Aella's plan would fail because there is no substitute for the real thing. It would only encourage it until it escalated. It normalizes it and makes it seem okay.
The issue is that humanity is now an uninitiated mass with the emotional regulation of toddlers. Sexual initiation began in traditional cultures very early, and it centered on being responsible and accountable for one's own energy. This is because sexual energy is one of the most potentially destructive forces on the planet, which you have experienced, as have I. I don't know anyone unscathed from it, man or woman. When I try to tune into the intent of someone forcing sexual activity upon children, I get this thought process: "Ooh, I have sexual impulse. Here is a freely available vulnerable person who cannot say no." It's that simple. Their immature impulses make them believe that their few minutes of pleasure is worth that child's lifetime of pain and behavioral damage. This is a case where the impacts forever and completely deny the possibility of anything remotely near Aella's idea.
For some reason, we have forgotten this—NO ONE ELSE ON THE PLANET OWES YOU AN ORGASM. You are not entitled to the body of any other human. Ever.
This windigo virus is a program. A mind infection. And allowing it to live in media online spreads it. Pornography that does not display consensual, mutually-pleasurable encounters is spreading it. We must choose to unf*ck our own minds and behavior from this scourge. To do so, we must be clear: if you are someone joining in on your buddy's encounter with a drunk girl at a party, you are part of the problem. If you are drugging your wife and inviting strangers to rape her while she's unconscious, you are part of the problem. If you look at child porn, you are part of the problem. If you prey upon your students for sex as a teacher, you are part of the problem. If you roofie anybody ever, you are part of the problem. If you take advantage of children, you are part of the problem.
Who in our lives has ever said any of these words to us? Who has ever looked us in the eye and told us we must not ever go down this path, because it will eat our soul?
We need to begin reeducating and training ourselves, both men and women and everyone on whatever gender spectrum they choose. This is a human issue. It begins by taking responsibility for our own sexual energy. Once we do that, you'd be amazed at how many problems and boogeymen disappear. We need a culture who understands that our survival on Earth is dependent upon healthy future generations and it begins now, so we should protect all children at all costs.
If we can be programmed for disaster, we can choose to program ourselves for better outcomes. It's time to ask where these ideas are coming from and why they exist. Why we choose to embody them and allow them to live out on this planet. We must choose better.
I wish I had data for you, Brother. I'm pointing more toward something ineffable, namely hacking the mainframe of collective consciousness. I'll let you know if I find the Source code.
It's why I brought up the concept of the Windigo. Many researchers are coming around to the idea that consciousness is not local and is not produced by the brain. The brain is a receiver. So where is the station broadcasting these channels? And what role does our subterranean subconscious play in this? Jung is still one of the few who has delved those depths.
I suspect that it isn't a one-way street, that we are not hapless victims of terrible ideas. I believe that we can shift it.
"Data" concerning human sexuality is notoriously unreliable. GIGO. Moreover, as Dick Armey put it "you tell me who did the study, and I'll tell what results they got."
That said, has the widespread availability of internet porn in a million different flavors made men more faithful? It seems counterintuitive.
On the other paw, taking into account what I wrote about human sexuality, humans appear to be having less sex, and with fewer partners than before. My SWAG is that this may be due to the availability of internet porn. You're probably not in a bar trying to chat up some female on a Friday night if you are spending that Friday engaged in hand to gland combat watching "Tranny Grannies VI" the one with the really hot scene with that double jointed midget.
"To me, there is something like the “highest possible version of a person,” separate from a non-existent ideal, on whose behalf you are allowed to do things like make “moral guesses” that override their present stated choices."
The guesser is not the highest possible version of themselves, either. Even if they believe in God.
There's more than one (at least theoretical) potentially slippery slope here.
Footnote #6 seems vaguely reminiscent of Scott Alexander's 'Sacred principles as exhaustible resources.'
It also reminded me of a Nassim Taleb line: "I need to keep reminding myself that a truly independent thinker may look like an accountant."
It's difficult to spot someone as original and genuine, because those are characteristics of process, not products. People who want to be seen as genuine think they have to be different, because there's no other way anyone would be able to tell. Additionally, many people who are genuinely charting their own journey or playing by their own rules will end up looking different. People who want inspiration for originality end up conflating originality and a lack of artifice with nonconformity, which isn't necessarily genuine or original.
