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JRMayne comments on Existential Risk and Public Relations - Less Wrong
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I love that "makes it reasonable" part. Especially in a discussion on what you shouldn't say in public.
Now we're to avoid stating any premises from which any absurd conclusions seem reasonable to infer?
This would be a reducto of the original post if the average audience member consistently applied this sort of reasoning; but of course it is motivated on XiXiDu's part, not necessarily something the average audience member would do.
Note that saying "But you must therefore argue X..." where the said person has not actually uttered X, but it would be a soldier against them if they did say X, is a sign of political argument gone wrong.
Gosh, I find this all quite cryptic.
Suppose I, as Lord Chief Prosecutor of the Heathens say:
All heathens should be jailed.
Mentally handicapped Joe is a heathen; he barely understands that there are people, much less the One True God.
One of my opponents says I want Joe jailed. I have not actually uttered that I want Joe jailed, and it would be a soldier against me if I had, because that's an unpopular position. This is a mark of a political argument gone wrong?
I'm trying to find another logical conclusion to XiXiDu's cited statements (or a raft of others in the same vein.) Is there one I don't see? Is it just that you're probably the most important entity in history, but, you know, maybe not? Is it that there's only a 5% chance that you're the most important person in human history?
I have not argued that you should not say these things, BTW. I have argued that you probably should not think them, because they are very unlikely to be true.
In this case I would ask you if you really want Joe jailed, or if when you said that "All heathens should be jailed", you were using the word "heathen" in a stronger sense of explicitly rejecting the "One True God" than the weak sense that Joe is a "heathen" for not understanding the concept.
And if you answer that you meant only that strong heathens should be jailed, I would still condemn you for that policy.