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Notes -
Let's talk about infant male circumcision. Common in the United States, considered beastly in most European countries. But they don't spend much time criticizing the United States about it, perhaps due to fear of being called anti-semitic.
Reasons not to do it:
The foreskin has functions
Bad for the infant's brain due to inadequate aenesthesia
Complications ranging from meatal stenosis to more grisly and life-changing outcomes
Etc etc
Anyway, besides just introducing a topic I believe is underdiscussed both on the Motte and in general, my questions are this:
How do you rate the importance of this issue relative to commonly discussed culture war stuff? If it is true that circumcision is a serious violation akin to rape, then it seems very very important.
and
Does anyone on this board support routine infant circumcision, or is this thread just going to be full of a lot of devil's advocate stuff?
I'm not for circumcising newborns.
And on paper stopping said practice is of concern, that's if you care about "human rights" in the abstract. However, I don't think anyone besides the 3 principled civil libertarians really does, and since new born males can't speak up about it and no interest group will fight for it, I wouldn't hold my breath. It costs too many weirdness points because of the current political climate.
The cultures that got it right might have gotten it right for reasons other than the one you want to get it right for.
What does it mean to care about this issue but not care about human rights? I care about making the world a better place, and ending infant circumcision would do that.
People should get in the habit of solving coordination problems. Yudkowsky, dath ilan, etcetera. The "weirdness points" thing is a coordination problem.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding your question, but the answer seems obvious to me: someone could care about circumcision but not because of reasons relating to human rights. For example, someone could have an agenda against feminism and so go crusading about issues that affect men, in order to take conversation and public consciousness away from female-centric policy. I'm not saying you're doing that, just that it could be someone's motivation.
The poster you're replying to, I think, is saying that of all the human rights violations, circumcision just seems like such a silly hill to die on. Why spend much for little return value, instead of allocating effort to more fruitful violations? Hopefully in the future, circumcision won't cost so much to fix, or maybe once all the low-hanging fruit has been picked, then reach for circumcision.
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