Live data from Hacker News

Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

dynomight.net

121–130 of 388 posts

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#121
> Is this a ridiculous opinion? I don’t think so. But I can see why someone might disagree with it. For one, what’s the “privacy” thing?

Maybe I misunderstand the court's rationale, but it seems really flimsy to hang abortion on "privacy" in this way.

> We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.

Whatever your thoughts on abortion, this seems poorly reasoned. Legalizing abortion implies asserting that life begins after some date. If first trimester abortions are legal, then it seems to imply that the law views human life (and thus human rights) as beginning sometime after the first trimester.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I'll show you 400k children -currently- in the foster care system, unadopted.

This suggests there is a simple solution for the abortion debate that will satisfy the (claimed) intentions of both side: Abortion should remain legal until there are zero unadopted children in the foster care system (for more than a year), and the outcomes for children who have been adopted are at least as good as those raised by their natural parents.

Clever idea, but a bad idea. What you propose would create an incentive for pro-choice activists to create red-tape in the adoption system, to ensure an adequate number of orphans remain unadopted. Furthermore, it would incentivize pro-life activists to adopt as many children as they can for all the wrong reasons.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#123
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the only in bounds way to convince me to change my mind about them is to show me that my beliefs are inconsistent No, you can also refute the premises/axioms and there other ways to do that than needing to demonstrate inconsistency.

Oh really? Would you like to provide an example of this?

[deleted]

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#124
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the only in bounds way to convince me to change my mind about them is to show me that my beliefs are inconsistent No, you can also refute the premises/axioms and there other ways to do that than needing to demonstrate inconsistency.

Oh really? Would you like to provide an example of this?

A simple example is the axiom "private property exists and should be enforced with the law". There are societies without private property, and they are very different from the ones that do have it.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#125
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Show me someone who is pregnant from rape and I'll show you 100 couples who eagerly want to adopt the baby.

Have you considered that it isn't necessarily the baby that a person might not want and instead that being pregnant might be what they're seeking to avoid?

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#126
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, as "the constitution does not explicitly mention privacy" or "... does not mention privacy by that term."

"The constitution does not use the word privacy, although it does directly protect it," is not a reasonable interpretation in context.

“The constitution does not explicitly use the term privacy but does refer to related concepts from which one can infer some logic about what kinds of privacy are protected vs not”

is a reasonable interpretation in context … and coincidentally, exactly what the author is arguing, once you get beyond the quoted part.

I think this whole subthread is being too hard on a snippet.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#127
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the only in bounds way to convince me to change my mind about them is to show me that my beliefs are inconsistent No, you can also refute the premises/axioms and there other ways to do that than needing to demonstrate inconsistency.

Oh really? Would you like to provide an example of this?

Sure, I refer you to the entire Western canon of ethics because that's 99% of what it consists of. If you want a simple math example, we replaced Euclid's axioms of geometry with Hilber's axioms of geometry and others. Look into why. Then there's the fact that axioms and premises that make empirical statements which can be falsified. Those get thrown out all the time.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#128
Something can't be traitorous with respect to the intellectual discourse of a given topic, but to a group.

Group consensus is not about intellectual correctness, obviously. Groups are about evolution, as is belonging to them and seeking just that. We collectively subscribe to them because that's the emerged mechanism by which we modulate decision making where the direct representation of individual takes is not feasible. Individual takes matter not when the subject at hand isn't actually about the subject, but about winning at life.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The timing is notable, coming on the heels of an emphatic conservative critique of compelled vaccination . For the first time in memory the right side of the aisle has been arguing for bodily autonomy and the left for the state's right to compel people to accept medical treatment over objection (or even an extended form of home-confinement). It's the first time in memory I have some hope the different sides of the de…

Where in the U.S. (other than in the military, where different structures apply) has anyone been compelled to be vaccinated?

You are aware that lots of people lost their jobs for refusing all forms of the COVID vaccination, right?

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just because one has a right to privacy, it doesn't follow that everything done in private is legal. No one, anywhere, has ever argued that the right to privacy means everything done in private is legal. That is not even remotely close to what the debate is about. You have constructed an impressively bad strawman.

Hmm, but that’s quite similar to the current reason abortion is legal, and it’s one of the (correct) reasons sodomy is not a crime anymore. I think there’s a good argument that abortion should be allowed under the 13th amendment but that seems like someone would yell at me if I said that.

No, it is not. Lawrence v. Texas was accepted by SCOTUS for privacy purposes only to examine this extremely narrow question:

“2. Whether Petitioners’ criminal convictions for adult consensual sexual intimacy in the home violate their vital interests in liberty and privacy protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?"

To spell it out: "adult consensual sexual activity" is not even remotely close to "everything".

You're also wrong on abortion. Directly from Roe v. Wade:

"The privacy right involved, therefore, cannot be said to be absolute. In fact, it is not clear to us that the claim asserted by some amici that one has an unlimited right to do with one's body as one pleases bears a close relationship to the right of privacy previously articulated in the Court's decisions. The Court has refused to recognize an unlimited right of this kind in the past."

"We, therefore, conclude that the right of personal privacy includes the abortion decision, but that this right is not unqualified and must be considered against important state interests in regulation."

Can you tell me where you got the idea that "it's quite similar to the current reason abortion is legal"?

None of these are arguing everything done in private should be legal. Even the most extreme argument (not accepted by SCOTUS) is that things you do to your own body are protected.

But if you do something (say, fraud), in private, no one is arguing you should have a right to privacy.

Post reply on HN