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ChristianKl comments on Ethics in a Feedback Loop: A Parable - Less Wrong
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Agents make decisions. The moment you ignore decision making and only think in terms of preferences agentship is gone.
Sure. The point I was trying to make is that, while I see females as agents in real life, in this analogy I am discussing the ethics of a choice that is only made by men. The analogy therefore did not require a fully specified model of females as agents.
There are many true things in the world that I chose not to specify in the analogy. For any of those things, if you give me a specific reason why it is relevant to the choice made by the Green Martians, then it certainly should have been part of the analogy. However, there is no law of nature that says "females should always be fully specified as agents in any analogy"
You don't succeed in avoiding getting mind killed yourself. You switch for no reason towards real life.
General ethical consideration suggest that you only inflict pain on other humans if they consent. A doctor will only operate on a patient if the patient consents, even if the doctor believes that a decision to not consent is bad for the patient given the stated preferences of the patient. Respecting that decision means respecting the agentship of the patient.
That's even true for decisions such as whether to get vaccinated where herd immunity is a concern. No single person if forced to feel pain by getting vaccinate for the good of the group.
Discussing the issue in terms of real life does not itself imply that I've been mindkilled (though it may increase the chance that the discussion ends up being subject to mindkill). If you think I have been mindkilled, please show me a specific instance where I used arguments as soldiers, or where I failed to update in response to a properly made argument.
That is a totally acceptable ethical view that is fully consistent with my parable. At no stage did I assert "Since we only care about Martians, it is acceptable for them to do anything they want to the Earthlings". Instead, I invited you to have discussion about what actions are ethical and which actions are not ethical. In such a discussion, one of the possible sides you can take is that the Martians should never tickle anyone without consent.
However, the real world implication of this assertion of it is that no man should attempt to interact with women unless they are certain that they are sufficiently high status to avoid seeming creepy.
(Note that I probably shouldn't have used "stinging pain" as an analogy for creepiness and social awkwardness. This was an overcompensation in order to avoid seeming biased in favor of men).