Scholar

If you have a democracy, and there are so many of those religious people that they would threaten to become their own regime, or whatever, then you can't just take their voting rights away. The entire system depends on everyone agreeing on the principle of democracy, otherwise you can't have a democracy. You can't just pick a group you don't like and tell them they can't vote. In that case, why would the participate in democracy at all? You will just cause civil war.

Would be interesting to see Leo discuss IP conflict from a moral perspective with Destiny, because I honestly can't see where they would disagree and how the arguments would play out. But at the same time it would be wasted time to have them discuss politics like that.

The point of that question was to engage with the hypothetical such that I understand your position better. The problem is that I do not have a burden of proof. When you justify maintaining discrimination, rights violations and stigmatization of innocent individuals on the basis of a theory you have, you better have good grounds to support that theory rather than just assumption that cannot be disproven either way. The reason why this is important is because otherwise we can perpetuate discrimination forever without ever feeling compelled to advocate for the acceptance of minorities. I just showed you a video that demonstrates how a large majority of people actually react to this topic as you would expect, with empathy and reason. Nobody is confusing pedophelia with child predation. This asymmetry is not relevant to the comparison. The comparison was in the lack of validity in the reasoning provided, namely slippery slope fallacies and just a misunderstanding of societies transition from discriminatory stances to basic acceptance of certain minority groups. This is just a baseless assertion. I already provided reasoning for why this is a flawed argument. Lesser developed stages will not, and do not accept such things either way. The point is to create a space, even if it is just in the context of stage green, for acceptance to occur and be perpetuated into the future. Every individual, including both of us, are part of this unfoldment. Nobody is arguing for rushing anything, whatever that would even mean. This conversation is the process of unfoldment which is precisely how these taboos are de-tabooified. There is no taboo, other than the incest taboo and prohibition, that is even remotely as harmful to innocent individuals as pedophelia-discrimination. And this is not merely a taboo, pedophiles are fundamentally dehumanized as a result of the way they were born.

I've recently been trying to advocate for the most hated individuals in our society. Given that I personally know people who are in an incestuous relationship, that is something I have been focusing on. Given the stigma around incest, there already is a significant social cost associated with advocating for their rights and acceptance. However, in the case of pedophiles, this is cost is even greater. I don't feel as compelled to advocate for their acceptance because in general, they are not legally persecuted (unlike incestuous couples are), but I still feel compelled to speak up when I see blantant dehumanization of such individuals. Obviously there is no context in which a sexual relationship between a child and an adult is appropriate, but in the case of pedophelia, we are not talking about individuals who prey on children, but rather individuals who were born with the affliction of feeling an exclusive attraction to prepubescent children. Such individuals obviously ought not to be outcast from society, as that increases the likelihood of them developing depraved moral stances and makes it less likely for them to actually get psychological help. All of this actually increases the likelihood of children getting abused, rather than decreases them. In a mature society, individuals would be able to openly share these feelings and get the social and psychological support they need, to develop healthy moral and psychological attitudes. But as soon as you talk about this topic and attempt to bring nuance to it, individuals generally will accuse you of being a pedophile yourself (they also do this when you advocate for incest). People are so adamant about their judgemental positions that they would rather engage in witch-hunts than actually decrease the instances of child abuse. How exactly would we go about speaking to the general public about issues like this? Can it only happen in specific spaces, where individuals are ready to hear and discuss such things? Does society need to grow to be more mature? The unforunate thing is that, over the past decade, there has been a clear reversion in the sophistication in the discourse on these types of matters. People seem to be less mature than they used to be, and more inclined to fall victim to peer pressure, given just how much social cost there is today when you speak against the grain in any meaningful way.

To demonstrate how silly and ungrounded your guys positions are, look at this video from germany: 2 million views, people are having these discussions and the comments are full of empathy. There are multiple of such videos on youtube by large content creators in german. The idea that society is not ready to have these conversations is simply an excuse.

