So it sounds like on your account, if I were to rail against you for deciding that we're going to talk about X now and that I'm not allowed to talk about Y and Z, I would be missing the point, because what's really going on has nothing to do with who is deciding what and who has the power.
Rather, you're just pointing out that, since the answer to X will influence and affect discussions of Y and Z, there is a conversational failure mode we can avoid by talking about X first. On your account, you aren't expressing a moral judgment about what topics are acceptable/allowed, you're just saying that some topics will cause the conversation to proceed more usefully (by addressing the fundamental issues first) and others will cause it to proceed less usefully.
Yes?
By contrast, on your account, the "social justice" warriors who say that, for example, men aren't entitled to an opinion about the prevalence of sexism against women in our culture, aren't making any such claim. There is no model of conversational dynamics they operate from such that such expressions of opinion can be expected to cause a conversation to proceed less usefully. In that case it really is about who is deciding what and who has the power.
So the two aren't comparable.
Yes?
there is a conversational failure mode we can avoid by talking about X first
Not so much even a failure mode, as an observation that the optimal path is X -> Y -> Z and if you start anywhere else you'll have to come back to X soon, anyway.
some topics will cause the conversation to proceed more usefully (by addressing the fundamental issues first) and others will cause it to proceed less usefully.
Yes.
such expressions of opinion can be expected to cause a conversation to proceed less usefully.
More than that, CYP generally aims at putting a f...
Now, it is said we all here pride ourselves on our intelligence, rationality, and moral sense. It is also said, however, that we are a fiercely independent bunch, and that we can let this pride of ours get the better of us. There have also been comments that the live communities that appear at meetups provide much more positive interactions than what goes on on this site's discussions; this might merit further investigation.
My point is; we've done a lot of research on how to do proper ethical and metaethical calculations, and on how to achieve self-empowerment and deal with our own akrasia, which is awesome. We've also done some work on matters of gender equality, which is very positive as well. But I haven't seen us do anything about the basic details of human interaction, what one would call "politeness" and "basic human decency". And I think it might be useful if we started tackling these, for our own sakes, that of those who surround us, and that of easing our mission along, which is, as I understand it so far, to save the world (from existential risk (at the hands of (unfriendly and self-modifying) artificial intelligence))).
What inspired me to propose this post was a video I just saw from Hank Green of the famed and fabled vlogbrothers. I hold these two individuals in very high esteem, and I would expect many here to share my feelings about them, on account of their values and sensibilities largely overlapping with ours; namely the sense that intelligence, knowledge and curiosity are awesome, and that intellectuals ought to use their power to help improve themselves and the world around them.
Here it is; I hope you enjoy it