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Why use minor attracted person? First it is three words instead of pedophile. Like all woke language it is ugly. Second, it is often used to try to legitimize something we should keep highly hated.
In my humble and likely heterodox (for now) opinion, the proper terminology for what a "normie" might call a "pedophile" is "anti-agecuck" (as almost all men, because of basic biology, are inevitable sexually attracted to women under 18 not uncommonly and even pre-pubertal girls (due to humans being a K-selected species, meaning it is natural/reproductively optimal to develop romantic/sexual attachments to potential reproductive partners in anticipation of their fertility to already have a pre-existing pair bond available to enhance the nurturing of eventual offspring once fertility is achieved) and thus those who allow feminist age of "consent" mandates (which were the first major "wins" of the modern feminist movement) are inevitably cuckolded by younger, more enlightened/freer, or just more immoral men (guys who believe in the traditional narrative about the alleged irreparable harm that results from youth-adult sex but just don't care, who often tend to be non-White as conviction rates for child "molestation" show, giving this cuckoldry an interracial element), thus leaving "pedophiles" to basically exclusively oppose this (again, interracially-flavored and anti-White) cuckoldry), "non-agecuck" (for the same reasons as before), or "possessor of natural masculine sexuality" (due to there being little record of these modern feminist age-based attraction taboos in more natural, less artificially estrogenized times).
But until society has been freed from the grip of a memeplex I might deem "Judeo-feminist quasi-matriarchalism" or "talmudic-demonic-feminist quasi-matriarchalism", if I had to pick a phrase, enough to properly appreciate these terms, "pedo" is necessary for understanding. Thus "pedochad" is always an acceptable term as well.
"MAP" isn't necessarily inaccurate per se but I reject all woke newspeak right off the bat, and it is unfortunately that.
Note: As usual all of my posts are generally/almost always unironic (minus an allowance for a reasonable amount of rhetorical irony same as any other poster here might apply, but not in my fundamental perspective), good faith attempts to inject a perspective that I believe most are afraid to acknowledge into the conversation, and this one is included. (Including this disclaimer since I haven't posted here in a while and I had problems with people thinking I'm not serious even when I posted regularly.)
Edit: Copying the below for the reader's convenience, but updated:
The big increases in the age of consent happen in 1885 in the UK and between 1900-1920 in the US - by 1920 the (hetrosexual) age of consent in the UK had reached its current level 16, with an attempt to raise it to 17 failing in 1917, and it was 16 or 18 in every US state except Georgia. In the UK at least, this is part of the Victorian re-moralisation movement, which was heavily driven by women but explicitly dissociated itself from the first-wave feminists, who were still something of a joke. In the US, the timing suggests it was a Progressive thing - I don't know enough about Progressive-era US politics to understand the relationship between Progressivism and first-wave feminism, but they seem to have been allies. So on net I wouldn't say that age of consent laws were feminist laws.
During the sexual revolution, there are attempts (supported by some but no means all feminists) to reduce ages of consent or to undermine enforcement. In the UK, for example, Gillick (doctors can prescribe contraceptives to girls under 16 without the parents knowledge or consent) was widely supported by feminists on harm reduction grounds. Again, age of consent laws are not feminist laws. More recently, you see third wave feminism focussing on abuse of authority (such as teachers banging students) rather than how young the girl is.
As a separate point, the only licit sex with under-16 girls in the pre-age-of-consent era was after marrying them with the father's permission. It has never been socially acceptable for a man to seduce a 14-year-old girl.
I don’t see how this is evidence of anyone attempting to lower the age of consent or reduce enforcement? Age of consent laws in practice have never focused on minors of similar ages having sex with each other. The focus has always been on people over the age of consent having sex with those below it (with some allowances in jurisdictions with Romeo and Juliet laws), along with the occasional case of minors with significant age gaps.
The most common situation a doctor is prescribing birth control to a girl under 16 is when she wants to have/is having sex with her boy friend who’s about the same as her.
