The point is that I’m concerned not with charity nor with clarity, but rather with sufficiency to the current medium. Each of those little “costs next to nothing” statements actually do have a cost, one that isn’t necessarily clear initially.
Not adding those statements also has a cost.
in other words, the difference between 99% and 80% of women is below the threshold of significance.
Honestly, you don’t know how many potential rationalists may find a post seemingly making unchallenged sweeping generalizations about women, and decide that these so-called rationalists are just a group of bigoted idiots that are less rational than your average person-in-the-street.
It’s okay for someone to to say that pi is “3.14” if the other person knows that you know in reality it has more digits than that, and you’re just being sufficient for your purposes. In short if there’s actual transparency, not a double illusion of such.
But if they don’t know that, if every post of yours may be perceived as an indication of complete positions (not hasty approximations thereof), it costs less to do things like say “most women” instead of “women” (or add a general disclaimer at the beginning) rather than not do it.
This is trivially true. What does adding them add to a conversation to which they are not relevant or significant?
Honestly, you don’t know how many potential rationalists may find a post seemingly making unchallenged sweeping generalizations about women, and decide that these so-called rationalists are just a group of bigoted idiots that are less rational than your average person-in-the-street.
This is uncontestably true. But the opposite is also true; you don’t know how many potential rationalists may find a post filled with provisos and details and, upon discovering a massive gulf of an inferential gap, give up on even attempting to understand.
[Re: Pi “is” 3.14] In short if there’s actual transparency, not a double illusion of such.
Certainly.
But if they don’t know that, if every post of yours may be perceived as an indication of complete positions (not hasty approximations thereof)
This is a gross misrepresentation of my statements, to the point of being nothing remotely like what I advocate. I have repeatedly advocated not the elimination of precision but the application of only the relevant degree of precision to the nature of the discourse at hand.
it costs less to do things like say “most women” instead of “women” (or add a general disclaimer at the beginning) rather than not do it.
My point is not restricted to ‴”most women” instead of “women”‴. It is a generalized principle which happens to apply here. For any given conversation there are thousands of such details we must choose to parse for relevance to a conversation. Demanding unerring accuracy beyond relevance is simply damaging to dialogue.
Not adding those statements also has a cost.
Honestly, you don’t know how many potential rationalists may find a post seemingly making unchallenged sweeping generalizations about women, and decide that these so-called rationalists are just a group of bigoted idiots that are less rational than your average person-in-the-street.
It’s okay for someone to to say that pi is “3.14” if the other person knows that you know in reality it has more digits than that, and you’re just being sufficient for your purposes. In short if there’s actual transparency, not a double illusion of such.
But if they don’t know that, if every post of yours may be perceived as an indication of complete positions (not hasty approximations thereof), it costs less to do things like say “most women” instead of “women” (or add a general disclaimer at the beginning) rather than not do it.
This is trivially true. What does adding them add to a conversation to which they are not relevant or significant?
This is uncontestably true. But the opposite is also true; you don’t know how many potential rationalists may find a post filled with provisos and details and, upon discovering a massive gulf of an inferential gap, give up on even attempting to understand.
Certainly.
This is a gross misrepresentation of my statements, to the point of being nothing remotely like what I advocate. I have repeatedly advocated not the elimination of precision but the application of only the relevant degree of precision to the nature of the discourse at hand.
My point is not restricted to ‴”most women” instead of “women”‴. It is a generalized principle which happens to apply here. For any given conversation there are thousands of such details we must choose to parse for relevance to a conversation. Demanding unerring accuracy beyond relevance is simply damaging to dialogue.