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If anything, this technology pretty much decreases victimization via two means:
If AI nudes become widespread and indistinguishable from real ones (and they're close), the danger/penalty/threat of blackmail/etc. of having real nudes leaked becomes basically zero. (Given how much many if not most women who would be the kinds to be targeted by deepfake nudes in my experience love sending out actual nudes cavalierly and are only stopped from doing so by concerns about exposure, I believe, if they could think one step ahead of inventing a new form of victimhood to decry in the NYT about this technology, they'd be tithing 10% to its developers.)
AI "CSAM" (reverse the first two letters and you have my opinion about this modern newspeak term and its relation to the perfectly fine term CP that didn't need any replacement) holds the potential to completely destroy any markets in or sharing of actual CP, again if it's indistinguishable from it. If it's indistinguishable, then even people who specifically only want the real thing will have to give up, because even they won't be able to tell the difference. It'd be like flooding a drug market with a 100x cheaper to produce version that's indistinguishable from the real thing. You would put the dealers of the original stuff straight out of business, even if there were still a demand for their product on authenticity grounds, because that demand for authenticity can't be satisfied if nobody can determine authenticity.
But this just further reveals the character of the modern woke system of American "law and order" (and those are definitely scare quotes). It's not about actually improving the world, protecting anyone, or anyone's safety; it's about punishing people for being morally impure as considered by the privileged classes.
Pursuant to my second point, with a modest government investment in AI models specifically for the purpose and agentic AIs to spread it around the usual chains of CP distribution, the US government could probably end or at least curtail by 97-98% or so (casual estimation) the genuinely criminal distribution of actual CP by drowning it in mostly if not entirely indistinguishable AI forgeries. No living, breathing, sentient child (or again at least 97-98% less) would ever have to be sex trafficked or exposed by the production of such material again. Those who have already would, much sooner than would occur naturally, have the memories of it buried under hundreds of pounds of dirt of digital disinformation. (It is worth noting that every time somebody is caught with CP featuring a person known to the US government, that person has an opportunity to get payout from the confiscated assets etc. of the convicted, with the most famous "CP stars" sometimes making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year off of this. So, perversely enough, they may not like this change. Presumably most would be relieved however.)
They can't/won't do this though. Why not? Why because the people who are inclined to like CP might still like the new, AI-generated stuff, or might even think some of it is real, and still masturbate to it. Their filthy little perverted minds will still be free to get off with impunity (if not better than before with a state-of-the-art government AI pumping out content catering to their every fantasy for them), and that's the real crime here, their corrupt pleasure and satisfaction, even if it harms none, not what happens to real flesh-and-blood children or anybody else.
And it's the same with kids generating nudes of their schoolmates. There's no actual analysis or consideration of the boundaries of freedom of expression, private fantasizing, the balance of rights between people, etc. involved. They're dirty little "incel chuds" or some equivalent, as proven by the fact that they've done something to offend a female, and that's it. (And of course the likely general unattractiveness of the nerdy guys who have adopted AI technology for fake nudification this early is a major factor. If it had been only attractive guys found with this technology, there would be no NYT article. As usual and again, it's not about principles, it's about the fact that, as the famous graph shows, many if not most women are statistically illiterate (or at least in this particular area) and thus consider 80% of men to be below average and therefore unworthy of the baseline of respect and consideration. Thus the fact that these men have sexual urges at all is an abomination to women, something to be policed as forcibly as is necessary (unless money can be made from them on OF).)
There is a civilizational fence here that you probably don't want to tear down cavalierly.
In particular, it's feasible (perhaps it would not come to pass) that:
Failure of your imagination to supply a steel man to your opposition.
This is not a brave statement, but I'm gonna double down on "sexual urges that are focused on a 5 year old are abominable" and maybe "and should be to individuals of all sexes"
Interesting post. The conclusion of the argument is that the state has a legitimate duty to forcibly ban media that corrupt morals, when the harm is sufficiently clear and severe, and/or supported by existing legal precedent. This might also apply to other kinds of media that are now legal and common, and plausibly to all porn. At a minimum, it suggests that written material or drawings that depict things that would be illegal to film with real actors should also be illegal to write or draw. The key questions are not the abstract principles (which I think are obvious), but the criteria for drawing the lines, the burdens of proof in play, and the question of which agencies are empowered to make the decisions.
