Would it help if I apologized? I do, actually, regret that comment. (As you correctly point out here, it wasn’t effective; it didn’t achieve my goals at all.)
The reason I was reluctant to apologize earlier is because I want to be clear that the honest apology that I can offer has to be relatively narrowly-scoped: I can sincerely apologize specifically for that particular pointlessly rude blog comment, and I can sincerely make an effort to conform to your preferred norms when I’m writing a reply to you specifically (because I know that you specifically don’t like the punchy-attacky style I often use), but I’m not thereby agreeing to change my commenting behavior when talking to people who aren’t you, and I’m not thereby agreeing that your concept of epistemic hygiene is the correct one.
I’m worried that a narrowly-scoped apology will be perceived as insufficient, but I think being explicit about scope is important, because fake apologies don’t help anyone: I only want to say “I’m sorry; I won’t do it again” about the specific things that I’m actually sorry for and actually won’t do again.
So—if it helps—I hereby apologize for my comment of 4 December 2021 on an earlier draft of “Basics of Rationalist Discourse”. In context (where the context includes the draft itself being about your preferred discourse norms, the fact that the draft appeared to have been posted prematurely, the fact that the draft had instructions about how readers should read carefully before reacting to any of the summary points, and our previous interactions), it was an unambiguously bad comment, and I should have known better. I’m sorry.
Would it help if I apologized? I do, actually, regret that comment. (As you correctly point out here, it wasn’t effective; it didn’t achieve my goals at all.)
The reason I was reluctant to apologize earlier is because I want to be clear that the honest apology that I can offer has to be relatively narrowly-scoped: I can sincerely apologize specifically for that particular pointlessly rude blog comment, and I can sincerely make an effort to conform to your preferred norms when I’m writing a reply to you specifically (because I know that you specifically don’t like the punchy-attacky style I often use), but I’m not thereby agreeing to change my commenting behavior when talking to people who aren’t you, and I’m not thereby agreeing that your concept of epistemic hygiene is the correct one.
I’m worried that a narrowly-scoped apology will be perceived as insufficient, but I think being explicit about scope is important, because fake apologies don’t help anyone: I only want to say “I’m sorry; I won’t do it again” about the specific things that I’m actually sorry for and actually won’t do again.
So—if it helps—I hereby apologize for my comment of 4 December 2021 on an earlier draft of “Basics of Rationalist Discourse”. In context (where the context includes the draft itself being about your preferred discourse norms, the fact that the draft appeared to have been posted prematurely, the fact that the draft had instructions about how readers should read carefully before reacting to any of the summary points, and our previous interactions), it was an unambiguously bad comment, and I should have known better. I’m sorry.