Reality is obviously much more "blurry". Most political experts would argue (rightfully so, imho) that most "extreme" views are in fact not "left" or "right" of moderate ones; they sit in a different "plane" so to speak, a third space distinct from left/right (you'd indeed find a lot of right-ish and left-ish ideas mixed in with most "extreme" ideologies; you also find lots of moderate and extreme views in otherwise 'normal' (statistically) parties).

Left/right itself, or moderate/extreme, are also pretty poor and unsubstantial ways to define any idea or anyone, it's a poor man's shortcut to summarize a context, not ideas themselves. Most people today would sit far left of anyone in past history, for instance, while being much more individualistic at the same time.

Reality is complex. The media don't like complex (is media plural? shall I call it something else in pronoun?). Hence, theatric storytelling of the left versus the right, and/or moderates vs. extremes, iced with a general misunderstanding of statistics. I will now refrain from making any conclusion.

Anarchists are leftists, Ancaps are on the right.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

Relative extremeness, sure, but that makes something more or less extreme, not “extreme” without a comparative.

> Execution as a punishment is more extreme than a fine regardless of how many people favor execution over fines.

But execution for most serious crimes was for a very long time a standard position, not an extreme one, while not executing people was an extreme position (though it's now pretty standard in most of the world, with broad—or indeed any—use of execution being an extreme position.)

> I would argue that generally a position being extreme results in fewer believers, not that fewer believers results in a position being extreme.

If you would argue that, go ahead, but you've provided neither evidence nor much argumentation, just conflation of absolute and relative uses of “extreme”, and your example of capital punishment seems to disprove your thesis.

A fine is an extreme punishment for crimes like rape, while execution is not. (See the reaction to the Brock Turner sentencing.)

Not if you are talking about fining or destroying sentient robots. The sentient robot probably has a pretty good back-up system of his mind, so he can just respawn in a different body, his bank account, though, is singular and coupled to the identity that its brain can prove to be. So executing such a robot is not very extreme, it is at most an inconvenience. Taking his money though, is something that has a more lasting impact. At least this is what I made up.

The point I am making is that what is 'extreme' is dependent on context and there is no such thing as intrinsic extremeness.

What you're getting to is the Golden rule in almost all human civilizations: treat others as you would like to be treated. The problem is when this rule broke down because the majority's "would like to be treated" became a hate crime to a small, but vociferous, radical contingent of the population.

When did this rule break down, in your opinion? When has a society ever fully agreed amongst themselves? There’s certainly not a moment in American history that qualifies, and I doubt you’d find much simultaneous global peace in world history too. It’s never really existed.

There’s actually a fairly compelling argument against the golden rule, often referred to as the platinum rule[0].

The problem with the golden rule is that it assumes everyone wants to be treated the same way, because doesn’t everyone else want to be treated the same way I do? Not necessarily.

0: https://www.inc.com/peter-economy/how-the-platinum-rule-trum...

Of course, much of this may be a distinction without a difference in actual application :)

This depends how you define “poorly”. Some progressives would say all sex work is harmful to women. Some sex workers who are women would ask how you dare try to rob them of their agency.

It’s not that simple.

> or the slaves really prefer subservience as it's their destined station in life

Again, this depends on how you define “slavery”. To some, all factory workers are slaves in an evil Capitalist machine, subservient to the guy with the capital; all the guy did was start the company, right? But to the factory worker, he might be very happy with the opportunity to work and provide for his family, and for a multitude of reasons might prefer this to whatever else a typical Socialist might believe all people should want to do with their time.

It’s not that simple.

I agree, which is why I think it's pointless to try to conjecture on what other people want, and jump straight to how I would want to be treated. And of course, even that is tricky, but it's by far a more reliable set of information than guessing the myriad of preferences any given person may have at any given moment. Again, there's still the possibility of getting it wrong, but if I don't know myself as well as anyone possibly could, how can I think that guessing at what others want is going to somehow be more reliable?

So yes, it's not that simple, but the Golden rule is about as simple as you can reliably go on. Anything else seems to me to be bordering on the presumption of omniscience.

There is another group C, overlapping with B, people scrutinising your every word waiting for something, anything they can use, out of context, to get you fired. That’s problematic.

So:

- Joe won't tell Dani that she can't identify as a she

- Dani won't tell Joe that he should call her "he", not "she"

Do you think these two are really fundamentally equivalent?

If Dani starts calling Joe "she" over Joe's objections, that's totally okay in this schema, right? Deliberately misgendering someone is never harassment?

Ultimately what happens is these issues don't get talked about.

People in the center would rather just have an easy life and not deal with the "cancelling", doxxing, or career consequences that come with having a strong opinion, so don't engage.

That means that the extreme voices on either side end up dominating the conversation.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-comi...

1) Context and intent matter

2) It's better not to assume the worst (of the other person's intent)

3) Just because something is uncomfortable or offensive does not categorically make it painful.

--

For those who can't be bothered with the whole book the authors did an article for The Atlantic that was so well received they did the book.

Did that happen, or was this accepted as reasonable debate points?

You're right, I just want to point out for those that aren't aware, this is on stack exchange's meta site. The rules for voting are different, downvotes are more likely than on stack overflow.

Once you realize that people's politics reflect their values and the problems they see in their world (and which side they've bought into), it becomes a lot harder to stigmatize the other side...or even take a side.

I don't think that experience is universal.

I'm starting to wonder if part of the problem is the way debating is taught in school. Certainly when I was in school debate was taught essentially as a sport, a thing that you could win or lose and with tactics and strategies that you could use to help you defeat your opponent. The point under debate was basically irrelevant, and should be able to 'win' no matter which side you where debating, truth be damned. If you conceded ground to your opponent or admitted that you where wrong about something you'd said, you lost.

Having a clear, rational and reasonable debate was never something that was taught or encouraged.

I don't understand how you can say that when we have this huge HN thread (and it's interesting to see who is being downvoted here) and the huge SE threads spread out across the sites.