Thanks. We indeed have no intent, malicious or otherwise, to do any of the things it reads as though we’re insinuated as intending to do. I think what Ben might be referring to is not the chance of a literal, physical violence, even as exaggeration, but “violence” given a thicker definition of the word than its common, everyday usage implies. The Berkeley rationality community has embraced a variety of novel models/theories of communication style, including Nonviolent Communication (NVC). From Wikipedia [emphasis added]:
Nonviolent Communication (abbreviated NVC, also called Compassionate Communication or Collaborative Communication[1][2]) is an approach to nonviolent living developed by Marshall Rosenberg beginning in the 1960s.[3] It is based on the idea that all human beings have the capacity for compassion and only resort to violence or behavior that harms themselves and others when they do not recognize more effective strategies for meeting needs.[4] Habits of thinking and speaking that lead to the use of violence (social, psychological and physical) are learned through culture. NVC theory supposes all human behavior stems from attempts to meet universal human needs and that these needs are never in conflict. Rather, conflict arises when strategies for meeting needs clash. NVC proposes that people identify shared needs, revealed by the thoughts and feelings that surround these needs, and collaborate to develop strategies that meet them. This creates both harmony and learning for future cooperation.[5]
NVC supports change on three interconnected levels: with self, with others, and with groups and social systems. As such it is particularly present in the areas of personal development, relationships, and social change. NVC is ostensibly taught as a process of interpersonal communication designed to improve compassionate connection to others. However, due to its far-reaching impact it has also been interpreted as a spiritual practice, a set of values, a parenting technique, a method of social change, a mediation tool, an educational orientation, and a worldview.
1. acting with or characterized by uncontrolled, strong, rough force:
aviolentearthquake.
So in this sense a ‘violent’ wind could pick up, as it’s rougher than a ‘calm’ or ‘soft’ wind. Using NVC as a conflict resolution methodology is odd when most people might assume something like that when using the word ‘violent’ refers to physical violence. And, technically, it makes sense physical violence is likelier to result from the escalation of tension in verbal conflict rather than the deescalation of verbal conflict. So even in a tenuous sense a link between ‘violent’ in its everyday parlance, and how it’s use is extended beyond the normal range in NVC, can be made.
I don’t think the thick conception of violence given by NVC is the same as the connotation made by some social justice activists or others about how words or verbal abuse alone can be as bad as physical violence. Though this connotation of the word ‘violent’ may have been loaned from NVC to social justice movements, since NVC has been popular for decades.
That this appears odd wouldn’t mean much to me if NVC achieves the goals it’s applied to achieve, as that’s the story with plenty of stuff in the rationality community. But to understand how it works or what to use NVC for, someone would have to convey it to me. Perhaps Ben thought I understood NVC from the inside. I don’t. It appears hard to transfer NVC skills over the internet, which is why like other memes it maybe hasn’t spread among the rationality community as widely.
Unless a comment was edited or deleted before I got the chance to read it, nobody but you has used the word “violence” in this thread. So I don’t understand how an argument about the definition of “violence” is in any way relevant.
I was contrasting it with Ben’s use of the word ‘peaceful,’ and making some background assumptions as to what the context for using the word was (Said remarked on the odd diction). Apparently those assumptions were wrong.
Thanks. We indeed have no intent, malicious or otherwise, to do any of the things it reads as though we’re insinuated as intending to do. I think what Ben might be referring to is not the chance of a literal, physical violence, even as exaggeration, but “violence” given a thicker definition of the word than its common, everyday usage implies. The Berkeley rationality community has embraced a variety of novel models/theories of communication style, including Nonviolent Communication (NVC). From Wikipedia [emphasis added]:
And from Dictionary.com:
So in this sense a ‘violent’ wind could pick up, as it’s rougher than a ‘calm’ or ‘soft’ wind. Using NVC as a conflict resolution methodology is odd when most people might assume something like that when using the word ‘violent’ refers to physical violence. And, technically, it makes sense physical violence is likelier to result from the escalation of tension in verbal conflict rather than the deescalation of verbal conflict. So even in a tenuous sense a link between ‘violent’ in its everyday parlance, and how it’s use is extended beyond the normal range in NVC, can be made.
I don’t think the thick conception of violence given by NVC is the same as the connotation made by some social justice activists or others about how words or verbal abuse alone can be as bad as physical violence. Though this connotation of the word ‘violent’ may have been loaned from NVC to social justice movements, since NVC has been popular for decades.
That this appears odd wouldn’t mean much to me if NVC achieves the goals it’s applied to achieve, as that’s the story with plenty of stuff in the rationality community. But to understand how it works or what to use NVC for, someone would have to convey it to me. Perhaps Ben thought I understood NVC from the inside. I don’t. It appears hard to transfer NVC skills over the internet, which is why like other memes it maybe hasn’t spread among the rationality community as widely.
Unless a comment was edited or deleted before I got the chance to read it, nobody but you has used the word “violence” in this thread. So I don’t understand how an argument about the definition of “violence” is in any way relevant.
I was contrasting it with Ben’s use of the word ‘peaceful,’ and making some background assumptions as to what the context for using the word was (Said remarked on the odd diction). Apparently those assumptions were wrong.