ialdabaoth comments on On Walmart, And Who Bears Responsibility For the Poor - Less Wrong

13 Post author: ChrisHallquist 27 November 2013 05:08AM

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Comment author: ialdabaoth 30 November 2013 12:24:55AM *  2 points [-]

EDIT: army1987 just explained better. Feel free to TL;DR the rest of this post and most of my previous one.

Hmm. English lacks distinction between specific and generic 'you'. :(

I was trying to describe my own thought processes when I chose to continue the "suffer the indignity of having their wives raped" line, rather than challenge it in the typical gender-crusader fashion. (Also, I suspected that jaime2000 was stating that line hyperbolically in any case - Poe's Law is tricky that way.)

While I agree with gender equality goals myself, displaying that I am appalled at someone else's disregard for gender equality has an opportunity cost that I didn't want to pay at the time, and wasn't likely to achieve the results that one normally hopes for when performing that display. Lesswrong doesn't seem to be the sort of place where shaming and rallying tactics work, nor do I want it to be. So I'll try to treat people's positions courteously as long as their positions don't seem actively disingenuous.

When I saw fubarobfusco's post, I read it as a shaming/rallying tactic for 'my side', which I felt a minor social obligation to respond to. Rather than falling into line, I decided to explain my dissent.

Comment author: [deleted] 30 November 2013 09:35:35AM 5 points [-]

English lacks distinction between specific and generic 'you'.

You can use “one” for the latter.

Comment author: [deleted] 30 November 2013 09:34:26AM 1 point [-]

Also, I suspected that jaime2000 was stating that line hyperbolically in any case

Me too, but I was too lazy to try to guesstimate whether I was right (e.g. by looking at jaime2000's contribution history) and so I didn't even mention that.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 30 November 2013 12:47:17AM 1 point [-]

Ah, I see. Thanks for the explanation.