Considered Harmful Considered Harmful
February 18th, 2008
Okay, the novelty of exploiting use-mention ambiguity wore off awhile ago. That’s okay.
It’s possibly time we stopped considering things harmful. The idea is somewhat puzzling; it seems as though the thing under consideration might not actually be recognized as harmful for any other reason than that we are considering it such. A panel of experts, perched somewhere behind your shoulder, has unanimously agreed that what you’re about to do may, in fact, be harmful. Dispensing with things such as proof, we’ll just consider it harmful and be done with it.
What are you doing? Don’t you know that’s considered harmful?
The trouble with this is that, to be consistent, we can’t even consider “considered harmful” harmful without violating our new rule. You see? That’s what happens when we start inventing considerations without regard to rhyme, reason, or reality.