No, because John could be speaking about himself administering the medication. It's also possible to refuse to do something you've already acknowledged you should do, so the 3rd he could still be John regardless of who is being told what.
That's the thing, I generally present as very masculine and if anyone referred to me as 'she' I would find it more confusing than anything else. If I actually cared, maybe I'd look for what effeminate signals I gave off, but I can't imagine a scenario where I would find it offensive or get mad at the person.
Yes, and there were areas I could've gotten into in terms of how other languages rely on pronouns. One that I am most familiar with is French and its distinction between singular and plural 'you' (tu & vous), and vous also can be singular if used formally. So if anyone is translating from French, you have to make a judgment call regarding whether each vous is plural or formal singular. Some information is inevitably lost in the transfer.
My entire criticism of his luxury beliefs framework is that it is arbitrary and applied in a selective ad-hoc manner, largely for the purpose of flattering one's pre-existing political sensibilities. The very fact that you're adding all these previously unmentioned rule amendments reinforces my thesis exactly. If you think my criticism is off-base, it would be helpful if you pointed out exactly where it is contradicted. Something like "if your critique is correct then we should expect X, but instead we see Y" would be neat.
He's not asserting that the upper class rejected monogamy in a way that was widely adopted. He does say this about his classmates, but his classmates aren't the entire upper class.
He claimed that monogamy was rejected by the upper class sufficiently enough to cause divorce and single parenthood to spike, he literally says "The upper class got high on their own supply." I consider that "widely adopted", and if you disagree with my description, it helps to specify exactly why. Regarding his classmates, his favorite anecdote has been one person who says polyamory is good but doesn't practice it, so I don't know where he establishes that doing polyamory is widely adopted by his classmates.
You said that he didn't use such a story because he thinks anti-leftist examples are uniquely compelling. "It isn't bizarrely unconventional" and "it isn't even a luxury belief" are alternate explanations to "he's biased against leftists".
I can't make up and apply new criteria like "bizarrely unconventional", nor can I just accept Henderson's framework when I'm critiquing it.
And luxury beliefs should imply a more extreme elite/non-elite imbalance than just "somewhat fewer people support it".
Again, I can't just make up new criteria. My whole point has been that 'luxury beliefs' is selectively applied, and making up new requirements so that only a specific set of beliefs fit the bill is exactly what I'm critiquing.
Sure, polyamory is bizarre and unconventional, but that only further undermines Henderson's assertion that it was widely adopted (enough to have an impact) by both the upper and lower class of society circa 1960-1970s.
I didn't present the oil tycoon story as a luxury belief example, but rather as an example of a story that carried the same "saying but not doing" lesson. I did present "support for a harsh criminal justice system" as an example of a luxury belief that Henderson would contest, even though it perfectly fits his template.
By being cavalier about the danger, you signal that you are not among the lower-status people for whom following the advice is dangerous. The people for whom the behavior is dangerous are either smart enough to realize it, but they won't publicly contradict you, because that would mean drawing attention to their lower status; or are stupid and will follow your advice and will get hurt (which is what makes it a costly signal).
This is a really good reformulation of the underlying idea behind "luxury beliefs" that improves upon it and makes it much more useful.
My kingdom for a truly universal footnote format
I wanted to include very basic examples first:
For example, observing that most birds can fly, assuming that flight is a necessary trait for being classified as a bird (composition), and subsequently excluding penguins from being birds because they don’t fly (division). Or observing that mammals tend to have fur, assuming fur is a necessary trait for being a mammal, and therefore excluding dolphins as not mammals. Or observing that weapons tend to cause bleeding and therefore excluding blunt instruments like clubs and batons. The list goes on.
I am planning yet another follow-up to outline more contentious examples. Basically, almost any dispute that is based on a disguised query and hinges on specific categorization matches the fallacy. Some of the prominent examples that come to mind, with the sticker shortcut label italicized:
All of these questions appear to be a disguised query into asking whether X is a "really bad thing". But instead of asking this directly, they try to sneak in the connotation through the label. Similarly, the whole debate over whether transwomen are women is a hodgepodge of disguised queries that try to sneak in a preferred answer through the acceptance of labels. In each of these examples, we're better served by discussing the thing directly rather than debating over labels. Does this help clarify?
The whole point of the sentence was to demonstrate how bad ambiguity can get with pronouns, and this exchange is demonstrating my point exactly. The issue might be that you're making some (very reasonable) assumptions without noticing it narrows the range of possible interpretations. The only unambiguous part of the sentence is "John told Mark", but every other he can be either John or Mark.
Edit: my apologies for any rude tone, it was not intentional. All of us necessarily make reasonable assumptions to narrow ambiguity in our day to day conversations and it can be hard to completely jettison the habit.