I do not think this post serves some greater goal (if it does, like many others in this comment section, I am confused)
(I’ll try to explain as best I understand, but some of it may not be exactly right)
The goal of this post is to tell the story of Zack’s project (which also serves the project). The goal of Zack’s project is best described by the title of his previous post—he’s creating a Hill of Validity in Defense of Meaning.
Rationalists strive to be consistent, take ideas seriously, and propagate our beliefs, which means a fundamental belief about the meaning of words will affect everything we think about, and if it’s wrong, then it will eventually make us be wrong about many things.
Zack saw Scott and Eliezer, the two highest status people in this group/community, plus many others, make such a mistake. With Eliezer it was “you’re not standing in defense of truth if you insist on a word, brought explicitly into question, being used with some particular meaning.”. With Scott it was “I ought to accept an unexpected [X] or two deep inside the conceptual boundaries of what would normally be considered [Y] if it’ll save someone’s life.”.
This was relevant to questions about trans, which Zack cares a lot about, so he made a bunch of posts arguing against these propositions. The reason it didn’t remain a mere philosophy of language debate, is that it bumped into the politics of the trans debate. Seeing the political influence made Zack lose faith with the rationalist community, and warranted a post about people instead of just about ideas.
(I’ll try to explain as best I understand, but some of it may not be exactly right)
The goal of this post is to tell the story of Zack’s project (which also serves the project). The goal of Zack’s project is best described by the title of his previous post—he’s creating a Hill of Validity in Defense of Meaning.
Rationalists strive to be consistent, take ideas seriously, and propagate our beliefs, which means a fundamental belief about the meaning of words will affect everything we think about, and if it’s wrong, then it will eventually make us be wrong about many things.
Zack saw Scott and Eliezer, the two highest status people in this group/community, plus many others, make such a mistake. With Eliezer it was “you’re not standing in defense of truth if you insist on a word, brought explicitly into question, being used with some particular meaning.”. With Scott it was “I ought to accept an unexpected [X] or two deep inside the conceptual boundaries of what would normally be considered [Y] if it’ll save someone’s life.”.
This was relevant to questions about trans, which Zack cares a lot about, so he made a bunch of posts arguing against these propositions. The reason it didn’t remain a mere philosophy of language debate, is that it bumped into the politics of the trans debate. Seeing the political influence made Zack lose faith with the rationalist community, and warranted a post about people instead of just about ideas.
Thank you so much for this explanation. Through this lens, this post makes a lot more sense; a meaningful aesthetic death then.
I don’t know what you mean by aesthetic death, but I’m glad to help :)