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Women like Helen Gardener (a suffragette and early advocate of atheism), Josephine Butler (also a suffragette and anti-coverture activist), and Frances Willard (also also a suffragette and president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, yes the one that successfully pushed alcohol prohibition (which was also a policy commonly promoted on women's welfare grounds, that male "drunkards" were a threat to women) as well), three of the biggest advocates of raising the age of consent in the 1800s in the UK and US, were absolutely feminists of the genealogy leading directly to modern feminism, even if some of them later may have felt that other feminists went "too far" (though as demonstrated in many if not most cases they did support women voting, so they wouldn't have disavowed later feminists on those grounds). (Second-wave feminists often disavow modern third-wave feminists, also feeling that they've gone "too far", because of their support of transsexuality; are these in some cases contemporaries of Andrea Dworkin not actually feminists then? Or they never were? Despite being as pro-matriarchal, anti-patriarchal, and in many cases straight up anti-man as it gets?)
So unfortunately I'm afraid your information is incomplete/incorrect. Of course there were general prudish Victorian anti-sex types (like Ellice Hopkins, who was still feminist in function but not all that explicitly, nor do I think she had much real intention of upsetting masculine authority or traditional gender roles, though she died in 1904 and might have become a suffragette eventually) mixed in (though even these were still usually women thinking they could dictate to men, which is de facto feminist), and of course because of the time period involved some of even the explicit feminists were organized according to Christian principles, but they were still feminists (that is, to be clear, many/most of them explicitly called themselves "feminist" (a term coined in the early 19th century), even again if some of them would eventually denounce other later women who also called themselves feminists. (Isn't it the inevitable end of many if not most progressives to feel that other later progressives have eventually gone "too far"? "I wanted X sure, but Y's crazy!" Were the Old Bolsheviks not real socialists or Soviet patriots in the end because they probably didn't much appreciate Stalin later purging them all?)
The fact that almost all age of consent raising advocacy of the time focused on the alleged welfare of women and girls as opposed to men/boys is proof enough of this. If biased gynosupremacy and gynocentrism isn't allowed to be considered feminist, then what is?
So yes on net modern age of consent laws are absolutely feminist in origin in that they are the product of gynocentric and gynocratic political organization and advocacy (quite often, again, by women who explicitly called themselves "feminist" at the time again even if in some cases they didn't necessarily agree with every other woman who would later identify as one). Only a modern man would even try to deny that. "Well, sure, they were women thinking they could dictate public policy to men on the grounds of alleged 'women's rights', but they weren't, like, burning bras or anything crazy!"
Even the purely "remoralization"-oriented stuff you highlight was mostly feminist in practice (even if not explicitly) as it was significantly feminized in terms of the composition of its supporters, policy aims, and rhetorical practices. Women thinking they know better than men what morality is and that they can or should dictate their emotionalized "care"-based "morality" over men's virtue-and-honor-based morality is feminist no matter what terms they couch it in and even if they pretend it's not explicitly pro-woman (even though in most cases as highlighted it was).
Were they totally feminists in a strictly modern sense? Well of course not because full modern context necessary for them to be so didn't exist. But modern feminists are even more extreme about the issue and often more supportive of higher ages of consent than ever before (as I've seen calls by some to raise it to 21, 25, etc.), so that still kind of proves the opposite of your point.
And again, a significant portion of them if not the majority of them were at least (usually not even only later but at the same time) very early suffragettes (which means most of them denouncing first-wave feminism seems unlikely, so I think you're wrong on that point) and thus I'd say that firmly qualifies them as feminists, given that the modern feminism movement still tends to claim women gaining the ability to vote as its own achievement.
This is true but this was driven mostly by (often gay) men (organizations like NAMBLA, Vereniging Martijn, etc., overwhelmingly male-led organizations), not feminists.
This has nothing to do with age of consent. You do realize that underage people can have sex with other underage people right? This is just general sexual liberalization stuff (which tends to not include stuff that men will actually benefit from, so no properly restoring men's dominion over younger girls/women in general).
