Qiaochu_Yuan comments on What truths are actually taboo? - Less Wrong
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What does "taboo" mean if it doesn't mean "taboo relative to a specific context"? I don't understand the criteria you're using to judge other people's answers; to the extent that I do, you seem to be using "taboo" in a nonstandard way. All taboos are context-dependent.
You're treating "context-dependent" in a trivial way. I am not. Otherwise, I wouldn't be floating the question, since presumably we can whisper about any statement to a close confidant.
I still don't understand what you mean. I would ask you to give an example of something you think is genuinely taboo, but I suppose the reason you posted this is because you can't think of any. Might I suggest the possibility that whatever definition you have in mind, it's too strict and isn't what other people mean by taboo?
Correct, in the specific sense I meant, i.e. factual, well-established truths, in pretty much any venue, etc. I'll continue in a moment.
Tell me a true statement that is taboo like this: "niggers, unlike most races, are subhuman and untrainable, and are intellectually similar to the chimpanzee."
I would suggest that that statement isn't taboo by your own definition either, because there are contexts (such as speaking in the year 1900 among Klan members) in which it's probably acceptable to say. Every taboo is dependent on context.
Okay. I think this is too strict. (Also, note that I'm posting under my real name.)
It doesn't have to be that statement, either. Tell me something that comes close to that, something so grave that it even approaches such a statement, something even near a thing so awful that I have trouble repeating it and feel awful for even making such a proposition exist.
Qrgnvyrq naq snpghnyyl npphengr qrfpevcgvbaf bs jung gnxrf cynpr qhevat gur jbefg sbezf bs gbegher, zhgvyngvba, naq qrtenqngvba. (V jvyy abg cebivqr rknzcyrf.)
I would guess that lawyers and law-enforcement personnel have generated or commissioned many court documents containing lots of that.