Nornagest comments on Rationality Lessons Learned from Irrational Adventures in Romance - Less Wrong

54 Post author: lukeprog 04 October 2011 02:45AM

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Comment author: Nornagest 08 October 2011 08:03:27PM 2 points [-]

I would like to taboo the term "politically incorrect" in this comment, but I can't find a short enough substitute with the same expressive power. I would like to make it more group-dependent, not outside-world-dependent. It is supposed to mean: something that a decent member of this group would hesitate to say, because the morality keepers of this group will obviously disagree.

"Taboo" itself actually sounds about right, although it carries connotations of low value that may not be what you're going for.

Comment author: MarkusRamikin 08 October 2011 08:41:27PM *  0 points [-]

I misread what you meant. Sorrry for adding noise.

Comment author: Nornagest 08 October 2011 08:54:35PM *  1 point [-]

Yeah, I'm familiar with Rationalist Taboo, and I was looking for a substitute for "politically incorrect" fitting the description provided. "Taboo", in its sense of "culturally forbidden" rather than its sense of "party game about avoiding words", is what I came up with. Sorry if that lacked clarity.

There are several reasons to play Rationalist Taboo, though; I'd assumed that the grandparent wanted to drop the phrase mainly because of its political loading (which seems to be causing some problems here), not because of any implicit assumptions or ambiguity of definition that needs to get aired out. In which case brevity would be no sin.