skeptical_lurker comments on Open thread, Oct. 5 - Oct. 11, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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I have banned advancedatheist. While he's been tiresome, I find that I have more tolerance for nastiness than some, but this recent comment was the last straw. I've found that I can tolerate bigotry a lot better than I can tolerate bigoted policy proposals, and that comment was altogether too close to suggesting that women should be distributed to men they don't want sex with.
I have mixed feelings about this. He was posting the same argument about being incel in every single open thread, and the repetitiveness seems more annoying than the content, to me. But OTOH he also posted some interesting cryonics stuff.
Incidentally, suppose someone posted on the forum to say "As an Indian, my cultural heritage says that parents should decide who a woman marries."
Should this person be banned?
I'm not saying to support AA's position, nor as an attempt to criticise Indian culture, I'm just trying to see if we can have a consistent position on what counts as unacceptably offensive.
Do they say it once, or do they keep mentioning it all the time despite the downvotes?
AA didn't even say it once. He said something that Nancy interpreted as implying he believed it.
If they only say that once, no they shouldn't. If they say it umpteen times and continue doing so even after being downvoted to oblivion umpteen times, maybe.
Seems reasonable and consistent.
No, but that might be because the hypothetical Indian is making a much weaker policy suggestion.
By the way, arranged marriage means that neither partner has a choice.
I'm not sure what policy suggestion AA was making. I thought that you thought he was proposing forced marriages. What do you think he was proposing?
And of course, a lot of pressure is put on men to go into arranged marriages, but at the end of the day they do have a little more freedom, as if it comes down to violence they are more able to defend themselves. And that's a possibility - I have heard an girl of Indian decent say "I can't be forced into marriage because I have no male relatives and I could take my mum in a fight."
AA didn't even make a policy suggestion, he said something that you interpreted as implying he supported said policy. The fact that you seem to be unable t see the difference strongly indicates that you shouldn't be deciding who to ban.
And that's better?