Relevant SMBC. It illustrates my political theory that in every political conflict that seems to be between Greens and Blues, there are actually four sides of the conflict, let’s call the “Nice Greens”, “Nasty Greens”, “Nice Blues” and “Nasty Blues”. And there is more than one line of conflict.
Officially, “Nice Greens” + “Nasty Greens” and “Nice Blues” + “Nasty Blues” should be the only existing coalitions. But there is also the value of niceness, which somehow connects “Nice Greens” and “Nice Blues”, and puts them into often unconscious opposition against the “Nasty Greens” and “Nasty Blues”. Being nasty is a personality trait… for a “Nasty Green” it is often easier to become a “Nasty Blue” (different slogans, but generally the same behavior) than a “Nice Green” (different everyday behavior both among the enemies and the allies).
The disagreement wasn’t just about tone. It was about Arthur Chu’s willingness to lie for his cause. The only reason it appeared to be mostly about tone is that Yvain didn’t make the strongest argument he could have.
Hm, I’m confused. I agree that at least part of the disagreement was over Arthur’s willingness to lie for his cause, but how is that not captured by Viliam_Bur’s post?
Lying for a cause or otherwise playing “dirty” to win for your cause, as Arthur seemed to be advocating, seems to straightforwardly line up with Viliam_Bur’s theory about “Nice Greens”, “Nasty Greens”, “Nice Blues” and “Nasty Blues”; specifically, in this theory, Arthur would be a “Nasty” player on the side of progress/civilization/neoliberalism-ish/etc. and Yvain would be a “Nice” player on the same side.
The nastiness Viliam talks about is mostly in the form of trolling or making insulting statements with little semantic content. Lying of the type Arthur advocates goes beyond that since it injects false statements into the discussion and tends to result in one’s side filling up with people who believe said lies and thus willing to lie further.
Yup, and that is almost exactly what (at least part of) the relatively recent disagreement between Yvain and Arthur Chu was about. See http://www.patheos.com/blogs/hallq/2014/02/on-some-criticism-of-lesswrong/ and http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/23/in-favor-of-niceness-community-and-civilization/
The disagreement wasn’t just about tone. It was about Arthur Chu’s willingness to lie for his cause. The only reason it appeared to be mostly about tone is that Yvain didn’t make the strongest argument he could have.
Hm, I’m confused. I agree that at least part of the disagreement was over Arthur’s willingness to lie for his cause, but how is that not captured by Viliam_Bur’s post?
Lying for a cause or otherwise playing “dirty” to win for your cause, as Arthur seemed to be advocating, seems to straightforwardly line up with Viliam_Bur’s theory about “Nice Greens”, “Nasty Greens”, “Nice Blues” and “Nasty Blues”; specifically, in this theory, Arthur would be a “Nasty” player on the side of progress/civilization/neoliberalism-ish/etc. and Yvain would be a “Nice” player on the same side.
I guess I’m not sure what you mean by tone?
The nastiness Viliam talks about is mostly in the form of trolling or making insulting statements with little semantic content. Lying of the type Arthur advocates goes beyond that since it injects false statements into the discussion and tends to result in one’s side filling up with people who believe said lies and thus willing to lie further.
Ah, okay. That makes sense, thanks.