Does your subculture always condemn those aspects of popular culture? Does it do anything to change those norms?
No and yes.
Many behaviors do clearly slip through the cracks. Present a “perfect Feminist” with the claim that they never act in any manner that could possibly be Patriarchal, and I’m sure most of LessWrong would dispute the claim and find evidence that This Human, Like Other Humans, Is Not Infinitely Perfect. I would like to think that I make no such bogus claims.
The Schelling point/fence, however, is that at the current state of behavioral patterns and rate of improvement in gender-fairness of “my” (for lack of a better label) subculture (and, if I may presume, many other subcultures made of smarter-than-average people) is currently right before the line whether spending more to eradicate Patriarchy becomes more damaging than the amount of patriarchy it would remove currently does, and the rate of improvement seems to me as to be faster than the accumulating-over-time damage of the remaining patriarchy—all obviously attributable to diminishing returns. Patriarchal behavior is, fortunately, not an infinite neg-resource. (a few applause lights here, but this was typed-as-thought, so leaving them in seems useful)
Now, as for whether Patriarchy is present, well, if defined as such (“to some degree”) it is obviously present in these subcultures in at least some way or another—it is even more unlikely that no “Patriarchy”-like behavior whatsoever exists than the claim I oppose in the grandparent.
However, I find that the above does not carve reality at its joints, to use LW jargon—the cluster of behaviorspace, which I was pointed to and told was “Patriarchy”, has mostly in common that it mostly generates or indirectly contributes to / allows gender-unfairness, social injustice, sexism, etc. Many key points like identity, control, status, “dignity” (technical meanings, not the religious-soul or similar connotations), subconscious conformity to expectations, anticipation-of-expected-behavior, behavior programming, subconscious reprogramming of believed-wants (though perhaps not necessarily of true wants), etc. seem to show up too in this space. The radical feminism portrayed in these threads sometimes appears to ignore this concept entirely, and assumes that anything that could, in at least some contexts, become a point of “Patriarchy”, is therefore Patriarchy, and is therefore something to be absolutely eradicated at all costs.
Therefore, if I write a user’s manual for Tampax products, I am an Unholy Beacon of Supreme Evil, for reasons I hope are obvious enough, and that I hope are either very strawman or sufficiently absurd to expose the need for a Schelling fence.
the current state of behavioral patterns and rate of improvement in gender-fairness of “my” (for lack of a better label) subculture (and, if I may presume, many other subcultures made of smarter-than-average people) is currently right before the line whether spending more to eradicate Patriarchy becomes more damaging than the amount of patriarchy it would remove currently does.
If this is true of your subgroup, your subgroup is wonderfully exceptional. It certainly isn’t true of most smarter-than-average subcultures.
One can argue about whether video gamer culture is above average intelligence (I suspect yes), but here is strong evidence it is nowhere near the marginal benefit line for gender relations. If video game culture were closer to the line, I would expect the described behavior (which is ridiculously unacceptable) would receive far more disparagement than it does receive.
The concept of fan service (particularly the way it is currently gendered) is similar evidence in the anime/manga subculture.
the current state of behavioral patterns and rate of improvement in gender-fairness of “my” (for lack of a better label) subculture (and, if I may presume, many other subcultures made of smarter-than-average people) is currently right before the line whether spending more to eradicate Patriarchy becomes more damaging than the amount of patriarchy it would remove currently does.
If this is true of your subgroup, your subgroup is wonderfully exceptional. It certainly isn’t true of most smarter-than-average subcultures.
Have you counted opportunity costs? Maybe there is some action his subgroup could take which would have a net positive effect towards eradicating patriarchy, but that would mean they could spend less time taking some other action which could have a larger positive effect towards some other goal.
Such an argument may not be as “dumb or straw-mannish” as all that, depending on your approach to prioritizing problems to solve.
For example, if you believed that destroying the patriarchy was possible given our current limited resources, and that doing so would ameliorate or eliminate a host of other problems, you might focus on it as the low-hanging fruit. Sure, building an FAI and ushering in the Singularity (just for example) would net you a much larger gain, but the amount of effort you’d have to spend on it, as well as the lower probability of success, makes it a less attractive goal overall.
