Generalized Coming Out Of The Closet

[-]DirectedEvolution2mo5027

Your tools for selecting your audience when posting in public are limited and unreliable. You can share information on LessWrong, only to have it, or quotes from it, linked on Hacker News, Reddit, or even the New York Times. Your future boss, future AI, future blackmailer, or future murderer can discover and exploit that information. I just met a queer activist in a rural county who keeps her address a secret, because she's worried someone will show up to kill her if her address gets around. During the woke era, we had numerous examples of people losing their jobs over un-PC comments they'd made on social media many years ago.

Furthermore, coming out provides a "kernel of truth" around which a hostile audience can spin a lie or play a game of telephone that exaggerates what you shared, when they might not have made up that lie or talked about that topic at all had you not shared it in the first place. If you are somebody's enemy, there's no limit to the extent to which they might exaggerate. The New York Time's efforts to associate Scott Alexander with the far-right are an example. He had to quit his job and start his own business as a result.

These are serious problems that you particularly expose yourself to when coming out either to large groups of people in a gossipy environment or online. You can substantially limit your exposure to these downside risks by coming out to a small group of trusted friends or to a therapist. You talk about the benefits of coming out to your "community," and I think a natural place to start is an in-person, in-confidence conversation with those chosen people.

Your post here primarily focuses on how to not provoke a negative reaction (and how to provoke a positive reaction) by the primary intended readers of your internet post -- the "happy path" of internet communication. I think that the overwhelmingly most important aspect of a "theory of generalized coming-out" would be to deal with the "unhappy path" in which an unintended audience takes hold of your initially well-received post and uses it to do you harm.

[-]johnswentworth2mo96

Realistically, the rule for almost everyone almost always is:

few people will see what you post online at all, even when it's public
the vast majority of those who do see it won't remember who wrote it (unless the audience is de-facto a small community who you know)

All of the cases you mention are, for most people, extremely unlikely. They're exactly the sort of things which are vastly more salient than they are probable, and should be discounted accordingly. Their weight in your EV calculation should be basically zero.

[-]Thane Ruthenis2mo2113

Potential counterargument: That kinda hurts you precisely in the timelines in which you may have large impact, no?

I mean, I guess it's correct if you don't have high ambitions, or if you're very strongly confident that your pathways of realizing those ambitions won't route through becoming publicly well-known. But if you're ultimately aiming high, and are leaving yourself the option to be opportunistic about how to do it (rather than committing to a specific path from the start), being open like this early may have significant negative effects for you later on. (Impacting your ability to acquire, compound, or wield power.)

I'm instinctively tempted to reject this counterargument, but I think my instinctive rejection is invalid. It seems to be rooted in the feelings of "how is cyberbullying real, just walk away from the screen" and "if you're leading your life in a way where you're at the mercy of the vicissitudes of the public opinion, you're doing something wrong". The latter is a preference over paths-to-power, and while paths that route through publicity are dispreferred by me, they're still valid. The former fails to take into account that, on some paths, your career opportunities/ability to make business deals/whether VCs would fund you/etc. depend on whether other people (or corporations/other entities) believe that cyberbullying is real.

So I think it's a fine strategy if you're a hermit researcher aiming to solve alignment and apply the solution to a brain in a box in a basement, or if you don't have big plans to begin with. But maybe not so good if you're aiming for policy/advocacy/fieldbuilding/etc.

[-]johnswentworth2mo52

Inner Taleb says: dude, variance is extremely positive EV when it comes to publicity. Far better to have some people love you and some people hate than to have nobody care, for the vast majority of ambitions.

If you're ambitious and trying to have nobody hate you, you are making a very major mistake.

[-]DirectedEvolution2mo85

You are not considering how the manner in which you gain fame constrains the options for your ambition. If your personal sexual details are online, that may constrain your options for political office, executive and academic leadership, for example.

Being hated is rarely helpful for ambition. It’s a consequence of pursuing ambition - making some people unhappy to make others happy. If you do stuff that garners ambition-undermining hate without giving you a greater base of ambition-serving support, then it’s not helpful for this goal. I continue to not see the case for how posting sexual kinks and other taboo info online will advance people’s ambitions for the vast majority of people and ambitions.

[-]CstineSublime2mo10

Taleb claims he rarely puts forth new ideas but repeats very Lindy ones.

And that seems to be a variation of:

"Any publicity is good publicity"

[-]dr_s2mo60

few people will see what you post online at all, even when it's public

Few people will see it out of the blue, but it's now archived and searchable. Anyone who has your name and is for other reasons determined to find dirt on you, can. I've had this happen to me once in a rather minor way (person who had beef with me exposing a scam online who tried to turn the scam's believers against me by publicly sharing my work place and address) that didn't really catch, but others haven't been so lucky. And now you have to add to all that the possibility of someone simply letting an AI agent freely trawl through the internet with the goal of digging up info on you. Like, how far do you expect we are from employers using something like that for "background checks" on applicants?

