pragmatist comments on Open Thread for January 8 - 16 2014 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: tut 08 January 2014 12:14PM

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Comment author: gothgirl420666 14 January 2014 07:14:11AM *  8 points [-]

Two unrelated things (should I make these in separate posts or...?):

1.) Given recent discussion on social justice advocates and their... I don't know the best way to describe this, sometimes poor epistemological habits? I thought I would post this

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Concern_troll

Is this it just me, or is this, like, literally the worst concept ever? It literally just means "someone slightly to the right of me" or "someone does anything that could be considering cheering for the other side", backed with a dubious claim that these people are usually acting in bad faith. Is that even a thing people actually do, go on websites with people they disagree with and "troll" by claiming that they mostly agree except on certain issues? Outside of this context I have never seen this or had any reason to consider the possibility. Isn't it more likely, that you know... people mostly agree with you except on certain issues?

"Concern trolling is frequently banned in feminist communities."

"Concern trolling is frequently banned in feminist communities."

"Concern trolling is frequently banned in feminist communities."

I just don't get it. How does a movement with motives so noble become this horrible? I mean, I kind of do get it, but still... fuck.

2.) How can I train myself to speak more eloquently? Like most people my generation, I say "like" every ten words or so (although I've gotten better at avoiding this), say um and other filler sounds a lot, and often say "you know", "you see what I mean", etc. I also tend to repeat phrases for "filler" - I'll say things like "Yeah, I've been, I've been, I've been thinking about this a lot recently." (This looks really weird written out, trust me, it's not that weird in real life.) I want to stop doing this because doing so will let me sound more authoritative, and also I'm kind of disgusted by this pattern of speech even though everyone does it.

Note that I don't want to be one of those people who fetishizes the past and goes around forcing old-timey turns of phrase like "Great Scott!" into conversation and wears (yes) a fedora. I just want to be better at communicating concrete ideas in complete sentences in my daily life.

Comment author: pragmatist 14 January 2014 12:33:57PM *  4 points [-]

The site you linked gives a method for detecting concern trollery, so the concept is at least somewhat operationalized:

Concern trolls can be identified primarily because they will retreat from, rather than engage with or be convinced by, answers to the questions they pose. They may repeatedly ask a certain question in feminist discussions without ever absorbing or replying to answers from previous discussions. They will often back into typical anti-feminist arguments, such as expressing concern that an argument is too "extreme" or a feminist too "strident" or even "hysterical". Another common tactic is insisting that some subjects are more important than others, for example, that media depictions of women shouldn't be criticised while violence against women continues.

This seems quite distinct from "someone slightly to the right of me". If this description is correct, then someone who goes into a feminist space and argues forcefully against some tenet of feminism, replying substantively to the feminists' objections (rather than criticizing their tone), would not qualify as a concern troll.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 14 January 2014 12:47:56PM 4 points [-]

Pretty sure that LW would also look badly upon people who showed up here and kept repeating the same questions over and over, without ever acknowledging the previous times when people had replied to them.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 14 January 2014 06:19:58PM 2 points [-]

Yup. Even more so if they backed into typical anti-rational arguments, such as expressing concern that an argument is too "extreme" or a rationalist too "cold" or even "unfeeling."

Comment author: Lumifer 14 January 2014 05:35:52PM 3 points [-]

If this description is correct, then someone who goes into a feminist space and argues forcefully against some tenet of feminism, replying substantively to the feminists' objections (rather than criticizing their tone), would not qualify as a concern troll.

Yes, such person would be labeled an outright "enemy" and kicked out even faster than a troll.

Comment author: pragmatist 14 January 2014 06:00:52PM *  0 points [-]

Yes, such person would be labeled an outright "enemy" and kicked out even faster than a troll.

On some feminist websites, yes. On others, no.

(I can provide examples belonging to the latter category, if you're interested.)