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ChristianKl comments on A bit of word-dissolving in political discussion - Less Wrong Discussion

2 [deleted] 07 December 2014 05:05PM

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Comment author: ChristianKl 08 December 2014 02:39:08AM 2 points [-]

If someone tells me the sun's shining, and I look outside and see the sun's shining, it doesn't matter if the person told me the sun's shining because they're trying to signal something else; it doesn't matter if they're privileged; it doesn't matter if they're a hegemon; it doesn't matter if they have an invisible devil on their ear. I can see for myself that they're correct.

A person can mention that the sun is shining because they seek a small talk topic with little chance of offense.

They can also say the sun is shinning to indicate that the dislike being indoors at the moment.

If you only focus on the fact that the sun is indeed shining you might miss most of the communicated information.

Comment author: satt 11 December 2014 03:07:57AM 0 points [-]

That's true, some conversations are not actually about what they're denotatively about. I didn't think eli_sennesh was talking about such mundane small talk, though.