Reversed and Remanded

[dachte]

One of the ways you can tell you're arguing poorly about an issue is when people who have little opinion on the issue read your argument and hope things go against you just for spite. I confess to the latter with a recent post on Google+ by "Siderea B", a post which has been floating through my social circles. There are quite a lot of these posts

Comments

[gwillen]

After talking to someone about your post, I realized that one of the things I find odd about it is that I've always thought of you as "non-multiculturalist", but here you seem more "anti-multiculturalist". Meaning, I've always thought your position was "just because something is from another culture doesn't mean we have to accept it to be properly liberal", but your position here seems more like "to be properly liberal, we ought to reject other cultures". I understand that, e.g., the rejection of Sharia and the associated facets of Islamic culture might be a position not merely compatible with, but mandatory for, liberalism in your eyes. But I find it odd to see the same attack deployed against something as seemingly-innocuous as the choice of how names are formed. Is that choice something that is important in your philosophy, or are you really strongly opposed to using such conventions -- regardless of the topic -- from cultures other than our own, or is something else going on that I'm missing

[dachte]

I think either I'm being unclear or you're reading things into what I'm saying that are not there

[gwillen]

Hmm, it seems like allowing people to use any name they wish is, at least in my view, calculated to "permit significant personal diversity" and is "applicable to everyone and based on broad reasoning." I don't know whether you think that is true; I also don't know whether, if that were true, it would be an argument that Google ought to allow people to use any name they wish, or whether it would merely be an argument in favor of designing a system that way if we were to build our own.

I do see your point that you are not explicitly claiming that Google should or should not use real names. I do think it is a dangerously libertarian and illibeal view to say "the designer of a commercial system ought to be able to choose the values that are baked into it, and if those values are incompatible with your own, you should not use it." Perhaps you are only saying that about this specific choice, since you don't think that Enlightenment Liberalism takes a position on the choice one way or the other.

[dachte]

I think any person (or system) will have some value framework embedded into it, and it's unfair to impose onto people/entities that their value frameworks must be those that provide maximal comfort/ability to others in their self-expression. The variety possible in value-frameworks make that a losing game to play, and it's stifling to force people to even try.

[gwillen]

Well, I don't necessarily suggest that anybody ought to force Google to use a particular value system, but I also think that, if Google's value system differs from our own, it is not unreasonable to speak out and say "this system embodies bad values; I encourage other people not to use it, or to try to get the owners of the system to change it". This is as opposed to the view that says, "if you don't like it, don't use it, but it's not my problem." In general, for any system with network effects, especially a commercial one, I think the right approach is never to say "if you don't like it, don't use it", because that approach is optimized to benefit systems that play to a majority while trampling on a minority. Instead, I think the right approach is to recognize and avoid systems that embody bad values, regardless of whether they directly impact you, and to recognize and consider people's claims that a system's values negatively impact them, even if they do not do so to you.

[dachte]

I just don't see these values as being particularly bad (and certainly not malicious), although I do think it's ok to speak up and try to get the system changed (just not with such viciousness or insinuations of ill-will).

If you were to meet someone whose definitional frameworks were not made with ill-will but were not to your liking, I think you might reasonably see if you could nudge or convince them to change, but you'd be pretty controlling to demand that they think the way you want them to.

[gwillen]

Well, I think network effects are very important here. If we would not see the values embodied in Google+ enforced upon 'social networking' as a whole, we ought to speak up now, because social networks display the kind of winner-take-all markets that are characteristic of network effects. The market is not a moral force, and this is extra-true in cases like this: if we leave the decision of what the best social network platform is up to the market, as we do when we say "if you don't like it, don't use it", we run a serious risk

[dachte]

Point taken on the someone-ness, although I don't think that there are usually frameworks that will please everyone, and if we get in the habit of demanding corporations use frameworks that are comfortable to us, we might also get in the habit of demanding it of each other. If I find someone cheating (e.g. people who overclock and ruin hardware and lie about doing it so they can get more hardware to try again) or finnagling the maximum possible gain out of every transaction with a vendor, I might wonder about their moral character, not because I think corporations are people who suffer in the way a person would, but because I would expect some of their habits to carry over to their dealings with actual people.

Freedom of (non-malicious) conscience/framework is very important to me, and I want as many fences around it as possible.

[dachte]

Between

A) Letting people entities/form their own philosophy and world-of-terms and actually use it
and
B) Asking them to speak and think in ways that are maximally empowering to those around them

I think the first is far better. I will add a caveat to A that I expect people not to be malicious, but other than that, I think philosophical diversity is more important to respect than comfort.

[gwillen]

Well, it's not necessarily a matter of comfort. What distinguishes me from libertarians is that I recognize that how 'free' someone is can be determined, in large part, by the actions of the entities (people, corporations) they have to deal with on a daily basis -- that freedom can be taken away, in a real sense rather than a theoretical one, by entities other than the government

[dachte]

I understand/recognise your argument. I am generally reluctant to make the kind of judgement you make here without a very compelling argument, for the reasons I outlined, but I think your greater willingness to do so (or your different estimation of the harm involved) is reasonable too.

In the name of protecting worldview-diversity, I still want to protect and fence the idea of letting people define terms as they will (provided no malice), over that of demanding people use some framework of terms that will theoretically make everyone most comfortable (or meet unnamed other values, like some notion of freedom).

I think I see where you're coming from, and suspect this is (a big part of) the root of our differences on this matter.

[gwillen]

I will try to push just a little father here: part of the value of the notion of 'privilege' is in identifying areas where the existing spectrum of frameworks and philosophies is so biased against a particular group, that the requirement of 'malice' to push back on people's chosen frameworks is too strong, and a weaker requirement should hold. If one acknowledges that it is possible for such a condition to hold, one ought at least consider the best way to deal with it. (And given that such frameworks do not arise in a vacuum, but are communicated culturally, I think it is not unreasonable to presume that there exist areas where the common spectrum of frameworks is biased by groupthink away from the truth; and that there may be areas where it is so to the detriment of particular groups of people.)

[dachte]

I'd consider any framework-of-terms made without ill-will to be a valid one, and any pushing against it to be done on a "persuade" rather than "demand" basis (barring strong social interest otherwise). This protection only directly applies to the human who needed a framework and (decided on/created) one, but I place a "fence" around that that generally applies it to other entities too so people will never attempt to generalise what would be their ability to demand it of other entities towards an ability to generalise it to people.

[gwillen]

Well, I think "strong social interest otherwise" is exactly what I'm getting at. And let me be clear: I'm in no way suggesting that anything be done on a "demand" basis. I'm just trying to separate out a category of pieces-of-frameworks that I think are ethically bad, and I personally feel ethically obligated to oppose; and where I think it is appropriate to apply e.g. community shunning and similar tools, which are weaker than "demand" but stronger than "persuade or give up

[dachte]

I wouldn't call such a refusal a matter of framework/perspective so much as concrete action, and I'm more comfortable regulating concrete action.

I generally see the harm of coexisting with frameworks of thought laid out by others as a necessary consequence of living in a world where not everyone thinks the same way. That, and the recognition that it's often hard/impossible to form frameworks that will please everyone, make my bar very high for the strength of argument required to do more than request a different policy.

I'll add that I think it's a necessary life lesson that we don't get to entirely shape how others see us, and that even if we really want to be seen a certain way, we must coexist with others who don't choose to validate our identity. At least moderate flexibility on this front is required in life, and people who go to great lengths to push others to recognise them as they see themselves are often being all-elbows in their demands on the worldviews of others.

[gwillen]

Argh, please read "illbeal" as "illiberal".