This is one of my favorite extelligences so far. Great insightful writing disagreeing (correctly, I think) with someone I also agree with. Lots of thoughtful tidbits sprinkled in. Thanks!
I love your notion of a multiple, possible, branching, seething Self. I rather agree with this. Sounds quantum.
I also like the thought of someday curing harmful desires, folks getting that aspect of themselves turned off, or trained in another direction, but I wonder about sociopaths & psychopaths - they seem to like causing pain & chaos. I suppose that sort of person would be treated to the cure if they wanted it or not because the wisest version of their myriad being would want it?
Sounds like I need to steer clear of this Aella. I too, have a need to reorder other people’s lives and it has taken a lot of therapy for me to realize that’s just not possible and in fact I make myself miserable in the process.
Honestly, this idea of “just give them a virtual version of what they want and crime will disappear” thing is the kind of stuff my friends and I used to discuss in the cafeteria at college when we were 19 and 20 and didn’t have enough life experience to realize not everyone is the same on the inside.
It’s the same kind of thinking that says “just let priests get married and they won’t molest kids anymore”. Oh honey. Lots of child abusers are married.
Or the reasoning “if a woman keeps herself beautiful, her husband won’t cheat on her”. Pretty girls get cheated on all the time.
Or “if everyone just had enough money, no one would steal”. I don’t believe this one either.
Footnote 11: really? I mean, I agree that it shouldn’t be done involuntarily, but if a gay person wanted to become straight, why shouldn’t we let them? Isn’t it basically a monotonic improvement to give this person a chance to (want to) have biological children through the good ol’ fashioned natural process? I dunno, maybe at this point everyone’s having kids via genetically-screened IVF… but I really don’t get why being straight wouldn’t be better than being gay. Isn’t it easier to find broad social acceptance? Easier to find a long-term relationship? Etc.
If you don’t have a firm line there, where do you draw it? Is every identity negotiable infinitely? I don’t think that can last. I don’t think that can be stable.
My line is: only real globally recognized harms can be removed. You can pick the “no duh” fruit and no other fruit. I’m sure some societies will try other things but I don’t think it can last.
I mean, obviously there is an issue of societal pressure here, but I think consent here is a big thing.
I don’t experience any sexual attraction. It’s not a medical issue - I just don’t think about it. But in my specific situation, it means I will likely spend my life alone. I would love it if someone could “fix” this, even if that might be offensive to the progressive viewpoint.
I’m reminded of the “cure” from Xmen 3. Most mutants are offended - they don’t need to be cured. But Rogue suffers through isolation and fear through her power - the cure represents a chance to be free
Nina, my heart goes out to you. I assume you’ve been to a doctor and all other kinds of things seeking treatment. I won’t be in charge of such magical technology, and I wonder if we will all end up getting it just as a matter of basic survival against super stimulus. My hope is that you find someone you want to spend the rest of your days with and that it all works out.
Thank you for your kind words. I’m ok, life will work out regardless. But I did think it was worth pointing out that, even if one’s sexuality causes no harm to others, one’s own experience of it may be harmful to oneself, and that can co-exist with placing no expectation of “fixing” someone who doesn’t experience that distress.
It’s a voice but not something I’m going to pursue. I worry about my own family first. But if I thought that I could actually help someone and they would accept it and it was a reasonable effort that wouldn’t hurt my family, I would do so. Still, I think it’s important to always wish you could help when you think someone needs help.
It should be abundantly obvious by now that what Aella and those like her crave is attention. Any kind of attention, good attention, bad attention, whatever, just pay attention to me!
My advice is not to reward bad behavior or try to play rescuer.
Not to beat a dead horse, but I began this by stating how I have to separate my instincts from “this is a good idea.” I don’t think she’s a cynical actor but I also know better than to try to “help” people the way I tried to “help” my mom. I’m just saying it’s better to wish you could help out someone in what you see as the best path than to not wish that.
Aella is doing motivating reasoning? Towards about the most unpalatable and unpopular belief it's possible to have?
I would argue that it's just kind of obviously (and, I would suggest, highly intuitively) true that giving people close but comparatively harmless approximations of undesirable behaviour x makes it easier for them to resist x. And that an un-motivated and sufficiently open-minded inquirer would be inclined to accept that, even as it applies to really emotive and repulsive behaviours where the approximation itself disgusts us (as we generally do with other behaviours such as rape, see below):
Whereas I'd be much more inclined to suspect motivated reasoning on the part of someone who argues *against* this conclusion when it's something at the very extremes in terms of being emotive and repulsive, such as child abuse. Perhaps by gesturing at ancient Greece, or the ill-defined concept of normalisation, or invoking safe uncertainty/omission fallacies! Because that is the position people are, in reality, motivated to take... right?
