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Showing 25 of 594 results for

pedophile

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023

Here is a quick rundown of some infamous 20th century French philosophers

Queer-theory jeopardy

Some videos of French intellectuals going on TV to celebrate having sex with children/teenagers.

An undergraduate paper on the subject

One excerpt of interest p35:

As sexuality—feminine, homosexual, and otherwise—coursed through public discourse in the early 1970s, a group of men styling themselves as twentieth century Marquise de Sades or Dom Jauns began to publish pedophilic literature and receive recognition in literary circles. These men—Tony Duvert and Gabriel Matzneff—were both little known writers before they made their careers between 1973 and 1975 releasing celebrated novels and essays that described affairs with minors in detail. Matzneff’s Les moins de seize ans (The Under Sixteens) lauds sex with adolescents as an act of sexual liberation to protest the moral order and publishes letters from his young lovers as proof of their enjoyment.

Matzneff was welcomed on the television show Apostrophes in 1975 to promote the book and articulate an ethics of individual development that arose out of the sex lives of minors. For him, the “strength and novelty of the affective and sexual impulses” of “children between ten and sixteen” opened a “fertile” field of sexual possibilities—both with people of their own age or an older lover—that would allow them to “discover themselves, the beauty and richness of the world and its creation.”

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023

It's pretty well known that the sexual revolution of the 1960s led to a lot of pedo stuff

That seems kinda like consensus-building, to me. That's clearly what ZHPL is trying to say, but it's a very controversial statement. Very many people around here are trying to connect both present-day and past leftism to pedophilia, and even though I can't stand the left, I can't stand when people try to make that connection even more. I find it insulting that ZHPL justs waves his hand in that general direction and is like "people got into leftism in 1968, and than all of a sudden 9 years later: BAM! age of consent was revoked (in France)". It's almost comical.

Alan Ginsburg was a member of NAMBLA. Lolita was considered a classic. Roman Polanski was Humbert Humbert in real life and the French celebrated and protected him.

There are pedophiles everywhere. You know the arguments: The plural of "anecdote" isn't data. Chinese Robber Fallacy, etc.
I hate when people try to say the Right is full of pedophiles because some priests molest kids and some backwoods rednecks are inbred, so I also hate it when people gesture at the left for similar things.

Today, of course, we see a strange bifurcation where 23 year old women are incapable of consenting to sex with a 40 year old man, but its okay to subject young children to intense discussions and demonstrations of sexuality. Perhaps he's trying to invoke all of that. I don't know. His writing is vile.

I have no argument with you on most of this paragraph, especially with regards to the strange bifurcation existing in leftist thought.
Though I may slightly disagree with you about whether most leftists are okay with "demonstrations" of sexuality for minors. They definitely are okay with "discussions" with minors, and I think they go too far there, but I don't know if they're really mostly down with "demonstrations". Other than the aforementioned pedophiles, who as I mentioned before are everywhere and on all sides.

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

The point was to normalize doing gay things, wasn't it?

Yes, normalizing "doing gay things" is one of the goals of the movement, but not the only one. I distinguished that from acceptance as gay people for two reasons. First, Western society was significantly more openly hostile to even celibate gay people when the Born This Way narrative became popular, which I think is important historical context to consider when evaluating its efficacy. Second, getting back to pedophilia, it is rather common for pedophiles to not actually care much about engaging in sexual relations with children but who still want to be able to participate somewhat normally in society without having to hide that they have those feelings, making the distinction between acceptance as people and acceptance of relationships a bit more pronounced in that case.

The Catholic Church's teachings are completely and totally consistent with Born This Way. They are lovingly accepting of people being gay, they just take a hard line against doing gay things. They have all kinds of programs to help people who struggle with their sinful compulsions. I don't think this comports at all with what the gay liberation movement fights/fought for.

This is a complex topic that I don't know that I can do justice to. The ideal that you refer to here is as you note only part of what they want and other aspects of the Church's teachings are incompatible with their desires. It is also unfortunately not always reflected in the actions of the faithful. For a little more detailed exploration of the topic, I'll refer you to an old discussion at r/theschism, particularly the long back and forth between /u/UAnchovy and /u/callmejay.

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

I don't think we disagree.

It's not clear to me whether we do or not.

All I'm saying is that Born This Way was never anywhere near the strongest argument for gay liberation. Acceptance of gay people and gay relationships should come from recognition that these behaviors aren't harmful and can indeed be extremely functional, personally fulfilling, and even prosocial, supporting stable family formation. ... Conversely, regardless of what causes attraction to prepubescent children, laws against child molestation should still stand.

There's an important difference between acceptance of gay people and acceptance of gay relationships, and similarly between acceptance of pedophiles and acceptance of sexual relationships between adults and children. Being outed as gay often meant losing your job, losing your social network, being subject to harassment or assault, etc, even if you didn't participate in gay relationships. Being outed as a pedophile (EDIT:) has can have similar repercussions even if you are never sexually involved with a child. The core of the Born This Way argument is that these desires are both immutable and not the result of a conscious choice, which I think is a very strong argument that they shouldn't have to hide those feelings simply to participate in society without being subject to such social sanction. The only way I think you can argue it was "never anywhere near the strongest argument for gay liberation" is if you restrict gay liberation to tolerance of openly gay relationships, which I agree it is not really relevant to, and ignore everything else it fights/fought for.

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

I think it's worth looking at the answers to that question when it's posed for other sexual orientations or desires. "Can't you just not be a public masturbator?" "Can't you just not be a pedophile?" "Can't you just not be a sadistic murderer, Ted?" If he says, "No! I was born this way, and I can't change!" then... well, so much the worse for him, right? Innateness is a crap argument for accepting a behavior.

