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I don't know anyone IRL who thinks having sex with a 17 year old (bailey) is the same as having sex with a 7 year old (motte). It's a convenient rhetorical cudgel, so people pretend they believe that, but I'm pretty sure almost nobody really believes it. If you called someone who had sex with a high school senior a pedo, most people would roll their eyes; if you called someone who had sex with a 7 year old a pedo people would agree and be out for blood. They bailey might erode, but the motte is not going anywhere.
Contrast that with "racist." Getting called a racist in the 90s was a serious allegation and could make you radioactive even if the underlying charge was ridiculous. But now both frivolous accusations (bailey) AND substantive allegations (motte) are drawing eye rolls. Soon the word racist will be completely powerless, and even actual racial supremacists and chauvinists will be able to mostly shrug it off if they act civil enough. Not so with "pedophile." That one's going to stick around.
Okay, I see your point better now. I partially disagree with your assertion - genuine expressions of pure racial hatred draw more than eye rolls in all but the most edgy communities.
I’m very far from woke but I’ve left group chats because they really were just nastiness about Jewish noses and things.
A lot of that is that Jewish hate became cool amongst certain groups and then lowest common denominator figures got about it in very gauche ways. I'm all for questioning the power of Jewish people in major western countries but 'baby eating cabal of Satan worshiper' stuff just gets gauche very quickly
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I actually feel the same way you do, I quit 4chan because it just became nastiness and wasn't even funny, just the same racial insults and tired jokes repeated ad nauseam. I admit I didn't just roll my eyes and keep scrolling, I left. But I think the difference is that I didn't feel righteous outrage at the extreme racism, I just thought it was distasteful and stupid. I imagine it might have been the same for you, if you've grown up online. Holocaust jokes are dumb and mean-spirited but probably not particularly shocking. You close the browser and immediately move in.
In constrast, I don't think I would ever have such a low key reaction to actual pre-pubescent pedophilia. Even SFW sexualized depiction of pre-pubescent children are extreme creepy and disturbing to me, and I don't think I'm unusual in reactiomng that way. Theoretically you could imagine a society where everyone has been desensitized to it, but we're nowhere near that and a lot would have to change first. Even here in Japan, the vast majority of people find the sexualization of children to be really creepy and beyond the pale despite what "Weird Japan!" clickbait websites claim.
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