I'm puzzled by Eliezer's comments on the Nixon example. How is "Republicans are not pacifists" going to make Republicans feel unwelcome? That would require either (1) that it be seen as an insult to Republicans or (2) that it be seen as an obnoxious stereotyping of Republicans. But (1) lots of people -- the great majority, I think -- are not-pacifists and generally no one thinks any the worse of them for it; indeed my impression is that far more people think that pacifism is foolish than think that not-pacifism is evil; and (2) since (a) the whole point of the example is that generalizations like these should generally be taken as approximations only and (b) it is in fact a very good generalization that Republicans are not pacifists (note: I have no statistical evidence for this, and am willing to be refuted; but I don't expect to be), it seems unlikely that many Republicans will feel insulted by being told that Republicans are generally not pacifists.
Now, I happen not to be a Republican (or a pacifist or a Quaker) myself, so I don't entirely trust my intuitions about how members of those groups might react to the example. So:
Am I missing something? Is anyone reading this a Republican who would feel insulted or over-pigeonholed by seeing the example Eliezer cites in a textbook or lecture?
(For the avoidance of doubt: I agree with the general point Eliezer is making; it just seems to me like he could have chosen a better example.)
As soon as you make any statements with political or ideological content, the way people understand them will be determined by their informal signaling implications much more strongly than by their literal content and its formal logical implications. This is especially true if such statements are made abruptly in an unrelated context. Sometimes people really mean innocently only what they literally say and are surprised at the reactions to the unintended signaling, but more often signaling is a part of the speaker's intention (though of course its effects ...
Today's post, Politics is the Mind-Killer was originally published on 18 February 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Outside the Laboratory, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
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