GeniesLoki

Let me teach you a nonstandard dirty rhetorical trick: People really don't like to admit that they have done something morally bad, so it is *really* useful to argue in such a way that they can cast their behaviour as an honest mistake.

A lot of the time when trying to untangle concepts or explain issues, I ignore the fact that a lot of the behaviour in the relevant space is bad faith. This is me using that trick.

I don't do this unless I think it's plausible that there is also confused usage / honestly mistaken behaviour out there, but by framing mistakes as the main problem rather than ethics, I give people the ability to save face as they mend their ways.

I rarely expect people will mend their ways as a result of this unless they were actively mistaken, but it removes a way to derail the conversation, and gives people who were genuinely mistaken a way to change behaviour. This shifts the norms, removing plausible deniability.