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What I find especially sad is I am a total believer in political correctness as a general courtesy to people and I think it's the right thing to do. However by

What I find especially sad is I am a total believer in political correctness as a general courtesy to people and I think it's the right thing to do. However by simply sharing my upthread viewpoint that we need to be careful about this meta-trend I will probably be lumped in as one of these dark web right wing types even though it couldn't be further from the truth.

naasking 8y ago
> What I find especially sad is I am a total believer in political correctness as a general courtesy to people Yes, but we must recognise the difference between etiquette and ethics. Ethics are the things you must do, but courtesy is a matter of etiquette, behaviour that is optional but culturally polite. PC culture these days raises etiquette to the level of ethics, and that's simply wrong.
- fixermark 8y ago
  Not if you apply the point-of-view that etiquette is what the unethical use to keep their unethical practices under-questioned.
  - SmirkingRevenge 8y ago
    There's no real limit to what bad-faith actors will use to appear legitimate. They'll use philosophy, science, religion, etiquette, etc - in constrained, self-serving ways, of course. We can't just assume anyone doing those things is evil and acting in bad faith - otherwise we're just elevating the ad hominem as our supreme, central dogma.
  - cbracken 8y ago
    That seems to imply an assumption of lack of good faith, unless I’m misinterpreting what you’re saying. While there’s no doubt that one can find cases to which this applies, I’d think that applying that broadly to the vast majority of people who are arguing in good faith would stifle debate.
    - fixermark 8y ago
      I think you're taking as assumption that the vast majority of people are arguing in good faith, and many are no longer willing to take on that assumption without evidence. Given what has been seen regarding both 4chan psychological operations and Russian intelligence operations on major message boards, I can see the vantage point where it's fair to not treat good faith as assumable.
  - naasking 8y ago
    I have no objection to ignoring etiquette in general. The point I was trying to make is that treating etiquette as ethics is how people justify shutting down debate on controversial topics. They also use it to dehumanize their opponents on an issue, and that is unethical.
winchling 8y ago
>I am a total believer in political correctness as a general courtesy to people What about in private, among a group of friends? Should the degree of correctness be uniform or proportional to the size of the audience? It seems to me that the purpose of the ethics board is to allow a company to be left alone to get on with its private ethically-laden research. It needs to be seen to be ethically responsible and nowadays that requires ultra-political correctness because more people than ever are watching. But this is incompatible with having actual ethics discussions which require diversity of opinion. So there's a dilemma: trying to be ethical versus trying to be seen to be ethical.

naasking 8y ago

> What I find especially sad is I am a total believer in political correctness as a general courtesy to people Yes, but we must recognise the difference between etiquette and ethics. Ethics are the things you must do, but courtesy is a matter of etiquette, behaviour that is optional but culturally polite. PC culture these days raises etiquette to the level of ethics, and that's simply wrong.

fixermark 8y ago
Not if you apply the point-of-view that etiquette is what the unethical use to keep their unethical practices under-questioned.
- SmirkingRevenge 8y ago
  There's no real limit to what bad-faith actors will use to appear legitimate. They'll use philosophy, science, religion, etiquette, etc - in constrained, self-serving ways, of course. We can't just assume anyone doing those things is evil and acting in bad faith - otherwise we're just elevating the ad hominem as our supreme, central dogma.
- cbracken 8y ago
  That seems to imply an assumption of lack of good faith, unless I’m misinterpreting what you’re saying. While there’s no doubt that one can find cases to which this applies, I’d think that applying that broadly to the vast majority of people who are arguing in good faith would stifle debate.
  - fixermark 8y ago
    I think you're taking as assumption that the vast majority of people are arguing in good faith, and many are no longer willing to take on that assumption without evidence. Given what has been seen regarding both 4chan psychological operations and Russian intelligence operations on major message boards, I can see the vantage point where it's fair to not treat good faith as assumable.
- naasking 8y ago
  I have no objection to ignoring etiquette in general. The point I was trying to make is that treating etiquette as ethics is how people justify shutting down debate on controversial topics. They also use it to dehumanize their opponents on an issue, and that is unethical.

winchling 8y ago

>I am a total believer in political correctness as a general courtesy to people What about in private, among a group of friends? Should the degree of correctness be uniform or proportional to the size of the audience? It seems to me that the purpose of the ethics board is to allow a company to be left alone to get on with its private ethically-laden research. It needs to be seen to be ethically responsible and nowadays that requires ultra-political correctness because more people than ever are watching. But this is incompatible with having actual ethics discussions which require diversity of opinion. So there's a dilemma: trying to be ethical versus trying to be seen to be ethical.