(Asking to “taboo X” is a common request on LessWrong and the in-person rationality community, requesting to replace the specific word with an equivalent but usually more mechanistic definition for the rest of the conversation. See also: Rationalist Taboo)
Which would make sense if this was my conversation, if I had first mentioned the word and then you responded. But it doesn’t make sense to ask me when it’s the other way around. I think ‘Matt Goldenberg’ must have gotten confused into thinking I was someone else.
No, I was specifically confused about your use of it, and your understanding of the OP.
To ‘Taboo’ a word implies intentionally avoiding it’s use in the subsequent replies. It doesn’t make sense to ask me to prevent ‘habryka’ from using a certain word in the future, because I don’t possess the authority to force ‘habyrka’ to do anything or not do anything.
In this context I don’t think it does mean “prevent it being used in subsequent replies”, it means “please rephrase that thing you just said but without using that specific word”.
You said (I paraphrase): if an organization prospers in the longish term, then its power dynamics can’t really be very weird even if they look like it. Matt doesn’t see how that follows and suspects that either he isn’t understanding what you mean by “weird” or else you’re using it in a confused way somehow. He thinks that if either of those is true, it’ll be helpful if you try to be more explicit about exactly what property of an organization you’re saying is inconsistent with its prospering for generations.
None of that requires you to stop other people using the word “weird”—it’s enough if you stop using it—though if you make the effort Matt’s suggesting and it seems helpful then habryka and/or romeostevensit might choose to follow suit, since you’ve suggested that they might be miscommunicating because of different unstated meanings of “weird”.
(I am to some extent guessing what Matt thinks and wants, but at the very least the foregoing is a possible thing he might be saying, that makes sense of his request that you taboo “weird” without any implication that you’re supposed to stop other people using it.)
In this context I don’t think it does mean “prevent it being used in subsequent replies”, it means “please rephrase that thing you just said but without using that specific word”.
I said ‘implies’ because it’s quite possible for different LW users to understand the meaning of any specific word in varying ways. And trying to force everyone to adhere to a specific dictionary is not an established norm. So the differing meanings of any word cannot be a reliable reflection.
Hence, pointing to the implications for practical activities on LW, such as writing comments, is a far more useful, and established, norm.
In that sense I cannot find any example of anyone in the past 16 years using “Can we taboo X here?”, or any slight variation, to imply rephrasing in different words apply only for the comments of Y user(s) whereas Z users are free to continue its use in the same conversation.
If you can find at least 3 counterexamples out of the hundreds or thousands (?) of instances that exist then I’d be glad to change my views.
There’s some irony in the fact that right now we are having a discussion of the meaning of the term “taboo” when it’s already become clear what Matt meant and that it doesn’t involve the implications you are saying that the word “taboo” has.
As for your latest isolated demand for rigour: Matt has already pointed to the first three instances he found, all of which he considers counterexamples. I looked specifically for “can we taboo” and found a total of four examples ever, not including this thread right here.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/po6mCyhGTSGELzo9E/factions-inequality-and-social-justice#mYYxwi6DWN68TEevn (ambiguous about exactly who’s supposed to be saying things without using the word; but it’s a top-level reply to an article with the relevant term in the title, so I think it mostly means “I would like you to …”. However, this isn’t a great example of anything because it seems to me that actually a lot of what the article itself is doing is pretty much tabooing the specific term the commenter wants tabooed!)
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gERucNHtgfaJ6HMhd/essay-question-poll-dietary-choices#y3nuYg9CQmEho6dcf (responding to one person who has just started using a particular term, suggesting that it be tabooed; although the commenter says “we” it seems pretty clear that they mean “you”. Commenter would doubtless like everyone else to stop using the term too, but the specific request is aimed at the specific person who just used it—who is certainly in no position to force anyone else to stop using it.)
I think the usual meaning of “Can we taboo X?” depends on context. If there’s already a discussion going on in which multiple people are saying X, it means “you’re all getting yourselves tied in knots by inconsistent meanings of X; you should all stop”. If it’s replying to a single person who’s said X, it means “you are using X confusingly and I would like you to stop”. Sometimes they would also like everyone else not to use X in future, but so far as I can see there is never a suggestion that the person being addressed ought to be trying to stop others using the term X.