I definitely think the risks can outweigh the benefits, depending on what it is that you would share. This is absolutely the biggest thing that (reasonably) holds people back.

[-]DirectedEvolution2mo4-3

Few people will see your post, but the ones who do see it might be exactly the people who can hurt you the most — those who specifically sought it out in order to gain information on you. This matters even more if you have ambition, because the incentive to dig up dirt in you increases the more of a public facing role you seek. Putting out this kind of stuff early in your career is a good way to limit what you can achieve, or at least create unnecessary friction, potentially without realizing the impact.

I’d also note that if few people see your post, then that makes it even easier to come out to just them. That more or less eliminates the downside risk while giving you the same benefits.

I really don’t see the benefit unless posting your secrets online happens to scratch a quirky psychological itch, or you’re aiming to use a big megaphone, get a large readership, and find opportunities you couldn’t get any other way. Overall, it seems to me like an area where you should be cautious, clear on your motives, and slow-moving, directly analogous to, say, posting a sex tape online.

[-]johnswentworth2mo20

those who specifically sought it out in order to gain information on you

Unless you are the sort of person who is likely to have a stalker at some point, that premise is low-grade paranoia, not a realistic concern. Most likely, nobody cares about hurting you enough to put in that kind of effort.

[-]DirectedEvolution2mo42

We could quantify some of these risks, such as the base rate of risks associated with stalking, the frequency with which hiring managers research potential hires on Google or social media, and so on. In fact, it would be trivial to pull together a preliminary report using one of the deep research AI products. What level of marginal risk do you think it’s worth taking to post your taboo personal details online, considering the range of risks this potentially exposes you to?

I’d also note that doings stuff like this, and encouraging others to do so, rhymes with cult behavior. Other cults collect dirty details and keep them secret as blackmail. If rationalism establishes a culture of high-status members encouraging others to post potentially embarrassing personal/sexual info online, that can easy be, and be seen as, a way to indoctrinate and trap people within the community.

[-]johnswentworth2mo2115

Dude, that doesn't make any sense. People making their secrets public is the opposite of what blackmailers want.

This logic is so bad that I think it should be a flag to you that you are clearly motivatedly reasoning real hard here.

Anyway, quantifying a little:

Lifetime incidence of stalking is about 12-16% for women and 4-7% for men. Most of it is from former romantic partners. And stalkers are not usually trying to just hurt the target as much as they can; something like sharing one's home address would be relevant to stalkers, but sharing emotional secrets much less so.
Hiring managers blah blah blah: hard to get a base rate, but none of the people who hired other people at half a dozen different companies do that to my knowledge, and even if any of them did I can't think of anything far short of literally being a KKK member that would make a difference to the hiring process.
You say "and so on" but, like, I don't think there's all that much so to on here?

I think the more important point here is not the base rates, but the fact that the kind of things I'm talking about sharing here usually just aren't usually that relevant to most stalkers or hiring managers or whoever. If the things you're scared of sharing are political in nature, then sure, some of those can come with some risk, though the risks will be more salient than the base rates merit. But other than that... we're not talking about sharing things like your address.

[-]DirectedEvolution2mo30

Dude, that doesn't make any sense. People making their secrets public is the opposite of what blackmailers want.
This logic is so bad that I think it should be a flag to you that you are clearly motivatedly reasoning real hard here.

I want to flag that you are unilaterally escalating this conversation rhetorically, and making accusations about my psychological state that I really do not appreciate. Let's keep it civil and focused on the object-level topic.

Literally, on a surface level, you are correct that publicly posting dirty secrets online pre-empts some blackmail threats, although it still exposes the poster to the risk that those posts will be distorted or amplified in ways they didn't intend.

Functionally, my argument is plausible and logically sound that the outcome of blackmail and publicly posting secrets can be very similar. Both practices can result in an individual being trapped in the group/cult by the perception that their action (handing over blackmail threats or posting embarrassing secrets online) has now cut off or created friction for pathways to careers and relationships outside the community.

Furthermore, if the group acquires an even stronger perception of being a cult than it has as a result of adopting the practice of encouraging members to post dirty secrets about themselves online, then that perception will further taint the reputation of and isolate its members. These sorts of ideas can be a way of gradually converting a formerly healthy community into a cult.

[-]johnswentworth2mo1011

Do you have a particular example in mind which is generating this whole thread, which you're willing to gesture at? I was escalating because it's seemed-to-me from the beginning that this whole class of objection is very obviously statistically unrealistic (once one sets aside its emotional salience), and the arguments you've made seem to me not only wrong but obviously wrong (again, once one sets aside emotional salience). In my experience, just continuing at the object level usually doesn't prove useful in such situations.

