It’s also worth noting that typing the phrase ‘initiating physical violence’ in bolded and italicized text to refer to acts that don’t even merit a middle school detention is exactly analogous to people who put catcalls and rape in the same bucket.
I’m not sure why you would elide those differences when they’re extremely important; if you’re trying to say something more complex like ‘this is the start of a slippery slope that ends with serious violations’ (which seems to be part of your thesis, from looking at other comments) then say that, and explain the lines of causality that make it so.
As it is, this reads (to me, at least) as disingenuous at best and deliberately attempting to manipulate your audience at worst.
These differences are in fact important, as you say.
I read Raemon as suggesting there should be bright-line rules. I meant to reply that IF we have bright-line rules against certain sorts of statements, advocating initiating physical violence seems like one natural line to consider, and it seems like there’s an inherent asymmetry in policing the language with which people respond to (perceived) threats, but not the (perceived) threats themselves.
There’s separately the object-level question of whether the proposed policies in your post actually have the outcome I claim they would have, and the question of whether my construal of the policies themselves is reasonable. But I think Raemon was claiming that even if for the sake of argument we grant that my point of view were correct on those two questions, it would still be objectionable to draw the comparisons I drew because they constitute a sort of rhetorical damage to the commons. That’s the (perceived) context I was responding to.
I’ve added a clarification to the comment you’re referring to. It seems like a pretty bad sign about LessWrong as a venue for conversation that basic symmetry considerations like this are so hard to get across, and not sustainable to do this amount of interpretive labor, but it’s not fair to externalize the costs of that onto you and let a comment stand that might cause people to assume that you’re directly advocating initiating strong violence. You’re obviously not.
If the explanation I added seems inadequate and you explain how, I’ll seriously consider further amending it. But I won’t assume a nonreply is an endorsement either.
I wrote a long reply to this, but it engaged with the object-level disagreement in such a way that I decided it would be better to save it until the meta-level has calmed down.
It’s also worth noting that typing the phrase ‘initiating physical violence’ in bolded and italicized text to refer to acts that don’t even merit a middle school detention is exactly analogous to people who put catcalls and rape in the same bucket.
I’m not sure why you would elide those differences when they’re extremely important; if you’re trying to say something more complex like ‘this is the start of a slippery slope that ends with serious violations’ (which seems to be part of your thesis, from looking at other comments) then say that, and explain the lines of causality that make it so.
As it is, this reads (to me, at least) as disingenuous at best and deliberately attempting to manipulate your audience at worst.
These differences are in fact important, as you say.
I read Raemon as suggesting there should be bright-line rules. I meant to reply that IF we have bright-line rules against certain sorts of statements, advocating initiating physical violence seems like one natural line to consider, and it seems like there’s an inherent asymmetry in policing the language with which people respond to (perceived) threats, but not the (perceived) threats themselves.
There’s separately the object-level question of whether the proposed policies in your post actually have the outcome I claim they would have, and the question of whether my construal of the policies themselves is reasonable. But I think Raemon was claiming that even if for the sake of argument we grant that my point of view were correct on those two questions, it would still be objectionable to draw the comparisons I drew because they constitute a sort of rhetorical damage to the commons. That’s the (perceived) context I was responding to.
(I am noting places where I am upvoting benquo’s writing.)
I’ve added a clarification to the comment you’re referring to. It seems like a pretty bad sign about LessWrong as a venue for conversation that basic symmetry considerations like this are so hard to get across, and not sustainable to do this amount of interpretive labor, but it’s not fair to externalize the costs of that onto you and let a comment stand that might cause people to assume that you’re directly advocating initiating strong violence. You’re obviously not.
If the explanation I added seems inadequate and you explain how, I’ll seriously consider further amending it. But I won’t assume a nonreply is an endorsement either.
I wrote a long reply to this, but it engaged with the object-level disagreement in such a way that I decided it would be better to save it until the meta-level has calmed down.