I’ve seen a few cases where EAs online say things that are pretty racist or sexist. They’ll be defended with comments like “we need to be free to break be intellectual ground and find the truth”, but I don’t understand how telling me I’m less likely to be a genius because I’m a woman at a social event makes anyone any better at improving the world. It certainly doesn’t make me better at improving the world.
I realize this is probably not what you were looking for, but I think I can think of what they might have been thinking of, or at least times when it would be relevant (though obviously the actual conversation you were is was probably different!). Specifically I can imagine a conversation going something like this:
Alice: Economic growth is very important because it is exponential and helps people all over the world and in the future.
Bob: That’s true. We should discuss ways to help speed up economic growth.
Carol: One thing that might help is promoting free trade with the developing world.
David: Economic growth is strongly driven by a small number of geniuses, who do things like invent electricity or semiconductors. We should try to help identify more geniuses and give them the right opportunities.
Eve: Interesting idea. Maybe we could look at the list of science nobel prize winners to get some ideas.
Frank: It seems that women are very under-represented on this list, probably because of the patriarchy. We could focus specifically on things like Women in STEM to help address this and find the ‘missing’ geniuses. That could almost double the total number.
Grace: I don’t think that’s true. The male variability hypothesis states that men tend to be more extreme than women—both more dysfunctional criminals and more super geniuses. This is a pretty well established theory, and it predicts we’d see more male geniuses even if there was no discrimination. We should focus on other ideas, like looking for potential in very poor parts of India and China.
You’re right that telling you personally about your probabilities of being a genius isn’t super helpful, because you already have a lot of other pieces of evidence (like your SAT scores) that mean the base rate isn’t very useful. And I can certainly imagine people introducing this subject in an awkward way! But when we are considering a potential policy to improve the world, it’s important to consider all the evidence. I don’t know if you’d consider the male variability hypothesis to be sexist—I think it’s best to taboo the term personally—but whether or not it is sexist it is probably true, and relevant to this EA discussion about improving the world.
An example I remember from a non-EA, mostly male meetup:
Man, striking up conversation with new woman attendee: “So, are you actually interested in [topic of the meetup] or did someone drag you here?” When I objected, he said, “It’s just that most of the women who come here are dragged by someone else.” That might have been true, but it sure wasn’t what I’d want to hear as a new attendee.
It might be a mistake people are more likely to make if they think explicitly about Bayesianism. “I have some data on what people like you are like; let me tell you my prior.” But one point of a meetup is to encounter people as individuals. If I understand Bayesian terms right, it’s about gathering data to inform your posteriors—what is this specific person actually like?
In some cases it’s not a bad idea to let your priors drive conversation—if I meet someone who’s a biology student, I might guess they’re interested in topic X. But in other cases it’s just insulting.
This comment is currently at 0 karma and 5 votes. I would appreciate it if someone would tell me why did they downvote. I am not questioning the decision; I am looking for a more nuanced perspective on how to have better norms around sensitive topics.
My uncertain guess is that, while the comment’s story could improve discussion on conversational norms, being a devil’s advocate in a thread about unpleasant and alienating interactions doesn’t contribute much to it?
My guess would be something similar. I thought the comment was basically fine, although I think it was a distraction to assert the “male variability hypothesis” is true—I think Dale should have focused on conversation norms.
If I were to upvote the comment, it would be because it was written kindly and clearly and furthered the conversation.
If I were to downvote the comment, it would be because Dale seemed to assume I didn’t understand that sometimes these conversations are relevant to improving the world. I do understand that, and I’m complaining about how often these kinds of comments are defended in totally useless and irrelevant settings. So that feels a little patronising.
From your article on the male variability hypothesis:
Recent studies indicate that greater male variability in mathematics persists in the U.S., although the ratio of boys to girls at the top end of the distribution is reversed in some specific immigrant groups.
and
These results have been replicated and expanded in a 2019 meta-analytical extension [...], which found that policies leading to greater female participation in the workforce tended to increase female variability and, therefore, decrease the variability gap.