If I'm being epistemically generous, I would guess that you have some specific example in mind which is very different from the sort of thing I was imagining when writing the post, and as a result we've been talking past each other a lot. For instance, elsewhere in this thread, David Davidson brought up "Many people in countries with more authoritarian governments have to worry about going to prison over having the wrong opinion (like China or the UK).". I thought the examples in the post made it pretty obvious that that was not the sort of thing I was talking about, but maybe that was not obvious?

[-]DirectedEvolution2mo194

My core belief on this topic is that coming out is, in fact, a risky practice in America and world wide. It’s risky to come out about your kinks, your sexual gender orientation, your political beliefs, and your historical affiliations with groups or types of groups that have controversial reputations.

Coming out can be net beneficial under controlled circumstances. Generally, it is better to have a world in which people have the ability to achieve those benefits. That starts by being aware of and working to mitigate those risks. The queer community is an excellent example of a group of people who’ve done that and reaped the rewards.

My central problem with your OP and responses here is that you seem to be rejecting the need for consideration or mitigation of those risks. This flies in the face of the historical experience of queers, apostates, atheists, political, radicals, and other groups who’ve come out in ways that failed to control those risks and suffered for it. By encouraging people to just come out without considering or taking steps to mitigate risks, you encourage them to make themselves vulnerable in ways that may make them more dependent on the rationalist community as the place where you’re seeking to enact this attitude toward coming out.

In my view, there is an enormous volume of historical experience of a wide variety of groups that backs up the profound risks of coming out. These risks include ostracism, exclusion from job opportunities, public humiliation, and physical violence. Again, those risks can be mitigated and the reward for doing so are great. But flat out denying those risks strikes me as foolish when it’s done by an individual, and cult-inducing when it becomes a community norm.

[-]CronoDAS2mo51

There are stories of people losing their jobs over social media posts - the stories I've heard have been about high school teachers getting fired over things like pictures of themselves on Facebook drinking at a party.

[-]Said Achmiz2mo0-22

the sort of person who is likely to have a stalker at some point

This does not cut reality at the joints at all. There is no such “type”; stalkers do not care about your “type”. Stalkers tend to be crazy people. And even the tiniest bit of fame is enough to spawn stalkers, no matter how you act.

[-]CstineSublime2mo*109

79% of stalkers are people the victim knows ^[1]- not parasocial famous relationships. Of parasocial stalkers, erotomanic is most common: men who have power and wealth and older than the stalker are the common victims. Erotomaniacs tend to be women from lower socio-economic classes, as I said in my other comment - I would guess that this means they have less access to mental health support, may in fact be victims of domestic violence of some sort, have low self-confidence or control over their own lives which leads them to project fantasies onto someone, such as David Letterman, whom she might see every night from the television in her home, while she is drifting off to sleep.

Stalkers tend to be crazy people

I think that's unnecessarily dehumanizing and doesn't cut at the joints of reality because ignores a huge body of research that does in fact tell us about the various different types of stalking profiles and what precipitates them. Most stalkers are motivated by personal connection, not fame - tiny or otherwise - at all. I elaborate on that in this comment. Those who are motivated by fame it is not "tiny fame" but repeat exposure, usually by the media, that amplifies relevance to the stalker. Not a "tiny bit of fame."

^{^}
79% of victims were acquainted with their pursuer (N = 62), and half of all stalking emerged specifically from romantic relationships (M = 49%, N = 53). (meta-analysis of 175 studies)

The state of the art of stalking: Taking stock of the emerging literature. Brian H. Spitzberg. William R. Cupach.

[-]Said Achmiz2mo-4-3

79% of stalkers are people the victim knows [1]- not parasocial famous relationships.

But that’s not relevant to what we’re discussing here, which is the scenario where someone acquires a stalker (or multiple stalkers) as a consequence of publicly revealing things about themselves (“coming out”).

Of parasocial stalkers, erotomanic is most common: men who have power and wealth and older than the stalker are the common victims. Erotomaniacs tend to be women from lower socio-economic classes, as I said in my other comment—

Seems plausible.

Stalkers tend to be crazy people

I think that’s unnecessarily dehumanizing and doesn’t cut at the joints of reality because ignores a huge body of research that does in fact tell us about the various different types of stalking profiles and what precipitates them.

The “huge body of research” tells us that stalkers tend to be crazy people.

There’s nothing “dehumanizing” about that. Crazy people are people, i.e., humans. They’re not aliens, robots, animals, inanimate objects, etc. But they’re still crazy. (And we’re not talking about, like, depression, anxiety disorders, autism, etc.; stalkers—particularly “parasocial stalkers”, as you aptly put it—are crazy in an absolutely central sense of the word.)

[-]CstineSublime2mo*1-9

But that’s not relevant to what we’re discussing here, which is the scenario where someone acquires a stalker (or multiple stalkers) as a consequence of publicly revealing things about themselves (“coming out”).

