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There's got to be a better term than "reverse virtue signaling" to describe how the use of specific terminology (outside of a legal setting) like "pernicious",

There's got to be a better term than "reverse virtue signaling" to describe how the use of specific terminology (outside of a legal setting) like "pernicious", "females", or "virtue signaling" instantly means that someone can be safely dismissed.

CryptoPunk 9y ago
This is called ad hominem. No matter how tempting it is, it's better to refrain from it. Focusing on superficial and peripheral qualities like use of particular words, instead of the claim being made, is fundamentally anti-intellectual.
- wtallis 9y ago
  There's nothing anti-intellectual about questioning your phrasing. You're just pissed that anyone is calling attention to your rhetorical tactics, because that blunts their effect. And without the flowery language, your comment has almost no substance. Stripping your comment of its rhetorical content to get at the logical meat of the argument is required in order to have an honest intellectual discussion.
  - CryptoPunk 9y ago
    It's not merely questioning phrasing. It's saying that use of a certain set of words, including "pernicious" and "female", is an indicator of holding beliefs that are so wrong that the comment warrants total dismissal. >>You're just pissed that anyone is calling attention to your rhetorical tactics, But using a word like "female" is not a rhetorical tactic.. You're imparting motives without any evidence beyond broad paranoid generalizations. It might be part of a rhetorical tactic in some particular instance, but I can't assume it indicates that based on the use of the word alone. That would be ridiculous and anti-intellectual. It's Orwellian to effectively blacklist a particular set of words as wrongthink, and it is disingenuous to claim that the use of these words is a "rhetorical tactic", or that calling for comments containing these words to be ignored is merely "questioning the phrasing".
    - wtallis 9y ago
      Considering that your comment at issue didn't actually contain a gratuitous use of "female", you perhaps shouldn't focus too much of your argument on that bit and instead defend yourself only in regards to what you're actually being accused of. You've repeatedly used the term "natural right" without defining what you mean by that, and without explaining why income taxes are a particularly egregious infringement on those rights. All you've done vaguely state that income taxes infringe on a category of rights that by their very name can only be infringed unjustly. "Pernicious" is not a word that anyone uses conversationally today. It's archaic. (According to Google Ngram, usage of "pernicious" peaked around the time of the American Revolution.) A phrase like "pernicious to liberty" is the kind of thing you write when you want to give the impression that you're quoting a famous scholar from a few centuries ago. It does nothing to explain how income taxes are exceptionally harmful to liberty compared to other means of funding a government. This is not to say that you cannot use the word "pernicious", but your use of it is remarkable. In reality, you're borrowing language from what seems to be a contemporary anti-tax crackpot. All you did was use uncommon language to repeatedly assert that income taxes are bad. You said nothing to actually support that assertion or provide any more detail. There was nothing superficial or peripheral about your word choice; it was clearly the most carefully thought out aspect of your comment. There's no content in your comment to have a meaningful discussion about except the rhetorical tactics and allusions. And to cap it off, your first response to criticism was an incorrect usage of the term ad hominem.
