The message is clear: The Dark Arts are evil and you shouldn’t use them.
If that’s the message someone takes, then it applies to them. It only takes a slightly more esoteric reading to see the message as: The Dark Arts are dangerous to users and to targets, most people shouldn’t use them, and only those willing to sacrifice some of their simplicity and clarity of belief can make the necessary risk/reward calculations about the unlawful knowledge. It’s an infohazard warning. Or a version of the old alt.hackers self-moderation trick.
It turns out there are a _LOT_ of behaviors that are prosocial when only a few undertake them, and antisocial if everyone does them. The dream of universal behavioral rules denies diversity and specialization. The dream of universal terminal goals (with flexible or at least multiple routes toward them) may or may not be feasible, but it definitely doesn’t imply shared capabilities and therefore does not imply shared behaviors.
This Schelling Fence idea still works, though, you just need to replace “universal” with “usable without harm by hobbyists and beginners”.
It’s complicated because I see the idea of a schelling fence as a heuristic in itself. So when I say ‘universal’ I really mean ‘super duper quadruple highly recommended’. (EDIT:) Yes, even for “elites”, since I’m extremely uncomfortable making exceptions for certain people without being able to quantify why these people are the exception.
If that’s the message someone takes, then it applies to them. It only takes a slightly more esoteric reading to see the message as: The Dark Arts are dangerous to users and to targets, most people shouldn’t use them, and only those willing to sacrifice some of their simplicity and clarity of belief can make the necessary risk/reward calculations about the unlawful knowledge. It’s an infohazard warning. Or a version of the old alt.hackers self-moderation trick.
It turns out there are a _LOT_ of behaviors that are prosocial when only a few undertake them, and antisocial if everyone does them. The dream of universal behavioral rules denies diversity and specialization. The dream of universal terminal goals (with flexible or at least multiple routes toward them) may or may not be feasible, but it definitely doesn’t imply shared capabilities and therefore does not imply shared behaviors.
This Schelling Fence idea still works, though, you just need to replace “universal” with “usable without harm by hobbyists and beginners”.
It’s complicated because I see the idea of a schelling fence as a heuristic in itself. So when I say ‘universal’ I really mean ‘super duper quadruple highly recommended’. (EDIT:) Yes, even for “elites”, since I’m extremely uncomfortable making exceptions for certain people without being able to quantify why these people are the exception.