What I Believe

scottaaronson.com

15 points·anatoly··3 comments

When people are invested in controversy, the more reasonable and compelling your arguments are, the more mob justice-worthy you become.

The first casualty of war is truth. If you're at war, anything that paints the enemy as less than totally wrong and pure evil is part of the problem, an impediment to victory.

(Maybe no one should be ashamed of inborn sexual desires, but if they involve non-consenting adults, children, harming other people, they might not be a good thing and acting on them should be avoided, but that's probably a quibble.)

>Though I don’t consider it legally practicable, as a moral matter I’d be fine if every such man were thrown in prison for life.

I was with the author right up until this. Mr. Aaronson here declares that, were it legally practicable, he believes that THOUGHT POLICE would be a very good thing. He proposes life imprisonment for "wrong" belief, not wrong action.

At that point, I ceased to care much at all about what Scott Aaronson believes.

I think you may be interpreting his words too literally, which is funny, as this whole thing is about people misinterpreting him. I believe the quote in question was hyperbole, and the intention was (a) to lighten things up with a little chuckle, and (b) to demonstrate that he strongly disagrees with people who believe women are inferior.

If you give the author the benefit of the doubt, then I think you'll find him to be a painfully nice person, and he really doesn't deserve your (or anyone else's) anger.

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