I can’t imagine how “Can we taboo X” could possibly mean “I wish you specifically to be held responsible for ensuring that no one else says X in future”. That isn’t how words work. Nothing Matt has said in this thread, so far as I can see, even slightly suggests that Matt thinks you ought to be stopping other people using the word “weird”, or that explaining what you wrote without using that word would impose any obligation on you to do that, or anything of the kind. I am baffled by all your comments that seem to take for granted that we can all see that he’s trying to lay any such obligation on you.
Having said all which: although I don’t understand the objections you’re making to what Matt said, there’s a pretty reasonable objection to be made to it, and maybe it’s actually what you’re saying and I’m misunderstanding you, so I’ll state it in case that’s so and Matt is misunderstanding too:
MYZ’s original comment was itself pointing out a possible misunderstanding between habryka and romeostevensit, centred on that very term “weird power dynamics”. So, while it might be helpful for MYZ to restate his claim about successful organizations necessarily not being very weird in terms that avoid the word “weird”, what he necessarily can’t do is to restate his challenge to habryka and/or romeostevensit without using that word—because his challenge is exactly about how those two people are using the word.
So, getting back to the original discussion:
romeostevensit: “Weird power dynamics” is rather unspecific about what sort of power dynamics you’re talking about. Can you identify a common thread that identifies how they’re unhealthy rather than focusing on how they’re unusual?
habryka: It is not at all clear to me (as I think it isn’t to MYZ, hence his challenge, maybe) that the power dynamics in organizations like Microsoft or the Roman Catholic Church are all that similar to the ones found in cultish religious groups or disastrously pathological rationalist ones, that romeostevensit is talking about.
MYZ: Is it really weirdness in the power dynamics that destabilizes organizations and stops them persisting and growing in influence? I agree that some kinds of pathology are incompatlble with that—and so does habryka, looking at what he said about weirdness in those organizations having been “selected heavily to produce a stable configuration”—but if habryka’s view is that some things are weird but not destabilizing and yours is that if something isn’t destabilizing then we shouldn’t call it weird, why should we go with habryka’s view rather than yours?
I think this whole thing would in fact go better if everyone could describe the types of power dynamics they have in mind with terms more specific than “weird”, but (for the avoidance of doubt) don’t think that anyone here has or should have the authority to force anyone else to do so.
I’m assuming you read the first paragraph of the previous comment so I’m not sure what to make of this:
There’s some irony in the fact that right now we are having a discussion of the meaning of the term “taboo” when it’s already become clear what Matt meant and that it doesn’t involve the implications you are saying that the word “taboo” has.
There is no one having a “discussion of the meaning of the term “taboo”″ with you. It’s unclear how you got this notion after the previous comment which pointed to the opposite direction.
It might not have been worded perfectly, so if you are confused as to the rationale, I’ll write it out explicitly:
Discussing anyone’s personal opinions regarding differing meanings for a given word so far down the comment chain is unproductive, for straightforward practical reasons.
It would even be difficult to have such a discussion with the parent, and would still probably need to refer to well established dictionary entries, let alone with new interlocutors joining in so much later.
I honestly don’t understand the argument in your first few paragraphs there, at all. But whether I’m being dim or you’re being unclear or whatever, it doesn’t really matter, because it seems we all agree that it would be more productive to get back to the actual discussion.
So how about we do that?
Both of my comments here so far contained (1) some discussion of the term “taboo” and (2) some discussion of the actual underlying thing that Matt was asking you to clarify. In both cases you have responded to 1 and ignored 2. Let’s do 2. I suggest starting with the question at the end of Matt’s latest comment.
I honestly don’t understand the argument in your first few paragraphs there, at all. But whether I’m being dim or you’re being unclear or whatever, it doesn’t really matter, because it seems we all agree that it would be more productive to get back to the actual discussion.
So how about we do that?
