I’d argue that it isn’t optimal to just expect people to change their ways and not modulate one’s own behaviour.
It isn’t optimal for anyone to do that.
courtesy is a net positive in most social forums.
The problem is that we have a fundamental disagreement over what behavior qualifies as courteous, at least in theory.
That’s the other problem. Lots of talk in generalities, with few concretes. We’re talking about trade offs without elaborating on the specifics of the trade off, but it’s the specifics that determine the balance.
You’re right, I should have used a better term than courtesy, but I didn’t want to over complicate the sentence. I should have instead said, “making concessions to other people’s ideas of courtesy (and since this is an open forum, that sets quite a high upper bound for the possible politeness-expectations of the audience)”.
What I’m getting at is: the only real cost of softening one’s tone is a slight reduction in efficiency. You can still say all the same things, it just requires a little extra footwork to steer around offending people by adding fluff like, “I don’t mean to offend you, but I want to convince you that...” in front of the words, “you are wrong.” Or whatever. That’s a very trivial example.
Obviously it’s too much to hope for that one could avoid offending anyone ever—the effort required would outweigh the benefits. But there has to be an optimal point on the curve between “offending too many people for lack of fluff” and “drowning in fluff and not getting anything accomplished”. And ultimate point I’m trying to make is that it isn’t enough for one to just maintain a softness of tone that is comfortable for oneself—one also has to put some effort into determining where one sits on the overall scale of politeness-expectation, and accommodating those who are higher up the scale, regardless of whether or not their expectations would be optimal in a world where nobody’s feelings ever got hurt. EDIT: in fact, this is one of the things I mean by the word courtesy, but I can see that that might not be a widely accepted element of the definition.
Again, I’m not necessarily suggesting that you personally need to correct your behaviour—I haven’t been following your conversations. This is just a general principle that I wanted to voice.
What I’m getting at is: the only real cost of softening one’s tone is a slight reduction in efficiency.
I’ve discussed the costs elsewhere. I’d add the game theoretic costs of getting into a “I’m offended, you have to change” game. The costs of annoying and/or offending someone who doesn’t appreciate being emotionally handled. The cost of not conveying your actual personality in the conversation. The non trivial cost of always maintaining two channels in every conversation—topic and niceness. Even if “only a little” niceness is required, the mental attention required likely has some floor.
one also has to put some effort into determining where one sits on the overall scale of politeness-expectation, and accommodating those who are higher up the scale
I think that’s reasonable. In the case of a shared space, some tradeoff and consideration is expected on all sides.
It isn’t optimal for anyone to do that.
The problem is that we have a fundamental disagreement over what behavior qualifies as courteous, at least in theory.
That’s the other problem. Lots of talk in generalities, with few concretes. We’re talking about trade offs without elaborating on the specifics of the trade off, but it’s the specifics that determine the balance.
You’re right, I should have used a better term than courtesy, but I didn’t want to over complicate the sentence. I should have instead said, “making concessions to other people’s ideas of courtesy (and since this is an open forum, that sets quite a high upper bound for the possible politeness-expectations of the audience)”.
What I’m getting at is: the only real cost of softening one’s tone is a slight reduction in efficiency. You can still say all the same things, it just requires a little extra footwork to steer around offending people by adding fluff like, “I don’t mean to offend you, but I want to convince you that...” in front of the words, “you are wrong.” Or whatever. That’s a very trivial example.
Obviously it’s too much to hope for that one could avoid offending anyone ever—the effort required would outweigh the benefits. But there has to be an optimal point on the curve between “offending too many people for lack of fluff” and “drowning in fluff and not getting anything accomplished”. And ultimate point I’m trying to make is that it isn’t enough for one to just maintain a softness of tone that is comfortable for oneself—one also has to put some effort into determining where one sits on the overall scale of politeness-expectation, and accommodating those who are higher up the scale, regardless of whether or not their expectations would be optimal in a world where nobody’s feelings ever got hurt. EDIT: in fact, this is one of the things I mean by the word courtesy, but I can see that that might not be a widely accepted element of the definition.
Again, I’m not necessarily suggesting that you personally need to correct your behaviour—I haven’t been following your conversations. This is just a general principle that I wanted to voice.
I’ve discussed the costs elsewhere. I’d add the game theoretic costs of getting into a “I’m offended, you have to change” game. The costs of annoying and/or offending someone who doesn’t appreciate being emotionally handled. The cost of not conveying your actual personality in the conversation. The non trivial cost of always maintaining two channels in every conversation—topic and niceness. Even if “only a little” niceness is required, the mental attention required likely has some floor.
I think that’s reasonable. In the case of a shared space, some tradeoff and consideration is expected on all sides.