A scenario which is statistically unlikely. Not all 21% of non-personal stalkers are triggered by a single internet post. For example, erotomaniacs, most of them fixate on people who are famous.

Can you point to even a single instance of a "confessional" "out of the closet blog post" causing someone to become a stalker with no prior personal contact, and the person who wrote the blog post not having a previous history of revealing things about their life.

There’s nothing “dehumanizing” about that

The dictionary definition of dehumanizing is "To deprive of human qualities such as individuality, ^[1]compassion, or civility." - whenever you dismiss a large group of people as "crazy" you are depriving them of their individuality, therefore dehumanize them. I think my assessment was correct.

And the research shows that most people who seek out information on someone have a preexisting relationship with them, a smaller group become fixated on famous people - neither conform to a single "out of the closet" post.

^{^}
Cambridge Dictionary: "to remove from a person the special human qualities of independent thought..."
Merriam-Webster: "To address or portray (someone) in a way that obscures or demeans that person's humanity or individuality"

[-]Said Achmiz2mo75

Can you point to even a single instance of a “confessional” “out of the closet blog post” causing someone to become a stalker with no prior personal contact, and the person who wrote the blog post not having a previous history of revealing things about their life.

Of course not, but how likely is that? Take the post that we’re commenting under. Can John be described as someone who just wrote one blog post about himself, and has no prior history of revealing things about his life, and has no other claim to fame at all? No, none of those things are true.

And this is going to be the norm. Nobody’s just writing one blog post where they say “btw here is a fact about me” and otherwise it’s radio silence.

It’s very easy, these days, to gain enough internet fame to acquire stalkers. A bit of social media activity / blogging / other forms of poasting, a few of people talk about you a few times, and bam—you’re there.

The dictionary definition of dehumanizing is “To deprive of human qualities such as individuality, [1]compassion, or civility.”—whenever you dismiss a large group of people as “crazy” you are depriving them of their individuality, therefore dehumanize them. I think my assessment was correct.

Seems like a fully general argument against ever describing anyone as being crazy. I reject it.

Some people are crazy. “Parasocial stalkers” usually are. That’s facts.

[-]CstineSublime1mo115

It’s very easy, these days, to gain enough internet fame to acquire stalkers. A bit of social media activity / blogging / other forms of poasting, a few of people talk about you a few times, and bam—you’re there.

No it's not easy to gain internet fame. I know. I've tried it.

Some people are crazy. “Parasocial stalkers” usually are. That’s facts.

What is a fact exactly, what specifically do you mean by they are "crazy"? Why is that the most unambiguous word you can think of?

[-]Said Achmiz1mo-2-6

No it’s not easy to gain internet fame. I know. I’ve tried it.

I don’t know what to tell you; I’ve tried it too, and it’s pretty easy.

What is a fact exactly, what specifically do you mean by they are “crazy”?

Regular, ordinary-person meaning of the word.

Why is that the most unambiguous word you can think of?

Well, now, this is a new complaint. Is it the most unambiguous word I can think of? Maybe, maybe not. I don’t make that claim.

But it is a perfectly ordinary, straightforward word, which conveys my meaning.

Anyhow, I’m done litigating my word choice here. I don’t believe that you don’t know what I mean, so this isn’t about ambiguity or a failure to communicate.

[-]johnswentworth2mo5-2

Of course stalkers, as a group, have a type. For starters, female.

[-]listic2mo-10

If this is humor, I don't get it.

[+]Said Achmiz2mo-8-10

[-]CstineSublime2mo10

Few people will see your post, but the ones who do see it might be exactly the people who can hurt you the most — those who specifically sought it out in order to gain information on you.

If few people see your post, then this almost by definition means it is unlikely anyone will seek to "gain information over you". The kind of people who obsessively try to collect information about other people tend to fall into two broad groups: anti-fans -- which are people who were stans and then were shut out, or people who had some kind of direct personal relationship or interaction with the person that went sour.

Anti-Fans may be in some cases be catalyzed by someone "coming out of the closet" if they have been misrepresenting themselves in a way which was intrinsic and important to the ongoing parasocial relationship they had with their stans (think of cruxy things, like Bob Dylan going electric, or more recently MAGA supporters enraged over the lack of disclosure about Epstein). More often than not, it is actually provoked by something very different: the sudden radio silence or "taking a step back for my privacy" - in a sense, going into a closet. This lack of closure causes resentment and fans begin trying to find out everything they can to reach the previous level of exposure. (Does this remind you of "ghosting"?)

