2 ms·

There are extremely good game-theoretic reasons to support a policy of allowing full debate on ideas and zero tolerance on attacking the person holding the idea

There are extremely good game-theoretic reasons to support a policy of allowing full debate on ideas and zero tolerance on attacking the person holding the idea. Specifically, I'm imagining a degenerate case where there's a norm of killing people who do X, as well as people who don't kill people who do X, as well as people who advocate making the anti-X policy more lenient. My point is that we can end up in a bad situation that nobody is better off trying to fix. We're arguably in this situation right now with excessive punishment of "sex crimes".

ncallaway 11y ago
As a disclaimer: I don't have any context outside of the linked article. I don't know the candidate, what viewpoints they hold, or how those viewpoints have been previously expressed. > "support a policy of allowing full debate on ideas and zero tolerance on attacking the person holding the idea." If I had infinite time on this planet, I'd agree with you. However, my time is extremely limited. It's the most precious resource I have, so I have to aggressively consider the opportunity cost of listening to every person. It's more valuable to me to have a debate with someone I disagree with rather than someone I agree with. However, if someone has reached a conclusion that I find to be shockingly suspect ("all foreigners are terrible people"; "protest the funerals of homosexual service-members"), I am not going to spend time listening to any aspects of that person's reasoning. So, due to my limited time, I'm now punishing this person for expressing their ideas on a specific topic. How does the game-theory deal with the trade-offs of finite time and the opportunity cost of listening to specific speakers?
- ThrustVectoring 11y ago
  I think we're talking about slightly different topics here. What I'm hearing from you is along the lines of "I shouldn't feel obligated to spend my time listening to racists about their racist ideology." I was trying to aim more at "we shouldn't interfere with a racist having on-topic technology discussions with third parties." Both the differences are important. Choosing who you will and won't engage with is a different beast than who is and isn't allowed to talk about things. Whether certain topics are appropriate for a given context is a different thing than whether choosing wrong on one topic means you are no longer an appropriate person to talk about another. In short, I'm encouraging you to ignore the crank, but not censor him from talking about context-relevant topics.

ncallaway 11y ago

As a disclaimer: I don't have any context outside of the linked article. I don't know the candidate, what viewpoints they hold, or how those viewpoints have been previously expressed. > "support a policy of allowing full debate on ideas and zero tolerance on attacking the person holding the idea." If I had infinite time on this planet, I'd agree with you. However, my time is extremely limited. It's the most precious resource I have, so I have to aggressively consider the opportunity cost of listening to every person. It's more valuable to me to have a debate with someone I disagree with rather than someone I agree with. However, if someone has reached a conclusion that I find to be shockingly suspect ("all foreigners are terrible people"; "protest the funerals of homosexual service-members"), I am not going to spend time listening to any aspects of that person's reasoning. So, due to my limited time, I'm now punishing this person for expressing their ideas on a specific topic. How does the game-theory deal with the trade-offs of finite time and the opportunity cost of listening to specific speakers?

ThrustVectoring 11y ago
I think we're talking about slightly different topics here. What I'm hearing from you is along the lines of "I shouldn't feel obligated to spend my time listening to racists about their racist ideology." I was trying to aim more at "we shouldn't interfere with a racist having on-topic technology discussions with third parties." Both the differences are important. Choosing who you will and won't engage with is a different beast than who is and isn't allowed to talk about things. Whether certain topics are appropriate for a given context is a different thing than whether choosing wrong on one topic means you are no longer an appropriate person to talk about another. In short, I'm encouraging you to ignore the crank, but not censor him from talking about context-relevant topics.