[slumdev]

There are two centrisms that can't be confused.

The first kind of centrist examines each issue on its merits and arrives at a principled conclusion, regardless of how other people think about an issue. This kind of centrism is reasonable. This person can't really even be called a centrist. He's just non-partisan.

The second kind of centrist looks at the existing parties to an argument and averages their viewpoints: "Group A insists 2+2=4 and group B insists 2+2=6, but I'm a virtuous centrist, so I believe that 2+2=5."

I don't think anyone has any issue with the first kind of centrist. But there are far too many of the second kind.

[laputan_machine]

Can you give an example of the second type? I see this kind of strawman argument against centrism all the time, yet I rarely see "worst of both worlds" outcomes in a political sense

[southeastern]

During the civil rights era, there were people that said "yeah I don't like racism but it's people choice to ban blacks from their businesses. I totally empathize with you it's awful, but over turning freedom would be more awful"

[esyir]

That's not a centrist position. That's a position solidly entrenched in favour of right of association over other rights.

[anm89]

Meta comment: I'm not allowed to vote specifically on this comment. I can vote on its parent and children. Does anyone know why that might be the case?

[gruez]

It's probably to prevent pointless tit-for-tat downvotes from replies. eg:

1. user A makes a comment

2. user B downvotes user A for disagreeing with him, makes a reply saying why user A's wrong

3. user A sees the downvote (or not), downvotes user B for disagreeing with him, makes a reply saying why user B's wrong

continue ad infinitum.

[anm89]

I'm not the parent of this

[heavyset_go]

Did you already vote on it and forgot?

[slumdev]

Most Americans support an abortion ban, but they also support exceptions for rape or incest.

If the fetus is a human person with rights, there should be no exception.

If the fetus is not a human person with rights, then restrictions of any kind are unjust.

The provenance of the fetus has no effect on the moral liceity of killing it. It's a lazy opinion formed by appeals to emotion.

[tjs8rj]

Very few people decide the value of a fetus on a binary. Some leftists say it’s always just a clump of cells, some rightists say it’s always a human life.

Most people just don’t know. Immediately after conception it’s clearly just a clump of cells, immediately before birth it’s clearly a baby. Hence why most Americans are between lots of exceptions and few exceptions.

In general, if lots of people feel a certain way, and your conclusion is completely contradictory, you should assume you’re wrong until strong evidence says otherwise. You’re essentially assuming you know better than everyone.

[slumdev]

> In general, if lots of people feel a certain way, and your conclusion is completely contradictory, you should assume you’re wrong until strong evidence says otherwise.

This is a useful heuristic for becoming popular but not for making moral decisions. It is the worst possible approach to forming one's conscience.

> You’re essentially assuming you know better than everyone.

You're assuming everyone else formed a reasoned opinion rather than following the loudest existing herd.

[tjs8rj]

In general, people are about as intelligent as you, and at least the same order of magnitude. People are prone to trends as much as the market is, but the market of ideas tends to be somewhat efficient (not least because all profits from financial to business to psychic stem from people and their expectations). So the conclusion that everyone is wrong requires serious burden of proof. Doesn’t mean you can’t be contradictory and correct, it just means that’s unlikely. You can beat the market, but usually you won’t without good evidence

This is less true with morals, unless you’re a relativist.

[dragonwriter]

> In general, people are about as intelligent as you, and at least the same order of magnitude.

> This is less true with morals, unless you’re a relativist.

Even assuming moral absolutism is valid, that very much depends on what measure you choose to apply to values that, even if they are naturally quantifiable (which I doubt for morality, even one assumes it is absolute), clearly have no obvious natural ratio-level measure, making orders of magnitude and other ratio-dependent comparisons entirely arbitrary.

[slumdev]

Statistically, without any other data, about half of the people will be smarter than I am, and half of them won't. How can I be sure that I chose the right half to follow, especially if we're assuming that I'm average?

Regardless, I still hold that following the herd is a recipe for disaster. It is a form of the Just World Fallacy.

[tomc1985]

> Most Americans support an abortion ban, but they also support exceptions for rape or incest.

This is news to me, can you qualify this statement?

[slumdev]

https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-aborti...

> Fewer take the position that in all cases abortion should be [...] legal (25%)

75% of Americans support some kind of ban (with differing positions on what loopholes should be carved out.)

[tomc1985]

The link contradicts your statement

> Most Americans support an abortion ban

Doesn't imply the same thing as

> Fewer take the position that in all cases abortion should be [...] legal (25%)

[hn_one_off]

Actually, this seems like a coherent position: they believe that fetuses are somewhat like a human person, but not entirely. They should generally be protected, but in exceptional cases might not be.

[atq2119]

Technically, one could make arguments based on genetics for the "middle" position. Something like: allowing abortion following rape puts a damper on the spread of genes that tend to lead towards rape.

That's probably not a good argument. I'm just playing devil's advocate for why that position isn't necessarily self-contradictory.

[KittenInABox]

Allowing abortion for purposes of eugenics is self-contradictory with the notion that life should be inviolate.

[atq2119]

That's not self-contradictory though -- it's just good old contradiction with a different position. So a person who only holds one of those beliefs would potentially be fine, as far as self-contradiction is concerned.

Besides, beliefs can be prioritized and in shades of gray. Somebody could value the life of an embryo very highly (going so far as to call it "inviolate" at times when they aren't carefully weighing their beliefs -- few people do that all the time, so we should allow for some lapses in precision), but still believe that certain other concerns trump it. After all, most pro-choice folks do value the life of an embryo highly, they just believe that the mother's rights over her body are even more important.

[watwut]

> Most Americans support an abortion ban

This is not true. They support restrictions that are way smaller then the "only rape" one.

[onethought]

As your example you use a weird right wing wedge issue.

How about science based climate change where people think you can literally compromise on physics/math and make 2+2=5 because 4 is just too inconvenient.

Edit: (I’ll clarify: Abortion is used as a kind of hack into the religious/cultural background of Americans. It is purposefully used to divide political debate in a non rational way).

[esyir]

It's a weird left wing wedge issue too. The point of a wedge is that it cleanly divides. They're thus bipartisan, almost by definition.

[onethought]

No, because it requires religious conservatism. Which is very much in the right sphere of the political spectrum.

Take a peak outside of the US and make note of how abortion is not a wedge issue, which if you were correct should not be possible.

[esyir]

The US left aligned view on this is also beyond that of most of the eu. They've basically come to differing consensi on what limits to engage, whether they be waiting periods or time periods.the US left would despise German abortion law for instance, which requires mandatory counselling about their decision.

What I see from the US is an eternal war to drag it further, regardless of its current position. Its culture war for culture wars sake.