domain:lesswrong.com
Goodguy
11hr ago
I'm not claiming that "the boys need purpose" leads to Nazism. I'm just not sure that giving boys clear pathways to become part of society necessarily reduces violence.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
11hr ago
Oh, cool! Yeah, that's my missing the point a little bit. Thanks for writing the clarification.
In that case then, my personal method of thinking about the sacred in the context of the sexual is pretty straightforward:
- God created everything with a purpose in mind. The Thomistic view on this is that everything has a 'telos' or properly ordered end (or goal) to it.
- In the context of man and woman and sex, the telos is eternal unification (marriage) and procreation. This is the Catholic view on not only sex, but marriage. The well ordered purpose and end of a marriage is to create children and then raise them in virtue (Side note: For couples who cannot conceive, a marriage is still good and valid so long as it results in a mutual support for sanctification - 'becoming a saint' - in the course of life. You don't divorce because of problems with conception).
- Sex is a sacred act because it results in the creation of life and is also a manifestation of true feelings of love between man and woman only so long as it is performed licitly in the context of the sanctioned sacrament of marriage.
- To have sex outside of marriage is to violate the laws governing sex.
To comment more specifically about porn:
-
Porn is a disordered use of sex. It isn't done within the bounds of marriage with the intent of conception. Even in a strange edge case where two married people are filming themselves having sex with the expressed purpose of conceiving, this is still disordered because the specific character of sex reserves it exclusively to the participants - man and wife. Sex is never "shared" with spectators.
-
Masturbation, likewise, is a disordered use of one's sexual organs for the purpose of self gratification rather than towards the well ordered end of procreating (again, within the context of marriage).
A lot of it comes down to what a thing of any kind is supposed to do - what I started with, it's "telos." When you misuses that thing, you're sinning because you're out of concert with the will of God. Of course, there are many different degrees of severity to this. Mortal vs venial sins and all that. But the underlying assumption is that there is a way to all things and that that way is defined by God and also totally knowable by man.
I am allowed to judge people who are having pre-marital sex and using porn because I want them to be in sync with God's natural law and ordering of the universe because it will be to their greater happiness, joy, and benefit.
Translated to the more secular, I don't like porn because I think it's bad for everyone involved - the porn viewer, the porn maker, the porn producer, etc. All of these people will be spiritually worse off for having engaged with what is an intrinsically disordered act.
TK-421
11hr ago
| (and no, I don't accept "We live in a society therefore suck it up and obey", no matter how many words you put behind it).
And I don't accept that you're a Free Man and that following laws you disagree with means that you're being unjustly put upon and must suck it up and obey. There are many, many avenues for you to try to get a law changed depending on the law. You are not a creature in a state of nature that has been cruelly subjugated and is striking a blow against The Man by doing what you want. Calling contributing to the smooth functioning of society even in areas that you might have some disagreement sucking it up and obeying is the attitude of a child, no matter how many times you shout "freedom".
| Sometimes, I want some of that machinery chipped away, so the organized, peaceful, advanced society can be less regimented.
Totally fair and reasonable to want to live in a different, more anarchic society and it's entirely possible that such a society would be better in some ways. By all means, get out there and advocate for your vision. But your preferences do not get to be arbitrarily imposed on the ~347 million other people in the US.
Goodguy
11hr ago
Got it. Sorry for misreading your post.
But, cards on the table first - do you see the current "liberal order" of things to be all well and good?
No. Given the current different political groups that we have in the West, I think that the current liberal order is better on the whole than any new order that is actually likely to take power if the current liberal order is replaced. However, I believe that the current liberal order needs some modifications, as long as they're done in a way that doesn't destroy the core liberalness of it.
Pulpachair
11hr ago
Shock collars can be a useful training tool in extreme cases when normal tools are ineffective. But they have to be used in close temporal proximity to the bad behavior and coupled with other methods of training and positive reinforcement. The goal is always to move away from a shock collar as soon as possible.