One of these things is very much not like the other, as pedophilia isn't a behavior. One can avoid being a public masturbator by not masturbating in public. One can avoid being a sadistic murderer by not murdering anyone. How does one avoid being a pedophile? Not molesting a child is not sufficient. Not interacting at all with children is not sufficient. Engaging in sex you don't particularly enjoy with adults is not sufficient. Avoiding sex altogether is not sufficient. Saying "I was born this way and I can't change!" is a call for recognizing that it goes a lot deeper than simply "don't have sex with kids" and affects a lot of things that aren't necessarily obvious to people who only think of pedophilia in the context of child rape.

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

I think it's worth looking at the answers to that question when it's posed for other sexual orientations or desires. "Can't you just not be a public masturbator?" "Can't you just not be a pedophile?" "Can't you just not be a sadistic murderer, Ted?" If he says, "No! I was born this way, and I can't change!"

I mean, first of all yes, I think that applies to all of those as well. I think people back then were conflating "can't you just not do the thing you like" and "can't you just like the normal thing instead." One of those is possible, the other isn't. But also, I genuinely think there's a difference in that most kinks, I believe including pedophilia, tend to be optional, not obligatory: you can get off without them. This does not apply to gayhood. I think there's maybe genuinely two separate categories here.

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 5, 2023

https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/1721306928108954104

Why are the lower classes and dysfunctional people so obsessed with pedophila? I think two things are going on. First, they have low IQs, so can’t understand statistical reasoning and how rare it is. Second, they feel like losers and pedophiles are the one group society ranks lower, so they need to imagine they’re fighting them everywhere.

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

The premise here is the claim that sexual predilections are not subject to therapy or conditioning. So in the narrow context of sexuality you can't cure pedophiles or "cure" gay people through conversion therapy.

I don't mean this as fully general advocacy of thoughtcrime.

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

Not every slope is slippery. Pedophiles are reviled in a much different manner than internet contrarians. Some guy posting about how he votes libertarian isn't in danger of imprisonment.

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

We can make new laws. If sexual predilections are not influenced by therapy or conditioning, then it could be made a legal requirement to hold child molesters in prison for many decades or for them to be involuntarily committed.

In other contexts people can be involuntarily held on the say so of a cop or a psychiatrist. If they are a likely danger. I don't want thought crimes, but being a pedophile is a real danger to children. This is not inherently legally impossible.

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

I really don't think defending pedophiles is a good way to avoid being perceived as causing societal problems. But even if it was, I would rather go to prison.

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

The majority of child abuse, including sexual abuse, is committed by non-pedophiles so society is apparently already on board with such trade-offs. Advocating the incarceration of pedophiles simply due to their attractions is just a way for lazy self-righteous people to feel like they are protecting children without having to do the work of actually looking into the causes of abuse and thinking seriously about the trade-offs that would be required to avert it.

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

Under a nation of laws, this not exactly how it works. In practice, my understanding of the legal system in the United States is that pedophiles convicted of a serious sexual crime are imprisoned according to the letter of the law, and then upon release shifted into some kind of permanent* detention in a institution for the criminally insane. It is of course, not legal to imprison people simply based on the say so of a psychiatrist that they are a pedophile.

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

you actually have to make an argument about the tradeoff between potential pedophile's freedom and the rights of children to not be abused, and I do not see anyone in modern western society being willing to touch that with a 100 ft barge pole.

Oh, you're just clinging on to some scraps of believing in general sanity. They're already working on that trade-off:

Results from these broader healthcare practitioner studies revealed that MAPs’ abovementioned skepticism concerning therapists’ willingness to treat them and MAPs’ fear of being stigmatized or (unnecessarily) reported to legal authorities may not be unfounded. Mental health professionals and students in training indicated to being willing to report MAPs to legal authorities due to explicit stigmatization and/or a lack of knowledge about the administrative framework concerning reporting standards (e.g., Beggs Christofferson, 2019; Stephens et al., 2021; Walker et al., 2022). For example, clinicians’ decisions to officially report a client who disclosed sexual interest in children were a function of the number of client risk factors (i.e., child sexual exploitation material use, access to children), although, even in the absence of any risk factor, 12% of the clinicians indicated that they would report their client (Stephens et al., 2021). In a study by Beggs Christofferson (2019), 14% of the surveyed therapists considered reporting a client who disclosed sexual interest in children, even if this meant to break the relevant confidentiality law. Among social service students, 54% agreed to report “a pedophile” client (no sexual offense was mentioned) to the police (strikingly, this rate was reduced to 7% when the case in question was labeled as someone with sexual interest in children but who never has committed any offense against children; Walker et al., 2022).

You see? Minor Attracted Persons (please do not say 'paedophile', that is incorrect terminology) are reluctant to go to therapists because of fears around mandatory reporting. And the therapists we surveyed said they'd be willing to report clients they deemed dangerous. So the conclusion is... therapists have to learn to be more understanding and accepting, stop stigmatising, and drop the threat of reporting people to the cops.

In terms of therapist competency, only between roughly a quarter and 43% of practitioners answered correctly that pedophilia is a sexual attraction to children below the age of 11 and such general knowledge deficiencies about aspects related to minor attraction were associated with stigmatizing attitudes (Lievesley et al., 2022).

