I find the reaction to this comment, both in the downvotes and some of the responses, interesting in light of the recent discussion about Tell Culture. That post was highly upvoted, but some people in the comments expressed the opinion that even the people who claim to endorse Tell culture really don’t, and that people who actually consistently operated on Tell Culture would end up getting punished, even in a community where most people claimed to endorse Tell.
As far as I can tell, the reactions to this comment are support for that hypothesis, as I see you as a person who consistently operates on Tell, and then (as in this case) occasionally gets censured for that, even in a community where a lot of people previously claimed that Tell sounds awesome.
I think you have it backwards. Chris Told, Alicorn punished him for it, and the community retaliated. This is a great victory for Tell culture and radical honesty, as long as you don’t believe Alicorn embodies them.
A key difference is that the community is incrementalist and consequentialist, while Alicorn is absolutist and deontologist. A lot of the comments don’t believe that Alicorn accurately identifies liars. Expelling him is a step backwards from her claimed goal of honest associates. And, indeed, she did specify it was instrumental to this goal and not just a rule she follows without regards to consequences. But it’s probably also that. The community’s failure to grasp the deontological aspects may make its reaction unfair; but I cannot judge for the same reason. The basic reaction is that she is a very strong instance of Guess culture, where her associates have to guess how much to lie to her and are strongly discouraged from talking about it.
I don’t think that follows. The fact that we punish people for telling others about X, and we don’t punish them if we don’t, doesn’t mean we’re punishing them for telling; it means we’re punishing them for X. We’d really like to punish them for X whether they tell or not, it’s just that telling makes it easier.
It may be more understandable to think about it as cheating. You can either lose, or cheat and win. If you lose, you suffer all the effects of a loss. If you cheat, you may not suffer at all. But we don’t describe that as “punishment for not cheating”. It’s the same here: you can lose (have your opinions judged poorly) or cheat (conceal your opinions by not telling anyone, and escape being judged for them).
I find the reaction to this comment, both in the downvotes and some of the responses, interesting in light of the recent discussion about Tell Culture. That post was highly upvoted, but some people in the comments expressed the opinion that even the people who claim to endorse Tell culture really don’t, and that people who actually consistently operated on Tell Culture would end up getting punished, even in a community where most people claimed to endorse Tell.
As far as I can tell, the reactions to this comment are support for that hypothesis, as I see you as a person who consistently operates on Tell, and then (as in this case) occasionally gets censured for that, even in a community where a lot of people previously claimed that Tell sounds awesome.
I think you have it backwards. Chris Told, Alicorn punished him for it, and the community retaliated. This is a great victory for Tell culture and radical honesty, as long as you don’t believe Alicorn embodies them.
A key difference is that the community is incrementalist and consequentialist, while Alicorn is absolutist and deontologist. A lot of the comments don’t believe that Alicorn accurately identifies liars. Expelling him is a step backwards from her claimed goal of honest associates. And, indeed, she did specify it was instrumental to this goal and not just a rule she follows without regards to consequences. But it’s probably also that. The community’s failure to grasp the deontological aspects may make its reaction unfair; but I cannot judge for the same reason. The basic reaction is that she is a very strong instance of Guess culture, where her associates have to guess how much to lie to her and are strongly discouraged from talking about it.
I don’t think that follows. The fact that we punish people for telling others about X, and we don’t punish them if we don’t, doesn’t mean we’re punishing them for telling; it means we’re punishing them for X. We’d really like to punish them for X whether they tell or not, it’s just that telling makes it easier.
It may be more understandable to think about it as cheating. You can either lose, or cheat and win. If you lose, you suffer all the effects of a loss. If you cheat, you may not suffer at all. But we don’t describe that as “punishment for not cheating”. It’s the same here: you can lose (have your opinions judged poorly) or cheat (conceal your opinions by not telling anyone, and escape being judged for them).