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We could sometimes afford to be like "oh, that person tried to be clever, maybe I should give them another shot instead of just lazily judging them on a sample
by vsareto 4y ago
We could sometimes afford to be like "oh, that person tried to be clever, maybe I should give them another shot instead of just lazily judging them on a sample size of one"
- Karellen 4y agoIt's possible that in failing to appear clever, one might also even fail to appear as if they were trying to be clever. i.e. It's not that the recipient thought a joke wasn't funny, it's that they didn't even realise a joke was being attempted.
- andrewflnr 4y agoThat's really part and parcel of the whole Hanlon's razor thing: sometimes you have to put forth a tiny shred of imaginative effort to consider whether someone was maybe trying to be clever, or otherwise find the non-asshole interpretation of someone's actions. This is not even remotely the most important case where failure of imagination is a moral failing.