Even among the more enlightened Swiss, there are still those bad old stigmatising attitudes:

In terms of non-offending MAPs’ perceived dangerousness to children, the majority of Swiss therapists (58.8%) affirmed that a strong link exists between sexual interest in children and child sexual abuse and roughly one in five agreed that sexual interest in children will sooner or later lead to child sexual abuse (20.1%) or that many who have sexual interests in children will also have sex with children (19.4%; Table 2). Concerning punitive attitudes the large majority (84.7%) agreed that non-offending MAPs should not be allowed to work with children, and 40.3% believed that they should undergo mandatory psychotherapy. Roughly a quarter (26%) affirmed that citizens should be informed in case sexual offenders against children move into their neighborhood. However, only a minority opted for psychopharmacological “castration” (8.7%), preventive detention (6.8%), or openly accessible sexual offender registries (4.7%). Finally, aspects that related to deviancy were strongly affirmed by Swiss outpatient therapists: 80.3% believed that non-offending MAPs needed treatment, 57.1% agreed that these patients were sick, and 48.9% ruled out that they were normal with just rare sexual inclinations.

Therapists should be trained that MAPs are the No True Scotsman:

Rather than pondering the yet dominating question in MAP treatment of whether someone with pedohebephilic sexual interests will victimize children, therapists should focus on the question under which specific boundary conditions their clients might (or, importantly, might not) pose a risk to children and how these specific dynamic risk factors can be therapeutically dealt with – if necessary at all in an individual case. Given the fact that child sexual abuse is prevalently committed also by non-pedohebephilic individuals (e.g., Schmidt et al., 2013), this implies adequate knowledge about relevant risk factors. Such basic criminal psychological facts, however, are not part of current general clinical training curriculae in psychology or medicine and should help to keep the prevailing risk focus in check. This may be conducive to setting the stage for recognizing other concerns that lead MAPs to seek therapeutic help.

See? If someone abuses a child, then he was never a real MAP to begin with, and no MAP is likely to go on to abuse children (or at least, very unlikely except under specific circumstances which you should recognise and help them manage). So don't think about "are children at risk here?" when dealing with a client, or else you're just a big ol' meanie!

Definitely someone struggling with this, who hasn't done anything yet, and who is seeking therapy to change or at least sublimate their attraction should be able to get help and shouldn't be scared off by "They'll tell the cops and I'll be labelled a sex offender and my life will be ruined and a mob will try and beat me up or even kill me". But "shift to thinking about dynamic risk factors" will lead to the same attitudes that resulted in "violent rapist who assaulted two women and still has all functional genitals of course should go into a woman's prison as she was a real woman all along, even while raping cis women with her feminine penis and even though she didn't come out as trans until being prosecuted for those crimes". Yeah, no.

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

Some people are born pedophiles, they should still be locked up and at the very least heavily monitored if they ever molest children.

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

Not just this, but by not imprisoning high propensity to pediophilia people there are children who will end up getting abused who would not have been abused in the counterfactual. Now you can say that's fine and accept the background level of child abuse this causes as you believe this is less damaging than mass incarceration but you actually have to make an argument about the tradeoff between potential pedophile's freedom and the rights of children to not be abused, and I do not see anyone in modern western society being willing to touch that with a 100 ft barge pole.

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

Agreed.

But if predilections are indeed not mutable by conditioning or therapy, then at the very least all convicted pedophiles must never be released from prison.

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

One difficulty I see is distinguishing between one’s inner state and one’s actions. A man is not gay because he has sex with men, he is gay because he is attracted to men.

Objective tests in the form of penile plethysmography exist, though they're most commonly employed to assess pedophiles in niche situations or the unlucky men with erectile dysfunction, but I agree that forcing people to take it for the purposes of giving them a certified gay card is out of the Overton Window for the foreseeable future!

The Overkill Conspiracy Hypothesis

This looks implausible to me for the following reason: Mossad is known to be doing things worse then keeping dirt on people, which is bread and butter of every intelligence agency on Earth, and unless Mossad is found to be directly facilitating Epstein crimes (which they wouldn't have much reason to - there are so much dirt on elites than creating a massive pedophile operation ex nihilo and then risk exposure would be massive overkill), if Mossad got dirt of somebody from Epstein, it's not a huge blemish on Mossad's reputation. Everybody knows spooks deal with dirty people, that's how spooking is done, and people mostly accept it. On the other hand, Mossad murdering somebody on US soil in US federal custody is a very risky thing. It's not like Mossad haven't done international assassinations - they have, but doing it in the US is very tricky, because US does not take kindly to anybody intruding on their soil (see Pollard), and any leak of anything like that could cost Israel way way more than anything Epstein could ever deliver. Such things sometimes go wrong (Mossad history has several examples) and each time the shitstorm is sizeable, but it always has been either hostile or neutral countries. Putting a thumb directly in the eye of the US law enforcement is not something Israel would do lightly. Certainly not to cover something that pretty much wouldn't hurt them at all.

The Overkill Conspiracy Hypothesis

Hopefully I matched this correctly. Overall a lot of these remain very vague and nebulous.