As far as I can tell, you joined in with the comment on June 24, 8:12 pm EDT. I’ve only interacted with you twice, regarding the claim:
In this context I don’t think it does mean “prevent it being used in subsequent replies”, it means “please rephrase that thing you just said but without using that specific word”.
...that was written by ‘gjm’, not ‘M. Y. Zuo’. My subsequent reply spelled out why I did not want to engage in such a discussion over meanings.
So do you now understand why I could not have been engaging in ” a discussion of the meaning of the term “taboo” with you?
Anyways, the entirety of the “actual discussion” I’ve had with you are the two prior replies. So there is nothing to “get back to” in regards to (2).
If your intention is to speak on behalf of ‘Matt Goldenberg’ or pick up where he left off, then you should ask him, since he still seems willing to engage with me on the same topic.
Additionally, I’ve partially gone through my comment history while writing this and I’m fairly confident I’ve never even posed a question towards you before the first reply, let alone the “latest isolated demand of rigour”. Can you link to where it happened?
EDIT: Since gjm hasn’t supplied any evidence of me ever making such prior demands on him, or ‘Matt Goldenberg’, or ‘habryka’, etc..., I would have to conclude it’s a totally fabricated claim.
I’ve noticed a few places over the past year where you seemed to be missing the point of a conversation, in a way that’s distracting/offtopic. Each individual time didn’t quite feel a big denough deal to warrant stepping in as a moderator but I think it’s adding up to a point where I think something needs to change.
For the immediate future I’m just letting auto-rate-limits handle the situation, but I may escalate to a longer term rate limit if it continues to be a problem.
Some concrete asks:
On the object level of this conversation, “can you taboo word X” is a pretty standard LessWrong request you should be able to respond to (or, if you don’t feel like it, just say “I don’t feel like getting into it”. Having an elaborate meta conversation about not doing it feels like the least useful use of everyone’s time).
Try to shift back to the object level conversation sooner. In this case you’re still debating whether Taboo is a reasonable thing to do when Matt’s already restated his original question. i.e. what do you (M. Y. Zuo) mean by “I would say that regardless of how weird the dynamics may appear from the outside, if the organization persists generation after generation, and even grows in influence, then it cannot be that weird in actuality.”, without using the word “weird.”
I’d ask you either actually respond to that, or drop the topic. I’m locking the rest of the thread. (People who want to continue discussing this at the meta level can do so over on the Open Thread)
A slightly less concrete ask is “please invest a bit more in understanding where people are coming from, and trying to generally learn the norms on the forum.”
It seems like your assumptions about conversational norms here are very different from mine. E.g., you seem to be thinking of this as a two-person conversation—just me and you—where nothing outside it can be relevant. That’s not how I think forum discussions work.
It doesn’t seem as if any further response from me to you will be helpful at this time.
For example, the first link is of ‘Vladimir_Nesov’ writing a single, stand-alone, comment that is not about what is being discussed here. Nor was he asking the OP about tabooing a word.
Taboo “exists”. Does the physical world contain things you don’t see? Also, lack of absolute certainty doesn’t imply confidence in absence, one shouldn’t demand unavailable kind of proof and take its absence as evidence.”
If you are still confused about what is being discussed, or confused as to how to use the search tool, then I would suggest taking some time to reflect. As I’m unsure how to spell things out even more explicitly and directly.
He was asking the other commentor to taboo the word “exists”, and trying to get at the mechanistic interpretation in the second sentence—does it mean that the physical world contains things you don’t see?
I was asking you (the commentor) to taboo the word “weird” and asking a similar clarifying question—what do you actually think is true about groups that last a long time and their practices, without using the word weird.
It feels fairly isomorphic to me.
Anyways, I can taboo the word “taboo” in order to get back to the object level question here:
What do you actually think is true about groups that last a long time and their practices that must be true, without using the word “weird”?
I cannot taboo another LW user’s word choices?
To clarify if you are confused, I’m not ‘habryka’, nor am I a mod, nor has that user made any arrangements with me.
(Asking to “taboo X” is a common request on LessWrong and the in-person rationality community, requesting to replace the specific word with an equivalent but usually more mechanistic definition for the rest of the conversation. See also: Rationalist Taboo)
Which would make sense if this was my conversation, if I had first mentioned the word and then you responded. But it doesn’t make sense to ask me when it’s the other way around. I think ‘Matt Goldenberg’ must have gotten confused into thinking I was someone else.
