One could argue that the _tú_/_usted_ distinction is bad language design for the same reason Yudkowsky opposes the _she_/_he_ distinction: you shouldn't be forced to make a call on how familiar your relationship with someone is just in order to be able to use a pronoun for them. The modern English way is more flexible: you _can_ indicate formality if you want to by saying additional words, but it's not baked into the grammar itself.
One could argue that the _tú_/_usted_ distinction is bad language design for the same reason Yudkowsky opposes the _she_/_he_ distinction: you shouldn't be forced to make a call on how familiar your relationship with someone is just in order to be able to use a pronoun for them. The modern English way is more flexible: you _can_ indicate formality if you want to by saying additional words, but it's not baked into the grammar itself.
-However, if you were going to reform Spanish (or some other language with the second person formality distinction), you would probably abolish the distinction altogether, and just settle on one second-person singular pronoun. (Indeed, that's what happened in English historically—the formal _you_ took over as the universal second-person pronoun, and the informal singular _thou_/_thee_/_thine_ has vanished from common usage.) You wouldn't keep both forms, but circularly redefine them as referring only to the referent's preferred choice of address (?!).
+However, if you were going to reform Spanish (or some other language with the second person formality distinction), you would probably abolish the distinction altogether, and just settle on one second-person singular pronoun. Indeed, that's what happened in English historically—the formal _you_ took over as the universal second-person pronoun, and the informal singular _thou_/_thee_/_thine_ has vanished from common usage. You wouldn't keep both forms, but circularly redefine them as referring only to the referent's preferred choice of address (?!).
-The circular definition shouldn't satisfy _anyone_: people who want someone to call them _usted_ (or _tú_), do so _because_ of the difference in meaning and implied familiarity/respect, in the _existing_ (pre-reform) language. (Where else could such a preference possibly come from?) People who want the ability to dictate whether people address them with familiarity or respect might _think_ the circular definition is what they want, because it implies the behavior they want (other people using the preferred pronoun), but—whether or not the proponent of the changes consciously _notices_ the problem—the redefinition is functionally "hypocritical": it's only desireable insofar as people aren't _actually_ using it internally.
+The circular definition shouldn't satisfy _anyone_: people who want someone to call them _usted_ (or _tú_), do so _because_ of the difference in meaning and implied familiarity/respect, in the _existing_ (pre-reform) language. (Where else could such a preference possibly come from?) People who want the ability to dictate whether people address them with familiarity or respect might _think_ the circular definition is what they want, because it implies the behavior they want (other people using the preferred pronoun), but—whether or not the proponent of the changes consciously _notices_ the problem—the redefinition is functionally "hypocritical": it's only desirable insofar as people aren't _actually_ using it internally.
This is a pretty basic point, and yet Yudkowsky steadfastly ignores the role of existing meanings in this debate, bizarrely writing as if we were defining a conlang from scratch:
This is a pretty basic point, and yet Yudkowsky steadfastly ignores the role of existing meanings in this debate, bizarrely writing as if we were defining a conlang from scratch:
* the people aligning language models need to know this!!
* he can only speak in terms of abstractions that are very obviously not what's happening—it's true that bathroom usage is not an ontological fact, but the function of bathrooms is _to protect females from males_. If you can't talk about that core issue—the thing that people actually care about—then the smugness is actively derailing the discussion, even if you didn't say anything false
* And doesn't EY have this whole thing about how you can't just wish away coordination problems?! (Although, this also makes it harder to escape the self-ID Schelling point)
* the people aligning language models need to know this!!
* he can only speak in terms of abstractions that are very obviously not what's happening—it's true that bathroom usage is not an ontological fact, but the function of bathrooms is _to protect females from males_. If you can't talk about that core issue—the thing that people actually care about—then the smugness is actively derailing the discussion, even if you didn't say anything false
* And doesn't EY have this whole thing about how you can't just wish away coordination problems?! (Although, this also makes it harder to escape the self-ID Schelling point)
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / blobdiff