  1. Leftist Academia: I see what you're referring to now, there's a whole wikipedia page about "Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory". I would argue this is a good example of how the term "conspiracy theory" gets inappropriately used as a cudgel. It seems trivially true to say "people often form groups based on shared beliefs and try to promote those beliefs" and I don't see how anyone can argue against that in this particular case. As best as I can tell, this gets decried as a kooky theory not worth paying attention to either by strawmanning (claiming a coordinated secretive campaign) or tarring by association (accusations of anti-semitism). So there is concern about the vagueness of "cultural marxism" but as cogently described, I don't think this matches the dictionary definition of "conspiracy", and even if it did, it wouldn't be dismissed as kooky by the standards of OCH.
  2. Obama Birther: I still don't understand how exactly this played out. So by the time he became the Democratic nominee, he instructed people to fabricate a fake birth certificate to ensure that no one would deny him his chance at the top? I understand Obama's motivations here, but why would other people (especially the DNC) take the risk and go along with his plan? How exactly did he secure the full cooperation of the Hawaii Dept of Health? How do the Honolulu newspaper notices about his birth in 1961 fit into all of this?
  3. JFK CIA Assassination: I still don't understand this. If the CIA's motive was humiliation from the Bay of Pigs, what was their goal with assassination? Was it just pure retribution or did they intend it to serve as a warning for others? How does someone get psychologically manipulated into landing a high marksmanship shot? Why would the CIA bother with relying on LHO to begin with?
  4. Epstein suicide: If the goal was to prevent him from testifying about his clients, I would wonder why that wasn't a concern in his first criminal case around 2005, or the very long litany of civil cases beginning in earnest around 2015. Because trying to murder someone in a federal detention center would be much harder than say on a small island. But maybe the last criminal charges finally made the risk too much to bear? I'm not claiming the circumstances around his death are not suspicious, but this theory is missing too many pieces to properly evaluate.
  5. George Floyd overdose: This is still vague. Who exactly is the "political establishment" and what "narrative"? There's about a 1,000 people killed by police in the US every year, why exactly would whoever put their efforts behind this particular case?
  6. Lab Leak: Yes, countries manufacture bioweapons, but why would China deploy it on its own population? Their economy took a serious hit from COVID and is still struggling to recover. Their lockdown policies also generated the most public and widespread popular resistance since Tiananmen Square protests they're still working to erase. I don't understand the motive here.
  7. Sabotaged Immigration: I can see politicians hoping for a demographic shift they believe would help them, but how exactly are they implementing this sabotage? Do they have the cooperation of Border Patrol and DHS? How does none of this get uncovered during Republican administrations?
  8. South African White Farmers: I see this is labeled a conspiracy theory under the "white genocide" penumbra. Similar to Cultural Marxism, I would say this is another example of "conspiracy theory" used as a cudgel. If we assume that farmer attacks are indeed racially motivated, I don't see what the conspiracy is. These types of feuds have happened everywhere and throughout history.
  9. Dangerous mRNA vaccines: I don't get it. Big Pharma is aware that their mRNA vaccines are dangerous and worried about getting sued, so their response is to double-down on the damage they're already causing? Wouldn't the number of dead become too large to ignore? That's what happened with lung cancer risk for smoking after all, but unlike with tobacco companies Big Pharma sells a broad range of other products and the industry is heavily reliant on a safety reputation. Is the risk only with mRNA vaccines?
  10. Vaccine Autism: Same questions as above. The patent for the MMR vaccine has expired a long time ago, so who exactly benefits from making sure no one knows the risk about a low-margin generic vaccine?
  11. Trump Russia Collusion: Sorry, this is too confusing to follow. When the counterclaim says there was "never any evidence" and that the whole story was "fabricated", I don't know what exactly it's referring to. I also don't know how the well-documented involvement between Trump associates and Russia (Paul Manafort's work before he became Trump's campaign chairman is probably the most egregious) fits into all this. I can maybe understand the argument that it was all exaggerated, but I don't understand what the claim is talking about when it says there was nothing at all.
  12. COVID Overcounting: There's still missing pieces but I would now count this as plausible according to OCH. The premise doesn't contradict the need for a conspiracy.
  13. Funded Violent Leftists: I have no idea what this means. So some money from some rich donors is somehow finding its way into the pockets of some violent leftist groups in the hopes that the groups somehow move society towards the left...what?
  14. Pizzagate: I'm not asking why anyone is a pedophile, but given that pedophiles exist why would they be overrepresented within elite society? If not that, why would elite society accommodate their pedophile minority? If neither of those premises are true, then it necessarily means that this "elite pedophile" ring is also hoodwinking elite society. I don't understand the contours of this.
  15. J6 Infiltration: See my response to iprayiam3 here.
  16. UFOs: Still vague.
The Overkill Conspiracy Hypothesis

  1. I was referring to "Cultural Marxism", I thought I made it pretty obvious but maybe I didn't. It is commonly referred to, especially by the left, as "conspiracy theory", and sometimes even as a sign of racism and/or antisemitism (though I personally fail to see the connection).

  2. The fakery (according to the theory) has happened when Obama became the Democratic presidential candidate. Prior to that he was (that's a fact not a theory) sometimes referred to as born in Kenya, because that made him more "diverse" (it is debatable whether or not he personally made it happen, though he certainly didn't object too loudly), but in general nobody gave a rat's behind where he was born, until the requirements for Presidency came into play. Presumably, according to the theory, there should exist his "original" birth certificate - unless, of course, it was destroyed by the conspirators.

  3. Presumably, there were some serious tensions between CIA and the President, and the disaster at Bay of Pigs was one of the outcomes of it (conspiracies within conspiracies!). So, the tensions boiled over to the point where the CIA decided the President is out of control and needs to be gone. The how is a bit more murky here indeed, but the most coherent version I've heard is that they psychologically manipulated LHO into the assassination attempt, but not being sure he can actually succeed, performed certain actions to ensure that by the end of it, JFK was really and truly dead.

