concern to the community that this post makes clear. The first is telling other people what they should be concerned with, violating a clear norm, and helping no one.
I downvoted it. This was already discussed in depth on the site a while ago. See the fall-out posts and discussion related to the PUA stuff (googling for PUA site:lesswrong.com should give you most of it) Basically, the answer to your statement (and then some!) is contained in that thousands of words worth of discussion, and I thought your comment was little more than being a likely trigger for a discussion that’s already been beaten into the ground here, even though that wasn’t your intention and your intention was in fact exactly opposite.
I will state that summarizing this discussion for postery’s sake (in the wiki) so we can stop having it is a good idea.
Yes, I read those discussions, and those posts, which is why I’m surprised it’s still generating threads this large on unrelated articles.
When reading, I noticed that this particular thread had a button labeled “load more comments (106 replies)”, and that struck me as very wrong for a comment I would have labeled “off-topic” at best.
I didn’t downvote, but considering that many people are confused about gender identity, applying rationality to it seems a reasonable topic for posting here.
Pragmatically: It’s important because the fact that this keeps coming up again and again suggests it’s not going to go away just because it’s annoying to many when it happens, and a mechanism to channel, redirect or settle the matter in the form of community norms hasn’t yet been found. Meanwhile, there’s clearly people who find it relevant, both to their participation in LW and not infrequently to life experiences that have bearing on what they can contribute to refining the art of rationality. Some of those people are major contributors here; some of them may still be lurking. Some of them haven’t even found te site yet. A global norm that rejects the topic altogether seems like a great path to evaporative cooling in an area where LW has real potential for PR issues, and which may be a long-term impediment to its success. Restricting the topic to Discussion only (regardless of the potential quality of the post and ensuing discussion) or attempting to limit the length of threads directly seems like a bad idea.
You can always downvote it if you don’t want to see it.
I didn’t downvote your comment; I think you actually make an interesting point.
For me, it’s not just that people obsess over issues of gender (and race, and sexual preference). It’s that their gender (or race) sometimes becomes like the team they are on and (arguably) warps their views.
For example, let’s suppose you did a poll and asked people if they think women should have the right to vote. I’m pretty confident that the percentage which says “yes” would be higher among women than among men. So it seems likely that peoples’ group membership colors their judgments.
Edit: this comment has been rewritten; please see wnoise’s comment below for original context.
I feel that the topic of gender identity is not as important as this discussion and others like it on LW seem to make it. In a text based environment, using pseudonyms, we are genderless until we reveal ourselves. And unless we intend to employ mating signals between posters here, it has little relevance even after it has been revealed.
I have operated for years in communities where the gender of participants is highly relevant, but where there were taboos against attempts to discover true genders (online, text-based roleplaying). In such environments, I’ve developed a severe lack of concern for the topic at large, and instead read what the person has to say and contribute without a gender filter. Many times, I don’t even read the name of a poster except as a pattern that allows me to place the comment in context with those around it.
Alicorn’s focus on gender identity has, several times now, generated very large discussion threads and at least one top level post. I do not understand why this is accepted by the rest of the LW community as important and relevant to the topic of rationality.
It’s because we want more women to post here so we need to listen to Alicorn and keep her happy!!! We respect her opinions. Diversity is good. If we can’t keep Alicorn happy, we’re generally screwed as far as attracting (and subsequently not alienating) more women to this site.
See Eliezer’s post on this topic. http://lesswrong.com/lw/13j/of_exclusionary_speech_and_gender_politics/
Being non-anglo-saxon, I’m in a minority here. So you need to listen to me and keep me happy!!! You have to respect my opinions. Diversity is good. If you can’t keep me happy, you’re generally screwed as far as attracting (and subsequently not alienating) more non-anglo-saxons to this site.
Are you happy?
I don’t perceive Alicorn as “focusing” on “gender identity”. I perceive Alicorn as getting annoyed when people (out of carelessness) get her gender identity wrong.
Annoyance is one thing, and I have no problem with it; expressing that annoyance in such a way as to fuel a 118 post thread (and growing) on the topic in an otherwise unrelated article is what I disagree with.
