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Comment by AbrahamParangi | Hacker News Reader

There's a tendency in academia (and frankly society, and particularly in this paper) to say that X is bad and wrong and justify that it is bad by demonstrating that it is wrong, but this is a unsustainable.

What happens if X is bad but right? If you need X to be wrong for the sake of your system of morality then you twist and frame and p-hack and don't publish if you get contrary evidence and in the limit you have destroyed the trustworthiness of your own institution and quite frankly this is where we sit today.

The only principled and sustainable position is that X is bad regardless of whether or not it's true. Then at least you're never in a position where you must live by lies.

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Some X are only bad because they are wrong. Some X would lead to a complete overhaul of morality if they where right (like this one we are discussing). And some X are bad no matter what.

On this specific case, if it happened that some physical feature of people predicted violent behavior or whatever, we would probably have to push "violence treatment" into a medicine area. So the fact that it is wrong is extremely important to how we react to it.

We have known for centuries that we are all born with propensities towards this and that, but that we are also able to make choices.

The fact that we can now discover the genes behind a particular propensity does not make the actions you take any or more or less of a personal responsibility than they were a century ago.

There are good arguments on either side of the debate but discovering the underlying physical mechanism doesn't make any difference.

Even if we discover, say, a violence gene, we can't usefully test for it because it may be present and inactive or there may be other violence genes as yet undiscovered. It doesn't tell you anything at the individual level.

Genetic fatalism is currently fashionable but it is not a fact.

You are just repeating that X is false. Everybody knows it's false, except some racist people irrationally trying to justify their biases.

That doesn't change the fact that if it was true, the morality around it would have complete different dimensions, and none of what is talked about it would make any sense.

I appreciate this very reasoned response and I think we are on the same page. I am saying that I think people are in general quite unable to think or talk clearly about the truthfulness of statements where if they were true it would upend their morality.

The solution to this problem is either moral flexibility (which I do not suggest) OR a moral stance which is not dependent on the material facts.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.

I’m assuming by “wrong” you mean “false” and not “morally objectionable” therefore I must disagree.

It is an *unsustainable* position to hold that something is bad regardless of whether or not it is true. Basing your morality on potentially false information is a guarantee for conflict.

Likewise, if your morality never changes, especially when you learn and grow from experience, you’re stunting your growth as an individual and causing problems for society as a whole. Imagine a child refusing to update their understanding of morality as they age.

The article is saying far more than "these systems can cause social harm." That's not the beginning or end of the analysis.

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