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Lumifer comments on Open thread, December 7-13, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: polymathwannabe 07 December 2015 02:47PM

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Comment author: Lumifer 10 December 2015 05:37:10PM 1 point [-]

this is actually best considered a disagreement about values rather than about definitions

Well, yes, because in the political context "framework" very often means "value framework". However both definitions and frameworks matter -- it is still the case that the argument will get nowhere until people agree on the meaning of the words they are using.

Comment author: gjm 10 December 2015 06:20:45PM 0 points [-]

It feels as if you may be trying to correct a mistake I'm not making. I agree that definitions matter. As I said two comments upthread:

for the avoidance of doubt, I am not taking "X is a disagreement about definitions" to imply "X is trivial" or anything of the kind.

Comment author: Lumifer 10 December 2015 06:56:40PM 1 point [-]

It feels as if you may be trying to correct a mistake I'm not making

Nope, you just have all your defensive shields up and at full power :-) I am agreeing with you here.

Comment author: gjm 10 December 2015 09:13:22PM 0 points [-]

Full power is more dramatic than that :-).

My experience is that if someone begins "Well, yes" rather than, say, just "Yes", their intention is generally something less positive than simply agreeing with you. ("Well, yes. What kind of idiot would need that to be said explicitly?" "Well, yes, but you're forgetting about X, Y, and Z." "Well, yes, I suppose so, but I don't think that's actually quite the right question.")

Comment author: Lumifer 10 December 2015 10:30:35PM 1 point [-]

I'll work on augmenting my expressions of enthusiasm :-)