Explicitly naming names accomplishes nothing except inducing hostility, as it will be taken as a status challenge. Not explicitly naming names, one hopes, leaves everyone re-examining whether their default tone is appropriately calibrated.
I agree with you that naming names can be taken as a status challenge. Of course, this whole topic positions you as an abjudicator of appropriate calibration, which can be taken as a status grab, for the excellent reason that it is one. Not that there’s anything wrong with going for status. All of that notwithstanding, if you prefer to diffuse your assertions of individual inappropriate behavior over an entire community, that’s your privilege.
I care about my status on this site only to the extent that it remains above some minimum required for people not to discount my posts simply because they were written by me.
My interest in this thread is that like Daenerys I think the current norm for discourse is suboptimal, but I think I give greater weight to the possibility of that some of the suboptimal behavior is people defecting by accident; hence the subtle push for occasional recalibration of tone.
Just to be clear: I’m fine with you pushing for a norm that’s optimal for you. Blatantly, if you want to; subtly if you’d rather.
But I don’t agree that the norm you’re pushing is optimal for me, and I consider either of us pushing for the establishment of norms that we’re most comfortable with to be a status-linked social maneuver.
I agree that pretty much all communication does this, yes. Sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly.
As to why… because I see the norm you’re pushing as something pretty close to the cultural baseline of the “friendly” pole of the American mainstream, which I see as willing to trade off precision and accuracy for getting along. You may even be pushing for something even more “get along” optimized than that.
I mostly don’t mind that the rest of my life more or less optimizes for getting along, though I often find it frustrating when it means that certain questions simply can’t ever be asked in the first place, and that certain answers can’t be believed when they’re given because alternative answers are deemed too impolite to say. Still, as I say, I accept it as a fact about my real-life environment. I probably even prefer it, as I acknowledge that optimizing for precision and accuracy at the expense of getting along would be problematic if I could never get away from it, however tired or upset I was.
That said, I value the fact that LW uses a different standard, one that optimizes for accuracy and precision, and therefore efforts to introduce the baseline “get along” standard to LW remove local value for me.
Again, let me stress that I’m not asserting that you ought not make those efforts. If that’s what you want, then by all means push for it. If you are successful, LW will become less valuable to me, but you’re not under any kind of moral obligation to preserve the value of the Internet to me.
But speaking personally, I’d prefer you didn’t insist as you did so that those efforts are actually in my best interests, with the added implication that I can’t recognize my interests as well as you can.
Not explicitly naming names, one hopes, leaves everyone re-examining whether their default tone is appropriately calibrated.
It left me evaluating whether it was me personally that was being called an asshole or others in the community and whether those others are people that deserve the insult or not. Basically I needed to determine whether it was a defection against me, an ally or my tribe in general. Then I had to decide what, if any, was an appropriate, desirable and socially acceptable tit-for-tat response. I decided to mostly ignore him because engaging didn’t seem like it would do much more than giving him a platform from which to gripe more.
Why do you feel it’s correct to interpret it as defection in the first place?
In case you were wondering the translation of this from social-speak to Vulcan is:
Calling people assholes isn’t a defection, therefore you saying—and in particular feeling—that labeling people as assholes is a defection says something personal about you. I am clever and smooth for communicating this rhetorically.
So this too is a defection. Not that I mind—because it is a rather mild defection that is well within the bounds of normal interaction. I mean… it’s not like you called me an asshole or anything. ;)
That is not a correct translation. Calling someone an asshole may or may not be defection. In this case, I’m not sure whether it was. Examining why you feel that it was may be enlightening to me or to you or hopefully both. Defecting by accident is a common flaw, for sure, but interpreting a cooperation as a defection is no less damaging and no less common.
I’m already working on not being an asshole in general, and on not being an asshole to specific people on LW. If someone answers “yes” to that I’ll work harder at being a non-asshole on LW. Or post less. Or try to do one of those for two days then forget about the whole thing.
You haven’t stood out as someone who has been an asshole to me or anyone I didn’t think deserved it in the context, those being the only cases salient enough that I could expect myself to remember.
If you’re already working on it, you’re probably in the clear. Not being an a-hole is a high-effort activity for many of us; in this case I will depart from primitive consquentialism and say that effort counts for something.
Interesting. Who are the prolific “a-holes”?
