The way this can feel to the person being told to change: “None of us care about how hard this is for your, nor the pain you might be feeling right now. Just change already, yeesh.” (it can be true or false that the rationalist actually things this. I think I’ve seen some people playing the rationalist role in this story who explicitly endorsed communicating this sentiment)
Now, I understand that making someone feel emotionally supported takes various levels of effort. Sometimes it might seem like the effort required is not worse the loss in pursing the original rationality target. We could have lots of fruitful discussion about what would be fruitful norms for drawing that line. But I think another problematic thing that can happen, is that in the rationalists rush to get back on track to pursing the important target, they intentionally or unintentionally communicate. “You aren’t really in pain. Or if you are, you shouldn’t be in pain / you suck or are weak for feeling pain right now.” Being told you aren’t in pain SUCCCKS, especially when you’re in pain. Being reprimanded being in pain SUCCCKS, especially when you’re in pain.
Claim: Even if you’ve reached a point it would be to costly to give the other person adequate emotional support, the least you can do is not make them think they’re being gaslit about their pain or reprimanded for it.
[a] “You aren’t really in pain. [b] Or if you are, you shouldn’t be in pain / you suck or are weak for feeling pain right now.” [a] Being told you aren’t in pain SUCCCKS, especially when you’re in pain.
Claim: Even if you’ve reached a point it would be to costly to give the other person adequate emotional support, the least you can do is not make them think they’re being [a’] gaslit about their pain.
The dialogue refers to two possibilities, A and B, but only A is referenced afterwards. (I wonder what the word for ‘telling people their pain doesn’t matter’ is.)
Non-rhetorical. The spelling suggestion suggests an improvement which largely unambiguous/style-agnostic. Suggesting adding a word requires choosing a word—a matter which is ambiguous/style dependent. Sometimes writing contains grammatical errors—but when people other than the author suggest fixes, the fixes don’t have the same voice. This is why I included a prompt for what word you (Hazard) would use.
For clarity, I can make less vague comments in the future. What I wanted to say rephrased:
they intentionally or [un]intentionally communicate:
“You aren’t really in pain. Or if you are, you shouldn’t be in pain / you suck or are weak for feeling pain right now.” Being told you aren’t in pain SUCCCKS, especially when you’re in pain.
Claim: Even if you’ve reached a point it would be to costly to give the other person adequate emotional support, the least you can do is not make them think they’re being gaslit about[/mocked for] their pain.
Here the [] serve one purpose—suggesting improvement, even when there’s multiple choices.
The way this can feel to the person being told to change: “None of us care about how hard this is for your, nor the pain you might be feeling right now. Just change already, yeesh.” (it can be true or false that the rationalist actually things this. I think I’ve seen some people playing the rationalist role in this story who explicitly endorsed communicating this sentiment)
Now, I understand that making someone feel emotionally supported takes various levels of effort. Sometimes it might seem like the effort required is not worse the loss in pursing the original rationality target. We could have lots of fruitful discussion about what would be fruitful norms for drawing that line. But I think another problematic thing that can happen, is that in the rationalists rush to get back on track to pursing the important target, they intentionally or unintentionally communicate. “You aren’t really in pain. Or if you are, you shouldn’t be in pain / you suck or are weak for feeling pain right now.” Being told you aren’t in pain SUCCCKS, especially when you’re in pain. Being reprimanded being in pain SUCCCKS, especially when you’re in pain.
Claim: Even if you’ve reached a point it would be to costly to give the other person adequate emotional support, the least you can do is not make them think they’re being gaslit about their pain or reprimanded for it.
Errata.
or [un]intentionally communicate:
The dialogue refers to two possibilities, A and B, but only A is referenced afterwards. (I wonder what the word for ‘telling people their pain doesn’t matter’ is.)
Yeah, I only talked about A after. Is the parenthetical rhetorical? If not I’m missing the thing you want to say.
Non-rhetorical. The spelling suggestion suggests an improvement which largely unambiguous/style-agnostic. Suggesting adding a word requires choosing a word—a matter which is ambiguous/style dependent. Sometimes writing contains grammatical errors—but when people other than the author suggest fixes, the fixes don’t have the same voice. This is why I included a prompt for what word you (Hazard) would use.
For clarity, I can make less vague comments in the future. What I wanted to say rephrased:
Here the [] serve one purpose—suggesting improvement, even when there’s multiple choices.
Aaaah, I see now. Just edited to what I think fits.