No, I was specifically confused about your use of it, and your understanding of the OP.
To ‘Taboo’ a word implies intentionally avoiding it’s use in the subsequent replies. It doesn’t make sense to ask me to prevent ‘habryka’ from using a certain word in the future, because I don’t possess the authority to force ‘habyrka’ to do anything or not do anything.
Are you confused about what ‘taboo’ means?
In this context I don’t think it does mean “prevent it being used in subsequent replies”, it means “please rephrase that thing you just said but without using that specific word”.
You said (I paraphrase): if an organization prospers in the longish term, then its power dynamics can’t really be very weird even if they look like it. Matt doesn’t see how that follows and suspects that either he isn’t understanding what you mean by “weird” or else you’re using it in a confused way somehow. He thinks that if either of those is true, it’ll be helpful if you try to be more explicit about exactly what property of an organization you’re saying is inconsistent with its prospering for generations.
None of that requires you to stop other people using the word “weird”—it’s enough if you stop using it—though if you make the effort Matt’s suggesting and it seems helpful then habryka and/or romeostevensit might choose to follow suit, since you’ve suggested that they might be miscommunicating because of different unstated meanings of “weird”.
(I am to some extent guessing what Matt thinks and wants, but at the very least the foregoing is a possible thing he might be saying, that makes sense of his request that you taboo “weird” without any implication that you’re supposed to stop other people using it.)
I said ‘implies’ because it’s quite possible for different LW users to understand the meaning of any specific word in varying ways. And trying to force everyone to adhere to a specific dictionary is not an established norm. So the differing meanings of any word cannot be a reliable reflection.
Hence, pointing to the implications for practical activities on LW, such as writing comments, is a far more useful, and established, norm.
In that sense I cannot find any example of anyone in the past 16 years using “Can we taboo X here?”, or any slight variation, to imply rephrasing in different words apply only for the comments of Y user(s) whereas Z users are free to continue its use in the same conversation.
If you can find at least 3 counterexamples out of the hundreds or thousands (?) of instances that exist then I’d be glad to change my views.
There’s some irony in the fact that right now we are having a discussion of the meaning of the term “taboo” when it’s already become clear what Matt meant and that it doesn’t involve the implications you are saying that the word “taboo” has.
As for your latest isolated demand for rigour: Matt has already pointed to the first three instances he found, all of which he considers counterexamples. I looked specifically for “can we taboo” and found a total of four examples ever, not including this thread right here.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9zQBiqcsQa7kFoccr/valuing-sentience-can-they-suffer#AEhh6gSAf3nXrc8TW (ambiguous about exactly who’s supposed to be saying things without using the word; my guess is that the suggestion is that everyone should.)
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/po6mCyhGTSGELzo9E/factions-inequality-and-social-justice#mYYxwi6DWN68TEevn (ambiguous about exactly who’s supposed to be saying things without using the word; but it’s a top-level reply to an article with the relevant term in the title, so I think it mostly means “I would like you to …”. However, this isn’t a great example of anything because it seems to me that actually a lot of what the article itself is doing is pretty much tabooing the specific term the commenter wants tabooed!)
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gERucNHtgfaJ6HMhd/essay-question-poll-dietary-choices#y3nuYg9CQmEho6dcf (responding to one person who has just started using a particular term, suggesting that it be tabooed; although the commenter says “we” it seems pretty clear that they mean “you”. Commenter would doubtless like everyone else to stop using the term too, but the specific request is aimed at the specific person who just used it—who is certainly in no position to force anyone else to stop using it.)
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HW5Q9cW9sgk4yCffd/hacking-the-cev-for-fun-and-profit#aFepwAZiiDLgX9oT7 (similar to the previous; replying to someone who has just introduced the term “utilitarian” to the discussion; commenter would clearly prefer everyone to stop using it, but is directing their request to the one person who has used it so far; plainly isn’t expecting that person to stop everyone else using the term.)