This post smacked, throughout, of the author *really* disliking the idea in question, and scrambling to justify that dislike. The bulk of it isn't even really addressing the idea, but speculating about Aella's psyche and a mostly-tangential argument about overriding preferences! And none of it really approaches a rigorous or even clearly defined argument against. So it really is surprising to me to see the author's *opponent* accused of motivated reasoning.
(Of course, both could be true- but there's just quite clearly more reason to suspect it of Some Guy than Aella, in my view).
I mean, to take a really massively different example, the creation of non-sugar-based sweeteners hasn’t really affected sugar consumption, at least in a way that is helpful for most people. You try the thing but it tastes wrong, and you just crave the wrong thing more. Whereas the effect of ozempic seems to be more like the neuralink concept, where the brain signals are actually turned off
Is that true though? I like the taste of classic coke, but will always take coke zero instead if it's available. It doesn't make me want coke more, it makes me not buy it and go for the diet option instead.
Right, but we are comparing “extreme” wants here. I’m with you on going for the diet, but the amount of coke on sale suggests that a lot of people don’t agree. Similarly, we are asking - are these people with very hard-core preferences (to the point where they risk prison and ostracism) going to be satisfied with a diet version? (Hey, I know it’s a shitty analogy…)
You raise a good point. It's definitely worth considering the evidence of approximately parallel situations, given that one thing both sides seem to agree on is the massive insufficiency of evidence here. And I agree that taste and food consumption may be a partially illuminating analogue. If we grant your premise that "the creation of non-sugar-based sweeteners hasn't really affected sugar consumption", that is indeed enough of a counter-example to give me pause.
But I'm not sure I do accept that premise. As far as I can tell, I think it's basically impossible to say with any confidence; there are just too many variables at play to be able to nail down a causal effect with any confidence, and very plausible mechanisms by which an underlying effect may be hidden by confounding variables (most obviously, the increases in sugar availability and affordability). And certainly there is some prior reason to expect the opposite, given what we observe about human behaviour; people who drink diet drinks and other artificially sweetened products do often do so instead of their sugary alternatives, not in addition to them, and in fact can be quite particular about this (you probably know several Diet Coke drinkers who would send back a full sugar cola). There's some (fairly weak) evidence of a compensatory effect, but even if this is borne out, it wouldn't seem to apply to CSAM- it's not like a paedophile has a daily allowance of child abuse that they have to adhere to.
If you make the situations more analogous, and imagine that sugar consumption is widely considered the most despicable crime a person can commit, and multiple lives including the offender's own are usually ruined by it, it seems fairly implausible that harmless alternatives such as artificial sweeteners *wouldn't* help with abstention.
I think every example is like this: if you tweak it a little so it mirrors the situation with CSAM, it suddenly becomes fairly obvious that the simulated alternative must help given what we know about human behaviour. That's not to say we should blindly assume it must be true in this case, too; sexual behaviour is unusual in many respects, and is significantly unlike food and drink consumption in obvious ways. But the example certainly doesn't seem to support the opposing position.
And when we look at an example from within human sexual behaviour that we have some evidence for- a much closer analogue than the consumption of sugar- we seem to find (tentatively) that the simulated alternative does indeed reduce actual incidence:
I don't think we should give this evidence *too* much weight, or have too much confidence here in general. We don't really know much at all about this, as far as I know, and it's crucial to remember that. But from what I can tell the evidence, such as it is, currently supports Aella's position somewhat more than yours.
Well, we do have a way of replicating the shame and life-ruining aspect with sugar - diabetes. You have people who are being told that they will literally die if they don’t stop consuming, they go back and back to hospital with complications, and you can still look under the seat of their car and find a bottle of coke. The compulsion runs that deep. And the result of this is measurable in blood tests and fatality rates.
(I’m a Diet Coke girl, but the fact that every single store stocks 3x as much Coke as any other drink suggests that those who are particular are very much in the minority.)
Violent sexual assault has gone down, but rough sex is way way up, suggesting those violent impulses have become more normalized than neutralized.
