I strongly disagree with this and am surprised that there is so much agreement with it.
Interpreted literally,
FWIW I’ve never known a character of high integrity who I could imagine writing the phrase “your career in EA would be over with a few DMs”.
contains the phrase “your career in EA would be over with a few DMs”. I don’t think it was meant to be interpreted literally though.
In which case it becomes a matter of things like context, subtext, and non-verbal cues. I can certainly imagine, in practice, a character of high integrity writing such a phrase.
For example, maybe I know the person well enough to justify the following charitable interpretation:
That phrase could be interpreted as a subtle threat, especially in the context of us currently being in the midst of an ongoing argument. However, I know you well enough to think that it is unlikely that you intended this to be a threat.
Instead, I think you just intended to use a personal example to make the potential downsides of badmouthing very salient.
For example, maybe I know the person well enough to justify the following charitable interpretation:
That phrase could be interpreted as a subtle threat, especially in the context of us currently being in the midst of an ongoing argument. However, I know you well enough to think that it is unlikely that you intended this to be a threat.
Instead, I think you just intended to use a personal example to make the potential downsides of badmouthing very salient.
This does not at all seem like a thing I would ever say except in the context of an obvious-to-me joke (and if I misread the room enough to later learn that someone didn’t interpret me as joking, I’d be extremely mortified and apologize profusely).
FWIW, I didn’t mean it as a cheap shot. I just wanted to establish that context is, in fact, relevant (use-mention is an example of relevant context). And from there, go on to talk about why I think there are realistic contexts where a high-character person would make the statement.
I strongly disagree with this and am surprised that there is so much agreement with it.
Interpreted literally,
contains the phrase “your career in EA would be over with a few DMs”. I don’t think it was meant to be interpreted literally though.
In which case it becomes a matter of things like context, subtext, and non-verbal cues. I can certainly imagine, in practice, a character of high integrity writing such a phrase.
For example, maybe I know the person well enough to justify the following charitable interpretation:
Are you familiar with the use-mention distinction? It seems pretty relevant here.
This does not at all seem like a thing I would ever say except in the context of an obvious-to-me joke (and if I misread the room enough to later learn that someone didn’t interpret me as joking, I’d be extremely mortified and apologize profusely).
FWIW, I didn’t mean it as a cheap shot. I just wanted to establish that context is, in fact, relevant (use-mention is an example of relevant context). And from there, go on to talk about why I think there are realistic contexts where a high-character person would make the statement.