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djcb comments on The Price of Integrity - Less Wrong
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With all due respect - are you sure you would do so when this really happens? When your safety and maybe that of people around is in mortal danger? When torture is involved?
How are you so sure that you are braver than the people ('cowards') who really were in such a situation? It's easier to be a hero in an LW-post than at gun point.
You are emphasizing the wrong point. A person can really do implausible thing X, but when they declare that intent, the right response isn't to challenge their ability to do so, but to challenge the sanity of their motives to even consider that option.
I'm not going to discuss any fight stories or my military record. I am not an Internet Tough Guy.
I will say this, though - there are times I've stood up, and I'm proud of them; and there are times when fear has filled me, and I'm ashamed of them. One of the ways to avoid the latter is thought experiments: What do I do in situation X? They are extremely useful for optimizing future behaviour.
Also; this is an ad hominem attack. Whether or not I live up to my words is irrelevant. Whether my words make sense or not is the real question.
Well, you explicitly called other people 'cowards' . And you made the assertion: 'This one would tell them to pull the trigger.' If you make such strong statements, it's only fair to respond to that, or?
If it's either saying 'God is Great' or having your arm cut off, I wouldn't blame anyone for doing the former.
It seems your desired behavior has more to do with some warrior-ethics ('victory or death', 'Molon Labe') than rationality perse. You can waterboard any kind of statement out of most people, and it seems the rational thing would be to not take any of such forced statements seriously. One could even argue that we are playing into the hands of evildoers if we call their victims 'cowards'.
An ad hominem is attacking an argument or idea by association with a person who holds it.
Whether you live up to your words is vital; if you don't, then who cares what you say, it's just random noise.