Topic: Misogyny on this forum

[superdave]

I agree that we can probably never please the almost diamonds crowd.  That shouldn't be the goal.  But that did that blog point out things that are really problems that should be adressed?  If we don't think there are problems, then there is nothing to fix.  But I think that some what they were talking about was real.  I know I saw some posts that I wanted to comment on but didn't because of laziness or not wanting to derail the thread or whatever.  I will try not to let those things slip.

[Caffiene]

The important question then, is whether or not it is a small sacrifice.  Petty sacrifices are acceptable and a necessary part of conducting oneself with a degree of class.  Bigger sacrifices are a different question, and I'm not at all interested in forgoing relevant content just because it makes people uncomfortable.  That's not a sacrifice I'm willing to make, and it's not what anyone here is talking about.

[...]

That's okay, I'm not claiming that "a lot" means "a statistical majority" and the inference doesn't follow from anything I've said here.  I don't know how many women would like to join but don't, I don't pretend to have the numbers, and I don't necessarily think that the Misogyny Hypothesis is true.  But it still helps us to think about what the situation would be if it were true, and if it were false.

I mostly agree.

I just think that, as a skeptical community, logic and rationality are themselves things that we value. Which means that how logical an emotional reaction is will be one factor in determining how much of a sacrifice you're looking at when you consider how large of a sacrifice youre willing to make.

Theres a spectrum all the way between accepting a few poorly chosen words because somebody had a bad day, and accepting homeopathy because people are emotionally invested in it... Where a particular issue falls on that spectrum is going to depend on how reasonable the reaction is that the person has.

Same with the statistics and how common the repellence is. The numbers are relevant to where exactly a good balance can be found between the people we can make welcome and what is given up in return.

[Cowtown Cody]

I just think that, as a skeptical community, logic and rationality are themselves things that we value. Which means that how logical an emotional reaction is will be one factor in determining how much of a sacrifice you're looking at when you consider how large of a sacrifice youre willing to make.

That strikes me as the wrong calculation because it selects for the wrong thing, and I'm not sure how you would construct it fairly anyway.  It would have to be us - a party with a stake in the question - determining what the other party's emotions should be and that's doomed to failure.  That's not something we can do honestly, skeptics or not, if we accept that we can have biases that we aren't aware of.  And it selects for people who already think the way we think, not necessarily people interested in the way we think but still aren't absolutists about reason just yet.  And that's what attracting new people to skepticism means.

A better way to go about this is, rather than trying to score the rationality of someone else's emotions, is looking at how common an emotional reaction to something is.  If a reaction is extremely common, we can expect people to act on it whether we say they should feel a certain way or not.  They won't even get as far as us telling them how they should feel about it, because they just won't show up.  But if we acknowledge that a certain reaction is very common and it doesn't mean that the person having the reaction is irretrievably irrational, we can at least not put that barrier up to begin with.

Then, there's a chance they'll show up, and stay, and become skeptics.  But if we don't give them that chance, of course they won't stay.  We can't even engage them under that "most rational reaction" construction.

[GodSlayer]

That strikes me as the wrong calculation because it selects for the wrong thing, and I'm not sure how you would construct it fairly anyway.  It would have to be us - a party with a stake in the question - determining what the other party's emotions should be and that's doomed to failure.

so, just to be clear, you're not able to comment on how appropriate it is to feel like it's ok to kidnap, molest, and kill children, right?

maybe it's our feelings that are wrong, not the pedophile serial killer's feelings that are wrong. the important thing is that we never discuss it and content ourselves not seeking an alternative to this relativism. let's just agree to disagree, because agreement is so unimportant it's not worth attempting to reach... it's not like anyone might die or get imprisoned if these disagreements persist.

hashtag that is sarcasm. sadly very few scientifically inclined people appreciate what Dewey and MacIntyre contributed to our intellectual history.

[WC]

I know I saw some posts that I wanted to comment on but didn't because of laziness or not wanting to derail the thread or whatever.  I will try not to let those things slip.

This.

