Eugine_Nier comments on False Friends and Tone Policing - Less Wrong

45 Post author: palladias 18 June 2014 06:20PM

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Comment author: Eugine_Nier 19 June 2014 12:30:42AM 9 points [-]

It can be worth it to pause and reconsider your language even if the offensiveness of a word or idea is exactly the subject of your dispute. When I hosted a debate on "R: Fire Eich" one of the early speakers made it clear that, in his opinion, opposing gay marriage was logically equivalent to endorsing gay genocide (he invoked a slippery slope argument back to the dark days of criminal indifference to AIDS).

This is not just about the same word having different meanings. His feeling contains an implicit substantive claim about slippery slopes (not to mention a false narrative of the early history of AIDS).

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 19 June 2014 12:24:52PM 2 points [-]

He may be wrong, but that doesn't mean that you can't have a useful conversation, and to do that, you'll need to pick words.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 19 June 2014 11:37:04PM 4 points [-]

In order to have a useful conversation about the topic it will be necessary to challenge his implicit claim. If he insists on making that impossible then its not possible to have a reasonable conversation with him.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 20 June 2014 12:00:05AM 1 point [-]

For certain conversations, yes. Others, no.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 20 June 2014 04:19:34AM 6 points [-]

For certain conversations, yes. Others, no.

For conversations about the topic that don't involve you conceding all points to him, yes.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 20 June 2014 02:32:33PM 2 points [-]

I suggest that these conversations could include whether his way of interpreting that position is correct.

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