rather than, say,
jimmy says “so I have a rather complicated and subtle argument to make, so I’m going to have to begin with some preliminaries*.
I suppose I could have said “so I have a rather complicated and subtle argument to make. I would have to begin with some preliminaries and it would end up being kinda long and take a lot of work, so I’m not sure it’s worth it unless you really want to hear it”, and in a lot of ways I expect that would have gone better. I probably will end up doing this next time.
However in a couple key ways, it wouldn’t have, which is why I didn’t take that approach this time. And that itself is a complicated and subtle argument to make.
EDIT: I should clarify. I don’t necessarily think I made the right choice here, and it is something I’m still thinking about. However, it was an explicit choice and I had reasons.
When what happens is that you begin by making your argument and then start saying: nope, you didn’t understand it—and when your reaction to a good-faith attempt at dealing with the alleged misunderstanding is anything other than “oh, OK, let me try to explain more clearly”—I think it does imply something like disrespect; at least, as much like disrespect as those options I listed above.
Right, and I think this is our fundamental disagreement right here. I don’t think it implies any disrespect at all, but I’m happy to leave it here if you want.
Because what you’re saying is: [...] That is, it means that something about me renders me unlikely [...] to be able to understand this thing that you want to say, and that you earlier thought was a reasonable thing to say without laying a load of preparatory groundwork.
I see where you’re coming from, but I don’t think arguments with subtle backing always need that warning, nor do they always need to be intended to be fully understood in order to be worth saying. This means that “I can’t give you an explanation you’ll understand without a ton of work” doesn’t single you out nearly as much as you’d otherwise think.
I can get into this if you’d like, but it’d just be more meta shit, and at this point my solution is starting to converge with yours: “do the damn write up or shut up, jimmy”
See above for why I haven’t considered it likely; the reason I haven’t (given that) addressed it is that there’s never time to address everything.
I agree that you can’t address everything (nor have I), but this one stands out as the one big one I keep getting back to—and one where if you addressed it, this whole thing would resolve pretty much right away.
It seems like now that you have, we’re probably gonna end up at something more or less along the lines of “we disagree whether “mutual respect” and “knowably unable to progress on the object level” go together to a non-negligable amount, at least as it applies here, and gjm is uninterested in resolving this disagreement”. That’s an acceptable ending for me, so long as you know that it is a genuine belief of mine and that I’m not just trying to weasel around denying that I’ve been showing disrespect and shit.
No, it presupposes that it could be wrong.
I thought I addressed that possibility with the “err, or this” bit.
When one is suspected, look at it up close and see whether it really is one. Which, y’know, is what I’m suggesting here.
I was talking about the ones where that won’t work, which I see as a real thing though you might not.
If the only way for you to explain all my serious misunderstandings of what you wrote is for you to write an effortful lengthy essay about your general view … well, I expect it would be interesting.
If I ever end up writing it up, I’ll let you know.
But on the face of it that seems like more effort than it should actually take. And if the reason why it should take all that effort is that, in essence, I have (at least in your opinion) understood so little of your position that there’s no point trying to correct me rather than trying again from scratch at much greater length then I honestly don’t know why you’re still in this discussion.
:)
That’d probably have to be a part of the write up, as it calls on all the same concepts
I suppose I could have said “so I have a rather complicated and subtle argument to make. I would have to begin with some preliminaries and it would end up being kinda long and take a lot of work, so I’m not sure it’s worth it unless you really want to hear it”, and in a lot of ways I expect that would have gone better. I probably will end up doing this next time.
However in a couple key ways, it wouldn’t have, which is why I didn’t take that approach this time. And that itself is a complicated and subtle argument to make.
EDIT: I should clarify. I don’t necessarily think I made the right choice here, and it is something I’m still thinking about. However, it was an explicit choice and I had reasons.
Right, and I think this is our fundamental disagreement right here. I don’t think it implies any disrespect at all, but I’m happy to leave it here if you want.
I see where you’re coming from, but I don’t think arguments with subtle backing always need that warning, nor do they always need to be intended to be fully understood in order to be worth saying. This means that “I can’t give you an explanation you’ll understand without a ton of work” doesn’t single you out nearly as much as you’d otherwise think.
I can get into this if you’d like, but it’d just be more meta shit, and at this point my solution is starting to converge with yours: “do the damn write up or shut up, jimmy”
I agree that you can’t address everything (nor have I), but this one stands out as the one big one I keep getting back to—and one where if you addressed it, this whole thing would resolve pretty much right away.
It seems like now that you have, we’re probably gonna end up at something more or less along the lines of “we disagree whether “mutual respect” and “knowably unable to progress on the object level” go together to a non-negligable amount, at least as it applies here, and gjm is uninterested in resolving this disagreement”. That’s an acceptable ending for me, so long as you know that it is a genuine belief of mine and that I’m not just trying to weasel around denying that I’ve been showing disrespect and shit.
I thought I addressed that possibility with the “err, or this” bit.
I was talking about the ones where that won’t work, which I see as a real thing though you might not.
If I ever end up writing it up, I’ll let you know.
:)
That’d probably have to be a part of the write up, as it calls on all the same concepts