How to advocate for pedophile acceptance?

[Scholar]

6 hours ago, Emerald said:

You're over-estimating the general populace's cognitive and moral development... and their ability to hold space for seemingly dichotomous notions like compassion and justice.

All things arise for ideological reconsideration in the time they're meant to be unpacked. And taboos stick around until society develops enough to parse those topics in a more mature way and the taboo becomes obsolete. That's the nature of human societal development.

A taboo is like a cast that we keep on until the bone mends. And we can't take the cast off prematurely and get good results.

And that's true even if it is at the expense of people who haven't committed a crime. And innocents have always been casualties of humanity's lack of cognitive and ethical development. It sucks, but it is what it is, until we collectively transcend to higher levels of ethical development.

Plus, there are SO many other taboos and former taboos that are "ripe" right now for 'anti-tabooification' that we must focus on collectively... things like having kids out of wedlock, co-habitation, divorce, the LGBTQ community, choosing to have few children, choosing to have no children, miscegenation, multi-ethnic societies, female autonomy, birth control, polyamory, swinging, immigration, drug addiction, psychedelic therapy, choosing one's own marriage partner, sex work, withholding cruel and unusual punishment for criminals, and various other breaks from traditional norms that were once considered taboo by the general populace.

These things couldn't be integrated into the Stage Blue societal structure because of the level of ideological and technological development and the adaptations necessary to make those kinds of societies run. Acceptance of these things and removing these taboos in a solid blue culture is like trying to jam a cd into a cassette player. It just doesn't work.

But in the current state of Stage Orange society, we do have the ability to integrate all of those things without it getting in the way of how the societal technology runs. But there are still huge swaths of the population that struggle to integrate these things because they are not morally developed enough to move past absolutist thinking... and more towards an ethics that's more around the idea "If it doesn't inflict harm on another person. We can accept it."

But someone who has developed their level of moral development to "If it doesn't inflict harm on another person. We can accept it." still won't be able to parse how to orient to people who have a taboo that is associated with the harm of the vulnerable... even if they've never committed a crime. And they will still have the punishment-mindedness of the previous level of development... only geared specifically to those causing harm (or are associated with causing harm) and not towards people who engage in taboos that are "unusual/uncommon" but not harmful.

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!".

Edited September 19 by Scholar

[Scholar]

4 hours ago, IronFoot said:

however, as others have stated, I don’t think our society is equipped to make the discernment between a enabling or solving this issue.  What sort of approach would you propose to be compassionate to marginalized groups of people while still protecting the children that could be victimized by these people? Children that are victimized seem to have a higher likelihood of developing other mental issues too which would just lead to more societal problems.

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.

 

4 hours ago, IronFoot said:

have no idea if this number is accurate, but off a quick google search I saw that it is estimated that less than 5 percent of the world population are pedophiles. Out of that 5 percent, I wonder how many of them are acting on those urges and how many of them are functioning members of society that have never done anything damaging?

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).

 

4 hours ago, IronFoot said:

I would say there are bigger fish to fry than supporting pedophiles. Having society reach stage yellow would likely lead to solutions to these problems becoming more feasible. If consciousness were elevated on a large enough scale, this could be true for a lot of other problems as well. I think that it would be pointless for anyone in power to come out and support something like this with where we are currently at on the spiral. Defending pedophiles and other topics like this is a great way to scare people off from ever moving up the spiral.

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)

Edited September 19 by Scholar

[El Zapato]

16 hours ago, Zega said:

@Scholar I must have misunderstood, I thought we were talking about convicted pedophiles...

There are some support groups for people who have the thoughts and urges, other than therapy: Virtuous Pedophiles, TROUBLED DESIRE, MAP Support Club, and CBT. It's up to the person having these feelings to reach out and seek help so those thoughts don't become actions. 

 

"Lorena Bobbit's Retraining Series"

[Scholar]

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.

[El Zapato]

It doesn't seem to want to do a translation to English.  In America, translations much more multi-bilingualism is verboten.

[Spiritual Warrior]

23 hours ago, Scholar said:

I've recently been trying to advocate for the most hated individuals in our society.

I've been thinking the same thing for years. The best way to deal with pedophiles is with compassion and acceptance and a genuine intention to help.

They are human beings just like you and me.

As a matter of fact, they are you. And you are them. 

[Emerald]

8 hours ago, aurum said:

Great insight.

Thank you!

[Emerald]

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Well, there goes my kitten-eating agenda.

Ya'll are not advanced enough to eat a kitten.

Don't worry. Give it another 30 years and it will become part of the discourse.  

[Emerald]

4 hours ago, Scholar said:

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!".

On your last question, we already have rules and standards that prevent pedophiles who haven't committed crimes from going to prison. We don't have thought crime on the books... nor does someone go to jail for feelings.

