So in which way are you different from someone who, say, thinks that Peter Thiel has disgusting (to him and a lot of other people) tastes in sex and so will end up associating antideathism with being a moral degenerate?
Well, I would consider it worrying if a major public advocate of antideathism were also publically advocating a sexuality that is considered disgusting by most people—like say pedophilia or zoophilia.
It is an unfortunate state of the world, because sexual (or political) preference shouldn’t have any significant impact on how you evaluate their position on non-related topics, but that’s how the world works.
Consider someone who never really thought about antideathism, open the newspaper the morning, reads about that person who publically advocate disgusting political/sexual/whatever opinions, and then learn in that article that he also “considers death to be a curable disease”. What will happen ? The person will bundle “death is a curable disease” has the kind of opinions disgusting persons have, and reject it. That’s why I’m worried about—it’s bad in term of PR when the spokeperson of something unusual you support also happen to be considered “disgusting” by many.
The same happens, for example, when Dawkins takes positions that are disgusting for many people about what he calls “mild pedophilia”—unrelated to whatever Dawkins is right or wrong about it, it does reflect badly on atheism, that a major public advocate of atheism also happens to be a public advocate of something considered “disgusting” by many. Except that it’s even worse in the Thiel case, because atheism is relatively mainstream, so it’s unlikely people will learn about atheism and that Dawkins defends “mild pedophilia” the same day.
And btw, I’m not saying I’ve a solution to that problem—that Peter Thiel shouldn’t be “allowed” to express his political view (how much I dislike them) is neither possible nor even desirable, but it’s still worrying, for the cause of antideathism.
So in which way are you different from someone who, say, thinks that Peter Thiel has disgusting (to him and a lot of other people) tastes in sex and so will end up associating antideathism with being a moral degenerate?
Well, I would consider it worrying if a major public advocate of antideathism were also publically advocating a sexuality that is considered disgusting by most people—like say pedophilia or zoophilia.
It is an unfortunate state of the world, because sexual (or political) preference shouldn’t have any significant impact on how you evaluate their position on non-related topics, but that’s how the world works.
Consider someone who never really thought about antideathism, open the newspaper the morning, reads about that person who publically advocate disgusting political/sexual/whatever opinions, and then learn in that article that he also “considers death to be a curable disease”. What will happen ? The person will bundle “death is a curable disease” has the kind of opinions disgusting persons have, and reject it. That’s why I’m worried about—it’s bad in term of PR when the spokeperson of something unusual you support also happen to be considered “disgusting” by many.
The same happens, for example, when Dawkins takes positions that are disgusting for many people about what he calls “mild pedophilia”—unrelated to whatever Dawkins is right or wrong about it, it does reflect badly on atheism, that a major public advocate of atheism also happens to be a public advocate of something considered “disgusting” by many. Except that it’s even worse in the Thiel case, because atheism is relatively mainstream, so it’s unlikely people will learn about atheism and that Dawkins defends “mild pedophilia” the same day.
And btw, I’m not saying I’ve a solution to that problem—that Peter Thiel shouldn’t be “allowed” to express his political view (how much I dislike them) is neither possible nor even desirable, but it’s still worrying, for the cause of antideathism.
I think you overrate the impact of reading a newspaper article. It doesn’t trigger strong feelings.