Arthur ChuVerified account

Look, I actually had this discussion AT THE TIME, with the mutual FB friend of me and Scott that led to this whole thing And in his very high-decoupling way he actually laid it out in very stark terms

"I just strongly believe in a divide between thoughts, speech and action If someone tells you 'I'm seriously doing research that might lead me to the conclusion I have to punch you, but I'm not convinced yet,' that's not a reason to punch them You can still have a discussion"

And I'm just like What the fuck No, that statement so clearly disproves your point If someone tells you "I'm thinking of punching you, I think that might be justified," THAT IS A THREAT You don't fucking wait to respond to a threat, you take immediate action

To use more of Scott and Eliezer's beloved Star Wars references, when Greedo stands there talking about carefully weighing the cost/benefit analysis of taking you to Jabba alive rather than shooting you now, you only keep him talking long enough to draw under the table

You don't fucking wait for him to decide You don't let him come to some kind of intellectual decision If him attacking you is *anywhere* in his "decision space" you cut that shit off by any method you have to hand, as fast and as hard as you can

Much like how cops are trained to shoot as soon as they believe a suspect attacking them is anywhere in the suspect's decision space? Yeah, that's been turning out real well.

Yes, mocking some internet goofball’s long, tedious justification of racism is *exactly* like a cop killing some kid in a park for playing with a toy.

My point is that being convinced that holding views you disagree with is "completely out of their decision space" is an unhelpfully high standard for engaging in reasoned discourse with someone. It's a recipe for building echo chambers, rather than an actual exchange of ideas.