I’m confused. I thought “pump” was a word used in dutch-book type arguments, where (to continue the analogy) the guy wanted to sell swords for less than he wanted to buy them for.
That is a different ethical situation, because at the end of the day you end up with both the swords and the money.
This is how I had understood “pump” in this general context.
in this context Silas is using pump in a slightly more general notion of a metaphorical pump, in that one can pump money or other resources away from someone.
That seems suspicious to me. Granted categorizations are imprecise, someone extending a word’s meaning to a borderline case that has heretofore not been referred to by the term because that case is less problematic might be trying to sneak in the more problematic connotations.
Even when the word had already covered that meaning, using a word gives an impression and sets one up emotionally for an average use of it.
E.g., someone saying “Let me tell you about a famous war criminal of the twentieth century,” who went on to discuss former President Clinton would be doing something objectionable no matter how well they proved he was technically a war criminal. He’s not an averagely evil or criminal one (if he’s evil at all), so using the term misleads the careless and casual reader.
(This would not always be true, in the example above it might be valid in an argument criticizing laws of war or international law.)
I’m confused. I thought “pump” was a word used in dutch-book type arguments, where (to continue the analogy) the guy wanted to sell swords for less than he wanted to buy them for.
That is a different ethical situation, because at the end of the day you end up with both the swords and the money.
This is how I had understood “pump” in this general context.
in this context Silas is using pump in a slightly more general notion of a metaphorical pump, in that one can pump money or other resources away from someone.
That seems suspicious to me. Granted categorizations are imprecise, someone extending a word’s meaning to a borderline case that has heretofore not been referred to by the term because that case is less problematic might be trying to sneak in the more problematic connotations.
Even when the word had already covered that meaning, using a word gives an impression and sets one up emotionally for an average use of it.
E.g., someone saying “Let me tell you about a famous war criminal of the twentieth century,” who went on to discuss former President Clinton would be doing something objectionable no matter how well they proved he was technically a war criminal. He’s not an averagely evil or criminal one (if he’s evil at all), so using the term misleads the careless and casual reader.
(This would not always be true, in the example above it might be valid in an argument criticizing laws of war or international law.)