What happened in the video was pretty much the opposite of effective use of a shock collar. He administers the shock for a fairly minor and random bit of animal behavior that isn’t putting the dog or person at risk, he administers the shock too late, it is not accompanied by clear warning or commands. From the dog’s perspective, this is just pain being inflicted at random. It is not meaningful cruelty, but meaningless. Piker gets angry and hurts the dog.
Ioper
11hr ago
I've not encountered their use. I've encountered conversations about them not working very well and essentially amounting to lazy owners abusing their dogs. This is from Americans exclusively, seeing as they're illegal or heavily restricted in much of Europe.
knob
11hr ago
How do you know they’re not US citizens if, as ICE has been doing, the people being detained are not given a chance to prove their citizenship? In May they took a guy’s REAL ID after wrestling him the ground and cuffing him, and just declared on the spot that it was fake. They then kept him detained for a few hours and eventually let him go after he provided his SSN (wtf???), but that doesn’t change the fact that this is retarded. There would be no story here if they simply had not done that, and just arrested the guys who were undocumented. A traffic cop can scan my license and verify it’s real, why can’t ICE? I don’t carry around my passport and as a US citizen I’m not required to. I don’t know what defense I’d have in the moment if ICE decided to detain me after making the determination that a.) I’m undocumented and b.) the license I gave them is fake. Add to that the fact that some of these guys are masked, not in uniform, and refuse to present a badge. It’s pretty close to just plain kidnapping. It’s idiotic and Americans are right to sour on such an astounding lack of professionalism.
grognard
Intel Pentium III 450 / Nvidia Riva TNT2 Ultra / Corsair 128MB PC133 / ABIT BH6
11hr ago
Which app were you swiping?
netstack
Texas is freedom land
11hr ago
Shooting at ICE is unacceptable. Ramming vehicles, unacceptable. I am particularly disturbed by the Texas ICE ambush; it’s good that the feds were able to come down on them immediately. This is true regardless of the agency*. Violence is terrible, and the people committing it against the authorities are criminals.
Posting anti-ICE signage is not violence. Neither is declining to let them use your property. Or to deploy your riot police to risk their own safety. I’ll admit that when I see commenters equivocating between Chicago’s government and its lawless protestors, I do in fact feel some frustration.
This is a motte and bailey. The mayor is just supposed to avoid rocking the boat. Riot police show up for riots, federal agents camp on your city property: you know, the usual stuff. Also, if he disagrees with any of this, that’s brinksmanship and possibly treasonous. It absolves the EXTREMELY UNUSUAL force of armed feds of all responsibility.
I’m willing to accept that I’ve been too flippant over the past week. Maybe that really is a newfound streak of partisanship. But I’ve never been shy about my distaste for Trump’s strongman governance. I’d like to think my position here is its natural extension.
* For the record, if I had to pick one exception, it would be the ATF.
lurker
11hr ago
Can you please state clearly what you're arguing for? Cause "Porn bans decrease the amount of sex people have, exacerbate the gender divide, increase sexual assault rates and don't even prevent people from accessing porn" is not a very compelling case in favor of porn bans.
TK-421
11hr ago
| The concern is if you have law enforcement doing wack crazy shit, what if they accidentally pick up a US citizen and because they're operating at a level of "wack and stupid" they get shipped off? We should demand more competency from the government.
This is a concern, yes. This (very valid and very real) concern is true of all law enforcement. What if we arrest or even convict someone of a crime that they did not commit?
The answer is that we sometimes do.
Barring an even more intrusive surveillance state and its associated concerns, this is absolutely inevitable. Which is why there's a vast amount of legal guidelines around the operation of law enforcement, a robust series of protections and legal avenues for challenging the actions of law enforcement, and a free and really vocal press that will scream to high heaven over even legal but visually distasteful operations. These are all good things, great things even. Not flawless - some amount of errors will always occur and we should remain vigilant for them - but they operate well enough to know that your concern is essentially unfounded. If there were a real risk of citizens getting randomly yanked off the street and shipped overseas it would be occurring and we would know about it. ICE is being aggressive in enforcement, sure, but I'm unaware of anyone who was deported without an actual order of deportation. Even edge cases like Abrego Garcia had deportation orders. The due process has been duly delivered by immigration courts. "They have made their decision, now let ICE enforce it!" The system - it works if you let it.