No and yes.
Many behaviors do clearly slip through the cracks. Present a “perfect Feminist” with the claim that they never act in any manner that could possibly be Patriarchal, and I’m sure most of LessWrong would dispute the claim and find evidence that This Human, Like Other Humans, Is Not Infinitely Perfect. I would like to think that I make no such bogus claims.
The Schelling point/fence, however, is that at the current state of behavioral patterns and rate of improvement in gender-fairness of “my” (for lack of a better label) subculture (and, if I may presume, many other subcultures made of smarter-than-average people) is currently right before the line whether spending more to eradicate Patriarchy becomes more damaging than the amount of patriarchy it would remove currently does, and the rate of improvement seems to me as to be faster than the accumulating-over-time damage of the remaining patriarchy—all obviously attributable to diminishing returns. Patriarchal behavior is, fortunately, not an infinite neg-resource. (a few applause lights here, but this was typed-as-thought, so leaving them in seems useful)
Now, as for whether Patriarchy is present, well, if defined as such (“to some degree”) it is obviously present in these subcultures in at least some way or another—it is even more unlikely that no “Patriarchy”-like behavior whatsoever exists than the claim I oppose in the grandparent.
However, I find that the above does not carve reality at its joints, to use LW jargon—the cluster of behaviorspace, which I was pointed to and told was “Patriarchy”, has mostly in common that it mostly generates or indirectly contributes to / allows gender-unfairness, social injustice, sexism, etc. Many key points like identity, control, status, “dignity” (technical meanings, not the religious-soul or similar connotations), subconscious conformity to expectations, anticipation-of-expected-behavior, behavior programming, subconscious reprogramming of believed-wants (though perhaps not necessarily of true wants), etc. seem to show up too in this space. The radical feminism portrayed in these threads sometimes appears to ignore this concept entirely, and assumes that anything that could, in at least some contexts, become a point of “Patriarchy”, is therefore Patriarchy, and is therefore something to be absolutely eradicated at all costs.
Therefore, if I write a user’s manual for Tampax products, I am an Unholy Beacon of Supreme Evil, for reasons I hope are obvious enough, and that I hope are either very strawman or sufficiently absurd to expose the need for a Schelling fence.
If this is true of your subgroup, your subgroup is wonderfully exceptional. It certainly isn’t true of most smarter-than-average subcultures.
One can argue about whether video gamer culture is above average intelligence (I suspect yes), but here is strong evidence it is nowhere near the marginal benefit line for gender relations. If video game culture were closer to the line, I would expect the described behavior (which is ridiculously unacceptable) would receive far more disparagement than it does receive.
The concept of fan service (particularly the way it is currently gendered) is similar evidence in the anime/manga subculture.
Have you counted opportunity costs? Maybe there is some action his subgroup could take which would have a net positive effect towards eradicating patriarchy, but that would mean they could spend less time taking some other action which could have a larger positive effect towards some other goal.
(This assumes that patriarchy is not the only problem in the world (nor the only problem worth trying to solve). I don’t expect anyone to disagree with that, but I’m afraid to “underestimate the universality of the law that there is no argument so dumb or straw-mannish that someone somewhere has not made it”.)
Such an argument may not be as “dumb or straw-mannish” as all that, depending on your approach to prioritizing problems to solve.
For example, if you believed that destroying the patriarchy was possible given our current limited resources, and that doing so would ameliorate or eliminate a host of other problems, you might focus on it as the low-hanging fruit. Sure, building an FAI and ushering in the Singularity (just for example) would net you a much larger gain, but the amount of effort you’d have to spend on it, as well as the lower probability of success, makes it a less attractive goal overall.
Yes.
That’s why I quoted that part of DaFranker’s post as opposed to some other part.
I explicitly mention marginal benefit in my first substantive example.
The post DaFranker is responding to concludes with the point that improving society need not include any activity directed at patriarchy.
I’m well aware of the concepts of opportunity cost, cost-benefit analysis, and diminishing returns.