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Comment by ryguytilidie | Hacker News Reader

I think this is a phenomenon that extends well beyond pay. As members of congress have shown us, if you have a gay child you will go from a violent hate toward gays to a complete acceptance. If you need an abortion, abortions are somehow moral, even though they are the devils tool when used by others.

It's things like this that made me wish that as a society, we were better at putting ourselves in the other persons shoes and having our viewpoint be based on something other than our thoughtless, engrained "morality".

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Putting ourselves in the other persons shoes is the critical skill for creating a better society.

Too often we promote assholes at work, and ideologues to public office. Anyone that changes their mind due to facts is guilty of a "flip-flop".

We need to start promoting leaders that have a track record of empathy for people that are unlike them.

Or rather, to stop pretending we can put ourselves in other's shoes.

Talking to eg. abortion opponents, I usually get the impression that they have done a few thought experiments. They, if you'll allow the straw man, assume/imagine that faced with the same tough decision they would never themselves decide to eg. have an abortion. They're appalled that others (in practice) would choose to do what they (in principle) decide against or vice versa.

As you say, these principles are poor predictors of what people will choose to do in personal, life-or-death reality. Things like the fundamental attribution error make policies based on what-I-would-do-in-a-hypothetical-situation just as impractical as static, by-the-book morality. Perhaps there's a third option.

Do to others as you would have them do to you?

That sounds like some sort of godless, unchristian commie talk.

"Do unto others 20% better than you expect them to do to you, to correct for subjective error." -- Paraphrased from Linus Pauling, apparently. http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/138002-do-unto-others-20-bet...

Don't do unto others what you would not have them do to you?

Should the policemen than release all the criminals from the jail? They'd want to be released if they were in jail.

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