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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   4103 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.

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.

The $10m is just a bullshit mind worm to make readers think about “what price” is worth any psychosexual damage. In practice, any legalization is just an inevitable one-way trip to kids pulling tricks for $50 knock off bags or whatever.

Obsessing over the very high dollar amount is what Hanania’s post is trying to make you do, to question your beliefs. A “fair” question would reduce the amount to $5000 to see what people say.

Not at all. I think the big number is the point. Infact those who are not willing to move the number slider around are conceding that they are not capable of not thinking in black and white and dare I say by extension, thinking at all. There is no free lunch and everything has a price and a cost, if not evident by real cost, then opportunity cost and cost of substitutes. (You clearly don't condone spending the entire worlds budget to fight children selling sex, so the necessity to fight it is finite)

I think the 10M USD beautifully illustrates that the moral high horse sitters are so irrational that they can't think past "selling sex bad" even when the positive so far greatly outweighs the negative that it's borderline comical.

Let me flip this. We rid the world of hunger, poverty, and disease, but Epstein and only Epstein has to be given free rein to rape any child he wants. You have the power to make the judgement call. There are absolutely no nth order effects.

Also at 5k USD. I would still vote yes. Because I'm a libertarian. The actors in the scenario know better how much X is worth to them than me. Even at 25c. Even if they have to pay for it. But putting all of that out there is just going to bring forth too much noise that I CBA to deal with.

The whole point of a hypothetical is to entertain it at face value. And one of the default priors is that its a one off. Nowhere does it say that the scenario above is going to be repeated enough times in public for everyone to know about such that the social fabric in and of itself is is at stake here.

Nothing in the prior, taken at face value, indicates it's an one-off.

Even if it is not a one off the fact that very few people can pay $10 million per sex act with an underage child means that the net impact will be minimal.

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