Open thread, July 28 - August 3, 2014

polymathwannabe

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If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one.

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

Okay, women have a preference along a single axis which they do nothing about and do not express at all. The framework as described is all about what active agenty men could or should do to entirely passive npc women. I'm very far from being a feminist, but come on -- this is objectification and "don't worry your pretty head about it".

I have a preference for eating tasty food in restaurants. But I am absolutely not interested in teaching chefs how to cook. If I am not satisfied with the food, I will simply never come back to that restaurant again. There are many restaurants to choose from. I don't really care about what happens to the owner of the bad restaurant; it's their problem, not mine.

Does this make me an entirely passive NPC, because I completely refuse to participate in this "how to get better at cooking" business and merely evaluate my satisfaction with the results? ... (read more)

2PeerGynt12y

It is true that some participants in the analogy are "non-player characters". That is because some ethical questions only have implications for the choices of a subset of the agents. It should be permissible to discuss these ethical questions. Doing this properly will require adding information about all stakeholders whenever it is relevant, but it does not necessarily require all stakeholders to be "playable" in the sense that they actively make ethical decisions. It is also true that the women in my story have a preference on a single axis, and that in real life, they also have preferences on other axes. I did not specify those preferences in the analogy, because I did not see the point in adding complications that do not have relevance to the resolution of the ethical question, which is a choice faced only by Martians. If you feel that there is an additional axis which has important implications for the ethical choice that the Green Martians are facing, please specify what that axis is and why it is important. This would be an important contribution to the discussion. Otherwise, this comes across as saying "you should have added additional complications that were not relevant, in order to sufficiently signal that women are important ethical agents and not objects". The fact that women are important ethical agents is so obvious that it is not even worth debating. However, I shouldn't have to signal this at every opportunity as a precondition for taking part in the discussion, especially not when this would require me to add unnecessary information to the story. As for why the women don't express their preference not to be tickled by green martians, this is simply because I took this preference to be obvious and common knowledge to all participants in the analogy.