Explicitly naming names accomplishes nothing except inducing hostility, as it will be taken as a status challenge. Not explicitly naming names, one hopes, leaves everyone re-examining whether their default tone is appropriately calibrated.
I agree with you that naming names can be taken as a status challenge.
Of course, this whole topic positions you as an abjudicator of appropriate calibration, which can be taken as a status grab, for the excellent reason that it is one. Not that there’s anything wrong with going for status.
All of that notwithstanding, if you prefer to diffuse your assertions of individual inappropriate behavior over an entire community, that’s your privilege.
I care about my status on this site only to the extent that it remains above some minimum required for people not to discount my posts simply because they were written by me.
My interest in this thread is that like Daenerys I think the current norm for discourse is suboptimal, but I think I give greater weight to the possibility of that some of the suboptimal behavior is people defecting by accident; hence the subtle push for occasional recalibration of tone.
There was a subtle push? I must of missed that while I was distracted by the blatant one!
See, it’s working!
Just to be clear: I’m fine with you pushing for a norm that’s optimal for you. Blatantly, if you want to; subtly if you’d rather.
But I don’t agree that the norm you’re pushing is optimal for me, and I consider either of us pushing for the establishment of norms that we’re most comfortable with to be a status-linked social maneuver.
Why? (A sincere question, not a rhetorical one)
I’m not sure how every post doesn’t do this; many posts push to maintain a status-quo, but all posts implicitly favor some set of norms.
I agree that pretty much all communication does this, yes. Sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly.
As to why… because I see the norm you’re pushing as something pretty close to the cultural baseline of the “friendly” pole of the American mainstream, which I see as willing to trade off precision and accuracy for getting along. You may even be pushing for something even more “get along” optimized than that.
I mostly don’t mind that the rest of my life more or less optimizes for getting along, though I often find it frustrating when it means that certain questions simply can’t ever be asked in the first place, and that certain answers can’t be believed when they’re given because alternative answers are deemed too impolite to say. Still, as I say, I accept it as a fact about my real-life environment. I probably even prefer it, as I acknowledge that optimizing for precision and accuracy at the expense of getting along would be problematic if I could never get away from it, however tired or upset I was.
That said, I value the fact that LW uses a different standard, one that optimizes for accuracy and precision, and therefore efforts to introduce the baseline “get along” standard to LW remove local value for me.
Again, let me stress that I’m not asserting that you ought not make those efforts. If that’s what you want, then by all means push for it. If you are successful, LW will become less valuable to me, but you’re not under any kind of moral obligation to preserve the value of the Internet to me.
But speaking personally, I’d prefer you didn’t insist as you did so that those efforts are actually in my best interests, with the added implication that I can’t recognize my interests as well as you can.
It left me evaluating whether it was me personally that was being called an asshole or others in the community and whether those others are people that deserve the insult or not. Basically I needed to determine whether it was a defection against me, an ally or my tribe in general. Then I had to decide what, if any, was an appropriate, desirable and socially acceptable tit-for-tat response. I decided to mostly ignore him because engaging didn’t seem like it would do much more than giving him a platform from which to gripe more.
If it makes you feel better, when I read his post I thought lovingly of you. (I also believe your response was appropriate.)
Why do you feel it’s correct to interpret it as defection in the first place?
In case you were wondering the translation of this from social-speak to Vulcan is:
So this too is a defection. Not that I mind—because it is a rather mild defection that is well within the bounds of normal interaction. I mean… it’s not like you called me an asshole or anything. ;)
That is not a correct translation. Calling someone an asshole may or may not be defection. In this case, I’m not sure whether it was. Examining why you feel that it was may be enlightening to me or to you or hopefully both. Defecting by accident is a common flaw, for sure, but interpreting a cooperation as a defection is no less damaging and no less common.
Am I an asshole?
I’m already working on not being an asshole in general, and on not being an asshole to specific people on LW. If someone answers “yes” to that I’ll work harder at being a non-asshole on LW. Or post less. Or try to do one of those for two days then forget about the whole thing.
You haven’t stood out as someone who has been an asshole to me or anyone I didn’t think deserved it in the context, those being the only cases salient enough that I could expect myself to remember.
If you’re already working on it, you’re probably in the clear. Not being an a-hole is a high-effort activity for many of us; in this case I will depart from primitive consquentialism and say that effort counts for something.
And, equivalently, signalling effectively that you are expending effort counts for something.