Desrtopa comments on The 5-Second Level - Less Wrong

111 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 07 May 2011 04:51AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (310)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Mitchell_Porter 07 May 2011 09:00:38AM 11 points [-]

On the topic of the "poisonous pleasure" of moralistic critique:

I am struck by the will to emotional neutrality which appears to exist among many "aspies". It's like a passive, private form of nonviolent resistance directed against neurotypical human nature; like someone who goes limp when being beaten up. They refuse to take part in the "emotional games", and they refuse to resist in the usual way when those games are directed against them - the usual form of defense being a counterattack - because that would make them just as bad as the aggressor normals.

For someone like that, it may be important to get in touch with their inner moralizer! Not just for the usual reason - that being able to fight back is empowering - but because it's actually a healthy part of human nature. The capacity to denounce, and to feel the sting of being denounced without exploding or imploding, is not just some irrational violent overlay on our minds, without which there would be nothing but mutual satisficing and world peace. It has a function and we neutralize it at our peril.

Comment author: Desrtopa 10 May 2011 04:59:36AM 1 point [-]

I'm not sure I'm correctly interpreting what you're referring to here. Could you give a concrete example?

Comment author: Mitchell_Porter 11 May 2011 08:29:27AM 1 point [-]

Could you give a concrete example?

The Zen thing to do would be to flame you with absurd viciousness for being excessively vague in your own request for clarification, in the hope that your response would be combative (rather than purely analytical), but still appropriate - because then you would have provided the example yourself. But that's a high-risk conversational strategy. :-)