And to the point that ICE is being unnecessarily inflammatory through their actions: I submit that being less invasive did not result in better cooperation or lower rhetoric. When people were (and are) legally detained by ICE after showing up to their hearings there was no end of whining that it was terribly unjust and fascist - why, those people thought they were just going in for a check-up, how dare you then arrest them? It truly does not matter how ICE operates if the other side thinks that (effectively) no person should be deported.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
11hr ago
Plenty of societies that had/have very clear pathways for boys to become part of society nonetheless had/have horrific levels of violence.
Hell of a stawman!
Do you truly believe I'm advocating for pathways to manhood to include the active cultivation of violence against others (in a non military, State governed sort of way, of course). You immediately jump from my "the boys need purpose" to "YOU MEAN LIKE NAZIs?!" This is a bad faith argument.
quiet_NaN
11hr ago
I mean this is extremely inflammatory especially as coming from elected officials.
Did you mean from an elected official who is not Trump?
Saying 'Republicans want to redo the civil war' is very different from saying "let's redo the civil war", from where I stand.
Sure, they are longing for an escalation, but they have also learned in the last decade that being a divisive leader who takes a shit on his opponents every chance he gets, always doubling down rather than backing down is what the electorate prefers.
Trisha Meili wasn't murdered, she ended up living. And all 6 of their taped accounts (including Lopez who isn't counted in the "central park 5" because his parents made sure he didn't confess like the others did), and those of a few other people who had been around them that night, were really pretty consistent. The only difference was that each kid downplayed his own actions somewhat, thinking that they would be fine if they weren't the one who raped her. And the confusion that everyone knew she was raped, but these kids didn't actually see a rape, so they were trying to fit that into their confession incorrectly.
But the consistent picture of an assault and sexual molestation (but not rape, they were really too young and awkward for that) is pretty clear. It would be pretty remarkable if the detectives in a few hours of the untaped interrogation got them all to get on the same page of implicating themselves consistently in a made-up story, especially when they weren't even suspects in the initial questioning of ~30+ kids until kevin richardson happened to mention that the scratch on his eye was done by "the female jogger". Also especially because a few of them were borderline retarded, as was used in their defense. But they still all knew exactly which kid was hitting people with the metal pipe, who was throwing rocks at joggers' heads, and who was ripping her clothes off, etc.
That Reyes came along later and raped the woman who was lying there unconscious and nearly dead, really has no bearing on the assaults committed (on multiple victims) by the above 6 (which were attested to by multiple other kids as well, who somehow avoided being 'framed' by the detectives themselves).
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
11hr ago
I am begging you for an effortpost on cell phones and criminals.
daguerrean
11hr ago
It is wrong to abuse a pack animal, but all physical punishment is not abuse and the same applies to humans. The relationship of owner to pet is closer to parent-child than me-UPS driver, and it is certainly widely (but not universally) accepted that spanking a child is acceptable.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
11hr ago
I'm sure that that is exactly what I'm trying to do. I'm not trying to slip it in. To quote the original post:
Some sort of religious or, at least, high-minded civic metaphysics is a necessary part of this.
I'm not even sure what kind of argumentation you're using here. It's like mini-maxing what I explicitly said as I kind of snide way of cultivating doubt? It's strange, that's for sure.
If you want to get into a discussion about proposed solutions and their cost / benefit profile, I'm all for it! But, cards on the table first - do you see the current "liberal order" of things to be all well and good?
Ioper
11hr ago
In theory sure, in practice it's a reliable signal that you're abusive. Furthermore, i don't want to give abusive people the social go ahead for using that tool and plausible deniability for going over the line.