These sound like arguments for environment to me, which would mean that “Frank” is still likely correct and “Grace” is misinformed on what the patriarchy is and how it works.
I realize this is probably not what you were looking for, but I think I can think of what they might have been thinking of, or at least times when it would be relevant (though obviously the actual conversation you were is was probably different!). Specifically I can imagine a conversation going something like this:
Alice: Economic growth is very important because it is exponential and helps people all over the world and in the future.
Bob: That’s true. We should discuss ways to help speed up economic growth.
Carol: One thing that might help is promoting free trade with the developing world.
David: Economic growth is strongly driven by a small number of geniuses, who do things like invent electricity or semiconductors. We should try to help identify more geniuses and give them the right opportunities.
Eve: Interesting idea. Maybe we could look at the list of science nobel prize winners to get some ideas.
Frank: It seems that women are very under-represented on this list, probably because of the patriarchy. We could focus specifically on things like Women in STEM to help address this and find the ‘missing’ geniuses. That could almost double the total number.
Grace: I don’t think that’s true. The male variability hypothesis states that men tend to be more extreme than women—both more dysfunctional criminals and more super geniuses. This is a pretty well established theory, and it predicts we’d see more male geniuses even if there was no discrimination. We should focus on other ideas, like looking for potential in very poor parts of India and China.
You’re right that telling you personally about your probabilities of being a genius isn’t super helpful, because you already have a lot of other pieces of evidence (like your SAT scores) that mean the base rate isn’t very useful. And I can certainly imagine people introducing this subject in an awkward way! But when we are considering a potential policy to improve the world, it’s important to consider all the evidence. I don’t know if you’d consider the male variability hypothesis to be sexist—I think it’s best to taboo the term personally—but whether or not it is sexist it is probably true, and relevant to this EA discussion about improving the world.
I’d be a lot less annoyed about it in this particular conversation—I’ve seen it brought up in much less relevant contexts.
An example I remember from a non-EA, mostly male meetup:
Man, striking up conversation with new woman attendee: “So, are you actually interested in [topic of the meetup] or did someone drag you here?” When I objected, he said, “It’s just that most of the women who come here are dragged by someone else.” That might have been true, but it sure wasn’t what I’d want to hear as a new attendee.
It might be a mistake people are more likely to make if they think explicitly about Bayesianism. “I have some data on what people like you are like; let me tell you my prior.” But one point of a meetup is to encounter people as individuals. If I understand Bayesian terms right, it’s about gathering data to inform your posteriors—what is this specific person actually like?
In some cases it’s not a bad idea to let your priors drive conversation—if I meet someone who’s a biology student, I might guess they’re interested in topic X. But in other cases it’s just insulting.
This comment is currently at 0 karma and 5 votes. I would appreciate it if someone would tell me why did they downvote. I am not questioning the decision; I am looking for a more nuanced perspective on how to have better norms around sensitive topics.
My uncertain guess is that, while the comment’s story could improve discussion on conversational norms, being a devil’s advocate in a thread about unpleasant and alienating interactions doesn’t contribute much to it?
My guess would be something similar. I thought the comment was basically fine, although I think it was a distraction to assert the “male variability hypothesis” is true—I think Dale should have focused on conversation norms.
If I were to upvote the comment, it would be because it was written kindly and clearly and furthered the conversation.
If I were to downvote the comment, it would be because Dale seemed to assume I didn’t understand that sometimes these conversations are relevant to improving the world. I do understand that, and I’m complaining about how often these kinds of comments are defended in totally useless and irrelevant settings. So that feels a little patronising.
From your article on the male variability hypothesis:
and
These sound like arguments for environment to me, which would mean that “Frank” is still likely correct and “Grace” is misinformed on what the patriarchy is and how it works.