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RichardKennaway comments on Open Thread for January 8 - 16 2014 - Less Wrong
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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.
Concern trolling is a widespread phenomenon, not specific to feminist communities. The definition given in the first two sentences of that article is the exact concept that the phrase was coined to name:
The article does then go on to broaden the concept to the point where it can be used as a club to invalidate anyone:
Well, no. The whole point of the concept is that a concern troll is lying. They are, in fact, an enemy deliberately, consciously, intentionally, posing as a friend in order to undermine discourse. Someone who is actually a friend with genuine questions that they actually want to be constructively discussed is not a concern troll, even if those who do not wish the questions to be raised at all call them that.
Do concern trolls actually exist? I've never seen one (or maybe they were subtle enough that I didn't notice).
I think there's a Poe's law type thing going on here: looking at behavior alone, it's very difficult to tell the difference between a concern troll and a tentative ally with the right ideological background. That's probably especially true for cultures like social justice that use a lot of endogenous concepts and terminology: within those movements, any concerns that don't speak the language are going to pattern-match to "enemy" on linguistic grounds and suffer from the corresponding horns effect.
With that in mind, I suspect they exist but are pretty rare.
Incidentally Poe's law is also highly misleading, specifically it's mostly a statement about the person attempting to tell the difference not about the person being parodied.
I've seen them, and unlike Nornagest, I don't think they're at all rare. They're one of the common forms that trolling takes. A certain person who was run out of here on a rail a few months ago fitted the form. (I'm not going to link, but his username in rot13 was WbfuRyqref.)
As for how you tell, well, how do you ever tell pretence from truth?
Would you mind sharing your evidence that (rot13: WbfuRyqref) was concern trolling, via PM if you'd prefer? I wasn't involved in that little spat, and looking over his comment history it doesn't seem entirely implausible, but on the other hand I've elsewhere seen people with, er, similar opinions posting in what I'm pretty sure is deadly earnest.
I have only the evidence of his own postings. This comment of mine was about him, and the pattern I describe there, running through all his postings, is a pretty clear sign to me. He appeared out of nowhere, made an unusual claim about himself that no-one in that position would have any good reason to disclose, then sat back and never engaged with anyone, instead trying to keep the pot boiling by muttering disingenuously about forbidden topics. Fortunately it didn't work and he left (or was kicked, I don't know.)
It is possible that he was also what he said he was (although I wouldn't take the "celibate" part on his word), and using the cover of trolling to indulge a desire to talk freely about these things without the danger of being believed.
Of course, none of this is definitive. But we have to make judgements of people's honesty all the time, and do the best we can. This is mine.
I'd like to agree with you, but how do I know you're not a concern troll?