I just think that you need way better evidence than “this seems obvious and intuitive” to introduce this new and irreversible element that cannot possibly be quantified
> Well, we do have a way of replicating the shame and life-ruining aspect with sugar - diabetes. You have people who are being told that they will literally die if they don’t stop consuming, they go back and back to hospital with complications
I'm very sceptical that this is at all comparable to the life ruination that child abuse brings about.
> I just think that you need way better evidence than “this seems obvious and intuitive” to introduce this new and irreversible element that cannot possibly be quantified
Well this is the crux isn't it; you and the author seem to think that under uncertainty we should default to the status quo, whereas I think that that is highly irrational. I think we should seek to do what the evidence suggests is best in expectation, *especially* under conditions of significant uncertainty and high stakes as here, as there's no rational reason to defer to the status quo (particularly when there is such apparent room for improvement in results), or to demand higher standards of evidence for an alternative policy than your own can come close to meeting.
And I think the evidence from analogous situations, as well as our observations about human behaviour more generally, if anything do point to this likely being beneficial in expectation. I think it then falls on its opponents to find a positive argument against, rather than relying on our natural inaction/status quo bias.
In other words, I suggest that you need a positive argument for why the current policy is better than the proposed alternative; not merely to rely on the descriptive fact that the current policy is currently in place.
I also don't agree that it's irreversible, nor that it "cannot possibly be quantified"- we could certainly try to measure the effect of such a policy- but I don't want to focus on those points to the detriment of that central disagreement, about the assymetric evidential demands you make of the opposing side.
Believe it or not, I pray every morning that she finds a super happy ending. I just think she’s wrong here. It’s a different game when you can’t count.
It's certainly more difficult when you can't count, but that doesn't mean we should indulge our status quo bias or the safe uncertainty fallacy. We should reason out what is *actually* best in expectation for potential victims of abuse, wherever that leads us, and make difficult decisions under uncertainty according to the best available evidence, not just cling to the safety of inaction as children are (plausibly) preventably harmed.
In short: your argument seems to amount ultimately to 'we don't know whether it will help or harm, so we should do nothing'. I disagree. I think we should do whatever evidence and reason suggests; although we necessarily risk doing more harm than good, so does inaction, and the latter would be no more morally acceptable for its passivity.
“I would argue that it's just kind of obviously (and, I would suggest, highly intuitively) true that giving people close but comparatively harmless approximations of undesirable behaviour x makes it easier for them to resist x.”
But this is the whole issue, right? If that were actually obviously and intuitively true then there would be no dispute. I think that the pattern you are describing of limited indulgence and self-control applies to some people but not to others and is therefore not a useful general truth. You can say that I and the many other people who disagree with you do so because we are engaged in motivated reasoning, but to me it is ‘obviously and intuitively’ the case that we just have a different experience-based understanding of how people’s minds can work.
Did you read the context of that comment? I was replying to someone who was outright dismissing Aella as a “purported data scientist” who made this ridiculous claim because she “craves attention”. The possibility of disagreement was basically my whole point. You’ve greatly misinterpreted me if you think you need to explain that we're reasoning under uncertainty here.
I do think the evidence such as we have it supports the idea of simulated alternatives being capable of preventive effects, and I don’t think the apparent counter-intuitiveness of this to some people is a particularly compelling objection. Nor indeed are the other arguments offered by Some Guy above, and frankly I’ve yet to hear one that is. But yes, of course I appreciate that you have a different intuition about and/or experience of how human minds work.
And perhaps indeed it is a case of individual variance; perhaps different minds work differently, and it would help for some and not for others. But if so, it should be legal, for the cases where it can help, right?
Aella's plan would fail because there is no substitute for the real thing. It would only encourage it until it escalated. It normalizes it and makes it seem okay.
The issue is that humanity is now an uninitiated mass with the emotional regulation of toddlers. Sexual initiation began in traditional cultures very early, and it centered on being responsible and accountable for one's own energy. This is because sexual energy is one of the most potentially destructive forces on the planet, which you have experienced, as have I. I don't know anyone unscathed from it, man or woman. When I try to tune into the intent of someone forcing sexual activity upon children, I get this thought process: "Ooh, I have sexual impulse. Here is a freely available vulnerable person who cannot say no." It's that simple. Their immature impulses make them believe that their few minutes of pleasure is worth that child's lifetime of pain and behavioral damage. This is a case where the impacts forever and completely deny the possibility of anything remotely near Aella's idea.
