You make good points. I, for one, strong-downvoted OP because “emotional blackmail” seems not at all accurate, and the criticism itself was shaded “go outside, nerd”, when I would have been more interested in OP’s actual arguments.
Emotional blackmail would be if Ruby emailed me and said “TurnTrout, unless you participate in this ritual, I will be upset at you.” In this situation, if I do nothing, nothing happens to me, whereas Ruby may feel differently about me if I choose to participate in the game by entering launch codes.
It’s like if I built a sand castle, put some light explosives inside, and handed 100 people detonators. If someone blows it up, I could be mad at them. Sure, that might be foreseeable, and probably “my fault” in a sense.
but it seems unnatural to describe this kind of situation as “tantamount to emotional blackmail.”
I agree that “emotional blackmail” is inaccurate, but this exercise is pulling reader’s emotional strings in a bad way. The label was wrong but the overall criticism has merits. Would relabeling it into “gratuitous drama” be a good steelmaning?
“Gratuitous drama” sounds more plausible and appropriate, sure.
this exercise is pulling reader’s emotional strings in a bad way.
“Is”? But to me it just feels like an interesting yearly event, with some real thought put into it. I certainly appreciate it.
If you claim it’s “pulling strings”, I think that you should explain why, or link to an explanation, or at least acknowledge that you don’t have time to explain why you feel that way. If not, these simple “is” statements work to establish (the perception of) social agreement around the “fact” that “this exercise is pulling reader’s emotional strings in a bad way”, without that point actually having been established.
“Pulling strings” by exaggerating the importance of the stakes, by forcing some members to participate in a game where there is nothing to win personnally and a lot to lose (maybe not this year, but I remember previous year’s organisers suggesting to ban the culprit from some rationalist circles) and having all readership witness the totally artificially created drama.
But to me it just feels like an interesting yearly event, with some real thought put into it. I certainly appreciate it.
To me too, but my ‘interesting’ would be something like “I’m glad it exists even if it’s flawed”. The most important problem for me is that in its current shape it does not allow to draw useful conclusions from the outcome (thanks https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/EW8yZYcu3Kff2qShS/?commentId=C97ngHSu6iHmdCjPc for clarifying that point for me)
You make good points. I, for one, strong-downvoted OP because “emotional blackmail” seems not at all accurate, and the criticism itself was shaded “go outside, nerd”, when I would have been more interested in OP’s actual arguments.
Emotional blackmail would be if Ruby emailed me and said “TurnTrout, unless you participate in this ritual, I will be upset at you.” In this situation, if I do nothing, nothing happens to me, whereas Ruby may feel differently about me if I choose to participate in the game by entering launch codes.
It’s like if I built a sand castle, put some light explosives inside, and handed 100 people detonators. If someone blows it up, I could be mad at them. Sure, that might be foreseeable, and probably “my fault” in a sense.
but it seems unnatural to describe this kind of situation as “tantamount to emotional blackmail.”
I agree that “emotional blackmail” is inaccurate, but this exercise is pulling reader’s emotional strings in a bad way. The label was wrong but the overall criticism has merits. Would relabeling it into “gratuitous drama” be a good steelmaning?
“Gratuitous drama” sounds more plausible and appropriate, sure.
“Is”? But to me it just feels like an interesting yearly event, with some real thought put into it. I certainly appreciate it.
If you claim it’s “pulling strings”, I think that you should explain why, or link to an explanation, or at least acknowledge that you don’t have time to explain why you feel that way. If not, these simple “is” statements work to establish (the perception of) social agreement around the “fact” that “this exercise is pulling reader’s emotional strings in a bad way”, without that point actually having been established.
“Pulling strings” by exaggerating the importance of the stakes, by forcing some members to participate in a game where there is nothing to win personnally and a lot to lose (maybe not this year, but I remember previous year’s organisers suggesting to ban the culprit from some rationalist circles) and having all readership witness the totally artificially created drama.
To me too, but my ‘interesting’ would be something like “I’m glad it exists even if it’s flawed”. The most important problem for me is that in its current shape it does not allow to draw useful conclusions from the outcome (thanks https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/EW8yZYcu3Kff2qShS/?commentId=C97ngHSu6iHmdCjPc for clarifying that point for me)