I feel like the example for “loading definitions” does, in fact, strike a word from my vocabulary without suitable replacement. I would like a word for “the aspects of masculinity that are bad”; in order to prevent the conversation turning into a bunch of complaints about my use of a particular term, I instead have to just say “masculinity.” I do not want to use “masculinity” to mean “the aspects of masculinity that are bad.” I would like to distinguish between those two things.
(While I have no moderation power, I would personally really prefer that this conversation not turn into a conversation about the merits of that particular term.)
Yeah, I don’t fully endorse the linked Tumblr post; in particular there’s certainly ways to resolve these conflicts that aren’t “abdicate the terminology yourself”. But some of it is highly relevant and well said.
I talk about the probability of rain tomorrow, and you ask me if this a “subjective probability”, “frequentist probability”, or a “propensity”. The math would be the same. The expected utility of carrying an umbrella is high.
Argh ! NO. The kind of probability that matter when calculating expected utility and making decisions based on expected utility is the Bayesian kind. The math WOULDN’T be the same. There is no such thing as the frequency of rain tomorrow beyond 100% if it does rain and 0% if it doesn’t, so you can’t compute it before the event happened. Propensity is more complicated and possibly incoherent as a concept, but you can’t compute it either.
Relevant Tumblr post (not mine)
I feel like the example for “loading definitions” does, in fact, strike a word from my vocabulary without suitable replacement. I would like a word for “the aspects of masculinity that are bad”; in order to prevent the conversation turning into a bunch of complaints about my use of a particular term, I instead have to just say “masculinity.” I do not want to use “masculinity” to mean “the aspects of masculinity that are bad.” I would like to distinguish between those two things.
(While I have no moderation power, I would personally really prefer that this conversation not turn into a conversation about the merits of that particular term.)
Yeah, I don’t fully endorse the linked Tumblr post; in particular there’s certainly ways to resolve these conflicts that aren’t “abdicate the terminology yourself”. But some of it is highly relevant and well said.
Argh ! NO. The kind of probability that matter when calculating expected utility and making decisions based on expected utility is the Bayesian kind. The math WOULDN’T be the same. There is no such thing as the frequency of rain tomorrow beyond 100% if it does rain and 0% if it doesn’t, so you can’t compute it before the event happened. Propensity is more complicated and possibly incoherent as a concept, but you can’t compute it either.