In venues where the polite faction has the upper hand (by karma voting weight, moderator seats, &c.), blunt people have an incentive to dishonestly claim that writing polite comments is more expensive than it actually is, because polite voters and moderators might be partially swayed by that argument, whereas the polite people would not be sympathetic if the blunt people said what they were actually thinking.
Of course this is true, but that doesn’t actually mean that there isn’t, in fact, a cost differential; it only means that claims of such constitute weaker evidence in favor than they would in the absence of such an incentive.
And there are good reasons to believe that the cost differential exists. We may presumably discount (alleged) evidence from introspection, as it’s unreliable for two reasons (unreliability of introspection in the presence of incentives for self-deception; unreliability of reports of introspection, in the presence of incentives for deception). But that’s not all we’ve got. For example, in the linked comment, you write:
Like, it didn’t actually take me very much time to generate the phrase “accountability for alleged harm from simplifications” rather than “pandering to idiots”
This, in the context of disclaiming (indeed, of arguing against) a “cost differential” argument! And yet even there, you didn’t go so far as to claim that it took you zero time to come up with the “nice” wording. (And no surprise there; that would’ve been a quite implausible claim!) Surely these things add up…?
But none of that constitutes the strongest reply to your argument, which is this:
Why do you assume that the only cost is to the comment-writer?
At the very least, “accountability for alleged harm from simplifications” is longer, and more complex, than “pandering to idiots”. It takes more time and effort to read and understand the former than the latter! And the complexity of the former means more chance of misunderstanding. (It’s a persistent delusion, in these parts, that taking more words to explain something, and choosing words more precisely, results in clearer communication.)
And these are only the obvious costs. There are also second-order costs imposed by upholding, rather than subverting, norms which dictate such “nicer” writing…
Of course this is true, but that doesn’t actually mean that there isn’t, in fact, a cost differential; it only means that claims of such constitute weaker evidence in favor than they would in the absence of such an incentive.
And there are good reasons to believe that the cost differential exists. We may presumably discount (alleged) evidence from introspection, as it’s unreliable for two reasons (unreliability of introspection in the presence of incentives for self-deception; unreliability of reports of introspection, in the presence of incentives for deception). But that’s not all we’ve got. For example, in the linked comment, you write:
This, in the context of disclaiming (indeed, of arguing against) a “cost differential” argument! And yet even there, you didn’t go so far as to claim that it took you zero time to come up with the “nice” wording. (And no surprise there; that would’ve been a quite implausible claim!) Surely these things add up…?
But none of that constitutes the strongest reply to your argument, which is this:
Why do you assume that the only cost is to the comment-writer?
At the very least, “accountability for alleged harm from simplifications” is longer, and more complex, than “pandering to idiots”. It takes more time and effort to read and understand the former than the latter! And the complexity of the former means more chance of misunderstanding. (It’s a persistent delusion, in these parts, that taking more words to explain something, and choosing words more precisely, results in clearer communication.)
And these are only the obvious costs. There are also second-order costs imposed by upholding, rather than subverting, norms which dictate such “nicer” writing…
Not gonna lie, I lost track of the argument on this line of comments, but pushing back on word-bloat is good.