I disagree that the word “infohazard” makes it easier to use arguments like the ones in your final example. If we had a word that was universally acknowledged to mean “information whose dissemination causes communal harm”, they could make precisely the same argument using that word, and I don’t see how the argument would be weakened.
And...I guess I’m confused about your strategy of spreading your proposed meme to serious people. If the goal is to provide the serious people a basis upon which to object, this strikes me as a terrible basis; “your word choice implies you are probably corrupt” is an unpersuasive counter-argument. If the goal is to make the serious people notice at all that the argument is objectionable, then that seems like a fragile and convoluted way of doing that—making people notice that an argument might be flawed, based on easily-changeable word choice, rather than an actual logical flaw. Maybe I’m still not understanding the proposed mechanism of action?
I disagree that the word “infohazard” makes it easier to use arguments like the ones in your final example. If we had a word that was universally acknowledged to mean “information whose dissemination causes communal harm”, they could make precisely the same argument using that word, and I don’t see how the argument would be weakened.
And...I guess I’m confused about your strategy of spreading your proposed meme to serious people. If the goal is to provide the serious people a basis upon which to object, this strikes me as a terrible basis; “your word choice implies you are probably corrupt” is an unpersuasive counter-argument. If the goal is to make the serious people notice at all that the argument is objectionable, then that seems like a fragile and convoluted way of doing that—making people notice that an argument might be flawed, based on easily-changeable word choice, rather than an actual logical flaw. Maybe I’m still not understanding the proposed mechanism of action?