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> What you're advocating is that we should universally change established cultural norms to protect the very small minority who might be actually harmed by a mi

> What you're advocating is that we should universally change established cultural norms to protect the very small minority who might be actually harmed by a misread signal. What I'm saying is that this kind of thing isn't necessarily an established cultural norm and that even if there is an established cultural norm people have a right to their physical space and safety. If we are willing to discards the concerns of marginalized people then we as a society are only ever going to support dominant groups and paradigms, which is not useful for handling systemic inequalities like racism, sexism, etc.

hackinthebochs 13y ago
>What I'm saying is that this kind of thing isn't necessarily an established cultural norm Of course, cultural norms can vary. So it is in fact an established cultural norm in a non-trivial number of places. I would go as far to say its the majority in the western world, but that's irrelevant to the discussion. >If we are willing to discards the concerns of marginalized people People who have psychological quirks regarding personal space are not marginalized people by any common definition of that word. People who absolutely do not want anyone breaching their personal space without express written consent yadda yadda usually have good ways to communicate this to the people around them. Perhaps they shouldn't have to, but then perhaps the rest of the world shouldn't have to alter their behavior on account of a very small percentage of people. But anyways, this discussion has suddenly turned from a question of whether "seduction" techniques is morally reprehensible to whether we are morally obliged to collectively take into consideration the concerns of a very small minority of people. These are two vastly different questions. Under this new understanding of the issue, "seduction" techniques are by default morally neutral. The question becomes whether it is morally obligatory (rather than simply morally praiseworthy) to not use these techniques on the off chance that person will have an abnormal reaction to personal space being breached. This question is very much dependent on the probability of encountering a person who will sustain actual harm from this. I would wager that this probability is extremely low, and a few orders of magnitude lower in your typical social situations (bars, clubs, etc). It seems rather clear that constantly obsessing about this scenario is unnecessary.

hackinthebochs 13y ago

>What I'm saying is that this kind of thing isn't necessarily an established cultural norm Of course, cultural norms can vary. So it is in fact an established cultural norm in a non-trivial number of places. I would go as far to say its the majority in the western world, but that's irrelevant to the discussion. >If we are willing to discards the concerns of marginalized people People who have psychological quirks regarding personal space are not marginalized people by any common definition of that word. People who absolutely do not want anyone breaching their personal space without express written consent yadda yadda usually have good ways to communicate this to the people around them. Perhaps they shouldn't have to, but then perhaps the rest of the world shouldn't have to alter their behavior on account of a very small percentage of people. But anyways, this discussion has suddenly turned from a question of whether "seduction" techniques is morally reprehensible to whether we are morally obliged to collectively take into consideration the concerns of a very small minority of people. These are two vastly different questions. Under this new understanding of the issue, "seduction" techniques are by default morally neutral. The question becomes whether it is morally obligatory (rather than simply morally praiseworthy) to not use these techniques on the off chance that person will have an abnormal reaction to personal space being breached. This question is very much dependent on the probability of encountering a person who will sustain actual harm from this. I would wager that this probability is extremely low, and a few orders of magnitude lower in your typical social situations (bars, clubs, etc). It seems rather clear that constantly obsessing about this scenario is unnecessary.