Or "Why you should prioritize attacking your allies before anyone else"

Homophones are words that look or sound exactly alike, but convey completely different meanings. It's how bear can refer to the large forest animal or the act of carrying a burden, how light can be a weight designation or a source of illumination, or how spring can be a climate season or a compression device.

Homophonic confusion is not necessarily a problem, because context usually gives us enough clues to scry the word's intended meaning. Within critical applications, forethought has provided us with safeguards: the NATO phonetic alphabet to avoid letter confusion, and roger was adopted as the standard affirmative phrase specifically to avoid the dangerous ambiguity of a pilot saying right. So generally when ambiguity finally blossoms, it's either absolutely hilarious (“Knowledge is power, France is bacon”) or reveals someone's literacy struggles (There/Their/They’re).

I’d like to [...]

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Outline:

(02:59) The Sin of Racism isn't Racism

(05:20) In Defense of Signaling One's Virtue

(09:26) Stuck Between an Antiracist Rock and an Antiracist Hard Place

(12:37) Picking Up the Pieces

(15:54) A Framework for Action

The original text contained 4 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
May 27th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xC7i26gNrbRAxa2nB/beware-the-moral-homophone

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

Illustration of two contrasting facial expressions: one cheerful, one stern.

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“Beware the Moral Homophone” by ymeskhout 19:23 Share

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“Beware the Moral Homophone” by ymeskhout