On categories

[drwex]

Over in the "Schrodinger's Terrorist" post discussion in the comments has focused on categorization. The question of who gets called terrorist for what acts is itself part of the challenge but I believe it's an unanswerable question. It's a category question, and while I wanted to write something about the fuzziness of category boundaries I find I can't do better than to reference this fantastic essay on Slate Star Codex (*).

The essay starts off being about whether or not whales are a kind of fish (and if you think that's an easy question to answer you really need to read the essay), wanders through border disputes and LGBT issues, and ends up being a philosophical treatise on why systems of categorization are never "wrong", only more or less useful.

In our present discussion, the question of "who qualifies as a terrorist" therefore cannot usefully revolve around an assertion that the BBC interviewee is wrong about his definition of terrorist. The speaker of the quote "Most Muslims aren't terrorists but most terrorists are Muslims..." is using a widely popular categorization and it's not helping to argue that his categorization is "wrong".

As to whether or not this popular categorization is useful for this investigation... I'm not sure.

(*) I believe I'm indebted to bluegargantua for the original pointer.

Comments

[selenite.livejournal.com]

SSC has become a can't-miss blog for me.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

whether or not whales are a kind of fish

I am reminded of an early episode of the Judge John Hodgman podcast, which focused on the question "Are 'machine guns' 'robots'?"

[drwex]

Back in the dark ages when I was at the Media Lab, our group was called "Software Agents" and there were some rather vehement objections to these 'agents' that acted on users' behalf rather than allowing the users to manage things directly. I caused a large moment of controversy by pointing out that one of the biggest objectors to 'software agents' was using an auto-focus camera that had software in it to determine the correct focal settings for his pictures.

[chhotii.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed that essay (http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/21/the-categories-were-made-for-man-not-man-for-the-categories/)! Thanks!

And I'm totally with this guy, that the hair dryer suggestion was totally brilliant.

...But hasn't anyone read Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things (http://www.amazon.com/Women-Dangerous-Things-George-Lakoff/dp/0226468046/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420748870&sr=1-1&keywords=women+fire+and+dangerous+things)? Really good book, must-read (I should re-read it myself sometime).

[drwex]

Yes, I have read that book and it is totally brilliant. Then again, I tend to think of Lakoff as something of a minor deity in a category with Miss Manners, and I'm weird.

I read the SSC essay to Pygment on the drive down to Philly last month (we often team up that way - she can't read in a moving vehicle and I can so she'll drive and I'll read to her) and we completely agreed that the Hair Dryer thing was exactly the right solution. She admitted that many of her professional colleagues would have had the same negative reaction, though.

[aelf.livejournal.com]

I'm going to read the essay you pointed to, but it's going to take me some time.

I've decided the categorization is important. If my cousin went off and killed a bunch of people, it'd be important to be able to categorize him as "nuts" because then we could talk about how to handle mental illness. I think being able to point out that the anti-government actions of Timothy McVeigh are categorically different from the anti-government actions of Leonard Peltier. The IRA wasn't just being pissy, they had reasons and that's important - not all terrorists are just looking to terrorize. The Aurora shooter? No reasons. The current batch of radicalized Muslims? I *think* many different reasons and we're collapsing too many of them under "Radicalized Muslim" kind of like the "Extremist Christian" label can fit those focused on abortions, those who use it as part of their anti-government justification, etc. Anyway, brain vomit.

So. I'll read the article. Thanks for the pointer.