This behavior is very similar to stalker behavior is interconnected to domestic violence. A romantic partner or potential suitor is rejected, but unable to accept why - as it is said "To stalk is to seek relevance." (Not all stalking behaviour is caused by a sudden step back, but it is the most common^[1]. Erotomanic delusions almost always involve repeated exposure to the victim, which is why they tend to be very famous and powerful people like Kings, Late Night TV show hosts, famous baseballers, or movie idols: people for whom media exposure is great- in a sense their obsession is a subset of the media's obsession. Victims are tends to be males who are older and wealthier than the stalker, stalkers tend to be women with low socio-ecoonomic status (which I would guess means less mental health support, less self-confidence, more likely to be victims of abuse too - but that's my speculation) dreaming of 'escape')

Not so fun fact: "approach behaviour" of stalkers is a counterintuitive indicator of likelihood of harm - threats are less likely to lead to acting on threats^[2]. This again leads me to suspect that one single blog post isn't going to trigger an obsessive information gatherer. They need to already have some kind of investment in the confessor.

Simply put - a post unlikely to be seen by anyone means that no one is sufficiently invested in their parasocial relationship with you to obsessively seek information over you. What does trigger that kind of behavior - is suddenly ghosting an audience.

So a couple of years ago I wanted to write about why people get obsessive and start collections - and part of that lead me to collect a lot of anecdotes and research on stalking behaviour, vexatious litigants, chronic complainers, OCD and Schizophrenia. I wrote a first draft of the book but never polished it since the topic is too vague to be cohesive. Might turn it into a Youtube series. It's less about stalking - more about collecting - lot's of stuff about Pinterest boards, wardrobes, sneakerheads and the bus-ticket theory of genius. Hopefully you're not worried why I have all this info now.

^{^}
79% of victims were acquainted with their pursuer (N = 62), and half of all stalking emerged specifically from romantic relationships (M = 49%, N = 53). (meta-analysis of 175 studies)

The state of the art of stalking: Taking stock of the emerging literature. Brian H. Spitzberg. William R. Cupach.
^{^}
"...stalkers who communicate hateful, threatening, or obscene messages or content are the least likely to physically attack their target. This is especially true when the unwelcome communications are made anonymously. However, if such communications persist, the risk increases with each successive contact. Stalkers who express a desire to meet their target in person and to travel for that purpose are much more likely to be dangerous. But paradoxically, those who express a desire to have children with their target are typically less of a threat."
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/machiavellians-gulling-the-rubes/201810/the-many-stalkers-taylor-swift

[-]DirectedEvolution1mo52

This was an interesting read. Thank you for sharing your information. I personally wouldn't have been worried about why you have all this information, as it simply reads to me like an essay by somebody who's done research on an important topic.

The way your comment is written, the underlying narrative is that the only risk to consider with coming out online is turning a reader into a stalker due to that post in isolation, and that this risk is insubstantial. I think your argument is plausible for that specific risk. However, I am considering a wider variety of risks, including:

A person with a larger body of online writings who comes out.
A person who publishes their post to an audience or on a platform that's more likely to generate unwanted attention.
A person who is being investigated and/or stalked online as a result of real-world activities, such as applying for a job or pursuing political office.
A person for whom coming out will create friction in pursuing real-world activities in the future that oughtweighs the benefits they gain from coming out online.
A potential sense of paranoia about having disclosed potentially embarrassing information online.
The reputational and perceptions risk for a controversial community of its high-status members advocating that its low-status members post embarrassing information online.

LessWrong and the rationalist community already has a controversial reputation and is often accused of being a cult. It is an online platform, which is capable of spawning hate-readers like r/sneerclub. It is also a real-world community with a notorious history of deeply exploitative behavior and what seems to be a higher-than-average fraction of self-identified participants or ex-participants with deep mental health issues. It has a history of scandal and has generated a substantial amount of negative media coveage, considering its small size.

Considering all of this, I believe that the LessWrong and rationalist community is not well-positioned to reduce the risks of coming out beyond the normal level available in the wider culture. In other words, if there's an X that you don't feel safe to come out about, then I don't think LessWrong/rationalism in its current form is capable of helping you feel more safe about coming out about X. This is a heuristic, not a general rule, and if other people do feel LessWrong/rationalism helps them come out about their personal characteristics in a way other communities don't, I'm interested to hear it. But for this reason, I think that high-status LessWrong members should not be encouraging others to come out in public about more things with little regard for risks. That seems irresponsible and likely to result in damage both to members and to the community as a whole.

I do think that it would be beneficial if LessWrong/rationalism worked to think through this problem and become the sort of community that is capable of effectively supporting its members in "coming out" in a way that improved the community, its relations with the rest of the world, and the health and wellbeing of its members. Basically, I like the vision of "generalized coming out," but I don't like the strategy John proposes in his OP for getting there for LessWrong/rationalism.

[-]CstineSublime1mo10

Thank you for that reply specifying the controversy and history within the lesswrong community - and therefore that being the chosen platform for "coming out", does seem to me to increase the risks.

