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prase comments on Influence = Manipulation - Less Wrong Discussion

2 Post author: Barry_Cotter 14 June 2011 05:47PM

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Comment author: prase 15 June 2011 05:48:01PM *  2 points [-]

Economy = greed, valour = fanatism, piety = bigotry, precision = nitpickery ... the examples may not be the best ones, I am not so good at generating synonyms of this kind. But there are lots of words which denote the same thing but are perceived as distinct because of the moral judgement contained in their connotations. "Influence" is neutral, "manipulation" is disapproving. An attempt to locate the boundary between these two either assumes common (or objective) moral position, or doesn't conserve the connotational part of the meaning of the respective words.