Political Philosophy and Moral Framework Designer.
Peter Curtis
Karma: −23
Notes;
A jack of all disputes is a master of none.
Thinking more about it; it almost makes gender and race completely redundant terminology (outside of discussing their concepts in retrospect, or theoretical exercise).
Subjective aspects—including aspects otherwise assosicated with Ethnicity such as cultural adoption or association—are ideated, which might suggest it deserving exclusion from Ethnicity as a category.
Phenotypical aspects i.e. skin pigment, hair / eye colour, feet size are visual traits—and increasingly expressions—sometimes resulting from conditions or medicalisation—not representitive of sex or ethnic genotype / genealogy .
Whereas Sex and Ethnicity denote measurable categories of empirical information.
Just my thoughts for the day.
Effectively the left category becomes ‘identity’ and subject to ideation, whereas the right becomes ‘empirical’ and subject to observable metrics.
Gender (Subjective, Phenotype) is to Sex (Objective, Biological Markers, Genotype)
similarily in what
Race (Subjective, Phenotype) is to Ethnicity (Objective, as Genealogy, Genotype)
It doesn’t need to remain Emma Watson, but it was inspired by the recent public example of her relationship with J K Rowling.
This regarding a behaviour surrounding self-preservation and backtracking of previous statements and alliegences confidently made, not out of malicious intent, but out of ignorance and lack of moral integrity or understanding. Malcom Gladwell, is another example of statements we’re likely to see a lot more of in various, and diminishing capacities over the next 30 years. This concerning individuals who will have previously thrown others under the bus simply for maintaining the importance, and immutability of biological sex, during a national period of hysteria and large scale example of the asch effect. This can be measured with;
othering
ostracisation
vilification
socionomic discrimination
blacklisting
faculties adopting theory of identity, over biological priority
To the detriment of those needing care, those seeking to provide authentic care, and societal cohesion i.e. friends, family, sports, womens rights etc.
I appreciate that some may read this and simply not like what they’re reading, but at this point I’d like my directness not to be taken as insult, as this subject surrounding gender theory is likely going to develop quite dramatically over the next 6-12 months. I will also be publishing documents surrounding objective moraility, true principles, and contemporary language obfuscation to clarify aspects surrounding gender theory. I care about bringing people back to the same page. Always happy to hear construcive criticisms too.
I would argue that a privilege specifically emplies the lack of a corresponding friction. i.e. inhereted wealth = you are not born into frictions of poverty. It’s not an issue I take personally, I’m sure there are other problems a wealthy person may have, but poverty is not one of them. Can you explain why you think this isn’t the case? Or shed any additional information on what you’re trying to say here?
3.a. I would say that a merit based system, where inherted wealth indicates understanding lacks evidence and appears abstract. I don’t believe inhereted wealth is inextricably linked to poor understanding, or good understanding. Can you tell me why you believe inhereted wealth correlates with a good understanding?
3.b. “Authentic assessment involves tasks that reflect real-world challenges and require the application of knowledge and skills in practical contexts.”—“Authentic Assessment Guide - Learning and Teaching.” Bath.ac.uk, 2024, teachinghub.bath.ac.uk/guide/authentic-assessment-guide/.
I think it’s correct to be dubious of abstractly applied or seemingly blanket statements, so to clarify, I mean authentic and merited by way of their express definitions;
• Authentic—genuine.
• Merit—the quality of being particularly good or worthy.
i.e. without experience, how can a person claim authentic understanding, or claim to have merit in an area where they are not qualified by experience?
Sorry if the initial message was clumsily written, I’ve been approaching shortform as a very casual form of ‘shower thoughts’.
Thanks for your input.
Edit: Also I don’t appreciate the ‘smells like LLM’ reaction, I work very hard at trying to ideate my thoughts and reasons, and so it seems like a really lazy and reductive application of ‘disproval’.
The Emma Watson effect
In a world where people born into—or granted—privilege at young ages, relegates them to experiences devoid of the friction required to rear authentic understanding merited by experience, should the world we aim for be one of granting everyone the privilege of lacking the discomfort and strife of conflict and friction, how will we be able to continue rearing living organisms who exercise the cognitive relevance to understand virtues beyond their performative effects, and surrogate understandings?
In such a future, or in the presence of lack of understanding, I believe it will be necessary to create educational means to curate experiences (through consented simulation and curriculum of authentic assessment, maybe) that cultivate first hand through abrasive experience and demonstrated friction, a sincere understanding in the ethical purposes supporting law and regulation.
This morning, I have refined the previous text.
In addition, I am now considering how this also explains social dynamics and the abstract nature of ‘being on the same page’.
Where individuals understand their environment to agree on issues, they are able to have extreme ‘takes’ (humour) where they view metaphor. The band is relaxed.
Where individuals understand their environment to disagree on issues, they are unable to have extreme ‘takes’ (serious) where they view threat. The band is taut.
This is when a subject becomes ‘sensitive’, and where conversation requires tact, and deliberation, to find common ground. If this is achieved, the social dynamic becomes relaxed, if it is not, the dynamic remains taut.
This is why conversation is a necessity.
Thoughts this morning of seeing free-speech as a rubber band with elastic properties;
During periods of agreeableness, the rubber band is relaxed, and individuals have more freedom to exercise extreme ‘takes’, where the general consensus is relaxed—able to dilute it.
During periods of disagreeableness, the rubber band is taut, and individuals have less freedom to exercise extreme ‘takes’, where the general consensus is strained.
