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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   4103 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 5, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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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.

Anyone who votes no:

  1. Doesn't know the value of 10M USD with 7 years of compounding. Hell, I'd take a bit of molesting myself for that much money at the age of 21. Forget consexual sex.
  2. Isn't aware that losing one's virginity at ages 15-16 is not that uncommon.
  3. Shouldn't be allowed to vote.

I vote no because Epstein getting to indulge his sick desire is inherently bad. Whether or not the girl is better off or not from the exchange is immaterial.

Your morality is evil in that is denies someone of 10M USD because you feel icky about the entire thing.

Your morality is evil because it allows billionaires to rape child prostitutes without consequence.

She consented therefore it isn't rape by defnition.

She's 14 and therefore below the age of consent and therefore sex with her by an adult is rape by definition.

That depends on which country you are in.

If she was 4 then it would be much more obviously evil. 14 is too close to 15 (most common global aoc) for 10M usd not to muddy the picture. I'm sure there are 15 year olds with the mental age of 12. Or 18 year olds with the mental age of 16.

No, money doesn't muddy the picture. It makes it worse.

Prostitution is worse than normal sex. Child prostitution is worse than normal statutory rape.

The use of money and power to achieve immoral ends is itself immoral.

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Keeping your facts the same, your arguments are an apology for child sexual abuse.

Children cannot give consent.

In the myriad of child sexual abuse cases that have been reported in the news, statuary rape is certainly among them.

Are you of the opinion that the morality of statutory rape is contingent on monetary compensation to the victims?

child sexual abuse

I'm going to come out and say this: when debating with opponents of Anglospheric AoC, this term currently obscures considerably more than it illuminates.

The reason is that it is defined in two ways:

  1. legally, as sex with children under the age of 16-18 depending on jurisdiction and context
  2. etymologically, as sex with children that is bad ("abuse")

But the people you are arguing with are claiming that these two things do not coincide! We believe that things satisfying #1 do not necessarily satisfy #2. So the use of this term essentially assumes the falsehood of our claims.

Are you of the opinion that the morality of statutory rape is contingent on monetary compensation to the victims?

I can't speak for others, of course, but I'm of the opinion that the morality of statutory rape is for the most part dependent on whether it's consensual - i.e., whether or not it's "real" rape. The monetary compensation is not super-relevant; I would consider it morally wrong, for instance, to rape a screaming/struggling 14-year-old and then pay him/her $10,000,000, and I would consider it NBD to have consensual sex with a 14-year-old without money changing hands. The only relevance here of the $10,000,000 is that people will consent to many more things for $10,000,000 payment than for $0.

Children cannot give consent.

I am so incredibly disillusioned by the persistent poor use of language on this topic and the fact that the only tool in the toolbox for the current Morality Police is consent. I've read the professional philosophers on the topic, and once you see it, this sort of base simplification is big oof.

The first basic classification is whether you mean, "Children cannot give factual consent," or, "Children cannot give legal consent." If it's the latter, then the response is simply not relevant to these sorts of hypotheticals about morality. If it's the former, then huge questions remain. Why can't they? What does factually consenting consist of? What capacity do they lack that prevents them from doing so? Why is this particular use of "consent" so different from many other areas where we might use the term "consent" to mean things that everyone agrees a child would be capable of doing? What's the difference?

Now, we could have rich discussions on these questions. I don't know that I personally think they can all be answered in a simple way that comes to the result that you might like, not because I think that child sex is good, but more because I think the "consent only" sexual ethic is probably wrong. But we basically never even get to the meaningful questions, because this oversimplification is viewed as an atomic first principle. It's just a thought-terminating slogan that kills any meaningful progress rather than elucidating anything interesting.

This is why I also think that Hanania's efforts are more low-effort trolling unless he follows it up with something that really pokes people to consider how this question really rips raw their deficient conception of a sexual ethic.

My thinking was both legal and factual, if I understand you correctly. I do not think a 14 year-old is mature enough and understands the social consequences to consent to sexual activity with an adult, simply because of their inexperience. Even if the adult they is a billionaire in exchange for payment. This is not to say younger person could not agree to partake in the activity, but the difference in age and social stature on the part of the child renders any of their agreement to be coerced and manipulated.

By "consent" you mean "consent (correctly)", which means you're independently judging there's a non-consent reason the child shouldn't be having sex, which is the reason the child shouldn't have sex. Why not just say '14 year olds shouldn't have sex with 18 year olds for '? Why say they 'can't consent'?

I do not think a 14 year-old is mature enough and understands the social consequences to consent to sexual activity with an adult, simply because of their inexperience.

And I don't think black people are mature enough and understand the social consequences to consent to sexual activity with a white person (or other black people), especially because they commit a lot more sexual crime than the average white person (and crime in general, suggesting a lack of impulse control, understanding of social consequences, and general maturity), and have lower IQs than the average teenager. Allowing them to experience such a powerful stimulus like sex, or have someone else use them to access such, is therefore bad for them.

If we're going to start drawing lines on "social consequences" and "maturity" you ultimately run into the problem where there are objectively better lines to draw on than mere age- so what's different here other than "society now believes it's more proper to discriminate based on age rather than race when it comes to what we think they're capable of [consenting to]"?

(Of course, I'm sure our modern phrenology asserting the subhumanity of the under-25 set is totally correct this time.)

I do not think a 14 year-old is mature enough and understands the social consequences to consent to sexual activity with an adult, simply because of their inexperience.

Ah, something like the "knowledge" prong in Westen's parlance. So, then, suppose that we instituted a top tier sexual education to help children understand the social consequence of consent to sexual activity with an adult. Would that make it fine?

This is not to say younger person could not agree to partake in the activity, but the difference in age and social stature on the part of the child renders any of their agreement to be coerced and manipulated.

...and we've taken a massive left turn, actually. This is a totally different and contradictory basis on which to make the claim. It sort of also comes from nowhere. We basically never say that age/social stature differences inherently make agreements coerced/manipulated, invalidating consent. We don't even have to go to hypotheticals about Taylor Swift wanting to have sex with someone... though we could; how could a "normal" person possibly consent to having sex with Taylor Swift, given her immense social stature advantage? This sort of reasoning kills a normal person's ability to consent to the transaction of buying a ticket to a Taylor Swift concert! How could they possibly consent, given the massive different in social stature?!

Instead of bringing up Taylor Swift you should have brought up R. Kelly he demonstrates your point better.

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Replace 'billionaire' or 'Taylor Swift' with gym coach, music teacher or religious leader, I still think the age and status difference between a child and an adult makes such an agreement coercive.

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Are you of the opinion that the morality of statutory rape is contingent on monetary compensation to the victims?

Very much yes. If its worse to rape someone AND steal from them. It's better to rape someone and pay them. The rest of it is just algebra.

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