Some notes on the last paragraph in my above comment:
When I used the phrase “SJWs”, I intended it to have either neutral valence or a valence of friendly teasing. I agree with some amount of the SJW agenda myself. However, Wikipedia says that since 2011, the term is primarily used as an insult and is associated with the alt-right, which was not an implication I had in mind. Like Bostrom’s 1996 email and 2023 apology, this example is an illustration that it can be difficult to realize exactly how a given word or statement may be perceived, especially if people are reading it as if it were a dog whistle.
Part of my reason for using the term “SJW” was that I didn’t want to say merely “leftist” or “progressive”. I was a strong leftist and progressive in the early aughts, and back then, people with that ideology were, in my experience, generally more focused on trying to improve people’s welfare via economic and other government-level policy. Progressives didn’t spend as much time as they do now on shaming individual people or groups. I think the woke-ward shift of the last decade, while it raises some important issues that were less highlighted in the past, is plausibly overall less useful for improving total human welfare than the earlier economic and policy focus was. So I don’t like conflating “woke” with “progressive”. (That said, I think some progressive economic policy positions, such as against outsourcing American jobs to developing nations, may be net bad for short-term human welfare.)
A more neutral phrasing than “SJW” could have been just “social-justice activist”.
As far as the other part of my phrasing, when I said that most social-justice activists “think it’s fine to enslave and murder” non-human animals, I was in part being deliberately provocative to make a point. Bostrom is right when he says in his apology: “I do think that provocative communication styles have a place”. If I had instead written that most social-justice activists “think it’s acceptable for farmers to raise and slaughter livestock”, the use of those conventional euphemisms would have dulled what I was trying to convey, which is that this practice is actually really awful. (BTW, I should also acknowledge that I myself pay for some amount of enslavement and murder of dairy cows, via eating cheese and ice cream. However, I think the total amount of harm this causes is much lower than the harm caused by eating meat from smaller farm animals.)
Provocation can shock people out of their normal way of seeing the world into looking at some fact in a different light. This seems to be roughly what Bostrom was saying in the first paragraph of his 1996 email. However, in the case of that email, it’s unclear what socially valuable fact he was trying to shock people into seeing in a new way.
One function of comedy is to do roughly the same thing: stating some true fact in an unconventional way in order to make people see the world through a new lens. However, an important principle in comedy is the distinction between “punching up” and “punching down”, and if we interpret Bostrom’s 1996 statement as analogous to provocative humor, it would clearly be punching down.
It’s fairly common and even celebrated in modern Western society to hear statements like “women are more productive than men” or “girls are smarter at language than boys”. Many of these statements are made in fairly blunt language, similar to Bostrom’s 1996 statement. I assume most people think these statements about female superiority are pretty harmless, both because they’re seen more as “punching up” (given the history of men dominating women in much of the world until the late 20th century) and because the hypothesis of biological gender differences is less taboo and more scientifically established. But I do think the contrast in people’s reactions between saying “boys are worse at language than girls” versus Bostrom’s 1996 statement is interesting, and it shows that the degree of outrage a statement provokes is often not obvious unless you have a lot of experience with a specific culture’s norms.
I do worry a bit that the casual misandry that society often seems to celebrate may be detrimental to the self-esteem of boys, though I’m also not interested in trying to police such language. It’s plausible to me that some amount of humorous mocking between different groups is actually helpful, by showing people that we can laugh together, rather than priming ourselves to interpret any offensive statement as an act of aggression.
Thanks. :) I feel somewhat bad about spending time on this topic rather than my usual focus areas, especially since many of my points were already made by others. Plus, as I mentioned and as Bostrom learned, anything you say about controversial topics online is fodder for political enemies to take out of context. But I have a (maybe non-utilitarian) impulse to stick up for what I think is right even if some people will dislike me for doing so. (For a time, my top-level comment here had a net agreement of −10 or so. Of course, maybe the downvoters were correct and I’m wrong.)
Provocation can shock people out of their normal way of seeing the world into looking at some fact in a different light. This seems to be roughly what Bostrom was saying in the first paragraph of his 1996 email. However, in the case of that email, it’s unclear what socially valuable fact he was trying to shock people into seeing in a new way.
Bostrom’s email was in response to someone who made the point you do here about provocation sometimes making people view things in a new light. The person who Bostrom was responding to advocated saying things in a blunt and shocking manner as a general strategy for communication. Bostrom was saying to them that sometimes, saying things in a blunt and shocking manner does nothing but rile people up.
Interesting! I admit I didn’t go and read the original discussion thread, so thanks for that context. To the extent that Bostrom was arguing against being needlessly shocking, he was kind of already making the same point that his critics have been making: don’t say needlessly shocking things. He didn’t show enough sensitivity/empathy in the process of presenting the example and explaining why it was bad, but he was writing a quick email to friends, not a carefully crafted political announcement intended to be read by thousands of people.
I assume most people think these statements about female superiority are pretty harmless, both because they’re seen more as “punching up” (given the history of men dominating women in much of the world until the late 20th century) and because the hypothesis of biological gender differences is less taboo and more scientifically established.
In my experience, the reason these statements tend to get less pushback is that they are generally explained by gendered socialization and norms rather than intrinsic biological or genetic factors, whereas the race/gender arguments that receive pushback claim that certain groups are genetically (intrinsically) inferior.
