Eliezer gave several tests there to be applied when one considers posting on a politically contentious subject. The particular subject you mentioned is the most politically contentious of all, at least in the USA where most LessWrong readers and writers are. [ETA: It’s clear from your reply to korin43 that this is indeed the specific subject on your mind.]
Discussion of such subjects observably tends to lead away from rationality. (Evidence: the Internet.) Can you hold your own writing to the required standard, and also justly weed the comments that do not meet it, showing no favour to any conclusion and judging only by the standards of rationality? You are the only one who can answer this question. [ETA: The straw man you imagined in your reply to korin43 is not a hopeful sign.]
“Social norms” are cached thoughts, simplified, memorised answers to the question of what is appropriate to post. Do not enquire of the cache, but flush it and recompute the answers yourself.
I meant to include the hyperlink to the original source in my post but I forgot to, so thanks for catching that. I’ve now added it to the OP.
It seems like the kind of post I have in mind would be respected more if I’m willing and prepared to put in the effort of moderating the comments well too. I won’t make such a post before I’m ready to commit the time and effort to doing so. Thank you for being so direct about why you suspect I’m wrong. Voluntary explanations for the crux of a disagreement or a perception of irrationality are not provided on LessWrong nearly often enough.
As to the question of whether I can hold myself to those standards and maintain them, I’ll interpret the question not as a rhetorical but literally. My answer is: yes, I expect I would be able to hold myself to those standards and maintain them. I wouldn’t have asked the original question in the first place if I thought there wasn’t at least a significant chance I could. I’m aware of how I’m writing this may seem to betray gross overconfidence on my part.
I’ll try here to convince you otherwise by providing context in terms of the perceived strawmanning of korin43′s comment on my part. The upshot as to why it’s not a strawman is because my position is the relatively extreme one, putting me in opposition to most people who broadly adopt my side of the issue (i.e., pro-choice). I expect it’s much more plausible that I am the one who is evil, crazy, insane, etc., than almost everyone who might disagree with me. Part of what I want to do is a ‘sanity check,’ figuratively speaking.
1. My position on abortion is one that most might describe as ‘radically pro-choice.’ The kind of position most would consider more extreme than mine is the kind that would go further to an outcome like banning anti-abortion/pro-life protests (which is an additional position I reject).
2. I embraced my current position on the basis of a rational appeal that contradicted the moral intuitions I had at the time. It still contradicts my moral intuitions. My prior moral intuition is also one I understand as among the more common (moral consideration should be given to an unborn infant or whatnot after the second trimester, or after the point when the infant could independently survive outside the womb). That this has me in a state of some confusion and that others on LessWrong can help me deconfuse better than I can by myself is why I want to ask the question.
3. What I consider a relatively rational basis for my position is one I expect only holds among those who broadly share similar moral intuitions. By “assumptions diametrically opposite mine,” I meant someone having an intuition that what would render a fetus worth moral consideration is not based on its capacity for sentience but on it having an immortal soul imbued by God. In that case, I don’t know of any way I might start making a direct appeal as to why someone should accept my position. The only approach I can think of is to start indirectly by convincing someone much of their own religion is false. That’s not something I’m confident I could do with enough competence to make such an attempt worthwhile.
What I consider a relatively rational basis for my position is one I expect only holds among those who broadly share similar moral intuitions. By “assumptions diametrically opposite mine,” I meant someone having an intuition that what would render a fetus worth moral consideration is not based on its capacity for sentience but on it having an immortal soul imbued by God.
That is a rather narrow range of ideas. A benefit of open discussion is that the participants will be exposed to ideas that they would never have thought of themselves.
I’m aware it’s a rather narrow range of ideas but a set of a few standard options being the ones most people adhere to is how it’s represented in popular discourse, which is what I’m going off of as a starting point. It has been established in other comments on my post that isn’t what to go off of. I’ve also mentioned that to be exposed to ideas I may not have thought of myself is part of why I want to have an open discussion on LW. My goal has been to gauge if that’s a discussion any significant portion of the LW user-base is indeed open to having. The best I’ve been able to surmise as an answer thus far is: “yes, if it’s done right.”
