I think Said things that individuals bear full responsibility their feelings of safety, and that it’s actively harmful to make these something the group space has to worry about.
Well, this is certainly not an egregious strawman by any stretch of the imagination—it’s a reasonable first approximation, really—but I would prefer to be somewhat more precise/nuanced. I would say this:
Individuals bear full responsibility for having their feelings (of safety, yes, and any other relevant propositional attitudes) match the reality as it in fact (objectively/intersubjectively verifiably) presents itself to them.[1]
This, essentially, transforms complaints of “feeling unsafe” into complaints of “being unsafe”; and that is something that we (whoever it is who constitute the “we” in any given case) can consider, and judge. If you’re actually made unsafe by some circumstance, well, maybe we want to do something about that, or prevent it. (Or maybe we don’t, of course. Likely it would depend on the details!) If you’re perfectly safe but you feel unsafe… that’s your own business; deal with it yourself![2]
I think Said might even believe that “social safety” isn’t even important for the space, i.e., it’s fine if people actually are attacked in social ways, e.g. reputationally harm, caused to be punished by the group, made to experience negative feelings due to aggression from others.
The relevant questions, again, are about truth and justice. Is it acceptable for people to be reputationally harmed? Well, how is this happening? Certainly libel is not acceptable. Revealing private information about someone (e.g., about their sexual preferences) is not acceptable. Plenty of other things that might cause reputational harm aren’t acceptable. But if you reveal that I, let us say, falsified scientific data (and if this actually is the case), great reputational harm will be done to me; and this is entirely proper. The fact of the harm itself, in other words, is not dispositive.
Similarly for punishment—punishment is proper if it is just, improper otherwise.
As far as “negative feelings” go… “aggression” is a loaded word; what do you mean by it? Suppose that we are having an in-person debate, and you physically assault me; this is “aggression” that would, no doubt, make me “experience negative feelings”; it would also, obviously, be utterly unacceptable behavior. On the other hand, if you did nothing of the sort, but instead made some cutting remark, in which you subtly impugned my intelligence and good taste—is that “aggression”? Or what if you simply said “Said, you’re completely wrong about this, and mistaken in every particular”… aggression? Or not? I might “experience negative feelings” in each of these cases! But the question of whether any of these behaviors are acceptable, or not, does not hinge primarily on whether they could conceivably be described, in some sense, as “aggression”.
In short… when it comes to deciding what is good and what is bad—as with so many other things—precision is everything.
When it comes to truth seeking, I’d rather err on the side of people getting harmed a bit and having to do a bunch of work to “steel” themselves against the “harsh” environment, then give individuals such a powerful tool (the space being responsible for their perception of being harmed) to disrupt and interfere with discourse. I know that’s not the intended result, but it seems too ripe for abuse to give feelings and needs the primacy I think is being given in the OP scenario.
On this, we entirely agree. (And I would add that it is not simply ripe for abuse; it is, in fact, abused, and rampantly, in all cases I have seen.)
[Also Said, I had a dream last night that I met you in Central Park, NY. I don’t know what you look or sound like in person, but I enjoyed meeting my dream version of you.]
Central Park is certainly a pleasant place to meet anyone! I can only hope that, should we ever meet in fact, I live up to the standards set by my dream self…
“reality as it in fact (objectively/intersubjectively verifiably) presents itself to them”: By this somewhat convoluted turn of phrase I mean simply that it’s conceivable for someone to be deceived—made to perceive the facts erroneously, through adversarial action—in which case it would, obviously, be unreasonable to say that it’s entirely the victim’s responsibility to have their feelings about reality match actual reality instead of reality as they are able to discern it; nevertheless this is not license to say “well, this is what the reality feels like to me”, because “what should you reasonably conclude is the reality, given the facts that, as we can all see, are available to you” is something that may be determined and agreed upon, and in no sense is an individual incorrigible on that question.
Which, of course, does not mean that “what’s the best technique for dealing with feeling unsafe when you’re actually safe” isn’t a topic that the group might discuss.
Thanks for the precise and nuanced write-up, and for not objecting to my crude attempt to characterize your position.
Nothing in your views described here strikes me as gravely mistaken, it seems like a sensible norm set. I suspect that many of our disagreements appear once we attempt be precise around acceptable and not acceptable behaviors and how they are handled.
I agree that “aggression” is fuzzy and that simply causing negative emotions is certainly not the criteria by which to judge the acceptability of behavior. I used those terms to indicate/gesture rather than define.