I'm of the same mind on this. I can't expect other people to be as rah rah social justice as I am. A chilling effect happens when we put knuckleheads on 'ignore' and cede the thread or the argument to them on account of the impossibly relentless asshattery. Glancing at my ignore list, about half the people on it are there because of CRAZY ASS sexist and antifeminist shit they wouldn't shut the F up about, mostly on a particular subforum that they stalked with an eerily gleeful obsession

(click to show/hide)

The other thing I've been thinking about is; this is SGUF. Not the Feminist's Guide to ... Forum, or the LGBT's Guide to Whatever Forum, or the Candlestick Maker's Guide to the Blah Blah Blah... I don't expect to drum up support for my particular lefty social justice passions and positions. But I'm a skeptic, a humanist, a feminist, and whole lot of other things, and so are A LOT of people around here. And I'd like to declare that from here on out, I'm taking people off 'ignore' list, and I'm gonna be more assertive and unrelenting in my....

But then I run into my concerns about my the troll feeding problem...

And the    problems.

I don't know. I'll have to sleep on it, or give it a few sleeps.

I am a part of the chilling effect if I click 'ignore' and concede out of hopelessness or outrage. But the hopelessness and outrage consumes me, it really gets to me...

A quandary.

I'm open to the prospect that there is an overall chilling effect here, forum-wide on a number of things for a number of demographics*. Well, hell. I know there is, but it's nuanced and mostly subtle beyond a handful of members/mods over some specific incidents and in some specific threads. I'm all about more diversity all day every day. I love it when new members jump in with insights and contributions. We're all better for it.

But it is hard to have discussions about any of this, or to just simply listen when there's a lot of bad noise going on, and a lot of STFUs at 5 million dBs, where you can't hear a single damned thing over the roar. It is also a bitter pill to swallow for myself and a lot of people I know here; getting blindsided by broadsides of tolerating shit we kind of don't actually tolerate at all, and being mischaracterized blah blah blah... But I digress.

(click to show/hide)

^^^I say that while bearing in mind that this place is an unusually inviting and welcoming place, relative to what's out there in the real interwebland.

But I'm open to other perspectives and opinions and suggestions of what to do. At the moment, I'm at a loss. I'm going to stop commenting on these matters, sit this one out and just listen and observe for a good long spell.

Sorry, I'm prattling on again... Had taken my ambien half way through...

Too long didn't read? Me neither.

[Cowtown Cody]

That strikes me as the wrong calculation because it selects for the wrong thing, and I'm not sure how you would construct it fairly anyway.  It would have to be us - a party with a stake in the question - determining what the other party's emotions should be and that's doomed to failure.

so, just to be clear, you're not able to comment on how appropriate it is to feel like it's ok to kidnap, molest, and kill children, right?

maybe it's our feelings that are wrong, not the pedophile serial killer's feelings that are wrong. the important thing is that we never discuss it and content ourselves not seeking an alternative to this relativism. let's just agree to disagree, because agreement is so unimportant it's not worth attempting to reach... it's not like anyone might die or get imprisoned if these disagreements persist.

hashtag that is sarcasm. sadly very few scientifically inclined people appreciate what Dewey and MacIntyre contributed to our intellectual history.

That's not an argument I'm making.

[GodSlayer]

The other thing I've been thinking about is; this is SGUF. Not the Feminist's Guide to ... Forum, or the LGBT's Guide to Whatever Forum, or the Candlestick Maker's Guide to the Blah Blah Blah... I don't expect to drum up support for my particular lefty social justice passions and positions. But I'm a skeptic, a humanist, a feminist, and whole lot of other things, and so are A LOT of people around here. And I'd like to declare that from here on out, I'm taking people off 'ignore' list, and I'm gonna be more assertive and unrelenting in my....

not passion, sure, but if someone disputes what you think is reasonable for all to believe, why would you want to restrain yourself on it any more than about UFOs?

d'you think skeptics only want to ensure their beliefs about UFOs and bigfoot are in line with the evidence, and don't give a crap how misguided any of the other views they inflict on society are?

if you said 'I'm a feminist' in the same way Pamela Gay says 'I'm a Christian', I think it would be sensible for you to not speak of feminism here, since all that would happen is a naive dogmatism being bitchslapped up and down the forum. But if your feminism is something you've concluded as dispassionately and sensibly as your opinions on alien abductions, why should it be any less appropriate for it to be discussed with skeptics who might not yet know enough to have already come to agree with your conclusions?

[GodSlayer]

That strikes me as the wrong calculation because it selects for the wrong thing, and I'm not sure how you would construct it fairly anyway.  It would have to be us - a party with a stake in the question - determining what the other party's emotions should be and that's doomed to failure.

so, just to be clear, you're not able to comment on how appropriate it is to feel like it's ok to kidnap, molest, and kill children, right?

maybe it's our feelings that are wrong, not the pedophile serial killer's feelings that are wrong. the important thing is that we never discuss it and content ourselves not seeking an alternative to this relativism. let's just agree to disagree, because agreement is so unimportant it's not worth attempting to reach... it's not like anyone might die or get imprisoned if these disagreements persist.

hashtag that is sarcasm. sadly very few scientifically inclined people appreciate what Dewey and MacIntyre contributed to our intellectual history.

