My guess would also be that Vaniver perceived the comment as at least somewhat of an attack, though I am not super confident, though he could chime in and give clarification on that.
The history was as follows:
Look at the earliest reply in my inbox, agree with it (and Raemon’s comment), and edit the post.
Scroll up and see a large comment tree.
In finding the top of the large comment tree, see another comment; decide “I’ll handle that one first.”
So my view of Said’s comment was in the context of nshepperd’s comment, at which point I already saw the hole in the post and its shape.
This splits out two different dimensions; the ‘attack / benign’ dimension and the ‘vague / specific’ dimension. Of them, I think the latter is more relevant; Said’s comment is a request of the form “say more?” and nshepperd’s is a criticism of the form “your argument has structure X, but this means it puts all its weight on Y, which can’t hold that much weight.” The latter is more specific than the former, and I correspondingly found it more useful. [Like, I’m not sure I would have noticed that I also don’t define truth from just reading Said’s comment, which was quite helpful in figuring out what parts of ‘authenticity’ were relevant to describe.]
However, this is because nshepperd made a bet that paid off, in that they were able to precisely identify the issue with the post in a way that could be easily communicated to me. If nshepperd had made a similarly precise but incorrect guess, it easily could have been worse off than a vague “say more?”. That is, there’s not just the question of where the ‘interpretive labor’ burden falls, but also a question of what overall schemes minimize interpretative labor (measured using your cost function of choice).
I interpreted both of them as benign; if anything nshepperd’s is more of an attack because it directly calls “authenticity” an applause light.
Also, related to a thread elsewhere, on ‘obligations’ to respond to comments: I mostly don’t worry about outstanding ‘attacks’ on me of this type, because of something like socially recognized gnosis. That is:
In worlds where “everybody knows” what authenticity is, and Said is the lone ignoramus, I lose very few points by not responding to Said saying “but what is authenticity?”, because most of the audience views the question as a tiresome distraction.
In worlds where I want to believe or want to enforce that “everybody knows” what authenticity is, then I lose many points by not responding to Said saying “but what is authenticity?”, because the audience views the question as a pertinent point, or at least evidence that others don’t know also.
In worlds where some people know lots about authenticity, and others know little, then when Said says “but what is authenticity?”, I can respond with “this post is for people who know what I mean by that, and I’m not holding it to the standards of people who don’t know what I mean by that” and both groups can continue satisfied (the former, discussing among a group that shares vocabulary, the latter, knowing that the post is openly not up to their standards). Which should generally be a thing that I’m willing to be open about, altho it sometimes generates some social awkwardness.
And in worlds where I just forgot that not everybody has ‘authenticity’ as a shared label, then the question “but what is authenticity?” is a welcome pointer towards more that has to be written.
So some things that I think would be nice:
It is permissible to respond to clarifying questions with “sorry, that’s a prerequisite that I won’t explain here,” which is taxed according to how ludicrous it is to impose that as a prerequisite.
Authors have well-placed trust in the audience’s ability to assess what observations are germane, and how seriously to take various ‘criticisms,’ so the tax from the previous point seems accurate / ignoring comments that seem bad to them is cheap instead of expensive.
“The Emperor Has No Clothes” objections have a place, tho it might not be every post.
Everyone gets better at interpretative labor in a way that makes communication flow more easily.
The history was as follows:
Look at the earliest reply in my inbox, agree with it (and Raemon’s comment), and edit the post.
Scroll up and see a large comment tree.
In finding the top of the large comment tree, see another comment; decide “I’ll handle that one first.”
So my view of Said’s comment was in the context of nshepperd’s comment, at which point I already saw the hole in the post and its shape.
This splits out two different dimensions; the ‘attack / benign’ dimension and the ‘vague / specific’ dimension. Of them, I think the latter is more relevant; Said’s comment is a request of the form “say more?” and nshepperd’s is a criticism of the form “your argument has structure X, but this means it puts all its weight on Y, which can’t hold that much weight.” The latter is more specific than the former, and I correspondingly found it more useful. [Like, I’m not sure I would have noticed that I also don’t define truth from just reading Said’s comment, which was quite helpful in figuring out what parts of ‘authenticity’ were relevant to describe.]
However, this is because nshepperd made a bet that paid off, in that they were able to precisely identify the issue with the post in a way that could be easily communicated to me. If nshepperd had made a similarly precise but incorrect guess, it easily could have been worse off than a vague “say more?”. That is, there’s not just the question of where the ‘interpretive labor’ burden falls, but also a question of what overall schemes minimize interpretative labor (measured using your cost function of choice).
I interpreted both of them as benign; if anything nshepperd’s is more of an attack because it directly calls “authenticity” an applause light.
Also, related to a thread elsewhere, on ‘obligations’ to respond to comments: I mostly don’t worry about outstanding ‘attacks’ on me of this type, because of something like socially recognized gnosis. That is:
In worlds where “everybody knows” what authenticity is, and Said is the lone ignoramus, I lose very few points by not responding to Said saying “but what is authenticity?”, because most of the audience views the question as a tiresome distraction.
In worlds where I want to believe or want to enforce that “everybody knows” what authenticity is, then I lose many points by not responding to Said saying “but what is authenticity?”, because the audience views the question as a pertinent point, or at least evidence that others don’t know also.
In worlds where some people know lots about authenticity, and others know little, then when Said says “but what is authenticity?”, I can respond with “this post is for people who know what I mean by that, and I’m not holding it to the standards of people who don’t know what I mean by that” and both groups can continue satisfied (the former, discussing among a group that shares vocabulary, the latter, knowing that the post is openly not up to their standards). Which should generally be a thing that I’m willing to be open about, altho it sometimes generates some social awkwardness.
And in worlds where I just forgot that not everybody has ‘authenticity’ as a shared label, then the question “but what is authenticity?” is a welcome pointer towards more that has to be written.
So some things that I think would be nice:
It is permissible to respond to clarifying questions with “sorry, that’s a prerequisite that I won’t explain here,” which is taxed according to how ludicrous it is to impose that as a prerequisite.
Authors have well-placed trust in the audience’s ability to assess what observations are germane, and how seriously to take various ‘criticisms,’ so the tax from the previous point seems accurate / ignoring comments that seem bad to them is cheap instead of expensive.
“The Emperor Has No Clothes” objections have a place, tho it might not be every post.
Everyone gets better at interpretative labor in a way that makes communication flow more easily.