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sunflowers comments on What truths are actually taboo? - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: sunflowers 16 April 2013 11:40PM

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Comment author: sunflowers 17 April 2013 07:05:15AM 1 point [-]

You're treating "context-dependent" in a trivial way. I am not. Otherwise, I wouldn't be floating the question, since presumably we can whisper about any statement to a close confidant.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 17 April 2013 07:12:10AM 4 points [-]

I still don't understand what you mean. I would ask you to give an example of something you think is genuinely taboo, but I suppose the reason you posted this is because you can't think of any. Might I suggest the possibility that whatever definition you have in mind, it's too strict and isn't what other people mean by taboo?

Comment author: sunflowers 17 April 2013 07:15:18AM 1 point [-]

I still don't understand what you mean. I would ask you to give an example of something you think is genuinely taboo, but I suppose the reason you posted this is because you can't think of any.

Correct, in the specific sense I meant, i.e. factual, well-established truths, in pretty much any venue, etc. I'll continue in a moment.

Might I suggest the possibility that whatever definition you have in mind, it's too strict and isn't what other people mean by taboo?

Tell me a true statement that is taboo like this: "niggers, unlike most races, are subhuman and untrainable, and are intellectually similar to the chimpanzee."

Comment author: Jiro 17 April 2013 02:31:29PM 3 points [-]

I would suggest that that statement isn't taboo by your own definition either, because there are contexts (such as speaking in the year 1900 among Klan members) in which it's probably acceptable to say. Every taboo is dependent on context.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 17 April 2013 07:20:37AM 2 points [-]

Okay. I think this is too strict. (Also, note that I'm posting under my real name.)

Comment author: sunflowers 17 April 2013 07:46:25AM 0 points [-]

It doesn't have to be that statement, either. Tell me something that comes close to that, something so grave that it even approaches such a statement, something even near a thing so awful that I have trouble repeating it and feel awful for even making such a proposition exist.

Comment author: youaskedforit 17 April 2013 09:29:35AM -1 points [-]

Qrgnvyrq naq snpghnyyl npphengr qrfpevcgvbaf bs jung gnxrf cynpr qhevat gur jbefg sbezf bs gbegher, zhgvyngvba, naq qrtenqngvba. (V jvyy abg cebivqr rknzcyrf.)

Comment author: Tyrrell_McAllister 17 April 2013 06:07:38PM *  0 points [-]

I would guess that lawyers and law-enforcement personnel have generated or commissioned many court documents containing lots of that.