Would be great to see some meaningful example where these principles clearly improved the conversation, be it in terms of time, conclusion, compromise or what have you. I've got this feeling that it's one of these things that cause a threaded discussion to be misinterpreted by outsiders in terms of predictability.
It is important to understand the milieu in which Crocker's Rules originated. The old Extropians mailing list was, by design, a place where even highly controversial and socially taboo subjects could be discussed and argued from positions that average people might find abhorrent if the position was carefully constructed, interesting, and grounded in rational or scientific observation. Many people found it emotionally challenging to engage on that list due to the volume of uncomfortable ideas they were exposed to. Even on that list, many topics were difficult to discuss because it triggered too many people regardless of the merits of the topic.
Declaring "Crocker's Rules" was an explicit statement that you refused to be triggered and that every possible subject matter was on the table for reasoned discourse without devolving into an emotional response. The flip side of this is being open to accepting better ideas that you are not predisposed to accepting.
As an aside, Lee Daniel Crocker gets credit personally for successfully challenging some long-seated political beliefs I held, by virtue of compelling argumentation.
>It is important to understand the milieu in which Crocker's Rules originated. The old Extropians mailing list was, by design, a place where even highly controversial and socially taboo subjects could be discussed and argued from positions that average people might find abhorrent if the position was carefully constructed, interesting, and grounded in rational or scientific observation.
Effects of slavery as a way of organizing the economy? Everybody knows slavery is bad, end of story, which tends to cut short any analysis of its effect on internal efficiency, productivity, etc.
Who calls "Crocker's rules"? The guy who wants to start the discussion about the economics of slavery? The guy who thinks it's viable? The guy who thinks it isn't viable and anyone who thinks so should be shot? How does it work?
Furthermore, what's the point? I mean, if you're in a discussion group where there's a non-zero probability that one of it's members will pick slavery (or something else equally apalling) as a discussion issue, but group members are self-selected (which is a reasonable supposition for groups in general, and even more so for obscure mailing lists) then it's likely that all members are amoral enough for discussion purposes such that this "Crocker's rules" thing would be redundant.
The article explains you can only declare Crocker's rule on yourself, and can not force it onto others who have not accepted it. A discussion will only work under Crocker's rules only if everyone consents.
What I meant is that I find it unlikely that in such a group there would even be a strong moral reaction to any issue in the first place. I don't know about the extropian mailing list, but take LessWrong members, for instance. They are quite shameless about the topics they choose. And they're not much given to non-cognitive criticism either (e.g. calling someone an ass). So calling on "Crocker's rules" would be just redundant.
What is the point of ignoring something that doesn't happen?
Edit: On the other hand, it relies on the assumption that there's a trade-off between civility and informativeness which just might not be there.
Establishing a culture of following those rules is important to getting mailing lists that can sustain such discussion productively.
Calling Crocker's Rules exposes people to the expectations and reminds them what are striving to achieve, assuming that they are indeed trying follow the rules but got caught in the moment, which happens to most of us.
Was it a refusal to be triggered, or a decision to steel yourself for possibly being triggered and commitment summoning the wherewithal to handle that gracefully?
A little bit of both. It is a commitment to efficiently and dispassionately evaluating the facts at hand on their own merits, but it also is the practiced discipline of disregarding your emotional reaction and recognizing that your emotional reaction to offensive ideas are not grounded in reason.
It follows from the idea that how something makes you feel has little relation to its veracity or rationality. If the goal of discussion is primarily about the veracity and rationality of an argument then taking offense contributes nothing toward that goal and tends to suppress otherwise reasonable perspectives via social convention.
Crocker's Rules can be looked at as an intentional refusal to have any sacred cows, consciously or subconsciously, and making an effort to respond to every discussion as if one actually does have no sacred cows.
That's not a side effect but rather the point, isn't it? To allow others to communicate to you more directly by committing to not responding emotionally.
Edit: to be perfectly clear, by "not responding emotionally" I mean not sending a nasty email while angry. I don't mean suppressing any emotional response.
Well, one criticism of Postel's principle is that it's contributed to the security hazards of the modern-day Internet. We have a lot of ill-behaved software, written by programmers who felt free to take the easy way out because everyone else bent over backwards to accommodate them. The critics argue that a more formal, RFC-respectful approach -- the equivalent of what we'd call "political correctness" in a conversational context -- would bring about a safer Internet (or safer world) for everyone.
I don't subscribe to that point of view because I disagree with the idea that safety and security should be prioritized above virtually everything else including freedom. But I think it's worth acknowledging in a devil's-advocate sense. The question, "What's the minimum level of standards enforcement / political correctness that's required to enable technological development / human progress?" is an interesting one. Clearly the answer isn't "Zero" in either case.
Political correctness is about being conservative in what you say. Crocker's rules is about being liberal in what you accept. You could do both, then you'd be following a conversational equivalent of Postel's principle.
I guess I often do it internally. If someone is acting derisive towards me but still has some amount of content in their objection, I (sometimes) internally pretend that they have said only the content, minus the derisive crap, and then I respond to that.
I've also noticed that sometimes when I do that, the person I'm engaging with responds more respectfully.
Other times I hit back because sometimes people are jerks. I dunno. Jury's still out for me on whether I should ignore derision all the time.
