From 4f356f7cc87510ef30728de3dc431a0b6a98342b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "M. Taylor Saotome-Westlake" Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2016 22:01:56 -0800 Subject: [PATCH] begin drafting posts on being callous --- content/drafts/someone-has-to-say-it.md | 15 +++++++++++ .../why-i-dont-care-about-your-feelings.md | 27 +++++++++++++++++++ 2 files changed, 42 insertions(+) create mode 100644 content/drafts/someone-has-to-say-it.md create mode 100644 content/drafts/why-i-dont-care-about-your-feelings.md diff --git a/content/drafts/someone-has-to-say-it.md b/content/drafts/someone-has-to-say-it.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..64026c0 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/drafts/someone-has-to-say-it.md @@ -0,0 +1,15 @@ +Title: Someone Has To Say It +Date: 2020-01-01 +Category: commentary +Tags: discourse, epistemology +Status: draft + +https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2013/08/31/it-must-be-said/ + +[Felix Conrad](http://transcendmovement.com/felix-conrad-confesses-that-he-secretly-believes-in-autogynephilia/)— + +> Imagine the following scenario: a researcher discovers that one ethnic group has a lower IQ than another and that the cause is genetic–not educational. In my opinion that research is as dangerous as a toxic virus and I’d wipe any hard drive that contained such research. That is intellectual integrity in my opinion. + +Funny you should mention that! + +_Someone_ has to be _that asshole_ who says the true thing that everyone else is too cowardly to say, and I guess it's going to have to be me, Taylor Saotome-Westlake. diff --git a/content/drafts/why-i-dont-care-about-your-feelings.md b/content/drafts/why-i-dont-care-about-your-feelings.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..659aef3 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/drafts/why-i-dont-care-about-your-feelings.md @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +Title: Why I Don't Care About Your Feelings +Date: 2020-01-01 +Category: commentary +Tags: cathartic, discourse +Status: draft + +Ideally, there should be no place for hostility or ridicule in intellectual discourse. You should never be trying to "win" an argument "against" an "opponent"; you should be sharing evidence and arguments to help both you and your interlocutor in your shared goal of attaining a more accurate view of reality, and as part of doing this, you probably want to maintain a respectful and nice (or at least neutral) tone. + +Ideally, it's desirable to hold to these norms even if your interlocutor doesn't: if they say that you're stupid and evil, you can just say that you can understand why they might think that you're stupid and evil, but that the question of whether you're stupid and evil is independent of the topic at hand, about which you continue to maintain that X because of evidence A, B, and C. + +Ideally. + +But just a conversation partner who strays from these cooperative discourse norms probably does so because they're human and have feelings, I'm human, too. I have feelings, too. And sometimes, I want to express them. + + +There is this beautiful feeling at the center of my life that has shaped me more than almost anything else + +... the scintillating but ultimately untrue thought. + + + +_Yes_, I'm upset. _Yes_, I'm angry. + + +I'm certainly not _trying_ to say things that will hurt people, least of all people who are mostly just like me but read different books in a different order and are living out a pretty decent approximation of _my wildest fantasy_. But if, in the course of trying to say something I find true, or insightful, or even just funny, I end up saying something that people find offensive or hurtful or disrespectful ... + +I don't care. I just really, fundamentally _do not care_ anymore. I can't afford to. -- 2.17.1