You can make literally the same argument for trans-issues, you realize this? How much harm is caused by people deluding themselves they are trans, and possibly even get operations when they have other mental illnesses? All of these arguments are used in an attempt to invalidate the interests of trans people. Nobody is arguing that pedophelia as such should be accepted as a healthy thing. This is an absurd proposition. The argument is that individuals who are pedophiles, rather than be viewed as monsters who deserved to get killed even just for existing, should be treated as mentally ill people who need psychological support. This would actually PREVENT child abuse, because stigma leads to individuals not seeking out help and isolating themselves socially. That literally increases the likelihood of them growing dysfunctional and morally diseased, such that they will be more likely to actually engage in child predation. If individuals could talk openly about this, without being severely stigmatized, they could reveal themselves to have such issues and be identitified such that we could prevent them from for example working with children. Right now a pedophile will simply keep his desires a secret. What do you think it does to a mind when he is made to believe that, by being born a pedophile, he already is a monster and child predator? When you convince a person they are a monster, they are far more likely to act like one. More children are victimized because pedophiles are so stigmatized they don't feel comfortable getting help. And most child predation is not committed by pedophiles in the first place. The more of them feel like monsters for being born pedophiles, the more of them will act on their urges. Usually, it is actually psychopath-pedophile combinations who abuse children (in the case of pedophilic abuse). Yes, so does advocating for trans issues. How many stage blue people are scared of moving up the spiral because of the trans scare? We should have ignored the plight of these individuals for the next 400 years until society reached stage yellow. (this is sarcasm)

I want to remind you that you are not responding to the substance of my argument: A) You could use this argument at any developmental stage, and always make the same argument without anyone being able to disprove that you are right about "society not being ready". Each time we have challenged a taboo in the past people seemed not ready, yet we have managed to overcome it. How could you possibly know that society is not ready or that harm is caused? B) Using unsubstantiated (no empirical evidence or proof) speculation about whether or not society is ready to stop discriminating and causing unjustifiable suffering to innocent individuals cannot possibly be a justification for continuing to cause such things. If we used such speculation, we could have perpetually procrastinated minority issues in the past, on the fear of "society not being sophisticated enough to prevent possible harms". This especially applies in the context of trans issues, where this is a huge debate. C) You have provided no convincing argument that the taboo prevents suffering and child abuse rather than increases it, the argument and the data indicating the opposite is actually far more compelling and robust. There is a huge problem with your argument. Stage blue individuals will not be convinced, and do not need to be convinced, to create a reasonable space for minorities who are discriminated against. Stage blue people still get upset about homosexuality and especially trans issue. This will not stop no matter how much the more progressive side of society accepts such things. Which gets us to the argument I made: D) Saying that advocating for the rights of these individuals will lead to societal damage because suddenly everyone will accept child-predation (this is a completely absurd notion btw) is like saying the world will collapse if we advocate for veganism because if everyone went vegan over night, what would we do with all the animals from factory farms? Obviously this is not how things change. Stage blue, and less cognitive developed stages, will resist the abandoning of the taboo until they themselves grow up. So this entire issue is literally a non-issue, the very way society works makes it a non-issue, for the very reasons you yourself provided. I'm curious to know your stance on this: If we were putting pedophiles in prison, just for having been identified to have pedophilic desires, do you think we should advocate for the rights of such individuals, and how unjust it is that they are deprived of their freedom for the sake of "protecting society"? Would you think we have a democratic obligation in this case to speak up for these gross rights violations of a minority group? Or would you say "Well, society is not yet ready for this conversation, sorry!".

Given how much of an incoherent mess this is, I am not surprised you have no clue what my position on palestine is and utterly failed to understand it.

