I agree that your perspective on communication should not be dismissed, and that your successful navigation of social situations at Lightcone and elsewhere are evidence for this. Achmiz is definitely obviously wrong about this. Shame on him!
But that’s not the interesting part of the grandparent. The interesting part is where Achmiz accuses you of bad faith (pretending to entertain one set of feelings while acting as if influenced by another) for criticizing his comments (above and elsewhere) for being allegedly passive-aggressive. I find it surprising that you would reply to the grandparent but not address the bad faith accusation (as contrasted to just not replying because you’re busy).
Maybe you think you shouldn’t be subjected to such accusations and don’t want to dignify them with a response. But I’m really interested in what your response would be, particularly because, separately from the bad faith accusation, the object-level complaint seems cogent: if passive-aggressive comments are bad, then saying the same thing in an overtly aggressive manner must be better, right? (If not, then the passive-aggressiveness wasn’t the problem, and presumably previous criticisms saying that were in error.)
For myself, when I get accused of bad faith, I usually do think it’s worth responding, because given human nature, I don’t think it’s crazy for someone to suspect that I might have some hidden motive for my speech that hadn’t already been made clear, and I’m eager to allay such concerns by trying to dump more context for why I said what I said. I don’t think I’m entitled to an assumption of good faith from my interlocutor; I think I can earn it. I think you can earn it, too.
I am busy, so not responding to all parts of these comments, especially not those with longer inferential distance, and prolly won’t keep replying here for at least a few days. But to be clear I said that Said was attempting to call people fools[1] with plausible deniability, and that he should do so without the subterfuge, then he denied that he thought people were fools, so there’s not a natural next step here where I praise him for saying it directly. I’m not sure I believe him but this does not seem like the margin to prosecute that criticism.
As an aside, I have a long draft blogpost from a year ago explaining why plausible-deniable aggression and plausible-deniable rule-breaking is really bad, which I hope to finish and publish one day. This isn’t some new position I have found in the course of this political conflict, it is something I have believed for a long time (and have been slightly surprised that you find it so improbable that I would hold this position, I would’ve thought it relatively clear why it is at least compelling once the hypothesis was raised).
“Calling them fools” here is a stand-in for “is intentionally attempting to lower their status, and not incidentally doing so as a side effect of criticizing their writing”. The specific word “fool” is not the load-bearing part.
I have a long draft blogpost from a year ago explaining why plausible-deniable aggression [...] I would’ve thought it relatively clear why it is at least compelling once the hypothesis was raised
I look forward to the post. (I’d love to read the draft, if you’re comfortable sharing.)
The reason I have the opposite intuition so strongly is because I think regulating social status emotions is a distraction from the intellectually substantive work we’re here to do. Norms that encourage people to overtly do more of that seem super toxic, and norms that encourage inquisitorial scrutiny of subjective minutiae of subtext to make certain it’s not happening covertly seem super toxic in a different way. I’d rather just let people’s emotional regulation happen in the background without having to talk about it. If that means some people get away with slipping in social “attacks” through the subtext of their writing without getting punished except by subtextual counterattacks from their interlocutors, that seems like a pretty normal part of talking naturally as a human, and I’d rather just let it happen than try to heavy-handedly control it.
“Calling them fools” here is a stand-in for “is intentionally attempting to lower their status, and not incidentally doing so as a side effect of criticizing their writing”. The specific word “fool” is not the load-bearing part. [...] then he denied that he thought people were fools, so there’s not a natural next step here where I praise him for saying it directly
I agree that your perspective on communication should not be dismissed, and that your successful navigation of social situations at Lightcone and elsewhere are evidence for this. Achmiz is definitely obviously wrong about this. Shame on him!
It’s not Ben’s perspective on “communication”, in general, that should be dismissed, but his perspective on the specific thing I quoted. I stand by that view.
I agree that your perspective on communication should not be dismissed, and that your successful navigation of social situations at Lightcone and elsewhere are evidence for this. Achmiz is definitely obviously wrong about this. Shame on him!
But that’s not the interesting part of the grandparent. The interesting part is where Achmiz accuses you of bad faith (pretending to entertain one set of feelings while acting as if influenced by another) for criticizing his comments (above and elsewhere) for being allegedly passive-aggressive. I find it surprising that you would reply to the grandparent but not address the bad faith accusation (as contrasted to just not replying because you’re busy).
Maybe you think you shouldn’t be subjected to such accusations and don’t want to dignify them with a response. But I’m really interested in what your response would be, particularly because, separately from the bad faith accusation, the object-level complaint seems cogent: if passive-aggressive comments are bad, then saying the same thing in an overtly aggressive manner must be better, right? (If not, then the passive-aggressiveness wasn’t the problem, and presumably previous criticisms saying that were in error.)
For myself, when I get accused of bad faith, I usually do think it’s worth responding, because given human nature, I don’t think it’s crazy for someone to suspect that I might have some hidden motive for my speech that hadn’t already been made clear, and I’m eager to allay such concerns by trying to dump more context for why I said what I said. I don’t think I’m entitled to an assumption of good faith from my interlocutor; I think I can earn it. I think you can earn it, too.
I am busy, so not responding to all parts of these comments, especially not those with longer inferential distance, and prolly won’t keep replying here for at least a few days. But to be clear I said that Said was attempting to call people fools[1] with plausible deniability, and that he should do so without the subterfuge, then he denied that he thought people were fools, so there’s not a natural next step here where I praise him for saying it directly. I’m not sure I believe him but this does not seem like the margin to prosecute that criticism.
As an aside, I have a long draft blogpost from a year ago explaining why plausible-deniable aggression and plausible-deniable rule-breaking is really bad, which I hope to finish and publish one day. This isn’t some new position I have found in the course of this political conflict, it is something I have believed for a long time (and have been slightly surprised that you find it so improbable that I would hold this position, I would’ve thought it relatively clear why it is at least compelling once the hypothesis was raised).
“Calling them fools” here is a stand-in for “is intentionally attempting to lower their status, and not incidentally doing so as a side effect of criticizing their writing”. The specific word “fool” is not the load-bearing part.
Hope whatever tasks you’re busy with go well!
I look forward to the post. (I’d love to read the draft, if you’re comfortable sharing.)
The reason I have the opposite intuition so strongly is because I think regulating social status emotions is a distraction from the intellectually substantive work we’re here to do. Norms that encourage people to overtly do more of that seem super toxic, and norms that encourage inquisitorial scrutiny of subjective minutiae of subtext to make certain it’s not happening covertly seem super toxic in a different way. I’d rather just let people’s emotional regulation happen in the background without having to talk about it. If that means some people get away with slipping in social “attacks” through the subtext of their writing without getting punished except by subtextual counterattacks from their interlocutors, that seems like a pretty normal part of talking naturally as a human, and I’d rather just let it happen than try to heavy-handedly control it.
The world “fool” may not be load-bearing in your comment, but I’m pretty sure it is load-bearing in Achmiz’s denial (“But you’re not a fool [...] that’s what makes this all so frustrating”). He’s trying to lower your status by calling you dishonest, not stupid.
It’s not Ben’s perspective on “communication”, in general, that should be dismissed, but his perspective on the specific thing I quoted. I stand by that view.