steven0461 comments on Rationality Quotes June 2012 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: OpenThreadGuy 02 June 2012 05:14PM

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Comment author: Grognor 06 June 2012 02:17:21PM 5 points [-]

The presupposition is that passing judgment on somebody’s “lifestyle” (for those who do not speak psychobabble, this means the English word behaviors) is an activity which is forbidden. It follows immediately that when the person says to you “Don’t be all judgmental” they are in fact passing judgment on your behavior. In other words, they are “being all judgmental.” It is, therefore, impossible not to pass judgment. I do not mean “impossible” in the colloquial sense of “unlikely”, but in the logical sense of “certainly cannot be no matter what.”

-William M. Briggs

Comment author: steven0461 08 June 2012 12:22:32AM 14 points [-]

I am a Norman. It is the immemorial custom of my people to conquer our neighbours, seize their land, suppress their culture, and impose our rule as aristocrats. By the principle of cultural relativity this way of life is no worse than any other.

Brett Evill

Comment author: roystgnr 08 June 2012 10:20:53PM 11 points [-]

The best similar cultural-relativity-based deduction I've read, as introduced by Wikipedia:

A story for which [Charles James] Napier is often noted involved Hindu priests complaining to him about the prohibition of Sati by British authorities. This was the custom of burning a widow alive on the funeral pyre of her husband. As first recounted by his brother William, he replied:

"Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs."

Comment author: [deleted] 09 June 2012 08:02:35AM 0 points [-]

Let us all act according to national customs.

Why the national customs of Britain should apply in India? :-)

Comment author: taelor 09 June 2012 10:55:00AM 15 points [-]

Because Britain has a national custom saying that they do.

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