Ignoring everything underneath the title, this advice makes more convenient what people wanted to do anyway, changing nothing about the typical quality of the implementation; not the cruel extent nor the unjust kind of it. “Oh, not even rationalists will object? Excellent.”
It would fall harshest on those who are most small, most libertarian, and most habitually argumentative, and not on dogmatic censors, nor coercive aesthetic isolationists, nor speech duressors.
If we have two kinds of people and two kinds of effects that this advice might have:
Dogmatics who would use this as an excuse for censorship, with the world getting worse as they hear this message
Genuinely thoughtful people inclined toward self-doubt who are encouraged to listen to their gut, with the world getting better as it helped them avoid substantial damage
Then I acknowledge that the first effect probably exists, but I expect the second effect to dominate. The kinds of people who would ignore everything underneath the title and were just looking for an excuse for dogmatism would likely find some other excuse anyway, so the size of the effect seems small. While the kinds of people who are thoughtful but heavy on self-doubt seem to me much more substantially affected by public messaging giving them permission to listen to their intuition. (Source: I’m one, and I think I would have benefited from this kind of advice.)
Ignoring everything underneath the title, this advice makes more convenient what people wanted to do anyway, changing nothing about the typical quality of the implementation; not the cruel extent nor the unjust kind of it. “Oh, not even rationalists will object? Excellent.”
It would fall harshest on those who are most small, most libertarian, and most habitually argumentative, and not on dogmatic censors, nor coercive aesthetic isolationists, nor speech duressors.
If we have two kinds of people and two kinds of effects that this advice might have:
Dogmatics who would use this as an excuse for censorship, with the world getting worse as they hear this message
Genuinely thoughtful people inclined toward self-doubt who are encouraged to listen to their gut, with the world getting better as it helped them avoid substantial damage
Then I acknowledge that the first effect probably exists, but I expect the second effect to dominate. The kinds of people who would ignore everything underneath the title and were just looking for an excuse for dogmatism would likely find some other excuse anyway, so the size of the effect seems small. While the kinds of people who are thoughtful but heavy on self-doubt seem to me much more substantially affected by public messaging giving them permission to listen to their intuition. (Source: I’m one, and I think I would have benefited from this kind of advice.)