I have a draft, Three ways to upset people with your speech, which attempts to differentiate between importantly different cases. I find myself looking forward to your comments on it once I finally publish it. I don’t think I would have said that a week ago, and I think it’s largely feeling safer with you, which is in turn the result of greater familiarity (I’ve never been active in the LW comments as much as in the last few weeks). I’m more calibrated about the significance of your words now, the degree of malice behind them (possibly not that much?), and even the defensible positions underlying them. I’ve also updated that it’s possible to have a pleasant and valuable exchange.
(I do not say these things because I wish to malign you with my prior beliefs about you, but because I think they’re useful and relevant information.)
Your warm response to my mentioning dream-meeting you made me feel warm (also learning your Myers Briggs type).
(Okay, now please forgive me for using all the above as part of an “argument”; I mean it all genuinely, but it seems to be a very concrete applied way to discuss topics that have been in the air of late.)
This gets us into some tricky questions I can place in your framework. I think it will take us (+ all the others) a fair bit of conversation to answer, but I’ll mention them here now to at least raise them. (Possibly just saying this because I’m away this week and plan not to be online much.)
My updates on you (if correct) suggest that largely Said’s comments do not threaten me much and I shouldn’t feel negative feelings as a result. Much of this is just how Said talks, and he’s still interested in honest debate, not just shutting you down with hostile talk. But my question is the “reality as it presents itself to me” you mentioned. The reality might be that Said is safe, but was I, given my priors and evidence available to me before, wrong to be afraid before I gained more information about how to interpret Said?
(Maybe I was, but this is not obvious.)
Is the acceptability of behavior determined by what the recipient reasonably could have believed (as judged by . . . ?) or by the actual reality. Or there are three possibilities even: 1) what I could have reasonably believed was the significance of your actions, 2) what you could have reasonably believed was the significance of your actions, 3) what the actual significance of your actions were (if this can even be defined sensibly).
It does seem somewhat unfair if the acceptability of your behavior is impacted by what I can reasonably believe. It also seems somewhat unfair that I should experience attack because I reasonably lacked information.
How do we handle all this? I don’t definitively know. Judging what is acceptable/reasonable/fair and how all different perspectives add up . . . it’s a mess that I don’t think gets better even with more attempt at precision. I mostly want to avoid having to judge.
This is in large part what intuitively pushes me towards wanting people to be proactive in avoiding misinterpretations and miscalibrations of other’s intent—so we don’t have to judge who was at fault. I want people to give people enough info that they correctly know even when I’m harsh, I still want them to feel safe. Mostly applies to people who don’t know me well. Once the evidence has accrued and you’re calibrated on what things mean, you require little “padding” (this is my version of Combat culture essentially), but you’ve got to accrue that evidence and establish the significance of actions with others first.
--
Phew, like everything else, that was longer than expected. I should really start expected everything to be long.
Curious if this provides any more clarity on my position (even if it’s not persuasive) and curious where you disagree with this treatment.
Well, this is certainly not an egregious strawman by any stretch of the imagination—it’s a reasonable first approximation, really—but I would prefer to be somewhat more precise/nuanced. I would say this:
Individuals bear full responsibility for having their feelings (of safety, yes, and any other relevant propositional attitudes) match the reality as it in fact (objectively/intersubjectively verifiably) presents itself to them.[1]
This, essentially, transforms complaints of “feeling unsafe” into complaints of “being unsafe”; and that is something that we (whoever it is who constitute the “we” in any given case) can consider, and judge. If you’re actually made unsafe by some circumstance, well, maybe we want to do something about that, or prevent it. (Or maybe we don’t, of course. Likely it would depend on the details!) If you’re perfectly safe but you feel unsafe… that’s your own business; deal with it yourself![2]
The relevant questions, again, are about truth and justice. Is it acceptable for people to be reputationally harmed? Well, how is this happening? Certainly libel is not acceptable. Revealing private information about someone (e.g., about their sexual preferences) is not acceptable. Plenty of other things that might cause reputational harm aren’t acceptable. But if you reveal that I, let us say, falsified scientific data (and if this actually is the case), great reputational harm will be done to me; and this is entirely proper. The fact of the harm itself, in other words, is not dispositive.
Similarly for punishment—punishment is proper if it is just, improper otherwise.
As far as “negative feelings” go… “aggression” is a loaded word; what do you mean by it? Suppose that we are having an in-person debate, and you physically assault me; this is “aggression” that would, no doubt, make me “experience negative feelings”; it would also, obviously, be utterly unacceptable behavior. On the other hand, if you did nothing of the sort, but instead made some cutting remark, in which you subtly impugned my intelligence and good taste—is that “aggression”? Or what if you simply said “Said, you’re completely wrong about this, and mistaken in every particular”… aggression? Or not? I might “experience negative feelings” in each of these cases! But the question of whether any of these behaviors are acceptable, or not, does not hinge primarily on whether they could conceivably be described, in some sense, as “aggression”.