Thoughts?
I don't think is an accurate characterization of my view. And I certainly don't endorse your conclusion as to either writing or as to pornography in general.
I'll triple down on "sexual urges focused on a 5YO are indeed abominable" with the addition of "and one can simply end the discussion of CP right there".
I wasn't characterizing your view, but what follows from your argument if it is valid. It seems to me that the argument you put forward to support your view is an equally strong argument for a view you oppose.
As a matter of fact, I think that normalizing premarital sex is a grave social problem. As far as I know, no society has ever embraced the following three norms simultaneously and survived: (1) sex outside of marriage is morally acceptable, (2) homosexuality is morally acceptable, (3) male and female sex roles ought to be respected equally. For example, the Romans accepted (1) and (2) but not (3). I advocate for (2) and (3) but not (1). I think the basic reason (1), (2), and (3) are not compatible is that young men would become addicted to having sex with each other and, not necessarily lose interest in women, but not be very motivated to navigate the challenges of obtaining and sustaining opposite-sex relationships. Sound familiar?
Our own society is moving toward accepting (1), (2) and (3) together, but this is a recent development, and at the same time our society is dying before our eyes, so I do not count the current, unstable situation as a data point because it is a dramatic departure from our recent history as a culture. To give you an idea how fast these norms are changing, leading Democrats (e.g. both Clintons, Biden, Obama) opposed gay marriage until around 2012 -- and in the early 1960's, 86% of married women said when polled that it was not OK for a woman to have sex with her fiancé before marriage [Charles Murray (2012): Coming Apart, p. 154].
I doubt that a society can survive that accepts (1), (2), and (3) -- though if one has ever existed it would prove me wrong (maybe someone knows an example?). So that experiment hasn't been run with success to my knowledge. On the other hand, the experiment of socially accepting child sex has been run many times (in modern Afghanistan, ancient Rome, the Sambia tribe, et. al.) and those societies continued to exist for generations. I'm definitely not advocating that, but I am saying the empirical evidence for the maladaptivity of (1), (2), and (3) is stronger.
In light of that, what argument would you make against prohibiting (1), (2), and (3) in media depictions, that does not contradict your original argument on CSAM?
That is itself a very good sign you have misunderstood what I intended to convey as my argument and belief.
That might on me, I might not have communicated it well.
I do not particularly share that belief. I don't think premarital sex is totally without issue, but I think it's not inherently bad, the issues with it are serious but not civilization ending. And moreover, it's anyway way past anything that's remotely likely to change.
Yeah, but no society has ever had the semiconductor and ubiquitous satellite before either. Or streaming TV or easy international travel. An argument from precedent is not terribly meaningful in a society that's consistently creating totally novel things (some of which are generally good, some of which are generally bad and some of which are mixed).
I don't even remotely agree that this is a valid way to reason about society. It's a form of just-so reasoning that can be concocted post-hoc to support or oppose any position.
[ I'm also not even sure that "maladaptivity" is even the right measure. There are a lot of things that are maladaptive that we nevertheless believe are morally proper or even morally obligatory. Similarly there are many things that are adaptive that we believe are morally wrong or even forbidden. Given the enormous productive surplus of modern industry, humanity has the freedom not to be fitness-maxing at full tilt all the time in a way that previous societies or other species do not. ]
You can try to make this into a more complicated argument if you want. I feel no need to go any further than
As I reported before, a supermajority of married women disapproved of premarital sex in the 1960's. Moreover a supermajority of adults in the US (75% of those who expressed an opinion) believed premarital sex was wrong as late as 1969 [source]. By your argument, that I quoted above, slavery was moral until 300 years ago; premarital sex was wrong until 60 years ago, and gay marriage was wrong until 10 years ago. I assume you believe, however, that the abolition of slavery (e.g.), which changed the supermajority consensus, was a good thing. If so, then there must be some consideration aside from the majority opinion that informs morality. My question is, in your view, what is it, and how does it apply to CSAM in a way that it does not apply to, say, the normalization of premarital sex in media?
The difference is, I don't believe we are ever again going to see a world where premarital sex as taboo as sex with a 5 year old.
If you want to agitate for it, go for it.
This is a fairly common, silly argument.
