For the record, I agree with your last two paragraphs. I might agree with your first suggestion as well.… I agree that “rational” constantly runs the risk of becoming a mere tribal marker used to enforce in-group/out-group boundaries and thus detached from any actual improvement in decision-making skills, and that different people here succumb to that temptation to different degrees at different times.
I’m less confident about the idea that being concerned about the quality of people attracted to the site, or endorsing decisions on the basis of such concern, is particularly reliable evidence that the speaker is succumbing to that temptation… but I’m no longer confident you’re even suggesting that.
Oh, I was just chiming in about how Vladimir_M claims that his positions are too unacceptable to be voiced publicly (even though, presumably, he believes they are true), when given what details I know or have inferred about him it seems more likely that his estimate of the cost of signalling is overstated (and what censure or punishment apart from reproving comments by people who disagree on the internet he expects to suffer is unclear to me). I was trying to explain a broader social pattern into which I see his behavior falling, to the person who’d expressed skepticism about his concerns.
I was trying to explain a broader social pattern into which I see his [i.e. mine—V.] behavior falling, to the person who’d expressed skepticism about his concerns.
For someone who wields the word “prejudice” as derogatory, you tend to assume an awful lot about people whom you don’t know at all except for a few paragraphs of their writing about impersonal and abstract topics.
I’m not “wielding” the word prejudice; it’s not a weapon. Also, in the above case I’m very specifically referring to prejudice as a phenomenon, and it being something less acceptable to signal—not saying that anything I don’t like qualifies as prejudice. I’m using a specific noun with a pretty basic definition—not suggesting that any particular set of statements is a case example.
Gotcha—thanks for clarifying.
For the record, I agree with your last two paragraphs. I might agree with your first suggestion as well.… I agree that “rational” constantly runs the risk of becoming a mere tribal marker used to enforce in-group/out-group boundaries and thus detached from any actual improvement in decision-making skills, and that different people here succumb to that temptation to different degrees at different times.
I’m less confident about the idea that being concerned about the quality of people attracted to the site, or endorsing decisions on the basis of such concern, is particularly reliable evidence that the speaker is succumbing to that temptation… but I’m no longer confident you’re even suggesting that.
Oh, I was just chiming in about how Vladimir_M claims that his positions are too unacceptable to be voiced publicly (even though, presumably, he believes they are true), when given what details I know or have inferred about him it seems more likely that his estimate of the cost of signalling is overstated (and what censure or punishment apart from reproving comments by people who disagree on the internet he expects to suffer is unclear to me). I was trying to explain a broader social pattern into which I see his behavior falling, to the person who’d expressed skepticism about his concerns.
For someone who wields the word “prejudice” as derogatory, you tend to assume an awful lot about people whom you don’t know at all except for a few paragraphs of their writing about impersonal and abstract topics.
I’m not “wielding” the word prejudice; it’s not a weapon. Also, in the above case I’m very specifically referring to prejudice as a phenomenon, and it being something less acceptable to signal—not saying that anything I don’t like qualifies as prejudice. I’m using a specific noun with a pretty basic definition—not suggesting that any particular set of statements is a case example.
It is a weapon. It is routinely and regularly used to destroy people’s lives, work, and careers.