This attempt at obfuscation does not illuminate any aspect of behavior or decision-making.

Some apple eaters enjoy apple brandishing and, in fact, some are willing to pay money and commit crimes for the privilege of viewing it.

Based on evidence from other societies and subcultures, it is very likely that if apple holders stopped the behavior currently considered to be apple brandishing, apple eaters would merely feel taunted by something else. In some cultures, in fact, even the shadow of a leaf is considered to be taunting, while in others green apples are carried openly and only red apples are concealed, and apple eaters consider it laughable that they might be tempted by green apples. For this reason, many apple holders' rights activists are suspicious that this would never end and wind up a serious imposition on the freedom of apple holders.

Apple eaters need to take out their green apples in order to feed their infants. If you don't allow public display of green apples to feed infants, you are sentencing many apple eaters to seclusion while their children are young, or to the use of artificial green apples, which are generally less healthy for children and may cause an IQ drop of as many as seven and a half points.

While apple holders are less interested in oranges in general, some are as interested in oranges as any apple-eater is in apples. Indeed, some research suggests that, over the course of a year, orange-holders are exactly as likely to be victims of orange theft as apple-holders are to be victims of apple theft. Despite both the risk of crimes and (by stipulation) the suffering it causes to particularly hungry orange-eaters, few efforts have ever been made to limit the freedom of orange holders, and many walk around with their mandarins out for no reason other than it being a hot day.

But within every apple eater lies that hunger -- that deep abyssal craving -- for apples

Which an apple eater could perfectly satisfy without apples, if only they weren’t told ad nauseam that satisfying their cravings without apples is inferior and shameful, that apples are really much better and that they should strive for eating apples. This is a cultural problem, not a natural one.

Just to give people a rough idea of our mod principles:

This post and subsequent comments look, at a quick glance, like it probably would warrant some kind of moderator involvement (at least in the form of gentle nudges), if we had the bandwidth and resources to literally read and moderate everything. As is, when posts are as downvoted as this one ended up being (which means it doesn't show up on the frontpage or recent discussion), we don't especially worry about it – figuring that the people who come to a thread like this more or less know what they're getting into.

(Note: I have not yet read this thread or post in detail, just enough for vague pattern matching)

Appreciate your attempt to address a touchy subject. Do keep in mind that epistemic humility applies tenfold here. The subject is littered with blindspots and motivated reasoning, and I haven't come across anyone with a remotely satisfying answer yet.

And it’s never enough; their appetite is endless.

That's an assumption, and I think it's wrong. I think apple seekers are satisficers, like everyone else. I, for one, don't suffer from the brandishing. Got access to enough apples.

My model is that it's a problem of inequality. You see, apple holders get a large part of their status from which apple eater they associate with. Now when it comes to status, one naturally wants to be in the upper regions [LW · GW]:

Imagine a world where, every few years, 90% of it’s highest status inhabitants are selected to replace the remaining 10%. If you’d want to remain in this world indefinitely, how much status would you need? Indeed, from the perspective of our genes, only the maximum is good enough.

Over the decades, Inequality in apple eaters has greatly increased (another assumption). Compared to decades before, It's a lot harder to find an apple eater that is truly on top of their shit. And so, apple holders are more reluctant to share their apples with someone of comparative (sexual) status, especially in the lower regions.

But it could be something else entirely. In any case, brandishing doesn't have to be a problem for apple eaters.

I strongly suspect that it's harmful for LessWrong to have unpersuasive posts arguing for unpopular views on emotionally fraught, low value topics, and that it's harmful for LessWrong to have object-level comments on such posts.

I acknowledge the harm done by apple brandishing, and reckon that it would be nice to voluntarily limit this behaviour. However, for clarification, I want to point out that apple holders often have a very strong desire to get admired by apple eaters, even if they tell you (perhaps falsely) that it's just for fun. This desire can be strong enough to cause considerable suffering to an apple holder if she feels like she is not appearing to hold any apples, if you see what I mean. It looks like you model them as flaunting their apples carelessly, "just for fun", but I think this behaviour (usually) stems from desire and suffering, which can be(?) as strong as those of yours; ultimately, they just really want oranges.