[kneath]

The most powerful man on earth, Pope Paul V demanded Galileo silence his thoughts on heliocentrism. He was then submitted to the Roman Inquisition, found guilty, and imprisoned for the rest of his life. Somehow this is seen as comparable in Sam's mind to a reasonable debate about ethics (“If people live a lot longer it will be disastrous for the environment, so people working on this must be really unethical”).

Quite frankly, if you can't find the courage to have a reasonable debate about your ideas, you shouldn't be the one working on those ideas. If your ideas run contrary to public thoughts around ethics, perhaps you should move to a culture where your ethics more closely mirror theirs. Or more radically — listen to why people disagree!

This whole post comes off as someone who's realizing their ethics are mismatched with the culture they're living in, and instead of questioning themselves, demand that the rest of the culture shift to their views. In other words: let me be this asshole, because I deserve it!

[dgudkov]

>if you can't find the courage to have a reasonable debate about your ideas..

The problem is that because of growing social polarization reasonable debates are becoming increasingly rare. Hoping to have a reasonable debate with people who are not looking to have a reasonable debate is silly and has nothing to do with courage.

[50CNT]

You're assuming that the values of the culture you're living in are necessarily better or more ethical than those held by an individual. But even assuming that is true, the inability to voice ones opinions without ostracism doesn't solve disagreement, it just hides it. Whilst there may be a tremendously pleasing and unproductive perceived homogeneity of opinion around you, that facade is pulled with the curtain of the voting booth.