For some reason, we have forgotten this—NO ONE ELSE ON THE PLANET OWES YOU AN ORGASM. You are not entitled to the body of any other human. Ever.
This windigo virus is a program. A mind infection. And allowing it to live in media online spreads it. Pornography that does not display consensual, mutually-pleasurable encounters is spreading it. We must choose to unf*ck our own minds and behavior from this scourge. To do so, we must be clear: if you are someone joining in on your buddy's encounter with a drunk girl at a party, you are part of the problem. If you are drugging your wife and inviting strangers to rape her while she's unconscious, you are part of the problem. If you look at child porn, you are part of the problem. If you prey upon your students for sex as a teacher, you are part of the problem. If you roofie anybody ever, you are part of the problem. If you take advantage of children, you are part of the problem.
Who in our lives has ever said any of these words to us? Who has ever looked us in the eye and told us we must not ever go down this path, because it will eat our soul?
We need to begin reeducating and training ourselves, both men and women and everyone on whatever gender spectrum they choose. This is a human issue. It begins by taking responsibility for our own sexual energy. Once we do that, you'd be amazed at how many problems and boogeymen disappear. We need a culture who understands that our survival on Earth is dependent upon healthy future generations and it begins now, so we should protect all children at all costs.
If we can be programmed for disaster, we can choose to program ourselves for better outcomes. It's time to ask where these ideas are coming from and why they exist. Why we choose to embody them and allow them to live out on this planet. We must choose better.
Agreed with the first part but didn’t include it because there’s no data and the people I’m trying to sway are the data people.
Also agree with the rest as well. People are not things.
I wish I had data for you, Brother. I'm pointing more toward something ineffable, namely hacking the mainframe of collective consciousness. I'll let you know if I find the Source code.
It's why I brought up the concept of the Windigo. Many researchers are coming around to the idea that consciousness is not local and is not produced by the brain. The brain is a receiver. So where is the station broadcasting these channels? And what role does our subterranean subconscious play in this? Jung is still one of the few who has delved those depths.
I suspect that it isn't a one-way street, that we are not hapless victims of terrible ideas. I believe that we can shift it.
"Data" concerning human sexuality is notoriously unreliable. GIGO. Moreover, as Dick Armey put it "you tell me who did the study, and I'll tell what results they got."
That said, has the widespread availability of internet porn in a million different flavors made men more faithful? It seems counterintuitive.
On the other paw, taking into account what I wrote about human sexuality, humans appear to be having less sex, and with fewer partners than before. My SWAG is that this may be due to the availability of internet porn. You're probably not in a bar trying to chat up some female on a Friday night if you are spending that Friday engaged in hand to gland combat watching "Tranny Grannies VI" the one with the really hot scene with that double jointed midget.
"To me, there is something like the “highest possible version of a person,” separate from a non-existent ideal, on whose behalf you are allowed to do things like make “moral guesses” that override their present stated choices."
The guesser is not the highest possible version of themselves, either. Even if they believe in God.
There's more than one (at least theoretical) potentially slippery slope here.
Yep 100% but this is also a game you can’t escape
Footnote #6 seems vaguely reminiscent of Scott Alexander's 'Sacred principles as exhaustible resources.'
It also reminded me of a Nassim Taleb line: "I need to keep reminding myself that a truly independent thinker may look like an accountant."
It's difficult to spot someone as original and genuine, because those are characteristics of process, not products. People who want to be seen as genuine think they have to be different, because there's no other way anyone would be able to tell. Additionally, many people who are genuinely charting their own journey or playing by their own rules will end up looking different. People who want inspiration for originality end up conflating originality and a lack of artifice with nonconformity, which isn't necessarily genuine or original.
I do respect people who, in their own way and I include Aella in this, are trying to do the right thing. It’s just that I think she’s wrong.
This is one of my favorite extelligences so far. Great insightful writing disagreeing (correctly, I think) with someone I also agree with. Lots of thoughtful tidbits sprinkled in. Thanks!
Thanks Alex. I felt kinda bad writing it but then I thought “Well, I do actually disagree.”
Well. Phew. Another intense wrangle.
I love your notion of a multiple, possible, branching, seething Self. I rather agree with this. Sounds quantum.
