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>Consider that giving this advice to everyone on earth would just lead to more extremism in all directions. E.g. PETA sees meat consumption as animal genocide, but meat eaters don't see animals as being in the same class as people (they're humanists).

I categorically disagree. Your stance is what seems to me what would increase extremism, because there's always someone else you can point to and go "BUT WHAT ABOUT..." to justify any arbitrary shitty policy.



Hmm maybe. I'm not evaluating my model of the world on its effect on society if made popular, only its proximity to reality and predictive power.

I don't think understanding that beliefs are arbitrary and fighting for your beliefs is mutually exclusive. If anything there's at least the acknowledgement that because many moral arguments work both ways, bringing people who disagree to your position requires other methods.

If you want to get more technical, there are normative and positive statements, the former describing what we are talking about here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normative_ethics

In that lens, "Your stance is what seems to me what would increase extremism" is probably positive because it could be evaluated experimentally, but "cutting in line is wrong" is a normative statement.

My open question (and I'm very open to being wrong) is if there's a way to convince line cutters from a culture of line cutters of their wrongdoing without resorting to violence or coercion. How would you do it?




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