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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   29577 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 2023

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I have no dog in this fight, but I don't think we should keep anything "highly hated." Hate is a bad thing. I think that there is probably an optimal level of social scorn we should direct towards pedophiles in order to minimize the amount of pedophilia in the world, and I think we should calculate that amount rather than just go nuts and hope for the best.

My best guess is that the target should be just enough scorn to dissuade them from committing crimes, but not so much scorn that we dissuade them from seeking professional help. I'm reasonably confident we've overshot the mark. It's quite possible that a modest reduction in hatred directed at pedophiles would actually result in fewer children being molested.

Should we hate murderers? What about people like SBF who stole billions?

No. Again, hate is bad. Hate does not help you make good decisions, and hatred-based law enforcement mechanisms are not known for their efficiency. The appropriate angle to approach social engineering problems like "How do we stop people from committing fraud and/or murder in the manner that gets us the best value for our tax dollars," is heartless rationality, not hatred.

Hatred is for suckers. It makes you easy to manipulate and prone to error.

Hatred for evil is appropriate. Pedophilia is evil. Controversial, I know.

This is both low-effort and building consensus. Put more effort into your arguments and avoid this kind of flat evidence-less claim, please.

Are you saying that the rape of children is not an inherently evil act? I’m not sure how I provide evidence for this. Is a simple moral fact not enough?

There are literally people disagreeing with you in the replies. Read those, and don't make universal moral statements if people are going to disagree with you, because then it's not fact, it's opinion.

So you’re saying child rape isn’t evil?

Alright, I was gonna quietly let the ban evasion slide if you were willing to take correction, but instead you're right back to antagonizing mods who are telling you to shape up.

Re-applied permanent ban.

Paedophilia the sexual preference is not evil. Rape of children is evil.

I'm not particularly defending Nyberg here; she did some stuff that crosses my line. A paedophile who sticks to loli hentai, though, is perhaps pitiful but not evil.

No. It is, in itself, evil. Even if never acted upon.

Why?

I am rapidly losing faith in humanity here.

This is very much like saying "the desire to genocide armenians is not evil, only acting on that desire is evil." Or "the desire to torture dogs is not evil, only actually torturing dogs is."

No. The desire to commit evil acts is evil. Pedophilia is evil, even if never acted upon. And everyone is right to be wary of anyone who claims to be, or appears to be a pedophile, because that is evil.

That said, it is laudatory to resist temptations and to refrain from evil, even if you desire to do evil. And the Lord will reward those who are faithful and commit no evil though they have the desire.

This is very much like saying "the desire to genocide armenians is not evil, only acting on that desire is evil." Or "the desire to torture dogs is not evil, only actually torturing dogs is."

No. The desire to commit evil acts is evil. Pedophilia is evil, even if never acted upon. And everyone is right to be wary of anyone who claims to be, or appears to be a pedophile, because that is evil.

Taking for granted that the desire to commit an evil act is also in itself evil - a controversial opinion, certainly, but one we can just entertain for the moment - this doesn't imply that pedophilia is evil, since pedophilia is a preference, not a desire. It's very possible for someone to enjoy the idea of themselves raping children without having any actual desire to act on it by raping children. It'd be easy to claim that this is splitting hairs, but it'd also be wrong to claim as such, since preference doesn't imply anything about a willingness to act, whereas desire does, and this is a very meaningful, very consequential difference in terms of how that person behaves. You can, of course, just posit that this preference is something that's intrinsically evil, which is perfectly cromulent.

It's probably time to define what the criteria for evil is, or what even evil means to you. Honestly sounds like the argument needs to depend on what is evil, not if pedophilia is evil. If you can define evil in a clear and explicit manner, then whether pedophilia is evil can be matched against that definition/criteria.

I haven't seen anyone actually say pedophilia is good, so it's obvious nobody here is in favor of it. If you can get people to agree on the definition of evil, then whether or not pedophilia is evil should be self-evident. Otherwise, I think the argument is moot since it seems to me people are using different criteria for evil throughout the conversation.

No. The desire to commit evil acts is evil.

This is a starting point for a definition, but it's tautological and weak without defining evil itself.

Despite hatred of the sin being obviously appropriate, there is something to say for redemption being possible even for the worst of sinners.

Of course in practice this is so difficult that we literally need God to intervene to make it possible, but isn't the principle good?

Redeeming the worst of humanity, even as we may need to imprison them perpetually or even put them to death, is still something that ought to be attempted. And I've seen too many lives destroyed by blind hatred of even things that ought to be hated to recommend it to anybody.

All well and good, but the progressive movement is wedded to the idea that sexuality is something you're born with and which cannot be changed through outside interference. As such, no paedophile can be "redeemed": from the perspective of the progressive movement, if you are sexually attracted to children, you always will be, and nothing you do (or anyone else does to you) will change that. Ergo, every paedophile must be treated as a potential future child rapist.

If we were to move away from the "born this way" framework, acknowledge that sexuality is susceptible to direct outside intervention and that "conversion therapy" for paedophiles might actually work (at least in some cases), we can have a conversation about paedophilia as a sin distinct from the sinner. Until then, paedophiles will be forever irredeemable, as a consequence of the framework progressives called for to interrogate sexuality.

Don't forget that "born this way" is self-justifying as well as unchanging. If you're "born this way" it's "natural" and good and any shaming or even different treatment is bigotry.

Well the people on my socials most inclined to trumpet, and/or presuppose, the "born this way" narrative WRT LGBT+ people definitely don't apply that logic to pedos - think wood-chipper memes - regardless of whether that's consistent with other things they say.

Don't assume SocJus crusaders believe something just because you think it follows logically from other things they believe. They are, IME, almost all capable of compartmentalizing to an extent that makes my brain hurt.

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