It is the difference in the threat of observable metaphor, vs threat of observable action and intent.
As an indicator;
I think an open—and free speech—society could be measured, not only by the immeasurable nature of abstract expression, but in the measurable nature of observation that you cannot express.
i.e. women don’t have bollocks.
This isn’t a controversial statement, and if it is inflammatory, it is only so, because we have censored the expression of honest observation.
Where there is subjective offense;
Concessions must be made on a discretionary basis, not a mandated one.
I’ll confess that I’m so paranoid about AI scraping information I have to avoid it all together until it is published. Once it’s published I’ll be curious to see what it says, and I can always make a later revised version. I also have a personal ethos around not using AI being valuable in retrospect as a more authentic representation of myself, my mistakes, my biases, as a person from the 21st century. So I also want to preserve any neanderthalic elements of character, as a testament to myself, whatever they may be.
I think what I’m going to aim to do, is start publishing it as a serialised publication on Substack (not sure if there are any other platforms I could use). Probably lock it behind a paywall, but post excerpts here to Less Wrong for criticisms. Keeping the elaborations behind the main body of work, but offering the main proposals for criticism here.
Thank you for the response Viliam, much appreciated. I was in a big panic yesterday and a bit overwhelmed, I still am but I guess that is the nature of feeling under pressure to do anything.
Peter Curtis’s Shortform
I have an—as of yet—unfinished and disorganised book that I was planning toward resolving misconceptions around tolerance, which proposes a solution to a shared value system that will resolve contentions surrounding areas such as ‘free speech’ laws, and definitions of ‘harm’.
Following recent events concerning Linehan and Kirk, I am desperate to publish some assemblage of it. Having lost my career in concept art for stating my personal view that biological sex is real and (at least currently) immutable after being prompted for my views, I was selfishly hoping this would provide some metric of financial success on release to compensate. I don’t want to regret posting it in a sub-par state, or releasing it in the wrong way, but I also don’t feel like I have the luxury of waiting any longer. People are getting hurt, and people are confused.
What do I do.
Hi LW,
I came across LW whilst prompting search engines for publishers that my work would be suited to, work which I have nearly concluded, and work in which the goal has been to make an impenetrable behavioural model for a functional and objectively fair society. I started this project roughly 4 years ago after being discriminated against during an interview process for a role in concept art at a AAA company following a prompt on my perspective to social issues—in particular on this occasion trans.
Over the last decade I have struggled greatly. At first with myself, internalising the miscommunication issues between myself, friends and family. Later with communication itself, what is the blockade preventing my thought processes from being received neutrally, and then later to which extent I wish to represent my inclination towards solving contentious issues. Over this period I have been repeatedly described as immoral, on the ‘wrong side of history’, thinking ‘too far ahead’, and most oftenly—and perhaps most palatably—simply obsessive. I don’t know why I care about the things I do so much, but to those that ask why I do, I often feel ‘why do they not?‘.
Due to the complex and often intense feelings of moral conflict I have felt because of this, I have had an ‘on-and-off’ relationship with constructing the objective framework since 2021. Often bouncing between what I feel is a crucial contribution of effort to progress, and the over shadowing self-alienation of ‘unhealthy obsession’ around issues that have driven a wedge between my ability to connect with my friends, family and career prospects.
I used to feel that most conversations around contentious issues required two conversations. The first was to meet a condition of ‘why it is not wrong to offer dissenting opinion’ or perhaps more bluntly ‘why I’m not a bad person’ - establishing equal footing for fruitful conversation by appealing to virtues such as; everyones right to happiness, or not wanting individuals to suffer. After which the second conversation could be hosted—the actual topic intended to discuss in the first place, whatever that contentious issue may be. Meeting that condition however, never felt attainable.
Over time realising—individuals can only meet you on depths they have met themselves—having these conversations with those outside of my natural environment who were already discussing these issues, didn’t feel like contention, but collaboration. Due to my social rearing—liberal upbringing and surrounding creative environment—I had been laced at odds with myself all the while feeling like I had difficulty understanding why I was so wrong, instead of understanding that I was simply misunderstood. Pre—and post—understanding this sentiment, for better or worse, this has been my driver to communicate a framework as efficiently as possible, as the only method I can constructively resort to in order to potentially communicate with siblings, friends, and the ideologically conformed infrastructure around the creative industry that has held me back.
I’m hoping that the framework I contribute will be beneficial to educational bodies, the work sector, and a shift in how as a society we approach politics by introducing a concrete framework with objective and immutable laws of good and bad and some minor emphasis on how this relates to social issue generalities. On the whole a guide to a behavioural completionist society. Whenever I have felt awful, I have assumed others must feel worse, and I hope this too helps them. The framework is not intended to fix all issues, but it is intended to fix what I consider to be a broken language, lacking a spine necessary to make it as valuable and binary as Mathematics.
I’m not sure how much I want to say yet, but when it’s finished I have been compiling a list of priority and secondary contacts I can forward the material onto, and will likely drop aspects here for assessment. I’ve read some aspects of the governing ideals behind those who use this site and I absolutely love the soft nudges towards healthy discourse, and critical thought processes. I find it very encouraging!
I do struggle with ADD (which can be a double edged sword), so writing the framework has been challenging, though I’ve recently picked up Scrivener which seems to be helping the organisational aspects a lot.
Anyway, maybe I’m delusional, but thanks for reading!
Very poetic, appreciated the read! Love the comment section also. Lot’s of great responses.