I have to reflect more on this. But I think it's important to acknowledge your reply in the meantime.

I think my current question or crux is sort of "okay, but if you don't have a substantial posting history - why will you become stalked out of all the others?". And that is probably case-by-case thing that depends, even within the localized environment of Lesswrong, important factors like: what actual topic or taboo they are coming out about, even how much it resonates with the community so how it gets displayed on the front-page and therefore how visible it might be to r/sneerclub-ers, other aspects of their identity could also make them more vulnerable - even gender.

I think I need to think more fine-grain about this.

[-]David Davidson2mo01

>for most people

Many people in countries with more authoritarian governments have to worry about going to prison over having the wrong opinion (like China or the UK). The overwhelming majority in the UK oppose the massive waves of non-European immigration, but if you ask them why, their response is the same as Uyghurs' response to a question about CCP policy.

I think I'd go to prison if I told you.

And you're suggesting... that that's a skill issue...?

[-]dr_s2mo51

While I have major problems with how free speech is handled in the UK, saying that people would go to prison over expressing their dislike of immigration is ludicrous. The entire media and political discourse right now is a competition for who dislikes immigration harder. Go to r/ukpolitics to see people complaining about immigration on a daily basis, and that used to be a liberal subreddit.

The things UK limits free speech on are others. For example, after its recent proscription, it's become literally illegal to express any kind of sympathy or support for the organisation Palestine Action. Just last Saturday, over 500 people were arrested in London for participating in a protest about PA (and there's also been cases of the police simply assuming any kind of support for Palestine equated support for PA).

[-]David Davidson2mo*-13

I said you they can't tell you why they oppose immigration, because many people's true full reasons break the law. There are people in jail for naming non-government-approved reasons, and there are millions more who would agree with what they said to get there, if they could, without going to jail. They do not have freedom of speech on the issue. People on reddit have to carefully dance around how they describe their young girls' rapists to avoid being "racist" or they will be banned instantly, and even face jail time, like [that woman who was jailed longer than the rapists she insulted](https://www.reddit.com/r/centrist/comments/1dt3bji/germany_woman_convicted_of_offending_migrant_gang/). Being so ignorant as to think they can freely speak their mind about this in 2025, and so confident in your ignorance to lecture others on the issue is, frankly, ludicrous. (I hope you don't think that's too combative of a word.)

And, OP, you have completely neglected to actually address the point that DirectedEvolution and I made about tons of people having circumstances where they CAN'T say things, despite multiple invitations. This completely undermines your post in many cases. How many cases?
Well, you also missed my point that your statement about "almost everyone" / "most people" is clearly not well thought out, (Did you mean more than 4.1 billion people, having considered the political and cybersecurity climate of each country, and estimated the secret unspoken political opinions of all of the citizens? -- could you post the math behind this?), or were you just talking about sheltered Californians who hold zero verboten opinions? I took pains to avoid saying my opinion of your post too directly, since that would be too combative -- deliberately keeping hidden from the world my secrets like "I think your post sounds like you live in a fantasy land", but despite this, you pressed the "too combative" button on me anyway (which would be the ban button if you were a mod on reddit), on YOUR post that told me I should speak my mind and tell my truth.

[-]Sune2mo1110

that woman who was jailed longer than the rapists she insulted

I believe this is not an honest description of the case. Even the simple investigation of this, that I did by following the link, suggested that the woman was jailed for a weekend because of a previous theif, and for not attending and court hearing. All the defendants of the rape case got youth sentences of at least a year.
I’m strongly downvoting your post. I hope you understand that this is not because I want to censor your political views, but because I want information on less wrong to not be misleading.

[+]David Davidson10d-60

[-]dr_s2mo63

I said you they can't tell you why they oppose immigration, because many people's true full reasons break the law. There are people in jail for naming non-government-approved reasons, and there are millions more who would agree with what they said to get there, if they could, without going to jail.

I have seen plenty of people making arguments that are absolutely to the effect of "this nationality/ethnicity/religion is in some way fundamentally incompatible with our understanding of civilized life" in all kinds of capacities. And others that are just thinly veiled versions of that, but I suspect that's more about rhetorical motte and bailey than fear of literal legal repercussions.

Now you can argue whatever about e.g. the legality of using slurs, but you don't need those to make a cogent racist argument. And plenty of such arguments are made daily. I'm not here to say they should be curtailed by speech laws (as I said, I'm actually much closer to the US' First Amendment on what should be free speech), but it's just playing the victim to pretend they are right now.

[-]David Davidson10d01

Yeah, the TWELVE THOUSAND people the UK jails per year for wrongspeech
are all "playing the victim".

