Fallacy of gray. Nobody is perfectly rational, but that doesn’t make all people equally rational.
It would be such a fallacy if I had claimed that one must either reach absolute perfection in this regard or admit being no better than others. In reality, however, I claimed that people who have to avoid any discussion at all that has even indirect and remote implications about sensitive topics for fear of discourse breaking down have no grounds for claiming to be somehow more “rational” than others (controlling of course for variables like intelligence and real-life accomplishment).
Also, you used the inflammatory and imprecise “boasting” characterization.
In retrospect, yes, I should have expressed myself more diplomatically. Also, I didn’t mean to imply that everyone or even a large part of the participants behave like that. However, it is not at all rare to see people on LW making remarks about “rationality” whose self-congratulatory aspect is, if not explicit, not too terribly subtle either. This, in my opinion, is bad PR already because qualifying oneself is low status as a general principle, and a combination of such statements with an admission of inability to maintain the quality of discourse about all but the most innocent topics gives the whole thing a tinge of absurdity. That, at least, is my honest impression of how many people are going to see these things, with clear implications on the PR issues.
On the other hand, if the quality of discourse outside of technical topics really cannot be maintained, then the clear solution is to formulate a strict policy for what’s considered on-topic, and enforce it rigorously. That would not only make things function much better, but it would also be excellent from a PR perspective. (Rather than giving off a bad “we can’t handle sensitive topics” impression, it would give off a high status “we don’t want to be bothered with irrelevancies” impression.)
people who have to avoid any discussion at all that has even indirect and remote implications about sensitive topics for fear of discourse breaking down have no grounds for claiming to be somehow more “rational” than others
Maybe they do, maybe they don’t, but you didn’t ask. Basically you infer a conclusion here, and claim that no proof to the contrary is therefore possible.
Vladimir_Nesov:
It would be such a fallacy if I had claimed that one must either reach absolute perfection in this regard or admit being no better than others. In reality, however, I claimed that people who have to avoid any discussion at all that has even indirect and remote implications about sensitive topics for fear of discourse breaking down have no grounds for claiming to be somehow more “rational” than others (controlling of course for variables like intelligence and real-life accomplishment).
In retrospect, yes, I should have expressed myself more diplomatically. Also, I didn’t mean to imply that everyone or even a large part of the participants behave like that. However, it is not at all rare to see people on LW making remarks about “rationality” whose self-congratulatory aspect is, if not explicit, not too terribly subtle either. This, in my opinion, is bad PR already because qualifying oneself is low status as a general principle, and a combination of such statements with an admission of inability to maintain the quality of discourse about all but the most innocent topics gives the whole thing a tinge of absurdity. That, at least, is my honest impression of how many people are going to see these things, with clear implications on the PR issues.
On the other hand, if the quality of discourse outside of technical topics really cannot be maintained, then the clear solution is to formulate a strict policy for what’s considered on-topic, and enforce it rigorously. That would not only make things function much better, but it would also be excellent from a PR perspective. (Rather than giving off a bad “we can’t handle sensitive topics” impression, it would give off a high status “we don’t want to be bothered with irrelevancies” impression.)
Maybe they do, maybe they don’t, but you didn’t ask. Basically you infer a conclusion here, and claim that no proof to the contrary is therefore possible.