This wasn't the argument. I said that the harm prevented by stigmatization of pedophiles might not outweigh the harm that is collectively experienced by innocent individual. Teenagers are pedophiles too and experience incredible psychological harm as a result of stigmatization and dehumanization of pedophile. If you would listen to some stories of pedophiles, you would know that. There is no evidence that stigmatization and dehumanization of pedophiles prevents any abuse, and in fact I find arguments that it increases child abuse far more compelling. Pedophiles aren't criminals. Most pedophiles never abuse children. You can say this at any stage of human development and nobody could possibly say anything to disprove that we "aren't ready". This is the flaw with this type of intuitive argument, you simply cannot use it, ever, to justify concrete rights violations, unless you have actual data supporting what you are saying, which you do not. Taboos are largely guided by completely irrational feelings and dispositions, and many of them do not fulfill any function and in fact have a harmful function, especially as we transition into modernity. I have had a conversation with a teenager today who understood perfectly well the distinction between a pedophile and predator after it was explained to him. If he can understand that difference, anyone can. This isn't some sort of savant boy who is intellectual rigorous. People are perfectly capable of understanding these differences, we are far beyond the cognitive development stages to assert that this is a concept individuals cannot grasp or hold. It is not this complex, and if you want to sustain a position of maintaining discriminatory attitudes against victims of nature, you better have more than your personal opinion to do so. We aren't the Aztecs anymore, we don't sacrifice the few because we think it will give us a greater benefit. If we want to do so, we have to have rock solid evidence for such things. Right now, the evidence is on the side of the taboo being harmful rather than preventative in any way.

To not feel incredibly ashamed about something that part of who they are, sadly. And if they do get exposed, they shouldn't feel like they are monsters who should get killed.

I'm just saying that we should not use "potential slippery slope" arguments to justify current, actual abuse of individuals. It has always proven to be unwise in the past. The interesting thing is that, most child molestors are not actually pedophiles. They are mostly opportunistic or sadistic abusers. They don't have any particular sexual attraction to children, rather they get pleasure from the abuse itself, independent of who they abuse. Children being the most vulnerable means those are the ones they tend to abuse. https://www.vice.com/en/article/most-child-sex-abusers-are-not-pedophiles-expert-says/

I'm comparing the arguments Emerald is using. She is basically saying society is too immature, so taboos and stigmatization is justified to continue until society grows up. But there is no evidence for this, and most importantly, part of growing up is actually the process of facing the problems and resolvng them over time. Yes, I am talking about people who have been born with an exclusive sexual attraction to children, but never abused or intend to abuse any children.

The question in this topic is how we change societal attitudes such that individuals afflicted with these conditions (who do not prey on children) are not stigmatized and dehumanized.

Yes, I don't disagree with any of this. In this case however we are not even talking about criminals, but simply people afflicted with the condition who never abused anyone.

We can't use these vague allusion to continue bullying and dehumanizing individuals. We could use these kinds of arguments to discriminate against anything that could be potentially problematic, including LBGTQ, prostitution, consanguinamory, useage of psychedelics. This isn't like we are going to have a lightswitch of acceptance turn on and suddenly everyone loves pedophiles. That's not how any of this work, it's like saying that we shouldn't advocate for animal rights because if we do, and all people go vegan, then where will we put all the chickens and cows? It's just an excuse.

I should have. I clarified it afterwards though, maybe you missed it.

That was a sarcastic post to illustrate why such attitudes in other contexts are barbaric. I don't see any compelling argument for how it would lead to the normalization of pedophilia. How else are these things going to progress but by having conversations about them? Remember, this isn't a neutral issue. People suffer from unjust stigmatization. The harm to pedophiles might actually outweigh the harm to children caused by child predation that is being prevented by this stigmatory stance. And I don't even see a compelling reason for how the stigma does anything but increase the instances of child abuse. I don't think it is serving the function you think it is serving. This just seems like very vague allusion and potential, abstract threats to justify the concrete rights violations against innocent individuals. Yes, any taboo in the past that was lifted initially lead to problems, but the entire point is to learn from the problems such that we can progress as a society. Most child sexual abuse is not committed by pedophiles in the first place. We could have justified stigmatization of homosexuals and transsexual on the basis of vague allusions about the risks of society not being able to handle such conversations and enabling dysfunction and abuse. This is just not the case with attitudes that are highly, highly ingrained in humans to be biased against. The most compelling argument here is that you are actually not showing how isolating and shaming individuals leads to less child abuse, instead of more. You are basically just fear-mongering about potential problems if we don't continue to commit contrete rights violations against individuals. If those problems occur, we will solve them once they do. This doesn't give us a right to perpetuate barbarism.

Then it cannot be the fault of individuals for not being able to survive, which you just implied, as a way to excuse the dangers of this technology and dismiss it's negative impact.

At this point I don't think he is likely to win.

