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[Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git] / content / drafts / a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning.md

diff --git a/content/drafts/a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning.md b/content/drafts/a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning.md
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@@ -522,7 +522,7 @@ But _selectively_ creating clarity down but not up power gradients just reinforc
 
 Somewhat apologetically, I replied that the distinction between truthfully, publicly criticizing group identities and _named individuals_ still seemed very significant to me?—and that avoiding leaking info from private conversations seemed like an important obligation, too. I would be way more comfortable writing [a scathing blog post about the behavior of "rationalists"](/2017/Jan/im-sick-of-being-lied-to/), than about a specific person not adhering to good discourse norms in an email conversation that they had good reason to expect to be private. I thought I was consistent about this: contrast my writing to the way that some anti-trans writers name-and-shame particular individuals. (The closest I had come was [mentioning Danielle Muscato as someone who doesn't pass](/2018/Dec/untitled-metablogging-26-december-2018/#photo-of-danielle-muscato)—and even there, I admitted it was "unclassy" and done in desperation of other ways to make the point having failed.) I had to acknowledge that criticism of non-exclusively-androphilic trans women in general _implied_ criticism of Jessica, and criticism of "rationalists" in general _implied_ criticism of Yudkowsky and Alexander and me, but the extra inferential step and "fog of probability" seemed useful for making the speech act less of an attack? Was I wrong?
 
-<a id="less-precise-is-more-violent"></a>Michael said this was importantly backwards: less precise targeting is more violent. If someone said, "Michael Vassar is a terrible person", he would try to be curious, but if they don't have an argument, he would tend to worry more "for" them and less "about" them, whereas if someone said, "The Jews are terrible people", he saw that as a more serious threat to his safety. (And rationalists and trans women are exactly the sort of people that get targeted by the same people who target Jews.)
+<a id="less-precise-is-more-violent"></a>Michael said this was importantly backwards: less precise targeting is more violent. If someone said, "Michael Vassar is a terrible person", he would try to be curious, but if they didn't have an argument, he would tend to worry more "for" them and less "about" them, whereas if someone said, "The Jews are terrible people", he saw that as a more serious threat to his safety. (And rationalists and trans women are exactly the sort of people that get targeted by the same people who target Jews.)
 
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