When people are invested in controversy, the more reasonable and compelling your arguments are, the more mob justice-worthy you become.<p>The first casualty of war is truth. If you're at war, anything that paints the enemy as less than totally wrong and pure evil is part of the problem, an impediment to victory.<p>(Maybe no one should be ashamed of inborn sexual desires, but if they involve non-consenting adults, children, harming other people, they might not be a good thing and acting on them should be avoided, but that's probably a quibble.)
>Though I don’t consider it legally practicable, as a moral matter I’d be fine if every such man were thrown in prison for life.<p>I was with the author right up until this. Mr. Aaronson here declares that, were it legally practicable, he believes that THOUGHT POLICE would be a very good thing. He proposes life imprisonment for "wrong" belief, not wrong action.<p>At that point, I ceased to care much at all about what Scott Aaronson believes.