Yeah, no. I'm afraid this is the point where anyone who reads stuff on social media outside of this site is going to instinctively call bullshit on you. Modern feminists and woke types have become utterly obsessed with anti-"age gap" rhetoric (when it's in the man's favor), like literally getting mad at a 27 year old man for dating a 22 year old woman-tier even when there's no authority-based relationship between them. Just search "age gap" on Reddit.
This is irrelevant. You conventionally sought the father's consent to marry women/girls of any age in those eras (outside of which sex was taboo for everyone of every age assuming a relatively modern monogamy-oriented culture), because a female was considered her father's property/ward before she became her husband's.
Again, no. Asking the father for permission to marry a girl/woman was a part of the courtship process which would have been considered (the acceptable version of) seduction back then. And you've already admitted that this was acceptable for most of human history. So it was definitely acceptable. (And that's not even getting into prostitutes, slaves, etc. where if anybody had any objections to having sex with them then it was almost certainly on the grounds of fornication/adultery/promiscuity, not their age if they were young.)
So I must regretfully say that I do consider your post basically entirely incorrect and confused about the facts in almost all areas.
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With parentheses unfolded:
Nice formatting man. Maybe I should start writing like this for some. But
should be:
With that being said I am a chronic post editor, word rearranger, and adder of little phrases into my posts to better clarify my meaning, so your nice post will probably be outdated soon enough, but I appreciate the effort.
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Presumably, to facilitate distinguishing those who commit sex offenses against children and those who are sexually attracted to children but refrain from acting on that attraction and wish to continue refraining therefrom. However much the former should be hated (though I seem to recall something about hating the sin but loving the sinner), it is not clear to me why the latter should be hated.
That distinction already exists: "child molester" vs. "paedophile".
It seems to me that, in practice, those are used as synonyms. Would the use of the new term make it more likely that people like those in the link would get help? I don't know for sure, but if the answer is "yes," then that seems like a good argument for using the new term. Assuming, of course, that our goal is to reduce the incidence of child abuse, rather than simply to identify targets for vilification.
I don’t see much of that. I recall watching Reddit on that very issue, and while they sort of managed to talk a good game about “wanting help” and so on, there were a lot of things about that discourse that made me suspect that “therapy” as they were looking for it was more of a fig leaf than a honest search for help.
I don’t recall any of them being focused on the potential harm actually molesting a child would cause, or any type of moral repugnance against molestation by people who claimed this condition. They instead focused on their situation, how they were mistreated, how they were at risk of losing everything, and how they were not allowed to be sexual as they wanted. At the same time, they were very quick to point out the difference between pedophilia and ephebophilia. Now I get the risk of coming forward, but I just never noted anything that suggested that they really understood what molesting a child did to the child or that they even cared.
Second, they simply aren’t that interested in actually solving the problem or doing anything to make it more difficult to offend. They weren’t asking for drug intervention, they weren’t asking for in patient treatment. They weren’t even willing to inform anyone else or restrict themselves from working in places where they would have easy access to children either in private life or at work. What they wanted was once a week outpatient talk therapy and nothing else. That’s not much in the way of treatment and would not protect kids. The pedophiles attending would still be able to get jobs in places where they work with kids, they’d still have full libido, and nobody around them is alert to the problem.
I think you're right to be deeply skeptical of any "support" groups, but I think the problem is worse than any specific support group but would instead be inherent to them.
The average dangerous criminal knows that the crime they committed is morally wrong, but rationalise their crime to themselves due to some circumstance or exception that 'permits' them to commit that crime. The fancy term for this is Techniques of Neutralization. For instance, the average murderer is not a cold-blooded killer. They know murder is wrong. They'll repeatedly reiterate that they know murder is wrong. But there will be this one guy, this one exception, who absolutely deserved what he got, for whatever rationale they either had beforehand or constructed in the aftermath. So the average murderer commits only one murder, and usually do so in a fairly reckless way with minimal effort to avoid being caught.
