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gjm comments on Open thread, Jan. 25 - Jan. 31, 2016 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: username2 25 January 2016 09:07PM

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Comment author: polymathwannabe 01 February 2016 01:22:40AM 0 points [-]

Of course, lots of people have attacked me verbally. But they don't know me closely enough to really know how to insult me. So their worst attacks don't even need a reply: they're hopelessly misfired. I can let them yell as long as they want. The part of me they want to hurt is one they can never reach and will never see.

Even with that protection, in my experience it's emotionally exhausting to be constantly expecting attacks from every interaction. If you stop seeing an aggressive intent behind every comment, your life will be much less stressful. People are essentially good, and most of them are too busy going through their own day to bother ruining other people's.

Comment author: gjm 01 February 2016 07:26:28PM 1 point [-]

In fairness, the person (OrphanWilde) playing the part of A in that little dialogue (1) gives at least one person other than WhyAsk (namely, me) the impression of playing dark-artsy status games in his comments and (2) has described himself in so many words as a practitioner of the Dark Arts. In that context, it's not so crazy for WhyAsk to suspect something of the sort may have been going on.

Comment author: OrphanWilde 01 February 2016 08:07:19PM 0 points [-]

Perfectly fair. (Given that I get the impression polymathwannabe doesn't like me very much, I appreciate the neutrality of the choice to defend, however, so I'd prefer not to discourage them in the general case.)

Comment author: polymathwannabe 01 February 2016 09:32:11PM 0 points [-]

I'm sorry that I gave you that impression. I may dislike your political opinions, but I don't dislike you.

Comment author: OrphanWilde 01 February 2016 09:56:04PM 0 points [-]

Oh! Thank you for stating that.

It's not something to apologize over, though, in either case. I think there are perfectly valid reasons to dislike me. I think there are valid reasons to like me, as well. I tend to treat like/dislike as a preference statement, rather than a value statement. (Which isn't universal, but people generally tend to use the word "hatred" with regard to negative valuation.)