Duncan comments on How to offend a rationalist (who hasn't thought about it yet): a life lesson - Less Wrong

9 Post author: mszegedy 06 February 2013 07:22AM

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Comment author: Duncan 06 February 2013 02:23:59PM 13 points [-]

"Sorry if it offends you, I just don't think in general that you should apply this stuff to society. Like... no."

Let me translate: "You should do what I say because I said so." This is an attempt to overpower you and is quite common. Anyone who insists that you accept their belief without logical justification is simply demanding that you do what they say because they say so. My response, to people who can be reasoned with, is often just to point this out and point out that it is extremely offensive. If they cannot be reasoned with then you just have to play the political game humans have been playing for ages.

Comment author: CellBioGuy 06 February 2013 05:45:04PM 8 points [-]

Let me offer a different translation: "You are proposing something that is profoundly inhuman to my sensibilities and is likely to have bad outcomes."

Rukifellth below has, I think, a much more likely reason for the reaction presented.

Comment author: Duncan 06 February 2013 06:46:33PM *  0 points [-]

Given the 'Sorry if it offends you' and the 'Like... no' I think your translation is in error. When a person says either of those things they are A. saying I no longer care about keeping this discussion civil/cordial and B. I am firmly behind (insert their position here). What you have written is much more civil and makes no demands on the other party as opposed to what they said "... you should ...."

That being said, it is often better to be more diplomatic. However, letting someone walk all over you isn't good either.

Comment author: AlexMennen 07 February 2013 07:55:03PM 0 points [-]

"Like..." = "I'm about to explain myself, but need a filler word to give myself more time to formulate the sentence." "no" = "whoops, couldn't think of what to say quick enough to avoid an awkwardly long pause; I'd better tie off that sentence I just suggested I was about to start." I'm not quite sure what to make of "Sorry if it offends you", but I don't see how you can get from there to "I'm not even trying to be polite."

Comment author: AlexMennen 06 February 2013 05:44:17PM *  13 points [-]

A more charitable translation would be "I strongly disagree with you and have not yet been able to formulate a coherent explanation for my objection, so I'll start off simply stating my disagreement." Helping them state their argument would be a much more constructive response than confronting them for not giving an argument initially.

Comment author: Duncan 06 February 2013 06:57:11PM 0 points [-]

It is not as much that they haven't given an argument or stated their position. It is that they are telling you (forcefully) WHAT to do without any justification. From what I can tell of the OP's conversation this person has decided to stop discussing the matter and gone straight to telling the OP what to do. In my experience, when a conversation reaches that point, the other person needs to be made aware of what they are doing (politely if possible - assuming the discussion hasn't reached a dead end, which is often the case). It is very human and tempting to rush to the 'Are you crazy?!! You should __.' and skip all the hard thinking.

Comment author: AlexMennen 06 February 2013 11:13:05PM 1 point [-]

It sounds like the generic "you" to me. So "you shouldn't apply this stuff to society" means "people shouldn't apply this stuff to society." I don't see anything objectionable about statements like that.

Comment author: ChristianKl 17 February 2013 09:23:57PM *  0 points [-]

Their conversation was longer than one sentence. If his discussion partner wouldn't have backed up his point in any way, I doubt mszegedy would have felt enough cognitive dissonance to contemplated suicide.

"You should do what I say because I said so.", generally doesn't make people feel cognitive dissonance that's that strong.