I also like the thought of someday curing harmful desires, folks getting that aspect of themselves turned off, or trained in another direction, but I wonder about sociopaths & psychopaths - they seem to like causing pain & chaos. I suppose that sort of person would be treated to the cure if they wanted it or not because the wisest version of their myriad being would want it?
Hooo - my mind is frothing!
Sounds like I need to steer clear of this Aella. I too, have a need to reorder other people’s lives and it has taken a lot of therapy for me to realize that’s just not possible and in fact I make myself miserable in the process.
Honestly, this idea of “just give them a virtual version of what they want and crime will disappear” thing is the kind of stuff my friends and I used to discuss in the cafeteria at college when we were 19 and 20 and didn’t have enough life experience to realize not everyone is the same on the inside.
It’s the same kind of thinking that says “just let priests get married and they won’t molest kids anymore”. Oh honey. Lots of child abusers are married.
Or the reasoning “if a woman keeps herself beautiful, her husband won’t cheat on her”. Pretty girls get cheated on all the time.
Or “if everyone just had enough money, no one would steal”. I don’t believe this one either.
Discord is sown, not sewn.
Damn it. Will update later.
Footnote 11: really? I mean, I agree that it shouldn’t be done involuntarily, but if a gay person wanted to become straight, why shouldn’t we let them? Isn’t it basically a monotonic improvement to give this person a chance to (want to) have biological children through the good ol’ fashioned natural process? I dunno, maybe at this point everyone’s having kids via genetically-screened IVF… but I really don’t get why being straight wouldn’t be better than being gay. Isn’t it easier to find broad social acceptance? Easier to find a long-term relationship? Etc.
If you don’t have a firm line there, where do you draw it? Is every identity negotiable infinitely? I don’t think that can last. I don’t think that can be stable.
My line is: only real globally recognized harms can be removed. You can pick the “no duh” fruit and no other fruit. I’m sure some societies will try other things but I don’t think it can last.
I mean, obviously there is an issue of societal pressure here, but I think consent here is a big thing.
I don’t experience any sexual attraction. It’s not a medical issue - I just don’t think about it. But in my specific situation, it means I will likely spend my life alone. I would love it if someone could “fix” this, even if that might be offensive to the progressive viewpoint.
I’m reminded of the “cure” from Xmen 3. Most mutants are offended - they don’t need to be cured. But Rogue suffers through isolation and fear through her power - the cure represents a chance to be free
Nina, my heart goes out to you. I assume you’ve been to a doctor and all other kinds of things seeking treatment. I won’t be in charge of such magical technology, and I wonder if we will all end up getting it just as a matter of basic survival against super stimulus. My hope is that you find someone you want to spend the rest of your days with and that it all works out.
Thank you for your kind words. I’m ok, life will work out regardless. But I did think it was worth pointing out that, even if one’s sexuality causes no harm to others, one’s own experience of it may be harmful to oneself, and that can co-exist with placing no expectation of “fixing” someone who doesn’t experience that distress.
Fair enough. I guess I might just be happier to transhumanize to the extreme than you…
I call this Space Cancer. I think if you did it without limit you would sort of just… decohere.
1. For someone who purports to be a data scientist. Aella seems engaged in motivated reasoning.
2. Why do you *want* to save her, whatever that means?
I want people to be happy. And I confess the quite rude thought that it sometimes makes me want to completely reorder people’s entire lives.
Seems there's lots of candidates closer to home, so to speak.
It’s a voice but not something I’m going to pursue. I worry about my own family first. But if I thought that I could actually help someone and they would accept it and it was a reasonable effort that wouldn’t hurt my family, I would do so. Still, I think it’s important to always wish you could help when you think someone needs help.
It should be abundantly obvious by now that what Aella and those like her crave is attention. Any kind of attention, good attention, bad attention, whatever, just pay attention to me!
My advice is not to reward bad behavior or try to play rescuer.
Not to beat a dead horse, but I began this by stating how I have to separate my instincts from “this is a good idea.” I don’t think she’s a cynical actor but I also know better than to try to “help” people the way I tried to “help” my mom. I’m just saying it’s better to wish you could help out someone in what you see as the best path than to not wish that.
I didn't say she was cynical. She is obviously attention-seeking.
Aella is doing motivating reasoning? Towards about the most unpalatable and unpopular belief it's possible to have?
