> Another phrase that comes to mind is "Plausible Deniability": By uttering ambiguous sentences you can deny all but one possible meanings of what you say. And talking to different audiences at different times you can claim you didn't mean anything like what your citics are claiming you did.

This is the core rhetorical tactic of the progressive left in a nutshell. Linguistic superposition, equivocation, Schrodinger's definition - whatever you want to call it, it's the ability to have your cake and eat it too by simply changing your definitions, or even someone else's, post hoc.

Let us take a moment to be reminded of the English Socialism of Orwell and doublespeak.

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JumpCrisscross 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> the core rhetorical tactic of the progressive left in a nutshell

I live in Wyoming and have MAGA and ultra-progressive friends.

Multiple messaging is a hallmark of all elites. Sometimes it’s functional: being able to say something sharp that if repeated is ambiguous is a skill. Anyone who has any power or authority wields it. It is so common to suggest requirement. (Other times, multiple messaging lets one apologise in a public setting without making things awkward.)

In many respects, it’s an essential feature of commanding language. Compressing multiple meanings into fewer words is the essence of poetry and literature.

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ryandv 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> In many respects, it’s an essential feature of commanding language. Compressing multiple meanings into fewer words is the essence of poetry and literature.

Aye, perhaps prompting is the be-all-end-all skill, after all: the ability to distill out an idea into its most concentrated, compressed essence, so it can be diluted, expanded, and reworded ad infinitum by the LLMs.

brb while I search for the word prompt that generated the universe...

	▲	JumpCrisscross 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> the ability to distill out an idea into its most concentrated, compressed essence, so it can be diluted, expanded, and reworded ad infinitum by the LLMs Nobody said people haven’t rendered themselves unable to understand poetry or literature through the ages. Nor that these skills haven’t had a distinct class mark to them. Same here. Someone who relies on LLMs to speak and read will not be able to compete in a live environment. (Someone who uses them as a tool may gain an advantage. But that’s predicated on having the base skill.)

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lcuff 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

"Core rhetorical tactic of the progressive left". Or the conservative right, depending on which side of this divide one happens to stand on. And speaking of Orwell, he was pointing out the doublespeak of the Fascists, not the socialists.

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ryandv 3 hours ago | parent [-]

It's really quite potent in terms such as "racism" or "gender" which have seen unilateral attempts at redefinition.

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PaulHoule 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

"Illegal alien" is one of the greatest accomplishments of language engineering and was unambiguously successful.

When the left tries this today it results in equal and opposite backlash and has no effect in terms of policy, winning elections, and that sort of stuff, but it certainly can be a motor that keeps online bubbles bubbling.

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ryandv 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I think there is no equivocation or ambiguity here, unless you are me at age 5 asking why aliens have landed in Mexico.

I would hazard that you are underestimating the impact of these rhetorical tactics, but I've not the energy to aggressively litigate and cite this point further.

	▲	PaulHoule 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The effectiveness of these tactics is incredible, it helps people who build an identity around marginalization to always feel marginalized. If they ever won anything it would threaten their whole reason for existence.

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lcuff 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Again, I think this is likely seen differently depending on which side of the political spectrum one stands, and what sources of information one attunes to. I agree that both 'racism' and 'gender' have become flash-points for discord, and that one can point to the left as trying to change the definitions. But I can think of other words that the right is equally guilty of attempting to re-define. For example, 'woke' was a term originally rooted in African American communities meaning awareness of systemic injustice, but is now used by the right as pejorative for anything they disagree with. (Including the existence of systemic injustice, sigh.)