DxE comments on Why Eat Less Meat? - LessWrong

48 Post author: peter_hurford 23 July 2013 09:30PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (513)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: SaidAchmiz 26 July 2013 12:20:43AM 3 points [-]

DxE, I have to ask, and I don't mean to be hostile: are you using emotionally-charged, question-begging language deliberately (to act as intuition pumps, perhaps)? Would you be able to rephrase your comments in more neutral, objective language?

Comment author: DxE 26 July 2013 12:47:28AM 0 points [-]

The language I use is deliberate. It accurately conveys my point of view, including normative judgments. I do not relish the idea of antagonizing anyone. However, the content of certain viewpoints is inherently antagonizing. If I were to factually state that someone were a rapist, for example, I could not phrase that in a neutral, objective way.

For what it's worth, I actually love jkaufman.. He's one of the smartest and most solid people I know. But his views on this subject are bigoted.

Comment author: SaidAchmiz 26 July 2013 03:10:13AM 6 points [-]

I see. However, I disagree that your comments accurately convey your point of view, or any point of view; there's a lot of unpacking I'd have to ask you to do on e.g. the great-grandparent before I could understand exactly what you were saying; and I'm afraid I'm not sufficiently interested to try.

If I were to factually state that someone were a rapist, for example, I could not phrase that in a neutral, objective way.

Couldn't you? I could. Observe:

Bob has, on several occasions, initiated and carried on sexual intercourse with an unwilling partner, knowing that the person in question was not willing, and understanding his actions to be opposed to the wishes of said person, as well as to the social norms of his society.

There you go. That is, if anything, too neutral; I could make it less verbose and more colloquial without much loss of neutrality; but it showcases my point, I think. If you believe you can't phrase something in language that doesn't sound like you're trying to incite a crowd, you are probably not trying hard enough.

If you like (and only if you like), I could go through your response to jkaufman and point out where and how your choice of language makes it difficult to respond to your comments in any kind of logical or civilized manner. For now, I will say only:

Expressing your normative judgments is not very useful, nor very interesting to most people. What we're looking for is for you to support those judgments with something. The mere fact that you think something is bad, really very bad, just no good... is not interesting. It's not anything to talk about.