I would argue that it's just kind of obviously (and, I would suggest, highly intuitively) true that giving people close but comparatively harmless approximations of undesirable behaviour x makes it easier for them to resist x. And that an un-motivated and sufficiently open-minded inquirer would be inclined to accept that, even as it applies to really emotive and repulsive behaviours where the approximation itself disgusts us (as we generally do with other behaviours such as rape, see below):
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1359178909000445
Whereas I'd be much more inclined to suspect motivated reasoning on the part of someone who argues *against* this conclusion when it's something at the very extremes in terms of being emotive and repulsive, such as child abuse. Perhaps by gesturing at ancient Greece, or the ill-defined concept of normalisation, or invoking safe uncertainty/omission fallacies! Because that is the position people are, in reality, motivated to take... right?
This post smacked, throughout, of the author *really* disliking the idea in question, and scrambling to justify that dislike. The bulk of it isn't even really addressing the idea, but speculating about Aella's psyche and a mostly-tangential argument about overriding preferences! And none of it really approaches a rigorous or even clearly defined argument against. So it really is surprising to me to see the author's *opponent* accused of motivated reasoning.
(Of course, both could be true- but there's just quite clearly more reason to suspect it of Some Guy than Aella, in my view).
I mean, to take a really massively different example, the creation of non-sugar-based sweeteners hasn’t really affected sugar consumption, at least in a way that is helpful for most people. You try the thing but it tastes wrong, and you just crave the wrong thing more. Whereas the effect of ozempic seems to be more like the neuralink concept, where the brain signals are actually turned off
Is that true though? I like the taste of classic coke, but will always take coke zero instead if it's available. It doesn't make me want coke more, it makes me not buy it and go for the diet option instead.
Right, but we are comparing “extreme” wants here. I’m with you on going for the diet, but the amount of coke on sale suggests that a lot of people don’t agree. Similarly, we are asking - are these people with very hard-core preferences (to the point where they risk prison and ostracism) going to be satisfied with a diet version? (Hey, I know it’s a shitty analogy…)
You raise a good point. It's definitely worth considering the evidence of approximately parallel situations, given that one thing both sides seem to agree on is the massive insufficiency of evidence here. And I agree that taste and food consumption may be a partially illuminating analogue. If we grant your premise that "the creation of non-sugar-based sweeteners hasn't really affected sugar consumption", that is indeed enough of a counter-example to give me pause.
But I'm not sure I do accept that premise. As far as I can tell, I think it's basically impossible to say with any confidence; there are just too many variables at play to be able to nail down a causal effect with any confidence, and very plausible mechanisms by which an underlying effect may be hidden by confounding variables (most obviously, the increases in sugar availability and affordability). And certainly there is some prior reason to expect the opposite, given what we observe about human behaviour; people who drink diet drinks and other artificially sweetened products do often do so instead of their sugary alternatives, not in addition to them, and in fact can be quite particular about this (you probably know several Diet Coke drinkers who would send back a full sugar cola). There's some (fairly weak) evidence of a compensatory effect, but even if this is borne out, it wouldn't seem to apply to CSAM- it's not like a paedophile has a daily allowance of child abuse that they have to adhere to.
If you make the situations more analogous, and imagine that sugar consumption is widely considered the most despicable crime a person can commit, and multiple lives including the offender's own are usually ruined by it, it seems fairly implausible that harmless alternatives such as artificial sweeteners *wouldn't* help with abstention.
I think every example is like this: if you tweak it a little so it mirrors the situation with CSAM, it suddenly becomes fairly obvious that the simulated alternative must help given what we know about human behaviour. That's not to say we should blindly assume it must be true in this case, too; sexual behaviour is unusual in many respects, and is significantly unlike food and drink consumption in obvious ways. But the example certainly doesn't seem to support the opposing position.
And when we look at an example from within human sexual behaviour that we have some evidence for- a much closer analogue than the consumption of sugar- we seem to find (tentatively) that the simulated alternative does indeed reduce actual incidence:
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2009-12578-006
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-22321-021
I don't think we should give this evidence *too* much weight, or have too much confidence here in general. We don't really know much at all about this, as far as I know, and it's crucial to remember that. But from what I can tell the evidence, such as it is, currently supports Aella's position somewhat more than yours.