I think the usual meaning of “Can we taboo X?” depends on context. If there’s already a discussion going on in which multiple people are saying X, it means “you’re all getting yourselves tied in knots by inconsistent meanings of X; you should all stop”. If it’s replying to a single person who’s said X, it means “you are using X confusingly and I would like you to stop”. Sometimes they would also like everyone else not to use X in future, but so far as I can see there is never a suggestion that the person being addressed ought to be trying to stop others using the term X.
I can’t imagine how “Can we taboo X” could possibly mean “I wish you specifically to be held responsible for ensuring that no one else says X in future”. That isn’t how words work. Nothing Matt has said in this thread, so far as I can see, even slightly suggests that Matt thinks you ought to be stopping other people using the word “weird”, or that explaining what you wrote without using that word would impose any obligation on you to do that, or anything of the kind. I am baffled by all your comments that seem to take for granted that we can all see that he’s trying to lay any such obligation on you.
Having said all which: although I don’t understand the objections you’re making to what Matt said, there’s a pretty reasonable objection to be made to it, and maybe it’s actually what you’re saying and I’m misunderstanding you, so I’ll state it in case that’s so and Matt is misunderstanding too:
MYZ’s original comment was itself pointing out a possible misunderstanding between habryka and romeostevensit, centred on that very term “weird power dynamics”. So, while it might be helpful for MYZ to restate his claim about successful organizations necessarily not being very weird in terms that avoid the word “weird”, what he necessarily can’t do is to restate his challenge to habryka and/or romeostevensit without using that word—because his challenge is exactly about how those two people are using the word.
So, getting back to the original discussion:
romeostevensit: “Weird power dynamics” is rather unspecific about what sort of power dynamics you’re talking about. Can you identify a common thread that identifies how they’re unhealthy rather than focusing on how they’re unusual?
habryka: It is not at all clear to me (as I think it isn’t to MYZ, hence his challenge, maybe) that the power dynamics in organizations like Microsoft or the Roman Catholic Church are all that similar to the ones found in cultish religious groups or disastrously pathological rationalist ones, that romeostevensit is talking about.
MYZ: Is it really weirdness in the power dynamics that destabilizes organizations and stops them persisting and growing in influence? I agree that some kinds of pathology are incompatlble with that—and so does habryka, looking at what he said about weirdness in those organizations having been “selected heavily to produce a stable configuration”—but if habryka’s view is that some things are weird but not destabilizing and yours is that if something isn’t destabilizing then we shouldn’t call it weird, why should we go with habryka’s view rather than yours?
I think this whole thing would in fact go better if everyone could describe the types of power dynamics they have in mind with terms more specific than “weird”, but (for the avoidance of doubt) don’t think that anyone here has or should have the authority to force anyone else to do so.
I’m assuming you read the first paragraph of the previous comment so I’m not sure what to make of this:
There is no one having a “discussion of the meaning of the term “taboo”″ with you. It’s unclear how you got this notion after the previous comment which pointed to the opposite direction.
It might not have been worded perfectly, so if you are confused as to the rationale, I’ll write it out explicitly:
Discussing anyone’s personal opinions regarding differing meanings for a given word so far down the comment chain is unproductive, for straightforward practical reasons.
It would even be difficult to have such a discussion with the parent, and would still probably need to refer to well established dictionary entries, let alone with new interlocutors joining in so much later.
I honestly don’t understand the argument in your first few paragraphs there, at all. But whether I’m being dim or you’re being unclear or whatever, it doesn’t really matter, because it seems we all agree that it would be more productive to get back to the actual discussion.
So how about we do that?
Both of my comments here so far contained (1) some discussion of the term “taboo” and (2) some discussion of the actual underlying thing that Matt was asking you to clarify. In both cases you have responded to 1 and ignored 2. Let’s do 2. I suggest starting with the question at the end of Matt’s latest comment.
As far as I can tell, you joined in with the comment on June 24, 8:12 pm EDT. I’ve only interacted with you twice, regarding the claim:
...that was written by ‘gjm’, not ‘M. Y. Zuo’. My subsequent reply spelled out why I did not want to engage in such a discussion over meanings.
