You do not have to demand, as you've been doing throughout this thread, that I only use words to refer to things that you want them to mean, when I am explicitly disclaiming any intimacy with the terms as they are used in technical philosophy and making a real effort to taboo my words in order to explain what I actually mean. Read the article on Better Disagreement and try to respond to what I'm actually saying instead of trying to argue over definitions.
Hank,
If you don't use the technical jargon, it is not clear what you mean, or if you are using the same meaning every time you use a term, or whether your meaning captures what it gestures at in a meaningful, non-contradictory way.
To give a historical example, thinkers once thought they knew what infinity meant. Then different infinite sets that were "obviously" different in size were show to be the same size. But not all infinite sets were the same size. Now, we know that the former usage of infinity was confused and precise references to infinite sets need some discussion of cardinality.
In short, you can't deviate from a common jargon and also complain that people are misunderstanding you - particularly when your deviations sometimes appeal to connotations of the terms that your particular usages do not justify.
Edit: Remove comment re: editting
In short, you can't deviate from a common jargon and also complain that people are misunderstanding you
Yes I can - if 1) I use the word in it's basic common sense way, and then, as a bonus in case people are confusing the common sense usage with some other technical meaning, 2) I specifically say "I'm not intimately familiar with the technical jargon, so here is what I mean by this", and then I explain specifically what I mean.
Do you believe in an objective morality capable of being scientifically investigated (a la Sam Harris *or others*), or are you a moral nihilist/relativist? There seems to be some division on this point. I would have thought Less Wrong to be well in the former camp.
Edit: There seems to be some confusion - when I say "an objective morality capable of being scientifically investigated (a la Sam Harris *or others*)" - I do NOT mean something like a "one true, universal, metaphysical morality for all mind-designs" like the Socratic/Platonic Form of Good or any such nonsense. I just mean something in reality that's mind-independent - in the sense that it is hard-wired, e.g. by evolution, and thus independent/prior to any later knowledge or cognitive content - and thus can be investigated scientifically. It is a definite "is" from which we can make true "ought" statements relative to that "is". See drethelin's comment and my analysis of Clippy.