That's not an argument I'm making.

please clarify where I've mistaken your point, then.

[Caffiene]

A better way to go about this is, rather than trying to score the rationality of someone else's emotions, is looking at how common an emotional reaction to something is.  If a reaction is extremely common, we can expect people to act on it whether we say they should feel a certain way or not.

I strongly disagree. What we're discussing here is how we should modify our behaviour based on the emotions of others.

If we use how common an emotional reaction is as a key factor, the only sensible conclusion I can see is that we should stop contributing to the forum entirely - finding skepticism itself to be repellent is an extremely common emotional reaction.

The basis of the skeptical community is to value logic and other things before the emotional reactions associated with them, especially before how common the emotions are. By definition, the community is at odds to a number of common emotional reactions, so it therefore cant be improved by using those reactions as the basis. The reactions can be taken into consideration, but if logic isnt the driving factor for how we analyse our behaviour then we would indeed be a much more popular community - but in doing so we would have lost what makes the community unique. We would be a very successful social forum, not a skeptical forum.

I dont think its reasonable to say that just because we have biases its impossible to determine what emotions are logical. We might not be able to determine it to an extremely high degree of accuracy, but our biases just add margins for error. Biases affect everything, but we can still say that homeopathy is less logical than conventional medical science. As GodSlayer is implying in his post - saying that we cant know something or use it in any way because we have biases is getting into postmodernist territory where we can never say that anything is logical.

[Cowtown Cody]

That strikes me as the wrong calculation because it selects for the wrong thing, and I'm not sure how you would construct it fairly anyway.  It would have to be us - a party with a stake in the question - determining what the other party's emotions should be and that's doomed to failure.

so, just to be clear, you're not able to comment on how appropriate it is to feel like it's ok to kidnap, molest, and kill children, right?

maybe it's our feelings that are wrong, not the pedophile serial killer's feelings that are wrong. the important thing is that we never discuss it and content ourselves not seeking an alternative to this relativism. let's just agree to disagree, because agreement is so unimportant it's not worth attempting to reach... it's not like anyone might die or get imprisoned if these disagreements persist.

hashtag that is sarcasm. sadly very few scientifically inclined people appreciate what Dewey and MacIntyre contributed to our intellectual history.

That's not an argument I'm making.

please clarify where I've mistaken your point, then.

No.  You go back and read.  Its your confusion, and it isn't worth my time in your case.

If someone else doesn't understand, I'm happy to try again for them.

If we use how common an emotional reaction is as a key factor, the only sensible conclusion I can see is that we should stop contributing to the forum entirely - finding skepticism itself to be repellent is an extremely common emotional reaction.

No, that's nothing like sensible.  And it forgets the other part of what I've been saying, which is that we are talking about what constitutes a petty sacrifice for the sake of manners. 

I've said this so much that it's starting to get on my nerves to have to repeat, but shutting down the ideas and discussion is not on the table for me, and as such it is not a logical, sensible consequence of what I'm advocating.  Retreating from skepticism entirely is not a petty sacrifice.

As GodSlayer is implying in his post - saying that we cant know something or use it in any way because we have biases is getting into postmodernist territory where we can never say that anything is logical.

And indeed, that's not what I've said at all.

I dont think its reasonable to say that just because we have biases its impossible to determine what emotions are logical. We might not be able to determine it to an extremely high degree of accuracy, but our biases just add margins for error.

Yes, absolutely.  And we have to accept that the error margin may be too wide for us to trust our judgement, especially on fine-grained issues.  Which is what we're really talking about here.  The bigger stuff like what GS mentioned is a lot easier.  It's not to say that we can know nothing, and that's an unfair extension of what I'm saying.

And we also have to accept that we have different knowledge inside the forum than people do outside the forum.  And that difference in knowledge can change what "logical" means, because what you know affects what you do.  There's simply no escaping that.  So our logic based on what we know can tell us something totally different from what another person's logic says based on what they know.

So long as that's true, forum members may have a hard time seeing the logic outside the forum, and non-members will have a hard time seeing the logic inside.  If all we care about is pre-existing rationality in the people we recruit, we're also saying that we do not care about educating people.  They should come to us already educated, already thinking as we do.  And that's no way to grow the movement.

