I assume most people find this statement offensive and objectionable. If you are such a person, can you provide a rational justification for your response?
What you should probably be looking for is people who didn’t find the statement offensive or objectionable but who understand the psychology and game theory of the situation well enough to calmly explain it. The sort of human that gets offended isn’t generally the sort of human that is worth asking questions. Presumably you know this but you’re making a political (in a broad sense of ‘political’) point about the importance of having the automatic habit (at the zero-point-two-second level) of making clean distinctions between empirical and normative claims. But come on dude, that’s just baby town frolicks. Shouldn’t you be making comments on a higher level and about more important things?
I would like to see LW become a place where people don’t get offended by empirical statements—that seems like an achievable goal. But you are probably right that this kind of debate usually doesn’t lead anywhere productive.
What you should probably be looking for is people who didn’t find the statement offensive or objectionable but who understand the psychology and game theory of the situation well enough to calmly explain it. The sort of human that gets offended isn’t generally the sort of human that is worth asking questions. Presumably you know this but you’re making a political (in a broad sense of ‘political’) point about the importance of having the automatic habit (at the zero-point-two-second level) of making clean distinctions between empirical and normative claims. But come on dude, that’s just baby town frolicks. Shouldn’t you be making comments on a higher level and about more important things?
I would like to see LW become a place where people don’t get offended by empirical statements—that seems like an achievable goal. But you are probably right that this kind of debate usually doesn’t lead anywhere productive.