      - CryptoPunk 9y ago
        >>You've repeatedly used the term "natural right" without defining what you mean by that, and without explaining why income taxes are a particularly egregious infringement on those rights. I would be happy to debate my use of the term natural rights, but you're moving the goalposts. Let's reach a resolution on the previously discussed point before moving to another. The previous point was that dismissing a person, and their argument, merely for their comment containing one of a set of blacklisted words, like "pernicious" or "female", is absurd. It's obviously anti-intellectual and trying to defend this kind of conduct shows bad faith. >>This is not to say that you cannot use the word "pernicious", but your use of it is remarkable. Again, moving the goalposts. Your argument is not the same thing as the one you defended earlier.
- portofcall 9y ago
  It’s just experience in dealing with people online. I apply the same filter to “cuck,” “Overton window” and “Hegelian dialectic” for example. Offline it’s much easier to ascertain intentions and attitudes, and there aren’t millions of people all screaming at once. Online you have to filter, and alt-right buzzwords are excellent components of a healthy filter.
  - CryptoPunk 9y ago
    It's a very anti-intellectual approach to dialog. It explicitly ignores the logic of the argument being made. It disqualifies any language containing words that are allegedly associated with some ideological perspective from even being considered. It creates an ideological echo chamber, as it is completely intolerant to any view that even hints at falling outside of it. If you do utilize such heuristics, at least don't brag about it, as if it's something reasonable.
    - portofcall 9y ago
      Ignoring people is part of life; I’m not interested in every random I come across on the net taking up a little corner of my head. My goal isn’t intellectual purity, it’s living my life. Fortunately though, as your argument(s) seems to be largely logic-free, it turns out to be very helpful. I can understand why being dismissed without the hearing you want is frustrating, but I don’t know you and don’t care.
      - CryptoPunk 9y ago
        You can ignore people all you like. But to post a comment telling people you're ignoring the comment because it contained blacklisted words like "female" or "pernicious" is absolutely toxic to a constructive environment for dialog. You're not simply ignoring a party at that point. You're promoting a pretty extreme form of ideological intolerance, where merely using a particular word is enough to make a snap judgement about a person's entire argument. >>Fortunately though, as your argument(s) seems to be largely logic-free, it turns out to be very helpful. Trying to insult me like this is not mature at all.
jnbiche 9y ago
Does "pernicious" have some kind of political connotation now?
- ericd 9y ago
  Seriously, this is ridiculous.
- wtallis 9y ago
  The word "pernicious" is very rare outside of a medical context, but the top Google result for "pernicious to liberty" is an anti-income tax screed.
  - CryptoPunk 9y ago
    >>the top Google result for "pernicious to liberty" is an anti-income tax screed. That's hardly surprising. You chose a search term that was very likely going to get hits with anti-tax types. If you simply searched "pernicious" you would find it being used in many, ideologically diverse, contexts. Your real problem is with the position espoused (that the income tax is anti-liberty). The use of the term "pernicious" is incidental to that. EDIT: The top results I'm getting for "pernicious to liberty" aren't even dominated by tax-related articles: https://www.google.com/search?q="pernicious+to+liberty" https://www.google.com/search?q="pernicious+to+liberty"

