I have a number of problems with this. I suspect they explain a lot of the downvotes casebash has gathered (none of which, as it happens, is mine).
The writing style is windy and harder to read than it needs to be. I was going to attempt to help by rewriting it to be clearer, but …
Many key points are left unstated and it’s far from clear what’s meant. A few examples: Is this really just about meanings of words? I think not; often both denotation and connotation arise from whole sentences or paragraphs. Is the claim you’re arguing against “when reading anything, we should attend to denotation and ignore connotation”, or “when reading anything written by rationalists, we should attend to denotation and ignore connotation”, or even “when reading this particular thing I have written, you should attend to denotation and ignore connotation, and if the connotations bother you it’s your problem”, or what? Who are these “great deal of aspiring rationalists”, these people by whom “the person who would object [...] is seen as acting irrationally”, these “certain circles”?
Related to that last question: This feels like an attack on straw men. Again, who are these people who hold that one must ignore connotation and attend only to denotation? And, most especially, who are these people who not only hold that doing that is a good idea but who think that people who complain about connotations in non-rationalist settings “don’t understand how words work” or “can’t tell the difference between a denotation and a connotation”? I am not convinced that there are any. Well, one can always find a few people who hold almost any position, however crazy, so let me be more precise: I am not convinced that there are enough for there to be any need to argue against them. So this article has a bit of a “But I tell you the sun does rise in the east!” feel about it.
(Unclarity about who’s being addressed is a major part of why the article is hard to read.)
If you think there is a genuinely widely held opinion or attitude here on LW against which you have a good argument, let’s have examples. Show us someone saying that we should ignore connotations. Show us the context for this—what connotations of what utterance(s) are they saying we should ignore, when, and why?
I have a number of problems with this. I suspect they explain a lot of the downvotes casebash has gathered (none of which, as it happens, is mine).
The writing style is windy and harder to read than it needs to be. I was going to attempt to help by rewriting it to be clearer, but …
Many key points are left unstated and it’s far from clear what’s meant. A few examples: Is this really just about meanings of words? I think not; often both denotation and connotation arise from whole sentences or paragraphs. Is the claim you’re arguing against “when reading anything, we should attend to denotation and ignore connotation”, or “when reading anything written by rationalists, we should attend to denotation and ignore connotation”, or even “when reading this particular thing I have written, you should attend to denotation and ignore connotation, and if the connotations bother you it’s your problem”, or what? Who are these “great deal of aspiring rationalists”, these people by whom “the person who would object [...] is seen as acting irrationally”, these “certain circles”?
Related to that last question: This feels like an attack on straw men. Again, who are these people who hold that one must ignore connotation and attend only to denotation? And, most especially, who are these people who not only hold that doing that is a good idea but who think that people who complain about connotations in non-rationalist settings “don’t understand how words work” or “can’t tell the difference between a denotation and a connotation”? I am not convinced that there are any. Well, one can always find a few people who hold almost any position, however crazy, so let me be more precise: I am not convinced that there are enough for there to be any need to argue against them. So this article has a bit of a “But I tell you the sun does rise in the east!” feel about it.
(Unclarity about who’s being addressed is a major part of why the article is hard to read.)
If you think there is a genuinely widely held opinion or attitude here on LW against which you have a good argument, let’s have examples. Show us someone saying that we should ignore connotations. Show us the context for this—what connotations of what utterance(s) are they saying we should ignore, when, and why?