Are you defending the morality of authoritarian states imprisoning journalists and nonviolent political opposition groups?

It's one thing to recognize that it happens, another to recognize the practice as legitimate, virtuous, or even desirable.

To be clear, I'm not accusing you of promoting these practices, just asking you to clarify your position.

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fc417fc802 7 days ago | parent | next [-]

I am expressing neither support nor opposition to any particular policy position in that comment, merely putting forth the general principle that any time you find yourself to be an outlier you should very carefully examine how that came to be. It's a natural extension of Chesterton's fence.

I think it also follows from such a principle that in general the relevant reasoning should be explicitly articulated when discussing the topic.

> It's one thing to recognize that it happens, another to recognize the practice as legitimate, virtuous, or even desirable.

Suppose that a thing is explicitly chosen by the majority of the world's population, or dictated by the majority of governments, or imposed by the majority of cultural norms. I am suggesting that dismissing it in favor of your own reasoning is fine, but that doing so lightly is arrogant and misguided.

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anonym29 7 days ago | parent [-]

What gives you the impression that I might be offering my critiques lightly or arrogantly, as opposed to only after arriving at them through extensive, careful, and deliberate thought?

Humans engaged in tribalistic groupthink committing moral atrocities is a tale as old as time.

It is never wise to accept a majority or status quo position reflexively without thoroughly interrogating the ideas held within. A great deal of majority positions are morally reprehensible and ethically indefensible, and that has always been the case throughout human history.

Human sacrifices of the innocent were not a "different culture", they were barbaric murders that were always wrong. They were also normative in much of the world for much of human history.

The values espoused (but not always upheld) by western societies that many of us take for granted today are the exception to the rules throughout human history - rules that promoted needless bloodshed, widespread suffering, and persecution of the innocent.

It is not arrogant to assert that loss of innocent human life is reprehensible and the societies that normalize it should be condemned. To assert otherwise isn't simply innocuously defending pluralism, it's defending atrocities.

All life is inherently valuable and I will not apologize for asserting that, no matter how many billions of people disagree for tribalistic, persecutory reasons.

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fc417fc802 7 days ago | parent [-]

> What gives you the impression that I might be offering my critiques lightly or arrogantly, as opposed to only after arriving at them through extensive, careful, and deliberate thought?

Perhaps the fact that you made a claim without bothering to explain this supposed "extensive, careful, and deliberate thought" of yours? Also the fact that your tone generally comes across as ideologically charged; in my experience zealots rarely engage in patient critical thinking.

Certainly I don't suggest that one should blindly favor the status quo when given the chance to think things through. However absent careful thought the status quo is the obvious default. When in Rome and all that. There is nearly always a reason that things are done the way they are done although often the particulars will be quite convoluted.

> It is not arrogant to assert that loss of innocent human life is reprehensible and the societies that normalize it should be condemned.

Is it really your intent to imply that I have called for such? That is quite the wild leap. I feel compelled to object that the turn this exchange has taken does not come across as being one of good faith.

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anonym29 7 days ago | parent [-]

>Is it really your intent to imply that I have called for such? That is quite the wild leap. I feel compelled to object that the turn this exchange has taken does not come across as being one of good faith.

No, that was not my intention. You are right to object here. I allowed myself to get worked up by inadvertently framing your more methodological perspective as a moral perspective, and your perception that I came on too aggressively in response to that is correct. I'm sincerely sorry. This wasn't an attempt to attack you or your character, but it did come out looking like that, and that was my fault. My bad on this one.

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fc417fc802 7 days ago | parent [-]

For what it's worth I myself am actually quite opposed to the status quo when it comes to freedom of expression. Most people, notably even most US nationals, seem to feel that the US permits too much. In contrast I favor compete abolishment of the obscenity carveouts.

However that isn't a free standing view on my part. I acknowledge that the conservatives raise a number of hard hitting points about corrosion of the social fabric, but observe that even jurisdictions with far stricter laws than the US still appear to suffer the same ills (in addition to those caused by the laws themselves).

My view is that this is due to modern technology having fundamentally changed the social dynamic. Continually eroding civil liberties in a doomed attempt to regain some imagined ideal of the past strikes me as nothing more than an obscene parallel to the war on drugs.

Given that we clearly recognize that certain activities are detrimental to society when flaunted in public surely we could apply the same principle to various forms of expression? It's not much of a leap - you'll already land yourself in trouble if you go around shouting your head off or intimidating people for example. Analogous to alcohol consumption, I'd much prefer a clear distinction between standards for public displays, secluded public business establishments, and private gatherings than the bizarre scenarios that the current obscenity laws inevitably give rise to.

	▲	gosteinao 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		People look at the "corrosion of the social fabric", and they point at the most inconsequential stuff. It's quite funny. We live in a world where technology made everyone live in their own bubbles, only consume and reinforce what they already believe, create narrow identities with strict rules enforced by groupthink, and lose track of the things and people that we actually interact and have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. Yet, people think this small stuff that has been around forever, that are tiny parts of our society or lives, that this stuff is the problem with everything today.

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7 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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