I took no position on the truth value of the premises.

Your translation of the analogy takes the postition that the status dichotomy is a thing. The rest follows from that assumption.

If the views I enumerated are not your views, you need to refine your analogy, because the way it's written matches them neatly. The fact that my list of proposed solutions was perceived as having an overly physical emphasis seems to me like evidence of how much this analogy oversimplifies what it tries to represent.

Let's reread your post:

an unjust world, where the ethics of an act is determined by characteristics of the Martian that they cannot be held responsible for.

Being a pleasant person to be around is beyond a man's responsibility?

However, human ethicists are not very familiar with Martian physiology...

Is this supposed to mean that women don't get how the male mind works?

a group of recently metamorphosed Blue Martians are vocally spreading information on the internet about tickling techniques.

They may be green for all we know. Being a published guru is no guarantee that he knows what he's talking about.

if used imperfectly they increase the sting of the stinging hairs fourfold.

It may be the method's fault as often as the user's.

Now let's address your actual questions:

Is it unethical for a Green Martian to attempt to metamorphose?

Is it unethical to attempt to become a better person? Absolutely not. BUT, as with everything, a good end does not justify nasty means.

Does this depend on whether they believe themselves to be fast or slow learners?

In your example, tickling is described in terms one would commonly use to refer to an optional pastime, but it actually stands for a fundamental biological urge with deep psychological and social consequences. This complicates the attempt to give an answer. Should I try to play chess? is not the same question as Should I try to get laid? Having a low expectation of success in mastering a pastime does affect your motivation to learn it, while it only has a moderate effect on your motivation to follow your biological urges. However, since there's nothing wrong with wanting to get laid per se, or wanting to become a more desirable person, I'll answer that everyone should be allowed, in fact encouraged, to learn.

Should only the small subset of Martians who intuitively understand the tickling techniques be allowed to use them?

Chess child prodigies should have the chance to play as much as they like, but it makes no sense to keep the game's rules from everyone else. So, same as the previous question.

Is spreading explicit information about the techniques unethical?

It is only as acceptable as the techniques themselves.

Is Action X moral?

That's an ill posed question. Moral, according to what/whose moral standard?

If Clippy successfully grinds up half of humanity, and churns them out as shiny new paper clips, he would likely consider himself mighty moral_clippy ( if he even has a concept of morality - does he?). But we wouldn't find him so moral_human, or moral_human_i.

The various twists and turns of the scenario merely obfuscate the more fundamental issue - what/whose moral standards are we talking about?

Some ideas:

• It might be good to have designated spaces where Green Martians can practice tickling participating humans. As more and more of these spaces become available, it becomes more and more socially unacceptable for Green Martians to tickle humans elsewhere. Obviously, for this to work, there would need to be a sufficiently high number of humans willing to participate.

• For me, a large part of minor annoyances is anticipating minor annoyances. Imagining myself as a human, I might get really sick of stung randomly throughout the day. It would be easier to deal with the occasional sting if they were constrained to certain times of the day or to certain environments. For example, I think it would be good to make a taboo against tickling at work. The blue martians can always tickle later, and the humans would be able to work without having to worry about getting stung.

• Now imagining myself as a Green Martian, I feel like I would naturally feel bad about stinging humans, and try to avoid it for the most part. This anxiety would be significantly worse if the humans visibly disliked me for stinging them. But I would be desperate for someone who could help me become a Blue Martian. Learning the Blue Martian's techniques would be very tempting... Something that might be a good alternative would be if there were humans working with the Blue Martians, finding ways to make the techniques more robust.

• Also, studying the transformation process more carefully would probably be very helpful for everyone.

PeerGynt has, in fact, constructed an analogy to something he doesn't understand. This is useful if he then learns from others' critique of the analogy that he does not understand the original.

Some of your views are discernible. You seem to think men can be visibly divided into "high status" and "low status", and that those categories can be matched to "sexually desirable" and "sexually undesirable," and that all women have the same opinion about which men fall into which category, and that women are not initiators of sexual contact. Real life is a lot more complicated than that.

(Note : This parable is obviously an allegory for something.

I'm glad you spelled the analogy out in another comment, because I would never have guessed that was what you were talking about.

That the parable can be interpreted according to that key is such an outlandish statement that I can immediately think of several blogs where, if I bought it to their attention (which I certainly will not), it would elicit an avalanche of incredulous scorn that would dwarf all the drama about Roko's Basilisk.

Discussing whether the allegory is valid is interesting, but will lead to mindkill.

Quite so, and therefore I will not be drawn into explaining why I find the analogy so crazy, and am not asking you to explain it further.

I would prefer if the discussion could stay focused on the Martians, so that we can discuss the ethics of a hypothetical scenario that may not be relevant in real life. I am genuinely confused about the ethics of this, and I think this can lead to an interesting question regardless of whether it is applicable to humans)

You can't have it both ways. As a purely hypothetical scenario of no relevance to real life, it is of no interest. As a purely hypothetical scenario of direct analogical relevance to real life, it is of interest to precisely the degree that it is an accurate analogy; but you want to forestall any discussion of its accuracy. You want to talk about PUA without talking about PUA. The thing cannot be done.

The whole posting reminds me of the situation where someone comes to you and says, "Suppose someone did such and such, and acted so and so, and then this and that, wouldn't they be wrong wrong wrong?" and it's clearly a tendentious, self-serving account of some drama they've got into with someone else. They're not looking for advice, they're trying to co-opt you into giving them validation but screening off the actual facts from you.

I think I get what tickling is supposed to be a metaphor for, but I'm clueless as to what the human and two Martian factions represent.

It's not that you need a "full map of the ethical agency", it's that just that your setting precludes any interaction between the Martians and the humans pre-tickling.

I think there is a conflict between you saying "In this society, it is generally accepted that tickling is not something that requires consent" and saying "... long struggled to come up with a coherent ethical theory that determines whether tickling humans is morally acceptable."

Not requiring consent (outside of power structures like government and law enforcement) is generally a sign that there are no pressing ethical issues involved. And in reverse, a lot of ethical issues disappear if the parties can freely signal, discuss, and negotiate the rules and terms of interactions.

The simplest answer to your issue is "Ask before tickling". Another answer is to set up a signaling system where a human can signal that he is open to tickling, does not desire tickling, or is willing to negotiate the terms of tickling. None of that requires an analysis of human ethical dilemmas.

Just allow the involved parties to exchange information pre-action.

In this society, it is generally accepted that tickling is not something that requires consent.

So, inflicting a "moderate stinging pain" on humans does not require consent..? Can humans, I don't know, not let any Martians approach them? slap away the tentacles? wear ear-guards? Can humans inflict pain on Martians at will, too?

This looks either like a two-tier society with humans being rights-restricted or like some unstable construct which, if magically brought into existence, will immediately evolve towards a different, more stable equilibrium.

The issue I see with that parable is that humans are entirely passive. They are just subjects of tickling -- they have no voice, no opinions, no preferences. All the discussion is about what's ethical for (active) Martians to do to (passive) humans.

This parable is lacking a key concept: consent.

Are we talking about allowing Martians to tickle humans with or without the human consent? If there is (voluntary, informed) consent I don't see any ethical problems. If there is no consent, I see lots of problems which include the Blue Martians.