Thanks for the precise and nuanced write-up, and for not objecting to my crude attempt to characterize your position.
Nothing in your views described here strikes me as gravely mistaken, it seems like a sensible norm set. I suspect that many of our disagreements appear once we attempt be precise around acceptable and not acceptable behaviors and how they are handled.
I agree that “aggression” is fuzzy and that simply causing negative emotions is certainly not the criteria by which to judge the acceptability of behavior. I used those terms to indicate/gesture rather than define.
I have a draft, Three ways to upset people with your speech, which attempts to differentiate between importantly different cases. I find myself looking forward to your comments on it once I finally publish it. I don’t think I would have said that a week ago, and I think it’s largely feeling safer with you, which is in turn the result of greater familiarity (I’ve never been active in the LW comments as much as in the last few weeks). I’m more calibrated about the significance of your words now, the degree of malice behind them (possibly not that much?), and even the defensible positions underlying them. I’ve also updated that it’s possible to have a pleasant and valuable exchange.
(I do not say these things because I wish to malign you with my prior beliefs about you, but because I think they’re useful and relevant information.)
Your warm response to my mentioning dream-meeting you made me feel warm (also learning your Myers Briggs type).
(Okay, now please forgive me for using all the above as part of an “argument”; I mean it all genuinely, but it seems to be a very concrete applied way to discuss topics that have been in the air of late.)
This gets us into some tricky questions I can place in your framework. I think it will take us (+ all the others) a fair bit of conversation to answer, but I’ll mention them here now to at least raise them. (Possibly just saying this because I’m away this week and plan not to be online much.)
My updates on you (if correct) suggest that largely Said’s comments do not threaten me much and I shouldn’t feel negative feelings as a result. Much of this is just how Said talks, and he’s still interested in honest debate, not just shutting you down with hostile talk. But my question is the “reality as it presents itself to me” you mentioned. The reality might be that Said is safe, but was I, given my priors and evidence available to me before, wrong to be afraid before I gained more information about how to interpret Said?
(Maybe I was, but this is not obvious.)
Is the acceptability of behavior determined by what the recipient reasonably could have believed (as judged by . . . ?) or by the actual reality. Or there are three possibilities even: 1) what I could have reasonably believed was the significance of your actions, 2) what you could have reasonably believed was the significance of your actions, 3) what the actual significance of your actions were (if this can even be defined sensibly).
It does seem somewhat unfair if the acceptability of your behavior is impacted by what I can reasonably believe. It also seems somewhat unfair that I should experience attack because I reasonably lacked information.
How do we handle all this? I don’t definitively know. Judging what is acceptable/reasonable/fair and how all different perspectives add up . . . it’s a mess that I don’t think gets better even with more attempt at precision. I mostly want to avoid having to judge.
This is in large part what intuitively pushes me towards wanting people to be proactive in avoiding misinterpretations and miscalibrations of other’s intent—so we don’t have to judge who was at fault. I want people to give people enough info that they correctly know even when I’m harsh, I still want them to feel safe. Mostly applies to people who don’t know me well. Once the evidence has accrued and you’re calibrated on what things mean, you require little “padding” (this is my version of Combat culture essentially), but you’ve got to accrue that evidence and establish the significance of actions with others first.
--
Phew, like everything else, that was longer than expected. I should really start expected everything to be long.
Curious if this provides any more clarity on my position (even if it’s not persuasive) and curious where you disagree with this treatment.
Thanks for the precise and nuanced write-up, and for not objecting to my crude attempt to characterize your position.
Nothing in your views described here strikes me as gravely mistaken, it seems like a sensible norm set. I suspect that many of our disagreements appear once we attempt be precise around acceptable and not acceptable behaviors and how they are handled.
I agree that “aggression” is fuzzy and that simply causing negative emotions is certainly not the criteria by which to judge the acceptability of behavior. I used those terms to indicate/gesture rather than define.
I have a draft, Three ways to upset people with your speech, which attempts to differentiate between importantly different cases. I find myself looking forward to your comments on it once I finally publish it. I don’t think I would have said that a week ago, and I think it’s largely feeling safer with you, which is in turn the result of greater familiarity (I’ve never been active in the LW comments as much as in the last few weeks). I’m more calibrated about the significance of your words now, the degree of malice behind them (possibly not that much?), and even the defensible positions underlying them. I’ve also updated that it’s possible to have a pleasant and valuable exchange.
(I do not say these things because I wish to malign you with my prior beliefs about you, but because I think they’re useful and relevant information.)
Your warm response to my mentioning dream-meeting you made me feel warm (also learning your Myers Briggs type).
(Okay, now please forgive me for using all the above as part of an “argument”; I mean it all genuinely, but it seems to be a very concrete applied way to discuss topics that have been in the air of late.)
This gets us into some tricky questions I can place in your framework. I think it will take us (+ all the others) a fair bit of conversation to answer, but I’ll mention them here now to at least raise them. (Possibly just saying this because I’m away this week and plan not to be online much.)
My updates on you (if correct) suggest that largely Said’s comments do not threaten me much and I shouldn’t feel negative feelings as a result. Much of this is just how Said talks, and he’s still interested in honest debate, not just shutting you down with hostile talk. But my question is the “reality as it presents itself to me” you mentioned. The reality might be that Said is safe, but was I, given my priors and evidence available to me before, wrong to be afraid before I gained more information about how to interpret Said?
(Maybe I was, but this is not obvious.)
Is the acceptability of behavior determined by what the recipient reasonably could have believed (as judged by . . . ?) or by the actual reality. Or there are three possibilities even: 1) what I could have reasonably believed was the significance of your actions, 2) what you could have reasonably believed was the significance of your actions, 3) what the actual significance of your actions were (if this can even be defined sensibly).
It does seem somewhat unfair if the acceptability of your behavior is impacted by what I can reasonably believe. It also seems somewhat unfair that I should experience attack because I reasonably lacked information.
How do we handle all this? I don’t definitively know. Judging what is acceptable/reasonable/fair and how all different perspectives add up . . . it’s a mess that I don’t think gets better even with more attempt at precision. I mostly want to avoid having to judge.
This is in large part what intuitively pushes me towards wanting people to be proactive in avoiding misinterpretations and miscalibrations of other’s intent—so we don’t have to judge who was at fault. I want people to give people enough info that they correctly know even when I’m harsh, I still want them to feel safe. Mostly applies to people who don’t know me well. Once the evidence has accrued and you’re calibrated on what things mean, you require little “padding” (this is my version of Combat culture essentially), but you’ve got to accrue that evidence and establish the significance of actions with others first.
--
Phew, like everything else, that was longer than expected. I should really start expected everything to be long.
Curious if this provides any more clarity on my position (even if it’s not persuasive) and curious where you disagree with this treatment.