I see. :) I would think people would consider biological differences much more plausible in the gender case than the race case. I’ve heard several people say that when you’re a parent to both a boy and a girl, the differences between them are unmistakeable even in the first ~2 years. I think many American adults at least privately understand that there are big biological differences between the brains of men and women, while most American adults probably expect no non-trivial biological racial brain differences. But yeah, any particular gender difference, such as the language gap, could be mostly or all environmental.
Some notes on the last paragraph in my above comment:
When I used the phrase “SJWs”, I intended it to have either neutral valence or a valence of friendly teasing. I agree with some amount of the SJW agenda myself. However, Wikipedia says that since 2011, the term is primarily used as an insult and is associated with the alt-right, which was not an implication I had in mind. Like Bostrom’s 1996 email and 2023 apology, this example is an illustration that it can be difficult to realize exactly how a given word or statement may be perceived, especially if people are reading it as if it were a dog whistle.
Part of my reason for using the term “SJW” was that I didn’t want to say merely “leftist” or “progressive”. I was a strong leftist and progressive in the early aughts, and back then, people with that ideology were, in my experience, generally more focused on trying to improve people’s welfare via economic and other government-level policy. Progressives didn’t spend as much time as they do now on shaming individual people or groups. I think the woke-ward shift of the last decade, while it raises some important issues that were less highlighted in the past, is plausibly overall less useful for improving total human welfare than the earlier economic and policy focus was. So I don’t like conflating “woke” with “progressive”. (That said, I think some progressive economic policy positions, such as against outsourcing American jobs to developing nations, may be net bad for short-term human welfare.)
A more neutral phrasing than “SJW” could have been just “social-justice activist”.
As far as the other part of my phrasing, when I said that most social-justice activists “think it’s fine to enslave and murder” non-human animals, I was in part being deliberately provocative to make a point. Bostrom is right when he says in his apology: “I do think that provocative communication styles have a place”. If I had instead written that most social-justice activists “think it’s acceptable for farmers to raise and slaughter livestock”, the use of those conventional euphemisms would have dulled what I was trying to convey, which is that this practice is actually really awful. (BTW, I should also acknowledge that I myself pay for some amount of enslavement and murder of dairy cows, via eating cheese and ice cream. However, I think the total amount of harm this causes is much lower than the harm caused by eating meat from smaller farm animals.)
Provocation can shock people out of their normal way of seeing the world into looking at some fact in a different light. This seems to be roughly what Bostrom was saying in the first paragraph of his 1996 email. However, in the case of that email, it’s unclear what socially valuable fact he was trying to shock people into seeing in a new way.
One function of comedy is to do roughly the same thing: stating some true fact in an unconventional way in order to make people see the world through a new lens. However, an important principle in comedy is the distinction between “punching up” and “punching down”, and if we interpret Bostrom’s 1996 statement as analogous to provocative humor, it would clearly be punching down.
It’s fairly common and even celebrated in modern Western society to hear statements like “women are more productive than men” or “girls are smarter at language than boys”. Many of these statements are made in fairly blunt language, similar to Bostrom’s 1996 statement. I assume most people think these statements about female superiority are pretty harmless, both because they’re seen more as “punching up” (given the history of men dominating women in much of the world until the late 20th century) and because the hypothesis of biological gender differences is less taboo and more scientifically established. But I do think the contrast in people’s reactions between saying “boys are worse at language than girls” versus Bostrom’s 1996 statement is interesting, and it shows that the degree of outrage a statement provokes is often not obvious unless you have a lot of experience with a specific culture’s norms.
I do worry a bit that the casual misandry that society often seems to celebrate may be detrimental to the self-esteem of boys, though I’m also not interested in trying to police such language. It’s plausible to me that some amount of humorous mocking between different groups is actually helpful, by showing people that we can laugh together, rather than priming ourselves to interpret any offensive statement as an act of aggression.
Great comments, Brian. You should spend more time on the Forum!
Thanks. :) I feel somewhat bad about spending time on this topic rather than my usual focus areas, especially since many of my points were already made by others. Plus, as I mentioned and as Bostrom learned, anything you say about controversial topics online is fodder for political enemies to take out of context. But I have a (maybe non-utilitarian) impulse to stick up for what I think is right even if some people will dislike me for doing so. (For a time, my top-level comment here had a net agreement of −10 or so. Of course, maybe the downvoters were correct and I’m wrong.)
Bostrom’s email was in response to someone who made the point you do here about provocation sometimes making people view things in a new light. The person who Bostrom was responding to advocated saying things in a blunt and shocking manner as a general strategy for communication. Bostrom was saying to them that sometimes, saying things in a blunt and shocking manner does nothing but rile people up.
Interesting! I admit I didn’t go and read the original discussion thread, so thanks for that context. To the extent that Bostrom was arguing against being needlessly shocking, he was kind of already making the same point that his critics have been making: don’t say needlessly shocking things. He didn’t show enough sensitivity/empathy in the process of presenting the example and explaining why it was bad, but he was writing a quick email to friends, not a carefully crafted political announcement intended to be read by thousands of people.
In my experience, the reason these statements tend to get less pushback is that they are generally explained by gendered socialization and norms rather than intrinsic biological or genetic factors, whereas the race/gender arguments that receive pushback claim that certain groups are genetically (intrinsically) inferior.
I see. :) I would think people would consider biological differences much more plausible in the gender case than the race case. I’ve heard several people say that when you’re a parent to both a boy and a girl, the differences between them are unmistakeable even in the first ~2 years. I think many American adults at least privately understand that there are big biological differences between the brains of men and women, while most American adults probably expect no non-trivial biological racial brain differences. But yeah, any particular gender difference, such as the language gap, could be mostly or all environmental.