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Comment by FullMtlAlcoholc | Hacker News Reader

>Many modern political issues do not have a middle ground - take abortion, you are either for choice, or you believe it is infanticide. So let's stop pretending to be unbiased.

You're falling into the trap of American politics by making every issue a binary choice. For instance, I find the abortion debate to be such a non-issue and if someone asks me what my stance is, I respond by saying I haven't done enough research or soul-searching to form a coherent, rational position on this issue.

And I probably will not ever get around to doing this research. I'm ok not having a position on certain issues. I wish this was more acceptable. Instead, the US political duopoly and it's first to the post voting encouraged big tent parties who more or less have to agree on most issues. I'm going to paraphrase Rumsfeld's brilliant turn of phrase here, there are known unknowns, and there's power in accepting that.

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How does having known unknowns help our leaders to establish policies?

I respect the want to not have a stance - but having no stance is not a way in which a decision can be made.

Instead of immediately having to take a stance, leaders can carefully consider all all the information and make a reasoned, rational decision.

Also, there's no fear of being labeled a flip-flopper (which is stupid. It's way worse to stick to your guns, so to speak, if new information comes to light.)

I agree that our leaders should have nuanced stances and be able to step back as you suggest. But you suggested that you were okay with you not having a position.

And again - in general, that's absolutely fine! But government leaders in the US are representatives of 'we the people'. If they cannot gauge what we feel then they have no way of representing us in such a way that aligns with our feelings.

That said I believe that your point of not taking a stance totally offers up much more calm and nuanced discussions than extreme stances on any side of an issue - and is very probably a very useful position!

death is binary

There are those people who have been dead by all medical definitions and returned to life.

Also, you could argue that people in vegetative states where there is little to know brain activity, are somewhere between life and death.

You should note that you have the luxury to even consider the issue of abortion because you've already been born.

They are also lucky their parents met, so your point is?

Tends to be a less inflammatory 'pro life' way of saying, "it's easy to be undecided when the decision isn't about you being murdered." Or something provocative along those lines.

Wow, that's a pretty dim view of humanity you have there. They were also conceived. Should contraceptives be illegal too?

Just because there is a selection bias doesn't mean that the bias results in specifically positive or negative outcome. I could argue that because you were born you are against abortion because you were born too, and my argument would be just as valid. Of course I'm not making that argument, because it is just as silly as the one you are making.

That's so incoherent that I can't even tell which position you're arguing.

I'm stating a fact. One important reason why anyone of us is able to have a stance on the issue, is that we've not been aborted. I understand a pro-choice position, it is pragmatical to allow abortions up to the fourth month, but the hard truth is that all the unique "code" required to build any of us was created during mitosis after conception. That particular combination is unique. That particular genetic combination is lost in an abortion.

If Bach had not been born, one of his brothers would be the composer?... Same for Einstein?

A unique, never-to-be-repeated genetic combination is lost every time two people fail to have sex and conceive a child. Should we encourage everyone to have sex with as many people as possible, to maximize unique genetic occurrences?

> If Bach had not been born, one of his brothers would be the composer?... Same for Einstein?

What if we had aborted Hitler? Or Stalin? Or John Wayne Gacy?

Actions have to be judged based on the information available at the time, not on what might be learned decades later.

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