Roxton

Point taken, but I would advance the view that the popularity of such a categorical point stems from the fallacy. It seems to be the backbone that makes deontological ethics intuitive.

In any event, it's still clearly an instance of begging the question.

But my goal was to cast a shadow on the off-topic point, not to derail the thread.

Doesn't "coercive violence is bad" beg the question in a way that would only be deemed natural if one were implicitly invoking the noncentral fallacy?

[Off-topic discussion taken offline.]

Except you totally do so imagine, because you could only get away with such dickish social signaling if my communication style was unacceptable in a group context.

How many people that self-identify as liberal would agree that liberalism is "the erosion of the presumption of a privileged ontology"?

<1%. And that must be accepted as a criticism. However, I would contend that individual liberal battles can readily be perceived as fitting comfortably in this framing.

Also, in what way does the Ten Commandments rely on a "privileged ontology" that human rights does not?

I imagine you will agree that the concept of "putting presumptions under erasure" is not something that expresses ... (read more)

Cogently put.

The "erosion of the presumption of a privileged ontology" sounds more like postmodernism,

An accurate characterization, although I don't share your negative associations with the term.

and "a creative gut context informed by predictive models and evidence", when decoded, seems to mean "inventing the conclusion you want and selecting theories and evidence to fit it".

A reasonable decoding, which means I conveyed the point poorly. The core idea is that you recognize no particular framing as "special."... (read more)

I feel like I'm getting a communal "No. Just.... no." here.

I believe you misframe the liberal position.

Liberalism can be meaningfully defined as the erosion of the presumption of a privileged ontology. Rational debate is possible, to the extent that it serves to undermine privileged ontologies.*

When somebody raises a proposal, the argument that might follow typically involves participants inferring and teasing out the relevant premises, and then arguing them.

In contrast, Liberalism tries to identify the ontologies underpinning the premises, and then encourages you to recognize that ontology as arbitrary, have the... (read more)

If you want to promote the republishing of LW articles, I think you'd be more inclined to drop the Singularity/Futurism bits from the tagline. They're alienating and off-message, I think.

Also, when I try to share an article on G+, G+ pulls the following text for summary: "Less Wrong Discussion Future of Humanity InstituteSingularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Main. Posts; Comments. Discussion. Posts; Comments. Less Wrong is a community blog devoted to refin...". No good.

http://pdf23ds.net/2011/03/

"If you read a certain post today that is no longer on my site (and hopefully not in too many RSS readers) please ignore it."