I have the sense that it’s not possible to make public speech non-political, and in order to debate things in a way that doesn’t require thinking about how everyone who reads them might consider them, one has to simply write things where they’ll only be considered by those you know well. That’s not to say I think writing things publicly is bad; but I think tools for understanding what meaning will be taken by different people from a phrase would help people communicate the things they actually mean.
I think this is a general issue for all communication, even among close friends. Most interesting topics have political or interpersonal implications, and that can’t be avoided.
With small well-known groups, you can often ignore it on a conscious level, because it can be included and accommodated below the level of you noticing. That doesn’t mean it’s not there, just that it’s easy and comfortable.
Sadly and annoyingly, a lot of thinking is improved by the challenge of discussing and trying to communicate with people who are not close friends. This means you can either put up with the misunderstandings and focus on parts you don’t care about, or just not get the feedback and updates beyond your friend group.
Depends on what you are talking about. Try to make an “explanation of how quicksort works” political (well ok that is actually easy, but the default version seems pretty unpolitical to me).
I have the sense that it’s not possible to make public speech non-political, and in order to debate things in a way that doesn’t require thinking about how everyone who reads them might consider them, one has to simply write things where they’ll only be considered by those you know well. That’s not to say I think writing things publicly is bad; but I think tools for understanding what meaning will be taken by different people from a phrase would help people communicate the things they actually mean.
I think this is a general issue for all communication, even among close friends. Most interesting topics have political or interpersonal implications, and that can’t be avoided.
With small well-known groups, you can often ignore it on a conscious level, because it can be included and accommodated below the level of you noticing. That doesn’t mean it’s not there, just that it’s easy and comfortable.
Sadly and annoyingly, a lot of thinking is improved by the challenge of discussing and trying to communicate with people who are not close friends. This means you can either put up with the misunderstandings and focus on parts you don’t care about, or just not get the feedback and updates beyond your friend group.
Depends on what you are talking about. Try to make an “explanation of how quicksort works” political (well ok that is actually easy, but the default version seems pretty unpolitical to me).