It is simply accurate that there is a large group of people, well represented on this site, who consider autistic-oriented, non-PC discussion of dating rituals to be “beyond the pale”, and to be universally condemned in the strongest terms, a reaction nearly indistinguishable from their position on terrorism.
I don’t think that you are trying very hard to understand their actual views. Even if they used the phrase “beyond the pale” (which your use of quotation marks implies), it is not valid to assume that all actions deemed “beyond the pale” are considered to be morally equivalent. An act can be considered “unacceptable” in a certain context, while still being vastly preferable to some other act.
You say that they want to condemn PUA discussion in the “strongest terms”. Even if they used that phrase (which you don’t imply because you didn’t use quotation marks), do you really think that they meant that literally? Do you really think that your evidence justifies the claim that they reserve no stronger terms for terrorists?
Suppose that Omega presented one of the people whom you’re thinking of with the following choice: Either a PUA discussion will happen on LW or a terrorist attack will happen somewhere. Do you really believe that this person would be indifferent between these choices?
Your conversations with such people certainly justify the belief that they take a very dim view of PUA discussions. But how could you justify a strong belief (you call it “simply accurate”) that they would be indifferent between the choices above? Have you engaged them in equally extensive conversations about their views on terrorism? If not, how can you be so sure that they don’t consider it to be even worse?
I think that you could justify your inference only if you had good evidence that they considered PUA discussions to be so bad that literally nothing could be worse. I don’t think that I would believe someone even if they explicitly said that they felt this way. I would assume that they were either engaged in hyperbole, or that they just hadn’t paused to reflect on just how bad things could be. The only way that I could be convinced that they were accurately representing their views is if we had wide-ranging conversations about all sorts of very bad things, and they steadfastly maintained, with all evident seriousness, that they would not prefer that a PUA discussion happen over these things.
But perhaps your sense of the phrase “moral equivalence” does not imply that they’d be indifferent between “morally equivalent” acts. If so, what do you mean when you say that someone considers two acts to be “morally equivalent”?
I don’t think that you are trying very hard to understand their actual views. Even if they used the phrase “beyond the pale” (which your use of quotation marks implies), it is not valid to assume that all actions deemed “beyond the pale” are considered to be morally equivalent. An act can be considered “unacceptable” in a certain context, while still being vastly preferable to some other act.
You say that they want to condemn PUA discussion in the “strongest terms”. Even if they used that phrase (which you don’t imply because you didn’t use quotation marks), do you really think that they meant that literally? Do you really think that your evidence justifies the claim that they reserve no stronger terms for terrorists?
Suppose that Omega presented one of the people whom you’re thinking of with the following choice: Either a PUA discussion will happen on LW or a terrorist attack will happen somewhere. Do you really believe that this person would be indifferent between these choices?
Your conversations with such people certainly justify the belief that they take a very dim view of PUA discussions. But how could you justify a strong belief (you call it “simply accurate”) that they would be indifferent between the choices above? Have you engaged them in equally extensive conversations about their views on terrorism? If not, how can you be so sure that they don’t consider it to be even worse?
I think that you could justify your inference only if you had good evidence that they considered PUA discussions to be so bad that literally nothing could be worse. I don’t think that I would believe someone even if they explicitly said that they felt this way. I would assume that they were either engaged in hyperbole, or that they just hadn’t paused to reflect on just how bad things could be. The only way that I could be convinced that they were accurately representing their views is if we had wide-ranging conversations about all sorts of very bad things, and they steadfastly maintained, with all evident seriousness, that they would not prefer that a PUA discussion happen over these things.
But perhaps your sense of the phrase “moral equivalence” does not imply that they’d be indifferent between “morally equivalent” acts. If so, what do you mean when you say that someone considers two acts to be “morally equivalent”?