To clarify, I (a person living in 2024) believe slavery is wrong whether it happened in 1800 or 2000. Some other entity (perhaps, as you suggest, a person living in 1800) did not believe slavery was wrong. That person is not me and I am not them.
The argument you are calling silly is your previously stated argument on the topic of CSAM (supermajority, etc. etc.).
What I asked for is your argument that the abolition of slavery was a moral improvement. I'm now asking for the second time. Whatever argument that is, it will have to prove that majorities don't decide morality, which will contradict your argument for the prohibition CSAM.
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Can you give us some examples of societies that have failed because they accepted all 3 of these things at the same time?
I don't know of any society has embraced them together.
Well there you have it. Jesus dude, could you construct a more convoluted argument? Literally throwing darts at a non-existent enemy.
The conjunction of (1), (2), and (3) is not a straw man; it is exactly where Western civilization is headed. Yet it is uncharted ground. My thesis is that that ought to give us pause that no society has ever tried this combination and survived long enough to record the fact.
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Do I have to provide a steelman when it's obvious that nobody involved is thinking nearly as far ahead as that steelman? You think your average feminist or feminist-adjacent who takes a kneejerk reactionary stance against some "incel" generating AI loli waifu or whatever or some horny teen "nudifying" the girl from his Englsih class is thinking decades into the future? I mean decades into the future we're going to have actual sexbots anyway so the same argument then applies to real world conduct.
The problem is, to a lot of women, if you're not in the top 25% of men minimum, increasingly you having sexual urges that are focused on a 25 year old is also abominable to them, especially if you're gasp over 30 (or probably even 28 with some of these people nowadays). And specifically on the issue of underage girls, they'll also conflate 5 year olds and 15 year olds while simultaneously encouraging the sexualization of those same 15 year olds to a degree that would have been considered abominable for 25 year olds 25 years ago, then rage like it's unthinkable when the inevitable happens. It's an increasingly twisted equation that isn't nearly as defined by simple statements that almost everyone agrees with as you want it to be.
Yes, because the purpose of a steel man is to test & strengthen your own reasoning, not to score internet dunk points on your opponents.
Whether this is true or false, it's materially irrelevant to whether sexual urges that are focused on a 5 year old are abominable.
I don't think it's strengthening your reasoning to go so far beyond what your opponents actually express that it's outside of the realm of what they might even actually believe.
I'm glad you agree that bringing it up at all is materially irrelevant to what I'm talking about.
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CSAM is one of the least rational areas of politics.
In the dark ages before the sexual revolution, there were all kinds of sexual deviants against whom upstanding, proper citizens could unite. Gays, interracial couples, unmarried women having sex, kinky people, people using birth control.
Today, most of these targets have been swept away by a big wave of sexual tolerance. Saying "it is wrong to have sex before marriage" makes you sound like a cringy old person.
However, we have also established that adults having sex with kids is bad because it causes severe psychological issues for the kids.
So pederasts and pedophiles become the lightning rod for most of these innate drives to police the sexual relations of their neighbors -- which did not magically disappear.
This is obviously a very emotional topic, and such topics often allow you to score big political wins. Under an evidence-based system, the focus would be on preventing the actual sexual abuse of children both by exclusive pedophiles and other men who act opportunistically. This would entail de-stigmatizing pedophiles who did not commit any sexual offenses with kids (which in turn would increase the odds of them willing to risk therapy, which would reduce the odds of them becoming child abusers) and trying to get the shared social environment of both perpetrators and victims to speak out if they suspect sexual abuse is going on.
CSAM would be treated like snuff videos. Commissioning a snuff video is commissioning a murder and should be punished as such, and paying for them should be a felony to discourage their production, and if you want you can also criminalize distribution and possession. But if half of your homicide department works on possession of snuff video cases, then I would argue that you have your priorities wrong -- most murders do not happen for the creation of snuff videos, nor does their consumption precede most murders. Fake snuff videos lack the thing which makes them immoral in the first place -- a victim. Even if you want to regulate horror movies, it would be a good idea to not simply classify them as snuff.
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If "average" means something like the arithmetic mean, then this is totally possible.
Human traits tend to be normally distributed. I'm pretty sure most of the ones objectively evaluated have been found to be so. (And how men rate women mostly forms a normal distribution.) Do you think your average woman has much of a justification for why their ratings of men wouldn't be one besides an amorphous feeling (like a false virtue signaling preference for bears)? I don't think this rebuttal changes my point any. I also think if you change "average" to "median", the women's responses wouldn't change any.
