wedrifid comments on New censorship: against hypothetical violence against identifiable people - Less Wrong

22 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 23 December 2012 09:00PM

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

Comments (457)

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

Comment author: wedrifid 24 December 2012 03:00:54AM 47 points [-]

That's an... interesting way of putting it, where by "interesting" I mean "wrong".

If you genuinely can't see how similar considerations apply to you personally publishing rape-world stories and the reasoning you explicitly gave in the post then I suggest you have a real weakness in evaluating the consequences of your own actions on perception.

I could go off on how the idea is that there's particular modern-day people who actually exist and that you're threatening to harm, and how a future society where different things feel harmful is not that, but you know, screw it.

I approve of your Three Worlds Collide story (in fact, I love it). I also approve of your censorship proposal/plan. I also believe there is no need to self censor that story (particularly at the position you were when you published it). That said:

This kind of display of evident obliviousness and arrogant dismissal rather than engagement or---preferably---even just outright ignoring it may well do more to make Lesswrong look bad than half a dozen half baked speculative posts by CronoDAS. There are times to say "but you know, screw it" and "where by interesting I mean wrong" but those times don't include when concern is raised about your legalised-rape-and-it's-great story in the context of your own "censor hypothetical violence 'cause it sounds bad" post.