You don't use some words only if you think the other guy would classify that as an insult (unless you want to insult him). If you dont know someone classifies something as an insult, you might use it on accident.

There is a set of rules that I use to describe an insult (which I have gotten from my culture). You have one, probably everybody has some set of rules. Some general set of rules. If my set of rules does not classify something as an insult, I will think it is safe to say that.

If it happens that I say something, which you consider an insult, and I don't, unless I understand what is it about, I will need to remember "never tell to Jiro that you love him" (I simplify for the sake of shortness, but there are other parameters inside that statement). I assume there is an underlying explanation behind your rule. This is probably not the only thing you would consider an insult and i wouldn't. Maybe you will consider an insult "I hate you", "I like your dog", "You love me", or whatever, but I cannot deduce that based on the "never tell Jiro that you love him".

Help me. I literary see chaos in your statements. I cannot deduce anything better than "Jiro (and maybe culture he is coming from) is quite different from the people (cultures) I faced already". I don't know if you can imagine that state of knowledge about something. It's mostly empty with only one example.

You can't add a disclaimer "Don't interpret my words as aggressive"

Well, you can often interpret someone's words many ways. Just because you cannot see the person, and you cannot get information about their emotional state. So, i think you can write something that can be understood many ways, and add a disclaimer, "it's not the other thing".

Regarding

using excessive familiarity with an opponent is a type of insult

I never saw this. Maybe we are from different areas, and this could be explained through cultural difference. First, I am thought to never approach opponent as an enemy, and to always keep in mind they are like me (meaning they are humans, with feelings, with ideas, with goals, with hobbies, with experiences) and not empty, emotionless, evil, etc. Furthermore, I approach discussion as a cooperative activity, since its purpose is to improve both me and the guy I discuss with, and give us both insight in something new. That's why I never saw "familiarity" being looked upon, since that behavior highlights those two mindsets.

However, I acknowledge there are people with different background, who have different approach (different, not opposite). And now I acknowledge some people could perceive familiarity as insult. Would you mind explaining me how does that insult work? I don't even have a feeling for it. The closest I ever encountered was where middle-high-class-old-lady meets some homeless person who says something along the lines of "we are the same" and then she stops him to say they are not the same, etc, but that is pretty far from this case.

Edit: formatting and spelling.

Edit: I believe that if it is plain there is no intention of insult, insult does not exist.

I plainly said that I wasn't aggressive towards him, that i was afraid my words can be interpreted like that, and that i wanted to cut that possibility off with words "i love you".

I have positive record with that tactic, people have understood my attitude like that in the past, and I expected it to work again. It didn't, and that is fine. Maybe I need better technique to express myself, but that is different topic now, and not important since I expressed everything explicitly afterwards (and now again). Why are you still behaving like I wanted to insult him with these words? You clearly see I don't have that intention.

it is your responsibility to understand them.

Yeah, it is, but today i don't understand. The only thing i see is related to "mother love" and sounding like I am above him, but I can't make a clear case out of it. And understanding is not dirty dishes, I cannot just make a decision to understand them and do it in a few minutes. Maybe I'll read something on that topic this year. I think it's your responsibility that if you see what I expressed and what i wanted to express, you take what I wanted to express (you can even warn me that I expressed wrongly, if you feel so.)

You are just rude now. You just straight up try to insult and discredit me, you did not even try to hide it.

I never said "this is how to ..." I offered course specialized in that topic. I offered material. I don't own that course, i just thought it would be useful to people who try to get more members here (I met few of them, so i expect there are more). I properly separated what is my idea, from that course.

You still need only one man outside LW to be like you to be wrong.

That's arguing with semantics instead of arguing with substance.

That is arguing with substance. Say there is probability x someone is like you. Talking about your personality, not genes. N is number of people outside LW. In the first approximation, where "person is a member of LW" is independant of "person is like you." you have (1-x)^N to be right. I have 1-(1-x)^N to be right. If N is big, my probability goes to 1, your goes to 0.

Now, you can say, my approximation is false, which it is. LW influenced you, etc, so there is a correlation. However, unless correlation is 1, there is still a probability for someone to be outside of LW and like you, and if there is a large number N, my probability is still going to 1 and yours is still approaching 0. Exponentially. Now, you can narrow the choice by demanding more similarities, and then this growth would not be strong enough to make up for the smallness of x. But we are talking about someone who could give equal contribution to LW as you(edit: and who would like to develop art of rationality), you can't diminish x too much.

It is pretty shitty someone is down-voting you, you are just making a very common mistake of underestimating exponential growth. They could at least tell you what mistake did you make.

If you don't mind, explain, I honesty don't get it. I don't see how that can be an insult. If i wanted to insult him, I would do that much simpler. My reasoning was: There is no way he can see my face, or my mimics, therefore he can perceive me as aggressive, although I am not. I wanted to make an end to any idea of aggressiveness. I want to make an agreement, and not to have endless conversation just because I am perceived aggressive, and because I don't look like someone you want to agree with. I wanted to show open palms or something, but I cannot do that on keyboard. So in order to express my attitude, i said that to point out my friendly attitude towards him in contrast to my rigorous attitude towards his arguments. Besides, it's not even a lie. My vocabulary is maybe too small, and "love" has a bit wide meaning, but I do feel some kind of brother or sister love towards everyone.

You still need only one man outside LW to be like you to be wrong. Although i don't know who you are (except the member of the LW), there are lot of people on this world (, andLW is not the only source of rationality).

Agree. However, I did not post this to take ownership of a problem, but to facilitate someone who will.

I don't think that having more meta-threads on how the community can improved provides the kind of content that brings LW forward. I don't think that having an extra section for meta conversation about LW could be improved would be a move in the right direction.

Funny you say that. Because you want LW to go forward, no? I got that from your wording. However, you want to avoid talking about that, and you want to proceed doing what you feel you need to do, which is making posts on whatever you want to post about. You don't want to do it deliberately, and you want to let it happen on its own. I think that if you thought for 5 minutes on this topic (improvement of LW), you would not have this opinion.

Especially for people with low karma. Is this ad hominem? Better evaluate my arguments than my karma. And even if you want to evaluate me, having karma as only argument is pretty miserable.

I will continue with position you want LW to improve. Do you claim that staying the same will improve LW or its members? Do we agree LW has to change, as well as its members in order to improve? Do we agree change has to be deliberately chosen to be an improvement? Do you claim you can do it with your gut feeling? Do you claim that course I offered as a resource is false in any way? If so, please refer me to the counterargument. Do you claim organization of the site would not be good for its members? Do you claim segregation of topics would not organize this site? Do you claim this solution is not feasible?

I tried to be rigorous towards arguments you offered, and not harsh to you. I love you, and i hope this conversation will do good to both of us.

Do you want to bet?