Calling an author a “coward” for banning you from their post
FYI, that link goes to a very weird URL, which I doubt is what you intended.
The link you had in mind, I am sure, is to this thread. And your description of that thread, in this comment and in the OP, is quite dishonest. You wrote:
Said took to his own shortform where (amongst other things) he and others called that author a coward for banning him
Calling an author a “coward” for banning you from their post
In ordinary conversation between normal people, I wouldn’t hesitate to call this a lie. Here on LessWrong, of course, we like to have long, nuanced discussions about how something can be not technically a lie, what even is “lying”, etc., so—maybe this is a “lie” and maybe not. But here’s the truth: the first use of the word “coward” in that thread was on Gordon’s part. He wrote:[1]
I didn’t have to say anything. I could have just banned you. But I’m not a coward and I’ll own my action. I think it’s the right one, even if I pay some reputational cost for it.
And I replied:
I’m not a coward
Well, I wasn’t going to say it, but now that you’ve denied it explicitly—sorry, no, I have to disagree. Banning critics from your posts is a cowardly act. I think that you know this.
To describe this in the way that you did, has the obvious connotation to any reasonable reader that I, unprompted, went and wrote something like “Gordon is a coward for banning me from his posts!”. That’s the picture that someone would come away with, after reading your characterization. And, of course, it would be completely inaccurate.
You have, again and again in this post and the comments here, relied on this sort of tendentious description and mischaracterization. This is yet another example.
I think that you know perfectly well how dishonest this sort of thing is. The fact that you have to rely on such underhanded tactics to make your case should give you pause.
P.S.: I must note that I am currently rate-limited in my ability to comment (a result of the LW mods strong-downvoting my comments in this thread, e.g. this one). How does this square with “Said, feel free to ask questions of commenters or of me here”?
That’s the picture that someone would come away with, after reading your characterization. And, of course, it would be completely inaccurate.
I’m not sure the more accurate picture is flawless behavior or anything, but I do think I definitely had an inaccurate picture in the way Said describes.
P.S.: I must note that I am currently rate-limited in my ability to comment (a result of the LW mods strong-downvoting my comments in this thread, e.g. this one). How does this square with “Said, feel free to ask questions of commenters or of me here”?
That… is an unfortunate application of the auto rate-limiting system. I’ll see whether I can disable it easily for you. I’ll figure out something in the next few hours, but it might require shipping some new code and disentangling the surrounding systems a bit. Sorry about that. Definitely not intended.
I just enabled “ignore rate limits” for this post (which I assumed we’d want for this post to avoid this issue but I think I’m the only one that remembered that feature existed)
FYI, that link goes to a very weird URL, which I doubt is what you intended.
Ooops, sorry, fixed.
To describe this in the way that you did, has the obvious connotation to any reasonable reader that I, unprompted, went and wrote something like “Gordon is a coward for banning me from his posts!”. That’s the picture that someone would come away with, after reading your characterization. And, of course, it would be completely inaccurate.
I agree that the context is helpful and importantly makes the “coward” aspect more understandable. I also omitted other context that I think makes the thing I intended to communicate with “you called him a coward” a more reasonable summary[1]. I think I am sold that it would have been better for me to give a bit more context and to summarize things a bit differently. I don’t overall agree that it was substantially misleading, but I agree I could have done better.
You’ve had to resort to banning me from your posts, not because my comments were somehow unusually “adversarial” or “unproductive” or any such thing—nothing remotely like that is true (and I invite anyone who doubts this to check out the above link)—but simply because I haven’t gotten fed up with Less Wrong and left on my own, and am still pointing out when you write things that are wrong and/or nonsensical. That’s all.
Which I also consider to follow the same unhelpful patterns described in the OP.
FYI, that link goes to a very weird URL, which I doubt is what you intended.
The link you had in mind, I am sure, is to this thread. And your description of that thread, in this comment and in the OP, is quite dishonest. You wrote:
In ordinary conversation between normal people, I wouldn’t hesitate to call this a lie. Here on LessWrong, of course, we like to have long, nuanced discussions about how something can be not technically a lie, what even is “lying”, etc., so—maybe this is a “lie” and maybe not. But here’s the truth: the first use of the word “coward” in that thread was on Gordon’s part. He wrote:[1]
And I replied:
To describe this in the way that you did, has the obvious connotation to any reasonable reader that I, unprompted, went and wrote something like “Gordon is a coward for banning me from his posts!”. That’s the picture that someone would come away with, after reading your characterization. And, of course, it would be completely inaccurate.
You have, again and again in this post and the comments here, relied on this sort of tendentious description and mischaracterization. This is yet another example.
I think that you know perfectly well how dishonest this sort of thing is. The fact that you have to rely on such underhanded tactics to make your case should give you pause.
P.S.: I must note that I am currently rate-limited in my ability to comment (a result of the LW mods strong-downvoting my comments in this thread, e.g. this one). How does this square with “Said, feel free to ask questions of commenters or of me here”?
FWIW, I do not think that Gordon’s part in that particular exchange was problematic or blameworthy in any way.
I’m not sure the more accurate picture is flawless behavior or anything, but I do think I definitely had an inaccurate picture in the way Said describes.
That… is an unfortunate application of the auto rate-limiting system. I’ll see whether I can disable it easily for you. I’ll figure out something in the next few hours, but it might require shipping some new code and disentangling the surrounding systems a bit. Sorry about that. Definitely not intended.
I just enabled “ignore rate limits” for this post (which I assumed we’d want for this post to avoid this issue but I think I’m the only one that remembered that feature existed)
Yep, I did indeed not remember that feature. Thank you!
Ooops, sorry, fixed.
I agree that the context is helpful and importantly makes the “coward” aspect more understandable. I also omitted other context that I think makes the thing I intended to communicate with “you called him a coward” a more reasonable summary[1]. I think I am sold that it would have been better for me to give a bit more context and to summarize things a bit differently. I don’t overall agree that it was substantially misleading, but I agree I could have done better.
For example this paragraph:
Which I also consider to follow the same unhelpful patterns described in the OP.