It could be argued that such trolling can cause circumstantial damage or emotional damage, through intermediaries, with an example that takes a couple of weak steps in reasoning.
It could be argued back that this is circumstantial, and therefore not caused knowingly by the troll, and the example taken apart by all those weak points by giving them actual numbers for their probability.
Then it could be counter-argued again that the amount of possible circumstances or possible combinations of circumstances that would bring about some form of damage is such, compared to the circumstances that would not and the probabilistic facts of the trolling, that it ends up being more likely than not that at least one out of the incredibly many possible sets of circumstances will apply for any given instance of trolling.
I need a sanity check for motivated stopping here, but I don’t see any good further counter-argument that I could steel-man and would show that this isn’t a case of “trolling causes damage in a predictable manner”, unless my prior that such damage would not occur in the absence of trolling is completely wrong.
That’s like saying you shouldn’t drive on your street when Joe is driving because Joe is a bad driver. It’s true that you should update and avoid driving when Joe is out. But you find that out after Joe crashes his car into you. At which point, damage has been done to your car that updating won’t fix.
If you present a depressed person with strong arguments that they should commit suicide, this is likely to cause their beliefs to change. So changing their beliefs back to their old level so that they can continue functioning as before (as opposed to killing themselves) will require work in addition to realizing they shouldn’t talk to you anymore, possibly in the form of support and hugs from other supportive people. Similarly, if your car has been damaged in an accident, it will require additional work to run again, such as replacing deformed parts. The car won’t magically start running once Joe is off the road.
It could be argued that such trolling can cause circumstantial damage or emotional damage, through intermediaries, with an example that takes a couple of weak steps in reasoning.
It could be argued back that this is circumstantial, and therefore not caused knowingly by the troll, and the example taken apart by all those weak points by giving them actual numbers for their probability.
Then it could be counter-argued again that the amount of possible circumstances or possible combinations of circumstances that would bring about some form of damage is such, compared to the circumstances that would not and the probabilistic facts of the trolling, that it ends up being more likely than not that at least one out of the incredibly many possible sets of circumstances will apply for any given instance of trolling.
I need a sanity check for motivated stopping here, but I don’t see any good further counter-argument that I could steel-man and would show that this isn’t a case of “trolling causes damage in a predictable manner”, unless my prior that such damage would not occur in the absence of trolling is completely wrong.
It could be argued that there is a opposite process by which people label undamaging behaviour as trollig so that,eg, they don’t have to updaate.
That’s like saying you shouldn’t drive on your street when Joe is driving because Joe is a bad driver. It’s true that you should update and avoid driving when Joe is out. But you find that out after Joe crashes his car into you. At which point, damage has been done to your car that updating won’t fix.
Too much metaphor. What is this damage?
If you present a depressed person with strong arguments that they should commit suicide, this is likely to cause their beliefs to change. So changing their beliefs back to their old level so that they can continue functioning as before (as opposed to killing themselves) will require work in addition to realizing they shouldn’t talk to you anymore, possibly in the form of support and hugs from other supportive people. Similarly, if your car has been damaged in an accident, it will require additional work to run again, such as replacing deformed parts. The car won’t magically start running once Joe is off the road.
And who is doing that?
I think trolls.
Well, no-one is encouraging suicide here, so there are no trolls here.
Uhh. There are no trolls here, therefore trolls do not cause damage?
I dare say high-level trolls cause all sorts of damage, but what’s the relevance?