To elaborate on my objection: you seem to be making extremely fine distinctions that have no practical difference whatsoever.
Heated rhetoric leads to violence because the more urgent and the more threatening you make something sound, the more you encourage people to take matters into their own hands. It’s not possible to claim that a small group of people may be leading to the extinction of humanity without encouraging violence, because the urgency and the size of the threat go hand in hand with using violence to stop it.
You seem to think that just because you don’t say some magic words like “murderer”, then you haven’t encouraged violence. I don’t really see any reasoning here as to why these words are much worse than the ones you think are okay to use. Just because you don’t call someone evil doesn’t mean you aren’t pushing the urgency of “we’re all going to die unless we do something” and thus leading to violence. My only guess here is that since people think it’s okay to kill murderers, calling someone a murderer encourages violence. But people also think it’s okay to kill someone who poses a huge, urgent, threat.
As in, you need to stop promoting the idea of AI ending humanity. Never mind how you present it, or whether or not your statement is true. No argument is offered on whether it is true.
You fail to model normal people. What they are saying already assumes it’s not true, because neither they nor their audience think it is, and they probably think you don’t believe it’s true either. They are not saying “you can’t tell the truth”, they are saying “you should stop exaggerating”.
The trap or plan is clear. Either you support violence, and so you are horrible and must be stopped, or you don’t, in which case you can be ignored.
Pointing out “your argument has uncomfortable consequences which you don’t accept” is legitimate. They are not saying that your position leads to violence, so you should commit violence. They are saying that your position leads to violence, so you should give up your position.
Showing that your position leads to unacceptable results is called a reductio ad absurdum and yes, it’s a real thing.
To elaborate on my objection: you seem to be making extremely fine distinctions that have no practical difference whatsoever.
Heated rhetoric leads to violence because the more urgent and the more threatening you make something sound, the more you encourage people to take matters into their own hands. It’s not possible to claim that a small group of people may be leading to the extinction of humanity without encouraging violence, because the urgency and the size of the threat go hand in hand with using violence to stop it.
You seem to think that just because you don’t say some magic words like “murderer”, then you haven’t encouraged violence. I don’t really see any reasoning here as to why these words are much worse than the ones you think are okay to use. Just because you don’t call someone evil doesn’t mean you aren’t pushing the urgency of “we’re all going to die unless we do something” and thus leading to violence. My only guess here is that since people think it’s okay to kill murderers, calling someone a murderer encourages violence. But people also think it’s okay to kill someone who poses a huge, urgent, threat.
You fail to model normal people. What they are saying already assumes it’s not true, because neither they nor their audience think it is, and they probably think you don’t believe it’s true either. They are not saying “you can’t tell the truth”, they are saying “you should stop exaggerating”.
Pointing out “your argument has uncomfortable consequences which you don’t accept” is legitimate. They are not saying that your position leads to violence, so you should commit violence. They are saying that your position leads to violence, so you should give up your position.
Showing that your position leads to unacceptable results is called a reductio ad absurdum and yes, it’s a real thing.