Original source.
Eliezer gave several tests there to be applied when one considers posting on a politically contentious subject. The particular subject you mentioned is the most politically contentious of all, at least in the USA where most LessWrong readers and writers are. [ETA: It’s clear from your reply to korin43 that this is indeed the specific subject on your mind.]
Discussion of such subjects observably tends to lead away from rationality. (Evidence: the Internet.) Can you hold your own writing to the required standard, and also justly weed the comments that do not meet it, showing no favour to any conclusion and judging only by the standards of rationality? You are the only one who can answer this question. [ETA: The straw man you imagined in your reply to korin43 is not a hopeful sign.]
“Social norms” are cached thoughts, simplified, memorised answers to the question of what is appropriate to post. Do not enquire of the cache, but flush it and recompute the answers yourself.
I meant to include the hyperlink to the original source in my post but I forgot to, so thanks for catching that. I’ve now added it to the OP.
It seems like the kind of post I have in mind would be respected more if I’m willing and prepared to put in the effort of moderating the comments well too. I won’t make such a post before I’m ready to commit the time and effort to doing so. Thank you for being so direct about why you suspect I’m wrong. Voluntary explanations for the crux of a disagreement or a perception of irrationality are not provided on LessWrong nearly often enough.
As to the question of whether I can hold myself to those standards and maintain them, I’ll interpret the question not as a rhetorical but literally. My answer is: yes, I expect I would be able to hold myself to those standards and maintain them. I wouldn’t have asked the original question in the first place if I thought there wasn’t at least a significant chance I could. I’m aware of how I’m writing this may seem to betray gross overconfidence on my part.
I’ll try here to convince you otherwise by providing context in terms of the perceived strawmanning of korin43′s comment on my part. The upshot as to why it’s not a strawman is because my position is the relatively extreme one, putting me in opposition to most people who broadly adopt my side of the issue (i.e., pro-choice). I expect it’s much more plausible that I am the one who is evil, crazy, insane, etc., than almost everyone who might disagree with me. Part of what I want to do is a ‘sanity check,’ figuratively speaking.
1. My position on abortion is one that most might describe as ‘radically pro-choice.’ The kind of position most would consider more extreme than mine is the kind that would go further to an outcome like banning anti-abortion/pro-life protests (which is an additional position I reject).
2. I embraced my current position on the basis of a rational appeal that contradicted the moral intuitions I had at the time. It still contradicts my moral intuitions. My prior moral intuition is also one I understand as among the more common (moral consideration should be given to an unborn infant or whatnot after the second trimester, or after the point when the infant could independently survive outside the womb). That this has me in a state of some confusion and that others on LessWrong can help me deconfuse better than I can by myself is why I want to ask the question.
3. What I consider a relatively rational basis for my position is one I expect only holds among those who broadly share similar moral intuitions. By “assumptions diametrically opposite mine,” I meant someone having an intuition that what would render a fetus worth moral consideration is not based on its capacity for sentience but on it having an immortal soul imbued by God. In that case, I don’t know of any way I might start making a direct appeal as to why someone should accept my position. The only approach I can think of is to start indirectly by convincing someone much of their own religion is false. That’s not something I’m confident I could do with enough competence to make such an attempt worthwhile.
That is a rather narrow range of ideas. A benefit of open discussion is that the participants will be exposed to ideas that they would never have thought of themselves.
I’m aware it’s a rather narrow range of ideas but a set of a few standard options being the ones most people adhere to is how it’s represented in popular discourse, which is what I’m going off of as a starting point. It has been established in other comments on my post that isn’t what to go off of. I’ve also mentioned that to be exposed to ideas I may not have thought of myself is part of why I want to have an open discussion on LW. My goal has been to gauge if that’s a discussion any significant portion of the LW user-base is indeed open to having. The best I’ve been able to surmise as an answer thus far is: “yes, if it’s done right.”