How can I influence others without manipulating them?

Sounds about right, until the reality check. How often do you raise the problem of the incommunicability of qualia outside hacker news? With what purpose? How often does that conversation accomplish its purpose?

You know, I've always figured, if our culture was based on an epistemic fundament that acknowledged and properly accounted for the fundamental incommunicability of percepts, it probably would've been a better world. (One where it's much easier for everyone to communicate accurately and effectively; as people would not expect of themselves and of each other to be "objective", just verbalize their current understandings as best as they could, without stressing too much over how understanding can only ever be subjective and incomplete.)

Some of us do envision such a world, but instead find ourselves living in a planetary culture based on the very rejection of the exact distinction that you're trying to point out. Turns out Cartesian dualism offers a lot of leeway along the "is-ought" axis, huh. (Qui bono, et sapienti sat.)

Enough to make the generally accepted standard for "objectively right" to be "the house is always right". (Supposedly, a supermajority of objects does not a subject make - or vice versa. And yet post-Enlightenment history is rife with efforts to scientifically desubjectify subjects in the service of some objectively rational philosopher king.)

And yet it seems to work well enough for most prosocials, you don't see them complaining, now do they? (What's a little mass neurosis between civilized folk?) I think it's safe to say that a member of the general public is cognizant of the labels they've been accultured to, at least to the same extent as they're aware of the physical reality which surrounds them. (If not vastly more so, physical reality being the more predictable of the two.)

This would mean that they have not actually experienced the quale of "incommunicable, inaccessible between humans [qualia]" and therefore the distinction you're trying to point out here is not in fact something they are able to think about; only perhaps to construct sentences about it by example, much like a LLM or a(n M)BA does.

As I'm sure you already know your own subjective version of most of the above, but I'm guessing you maybe view it more like a problematic to be struggled with, rather than a natural paradox and absurdity deserving of a more playful approach, I'd totally leave the celestial color coordination (along with all the worrying about whether people get it) to you - you, personally, and certainly none of the other folks. Not in the least because agreeing with people on how colors are called does not seem to be inherently conducive to being able to fly.

I'll have to study my original comment to see why it appears combative: thanks for pointing that out.

RE 2: I just looked through a few country's English-language laws and cribbed (what I saw as) the consensus definition of "murder". I'm not sure the other definitions I gave actually correspond to any real-world legal system, but many of them have something similar.

RE 4: Defining the word as "definitionally morally bad" means you have to make a moral assessment before using the word – but that takes most people way longer than the language processing of two syllables, so it leaves you open to equivocating rhetoric. Appeals to "common sense" (which, in my experience, is far from common) aren't why I object to that definition (except as signposted technical jargon, narrowly-scoped to a particular context).

The post I originally replied to was equivocating in this way (probably unintentionally), hence the strong objection. Though in my experience, explanations are better than intensifiers: that's something I should look out for in my editing passes in future.

I asked as a chance (a challenge even) to reframe an arbitrary situation.

Even the one you mention, at this exact moment, a win/win could be framed around the benefits of stopping the war. While it's entirely reasonable to pick a perspective that focuses on the awfulness that has occurred, looking ahead, a peace deal would benefit all sides. Certainly it's closer to win/win than continuing down the current path.

My point is that the perspective we take is a choice.

I don’t really understand the point you’re trying to make.

> Sounds about right, until the reality check. How often do you raise the problem of the incommunicability of qualia outside hacker news?

This is HN, and I was replying to a specific thought experiment posted in a comment:

> you can be objectively right about the color of the sky, but that won't save you from becoming dinner to wild animals after your people cast you out for believing differently.

That’s it.

You trying to bring into this people not complaining about it is, again, irrelevant. Most people, unless they are into philosophy, don’t tend complain about the inability to read someone else’s mind or feel what someone else’s feel. People also don’t tend to complain about the inevitability of death, the inability to go back in time, and in fact pretty much any fact of life that they cannot change. Yet, indeed, people absolutely do bring these up on regular basis in relevant philosophy-adjacent discussions and thought experiments, such as when correcting a claim that verbal labels assigned to feelings can be “objectively correct”.

>People also don’t tend to complain about the inevitability of death, the inability to go back in time, and in fact pretty much any fact of life that they cannot change.

News to me. The rest is irrelevant.