I agree it’s a moving target, but you don’t have to keep it precisely static in one place. Think of it more like a thermostat: we keep taking the temperature, then turn on heating or cooling depending on the difference between the current and desired temperature.
I get it, but honestly I think the most important practical take away about this is for how one should manage their own subculture/forum/whatever. Society-wide interpretations of this are really more likely to lead to rather dark places than do any good IMO. Opening it with an analogy about how maybe the guys who executed a philosopher for “corrupting the youth” and being essentially a heretic had a point may not be the best way to discuss it either: even if Socrates was potentially a danger, those are traditionally the exact same kind of excuses demagogues, populists and authoritarians use to justify their power, and deciding who was “right” here is not a simple exercise; perhaps an impossible one, after so much time.
I mean, it’s ancient Athens. Even supposing Socrates was threatening to destroy that society, if any of us was transported back in time, we’d probably try to destroy it too! What with all the slavery and the women treated as property? Obviously Socrates wasn’t doing it from either a feminist or anti-slavery point of view, but we’re not precisely in a position to talk. Not even “the order was trying to defend itself” is a good reason on its own. The order always tries to defend itself, but sometimes the order is bad.
I read Duncan’s post as being mainly about LW, using the society of Athens as an analogy. “Poisoning Socrates” to me would be more like reprimanding or firing an employee at a startup who’s demoralizing the team, not literally forcing somebody to commit suicide for criticizing someone else. In most places I think it’s recognized that there’s a balance between critique and creativity, and Duncan’s saying that specifically on LW, we seem to have stumbled into a bad equilibrium with way more cheap criticism than is productive to truth-seeking.
I agree it’s a moving target, but you don’t have to keep it precisely static in one place. Think of it more like a thermostat: we keep taking the temperature, then turn on heating or cooling depending on the difference between the current and desired temperature.
I get it, but honestly I think the most important practical take away about this is for how one should manage their own subculture/forum/whatever. Society-wide interpretations of this are really more likely to lead to rather dark places than do any good IMO. Opening it with an analogy about how maybe the guys who executed a philosopher for “corrupting the youth” and being essentially a heretic had a point may not be the best way to discuss it either: even if Socrates was potentially a danger, those are traditionally the exact same kind of excuses demagogues, populists and authoritarians use to justify their power, and deciding who was “right” here is not a simple exercise; perhaps an impossible one, after so much time.
I mean, it’s ancient Athens. Even supposing Socrates was threatening to destroy that society, if any of us was transported back in time, we’d probably try to destroy it too! What with all the slavery and the women treated as property? Obviously Socrates wasn’t doing it from either a feminist or anti-slavery point of view, but we’re not precisely in a position to talk. Not even “the order was trying to defend itself” is a good reason on its own. The order always tries to defend itself, but sometimes the order is bad.
I read Duncan’s post as being mainly about LW, using the society of Athens as an analogy. “Poisoning Socrates” to me would be more like reprimanding or firing an employee at a startup who’s demoralizing the team, not literally forcing somebody to commit suicide for criticizing someone else. In most places I think it’s recognized that there’s a balance between critique and creativity, and Duncan’s saying that specifically on LW, we seem to have stumbled into a bad equilibrium with way more cheap criticism than is productive to truth-seeking.