[ExI] heeeeeeehehehehehehheheeeee

[Anders Sandberg]

On 2015-12-22 00:36, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
>
> On Mon, Dec 21, 2015 at 12:39 PM, Tara Maya <tara at taramayastales.com 
> <mailto:tara at taramayastales.com>> wrote:
>
>     I’m a feminist. To paraphrase Mark Twain: “Women are human beings.
>     Worse I can say of no person."
>
>
> ### There is a chance for industrial-grade misunderstandings when 
> discussing these subjects, so let's engage in some explication.
>
> Is it enough to believe that women are humans to be classified as a 
> feminist? Isn't there something more the word, especially in its 
> third-wave edition?

I think the key problem is that we quickly get into tribalist group 
affirmation signaling when talking about classifications like this.

This is equally true for transhumanism: I was somewhat dismayed to see 
that some of the French intellectuals I met recently tending to think 
that transhumanism was a homogeneous group and everybody hence could be 
taken to task for something stupid Zoltan Istvan or the NBIC report 
said. So they could both feel superior by pointing out elementary 
problems, strengthen their own group since the alternative view is 
non-viable, *and* save time from trying to read what we actually say and 
believe. Note how many online feminism debates are done along the same 
lines.

My approach to issues like this is to drill down to some particular 
issue (e.g. affirmative action policies, voting rights), state my views 
and ideally reasons why I hold them, and then go back up and explain how 
this fits into wider systems of thought (e.g. my own Bayesian 
libertarianism). Then one can compare that to other systems, groups, 
issues or whatnot. But it avoids tribalism.

I think one can be a reasonable feminist without having an opinion about 
third-wave feminism. Just like one can be a transhumanist without having 
a detailed view of Venturism.

-- 
Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University

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