(Note: I carefully avoided saying "because it's unsanitary" to avoid the immediate response that urine is reasonably sterile and no worse than any other liquid that might wind up on the floor. I've learned my lessons.)

Not everyone agrees with that! And by continually pushing back against the "we don't do that" consensus, and arguing about the details, they keep these ideas floating around longer than they really should. Choosing to engage with them when they've already been "settled" gives them apparent legitimacy and now you're setting explicit written policies about which words can and can't be used in what contexts and shit, rather than enforcing a social norm via a social mechanism.

Some things need to be ossified! You can't be an athlete without a skeleton, you can't keep every idea in a pliable cartilage form forever if you want to do useful work on or around it. When things are more or less settled they should be solidified as well.

The semantic stop sign betrays weakness, like eugenics might maybe have some secret kernal of truth. The thrashing of it is both scientifically correct and demystifies it.

We breed for traits. That's eugenics.

The reason we don't practice eugenics with humans is that it removes our agency and tramples our rights. And that's morally abhorrent. We don't need to pretend that it doesn't work. We just need to acknowledge that directing the procreation of other humans is just flat out morally wrong.

Eugenics specifically aims to change the social situation (poverty, crime, drug use, etc) by changing the gene pool. That will never work, crime is not a genetic condition.

What you describe is genetic modification, not eugenics.

You can breed for traits.

I'm fully capable of realizing that forced breeding/sterilization is inhumane and also be aware that it is capable of getting results.

But really, eugenics doesn't work. If you go to a really crime filled area, legally/ethically adopt a dozen babies and raise them in a low crime area.. they will look like the area they were raised in, not like the kids who grew up in a high crime area.

The inverse holds too. Go take a dozen babies from a low crime area, throw them in a dangerous high crime area, and they will be criminals.

With animals, you can breed for some general traits but not consistently. Some German shepherds don't take orders well. Some non-herding dogs will be great at herding. If you want to raise, eg a police k9, you need to start with a very young dog (or get lucky), you can't randomly pull from a breed (oh, this dog is a GS, they will be a great police k9).

If you engage in a really aggressive eugenics program you will.. basically not change anything.

Wait - you think the problem with eugenics is that it was ineffective? I think we need to talk a lot more about eugenics.

Or we can just nip the whole thing because failure and racist failure are both just failure.

If you test positive for some genetic markers, you get free IVF, paid for by the government. If you have some kind of anti-IVF bent, it's not mandatory, just a benefit you aren't using. The IVF process picks embryos that have the least undesirable traits - but you will definitely have a kid and it will be yours.

You have eugenics and no forced sterilization, no murdering people, nothing.

It still won't work, but you have ethical eugenics.

That approach assumes that 1) every venue is an appropriate venue for a debate, 2) that everyone who supports a value or norm is educated enough on it to explain its technical merits to a skeptical audience and 3) everyone is capable of defending that idea against a hostile debate opponent in public.

To me "we decided, it's not like that here" is firm and clear, communicates that this is a social norm that is not up for debate at this time in this venue, without necessarily declaring it's absolutely final or that there is no appropriate venue. There are not really any perfect solutions here but this is a quite good one.

Also, who is "we"? If you have a 5-person company and you hire 10 more people, should the social rules decided by the first 5 be dictated to the other 10? Or should they be changed to make everyone maximally comfortable?

These aren't questions that you should necessarily answer on the spot, but these are questions that have to be answered.

because sometimes it needs to be made clear that such comments are not acceptable here. you could say it in different words, like for example: "in this company such comments are considered inappropriate" or "we don't make such jokes here"

If you have a 5-person company and you hire 10 more people, should the social rules decided by the first 5 be dictated to the other 10?

initially yes. later when everyone knows each other better, there is time and room to reconsider and maybe debate the finer points of some specific rules.

Also, the idea of "reconsidering the finer points of the rules" is really interesting - it suggests that the comfort of the first 5 matters more than the comfort of everyone else. What if the first 5 people were hyper-religious conservatives who hired 10 progressives and want to keep hiring progressives? Should it still only be the finer points of the rules that get discussed? Or should it be understood that their culture of prayers every day doesn't scale up, and that a lot of things need to be re-worked? This can also be true of hyper-progressive people. A culture of offense-taking at little things, language policing, and social justice book clubs is as non-inclusive as a culture of daily prayers.

"We don't do that here" is exclusionary language, and so are the other two comments you suggested. Both use "we" to fabricate consensus (has the company really decided as a group that this particular speech pattern is banned?) and shame the other party as an outsider. That is not the right way to create respect.

ok, i kind of agree with that. i was not responding to that part of the comment.

the idea of "reconsidering the finer points of the rules" is really interesting - it suggests that the comfort of the first 5 matters more than the comfort of everyone else

no, it suggests that when 10 individuals join an existing team, they ought to learn more about the team culture first, before they try to make changes, unless the existing culture is clearly hostile to some people.

consider the difference between 10 new people joining all at once or one at a time, a few weeks apart. why should 10 new people get the right to dominate the culture that i am trying to build in my company? i am paying you, so you follow my culture. once we know each other better, then you may start pointing out problems that you discover. but if you come in and start being disruptive because you disagree with my company culture, then you better go look for another job. even if i am wrong, that's not the way to implement changes.

the critical point is, that such issues are not a question of majority, but one of inclusiveness. we want to reject a culture that excludes some people. so if the original 5 people have a problematic culture, then the newcomers are good to try to change that (but being disruptive is unlikely to work), but if it is the reverse, then it's the newcomers that need to adjust.

EDIT: added some clarifications.

Similarly, we used to be interested in showing people that racism was bad. Anti-racism educators and consultants would talk about the economic benefits of widening your market or your employee pool. Now that we instead call people "racist" to shut down discussion, actual racists are gaining ideological footholds, and lots of people are suspicious of the people who call others "racist."

People are not stupid. If you want them to agree with you, you should not talk down to them.

I’m sorry, I’m not sure what to make of this: whether or not GR (our current ToG) is correct, and, if not, what’s missing or how it might be wrong is a hugely important active field of research.

As is, of course, trying to integrate QM and GR.

They aren’t ossified, they are hard. Conceptually hard. Mathematically hard. And a few other hards.

I think it's reasonable to resist that on the grounds that humans aren't gravity, no one is going to come up with newton's laws of how to treat each other. These things aren't facts of the universe that can be revealed to us, they are decisions we must make using our own resources. Debate is one of those resources, but not the only one, not even the most valuable one, not one that is appropriate at all times in all places for all ideas.

Edit: By the way, if it's good for society, and not for you, there should be laws about it. That's why the eugenicists in the early 1900's (who believed that racism was a social good) enforced Jim Crow Laws: businesses often refused to discriminate unless the law forced them.

I think the technique in the article is best used in situations where you specifically do not want to do so. When there's no value for you in the debate, or you will only be giving legitimacy to a discredited and harmful idea.

Saying "we don't do that here" is definitely a bit of a power play and you wouldn't use it if you truly needed to convince the other party to believe the thing. If you merely need them to act on it though, and you have the power to pull it, it's fine for that.