But with regard to you asking about sources, you're not using any either... precisely because there are none about this topic. But it is evident if you really understand the Overton Window of society is because you can see that the collective paradigm isn't ripe for combining the notion of compassion and justice with regard to people that the populace associates with crimes against children (even if many of these individuals haven't committed crimes). 

And the Veganism thing doesn't work as a comparison because there isn't a strong taboo against Veganism. The most it gets is an eye-roll and a heated argument about why they call plant based milk, milk. 

That said, I do agree that demonization of pedophiles isn't ideal because then we can't identify root causes and address them. Slapping the label of evil and irredeemable on a group means that we can't solve anything.

But if you look at that average person, it should be quite obvious that this topic is pretty green on the vine and isn't ready to be parsed and reckoned with in an intelligent way. 

And all things unfold when they're meant to unfold. And we have plenty of taboos that are not harm related in the eyes of the general populace that are in the process of being parsed and de-tabooified. We don't need to rush any of this.

[gettoefl]

2 hours ago, Spiritual Warrior said:

I've been thinking the same thing for years. The best way to deal with pedophiles is with compassion and acceptance and a genuine intention to help.

They are human beings just like you and me.

As a matter of fact, they are you. And you are them. 

Have to realize that only those without children have the luxury of such charitable broad-mindedness

The rest of the population are viscerally sickened by thinking of such people no matter how well controlled their appetites

[Spiritual Warrior]

12 hours ago, gettoefl said:

Have to realize that only those without children have the luxury of such charitable broad-mindedness

The rest of the population are viscerally sickened by thinking of such people no matter how well controlled their appetites

That's fair. And you're right, I do not have children. 

[Carl-Richard]

The simplest way is for the general public to become pedophiles themselves. And that might even become a real possibility with the increasing amount of questionable anime watchers (I'm not judging of course 😗).

More seriously, just blast them with statistics like "most child molesters are not pedophiles". Exactly how? I dunno.

Honestly, you'll probably have a better time trying to make Young Earth Creationists empathize with Matt Dillahunty.

Edited September 22 by Carl-Richard

[BlueOak]

There is a significantly easier way for this to be more generally understood, at least in part.

Bearing in mind I just argued for the death penalty to be applied previously, so you do not misread this line, because nobody has countered with data that would change my mind.

That is the acceptance of youth being attractive to men and women. I understand this doesn't cover all pedophiles who have harmed younger children, but it does allow you to understand why a man or woman might cross a line that varies country to country for example, showing us that the ethics of communities on the appropriate age differs country to country let alone person to person. I would guess that most pedophilia is in that grouping of teenage years.

It is also the understanding of maturity, which is even less talked about.

Talking exclusively about consenting adults as it is more palatable and communicable. We do define youth differently. For some it's an abundance of health, for some fertility, their responses to common problems or challenges you yourself have faced, awareness of themselves and life, energy levels, career stability, etc etc. 

What this leads me to understand is maturity is defined differently by each person, before even considering that maturity isn't even sought out by some people, and I see cases where pair bonding is argued to be easier without maturity or defined behavioral responses to intimacy, for example. It's a difficult subject that needs a lot more open discourse, but you have to preface the discussion with how horrific it is for all concerned. Having suffered a fair degree of abuse as a kid (none sexual), I can see why it provokes a strong response from individuals beyond the biological imperative of the species to protect children, especially when this isn't stated clearly.

 

[Scholar]

On 19.9.2024 at 5:16 PM, Emerald said:

On your last question, we already have rules and standards that prevent pedophiles who haven't committed crimes from going to prison. We don't have thought crime on the books... nor does someone go to jail for feelings.

The point of that question was to engage with the hypothetical such that I understand your position better.

 

On 19.9.2024 at 5:16 PM, Emerald said:

But with regard to you asking about sources, you're not using any either... precisely because there are none about this topic. But it is evident if you really understand the Overton Window of society is because you can see that the collective paradigm isn't ripe for combining the notion of compassion and justice with regard to people that the populace associates with crimes against children (even if many of these individuals haven't committed crimes). 

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.

 

On 19.9.2024 at 5:16 PM, Emerald said:

And the Veganism thing doesn't work as a comparison because there isn't a strong taboo against Veganism. The most it gets is an eye-roll and a heated argument about why they call plant based milk, milk. 

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.

 

On 19.9.2024 at 5:16 PM, Emerald said:

But if you look at that average person, it should be quite obvious that this topic is pretty green on the vine and isn't ready to be parsed and reckoned with in an intelligent way. 

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.

 

On 19.9.2024 at 5:16 PM, Emerald said:

And all things unfold when they're meant to unfold. And we have plenty of taboos that are not harm related in the eyes of the general populace that are in the process of being parsed and de-tabooified. We don't need to rush any of this.

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.