That's a very rational opinion.

https://x.com/OlgaBazova/status/1968376382452379753

[-]dr_s9d71

I do not think arresting people for speech crimes is right. But the answer was addressing specifically the notion that people could not express racist opinions in support of anti-immigration policies. And that is false, because expressing racist opinions in general does not seem to be criminalised - specific instances of doing so in roles in which you have a responsibility to the public, or in forms that constitute direct attacks or threats to specific individuals, or incitement to crime, etcetera, are.

As I said, the current political debate has virtually everyone arguing various points on the anti-immigration spectrum. Reform UK is an entire party that basically does nothing else.

[-]Eli Tyre2mo111

For me, the most significant of those efforts was My Empathy Is Rarely Kind and its Follow-up a couple weeks ago. That was the last big thing I have generally kept hidden from the world, because I feared people reacting negatively to it.

This is a bit amusing for me to read, because while I certainly didn't have any clarity about the details, your revelations were not surprising, given what its like to interact with you in person, such that it didn't really feel like a revelation.

To be more specific, I would have guessed that you were generally internally contemptuous of pretty much everyone in a kind of low key way, but "contemptuous" isn't quite right, because it's not as active as that—there's not much emotional heat or ego attachment for you in it, it's just kind of a background fact of your engagement with the world.

(Noting that these kinds of statements are not that reliable, due to hindsight bias).

[-]Jon Garcia2mo*110

With respect to the online rationalist community, my main thing to come out of the closet about is that I was a Young-Earth Creationist all the way up until the end of grad school (and even a Young-Universe Creationist up until the middle of undergrad). Not very rational of me to avoid honestly facing mountains of evidence in order to protect sacred beliefs!

With respect to my family and life-long friends, my main thing to come out of the closet about is that I am now a liberal atheist. Not very respectable of me to willfully join the ranks of the enemy!

My main hurdle in exposing myself on the latter front is not so much my desire to be liked, but my desire not to hurt those I care about. There's no kind way to inform someone that you think that they are fundamentally wrong about every belief they hold sacred and that they build their entire identity as an individual and a community upon. I am unfortunately the most emotionally stable person I know among those I'm close to, and an unfortunate number of people look up to me as an intelligent person who agrees with them on everything they hold dear, thereby helping them feel more justified in their beliefs. Coming out to them will necessarily create feelings of disappointment, betrayal, devastation, fear, doubt, and/or existential crisis, varying in mixture and intensity according to the individual.

I guess I could offer them the tools of sound epistemology and existential equanimity as a value proposition, but I have doubts as to whether others would see that as a fair trade-off.

[-]ErioirE2mo70

There's no kind way to inform someone that you think that they are fundamentally wrong about every belief they hold sacred and that they build their entire identity as an individual and a community upon

I grew up Mormon and remained so until my early 20s and this is very relatable. I do not explain my choices in depth to my family because any sufficiently detailed explanation would inevitably be interpreted as an attack on their beliefs.

Furthermore I'm not going to try to convince them of my point of view, not from fear of failure but fear of success: It would be devastating for their mental and emotional health.

[-]uugr2mo81

If I'm understanding, you're saying that being well-received by an online audience when sharing hidden things has less to do with the unacceptability of the thing itself, and more to do with the talent of the writer. Talent in selecting the right people to present to, framing the subject to pique their interest, and just in being plain good with words.

This seems probably true to me, but you might underestimate how big a caveat "having the skills to provide value to an audience" is. An established platform, with writerly experience and long-term feedback on what people respond well to and what they don't -- if you have all these things already, it seems to me you're already most of the way out of the thicket of feeling not-seen, not-validated, unsafe, etc. Without the grounding of confidence that you can provide value to an audience, revealing hidden things still seems pretty risky.

Plus, if one doesn't have writing talent, generalized-coming-out-of-the-closet seems like a bad way to try and build it. Then you're risking the bad feelings of having something shameful exposed publicly, in addition to the general badness of not being received well.

I think the skill of baring your soul to the world (successfully) is really admirable, so I hope I'm wrong and it's not as risky as it seems.

[-]August Morley2mo70

I've been considering "coming out" on a topic for some time now to my family (not in the traditional sense, but on a topic which I nevertheless expect will be painful to discuss). The main reason I feel the need to do so is to achieve a state of truthfulness/wholeness - i.e. I want how other people understand me to align with how I understand myself, and to no longer feel the need to behave in a way that aligns with THEIR image of me.

This post gave me a new perspective that "coming out" could mean something slightly different than what I mention above: the idea that there are aspects of ourselves we don't actively hide, but which we make a point not to share with some or all of our social groups.

Do you think that/did you observe in your own experiences of "generalized coming out" that you found this feeling of wholeness? In other words, do you feel that your interactions with the community will be fundamentally different post "coming out"? Or was the payoff you experienced primarily in the form of knowing that the community now understands you in a more complete way and still accepts you?

[-]throwaway_aisafety_researcher1mo*50

(I'm a regular poster/commenter on LW; I don't feel comfortable saying this under my real name for various reasons.)

