[further edit: I’ve locked this thread until Tuesday, on Monday will review it and think about whether there’s anything else that needs saying]
[mod hat]
Elo,
I think there’s a few things you could have said here that would have been fine. I’m not 100% sure I understand your concerns but something like:
“This post seems dangerous to me, and I felt a strong sense of being manipulated while reading it. I don’t think this post accomplishes it’s stated goals. The ‘my culture’ frame doesn’t stop the statement from being pushy and coercive about your norms, I think it’s even worse because it gives the appearance of trying to not be pushy but actually just being subtle about it.”
I think it’s important that people be able to raise flags about manipulative speech without being able to clearly articulate what’s wrong, because often the whole issue with manipulative speech is that it’s hard to pin down exactly what’s coercive about it.
But, importantly, until we’ve gotten to a point where we can pin down (or at least roughly gesture at) what’s wrong, it’s not okay to pre-emptively punish people for it. I even think it’s okay to give people some leeway to respond more emotionally when they’re reacting to a feeling of coercion. But your comments here seem way over the line of what is acceptable on LW.
Your words here are extremely aggressive, aiming to persuade without much attempt at explanation, and this is part of a pattern you’ve been demonstrating for awhile. We’ve previously issued you a warning for similar behavior. If you do this again you will be banned for 3 months.
I would propose that the other warning was an entirely different case, and something that I stopped doing. If you want to call them the same, that’s up to you.
Comparing comments:
(you) “This post seems dangerous to me, and I felt a strong sense of being manipulated while reading it. I don’t think this post accomplishes it’s stated goals. The ‘my culture’ frame doesn’t stop the statement from being pushy and coercive about your norms, I think it’s even worse because it gives the appearance of trying to not be pushy but actually just being subtle about it.”
(me) For me I try not to endorse or propagate frameworks that are designed to subtly oppress other people. That includes calling out bad behaviour when I see it. I strongly disagree with this post. It’s not demonstrating healthy agency, it’s not delineating from unhealthy agency, it’s not couched in sensitivity and it’s not going to make the world a better place. And it doesn’t belong in rationalist cannon.
(you)“This post seems dangerous to me, and I felt a strong sense of being manipulated while reading it. (me) For me I try not to endorse or propagate frameworks that are designed to subtly oppress other people.
You changed the frame of reference between internal (for me) and external (this post seem… -to me). Which means you broadened a subjective statement. I also didn’t include an “I felt” or I would have probably included an “I feel” present tense statement if I were to include any.
(you) I don’t think this post accomplishes it’s stated goals. (me) I strongly disagree with this post.
I didn’t hedge with “don’t think”. I just stated my position, raw, “strongly disagree”. I’d find mine better, but also add the comment that I didn’t “think” about it, I “felt” strong disagreement. You shifted from “feeling” to “thinking”. While I didn’t state, “I feel strong disagreement” this is an entirely different frame of reference to “I think strong disagreement”.
The ‘my culture’ frame doesn’t stop the statement from being pushy and coercive about your norms, I think it’s even worse because it gives the appearance of trying to not be pushy but actually just being subtle about it.” It’s not demonstrating healthy agency, it’s not delineating from unhealthy agency, it’s not couched in sensitivity and it’s not going to make the world a better place.
I see that I used, “It’s” and that was unclear. I was referring to the whole post. That’s fine. I made a list of factors here. That might not have been clear:
not demonstrating healthy agency
not delineating healthy from unhealthy agency
not couched in sensitivity
. And because of this list(emotive argument follows without explanation) is not going to make the world a better place.
Your list:
pushy and coercive
worse because it gives the appearance of trying to not be pushy but actually just being subtle about it
Your list covers half of my list.
There’s also the poetic intention of using a culture setting paradigm to describe how I would set a culture differently that seems to not transmit through text (for me… calling out bad behaviour… I strongly disagree...). If I were to rewrite:
The way I see this framework being used in the post, it feels like it’s being used to subtly oppress people. I strongly disagree with this post. Here’s what I would like to see in a better version of the post:
Demonstrating healthy agency
Delineating from unhealthy agency
Language use that is couched in sensitivity
Clear explanation of how this makes the world a better place
examples of where this can go wrong, and what not to do
Subtle pushiness is worse than overt pushiness because if someone does not want to overtly “follow me and do as I say” they have a chance to say so when I’m obvious about the instruction. There’s less of a chance to avoid coercion when the instruction is, “haha, that’s not how we do things where I’m from” (yes this is a strawman version but there’s no guidance in the top post for navigating between the healthy and the unhealthy types of the framework).
I’m happy to discuss what makes a good comment and what makes a bad comment. Or my comment. Or my take on the two versions.
note. I seem to be paying attention to, gathering and including more detail than you are. I suspect this is causing more of a mess than I want. It also means that I am catching details of communication that are not always noticed by other people.
I don’t want to engage with most of the above, but one small note on my personal impression of the context culture of LW.
It seems to me that:
not demonstrating healthy agency
not delineating healthy from unhealthy agency
not couched in sensitivity
are each claims that themselves require some form of justification. i.e. sure, it makes sense that you would say “because of A, B, and C, I conclude this is bad,” and I expect that most LWers would agree about the logic of that if-then.
But I also expect that most LWers would not find your three premises obviously true, and would therefore receive them as un- or underjustified assertions, and (given the local norms) expect you to include, from the beginning, more details of your underlying world model (and certainly expect you to be willing to expound upon them if asked, as I and Benito and Pattern have all asked).
