You need to define the terms you use in a way so that what you are saying is useful by having pragmatic consequences on the real world of actual things, and not simply on the same level as arguing by definition.
My read of this thread is that your (Andaro’s) original comment pointed at a particular subset of relationships, which are ‘bad’ but seem better than the alternatives to the person inside them, where the reason to trust the judgment of the person inside them is that right to exit means they will leave relationships that are better than their alternatives. Paperclip Maximizer then pointed out that a major class of reasons people stay in abusive relationships is that their alternatives are manipulated by the abuser, either through explicit or implicit threats or attacks directed at the epistemology (such that the alternatives are difficult to imagine or correctly weigh).
I understood Paperclip Maximizer’s point to be that there’s a disconnect between the sort of relationships you describe in the ancestral comment and what a ‘typical’ abusive relationship might look like; it might be highly difficult to determine whether “right to exit” is being denied or not. (For example, in #12, the primary factor preventing exit is the pride of the person stuck in the relationship. Is that their partner blocking exercising the right?) If this disconnect exists as a tradeoff, such that the more a relationship involves reducing right to exit the more we suspect that relationship is (or could be) abusive, then the original comment doesn’t seem germane; interpreted such that it’s true, it’s irrelevant, and interpreted such that it’s relevant, it’s untrue.
Vaniver, your post is eloquent and relevant, yet of course no one gives a shit about that after being downvoted for engaging in a controversial topic in the first place. At that point, all I see is undifferentiated hostility and I’m not going to engage in the cognitive effort to change that view.
It’s not even really your fault. I engaged in a conversation of a controversial, moralistic nature without having any strategic selfish reason to do so. That’s a bad habit if there ever was one. Alas, humans are not always strategic, and sometimes I need the reminder what really matters and what doesn’t.
From that perspective, domestic abuse is irrelevant. The average abuse victim has never done anything for me to deserve my positive reciprocity. I’m not an abuse victim and if I were, I’d simply take personal revenge. Unless of course the abuser is so valuable to my life that I see them as a net-benefit despite the occasional abuse. Hard but not impossible, which was of course my whole point.
Less Wrong and its community has done little for me. You’re not as terrible as EA, and I’ve gained the occasional useful insight here, but you’re still toxic on net, so I’d classify you as minor enemies. Marginally worth harming but no where near the top of my list.
So to sum up, fuck it and good riddance. I actually kind of thank you for the downvotes in this case, this type of negative interaction helps me refocus my perspective and priorities. In fact, I’m now slightly less caring about consent and abuse than I was before this conversation, and that’s probably quite rational for my personal values.
You need to define the terms you use in a way so that what you are saying is useful by having pragmatic consequences on the real world of actual things, and not simply on the same level as arguing by definition.
I observe that you are communicating in bad faith and with hostility, so I will use my right to exit for any further communication with you.
My read of this thread is that your (Andaro’s) original comment pointed at a particular subset of relationships, which are ‘bad’ but seem better than the alternatives to the person inside them, where the reason to trust the judgment of the person inside them is that right to exit means they will leave relationships that are better than their alternatives. Paperclip Maximizer then pointed out that a major class of reasons people stay in abusive relationships is that their alternatives are manipulated by the abuser, either through explicit or implicit threats or attacks directed at the epistemology (such that the alternatives are difficult to imagine or correctly weigh).
I understood Paperclip Maximizer’s point to be that there’s a disconnect between the sort of relationships you describe in the ancestral comment and what a ‘typical’ abusive relationship might look like; it might be highly difficult to determine whether “right to exit” is being denied or not. (For example, in #12, the primary factor preventing exit is the pride of the person stuck in the relationship. Is that their partner blocking exercising the right?) If this disconnect exists as a tradeoff, such that the more a relationship involves reducing right to exit the more we suspect that relationship is (or could be) abusive, then the original comment doesn’t seem germane; interpreted such that it’s true, it’s irrelevant, and interpreted such that it’s relevant, it’s untrue.
Vaniver, your post is eloquent and relevant, yet of course no one gives a shit about that after being downvoted for engaging in a controversial topic in the first place. At that point, all I see is undifferentiated hostility and I’m not going to engage in the cognitive effort to change that view.
It’s not even really your fault. I engaged in a conversation of a controversial, moralistic nature without having any strategic selfish reason to do so. That’s a bad habit if there ever was one. Alas, humans are not always strategic, and sometimes I need the reminder what really matters and what doesn’t.
From that perspective, domestic abuse is irrelevant. The average abuse victim has never done anything for me to deserve my positive reciprocity. I’m not an abuse victim and if I were, I’d simply take personal revenge. Unless of course the abuser is so valuable to my life that I see them as a net-benefit despite the occasional abuse. Hard but not impossible, which was of course my whole point.
Less Wrong and its community has done little for me. You’re not as terrible as EA, and I’ve gained the occasional useful insight here, but you’re still toxic on net, so I’d classify you as minor enemies. Marginally worth harming but no where near the top of my list.
So to sum up, fuck it and good riddance. I actually kind of thank you for the downvotes in this case, this type of negative interaction helps me refocus my perspective and priorities. In fact, I’m now slightly less caring about consent and abuse than I was before this conversation, and that’s probably quite rational for my personal values.