Stop playing dumb—everyone who uses the word “denialist” knows exactly what it’s supposed to connote. Godwining has no place in a rationalist community.
Believing that other people knew (or should have known) how angry they were going to make you is exactly what makes outrage-driven discussions blow up.
Malice and spite exist, but I think they’re very rare compared to incompetence.
“Should have known better” is a very tempting stance to take, but it strikes me as unreasonable.
Believing that other people knew (or should have known) how angry they were going to make you is exactly what makes outrage-driven discussions blow up.
Malice and spite exist, but I think they’re very rare compared to incompetence.
Also note that doing things even when you know that they will make other people angry is not necessarily malicious or spiteful. In most cases it will be because healthy individuals place limits on how much responsibility they assume for other people’s emotions. Doing things because they will cause another person could be spiteful. (Although even then that is not necessarily the case. See, for example, the recent Star Trek movie in which time-travelled Spock tells Kirk to provoke an emotional response in the young Spock, allowing Kirk to save everyone including Spock.)
So I guess what you’re trying to say is that he didn’t intend for the word “denialist” to conjure up images of the Holocaust in the minds of readers. Of course this is possible, but I think it’s pretty unlikely. The modern revival of the word (in the context of climate change) was specifically intended to have that connotation, and this was discussed openly by those who popularized its use in that arena.
Now I suppose it’s possible that he just picked the word up from context and started using it, without realizing that it was designed to provoke an emotional response and shut down rational debate… but based on his tone and overall approach, that’s not what it seems like to me.
So I guess what you’re trying to say is that he didn’t intend for the word “denialist” to conjure up images of the Holocaust in the minds of readers.
That’s it.
Generalizing from the inside of my head, I think “denialist” has a stench from “Holocaust denialist”—it implies refusal to accept a true, important, and morally obligatory mainstream belief.
Perhaps such a word should be tabooed in a rationalist forum.
However, precisely because “denialist” became commonly used for such purposes as “global warming denialist”, the connection to the Holocaust got weakened.
The connotations of words shift, and as Holocaust denial has become less of a public issue (this is called “winning”), ‘denialist’ has acquired other default meanings.
Stop playing dumb—everyone who uses the word “denialist” knows exactly what it’s supposed to connote. Godwining has no place in a rationalist community.
Believing that other people knew (or should have known) how angry they were going to make you is exactly what makes outrage-driven discussions blow up.
Malice and spite exist, but I think they’re very rare compared to incompetence.
“Should have known better” is a very tempting stance to take, but it strikes me as unreasonable.
Also note that doing things even when you know that they will make other people angry is not necessarily malicious or spiteful. In most cases it will be because healthy individuals place limits on how much responsibility they assume for other people’s emotions. Doing things because they will cause another person could be spiteful. (Although even then that is not necessarily the case. See, for example, the recent Star Trek movie in which time-travelled Spock tells Kirk to provoke an emotional response in the young Spock, allowing Kirk to save everyone including Spock.)
So I guess what you’re trying to say is that he didn’t intend for the word “denialist” to conjure up images of the Holocaust in the minds of readers. Of course this is possible, but I think it’s pretty unlikely. The modern revival of the word (in the context of climate change) was specifically intended to have that connotation, and this was discussed openly by those who popularized its use in that arena.
Now I suppose it’s possible that he just picked the word up from context and started using it, without realizing that it was designed to provoke an emotional response and shut down rational debate… but based on his tone and overall approach, that’s not what it seems like to me.
That’s it.
Generalizing from the inside of my head, I think “denialist” has a stench from “Holocaust denialist”—it implies refusal to accept a true, important, and morally obligatory mainstream belief.
Perhaps such a word should be tabooed in a rationalist forum.
However, precisely because “denialist” became commonly used for such purposes as “global warming denialist”, the connection to the Holocaust got weakened.
The connotations of words shift, and as Holocaust denial has become less of a public issue (this is called “winning”), ‘denialist’ has acquired other default meanings.