TorqueDrifter comments on LW Women- Minimizing the Inferential Distance - Less Wrong
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The slander/libel case seems instructive: truth is an absolute defense against the accusation of slander or libel; it's the falsehood of a slanderous statement that harms.
Shouting the times-tables is a problem because of the delivery mechanism, not the content. Shouting anything at the top of your lungs for an hour in a public space is harmful to bystanders, and as you said, "offensive" is not what is wrong here.
"I fucked your mom", if true, is only potentially offensive for something like the following reasons:
In short, I don't think I buy your claim that "Some empirical statements, orthogonal to truth or falsity, are offensive." At least, I'd like to see it supported better before I consider it. This isn't simply contrarianism; I think that the ability and right to say true things regardless of whether someone finds those truths unpleasant is extremely important, and social norms to the contrary should not be adopted or perpetuated lightly.
"I could rape you right now, and there's nothing you could do about it."
Interesting example. My intuition here is that while this is phrased as a statement, the implication is that of a threat. That does not seem to be the case for the other examples in this thread.
Question: is the main problem with "I could rape you right now" that it's offensive, or that it's threatening, i.e. that it makes the hearer feel unsafe in the presence of the speaker?
So, then, I guess I provisionally agree that a factual statement minus any sort of opinion, implication, social role, etc., including the fact that it was stated instead of nothing or instead of other statements, is probably not offensive. This is a pretty weak claim, though!