Are libertarians inherently thick?

[I_Ryan]

@Micah71381

If we can’t agree on a language how are we supposed to have meaningful conversations about how the world works?

I could speak Misesian while you speak Vichian. That would be fine.

@Micah71381

It seems to me that the easiest way to talk about how the world works is to agree on an authoritative source for language, not because it’s more accurate of a source than any other but because provides a Schelling point. A dictionary seems ideal to me since every word in the language is defined (save a very few words very new to the language), it is easily accessible to everyone and in almost all cases it’s definitions are the ones people use without thinking about it.

Two things:

1. If I were to accept that we would have to use the same words the same way, I still wouldn’t think that a dictionary would be a good source for this kind of discussion. Dictionaries mostly codify ordinary language usage. You wouldn’t go to a dictionary for the definition of some word in physics, would you? So why would you do that for economics? If I were to accept this, I would say that we should pick some authoritative text in our circle and stick with that. I would go with Human Action for this topic.
2. As I alluded to in the 1st section, I don’t think that we would have to agree on what language to use. I could speak one while you speak the other. I mean, that’s what we all do anyway. Different people use the same words differently, every word means like 7,000+ things, and there are like 1,000 synonyms for everything. It’s not necessary for me to use the same definitions that you do; it’s just necessary that you know what I’m using, and I know what you’re using. Past that, it’s just a stupid word game.

It’s always a bad idea to claim (like you did earlier in this thread) that somebody misused a word. As if a definition could be wrong or something. So what’s there to do in these kinds of situations? I try to use the clearest and simplest language possible, and I refuse to challenge anybody’s definitions. With your definition, I’m a moral nihilist. Whatever. That’s fine. That would be a momentous concession for most people here, but it’s totally fine for me. I simply don’t have any pet definitions. Most people get some sort of complex of associations with their words, and just can’t switch. The phrase “moral nihilist” is disgusting to them; they couldn’t possibly be that. Or whatever. But I simply don’t care. They’re just words.

I try to lead by example. I don’t attempt to impose any of my definitions on anybody; I simply do my best to disambiguate their language, and make mine already unambiguous. If they find that I ask all the right questions for them to find that it would be more useful to adopt my style, that’s great. And if not, that’s fine too. I think that it would be better to reserve the word morality to refer to our means/ends for how to interact with each other, but it’s not a big deal if you don’t agree. I’m prepared to use the word my way in my posts while understanding that you’re using the word your way in your posts. Doesn’t matter one bit. We’ll be fine.

The conclusion is that it’s useless to quibble about definitions. Just take a look at how your recent arguments have gone.

@Micah71381

If we agree to have different definitions for any given word then we’ll spend all of our time discussing our definitions rather than discussing an interesting topic.

Per the last section, I don’t agree. After you establish how you use a word, I don’t need any extra instruction.

@Micah71381

This is especially true if I don’t know which words are being used differently by the other parties because I then can’t safely assume that any given word they use is intended to mean what I assume it does. By having a common language we can now effectively communicate higher level topics besides the language itself.

Unfortunately it would be pretty hard to make a safe assumption ever.

Almost every argument on this forum is a gigantic definition failure. It would be nice if we could make a bunch of safe assumptions about how everybody’s using their words, but unfortunately that’s hardly ever the case past the simple grammatical words and the other super common ones. Past that, it’s a wreck.

But I don’t think that trying to impose your definitions on somebody else is a good idea. It would be better to simply ask them for clarification until you know how to interpret their words, and otherwise just lead by example with how you use your words. If you try to argue about definitions, you’re always gonna find yourself in one of these spirals. You’ll talk about it all day and get nowhere. There will be a lot of bad feelings too. It’s just not worth it.

@Micah71831

It seems that the worst case is to do as you suggest and just assume that any given word in use means what you think it means and not discuss the definition nor agree on a source for the definition because this can only lead to miscommunication.

You probably know this by now, but I definitely don’t think that we shouldn’t discuss the definitions. I just don’t think that it would be a good idea to argue about them. Just lead through example by using the clearest ones yourself, and otherwise simply spend a lot of energy making sure that you’re interpreting their words correctly. You guys can use different definitions all you want as long as you know it. We all do that anyway.