  4. Why is obvious - to not let them talk about his clients. Who is also both obvious and immaterial - I mean, if that were true, it'd be some kind of black ops murder team, but their specific identities are not interesting, the interesting part is who hired/ordered them to do it. That would be the same people from the client list, I presume. The how is the hard part - probably bribing the guards, sabotaging the records and then drugging/strangling/etc. him?

  5. Again, who is easy - the political establishment needing to support the narrative. Why is easy too, see above, there is a lot of political careers heavily invested in the notion of "structural racism" and the need to combat it. How - by pressuring the judicial system into supporting the required decision I presume?

  6. Who - the Chinese scientists. Why - well, why countries manufacture bioweapons? It obviously happened, so they had some reasons. I personally don't think bioweapons make much sense, except as terror weapon, but many governments seem to think otherwise.

  7. Who is the US federal government. Why is the immigrants tend to vote Democratic, and tend to be more dependent on government services, which again makes them lean Democratic.

  8. It is listed on Wikipedia as "conspiracy theory" so I included it with the rest.

  9. Selling more vaccines? Also not being sued and bankrupted by the claims of those to whom they already have sold the vaccines. E.g. like tobacco companies.

  10. The claim is they benefit from more vaccines sold, and the side effect is not intended, but since it happened to be there, they decided it's better to suppress the knowledge of it than to lose all that nice business and expose themselves to billions is claims.

  11. The claim is that Trump sought out or at least knowingly accepted Russia's help, and that the following investigation was based on the attempt to genuinely discover whether or not it is the case. The counter-claim is that there was never any evidence to support that claim, and that the whole story was fabricated for political reasons, contrary to claims of the involved parties that they are interested in investigating the matter, they were actually interested on finding any dirt they can on Trump, or, failing that, keep him under the cloud of suspicion as long as it is possible. That's the conspiracy part.

  12. Overcounting would be counting somebody as dying because of COVID infection while they died for causes that are not attributable to that infection. Reasons would be political power gained under the premise of the necessity of emergency measures.

  13. This is kinda hard to unpack, because in general political finance in the US works in ways that are extremely hard to unpack. I'd say the claim is that some money, coming from Soros or alike rich people, are intentionally, through certain network of financing institutions, arrive into the pockets of violent leftist groups, and this is done on purpose, to effect certain changes in US politics that Soros, etc. want to achieve (such as make the society move more to the left). This was called "conspiracy theory" in Wikipedia - at least I think this is what they meant.

  14. I'm not sure it's possible to figure out why somebody is a pedophile? I think the theory is more like if you are both a member of the elite and a pedophile, then there's a club for you that will cater for your illegal needs and ensure that indulging your passion would not lead to undesirable consequences. The latter part is the conspiracy, and also the fact that presumably the pedophilia is more common for the elites than widely recognized, but this fact is suppressed, since it'd make the respect for the elites to diminish (the optimistic part of this theory is that there's still really some respect that can be further diminished).

  15. I feel like this makes an unwarranted assumption that every crowd has a fixed quality that can be called "proclivity for violence" and this quality can not be meaningfully changed. I think the experience suggests that it can - moreover, one of the charges against Trump has been that this is exactly what he did! I think if it is plausible to assume Trump could do it, it is also plausible somebody else could do the same. As a side note, I myself a very non-violent man, but I can imagine a situation where there could be enough provocation that I would be tempted to resort to violence, and maybe even succumb to that temptation (thankfully, I haven't found myself in such situations for many years, but it could happen, in theory). I don't see why that couldn't happen with members of the crowd (crowds always make people dumber) manipulated by very skilled operatives (I assume somebody in the FBI could be skilled?)

  16. Presumably, the ETs they have in evidence are dead, or possibly they have just technological evidence, not actual ET organisms, and the other ETs for some reasons (maybe in collusion with the government?) are reluctant to communicate with the members of the public. Maybe they have the Prime Directive? The reasons to hide it is a) to gain the exclusive use of alien technologies and b) to prevent the massive uncontrollable panic which will be caused by this knowledge.

The Overkill Conspiracy Hypothesis

This is a really great list to test my framework! I intentionally used kooky conspiracy theories as examples to avoid controversy while I establish the meta framework.

Your list of examples is very helpful. I'll put PLAUSIBLE, KOOKY, or insufficient next to each one and explain why. Please bear in mind the following:

  • What I mean by PLAUSIBLE is not necessarily that the theory is indeed true, but that it's plausible enough to investigate further. Meanwhile, KOOKY means a theory that should be discarded because its premises inherently obviate the need for a conspiracy.
  • This is not necessarily a definitive adjudication, and it's subject to change if different/additional information is provided about the who/how/why. I wasn't able to evaluate most of these because that information was lacking or insufficiently clear.

I want to avoid the common pitfall within these discussions of being distracted with the object-level debates. If you think my dismissal of a theory is unwarranted, it would be helpful to be explicit whether your objection is how I applied OCH, or whether you're challenging OCH as a useful framework. I am very open to hearing examples of the latter and you could establish this by pointing conspiracies with similar assumptions that either have been sufficiently verified, or pointing out other similar conspiracies I potentially believe that I don't dismiss out of hand. This also applies if you think I am working backwards from a preferred conclusion and using OCH to justify it.

