I was following a thread from August on Yvain’s site. The author of the blog post we are discussing added a comment there on January 4 and Yvain replied. I should have included this link in my original write-up. And since I’ve started criticizing myself, I should have left out my half-baked musings on racism and spent more effort on summarizing the post I was linking to. For example, it might have been a good idea to quote the following:
If you prefer to not have any truck with the word ‘privilege’, substitute ‘the less likelihood of having to anticipate culturally-permissible threats to their personhood they have lived with’, since that’s the specific manifestation of privilege I mean. Sadly, that is a long and unwieldy phrase.
This shows that the author is able to taboo words in order to improve readers’ understanding. A communication skill justifiably prized on LessWrong.
I find striking the addendum which is mainly a list of examples of objecting to tabooing words, but includes a footnote tabooing “politically correct.” (though I find that particular tabooing in bad faith, unlike the example of “privilege” in the main text)
I was following a thread from August on Yvain’s site. The author of the blog post we are discussing added a comment there on January 4 and Yvain replied. I should have included this link in my original write-up. And since I’ve started criticizing myself, I should have left out my half-baked musings on racism and spent more effort on summarizing the post I was linking to. For example, it might have been a good idea to quote the following:
This shows that the author is able to taboo words in order to improve readers’ understanding. A communication skill justifiably prized on LessWrong.
I find striking the addendum which is mainly a list of examples of objecting to tabooing words, but includes a footnote tabooing “politically correct.” (though I find that particular tabooing in bad faith, unlike the example of “privilege” in the main text)