
Unpopular ideas about social norms - imartin2k
https://juliagalef.com/2017/08/23/unpopular-ideas-about-social-norms/
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ruytlm
Thoroughly agree that we should both encourage and train people to think more
philosophically about societal questions and social norms - even if the
outcome is just to say 'nope, I think the social norm is fine as is'.

One of the main reasons for this in my opinion is it drives empathy and
understanding; by learning to genuinely consider an argument from an opposing
viewpoint, one learns how another sees the world.

On a personal level, I've found it's been one of the most enduring and
valuable skills from an undergrad degree in philosophy; it's much harder to
hate someone, or even get annoyed or frustrated with them, when you're able to
understand them.

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NhanH
I suspect that some of the ideas are just perceived to be unpopular, as
opposed to be actually unpopular. People might like the idea but is afraid to
say it out loud

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lkesteloot
I would _love_ to see a survey where people are asked both "how much do you
agree" and "how likely are you to say so publicly". Given enough questions,
it'd also be interesting to find out if the Left or the Right generally feels
more suppressed. (I'm obsessed with the possibility that Clinton lost because
the Left pressured people to deny that they supported Trump.)

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jcahill
That wouldn't work like you're hoping. You're assuming a (representative)
respondent pool that's all of these:

1\. capable of switching off preference falsification for a survey

2\. introspectively active (and accurately so) over a long enough period to
notice that they behave differentially in public and private contexts

3\. _interested in_ exposing this degree of candor for a survey, i.e.
motivated to "show the researchers" (show themselves, really) their belly
after collapsing across all the reasons they'd rather not.

Humans are primitive. Questionnaires have to be designed around that.

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Areading314
I think its really cute that an attempt was made to cite blog articles as
references though, good job.

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theWatcher37
1\. Create culture where anyone who steps outside the political or moral norm
is fired/career limited.

2\. Sneer about no "professional sources" for positions, since few people
value ideas over employment/tenure. Only people with nothing to lose
publically air those opinions, those with things to lose keep them to
themselves.

3\. Imply that anyone who thinks in the non-approved way must be like those
people/undesirables with nothing to lose, despite the silent ones having a lot
to lose.

You can say this is all tinfoil, but my engineering ethics professor told the
entire class he's had to make choices between "speaking truth to power" and
his career and that in the interest of full disclosure he chose his career +
funding. 250+ people in that room at the time.

