It requires you to filter what you publicly and officially say. “You”, plural, the collective, can speak as freely as you like …in private. But if you, individually, want to be able to say anything you like to anyone, you had better accept the consequences.
“The mystery is why the community doesn’t implement obvious solutions. Hiring PR people is an obvious solution. There’s a posting somewhere in which Anna Salamon argues that there is some sort of moral hazard involved in professional PR, but never explains why, and everyone agrees with her anyway.”
“”You”, plural, the collective, can speak as freely as you like …in private.”
Suppose a large part of the community wants to speak as freely as it likes in public, and the mystery is solved.
We even managed to touch upon the moral hazard involved in professional PR—insofar as it is a filter between what you believe and what you say publicly.
The level of PR you aim for puts an upper limit to how much “radical” honesty you can have.
If you aim for perfect PR, you can have 0 honesty.
If you aim for perfect honesty, you can have no PR. lesswrong doesn’t go that far, by a long shot—even without a PR team present.
Most organization do not aim for honesty at all.
The question is where do we draw the line.
Which brings us to “Disliking racism isn’t some weird idiosyncratic thing that only Gerard has.”
From what I understand, Gerard left because he doesn’t like discussions about race/IQ.
Which is not the same thing as racism.
I, personally, don’t want lesswrong to cater to people who can not tolerate a discussion.
honesty=/=frankness. Good PR does not require you to lie.
Semantics.
Good PR requires you to put a filter between what you think is true and what you say.
It requires you to filter what you publicly and officially say. “You”, plural, the collective, can speak as freely as you like …in private. But if you, individually, want to be able to say anything you like to anyone, you had better accept the consequences.
“The mystery is why the community doesn’t implement obvious solutions. Hiring PR people is an obvious solution. There’s a posting somewhere in which Anna Salamon argues that there is some sort of moral hazard involved in professional PR, but never explains why, and everyone agrees with her anyway.”
“”You”, plural, the collective, can speak as freely as you like …in private.”
Suppose a large part of the community wants to speak as freely as it likes in public, and the mystery is solved.
We even managed to touch upon the moral hazard involved in professional PR—insofar as it is a filter between what you believe and what you say publicly.
Theres a hazard in having no filters, as well. One thing being bad doesn’t make another good.