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Alejandro1 comments on Duller blackmail definitions - Less Wrong Discussion

7 Post author: Stuart_Armstrong 15 July 2013 10:08AM

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Comment author: Alejandro1 17 July 2013 02:33:59AM 1 point [-]

The robbery case is certainly blackmail according to my definition. I agree it sounds strange to call it that way, but I am quite happy to call it "extortion". And I think the distinction between blackmail and extortion in ordinary language (is it that in blackmail the threat must be to reveal information? I'm not sure, not being a native speaker) is slippery and of little theoretical significance.

The other two are not blackmail because the status quo I am talking about is an actual state, vague to define but roughly composed of the reasonable expectations of A before B makes a concrete threat and changes them. It is not a counterfactual "state of nature" in which the public is not scandalized by adulterers and justice does not punish criminals.