CryptoPunk 9y ago

This is called ad hominem. No matter how tempting it is, it's better to refrain from it. Focusing on superficial and peripheral qualities like use of particular words, instead of the claim being made, is fundamentally anti-intellectual.

wtallis 9y ago
There's nothing anti-intellectual about questioning your phrasing. You're just pissed that anyone is calling attention to your rhetorical tactics, because that blunts their effect. And without the flowery language, your comment has almost no substance. Stripping your comment of its rhetorical content to get at the logical meat of the argument is required in order to have an honest intellectual discussion.
- CryptoPunk 9y ago
  It's not merely questioning phrasing. It's saying that use of a certain set of words, including "pernicious" and "female", is an indicator of holding beliefs that are so wrong that the comment warrants total dismissal. >>You're just pissed that anyone is calling attention to your rhetorical tactics, But using a word like "female" is not a rhetorical tactic.. You're imparting motives without any evidence beyond broad paranoid generalizations. It might be part of a rhetorical tactic in some particular instance, but I can't assume it indicates that based on the use of the word alone. That would be ridiculous and anti-intellectual. It's Orwellian to effectively blacklist a particular set of words as wrongthink, and it is disingenuous to claim that the use of these words is a "rhetorical tactic", or that calling for comments containing these words to be ignored is merely "questioning the phrasing".
  - wtallis 9y ago
    Considering that your comment at issue didn't actually contain a gratuitous use of "female", you perhaps shouldn't focus too much of your argument on that bit and instead defend yourself only in regards to what you're actually being accused of. You've repeatedly used the term "natural right" without defining what you mean by that, and without explaining why income taxes are a particularly egregious infringement on those rights. All you've done vaguely state that income taxes infringe on a category of rights that by their very name can only be infringed unjustly. "Pernicious" is not a word that anyone uses conversationally today. It's archaic. (According to Google Ngram, usage of "pernicious" peaked around the time of the American Revolution.) A phrase like "pernicious to liberty" is the kind of thing you write when you want to give the impression that you're quoting a famous scholar from a few centuries ago. It does nothing to explain how income taxes are exceptionally harmful to liberty compared to other means of funding a government. This is not to say that you cannot use the word "pernicious", but your use of it is remarkable. In reality, you're borrowing language from what seems to be a contemporary anti-tax crackpot. All you did was use uncommon language to repeatedly assert that income taxes are bad. You said nothing to actually support that assertion or provide any more detail. There was nothing superficial or peripheral about your word choice; it was clearly the most carefully thought out aspect of your comment. There's no content in your comment to have a meaningful discussion about except the rhetorical tactics and allusions. And to cap it off, your first response to criticism was an incorrect usage of the term ad hominem.
    - CryptoPunk 9y ago
      >>You've repeatedly used the term "natural right" without defining what you mean by that, and without explaining why income taxes are a particularly egregious infringement on those rights. I would be happy to debate my use of the term natural rights, but you're moving the goalposts. Let's reach a resolution on the previously discussed point before moving to another. The previous point was that dismissing a person, and their argument, merely for their comment containing one of a set of blacklisted words, like "pernicious" or "female", is absurd. It's obviously anti-intellectual and trying to defend this kind of conduct shows bad faith. >>This is not to say that you cannot use the word "pernicious", but your use of it is remarkable. Again, moving the goalposts. Your argument is not the same thing as the one you defended earlier.
portofcall 9y ago
It’s just experience in dealing with people online. I apply the same filter to “cuck,” “Overton window” and “Hegelian dialectic” for example. Offline it’s much easier to ascertain intentions and attitudes, and there aren’t millions of people all screaming at once. Online you have to filter, and alt-right buzzwords are excellent components of a healthy filter.
- CryptoPunk 9y ago
  It's a very anti-intellectual approach to dialog. It explicitly ignores the logic of the argument being made. It disqualifies any language containing words that are allegedly associated with some ideological perspective from even being considered. It creates an ideological echo chamber, as it is completely intolerant to any view that even hints at falling outside of it. If you do utilize such heuristics, at least don't brag about it, as if it's something reasonable.
  - portofcall 9y ago
    Ignoring people is part of life; I’m not interested in every random I come across on the net taking up a little corner of my head. My goal isn’t intellectual purity, it’s living my life. Fortunately though, as your argument(s) seems to be largely logic-free, it turns out to be very helpful. I can understand why being dismissed without the hearing you want is frustrating, but I don’t know you and don’t care.
    - CryptoPunk 9y ago
      You can ignore people all you like. But to post a comment telling people you're ignoring the comment because it contained blacklisted words like "female" or "pernicious" is absolutely toxic to a constructive environment for dialog. You're not simply ignoring a party at that point. You're promoting a pretty extreme form of ideological intolerance, where merely using a particular word is enough to make a snap judgement about a person's entire argument. >>Fortunately though, as your argument(s) seems to be largely logic-free, it turns out to be very helpful. Trying to insult me like this is not mature at all.

jnbiche 9y ago

Does "pernicious" have some kind of political connotation now?

ericd 9y ago
Seriously, this is ridiculous.
wtallis 9y ago
The word "pernicious" is very rare outside of a medical context, but the top Google result for "pernicious to liberty" is an anti-income tax screed.
- CryptoPunk 9y ago
  >>the top Google result for "pernicious to liberty" is an anti-income tax screed. That's hardly surprising. You chose a search term that was very likely going to get hits with anti-tax types. If you simply searched "pernicious" you would find it being used in many, ideologically diverse, contexts. Your real problem is with the position espoused (that the income tax is anti-liberty). The use of the term "pernicious" is incidental to that. EDIT: The top results I'm getting for "pernicious to liberty" aren't even dominated by tax-related articles: https://www.google.com/search?q="pernicious+to+liberty" https://www.google.com/search?q="pernicious+to+liberty"