I cant disagree. A board whose motto is We Fight Ignorance really shouldnt have any debate boundaries. But, as you wrote, the premises of an argument had better be good.
Further explanation of your lame “kinda racist” comment is not necessary, because it’s not a mysterious comment. It’s the kind of comment that Troutman was talking about, in fact. You don’t need to huff and puff every time your ox is gored, dude. Maybe you can step aside this once and not insist that your own ox is the most important. Sing along with Elsa.
One and done.
There are places on the internet where you can say whatever you want, wherever you want. This is not one of those places.
The next time you think your topic could reasonably offend some people, think two or three more times before you post it.
Oh for fucks sake, guys. A lot of you are hung up on the idea that if you can create a scenario where one horribly thing is less horrible than another thing, then you’re saying the first thing is just fine or you’re advocating for just that one thing. That’s just nonsense.
Would you rather be deaf or blind? Deaf? Oh, I guess being deaf is good then! You’re trivializing deafness and saying deaf people have no difficulties!
Would you rather kill one child, or 10 old people that are near death? Oh, you’d pick the 10 old people? I guess you think killing old people is a good thing and want to kill all old people!
Saying that there extreme situations in which one bad thing is less bad than another bad thing does not mean that you are advocating for the bad thing, or that it’s good, or that you’re trivializing it. I feel like a lot of you must have trouble understanding what thought experiments, or hypothetical questions, are.
He didnt argue that rape was good from my reading of it. His underlining premise was that ethics are situational and that is usually the case. I cant think any situation where rape would be justified but his setup was about as close as one can get.
Coming soon to a GD thread near you, ‘Since we know Jews murder Christian children and use their blood to make matzo wasn’t Hitler right?’
You seem to be conflating my ox being gored with my ox being gored is more important than another ox being gored. This is a message board. Were we sitting around having a beer in a social setting I would 100% agree with you. But the SDMB is not a social club.
If you say so.
The horribleness of an argument ought to be dealt with by other posters, not banished into obscurity by TPTB.
No, the hypothetical was flawed from the beginning because of the ‘Bottleneck Problem’.
The ‘Aliens will sterilize the planet unless they get to watch you rape someone so they can watch’ is as close as one can get.
Once upon a time it didn’t have any of note. And once upon a time I agreed it shouldn’t have any.
Twenty-odd years later it has several. And twenty-odd years later I now disagree with my younger self. The community as a whole had expressed its displeasure with certain topics, either because they’re massively repetitive or they’re just kinda vile. I’ve got no problem with that at all anymore.
I don’t know that I would have suspended Max_S, even if just for a day. But I have zero problem with that particular hypothetical being shut down.
I agree and that is the way that the OP should have been dealt with. By logic.
Im only referring to GD topics. The offending thread would have been wrong anywhere else. As I mentioned above, in GD objectionable arguments ought to be answered with better logical arguments. Readers can be moved to rethink positions by good arguments.
You are ignoring the desires of everyone who has said that the existence of that thread makes this an unpleasant and unwelcoming place. Why does your desire outweigh everyone else’s?
Someone has to lose in this case, and the people who want free rein to discuss when rape is OK are the minority.
At the risk of rules lawyering some folks like this concept of debate A note from Cecil Adams about The Straight Dope - The Straight Dope.
Front page of SDMB yet it’s anachronistic and borderline scandalous.
Complete overkill. Discussing rape or any other heated topic in GD is basically what GD is here for. If someone opened a thread in IMHO about rape then I would agree with you because who has the opinion that rape is OK?
If no one has the opinion that rape is OK then what is there to ‘’‘debate’‘’?
I may not have spent 20 years on this board if GD was a safe space with an approved list of topics when I got here. Trying to remove anything that might offend in GD kills the spirit of what that forum is about.
I can’t tell if you genuinely can’t process what a thought experiment / hypothetical question is. You certainly ignored my last post about it.
There are debates about what constitutes rape, what constitutes consent, what are the appropriate punishments for a rapist, what steps can a society take to prevent rape if any.
Would anyone from those cultures defend their laws?
Is this an appropriate and effective punishment?
Yes, that’s why I linked to two classic hypotheticals about this, almost, very question!