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gwern comments on Christopher Hitchens 1949-2011 - Less Wrong
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Comments (27)
Relevant: "Christopher Hitchens and Cryonics"
A stupid waste of a fantastic mind.
Hacker News doesn't seem to be having any of it, either. I got voted to 3rd top post then hit with a barrage of downvotes after Phil Welch's comment. Asking under Crocker's Rules, could I have phrased my comments more... sensitively? The goal of a rationalist is to win, and it is useless to engage reason and data when this meets affective heuristics and turns off the audience.
I wouldn't have brought the subject up at all (in response to this particular piece of news), if I wanted to avoid offense. Cryonics is a heavily politicized issue. By mentioning it at all, you're doing the equivalent of starting a debate about libertarianism in the middle of a funeral.
Of course, avoiding the issue might kill people. Just remember that killing people quietly is generally less bothersome than yelling loudly, especially on the Internet.
I would actually analogize it to 'criticizing Steve Jobs's wacky dietary and medical choices during the national mourning'.
It's not particularly hard to start debates about libertarianism in places that are not the middle of a funeral. Let's do that.
It is hard to argue with shallow declarations of 'distastefulness' I'm afraid. And being more 'sensitive' isn't necessarily the wise approach. Phil Welch's move is an act of aggression. It's an attack at a perceived vulnerability because he thinks he can get away with being completely illogical just because of the context. The best you could do is preempt it with not more sensitivity but by expanding your reasoning such that your position is framed as the moral high ground before he gets his chance to take a shot. Don't be nice to immoral moralizers!
You could have put some disclaimers signaling that you understand Hitchens might not agree with this 100%, but it needs to be said anyway even if it offends some people. Hitch never sugar-coated anything, so I'm guessing being blunt at his funeral -- with properly signaled self awareness about the fact that you are being blunt and taking exception to funeral norms -- would actually be okay by most of his fans. The fact that you just put the link and made it sound like he would have wanted the reader to agree with this article, actually was a bit offensive.
He called you a Randroid. As wedrifid pointed out, 'polite' would not be the best term to describe the optimal manner for presenting your particular views in that context.