If we accept that we can educate people once they come here, but cannot educate people as effectively if they don't come here, then we can make up for that information asymmetry, and their emotional reactions can become more "logical" (that's not really what will happen: their information set will be more like ours and as a result, their "logic" will say what ours says more of the time).

If we think continuing education is an important part of skepticism, then we will do better for ourselves by helping reduce pointless barriers to entry, and helping to educate more people.

By definition, the community is at odds to a number of common emotional reactions, so it therefore cant be improved by using those reactions as the basis.

That's not true.  If we use our knowledge of a common emotional reaction to tear down an arbitrary, petty barrier to entering the skeptic community, we get a better diversity of ideas in the movement as well as improving society at large by helping to spread critical thinking more powerfully than we already do.  All this is, is saying that we should act on what people really do, not what we think they should do even though they don't know what we know.  There's nothing anti-skeptical about strategy.

Edit: I misspelled "asymmetry."

[GodSlayer]

No.  You go back and read.  Its your confusion, and it isn't worth my time in your case.
skeptical about strategy.

having no reason to believe you, I'm not going to bother.

if someone else wants to argue your position, that's fine with me.

No, that's nothing like sensible.  And it forgets the other part of what I've been saying, which is that we are talking about what constitutes a petty sacrifice for the sake of manners. 

according to you, 'who're you to judge what's petty for me?' #rhetoricalquestion

The bigger stuff like what GS mentioned is a lot easier.  It's not to say that we can know nothing, and that's an unfair extension of what I'm saying.

a point both directions of which remain to be argued.

And we also have to accept that we have different knowledge inside the forum than people do outside the forum.  And that difference in knowledge can change what "logical" means, because what you know affects what you do.

you're conflating 'logical' with 'rational'.
I can't speak for Caffiene as to whether this is an equivocation or an error you both share.

If all we care about is pre-existing rationality in the people we recruit, we're also saying that we do not care about educating people.  They should come to us already educated, already thinking as we do.  And that's no way to grow the movement.

so, you think of this forum as a place to lure the unskeptical into in order to convert them? an agenda skeptics who come here and talk to skeptics might be getting in the way of?

do you think forums have proven a good method of attracting dissenters and persuading them of opinions? (e.g., have FOX News managed to set up forums that accomplish this purpose? have Feminist forums captured and deprogrammed trolls? are forums useful as honeypots? -- do we have reason to hope this forum can become one of those successful indoctrination forums)

If we think continuing education is an important part of skepticism, then we will do better for ourselves by helping reduce pointless barriers to entry, and helping to educate more people.

I'm of the opinion that people who find my use of the word 'fuck' to be a barrier to our conversation will also find my demolition of their cherished ideas to be no less of a barrier, so it's quite the time-saver to weed out people intolerant of trivial things when hoping to talk with someone who can tolerate an affront to what is not trivial. ... it's like having an age restriction on a dating website -- if you don't want waste your time hitting on kids, it's useful to do something that keeps them away.

if you can't pass the 'cunt' barrier or the 'Christ-on-a-stick', will you pass the 'feminism/Christianity is misguided and here are 50 reasons why' barrier? if not, the sacrifice is for nothing, and it's a sacrifice of our time as well as the luxury of being ourselves.

[Caffiene]

And it forgets the other part of what I've been saying, which is that we are talking about what constitutes a petty sacrifice for the sake of manners.

[...]

Retreating from skepticism entirely is not a petty sacrifice.

[...]

And we have to accept that the error margin may be too wide for us to trust our judgement, especially on fine-grained issues.  Which is what we're really talking about here.  The bigger stuff like what GS mentioned is a lot easier.  It's not to say that we can know nothing, and that's an unfair extension of what I'm saying.

[...]

If we think continuing education is an important part of skepticism, then we will do better for ourselves by helping reduce pointless barriers to entry, and helping to educate more people.

[...]

If we use our knowledge of a common emotional reaction to tear down an arbitrary, petty barrier to entering the skeptic community

I dont think youre addressing what Im talking about. You keep mentioning petty sacrifices and petty barriers, but thats my point: How are you determining what counts as petty, if you cant rate the comparison logically?