So do you now understand why I could not have been engaging in ” a discussion of the meaning of the term “taboo” with you?
Anyways, the entirety of the “actual discussion” I’ve had with you are the two prior replies. So there is nothing to “get back to” in regards to (2).
If your intention is to speak on behalf of ‘Matt Goldenberg’ or pick up where he left off, then you should ask him, since he still seems willing to engage with me on the same topic.
Additionally, I’ve partially gone through my comment history while writing this and I’m fairly confident I’ve never even posed a question towards you before the first reply, let alone the “latest isolated demand of rigour”. Can you link to where it happened?
EDIT: Since gjm hasn’t supplied any evidence of me ever making such prior demands on him, or ‘Matt Goldenberg’, or ‘habryka’, etc..., I would have to conclude it’s a totally fabricated claim.
Hey M.Y Zuo, I’m commenting with my mod hat on.
I’ve noticed a few places over the past year where you seemed to be missing the point of a conversation, in a way that’s distracting/offtopic. Each individual time didn’t quite feel a big denough deal to warrant stepping in as a moderator but I think it’s adding up to a point where I think something needs to change.
For the immediate future I’m just letting auto-rate-limits handle the situation, but I may escalate to a longer term rate limit if it continues to be a problem.
Some concrete asks:
On the object level of this conversation, “can you taboo word X” is a pretty standard LessWrong request you should be able to respond to (or, if you don’t feel like it, just say “I don’t feel like getting into it”. Having an elaborate meta conversation about not doing it feels like the least useful use of everyone’s time).
Try to shift back to the object level conversation sooner. In this case you’re still debating whether Taboo is a reasonable thing to do when Matt’s already restated his original question. i.e. what do you (M. Y. Zuo) mean by “I would say that regardless of how weird the dynamics may appear from the outside, if the organization persists generation after generation, and even grows in influence, then it cannot be that weird in actuality.”, without using the word “weird.”
I’d ask you either actually respond to that, or drop the topic. I’m locking the rest of the thread. (People who want to continue discussing this at the meta level can do so over on the Open Thread)
A slightly less concrete ask is “please invest a bit more in understanding where people are coming from, and trying to generally learn the norms on the forum.”
It seems like your assumptions about conversational norms here are very different from mine. E.g., you seem to be thinking of this as a two-person conversation—just me and you—where nothing outside it can be relevant. That’s not how I think forum discussions work.
It doesn’t seem as if any further response from me to you will be helpful at this time.
I think this quite off topic, I was just interested in what you meant.
The first 3 instances I found in search all seem to be suggesting a specific person taboo something to clarify their meaning
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7LnwkPdRT67ybhFzo/subjective-realities#sv9jXE5S76sovEwt3
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QvYKSFmsBX3QhgQvF/morality-isn-t-logical#ENYAvvLJq3qkxo8Ak
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XqmjdBKa4ZaXJtNmf/raising-the-sanity-waterline#Y54j8fxZEjbpMWBvJ
Did you paste the correct links?
For example, the first link is of ‘Vladimir_Nesov’ writing a single, stand-alone, comment that is not about what is being discussed here. Nor was he asking the OP about tabooing a word.
“Vladimir_Nesov12y24
Taboo “exists”. Does the physical world contain things you don’t see? Also, lack of absolute certainty doesn’t imply confidence in absence, one shouldn’t demand unavailable kind of proof and take its absence as evidence.”
If you are still confused about what is being discussed, or confused as to how to use the search tool, then I would suggest taking some time to reflect. As I’m unsure how to spell things out even more explicitly and directly.
He was asking the other commentor to taboo the word “exists”, and trying to get at the mechanistic interpretation in the second sentence—does it mean that the physical world contains things you don’t see?
I was asking you (the commentor) to taboo the word “weird” and asking a similar clarifying question—what do you actually think is true about groups that last a long time and their practices, without using the word weird.
It feels fairly isomorphic to me.
Anyways, I can taboo the word “taboo” in order to get back to the object level question here:
What do you actually think is true about groups that last a long time and their practices that must be true, without using the word “weird”?