= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
ilzolende comments on Open thread, Feb. 23 - Mar. 1, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (161)
Sorry, hope my suggestion wasn't too counterproductive.
I don't think the signal value of swearing is "how much I want to offend this person" but rather "how strong my opinion on this subject is". Swearing at someone more will probably only make them more offended (if they get offended by swearing in that context at all). However, when the person who swears every day says that Policy X is f---ing scary, people will take them less seriously when the person who swears about once/year does.
Don't worry, it wasn't.
This is surely true. On the other hand, there are other ways to convey how strong your opinion is, and if I feel once-per-year-strongly that Policy X is scary, maybe I should be conveying that by some more informative and costly means than just dropping in the word "fuck". I tend to think that swearing works better as a mild intensifier, for relatively frequent use, than as a once-per-year thing.