Which is to say—be confident of weak effects, rather than unconfident of strong effects.
This suggestion feels incredibly icky to me, and I think I know why.
Claims hedged with “some/most/many” tend to be both higher status and meaner than claims hedged with “I think” when “some/most/many” and “I think” are fully interchangeable. Not hedging claims at all is even meaner and even higher status than hedging with “some/most/many”. This is especially true with claims that are likely to be disputed, claims that are likely to trigger someone, etc.
Making sufficiently bold statements without hedging appropriately (and many similar behaviors) can result in tragedy of the commons-like scenarios in which people grab status in ways that make others feel uncomfortable. Most of the social groups I’ve been involved in allow some zero-sum status seeking, but punish these sorts of negative-sum status grabs via e.g. weak forms of ostracization.
Of course, if the number of people in a group who play negative-sum social games passes a certain point, this can de facto force more cooperative members out of the group via e.g. unpleasantness. Note that this can happen in the absence of ill will, especially if group members aren’t socially aware that most people view certain behaviors as being negative sum.
For groups that care much more about efficient communication than pleasantness, and groups made up of people who don’t view behaviors like not hedging bold statements as being hurtful, the sort of policy I’m weakly hinting at adopting above would be suboptimal, and a potential waste of everyone’s time and energy.
This suggestion feels incredibly icky to me, and I think I know why.
Claims hedged with “some/most/many” tend to be both higher status and meaner than claims hedged with “I think” when “some/most/many” and “I think” are fully interchangeable. Not hedging claims at all is even meaner and even higher status than hedging with “some/most/many”. This is especially true with claims that are likely to be disputed, claims that are likely to trigger someone, etc.
Making sufficiently bold statements without hedging appropriately (and many similar behaviors) can result in tragedy of the commons-like scenarios in which people grab status in ways that make others feel uncomfortable. Most of the social groups I’ve been involved in allow some zero-sum status seeking, but punish these sorts of negative-sum status grabs via e.g. weak forms of ostracization.
Of course, if the number of people in a group who play negative-sum social games passes a certain point, this can de facto force more cooperative members out of the group via e.g. unpleasantness. Note that this can happen in the absence of ill will, especially if group members aren’t socially aware that most people view certain behaviors as being negative sum.
For groups that care much more about efficient communication than pleasantness, and groups made up of people who don’t view behaviors like not hedging bold statements as being hurtful, the sort of policy I’m weakly hinting at adopting above would be suboptimal, and a potential waste of everyone’s time and energy.