I bet the down votes are for re-iterating the parent comments main point as if it were novel and original to you? Didn't you understand what this meant: "lets go with "Women deserve to be punished for having sex," and that 'life-begins-at-conception' is just a rationalization"?

I'm not entirely sure though that I agree with the statement that Aspergers is "a form of autism"

If anything, I'd be tempted to say that autism is a more pronounced degree of asperger's. I certainly catch myself in the spectrum that includes ADD as well.

The whole idea of neurodiversity is kind of exciting, actually. If there can be more than one way to appropriately interact with society, everyone gets richer.

Hi, my name is Briony Keir, I'm from the UK. I stumbled on this site after getting into an argument with someone on the internet and wondering why they ended up failing to refute my arguments and instead resorted to insults. I've had a read-around before posting and it's great to see an environment where rational thought is promoted and valued; I have a form of autism called Asperger Syndrome which, among many things, allows me to rely on rationality and logic more than other people seem to be able to - I too often get told I'm 'too analytical' and I 'shouldn't poke holes in other peoples' beliefs' when, the way I see it, any belief is there to be challenged and, indeed, having one's beliefs challenged can only make them stronger (or serve as an indicator that one should find a more sensible viewpoint). I'm really looking forward to reading what people have to say; my environment (both educational and domestic) has so far served more to enforce a 'we know better than you do so stop talking back' rule rather than one which allows for disagreement and resolution on a logical basis, and so this has led to me feeling both frustrated and unchallenged intellectually for quite some time. I hope I prove worthy of debate over the coming weeks and months :)

Well, the first one is basically this thread, I don't think the second one happens without being downvoted to oblivion, and I think there have been a few cases where replies highlighted the political alignment of a post or comment that wasn't ostentatiously about color politics (probably in one episode of The Konkvistador And Multiheaded Show).

Can't it be both?

the best example of a successful non-democracy in the modern world is China. Their internal party system is extremely convoluted, but basically the party internally appoints members to positions, notionally on meritocratic grounds, though corruption and manipulation is endemic. Here is a more detailed summary.

Given the seeming economic success of this model would it be sensible for other countries to adopt it?

Is it possible to introduce sufficient additional safeguards against corruption and abuse of power?

Even if we're talking about axiomatic disagreements, rational debate is still useful. Eg, we can still use rationality to help identify which axioms we're disagreeing with.

Case in point is your abortion example. I think you've messed up your lines of cause and effect there. Being anti-abortion either causes or has a common cause with believing that life begins at conception. Being pro-abortion causes or has a common cause with believing that life doesn't begin at conception.

Let me posit an axiom that causes anti-abortion. Instead of the whole 'soul' thing, lets go with "Women deserve to be punished for having sex," and that 'life-begins-at-conception' is just a rationalization. If this were true, anti-abortion should coincide with religiosity (it does) and pro-abortion should coincide with women's rights (also does). Both axioms correctly fit the existing data. How could we tell the difference... which axiom is the true axiom?

My rationalist shoes say we'd want to identify a differentiation point where these two axioms would cause different results. Have there been any occasions where "reduce number of abortions" and "punish women for having sex" come into conflict? Here's one. Turns out free access to birth control slashes the abortion rate. Less punishing women, less abortions. Cool, we've identified a point of differentiation.

Okay, so what did most of the 'pro-life' side go with? Shit, turns out they went with punishing women instead of fewer abortions and again and again and again. Well, that's not cool. For fairness' and balance's sake, I'll say that the pro-choice is probably less about integrity of body and more about wanting to fuck without consequence.

As you note, we've still got an axiomatic disagreement. In order to change the opposing side's mind we still need to shift their axiom. However, rationality has let the pro-abortion side aim their rhetorical firepower at the correct target. Instead of talking about the neural activity of fetuses, they can start making people feel more comfortable and accepting of sex. Once they're correctly targeting the true axiom, they'll have a lot more luck in shifting the opposing side's position.

Let's get a bit meta. I posit that there are certain political discussions where rational debate is entirely useless, because they largely consist of choosing an axiom. Abortion is the most obvious of these - people who believe the right to life begins at conception(usually for religious reasons) are almost universally pro-life, and people who do not are almost universally pro-choice. It is not possible, even in principle, to convince either side of the other's position, because there's no argument that can change an axiom.

It's good to keep our limitations in mind.

Edit: To clarify, I don't claim that rational debate is useless at discussing issues around abortion, I claim it's useless at changing the minds of someone who has a strong position on the issue. The only people I have ever seen switch sides on this issue are politicians(who are obviously lying) and religious converts(which is in principle achievable from rationalism, but which is in practice a pretty rare result).

The question isn't whether an issue is political or not (I'm not sure that's an interesting/meaningful question); the point is to avoid the problems of partisan thinking, and one way of doing that is to pay less attention to political alignment.

If you put a big banner over a discussion saying "HEY THIS IS A POLITICAL DISCUSSION", and you have people adding "AND THEREFORE, REPUBLICANS ARE RIGHT!" at the end of their posts, or reply with "OH, THAT'S A SOCIALIST ARGUMENT YOU'RE MAKING THERE", then everybody is necessarily going to pay more attention to partisan alignment. They may suspect others of trying to advance partisan points. They may be more selective in what arguments they accept. They may be less inclined points that go against their political inclination. It may degenerate into "Well you're just saying that because you're an anarcho-monarchist!".

The joke is more likely to resonate with the audience if it corresponds to their experience.

Nonsense. All it takes is that the audience want to believe it. Experience is not truth; a large part of people's "experience" is their own beliefs. This is just the same death spiral again. If they laugh, that proves I'm right; if they boo, that proves I'm right.

It's necessary to get society to the point where it's possible to make the argument without being declared unfit for polite company.

The argument for what, in the context of the original posting? That in a marriage, the natural and desirable order of things is that man shall be the absolute ruler and woman the slave, and that any other arrangement is a futile struggle against our fundamental biological nature that if pursued will bring only doom and destruction?