Well, we do have a way of replicating the shame and life-ruining aspect with sugar - diabetes. You have people who are being told that they will literally die if they don’t stop consuming, they go back and back to hospital with complications, and you can still look under the seat of their car and find a bottle of coke. The compulsion runs that deep. And the result of this is measurable in blood tests and fatality rates.
(I’m a Diet Coke girl, but the fact that every single store stocks 3x as much Coke as any other drink suggests that those who are particular are very much in the minority.)
Violent sexual assault has gone down, but rough sex is way way up, suggesting those violent impulses have become more normalized than neutralized.
I just think that you need way better evidence than “this seems obvious and intuitive” to introduce this new and irreversible element that cannot possibly be quantified
> Well, we do have a way of replicating the shame and life-ruining aspect with sugar - diabetes. You have people who are being told that they will literally die if they don’t stop consuming, they go back and back to hospital with complications
I'm very sceptical that this is at all comparable to the life ruination that child abuse brings about.
> I just think that you need way better evidence than “this seems obvious and intuitive” to introduce this new and irreversible element that cannot possibly be quantified
Well this is the crux isn't it; you and the author seem to think that under uncertainty we should default to the status quo, whereas I think that that is highly irrational. I think we should seek to do what the evidence suggests is best in expectation, *especially* under conditions of significant uncertainty and high stakes as here, as there's no rational reason to defer to the status quo (particularly when there is such apparent room for improvement in results), or to demand higher standards of evidence for an alternative policy than your own can come close to meeting.
And I think the evidence from analogous situations, as well as our observations about human behaviour more generally, if anything do point to this likely being beneficial in expectation. I think it then falls on its opponents to find a positive argument against, rather than relying on our natural inaction/status quo bias.
In other words, I suggest that you need a positive argument for why the current policy is better than the proposed alternative; not merely to rely on the descriptive fact that the current policy is currently in place.
I also don't agree that it's irreversible, nor that it "cannot possibly be quantified"- we could certainly try to measure the effect of such a policy- but I don't want to focus on those points to the detriment of that central disagreement, about the assymetric evidential demands you make of the opposing side.
Believe it or not, I pray every morning that she finds a super happy ending. I just think she’s wrong here. It’s a different game when you can’t count.
I certainly didn’t mean to imply you wished any ill on Aella! Where is that coming from? And what does your last sentence mean?
What do we measure before and after to see whose intuition is correct? Why do we trust that measurement?
Okay, I get you.
It's certainly more difficult when you can't count, but that doesn't mean we should indulge our status quo bias or the safe uncertainty fallacy. We should reason out what is *actually* best in expectation for potential victims of abuse, wherever that leads us, and make difficult decisions under uncertainty according to the best available evidence, not just cling to the safety of inaction as children are (plausibly) preventably harmed.
In short: your argument seems to amount ultimately to 'we don't know whether it will help or harm, so we should do nothing'. I disagree. I think we should do whatever evidence and reason suggests; although we necessarily risk doing more harm than good, so does inaction, and the latter would be no more morally acceptable for its passivity.
Do nothing except what you can determine to be the positive good in the action itself.
“I would argue that it's just kind of obviously (and, I would suggest, highly intuitively) true that giving people close but comparatively harmless approximations of undesirable behaviour x makes it easier for them to resist x.”
But this is the whole issue, right? If that were actually obviously and intuitively true then there would be no dispute. I think that the pattern you are describing of limited indulgence and self-control applies to some people but not to others and is therefore not a useful general truth. You can say that I and the many other people who disagree with you do so because we are engaged in motivated reasoning, but to me it is ‘obviously and intuitively’ the case that we just have a different experience-based understanding of how people’s minds can work.
Did you read the context of that comment? I was replying to someone who was outright dismissing Aella as a “purported data scientist” who made this ridiculous claim because she “craves attention”. The possibility of disagreement was basically my whole point. You’ve greatly misinterpreted me if you think you need to explain that we're reasoning under uncertainty here.
I do think the evidence such as we have it supports the idea of simulated alternatives being capable of preventive effects, and I don’t think the apparent counter-intuitiveness of this to some people is a particularly compelling objection. Nor indeed are the other arguments offered by Some Guy above, and frankly I’ve yet to hear one that is. But yes, of course I appreciate that you have a different intuition about and/or experience of how human minds work.
And perhaps indeed it is a case of individual variance; perhaps different minds work differently, and it would help for some and not for others. But if so, it should be legal, for the cases where it can help, right?
Attention is the key.