I guess there are people significantly higher in propensity-to-D-decouple than you. I would (absent concern that the taxi driver was trying to generate blackmail material on me or similar) be inclined to accept the hypothetical for the discussion, rather than just rejecting it, and similarly with the Dawkins case. Though I do, I suspect,…
I guess there are people significantly higher in propensity-to-D-decouple than you. I would (absent concern that the taxi driver was trying to generate blackmail material on me or similar) be inclined to accept the hypothetical for the discussion, rather than just rejecting it, and similarly with the Dawkins case. Though I do, I suspect, take more enjoyment in discussing strange hypothetical situations than most people.
There is, however, the consideration of public perception when the conversation is more for the benefit of onlookers than for the participants themselves. However, I think the best way to do that is not to just deny the premise of the hypothetical, which tends to make the person doing the denying look obtuse and uninterested in engaging with their interlocutor (at least to me), but rather to focus on the aspect that actually does lead to the bad results (such as the coercive part of coercive eugenics, rather than the eugenics part).
This also relates to the idea of whether there are should-be-taboo truths — things that are true, but the knowing of which by the general public would almost invariably lead to a bad outcome.
I guess there are people significantly higher in propensity-to-D-decouple than you. I would (absent concern that the taxi driver was trying to generate blackmail material on me or similar) be inclined to accept the hypothetical for the discussion, rather than just rejecting it, and similarly with the Dawkins case. Though I do, I suspect, take more enjoyment in discussing strange hypothetical situations than most people.
There is, however, the consideration of public perception when the conversation is more for the benefit of onlookers than for the participants themselves. However, I think the best way to do that is not to just deny the premise of the hypothetical, which tends to make the person doing the denying look obtuse and uninterested in engaging with their interlocutor (at least to me), but rather to focus on the aspect that actually does lead to the bad results (such as the coercive part of coercive eugenics, rather than the eugenics part).
This also relates to the idea of whether there are should-be-taboo truths — things that are true, but the knowing of which by the general public would almost invariably lead to a bad outcome.