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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   4096 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 5, 2023

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The master of trolling is at it again. Hanania:

Let's say Jeffrey Epstein wants to have sex with a 14 year-old girl, and will pay her $10 million. The money will go into a mutual fund that will pay out when she's 21. The girl agrees, as do both of her parents. Should this be allowed? And are you male or female?

As of this writing, the results are:

  • "Yes, male" - 5.9%
  • "No, male" - 78.1%
  • "Yes, female" - 1.3%
  • "No, female" - 14.7%

Look at the engagement metrics on this tweet: 94,000 votes, 3.4 million views, 4,700 comments, 273 likes. This might be the most "popular" Hanania tweet of all time.

Now, I am one of the apparent sickos who voted "yes", but I can see some decent arguments for "no". I'm still surprised the results are this lopsided, and I'm also surprised that there appears to be no gender gap.

I really don't get why it shouldn't be allowed. This isn't even illegal in many places and in many places where the age of consent is 16, it was 14 not long ago. Is having the age of consent two years lower really such a massive mistake that was causing more than $10 million worth of harm every time a 14 year old had sex? That's more than we're willing to spend to prevent someone from dying.

I don't think he's trolling. I think he's showing how irrational people about sexual morality. It's an excellent poll that reveals the absurdity of most people's black and white thinking on this issue. A lot of people talk as though if it's bad, it should be stopped at all costs, even though no one actually acts like they really believe that.

Leave it to Americans to make arbitrary age boundaries the end all be all of morality.

  • 18? Too young to have a beer. Old enough to go die in war though. Also old enough to have a say in who the leader of the armed forces of the world hegemon should be.
  • 16? Too young to have sex. Just old enough to get inside a metal body and yeet yourself through the highway at 75 MPH.

16? Too young to have sex

16 is actually the age of consent in the vast majority of states

I agree that driving is more dangerous than having sex, but it's better to learn young, while sex is better to put off.

I'm struggling to even understand this sentence. I didn't bother getting a license until after college (when I finally needed one), and had the best sex of my life between 13 and 20. Because it turns out it's really fun when you have teenage stamina and basically unlimited time on your hands during summer break.

The optimal time to learn to drive is when you're a teenager. You can't learn to drive as well in your 20s.

I didn't have much sexual experience before 25, but I don't remember it being any different than sex at any other age. I don't think there has been any change in my stamina. And free time? How long does it take to have sex?

How long does it take to have sex?

An entire four day weekend ideally, IIRC. Good luck handling that in your thirties: I know I couldn't.

That just seems like an absurd thing to do, even if you're young. How do teenagers even do that when they live with their parents?

Is having the age of consent two years lower really such a massive mistake that was causing more than $10 million worth of harm every time a 14 year old had sex?

I basically agree with your core point, but I want to remind you that most people aren't utilitarians. Hanania surely knows this, so repeatedly pointing out that deontologists (even ones that don't know that's their ethical foundation) aren't utilitarians is just kind of pointless.

Pretty much everywhere it’s 14/15/16 it’s still 18 for prostitution.

Every time

Presumably the offer (with the same sum attached) is not extended to every 14-year-old propositioned for sex, but people have a reasonable fear that some Schelling fence would be torn down (what's the exact n such that you can buy consensual sex with a 14 year old for n but not less? What do you say to the hypothetical age-gap couple who point out that they are banned from something that is allowed for millionaires?) which can only end in the age of (free, as in beer) consent just being driven back down to 14.

Also, something about that old Scott post about trading off sacred and profane values.

Also, something about that old Scott post about trading off sacred and profane values.

The modern day west is basically 100% profane. It does not get to claim anything is sacred any more after its behaviour over the past 60 years, any such claims are just hypocrisy at this point and deserve to be called out.

Westerners have killed God, and now they deserve all the consequences of that, good and hard.

I can't find the post now, but it was about a more general sense of "sacred" than the religious one, and revolved specifically around the observation that many people partitioned possible desiderata in two different categories that they refused or downright found it offensive to compare and trade off - so questions like "how many people breaking a leg would be too many to prevent a rape" would be met with "infinitely many" or just incoherent anger rather than serious consideration. In the suggested interpretation, this would be because sexual autonomy is "sacred" whereas mere non-injury is "profane". I don't see our society having renounced things that are sacred in the sense of "how DARE you compromise on anything in this category for the sake of something outside of it".

Many of those scenarios are sufficiently convoluted that the natural reaction is to say "there's someone setting it up, just kill the one who set it up".

Sure, but often (in the case of concrete policy proposals) they are only as convoluted as the reality we now inhabit, so even if that is the natural reaction is quite maladaptive. Besides, I'd consider (a possible interpretation of) The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas as yes-chadding the refusal to trade, and even the German constitutional prohibition against (state action) pushing the trolley problem lever is adjacent (though it arguably goes further and prohibits positive action to trade sacred values against each other). Then, of course, the juxtaposition of fierce opposition to child labour and the relative indifference to child poverty and starvation.

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