I don't have a principle against physical negative feedback, I would support corporal punishment where there is a neutral third party evaluating and administrating said punishment, like Singapore style caning.
daguerrean
11hr ago
Well humans have all sorts of cultural taboos around physical violence that clearly dogs have no comprehension of. In the absence of cultural taboos and laws I think for a big enough bonus many employees would prefer a short electric shock over missing out on a 50k bonus. I know I would.
Primaprimaprima
Aliquid stat pro aliquo
11hr ago
Fair enough! Catholics have always been very tolerant of iconography of Jesus though.
faul_sname
Fuck around once, find out once. Do it again, now it's science.
11hr ago
The Constitution is dead. America is dead.
Man, fuck that noise. America is the best country. We have problems, but there's nowhere else in the world I'd rather be. The whole reason this thread exists in the first place is that America is a great place and too many people want to live here.
I am beginning to wonder if patriotism is going to flip towards being blue coded, it sure seems to be trending that way.
Supah_Schmendrick
11hr ago
Ah yes, withholding a bonus to an employee is the same negative hedons as whipping him. Clearly.
Supah_Schmendrick
11hr ago
View the dog as a working animal, its job is essentially to perform as an actor contributing to his streams. In exchange it receives food, shelter and so forth. It seems like a fair deal for the dog, I see nothing wrong with this.
A person's character is revealed in how they treat those below them - particularly those who are obligated to serve them. It's wrong to whip a UPS delivery driver for stopping his route for a coffee; it's wrong to abuse a draft or pack animal, and it's similarly a mark of low character to electroshock a dog for the "infraction" of taking a few steps inside your home.
You don't need to be deranged or toxic to look down on that. There's a world of difference between "don't cause your animal unnecessary pain for your convenience" and "deliver your animal 'lavish accommodations' in exchange for nothing."
I'll take this in good faith because I think you meant it that way.
Very much so, yes. It's important that we think clearly about what we mean when we talk about "the sacred". And the best way to clarify your concepts is to stretch them to their logical limits, so that you're forced to draw distinctions and clearly demarcate the boundaries of things.
But I don't actually want to just drop a "This is what the Catholic Church says" style response here. THat wouldn't be helpful.
It would be extremely helpful, if it were genuinely a part of your ultimate motivations. I'm less interested in debating policy and more interested in understanding why different people think the way they do, regardless of what those reasons turn out to be. (Sometimes people aren't honest about why they think what they think. Sometimes they genuinely don't know why they think what they think, or they're lying even to themselves. That makes it a difficult endeavor.)
At the risk of channeling the spirit of Helen Lovejoy, I think we should think of the children. Meaning, as a rubric, is whatever the "thing" we're talking about something we would more or less be comfortable with in giving to children?
Sure. But that doesn't really seem to be addressing my question, because this new criteria (about what's appropriate for children) seems totally orthogonal to the dimension of the sacred. The sacredness of the phenomenon or object in question is no longer relevant; we just have to look at whether it's safe for kids (or addictive or whatever other criteria you want to propose) and that will determine what types of prohibitions we need. But the reason I asked the question in the first place is specifically because I wanted to clarify what exactly the sacredness of sexual acts consists in.
I do believe that you (and not just you of course, but many people, both religious and non-religious) correctly perceive that there is a certain type of spiritual power in sexuality, and that this power can be dangerous if left unchecked, and this perception is what prompted you to use the word "sacred". A spiritual power that is not present in booze and guns and etc. We can quibble over whether "sacred" was the correct word choice, or if the category of the sacred needs to be subdivided further in order to account for different types of sacred phenomena, and so forth. But regardless, I think you were at least directionally correct.
So at worst he is guilty of using a less-than-optimal training technique. I view it as identical to spanking children. Perhaps there is a more optimal way of training a child, but people are under no moral obligation to be maximally optimal in everything they do. Obviously physically disciplining a child could be taken to the point of abuse, but a spanking is not in-and-of-itself abusive and does not require being the most optimal method
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