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I would like to encourage people to be precise in their meanings and say "I don't know" only when they mean "I genuinely don't know", rather than saying "I don't know if X" when they actually mean "I think not-X" this sort of thing seems critical to sane thinking afaict
Agreed. I think this is where this euphemistic language came from in the first place. But then people use it even in places where they don't need to. Tho I guess part of that is about having trouble differentiating perspectives. https://t.co/dGMKbeNBuY
it's not really about quantity of uncertainty but about the meaning of the speech act are you intending to convey the uncertainty or the not-X? https://t.co/bYZarScmtG
the original instance that prompted me to notice this was a few years ago when a friend said "he did it anyway even though I told him I didn't know if it was a good idea!" and I was like "huh, you didn't say you thought it was a *bad* idea" and like, obvi not that simple, but,,,