Strongly downvoted for totally unnecessary politicization. Grandparent refers to concepts from religion, philosophy, and roleplaying games. If you perceive some obscure political-faction dog-whistling in perfectly ordinary comments, that is hardly a reason for other commenters to contort themselves to avoid setting off your politics detector.
(I mean, consider generalizing this principle. Is anything that happens to be a shibboleth, no matter how contrived, of some faction, no matter how irrelevant, now off-limits? This is tantamount to surrendering control of what language, and even what concepts, we use, to every Tom, Dick, and Harry whose only accomplishment is posting clickbait political screeds on the Internet.)
I think you are misunderstanding me, and I’d like to clarify some things.
I did not read the great-grandparent as a dog whistle. I did not and do not think that paperoli’s use of the term NPC indicates that they are alt-right. I think that it will indicate to other people that they are alt-right.
My politics-detector is not being used to directly indicate “do I like this?” to me. Rather, I am using it as a proxy for “will people in general dislike this?”, combined with the knowledge that certain political standpoints are very costly to seem to hold.
I only brought up the political aspect because I saw the alt-right as being relevant to LW in that we should be trying, with some nonzero amount of effort, to avoid being associated strongly with them. As a result, I considered “avoid comments like this” to be a net positive action. I am now less certain that it’s worth the cost, but I think it was worth stating that the alternative (ignoring terminological overlap) does have a cost.
Edit: and the Visceral Repulsion and the Terminological Overlap referred to different parts of the great-grandparent—“some people don’t have souls” and “NPC” respectively.
This isn’t politicization. It’s already politicized. I’m responding to the existing politicization of the word “NPC”.
I will note that I made two distinct points in the grandparent, and failed to distinguish them enough. The content alone caused my visceral repulsion, while the similarity to the alt-right caused my instrumental desire to avoid seeming more like the alt-right. This is motivated by the current association between LW and the alt-right, which I worry could become as significant in shaping outsiders’ views as the Phyg term did. Perhaps this is unlikely, but I’d rather not risk it for the sake of a joke.
In particular, it’s not my politics detector I’m worried about. It’s that this could contribute to LW setting off outsiders’ politics detectors.
And we don’t have to worry about expunging every shibboleth because we only need to do this for relatively well-known shibboleths of movements that we are considered to be associated with but which we would rather not be. It’s not that steep of a slippery slope.
If we’re talking about politics, my standpoint is pragmatic, not moral. I don’t think it’s fair that we should avoid terms found in hated screeds. I think it’s instrumentally optimal to do so.
Are the downvotes for the weasel reasoning around “politicization”, or for incorrectly asserting that LW is at risk of being tarred with “alt-right”, or for overestimating the harmfulness is being tarred with “alt-right”, or something I haven’t thought of? I am trying to see where the disagreement is, but I only see mutual misunderstanding.
In a nutshell, where’s the disagreement? What specific things do you think I am incorrect about? I would like to engage with your beliefs but I don’t know where they differ from mine.
I think panicky preemptive denials of being alt-right are much more likely to associate us with them than the odd comment using the term “NPC,” and furthermore, I think truthseeking is already more than impossible enough without constantly taking your eyes off the ball to worry about what various political factions will think. If you’re that worried about people thinking you’re alt-right, I’d suggest commenting under a single-use pseudonym.
You’ve still misunderstood. I’m worried about LW being associated with the alt-right because of the terminological overlap. I’m not concerned about being personally tarred with that.
I agree that this might be something that is counterproductive and itself harmful to discuss, though. And since it seems that people are aware and thinking about this, I don’t have much of a reason to ring the alarm bell anymore. I won’t continue this or bring it up elsewhere in public comments.
I have a bunch of thoughts, but don’t currently have the time to write them down. Just letting you know that I am planning to write a comment about this sometime in the next few days (and feel free to ping me if I don’t).
Strongly downvoted for totally unnecessary politicization. Grandparent refers to concepts from religion, philosophy, and roleplaying games. If you perceive some obscure political-faction dog-whistling in perfectly ordinary comments, that is hardly a reason for other commenters to contort themselves to avoid setting off your politics detector.
(I mean, consider generalizing this principle. Is anything that happens to be a shibboleth, no matter how contrived, of some faction, no matter how irrelevant, now off-limits? This is tantamount to surrendering control of what language, and even what concepts, we use, to every Tom, Dick, and Harry whose only accomplishment is posting clickbait political screeds on the Internet.)
I think you are misunderstanding me, and I’d like to clarify some things.
I did not read the great-grandparent as a dog whistle. I did not and do not think that paperoli’s use of the term NPC indicates that they are alt-right. I think that it will indicate to other people that they are alt-right.
My politics-detector is not being used to directly indicate “do I like this?” to me. Rather, I am using it as a proxy for “will people in general dislike this?”, combined with the knowledge that certain political standpoints are very costly to seem to hold.
I only brought up the political aspect because I saw the alt-right as being relevant to LW in that we should be trying, with some nonzero amount of effort, to avoid being associated strongly with them. As a result, I considered “avoid comments like this” to be a net positive action. I am now less certain that it’s worth the cost, but I think it was worth stating that the alternative (ignoring terminological overlap) does have a cost.
Edit: and the Visceral Repulsion and the Terminological Overlap referred to different parts of the great-grandparent—“some people don’t have souls” and “NPC” respectively.
This isn’t politicization. It’s already politicized. I’m responding to the existing politicization of the word “NPC”.
I will note that I made two distinct points in the grandparent, and failed to distinguish them enough. The content alone caused my visceral repulsion, while the similarity to the alt-right caused my instrumental desire to avoid seeming more like the alt-right. This is motivated by the current association between LW and the alt-right, which I worry could become as significant in shaping outsiders’ views as the Phyg term did. Perhaps this is unlikely, but I’d rather not risk it for the sake of a joke.
In particular, it’s not my politics detector I’m worried about. It’s that this could contribute to LW setting off outsiders’ politics detectors.
And we don’t have to worry about expunging every shibboleth because we only need to do this for relatively well-known shibboleths of movements that we are considered to be associated with but which we would rather not be. It’s not that steep of a slippery slope.
If we’re talking about politics, my standpoint is pragmatic, not moral. I don’t think it’s fair that we should avoid terms found in hated screeds. I think it’s instrumentally optimal to do so.
Are the downvotes for the weasel reasoning around “politicization”, or for incorrectly asserting that LW is at risk of being tarred with “alt-right”, or for overestimating the harmfulness is being tarred with “alt-right”, or something I haven’t thought of? I am trying to see where the disagreement is, but I only see mutual misunderstanding.
In a nutshell, where’s the disagreement? What specific things do you think I am incorrect about? I would like to engage with your beliefs but I don’t know where they differ from mine.
I think panicky preemptive denials of being alt-right are much more likely to associate us with them than the odd comment using the term “NPC,” and furthermore, I think truthseeking is already more than impossible enough without constantly taking your eyes off the ball to worry about what various political factions will think. If you’re that worried about people thinking you’re alt-right, I’d suggest commenting under a single-use pseudonym.
You’ve still misunderstood. I’m worried about LW being associated with the alt-right because of the terminological overlap. I’m not concerned about being personally tarred with that.
I agree that this might be something that is counterproductive and itself harmful to discuss, though. And since it seems that people are aware and thinking about this, I don’t have much of a reason to ring the alarm bell anymore. I won’t continue this or bring it up elsewhere in public comments.
I have a bunch of thoughts, but don’t currently have the time to write them down. Just letting you know that I am planning to write a comment about this sometime in the next few days (and feel free to ping me if I don’t).