  1. PLAUSIBLE Leftist Academia: I'd want more specific definitions of what you mean by traditional Western values and Marxist values, and I also don't fully understand where the conspiracy is because folks in those industries have been fairly transparent about their political aims. Regardless, I don't see any required premises which would contradict the conspiracy. The only assumption needed that I can think of is "ideologically cohesive group of people with members in various fields of influence aim to further spread their ideology."
  2. insufficient Obama Birther: I don't understand the who or why here. Is the idea that his birth certificate was faked around the time he was born because somehow people knew in advance he was going to have a shot at the Presidency? Or is the idea that it was faked around the time he started his political career in earnest in order to lay the groundwork for his future ambitions? In either case, who are these government officials, and what exactly was so special about Obama (compared to any other native-born American citizen with similar political stripes) that these officials would embark on the effort to fake documents and risk getting caught?
  3. PLAUSIBLE Nord Stream Pipeline: The only premise required I can think of is "Ukraine/CIA benefits from and has the capabilities of covertly sabotaging infrastructure that makes European countries economically reliant on Russia", and this wouldn't contradict the need for a conspiracy (warranted for several reasons: avoiding diplomatic blowback or revealing too much about their covert capabilities). If anything, I don't understand the theory that Russia blew up their own pipeline because I don't know what their motive could possibly be.
  4. insufficient JFK CIA Assassination: I'm confused by this, what's the why or how for the CIA? Why kill JFK? Why kill him so publicly? The only reason I can think of is as a warning to other presidential candidates, but a warning to whom and for what exactly? How exactly did they "control" LHO? If he only took minimal prodding, then it assumes there was sufficient assassination proclivity within the general population for it to have happened on its own? If the CIA did it, how exactly did they frame LHO? Was he randomly at the book depository at the wrong time, or was that all fabricated?
  5. PLAUSIBLE DNC email leak: The premise required ("someone working within DNC had access to internal emails and decided to release them") wouldn't contradict the need for a conspiracy ("it's humiliating having to admit to internal discord within one's political organization, especially when a foreign scapegoat is more politically expeditious").
  6. insufficient Epstein suicide: If he wasn't killed then presumably he was murdered. I'd need who/how/why here.
  7. insufficient George Floyd overdose: I need who/how/why here as well.
  8. PLAUSIBLE/insufficient Lab leak: If it's the engineered bioweapon theory, I don't understand who would do it or why, so insufficient. If it was an inadvertent leak then the premise ("sometimes even highly trained and specialized scientists can make mistakes working in laboratories") does not contradict the need for a conspiracy ("it's humiliating for a country to admit blame for a destructive and deadly worldwide pandemic").
  9. PLAUSIBLE Biden Family Corruption: The premise ("Biden had the means and desire to sell his political influence") does not contradict the need for a conspiracy ("getting caught for corruption is the death knell for any political career").
  10. insufficient 2020 Stolen Election: There's a wide range of theories here, everything from "Hugo Chavez created Dominion voting machines to flip election results" to "some legislatures made some forms of voting slightly easier and this was unfair". I need way more specifics.
  11. KOOKY Bin Laden Not Killed: How exactly would they stage this? The only way this could possibly work is if they also somehow neutralized Bin Laden to prevent him from releasing his "hey everyone I'm not dead" VHS tape. So either he already was dead at the time of the raid, or they had to...kill him in order to not ruin their staging. Either premise would render the conspiracy completely unnecessary, so this theory is kooky enough to be dismissed. Side note: I personally do have a lot of suspicions about how quickly they got rid of his body, but that's different from thinking he's still alive.
  12. insufficient Sabotaged Immigration: I need who/how/why. I think the theory is intended to implicate Democrats, but with what appears to be an increasing proportion of Trump voters among the Hispanic population on the border towns, I would wonder why exactly they would risk a potential self-own.
  13. PLAUSIBLE South African White Farmers: This is similar to the Leftist Academia one in that I'm not sure where the conspiracy is, given popular political chants like "Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer"
  14. insufficient Dangerous mRNA vaccines: I'm assuming pharmaceutical companies and various health authorities are the ones behind it, but what exactly is their motivation?
  15. PLAUSIBLE Global Warming Exaggeration: The premise ("various academics have hitched their wagon on a left-ish theory, and ensure that others fall in line") wouldn't contradict the need for a conspiracy ("it's generally not a good idea to publicly advertise that you're suppressing dissenting views within a hotly contested research field").
  16. insufficient Vaccine Autism: I am very interested to know how exactly the medical establishment benefits from more autism, similar to the mRNA vaccine question.
  17. insufficient Trump Russia Collusion: Several different accusations get flattened here: Trump himself was actively seeking Russian collusion for his campaign, Russia unilaterally decided to help Trump without his consent because they assumed his Presidency would benefit them, or a mix of both. So the answer would change depending on which accusation you're referring to, because I'm aware that several Democratic politicians/activists accused Trump of seeking out collusion, but I'm not aware of intelligence agencies endorsing that claim. In contrast, there is widespread endorsement of the theory that Russia made some extremely tepid and largely ineffectual efforts to help Trump get elected without his consent.
  18. PLAUSIBLE/insufficient COVID Overcounting: This one partly depends on specifics, why exactly the politicians wanted this, and what exactly is deemed as "overcounting".
  19. insufficient Deep State: I'm confused by this because you say that the deep state does not represent the will of the electorate, but also that they align with Democratic party? So doesn't that imply that the Democratic party also does not represent the will of the electorate?
  20. PLAUSIBLE Organized Antifa: Subject to more specifics, the premise ("ideologically aligned individuals dedicated to furthering their political goals through violence") does not contradict the need for conspiracy ("given the existence of law enforcement, surreptitious operation is required").
  21. insufficient Funded Violent Leftists: You mention George Soros as one example, but who are they funding, what massive political transformation do they hope to accomplish, and how do these violent groups further this goal?
  22. insufficient Pizzagate: What a tough nut to crack on this one. Why are these elites pedophiles to begin with? Is the theory that you're more likely to join the ranks of the political elite by becoming a pedophile? If so, why? Or is it that pedophiles are somehow more likely to become elites? First, why, but also what accounts for the pedophiles that get left behind and end up in prison? So many questions.
  23. KOOKY J6 Infiltration: Subject to further revision with more specifics, but this scheme could not have been successful without first assuming "the crowd at J6 had a proclivity towards engaging in violence and lawless action". If so, it would obviate the need for the feds to have gotten involved in the first place.
  24. KOOKY Provoked Russian Invasion: Same as above, the required premise ("Russia was motivated and equipped to launch a war of territorial conquest") obviates the need for there to be a conspiracy to "provoke" them into it.
  25. insufficient UFOs: How exactly would government officials manage to prevent all communication from extra-terrestrials? The aliens that are supposedly capable of flying spaceships are presumably also capable of radio transmission, so why don't they just broadcast a worldwide message? Setting that aside, what exactly would the government's motivation be to suppress all this information?
  26. KOOKY Clandestine RFID chips: A government that has the capabilities to surreptitiously plant an RFID chip into everyone would also have the capabilities of just hacking into everyone's cellphone. The amount of tracking required to implement the RFID program (who was born, where they're located, when is their next doctor's appointment, etc.) also obviates the need for a tracking program in the first place.

