i think i agree that this does justified harm, but maybe for some subgroups or communities the justified harm is worth the benefits of such an event? our local rationality community has developed to a point where i think people are comfortable talking about “controversial” statements with their real faces on because the vibes are one where any attempt at cancellation instead of dialogue will be met with eyerolls and social exclusion but like, you know, it took a pretty long time and sustained effort for us to get here. (and maybe im wrong and there are people in the group with opinions they are still afraid to voice!)
im modelling this as something kind of like authentic relating—you’re hacking the group’s intimacy module and ratcheting up the feeling of closeness with a shortcut. it’s not going to be as good as the genuine thing, but maybe it’s a lot better than what one would have general access to. it’s not everyone’s thing, people with enough access to the genuine goods are likely to be like “wtf this is weird”, sometimes it can go catastrophically wrong if the facilitator drops the ball… but despite all of that, for some people it’s a good thing to do occasionally bc otherwise they will never get enough of that social nutrient naturally
i think i agree that this does justified harm, but maybe for some subgroups or communities the justified harm is worth the benefits of such an event? our local rationality community has developed to a point where i think people are comfortable talking about “controversial” statements with their real faces on because the vibes are one where any attempt at cancellation instead of dialogue will be met with eyerolls and social exclusion but like, you know, it took a pretty long time and sustained effort for us to get here. (and maybe im wrong and there are people in the group with opinions they are still afraid to voice!)
im modelling this as something kind of like authentic relating—you’re hacking the group’s intimacy module and ratcheting up the feeling of closeness with a shortcut. it’s not going to be as good as the genuine thing, but maybe it’s a lot better than what one would have general access to. it’s not everyone’s thing, people with enough access to the genuine goods are likely to be like “wtf this is weird”, sometimes it can go catastrophically wrong if the facilitator drops the ball… but despite all of that, for some people it’s a good thing to do occasionally bc otherwise they will never get enough of that social nutrient naturally