Without having some metric for measuring what level of illogical thought or emotion is being introduced, you cant make the statement that the barrier or sacrifice is petty. How can you say that, for example, loving homeopathy is less logical if you are claiming you cant overcome biases enough to rate how logical something is? We would have to welcome homeopathy as well. I think it is obvious that we can, to some degree, rate how logical an emotion is in order to compare it to other ideas and benefits. You say that we "may" have a hard time seeing the logic of those from outside the forum, and thats true... but thats not an excuse to write it off, to say its impossible and that we shouldnt try to see how logical it is.

Or, on the other hand, a small sacrifice may still be too large (and therefore not petty) if the benefit it is being compared to is even more tiny. If a stranger stops me at my door and demands 50 cents to let me into my own house, 50 cents is only a small sacrifice but it is much too large in comparison to the unethical "benefit".

Which all goes back to the original point that I was making which you objected to: We can use an estimate of how logical the emotion is, and how common the emotion is, as elements in determining how big a sacrifice is involved compared to how big a benefit for making the sacrifice.

[...] how logical an emotional reaction is will be one factor in determining how much of a sacrifice you're looking at [...]

That strikes me as the wrong calculation [...]

If you disagree, as you posted, then you havent justified how you are coming to conclusion that things are petty or not.

[Cowtown Cody]

I dont think youre addressing what Im talking about. You keep mentioning petty sacrifices and petty barriers, but thats my point: How are you determining what counts as petty, if you cant rate the comparison logically?

I'm drawing a distinction between ideas and general forum discourse - "the way we act around here", as it were.  I'm absolutely unwilling to compromise on what ideas and content we can talk about.  Everything should be fair game, nothing should be precluded because "it's an offensive idea."  I've been totally clear about that.  But the discourse - actions and ways of behaving not related to the content, or content on the forum not really having anything to do with the purpose of the forum - I see as up for consideration for sacrifice.  Those things are in the running for being petty sacrifices because they aren't really important to what we do or what we talk about or the purpose that drives those things.

That is the division that I'm suggesting.  Again, it's the difference between offending through discussion of ideas (which I am absolutely fine with) and offending due to a failure of tact (which I think we should be willing to take seriously).

So, if that's my division, I would then consider what of those "discourse" items are drawing very common, widely-held negative reactions, even from pretty rational people.  I wouldn't impose a litmus test on people by saying, "that's how we do, and if you aren't down, you aren't actually rational."  If some discourse item - unimportant to content and unrelated to our purpose - is offending lots of people and creating a barrier for entry, then I'd do what I can to remove it by making a petty sacrifice of that discourse item.

How can you say that, for example, loving homeopathy is less logical if you are claiming you cant overcome biases enough to rate how logical something is? We would have to welcome homeopathy as well.

Because I'm not saying that.  What I am saying is that at a certain level of precision in determining what a "rational emotion" is, our biases make our own judgement insufficient.  The error they introduce when doing very fine work is too much, and it's no longer an appropriate measurement tool to use.  I am not saying that we can't know anything because biases.  I'm saying that there does come a time when an estimate is not good enough, and the measurement tool we have is not up to the task.  Often it is, sometimes it isn't.  When it comes to gender differences and the like, I'm very much of the opinion that trying to measure what a rational reaction is from one side only is a lot like using a plastic ruler to measure into the thousandths of an inch.  It's just not good enough.

And further, we would not have to welcome homeopathy.  You're still using  a straw man of what I'm saying, the "we can't know anything because biases" straw man.  Nobody is saying that we disavow knowledge and accomodate all ideas.  All content is fair game.  We do not have a problem with homeopathy because "that's just how we talk around here(discourse)."  We have a problem with it because we have a coupling of rationality and knowledge that tells us it's BS and harmful.

Or, on the other hand, a small sacrifice may still be too large (and therefore not petty) if the benefit it is being compared to is even more tiny. If a stranger stops me at my door and demands 50 cents to let me into my own house, 50 cents is only a small sacrifice but it is much too large in comparison to the unethical "benefit".

Certainly so.  But on the other hand, if you're being asked not to swear at people (discourse) in order to gain access to a friend's dinner party, and you howl about how your freedom of speech is being abridged and it's unethical even though all the other guests will have a much better time if you don't swear at them, I haven't got much sympathy for you.  All of this is voluntary, and your friend isn't saying that you can't talk your politics (content) - just that you have to do it with a civil tongue in your head.  Ethics or not, your friend should be able to enjoy his dinner party with or without you and he's within his rights to demand that of you or bar your entry.  This is not a republic, it's an ad-hoc grouping of individuals.