Thanks for this, this was really fun :)

The Overkill Conspiracy Hypothesis

I feel like moon landing or flat earth is a kinda weak conspiracy theory examples. For the method to be powerful it needs to be tested on something real and strong, not some fringe lizardman conspiracy theory that is proclaimed more for lulz than anything else. Let's go to Wikipedia and get some fresh, pungent conspiracy theories and see how many you can knock out with OCH. Note for the purposes of this experiment I trust that anything that Wikipedia would call a conspiracy theory actually is. Full disclosure: I personally believe some of these are proven facts, some of them are very likely to be facts but can't be proven, at least for now, some I have no slightest idea whether they are true or false, and for some I am convinced they are false, and only a kook could believe in them. I am not going to disclose which are which.

So, in no particular order, which of these could you knock out:

  1. There is a concerted sustained multi-generational effort from the leftists in academia, entertainment and other institutions to subvert and transform Western society to undermine traditional Western values and make the society accept Marxist values instead. Identity politics, political correctness, and other culture war phenomena are part of this effort.
  2. Obama have been born outside the US and his birth certificate was faked, and this fakery is supported by government officials for partisan political reasons
  3. North Steam gas pipeline has been blown up by Ukrainians or the CIA (or both in collusion)
  4. JFK was assassinated by the CIA, either controlling Lee Harwey Oslwald or murdering him by other means and framing LHO.
  5. DNC emails were leaked by somebody from inside of DNC and not stolen by Russians, but Russia was blamed in service of the political narrative.
  6. Epstein did not kill himself
  7. George Floyd died of drug overdose, but for political and ideological reasons his death was presented otherwise, and the following legal proceedings were heavily influenced by political pressure to produce necessary convictions.
  8. COVID originated from Wuhan Virology Institute, where it has been either engineered as bioweapon or modified for research and has inadvertently leaked out.
  9. Biden family had extensive corrupt business in Ukraine, China and/or other foreign countries, and Joe Biden has been personally aware and participated in it.
  10. 2020 election has had sufficient cases of electoral fraud to meaningfully influence the results
  11. Bin Laden was not actually killed but the whole operation was staged to benefit Obama politically.
  12. The federal government is purposefully sabotaging immigration enforcement in order to change the demographic composition of the country
  13. White farmers in South Africa are systematically targeted and attacked, to drive them out from their land
  14. COVID mRNA vaccines have dangerous side effects well beyond recognized by current medical establishment consensus, and the reason for this lack of recognition is political or financial
  15. Global warming is not as big of a threat as presented by most climate scientists, and its threat is being exaggerated for political and ideological reasons, while any research suggesting otherwise is being actively suppressed.
  16. Vaccines have meaningful casual connection to development of autism but the medical establishment is concealing this fact, for either pecuniary or other reasons.
  17. Accusation about Trump being in collusion with Russia has been fabricated by Clinton campaign with no evidence, and has been supported by the intelligence community for partisan political reasons.
  18. COVID deaths were systematically overcounted to create the atmosphere of panic and enable drastic measures the politicians wanted to take
  19. There exists a phenomenon called "deep state", where most of top federal government officials do not represent the will of the electorate and do not serve the interests of the people and the good governance, and are largely out of control of elected nominal leadership, but instead are concerned with extending their power and their political influence, and perpetuating and enhancing their control over every aspect of the society. The "deep state" is generally aligned with Democratic party and largely hostile to the Republican party policies.
  20. Antifa is an organized violent leftist movement with cohesive political goals, organizational structure, financing, recruiting and support networks, membership, goals, and not a vague idea of "opposing fascism" that anybody could use - and routinely does - as a mask.
  21. Violent leftist movements are funded by certain very rich people (such as George Soros, but not exclusively) in order to affect massive political transformation in the US.
  22. There exists a massive pedophile network encompassing large number of members of the political elite, which use pizza symbols to communicate and are involved in child sex trafficking. Discussion if this fact is forcefully suppressed by the members of the elite.
  23. On January 6, there was a large number of FBI (or other law enforcement) agents in the crowd, which played significant role in instigating the violence and provoking the protestors into lawless actions.
  24. US or some powers within US (e.g. CIA) purposefully provoked Russia to instigate Ukraine invasion and begin a large war, in order to profit from it and increase its political influence.
  25. UFOs - or at least some of them - are of extra-terrestrial origin, and certain officials in the government are in possession of the conclusive evidence of that fact but are hiding it, for selfish or political reasons.
  26. There exist governmental projects for clandestinely implanting RFID chips or similar technology into humans, without their consent, for purposes of tracking, identification or others.
Culture War Roundup for the week of October 16, 2023

Well any functional relationship is never going to be one-sided. The problem with relationships today is far less rooted in “experience” or lack thereof; it has to do with people’s expectations and larger cultural shifts.

