I know there’s a strong idea around norms in the rationality community to go full courage (expressing your true beliefs) and have other people mind thmeselves and ignore the consequences (decoupling norms).
“Have other people mind themselves and ignore the consequences” comes in various degrees and flavors. In the discussions about decoupling norms I have seen (mostly in the context of Sam Harris), it appeared me that they (decoupling norms) were treated as the opposite of “being responsible for people uncharitablymisunderstanding what you are saying.” So I worry that presenting it as though courage = decoupling norms makes it harder to get your point across, out of worry that people might lump your sophisticated feedback/criticism together with some of the often not-so-sophisticated criticism directed at people like Sam Harris. No matter what one might think of Harris, to me at least he seems to come across as a lot more empathetic and circumspect and less “truth over everything else” than the rationalists whose attitude about truth-seeking’s relation to other virtues I find off-putting.
Having made this caveat, I think you’re actually right that “decoupling norms” can go too far, and that there’s a gradual spectrum from “not feeling responsible for people uncharitably misunderstanding what you are saying” to “not feeling responsible about other people’s feelings ever, unless maybe if a perfect utilitarian robot in their place would also have well-justified instrumental reasons to turn on facial expressions for being hurt or upset”. I just wanted to make clear that it’s compatible to think that decoupling norms are generally good as long as considerateness and tact also come into play. (Hopefully this would mitigate worries that the rationalist community would lose something important by trying to reward considerateness a bit more.)
Excellent comment!
“Have other people mind themselves and ignore the consequences” comes in various degrees and flavors. In the discussions about decoupling norms I have seen (mostly in the context of Sam Harris), it appeared me that they (decoupling norms) were treated as the opposite of “being responsible for people uncharitably misunderstanding what you are saying.” So I worry that presenting it as though courage = decoupling norms makes it harder to get your point across, out of worry that people might lump your sophisticated feedback/criticism together with some of the often not-so-sophisticated criticism directed at people like Sam Harris. No matter what one might think of Harris, to me at least he seems to come across as a lot more empathetic and circumspect and less “truth over everything else” than the rationalists whose attitude about truth-seeking’s relation to other virtues I find off-putting.
Having made this caveat, I think you’re actually right that “decoupling norms” can go too far, and that there’s a gradual spectrum from “not feeling responsible for people uncharitably misunderstanding what you are saying” to “not feeling responsible about other people’s feelings ever, unless maybe if a perfect utilitarian robot in their place would also have well-justified instrumental reasons to turn on facial expressions for being hurt or upset”. I just wanted to make clear that it’s compatible to think that decoupling norms are generally good as long as considerateness and tact also come into play. (Hopefully this would mitigate worries that the rationalist community would lose something important by trying to reward considerateness a bit more.)