That's fine, as long as you have an alternative ready that takes the meaning that the old "literally" had when I do want the statement to be taken, er, literally.
If you don't, then it makes a lot of sense to defend literal from non-literal usage.
What's the alternative that I can use and be understood?
The problem with this argument is that you are hypothesizing a case that, if it were going to be happening, would be happening now, not in the future. Yet it does not. There is no great epidemic of confused 911 operators because they can't make out whether or not someone on the other end used literally "correctly".
While one can speculate on why you might be wrong about this being a problem, an examination of the world around us rather strongly suggests that there's no question that there is something fatally wrong with your argument.
There's no epidemic of any single problem being caused by any imprecision in grammar. But there are lots of little, similar problems -- perhaps in non-emergency situations -- that cause predictable, avoidable confusion because people insist on breaking the use of important words.
If your point is that "we can make it impossible to communicate the concept 'literally' until there's an epidemic of deaths over it", then your threshold is in a very, very wrong place.
It was your implicit threshold you were setting with your argument, not mine. While I am gratified that you so thoroughly demolished your own argument for me, you might want to consider your arguments a bit more tactically in the future.
The real problem being caused here is well below the noise threshold and certainly not worth trying to play "Holier than thou" at people on the internet.
>It was your implicit threshold you were setting with your argument, not mine
That wasn't my threshold; that was an example of a confusion that couldn't be disambiguated without clear terms for literal vs figurative; it's just that it had unusually large implications for a scenario that require fast, unambiguous communication. (I guess we don't have to care about these scenarios?)
Your own implicit threshold of "if someone doesn't die because if it, I can fuck up the communicative ability of a language however I feel like" is so thoroughly stupid, I doubt you even believe it yourself, yet feel the need to argue for it anyway.
In any case, I'm less concerned with who makes the best tactical moves than on discerning the best idea presented. As it stands, I don't yet see any justification for "let's get rid of this useful disambiguating feature for literal vs figurative" -- but feel free to keep offering them; maybe your knowledge of "tactics" could come in handy here, thought I doubt it. Tactical arguments don't make a language useful. Rather, substance does.
And any time you ever get around to telling me how to indicate the old meaning of "literally" you just let me know. I get that it's not a real high priority for you right now (based on how you think), and I'm not holding by breath or anything, but it would be really cool if you could pull it off. Thanks.
If you don't, then it makes a lot of sense to defend literal from non-literal usage.
What's the alternative that I can use and be understood?