As it relates to the last part of your statement, I think that finds itself in many places of society. I recently came extremely close and lost out on a very promising job opportunity as a result of a this dynamic at play. As to be expected, it was a government position. Let’s just say I brushed too close to the edge in my background interview to things that I guess make me a highly suspicious candidate. Despite having no criminal background of any kind.

It’s a similar problem in a way to the difficulty the government has in hiring hackers. Highly qualified candidates get passed up due to their eccentric lifestyle, in favor of unqualified stooges that are always playing catch-up in cyberspace. You wouldn’t want a pedophile to babysit at a daycare for instance. That’s obvious. But should that also mean you shouldn’t have poachers as gamekeepers? There’s a difference between “thinking like an attacker” and “acting like a criminal.” But there are times also where those two things appear to come awfully close to one another, and in some cases may even converge.

Relationships and institutions that can resolve these contradictions (which isn’t difficult to do) whether it’s in relationships, employment, or public policy, are almost always going to stay ahead of everyone else.

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023

First, define "good art" because we've been having this conversation for centuries and nobody's got a working definition universally accepted. What is "good" art - technical merit and ability? subject matter? what the public likes versus what educated taste likes? And is "good art" art in "good taste"? What's good taste, then, precious?

Everything has been debated forever. There is nuance but generally we could say that:

Good art is aesthetically pleasing. Elevates the human spirit rather than denigrates it. Promotes fundamental truths over lies. Promotes virtues. Is respectful of the original source material, and of the people from which it derrives.

And for the right, also has historical significance. Plenty of it would focus on themes that had been successful in the past, including especially in art before the 20th century.

Everything has nuances but there are also fundamental truths. Among films, The Lord of the Rings adaptation would qualify in a manner than most other adaptations we have seen in recent years don't.

Actually Lord of the Rings did have a character who was demoralized and ready to surrender in Denethor. https://youtube.com/watch?v=b7MCVm4XISc That attitude was treated by the protagonists with contempt which spoke of an important truth. Even greater truth is found in the scene were the advisor Wormtongue who has corrupted king Theoden is banished. Truly magnificent. Also wonderful to see Theoden from a sad shell of a leader returning to a noble king of men. https://youtube.com/watch?v=iQExgALv9wI

Artists are about being transgressive, challenging social and cultural established values and thought, novelty, and all the rest of it. You can't pay them to produce 'conservative' art, and those who do so will be and are derided as sell-outs. Think Thomas Kinkade, who certainly had some measure of talent, deciding to make himself into a brand and churn out product on carefully selected themes that were repeated ad nauseam. "The Painter of Light" who was wildly successful with the public and made a fortune, but he's never going to get the respect of the art world.

How many artists these days are transgressive about the dominant established values of thought? Musicians especially. Do you see them to decry it? Well there are a few who do with some success.

Conservative art was produced for much of history. And based on the weirdo definitions of conservatism I see here, maybe they still are if conserving the status quo is conservatism (it isn't).

Think Thomas Kinkade, who certainly had some measure of talent, deciding to make himself into a brand and churn out product on carefully selected themes that were repeated ad nauseam. "The Painter of Light" who was wildly successful with the public and made a fortune, but he's never going to get the respect of the art world.

Thomas Kinkade is an incredible painter and artist. You can create an environment mroe conducive to allowing artists who really care for their quality of their to create good art. Like Cormac McCarthy whose wives claimed they lived in abject poverty who wasn't a leftist either. Which I am led to believe is actually impossible by some of the comments here.

And you can make it easier for rightists or leftist artists too by creating an environment that promotes more the one, or the other in praise, status, positions to create art.

'Good art' is not going to be given that accolade unless it accedes to the values of the liberal and indeed progressive strain of cultural hegemony. "Norman Rockwell type art" is not intended as a compliment. Is Marcel Duchamp's urinal good art? I think Surrealism did produce good art and it did give a shock to the art world, which every new movement needs to do, but as tastes and values evolve, there's no going backwards.

Yes, and? You are arguing with a strawman. I argue that rightists should fund art magazines, and artists themselves. In fact it is the sane reaction to a polarized environment.

Also, it wasn't always that bad.

but as tastes and values evolve, there's no going backwards.

Says who? Tastes can evolve in various directions. And who says there is no taste for continuous traditions? In actuality old artforms have continuing fans even today.

Actually, there was a film released recently about hunters of pedophiles that was rather popular and was denigrated by most of the media.

Plus, in American television rural tv shows were once all the rage but that ended one day when executives decided to cancel them.

As it happens the public can accept even garbage, although with more dissatisfaction than something better. Where do you gain that great confidence, especially as someone who has claimed to be a conservative that the current dominant strains are the epitome of unchanged sophistication? This faith in the unchallenged and hopeless progressive arc of history is really bewildering.