With my writing style, I try to support a norm of writing directly and literally. I avoid adding value signals to convince readers I share their values, and as a reader I require no such signals of writers. overcomingbias.com/2018/05/skip-v
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That’s like a transparent-png strategy. You may need to actively neutralize the context in order to not inherit it sometimes.
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The question is who you are writing for. Arguably, Wittenstein's influence would have been less devastating if he had interacted with the context of philosophy of 1920, but it would take a lot away from the Tractatus, and likely make it irrelevant today.
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Counter argument: fiction epics are valuable precisely because they are so richly context-grounded (Homeric epics, Dante in Italian politics).
Robin is arguing for a kind of veil-of-ignorance type stance. Good for legal due process. Not sure it works for open discourse.
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In a public forum that choice is not yours to make unilaterally, so you have to accept risk of provoking violent reactions from people you may not want to engage, and possibly bear some responsibility for outcomes. Especially in all-have-stakes topics.
Popularity is orthogonal.
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That’s a dangerous justification that can and has been used to dehumanize and oppress people with legitimate stakes in a conversation. Often bigger stakes than the people talking.
If you talk sex redistribution and women object angrily, engagement, not contempt, is the answer.
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I agree that this should have never been written in this way. Scott has literally been burning social capital to help. (However, the person that has been dehumanized in the discourse was Robin Hanson, even if it was in response to how he expressed himself.)
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Robin is *one* of the people who has been dehumanized. The effect of that conversation for women has also been dehumanizing, though via an unintended externality I’d say. Hence my skepticism of this norm. Sometimes better to be context aware and counterprogram from outset.


