He was also talking about the inhumane cruelty of capitalism.

No, that isn't the reality of things at all. That's just factually wrong - and historically wrong since we know lots of early hominids took extensive care of disabled members of their communities.

There is nothing about people born with a disability that makes them incapable of cooperation.

> It ignores the likelihood that force, physical or coercive, applied by the few over the many is much more likely to resolve non-compliance than expecting individuals to simply look out for the group.

No, it just means that a small number of individuals have very few resources to prevent people from simply leaving without a larger state apparatus.

>Statements like "Undemocratic institutions are unsustainable over the long term" ignore both recorded history and studies of more primitive cultures which still exist today.

"Primitive" cultures that exist today are almost always highly egalitarian compared to even modern "democratic" cultures.

Any kind of stable social group at low technology levels would need a fairly egalitarian model simply because everyone was essential. Anyone simply refusing to cooperate anymore would be a massive harm to the whole group.

One factor to bear in mind is communities would effectively be in a state of permanent manpower shortage - effectively needing to take every step they could to prevent fragmentation and preserve unity.

Undemocratic institutions are unsustainable over the long term under those conditions.

> They live in a dictatorial hierarchy, just like the apes they are

That is completely wring on so many levels. Least of all the fact that many of humanity's closest relatives are either matriarchal and/or egalitarian.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bonobo-sex-and-society-2006-06/

> My answer is: no human being is ever truly powerless.

That's nice in theory, but anecdotal examples aren't the same as practical reality for most people.

MLK, Gandhi and Nelson Mandela only had "power" because of massive international pressure, cold war balance of power issues and a large, potentially violent movement behind them. They weren't individuals and pretending their actions didn't benefit from real hard power is erasing history.

In a similar vein, Ukraine is surviving in large part to massive foreign military aid making it possible for them to resist an otherwise vastly more powerful military.

And most people, especially in western society, don't have the backing of foreign military powers or an armed resistance movement behind them.

All games of this type are based on both parties having some power to affect each other. If one is powerless then their preferences aren't going to matter.

Which coincidentally is why more egalitarian systems breed more cooperation.

"Thought experiments" are less about RESOLVING ethical dilemmas, and more about CLARIFYING the real underlying issues of those dilemmas.

It's like calibrating a measurement device. You need to explore the limitations on it to know how to correct for biases and errors.

From the blog:

> David Campanale, a parliamentary candidate for the Liberal Democrats and a Christian, has been deselected following his desire to reduce abortion time limits.

>I regard this as an act of intolerance

Okay, but that would be utterly wrong.

"Running as a candidate for a political party" by definition requires agreement with the political positions of that party. That is literally a qualifying requirement for that position. If you can't support the party's platform, they should remove you as a candidate.

If you joined the Conservative party and then said you had a religious commitment to nationalizing British Airways, when they dismiss you as a candidate it wouldn't be an act of intolerance. You disqualified yourself from running as a candidate by opposing a core political position that the party stands for.

All of the examples in the blog post follow that pattern - losing some privilege because of intolerant, unprofessional or discriminatory behaviour isn't a violation of anyone's rights. It's a natural consequence of someone choosing to disqualify themselves from being able to fill a particular role.

I think this is less about telling us "science can answer moral questions" (it can't) but rather pointing to the way that "science" itself has the same attributes as various ethical philosophies, like utilitarianism, deontology and virtue ethics.

In particular the focus on "reputations" of scientists shows that the "virtue ethics" elements of science are far stronger and more prominent in practice than most philosophies of science would generally admit.

> I think a sound argument could be made that the "scientization" of society's representation of reality has caused significant harm to the recruitment efforts of religions.

I think a sound argument could be made that "scientization" of a wide range of values, institutions and other non-scientific ventures has cause significant harm to science.

By labelling a whole range of capitalist western cultural values, practices and structures as "scientific", ranging from capitalist economics, western "racial" categories, political institutions, etc... the failures in those structures and the genocide and discrimination they've enabled have permanently made a lot of people skeptical about the whole idea of "science" across the board.

> Religions do tend to make strong claims about healthy human behaviour.

Those tend to be claims about MORAL behaviour, which isn't a scientific question at all.

In those cases too, you still have to look at a deeper understanding of the conditions in those specific countries rather than a generalized "religion vs science" lens.

It's fair to link religion to authoritarian movements generally, but that's still a political issue more than a scientific one.

> It's how scientific pursuit is facing a threat from increasing religious fundamentalism in many parts of the world.

Is it, though?

There is a political backlash against the advancement of rights for marginalized groups in different parts of the world, like the anti-trans hysteria in much of the UK and US for instance.

But even though that's "anti-science" it's far from being purely religious, and there are no shortage of secular bigots involved.

The rise of "Islamic Fundamentalism" wasn't some accident, or even related to "science" at all, it was an intentionally funded movement by US and Israeli interests as a bulwark against communism and other secular nationalist movements, which was viewed as a more dangerous enemy at the time. See for instance how Israel was largely responsible for the rise of Hamas as a counter-movement to Fatah, or US funding of Saudi and Afghanistan religious extremism.

This is such a weird north American perspective, since most "religion" doesn't even pretend to be providing scientific answers to any questions, so in most cases there's nothing for science to "destroy".

"Young Earth Creationism" and similar attempts to turn religion into "scientific theory" were derided as laughable by Christian thinkers themselves 1600 years ago.

>“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience.

>Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men.

It's not a new issue, and religious thought has generally focused on the cultural, ethical, value-based and institutional issues of religion for exactly that reason.

It's only in the modern-day US where you see that weird attempt to revive readings of the Bible that have been laughed at for thousands of years by Christians themselves.

How can moderation at /r/philosophy be improved?

There is no consistency in what's treated as "Respectful" or "Arguing your position" and blatant personal attacks are left untouched and factual disagreement is removed.