Robin Hanson ha escrito una entrada imprescindible sobre los “disclaimers” o desmentidos, como el que he incluido yo en el post anterior sobre las drogas. ¿Era necesario explicitar que no consumo drogas ni estoy a favor de su consumo al final de ese comentario?
Writing is hard in part because words have many associations that vary among readers. Even when we use carefully choose our words to signal certain associations, we know some readers will instead hear other associations. So in addition to saying what we do mean, we sometimes have to say explicitly what we do not mean.
(…)
- If you say anything about correlates of race you must hate a race.
- If you say anything about genetic correlates of success you are a social Darwinist.
- Any general claim about human behavior is an absolute law without exception unless it includes qualifiers like "tends" or "often."
- If you quote someone you agree with everything they've said.
- If you say you prefer option A to option B, you also prefer A to any option C.
- If you say anything nice (or critical) about anything associated with a group or person you are presumed to support (or oppose) them overall.
- If you say anything nice (or critical) about anything associated with an idea or claim you are presumed to support (or oppose) it and related ideas overall.
- If you worry that more A will cost too much of B, you don't care about A at all.
- If you dislike a proposed solution to a certain problem, you don't care about that problem.
- If you oppose one end of a continuum, you support the other end.
- If you approve of a decision you approve of the actual outcome, and vice versa.
- If you think A causes B, you think A is necessary for B.
- Any opinion you express is a strongly and confidently held opinion.
- If you criticize someone about something, you say you are immune to such criticism.
Most who say such things do not intend these further claims, and their conversation could be much easier if they did not need to constantly disclaim them. But they are stuck in a signaling game; since most who say such things do add the required disclaimers, observers can infer something unusual about the few who do not.
(HT: Econlog)