I'm horrified by the fact that some men have sexual kinks like the ones that John describes having. My (m/ hetero/experienced) own sexuality is well-described as a reflection of my identity and values: I'm moderately but not extremely dominant, mostly playful and passionate, and want everyone to have a great time.

My attitude towards John has moved from skepticism to distrust. I wonder if I'll learn that people can be deeply good while having violent sexual preferences at the same time. Anecdotally, so far I found that men with violent sexual kinks also tend to be slightly creepy in other ways. I did find John a bit creepy when I met him in person some time ago.

[-]Johannes C. Mayer1mo40

I wrote the Using Negative Hallucinations to Manage Sexual Desire because I thought it might be useful to others. I discovered an effective technique for controlling sexual desire.

I failed to predict a negative response at all. And probably in part this made me not optimize for well-receivedness.

Ultimately what I got out of this is that poeople said that my models where broken and I agreed. So I got a lot of value out this from people disagreeing with me (somehow after that it still took 2 years though to figure out an actually good policy).

[-]lemonhope1mo43

Be the most upvoted and well received LW account ever.
Hey guys I think everybody should open up! You just need to make it interesting!

If you browse newest (which is almost impossible to do on lesswrong.com) then you will find someone opening up like this every couple days and almost always getting downvoted and attacked.

[-]johnswentworth1mo30

I mean, yes, I think those people are failing to make it interesting, so I wrote a post explaining what I think their main error is and what to do instead.

Also, amusing but not relevant to the main point:

Be the most upvoted and well received LW account ever.

This very post was actually the one which finally bumped me ahead of @Raemon.

[-]lemonhope1mo80

They always try to make it interesting. I would even say that all these downvoted posts already seem to be trying to follow your advice here. The hard part is guessing correctly. Your advice here is obvious but you clearly have some knowledge/skill/understanding that is not obvious. If you really want to help people accomplish successful closet exit then you will need to give a better tutorial with more detail. I think that would be a good thing to have around.

[-]lsusr2mo40

Your post inspired me to write this.

[-]StartAtTheEnd2mo3-3

Interesting post! Thank you.

Firstly, I'd like to warn against solving this issue too well. If you're ashamed of nudity, for instance, and you accidentally fix this too well - then all you will feel being nude in the future is 'nothing'. You will have removed the thrill as well. I consider this problem to be similar to being unable to cry, or to being weirdly unaffected when something terrible happens around you.

If you’re generalized-coming-out to people who themselves already feel emotionally close to you

I think this is true, and that it's because they already want to get to know you better, or to find a weakness in you which they can exploit. If they want your vulnerability with a value of 0.2, then it's alright that your insecurity has a negative value of -0.1. The other persons "demand" protects your "supply" from falling below 0 value, so you're forgiven.
For instance, if I offered you a bottle of water and you didn't even want it, that could seem quite pathetic, an attempt at giving gifts to be liked, perhaps. But.. What if you were thirsty? Then you'd interpret me as providing value, and not as a person begging to be valued. Other people having an interest in you helps create a situation in which you're not merely oversharing to strangers online.

Speaking of supply and demand, things are higher value when they're rare. People usually appreciate you sharing your weakness more if it's special (i.e. they're the only person you told). It can come across positively even if this is not the case, but then it's more of a "This person seems open-minded, so I don't have to fear being judged by them" interpretation. Nobody would want to cuddle with a hedgehog.

I know much better places to share my soul than LW. Young people seem more accepting in general, they have learned less red flags, so they treat you as an individual. In short, there's less false positives, projected fears and such. People on LW tend to be high in openness, though, so there's at least that.
I learn a lot from observing women. Women are good at making weakness, vulnerability, helplessness and other such traits appear endaring rather than pathetic, which impresses me a lot. Turning something bad into something good? If we could generalize this, we wouldn't even need to reduce suffering, we could simply give it value instead. Idol personalities do similar things, they're forced to retain a very high value, while still being ordinary and human in a lot of ways in order to connect with their fans. They need to ignore common dating advice like "be cold, stoic, masculine and mature" and still get women to fight over them! In short, this seems more like an artistic skill than a technical one. Can you write a book with a likable villian? Then you can likely also be mischievous in an endaring manner.

Finally, if you don't want to be judged negatively, avoid moralizers. Preaching in general is a sign that somebody is fighting against something that they're afraid of, and that they might label you negatively if you remind them of something which they associate with something which they associate with something which they hate or fear. Most traits that somebody else would actually harm you for having are in the category of politics, so I'd also avoid anyone who talks about politics a lot.

LESSWRONG
Petrov Day
LW

LESSWRONG
Petrov Day
LW

92

Generalized Coming Out Of The Closet

92

92

Value Prop

Audience Choice and Bracing Yourself