Phoenix Less Wrong Meetup- Saturday, 5-7-11, 5pm

Danny_Hintze

We're excited to have a second Phoenix meetup. As always, absolutely anyone is welcome. This time we'd like to change the location to the Barrett Honors College Dining Hall at ASU (It's extremely nice and has excellent food). I'll be there from 5 to 7 on Saturday and have a copy of Godel, Escher, Bach on the table.

The address is 698-798 Apache Blvd E, Tempe, AZ, and here it is on a map. The parking garage on Lemon is probably ideal, Barrett is south of that.

My phone number is 602-501-9420, feel free to call or text me.

The address is 698-798 Apache Blvd E, Tempe, AZ, and here it is on a map. The parking garage on Lemon is probably ideal, Barrett is south of that.

My phone number is 602-501-9420, feel free to call or text me.

Hey, I'm not saying it'd be nice to use these terms. "Bad" is meant from the perspective of the person using the term. I guess you could even include "gay" in that category if the intent is to deride someone for being a homosexual? The problem there isn't transmuting the identity into a separate bad thing, but being a homophobe.

So there are two related things you can do with such insults that we have identified so far - one is indicating that you disapprove of a particular trait that may be shared by others, the other is using a particular trait or group as though it meant (some particular kind of) bad, which might be because of an actual bias, insensitivity, or whatever. (This is of course leaving off the more proximate effect of hurting the feelings of the person you're calling "not groovy".)

So I still think there is an important distinction you're missing - you can insult a single person without using an unrelated trait to stand in for 'badness'. D'you see what I mean?

you can insult a single person without using an unrelated trait to stand in for 'badness'. D'you see what I mean?

You can also insult a person without using the letter "e". You came up with an ad hoc rule which the original complaint happens to fit but which, I argued, does not really divide the allowed from the disallowed put-downs. You are trying to argue that the original complaint makes sense by trying to inject a neutral and fair-seeming criterion into it.

As I have pointed out, there are plenty of disallowed put-downs which do not fit you... (read more)