In short… when it comes to deciding what is good and what is bad—as with so many other things—precision is everything.
On this, we entirely agree. (And I would add that it is not simply ripe for abuse; it is, in fact, abused, and rampantly, in all cases I have seen.)
Central Park is certainly a pleasant place to meet anyone! I can only hope that, should we ever meet in fact, I live up to the standards set by my dream self…
“reality as it in fact (objectively/intersubjectively verifiably) presents itself to them”: By this somewhat convoluted turn of phrase I mean simply that it’s conceivable for someone to be deceived—made to perceive the facts erroneously, through adversarial action—in which case it would, obviously, be unreasonable to say that it’s entirely the victim’s responsibility to have their feelings about reality match actual reality instead of reality as they are able to discern it; nevertheless this is not license to say “well, this is what the reality feels like to me”, because “what should you reasonably conclude is the reality, given the facts that, as we can all see, are available to you” is something that may be determined and agreed upon, and in no sense is an individual incorrigible on that question.
Which, of course, does not mean that “what’s the best technique for dealing with feeling unsafe when you’re actually safe” isn’t a topic that the group might discuss.
Thanks for the precise and nuanced write-up, and for not objecting to my crude attempt to characterize your position.
Nothing in your views described here strikes me as gravely mistaken, it seems like a sensible norm set. I suspect that many of our disagreements appear once we attempt be precise around acceptable and not acceptable behaviors and how they are handled.
I agree that “aggression” is fuzzy and that simply causing negative emotions is certainly not the criteria by which to judge the acceptability of behavior. I used those terms to indicate/gesture rather than define.
I have a draft, Three ways to upset people with your speech, which attempts to differentiate between importantly different cases. I find myself looking forward to your comments on it once I finally publish it. I don’t think I would have said that a week ago, and I think it’s largely feeling safer with you, which is in turn the result of greater familiarity (I’ve never been active in the LW comments as much as in the last few weeks). I’m more calibrated about the significance of your words now, the degree of malice behind them (possibly not that much?), and even the defensible positions underlying them. I’ve also updated that it’s possible to have a pleasant and valuable exchange.
(I do not say these things because I wish to malign you with my prior beliefs about you, but because I think they’re useful and relevant information.)
Your warm response to my mentioning dream-meeting you made me feel warm (also learning your Myers Briggs type).
(Okay, now please forgive me for using all the above as part of an “argument”; I mean it all genuinely, but it seems to be a very concrete applied way to discuss topics that have been in the air of late.)
This gets us into some tricky questions I can place in your framework. I think it will take us (+ all the others) a fair bit of conversation to answer, but I’ll mention them here now to at least raise them. (Possibly just saying this because I’m away this week and plan not to be online much.)
My updates on you (if correct) suggest that largely Said’s comments do not threaten me much and I shouldn’t feel negative feelings as a result. Much of this is just how Said talks, and he’s still interested in honest debate, not just shutting you down with hostile talk. But my question is the “reality as it presents itself to me” you mentioned. The reality might be that Said is safe, but was I, given my priors and evidence available to me before, wrong to be afraid before I gained more information about how to interpret Said?
(Maybe I was, but this is not obvious.)
Is the acceptability of behavior determined by what the recipient reasonably could have believed (as judged by . . . ?) or by the actual reality. Or there are three possibilities even: 1) what I could have reasonably believed was the significance of your actions, 2) what you could have reasonably believed was the significance of your actions, 3) what the actual significance of your actions were (if this can even be defined sensibly).
It does seem somewhat unfair if the acceptability of your behavior is impacted by what I can reasonably believe. It also seems somewhat unfair that I should experience attack because I reasonably lacked information.
How do we handle all this? I don’t definitively know. Judging what is acceptable/reasonable/fair and how all different perspectives add up . . . it’s a mess that I don’t think gets better even with more attempt at precision. I mostly want to avoid having to judge.
This is in large part what intuitively pushes me towards wanting people to be proactive in avoiding misinterpretations and miscalibrations of other’s intent—so we don’t have to judge who was at fault. I want people to give people enough info that they correctly know even when I’m harsh, I still want them to feel safe. Mostly applies to people who don’t know me well. Once the evidence has accrued and you’re calibrated on what things mean, you require little “padding” (this is my version of Combat culture essentially), but you’ve got to accrue that evidence and establish the significance of actions with others first.
--
Phew, like everything else, that was longer than expected. I should really start expected everything to be long.
Curious if this provides any more clarity on my position (even if it’s not persuasive) and curious where you disagree with this treatment.