But yes obviously average means median here, at least for me as a man. Perhaps you are meaning to point out how women meanwhile are so apex-biased (at least based on their ratings of men) that it does not for them.
My point is simply that it's mathematically coherent, though I'd add that when preferences are involved (such as sexual attractiveness) then human traits are often more Pareto distributed, e.g. wealth, income, popular success of people in creative fields, cities vs. towns, and movie profits. There are also human traits, such as incurring healthcare costs, which are not normally distributed.
Ratings of sexual attractiveness ARE "amorphous feelings", so the main challenge of justifying their existence would be to evince their existence. I suppose it's possible that women understate their ratings of men's appearances, e.g. to avoid seeming slutty.
You have some degree of a point here. If it was phrased only as average, then maybe the math-inclined females answering the survey thought it meant mean and went from there. (Though again I think if you explicitly specified median you'd still get the exact same results).
Really though, and your post is valuable for having brought this to my attention, the appropriate criticism is that to call them "statistically illiterate" is simply an irrelevant dig that doesn't really cut to the actual heart of the issue: Men are fair (at least as regards this subject of evaluating the distribution of characteristics). Women are equivalently not.
In the sense of "fair" as a uniform probability distribution, I agree. And I think this creates enough social problems / advantages to think about. On the problem side, men often have a feeling of being valued only for what they do and provide in romance, which can create the feeling of being exploited. (The male counterpart of objectification, perhaps.) On the advantageous side, for most men, they must achieve something to be regarded as attractive; moreover, the more they achieve, the more opportunities they have; for mentally healthy men at least, this can serve as a motivation.
The problem is that when female hypergamy is left totally unchecked (as it is now), the standards become so high that you can't meet them simply by being a hard-working guy with reasonable achievements. And even if you can, that takes time. Meanwhile the alleged prize waiting for you at the end of the tunnel already has a bodycount of 20 with guys who were born with a better jawbone or a few more inches of height. Not worth it.
It's a much better incentive structure to do what has always been done throughout history: Give men a reasonable wife early, and then make them work and follow society's rules to keep access to her. After all, it's been shown that humans tend to be more loss-averse than risk-tolerant, more motivated by the threat of losing what they already have than gaining something new (a phenomenon documented heavily in the psychological tricks used by mobile games).
It's really not that hard for men to get laid in the modern world, even if you're not good looking, and women tend to be more interested in getting married than men. Most ugly guys I know as friends have long-term girlfriends, but these are the types of guys I'd be interested in having as friends, whereas there are plenty of non-ugly guys I wouldn't be interested in having as friends and who don't (I don't say can't) get laid, largely it seems because of their neuroticism.
However, I agree that earlier marriage (at least involving men who grow up quickly - get a good job, a good trade, and have a reputation as a moral law-abiding god-fearing citizen) would be good. Promiscuity should be a reward of status for successful, artistic, or high-born men, like the old days.
Unfortunately statistics suggest your anecdotes are wrong.
Are you aware of the 2023 Pew Research survey that found 63% of young men aged 18-29 to be single?
I am normally somebody who advocates for careful skepticism of Reddit-style "Source sweaty?" link-mining, but the fact that even a single survey from a relatively reputable organization was able to derive this result is objectively insane and I believe likely automatically renders false your assertion that there aren't that many lonely men these days.
Do you really think every guy in this 63% is an unreasonable neurotic mess? And even if they are, isn't it society's fault if 63% of men have become such neurotics that they can't find a relationship?
In my experience, this strongly reverses once you go under a certain age (an age at which most people period would have been married not too long ago).
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There are also strategic uses for reviled and prohibited CSAM.
Political enemy? Put some CP on his computer and arrest him!
Your internet censorship and spying campaign isn't popular? It's needed to fight CP!
Intelligence and security agencies generally are full of pretty sinister figures and they have a lot of temptation to abuse their power. They've done all kinds of crazy chaotic-evil things in the past, injecting people with hallucinogens and plutonium. Weaponizing CP is to be expected.
You are completely correct, and shame on me for forgetting such an important use of it. It's an important weapon because even dissidents fall for this trick and turn on their fellows.
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