Surely if the thread’s grown unwieldy, that’s not simply because Alicorn expressed her annoyance? There’s a whole bunch of other people involved here, whose contribution matters even if it all stems off of one of her comments.
Questions of appropriate standards for our community are on-topic to a limited extent. If you disagree, please refrain from making comments like this one, on pain of contradiction.
As pointed out by Kevin, this discussion has been had several times before on LW, and community norms should have already been established, in which case continued large threads on the topic are likely unproductive.
I also do not see why contradiction should be painful.
I can’t tell if you meant this humorously, so I’ll take it as a serious statement of confusion...
“On pain of X” is an idiom in English which roughly means, “or else you will experience X”, where X is something bad.
example
I would categorize it as 10 percent humor, 60 percent temporary interest in the vague threat implied by the “don’t do this… or else” definition and why that context was appropriate when applied to the topic of contradiction, and 30 percent etymological interest, as I have “on pain of death” as the most-associated thought when hearing the phrase (Google agrees, with that as the top suggestion to complete “on pain of”), and was curious as to how the permutation may have originated.
ETA: I disagree with the sentiment that contradiction is a negative, undesirable, or potentially painful event; instead, I view it as an opportunity to update maps, assuming that the contradiction is supported by the weight of the evidence.
“Pain” in this expression means “penalty”. Though I haven’t looked it up to confirm, I’m pretty confident the word “pain” itself comes from Latin poena via French peine, meaning just that.
(The first time I heard this idiom, the phrase was “on pain of imprisonment”.)
If you downvoted this comment, please explain why you feel that the topic of gender identity is so important as to merit top level posts and long discussions in many other posts.
I have not downvoted it. But the original phrasing “You are too focused on the topic of gender identity; I suggest that the topic is not nearly so worthy of concern.” differs from the one here in that it suggests concern to oneself, rather than the concern to the community that this post makes clear. The first is telling other people what they should be concerned with, violating a clear norm, and helping no one.
I downvoted it. This was already discussed in depth on the site a while ago. See the fall-out posts and discussion related to the PUA stuff (googling for PUA site:lesswrong.com should give you most of it) Basically, the answer to your statement (and then some!) is contained in that thousands of words worth of discussion, and I thought your comment was little more than being a likely trigger for a discussion that’s already been beaten into the ground here, even though that wasn’t your intention and your intention was in fact exactly opposite.
I will state that summarizing this discussion for postery’s sake (in the wiki) so we can stop having it is a good idea.
Yes, I read those discussions, and those posts, which is why I’m surprised it’s still generating threads this large on unrelated articles.
When reading, I noticed that this particular thread had a button labeled “load more comments (106 replies)”, and that struck me as very wrong for a comment I would have labeled “off-topic” at best.
I didn’t downvote, but considering that many people are confused about gender identity, applying rationality to it seems a reasonable topic for posting here.
Pragmatically: It’s important because the fact that this keeps coming up again and again suggests it’s not going to go away just because it’s annoying to many when it happens, and a mechanism to channel, redirect or settle the matter in the form of community norms hasn’t yet been found. Meanwhile, there’s clearly people who find it relevant, both to their participation in LW and not infrequently to life experiences that have bearing on what they can contribute to refining the art of rationality. Some of those people are major contributors here; some of them may still be lurking. Some of them haven’t even found te site yet. A global norm that rejects the topic altogether seems like a great path to evaporative cooling in an area where LW has real potential for PR issues, and which may be a long-term impediment to its success. Restricting the topic to Discussion only (regardless of the potential quality of the post and ensuing discussion) or attempting to limit the length of threads directly seems like a bad idea.
You can always downvote it if you don’t want to see it.
I didn’t downvote your comment; I think you actually make an interesting point.
For me, it’s not just that people obsess over issues of gender (and race, and sexual preference). It’s that their gender (or race) sometimes becomes like the team they are on and (arguably) warps their views.
For example, let’s suppose you did a poll and asked people if they think women should have the right to vote. I’m pretty confident that the percentage which says “yes” would be higher among women than among men. So it seems likely that peoples’ group membership colors their judgments.