(I note that in your response to Pattern you use a larger number of synonyms to repeat “X is bad” but don’t actually explain why or how with e.g. claims about causality that can be investigated, or analogies to known phenomena whose aptness or inaptness can be discussed, or illustrative examples that others will find evocative, or anything like that.)
Quick note: I most likely won’t be responding more until Monday, and generally think I’ve said most of what I felt needed saying.
(I will add one quick clarification for onlookers that in my example of what to do different, one important aspect was the removal of the phrase “that are designed to subtly oppress other people”, which was making assertions about the internal design process that didn’t seem justified to me).
I am locking this thread until Tuesday (on Monday someone on the LW team may review it, and see if there’s anything else that warrants a mod response)
[further edit: I’ve locked this thread until Tuesday, on Monday will review it and think about whether there’s anything else that needs saying]
[mod hat]
Elo,
I think there’s a few things you could have said here that would have been fine. I’m not 100% sure I understand your concerns but something like:
“This post seems dangerous to me, and I felt a strong sense of being manipulated while reading it. I don’t think this post accomplishes it’s stated goals. The ‘my culture’ frame doesn’t stop the statement from being pushy and coercive about your norms, I think it’s even worse because it gives the appearance of trying to not be pushy but actually just being subtle about it.”
I think it’s important that people be able to raise flags about manipulative speech without being able to clearly articulate what’s wrong, because often the whole issue with manipulative speech is that it’s hard to pin down exactly what’s coercive about it.
But, importantly, until we’ve gotten to a point where we can pin down (or at least roughly gesture at) what’s wrong, it’s not okay to pre-emptively punish people for it. I even think it’s okay to give people some leeway to respond more emotionally when they’re reacting to a feeling of coercion. But your comments here seem way over the line of what is acceptable on LW.
Your words here are extremely aggressive, aiming to persuade without much attempt at explanation, and this is part of a pattern you’ve been demonstrating for awhile. We’ve previously issued you a warning for similar behavior. If you do this again you will be banned for 3 months.
I would propose that the other warning was an entirely different case, and something that I stopped doing. If you want to call them the same, that’s up to you.
Comparing comments:
You changed the frame of reference between internal (for me) and external (this post seem… -to me). Which means you broadened a subjective statement. I also didn’t include an “I felt” or I would have probably included an “I feel” present tense statement if I were to include any.
I didn’t hedge with “don’t think”. I just stated my position, raw, “strongly disagree”. I’d find mine better, but also add the comment that I didn’t “think” about it, I “felt” strong disagreement. You shifted from “feeling” to “thinking”. While I didn’t state, “I feel strong disagreement” this is an entirely different frame of reference to “I think strong disagreement”.
I see that I used, “It’s” and that was unclear. I was referring to the whole post. That’s fine. I made a list of factors here. That might not have been clear:
not demonstrating healthy agency
not delineating healthy from unhealthy agency
not couched in sensitivity
. And because of this list (emotive argument follows without explanation) is not going to make the world a better place.
Your list:
pushy and coercive
worse because it gives the appearance of trying to not be pushy but actually just being subtle about it
Your list covers half of my list.
There’s also the poetic intention of using a culture setting paradigm to describe how I would set a culture differently that seems to not transmit through text (for me… calling out bad behaviour… I strongly disagree...). If I were to rewrite:
Demonstrating healthy agency
Delineating from unhealthy agency
Language use that is couched in sensitivity
Clear explanation of how this makes the world a better place
examples of where this can go wrong, and what not to do
I’m happy to discuss what makes a good comment and what makes a bad comment. Or my comment. Or my take on the two versions.
note. I seem to be paying attention to, gathering and including more detail than you are. I suspect this is causing more of a mess than I want. It also means that I am catching details of communication that are not always noticed by other people.
For example:
poetic writing
frames of reference
hedges
I think/I feel
list included in a paragraph
tenses
scope of statement
I don’t want to engage with most of the above, but one small note on my personal impression of the context culture of LW.
It seems to me that:
not demonstrating healthy agency
not delineating healthy from unhealthy agency
not couched in sensitivity
are each claims that themselves require some form of justification. i.e. sure, it makes sense that you would say “because of A, B, and C, I conclude this is bad,” and I expect that most LWers would agree about the logic of that if-then.
But I also expect that most LWers would not find your three premises obviously true, and would therefore receive them as un- or underjustified assertions, and (given the local norms) expect you to include, from the beginning, more details of your underlying world model (and certainly expect you to be willing to expound upon them if asked, as I and Benito and Pattern have all asked).
(I note that in your response to Pattern you use a larger number of synonyms to repeat “X is bad” but don’t actually explain why or how with e.g. claims about causality that can be investigated, or analogies to known phenomena whose aptness or inaptness can be discussed, or illustrative examples that others will find evocative, or anything like that.)
Quick note: I most likely won’t be responding more until Monday, and generally think I’ve said most of what I felt needed saying.
(I will add one quick clarification for onlookers that in my example of what to do different, one important aspect was the removal of the phrase “that are designed to subtly oppress other people”, which was making assertions about the internal design process that didn’t seem justified to me).
I am locking this thread until Tuesday (on Monday someone on the LW team may review it, and see if there’s anything else that warrants a mod response)