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You are either missing, or deliberately ignoring the part where the word choice for your arguments matter. Surely you know that, in current discourse, individu

You are either missing, or deliberately ignoring the part where the word choice for your arguments matter. Surely you know that, in current discourse, individually the word "deadbeat" means something, and the word "blacks" means something, but the combined "deadbeat blacks" means something much greater than the sum of its parts, because of the societal context in which it is uttered. To claim that you are just using that combination as just the exact sum of its parts is disingenuous, especially from someone who claims to favor analytical philosophy. Go read Paul Grice.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
I realize that people often choose to read more into their words than should be read. I'm explicitly arguing against this. The "social context" means that there are ideas we can't discuss without being socially lumped in with deplorable people - for instance the fact that blacks don't pay back their loans as much as whites, that they are more likely to be deadbeats/defaulters/etc. (As tptacek noted, there is no similar stigma about observing that whites are deadbeats relative to Asians.) This creates a significant level of friction on one side of a discussion, and makes it harder for us to come to truth. This also means that the only people who do discuss these issues are the deplorable folks. I explicitly want to reclaim the unpleasant facts so that the deplorable folks don't have a monopoly on truth. I want to say "we should import hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees, a few hundred white girls will be raped as a result, and tens of thousands of lives will be saved. Good tradeoff." I want to say "black on white crime is the most common form of interracial violence, but we should still treat black people as equal citizens with civil rights. However our expectations of equal levels of police violence against blacks and whites might be unreasonable." Lying/shaming/attacking the people speaking the truth isn't sustainable. When you lie to people and they notice the truth, they start to turn to turn to UKIP/Jobbik/other such folks. As a globalist and a universalist I don't want to live in that world.
- tptacek 10y ago
  I know you realize that every street corner preacher, PizzaGate activist, and Zero Hedge writer uses the same line about how they're being punished for speaking the truth. Why is your special pleading so much more interesting than theirs?
- YuriNiyazov 10y ago
  I see. Sorry, you don't get a pass here. Getting to truth is important. However, the way you want to go about it makes it very expensive for your audience. You want to say things that are true in a socially unacceptable way, and then leave it to us to do the work of questioning you extensively to figure out whether you are someone who is well versed in statistics and meant "deadbeat" "blacks", or if you are a Stormfront-style white supremacist and meant "deadbeat blacks". This thread is an example of that. If you want to be an effective persuader, you have to talk at your audience's level. If you want a giant thread on HN where your audience walks away believing exactly what they believed before they encountered you, keep doing what you are doing.

yummyfajitas 10y ago

I realize that people often choose to read more into their words than should be read. I'm explicitly arguing against this. The "social context" means that there are ideas we can't discuss without being socially lumped in with deplorable people - for instance the fact that blacks don't pay back their loans as much as whites, that they are more likely to be deadbeats/defaulters/etc. (As tptacek noted, there is no similar stigma about observing that whites are deadbeats relative to Asians.) This creates a significant level of friction on one side of a discussion, and makes it harder for us to come to truth. This also means that the only people who do discuss these issues are the deplorable folks. I explicitly want to reclaim the unpleasant facts so that the deplorable folks don't have a monopoly on truth. I want to say "we should import hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees, a few hundred white girls will be raped as a result, and tens of thousands of lives will be saved. Good tradeoff." I want to say "black on white crime is the most common form of interracial violence, but we should still treat black people as equal citizens with civil rights. However our expectations of equal levels of police violence against blacks and whites might be unreasonable." Lying/shaming/attacking the people speaking the truth isn't sustainable. When you lie to people and they notice the truth, they start to turn to turn to UKIP/Jobbik/other such folks. As a globalist and a universalist I don't want to live in that world.

tptacek 10y ago
I know you realize that every street corner preacher, PizzaGate activist, and Zero Hedge writer uses the same line about how they're being punished for speaking the truth. Why is your special pleading so much more interesting than theirs?
YuriNiyazov 10y ago
I see. Sorry, you don't get a pass here. Getting to truth is important. However, the way you want to go about it makes it very expensive for your audience. You want to say things that are true in a socially unacceptable way, and then leave it to us to do the work of questioning you extensively to figure out whether you are someone who is well versed in statistics and meant "deadbeat" "blacks", or if you are a Stormfront-style white supremacist and meant "deadbeat blacks". This thread is an example of that. If you want to be an effective persuader, you have to talk at your audience's level. If you want a giant thread on HN where your audience walks away believing exactly what they believed before they encountered you, keep doing what you are doing.