I was going to say B12 too. I had some extemely vivid dreams sometimes when I took a high dose of B12 before sleep. It doesn't always occur when I take it though. And the dreams are Hyperreal. The vision is more real than reality, more intense and clear than when I was tripping.

Is the Destiny discussion really happening? Are you preparing for it Leo? I imagine it could be a challenging conversation.

It would never appear that way because one side is absurdly bad faith. The AI would fact check and correct everything Trump is saying, because Trump is lying non-stop. This would make the other side only more suspicious of the AI, and claim it is biased. Remember, republicans do the same in relation to basically every US institution that does not fall in line with Trump's charlatanism. They also the same to the moderators in this debate, even though Trump was actually treated favorably by them (he got the last word almost every time even though it was against the rules, and Kamala Harris was prevented from doing so when she attempted to have it even just once). AI is so dangerous because you can shape and teach it whatever you want. Like social media allowed bias to proliferate, so will AI, as it will give individuals the tools to basically confirm their bias in the most convincing way possible. Any AI is designed to appear convincing, so what you will see is over time multiple AI's that will be employed to convince the respective bias of their consumers, as you have seen occur in social media. You can prepare for a new age of misinformation and bias.

Yes Princess. My point is we can make all of these arguments for incest as well. But with incest, people argue that, even if sometimes it can be consensual (they will deny that it ever could be, so they don't have to admit they stigmatize and imprison innocent people), that shaming and imprisoning people for acting this way in all contexts will mitigate harm and dysfunction overall. If a society is to be consistent, the same would apply in the context of prostitution, among other things.

I was just trying to make a point about incest being treated this way. I don't actually believe we should put prostitutes in prison for engaging in such activity, obviously. That is barbaric, yet nobody bats an eye when we do that to minorities that we find disgusting and reprehensible despite not harming anyone. I was demonstrating the dangers of using the harm principle to dismiss the autonomy of individuals, and to punish and shame them for these behaviours. In the end, most of it is motivated not be concern for victims, but simply because we find the notion of certain acts reprehensible.

I know she is referring to incestuous rapes, but they are in no way different in regards to the pregnancy than a normal rape pregnancy. The problem here is that, as a society, we are incestophobic and intentionally conflate consensual incest with non-consensual incest such that we can maintain our discriminatory attitudes towards minorites that we deem as disgusting. If I live in a homophobic society, and refer to prison rape victims as "Victims of homosexuality", I am participating directly in homophobia and further stigmatization of homosexuality by association it with rape, and by specfically not clarifying that hat is mean is "victims of homosexual rape". It doesn't need to be clarified in such a society, because that society views the entire act as equivalent to rape, such that anyone who commits homosexuality ought to be treated the same way a rapist would, as we do with consensual incest. How rare incestuous relationships are is irrelevant, they do happen and are far more frequent than you believe. As a democratic society, we cannot use the status of a minority as an excuse to further discriminate against them, on the basis that they are rare. Given a society that stigmatized and criminalizes a certain sexual act, it is obviously to be expected that individuals will avoid engaging in such acts even though they might want to, and keep them secret from society if they do engage in such acts. You could have made the same argument in the past when homosexuality was highly persecuted, when a disproportionate amount of homosexual behavior was happening in the context of child abuse and grooming, and rape. In that case, you could have pointed to society and proclaimed consensual, healthy homosexual relationships are rare. If you want to have an exception for killing mentally or bodily handicapped people on the basis of inferior genes, then clarify that instead of making it about incest and further stigmatizing children born of incest as well as incestuous relationships by conflating them with rape. Incest is simply in no way relevant to the issue, as that is not actually what should grant something to be exceptional. A pregnancy, especially a healthy one, as can be determined through monitoring the pregnancy, resulting from consensual incest, is in no way different than any other other pregnancy, therefore, why would any kind of exception apply in that case? It simply makes no sense to use the term incest, other than to use it because everyone deems incest as abhorrent and disgusting in any context, whether consensual or not, whether the child is healthy or not. That is the truth of why she was using the term, because society has dehumanized individuals who engage in incest to such a degree that we view them as abhorrent monsters that need to be shamed and imprisoned for their love.