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Re:At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics... by TeMPOraL on Tuesday September 05, 2017 @10:38AM (#15175619)
It's all fine for qualities that don't get tied to your (or your group's) personal and social identity.

To go over your examples - the singing case is rather clear-cut, so is the math one (barring the Tiger Mother meme). Psychological damage starts entering into "neurodiversity" sphere. And about deaf people - there are many deaf communities which don't consider this as a disability, but as a different type of experience. In fact, the right for deaf parents to purposefully create a deaf child (when normally it would have working hearing) is a topic that's sometimes discussed.

It's not a very detailed explanation, but the rule of thumb is - when there's a vocal group of people who tie some quality X into their identities, talking about discriminating on X gets off-limits in the current culture.

Re:At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics... by xkvd on Tuesday September 05, 2017 @11:24AM (#15176113)
My examples are just 4 quick things off the top of my head, there are probably many more. I also don't see your point about the deaf person (they're still treated differently -- you wouldn't talk vocally to them).

I agree with your rule of thumb, but that seems like a positive description of the situation, not the normative one I'm looking for. You're giving me the conditions under which there will be outrage for discrimination (i.e., there exists a socially vocal/outspoken group that identifies with the quality being discriminated on). However, I was trying to tease out what the moral rule purported by such groups could be, since I see the "don't discriminate for how I was born" claim so often (and so forcefully put). I would suppose there should be some deep moral law being broken.

Re:At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics... by TeMPOraL on Tuesday September 05, 2017 @11:48AM (#15176366)
I don't know if there even is a moral rule there. I feel like the root cause is simply people being insecure about threats to their identity, and anything above that being just rationalizations.
Re:At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics... by xkvd on Tuesday September 05, 2017 @01:03PM (#15177047)
Yeah, but I have a feeling that we're both outside of the set of people who would make the statement I was quoting in my OC, which might explain why you and I can't find such a rule.
Re:At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics... by greglindahl on Tuesday September 05, 2017 @03:05PM (#15178172)
Have you considered the Golden Rule?
Re:At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics... by xkvd on Tuesday September 05, 2017 @06:32PM (#15179629)
Yes, and it's still unclear to me how it'd be applied here.
Re:At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics... by ZeroGravitas on Tuesday September 05, 2017 @07:35PM (#15179961)
The related "veil of ignorance" test also applies.

Would you advocate for the systematic mistreatment of group X if you didn't know whether or not you yourself would be born as part of that group?

Re:At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics... by xkvd on Tuesday September 05, 2017 @09:40PM (#15180545)
Appealing to the veil is a good but insufficient step. For instance, we might disagree what people would agree on behind the veil (imo because we encode moral assumptions into our conclusions from it). Nonetheless, if we were to get that far I'd say the veil would be doing its job.

For example, suppose I beleive in the systematic rejection of blind people from bus driving positions. I can see myself getting behind this even if I wouldn't know whether I'd be blind or not because I imagine behind the veil I'd put greater moral value associated with the safety of bus passengers than blind people's rights to the bus driving job. In other words, I've exposed the "driving" moral valuation behind my stance.