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TimS comments on Donation tradeoffs in conscientious objection - Less Wrong
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Comments (52)
As Khoth said, the main harm you are worried about is being conscripted. Talking about P(injured | conscripted) distracts the reader's attention. I also got the same vibe - if you re-read my first post, you'll see a less direct bit of push-back.
But again, not every post on this topic has to be about conscription ideology. Among the things that an objector would be concerned about are (a) actually being conscripted despite genuine beliefs that war is ethically wrong; (b) not suffering personal harm or death; (c) opposing wars to succeed in achieving ethical goals.
It is as if you are trying to argue that a "real" conscientious objector could only ever be concerned with (c), regardless of how (a) and (b) turn out. But that's ridiculous. Given that you care primarily about (c) then what should you do to also solve (a) and (b)?
This is a piece of writing criticism, not ethical-theory criticism:
That's just false. An essay needs a point, and having too many weakens the essay. It's the difference between article Why it is unethical to eat meat and the essay Why it is unethical to eat meat - and by the way, pork tastes terrible.
In short, anything beyond the scope of "how do I show I'm a pacifist to the draft board" really distracts the reader.
As an aside, I think you over-estimate P( US institutes military conscription ). And you will never be forced into battle - prison for refusal to obey orders is always an option.
I disagree. Not every essay on the topic of conscientious objection needs to be centered on the foundational basis for the belief. It is possible to begin a discussion by saying, "assume X," and then asking what you would do about Y or Z conditional on X. The point of my post could be muddied due to poor writing, sure, but not due to missing details about my personal feelings on the reasons for conscientious objection. Those details would be totally superfluous to the questions that I'm trying to ask.
It sounds like you're saying that no one can ever broach this topic unless they conform to what you think are boundaries on acceptable conversations about conscientious objection. I don't agree with the limits you're setting on the scope of the conversation.
A CO doesn't need to worry too much about serving against their will. During Vietnam, it was possible to end up in jail if you just peacefully refused to carry out any order.
I am not sure that I agree, but this is at least a cogent point. You are saying that I should not have the preferences that I do have (e.g. you think I should assign less weight to the possibility of conscription against my will). I still think this is non-sequitur to the point of the post. Just because you don't see a lot of reason to place a large negative weight on that possibility doesn't mean that asking about how best to avoid it should count as evidence of faking rather than genuine tradeoff planning.