5 ms·

Preferring Biological Children Is Immoral

4 points by SenAnder 3y ago

centmot 3y ago
Reminds of Daniel Everett's work with the Pirahã, who have non-existent recursion in language. Unfortunately one exception in biology is not evidence of generality. Proof by contradiction works in math, doesn't work very well in biology. Doesn't even work well in physics e.g. room temperature super conductors are extremely rare even if they exist. Physically you can make people do anything, but what they want internally is a completely different matter and there is no way today to probe that. Let's assume there is a large section of people who can only love their direct off springs, the author could perhaps claim that that would be immoral - is this gaslighting or what. What's the end game for this kind of stuff - it's to eliminate all preferences - quite akin to slavery.
- throwawaysleep 3y ago
  > What's the end game for this kind of stuff A world of tortured social compliance. I am onboard with doing all sorts of socially unacceptable things. My solution is a torrent of lies.
kstenerud 3y ago
This is a prime example of why people dislike philosophers. It's like they take a perverse pleasure from pissing in peoples' cornflakes.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- mutant_glofish 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - dang 3y ago
    Could you please stop using HN primarily for ideological battle? We ban such accounts, regardless of what they're for or against, and your account has been particularly bad for this lately. You're way on the wrong side of the line, so if you want to keep posting here, we need you to fix this. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - mutant_glofish 3y ago
      Sure, I probably don't have a choice anyway. I'm not sure that I see the particular comment you are replying to as being very "ideological" though. Also, can I have my downvoting, flagging, and vouching privileges back? I have a feeling that they have been disabled without any kind of explicit notification or explanatoin. Just like shadow-banning domains and accounts, that's something I don't appreciate about your site. > regardless of what they're for or against That may be your intention, but it doesn't seem to be what you are doing in practice. Take a look at the following left-wing accounts, all of which have quite a lot of "ideological" submissions/comments, and none of which are banned (and ideally, I don't think should be banned): bediger4000 myshpa cratermoon PrimeMcFly This last one calls most of Republican politicians "christofascists". [1] Again, I don't think they should be banned for that per se, but you seem to have banned a right-wing account for calling trans people "a blight on society" [2]. If my understanding of the situation is correct, that seems politically biased to me. On the other hand, let's look at the political ideology of the accounts from your search query [3] (R is for right-wing, L for left-wing): sfusato; R salemh; R hutzlibu; R TeeMassive; R dragonsh; R door5; L qd6pwu4; Not sure, apparently just pro-China outis; R I just took the first few ones in there as a representative sample, but I'm sure you understand why this may give an appearance of political bias. Finally, based on your previous comments, I understand that you find it amusing that both left-wingers and right-wingers think moderation is biased against them. I'd like to note that this doesn't imply that HN's moderation is free of political bias. It's like to the old relativist fallacy: just because different people have different norms and opinions doesn't mean that all norms and opinions are equally invalid. Some could be just plain wrong, and others could be right. You should look at the evidence. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37349420 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37349420 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37148619 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37148619 [3]: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

4 points by SenAnder 3y ago

Reminds of Daniel Everett's work with the Pirahã, who have non-existent recursion in language. Unfortunately one exception in biology is not evidence of generality. Proof by contradiction works in math, doesn't work very well in biology. Doesn't even work well in physics e.g. room temperature super conductors are extremely rare even if they exist. Physically you can make people do anything, but what they want internally is a completely different matter and there is no way today to probe that. Let's assume there is a large section of people who can only love their direct off springs, the author could perhaps claim that that would be immoral - is this gaslighting or what. What's the end game for this kind of stuff - it's to eliminate all preferences - quite akin to slavery.

throwawaysleep 3y ago
> What's the end game for this kind of stuff A world of tortured social compliance. I am onboard with doing all sorts of socially unacceptable things. My solution is a torrent of lies.

kstenerud 3y ago

This is a prime example of why people dislike philosophers. It's like they take a perverse pleasure from pissing in peoples' cornflakes.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mutant_glofish 3y ago
[flagged]
- dang 3y ago
  Could you please stop using HN primarily for ideological battle? We ban such accounts, regardless of what they're for or against, and your account has been particularly bad for this lately. You're way on the wrong side of the line, so if you want to keep posting here, we need you to fix this. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - mutant_glofish 3y ago
    Sure, I probably don't have a choice anyway. I'm not sure that I see the particular comment you are replying to as being very "ideological" though. Also, can I have my downvoting, flagging, and vouching privileges back? I have a feeling that they have been disabled without any kind of explicit notification or explanatoin. Just like shadow-banning domains and accounts, that's something I don't appreciate about your site. > regardless of what they're for or against That may be your intention, but it doesn't seem to be what you are doing in practice. Take a look at the following left-wing accounts, all of which have quite a lot of "ideological" submissions/comments, and none of which are banned (and ideally, I don't think should be banned): bediger4000 myshpa cratermoon PrimeMcFly This last one calls most of Republican politicians "christofascists". [1] Again, I don't think they should be banned for that per se, but you seem to have banned a right-wing account for calling trans people "a blight on society" [2]. If my understanding of the situation is correct, that seems politically biased to me. On the other hand, let's look at the political ideology of the accounts from your search query [3] (R is for right-wing, L for left-wing): sfusato; R salemh; R hutzlibu; R TeeMassive; R dragonsh; R door5; L qd6pwu4; Not sure, apparently just pro-China outis; R I just took the first few ones in there as a representative sample, but I'm sure you understand why this may give an appearance of political bias. Finally, based on your previous comments, I understand that you find it amusing that both left-wingers and right-wingers think moderation is biased against them. I'd like to note that this doesn't imply that HN's moderation is free of political bias. It's like to the old relativist fallacy: just because different people have different norms and opinions doesn't mean that all norms and opinions are equally invalid. Some could be just plain wrong, and others could be right. You should look at the evidence. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37349420 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37349420 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37148619 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37148619 [3]: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...