Child predators do not behave like this. The typical profile of a child predator is someone who knows that the law regards their actions as wrong, that almost all of society regards their actions as wrong, but personally does not regard their own actions as wrong. This makes them an unusual combination of extremely opportunistic, far more apt at preparing and covering up their crimes than any equivalent, and also far more likely to be a serial criminal.
How to tell if you're not at risk of predating on children? The same way everyone else manages to not commit violent crime. The average human is attracted to adult men or women in some combination, yet can easily go their entire life without committing rape primarily because they believe rape to be wrong. A pedophile who seriously believes that molesting children harms them is unlikely to act on that impulse and unlikely to need or care about support, and hypothetically this is the majority in much the same way that the majority of people don't commit rape and don't need support groups to tell them not to rape. The real dangerous individuals are those who do not genuinely believe that their potential crime would harm children, though they may certainly make a good act of claiming to hold that belief. Nyberg's statements fit that profile.
And that's exactly the dangerous circumstance.
For this reason I don't think any self-created "support" group could ever be useful. If you join a such a group, then you believe yourself to be sufficiently at risk of committing such an act, which in the first place requires you don't think it to be morally repugnant. So these support groups end up self-selecting for people who don't think it's morally repugnant and will soon start constructing elaborate justifications of it for each other to use. Any actually productive support would need to be imposed externally and in a fairly hostile way, with the express intent of distilling the same sense of moral repugnance anyone else gets in such a circumstance.
None of this accords very well with what we know about sex drives, and about the behavior of many people with sexual proclivities that society deems immoral. How many people actually have the will power to resist their sexual urges, especially when, as for many of the people in question, they are solely attracted to underage persons? And, how many gay youth attempted suicide back when homosexuality was considered beyond the pale? Why did that mayor commit suicide the other day after he was outed as a transvestite? Odd behavior for people who don't think their behavior is immoral. And, I note that you provide no evidence for any of your claims.
This avoids the issue, which is the distinction between people who are attracted to children but do not want to act on that attraction, and people who who are attracted to children, think that is fine, and act on their attraction. And the first group has at least two subgroups: a) People who have acted on that attraction but want to stop; and b) People (usually younger) who have not yet acted on that attraction and don't want to start.
You have no idea which group is most numerous. More importantly, even if you are correct and the "it's perfectly fine" group is typical, that says nothing about how we should treat the other groups.
Is your suggestion that the majority, or even a large minority of people have failed to resist their sexual urges and are rapists?
Here's a source on the difference in how crimes are rationalised between rapists and child predators.
I don't think very many people have much desire to commit rape. Even if that is something that many people sometimes fantasize about, it is not central to sexual attraction for very many people. And, the very source you link to says: "They [i.e., child abusers] differ from rapists with respect to thought processes and affect, and often describe their offending behaviors as uncontrollable, stable and internal; whereas rapists attribute their offenses to external, unstable and controllable causes." Which is pretty much exactly what I said.
And, btw, this is what the cited study from 1995 says:
Not particularly compelling evidence for your claim that differences in views of the morality of child sexual abuse is a causal factor.
And, more importantly, the study says nothing about the group we are discussing, which is people who are attracted to children but who do not wish to act on that attraction.
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People who need to rationalize things they want to do are way above average (in HBDIQ terms).
Average "dangerous criminal" needs rationalizing his urges as much as wolf, tiger or other predatory animal.
Thought process of average criminal is:
"I am thirsty." "I need some vodka." "No money left, not even a kopeck." "I really need vodka." "My neighbor is old woman with money. I smash her head with axe, take money, buy vodka." "This plan cannot fail, lets' go!"
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I think Scott covered this.
My approach also has the benefit of linguistic accuracy: if you're using "paedophile" to mean "a person who has raped or inappropriately touched children", that's an actual misuse of the term given that its literal meaning is "lover of children".
As are all of the "phobias"; the only reason people use faux-Greek is to sound intelligent/accuse opponent of anti-intellectualism anyway.
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Strictly speaking yes, but too many people fail to recognize that distinction for it to actually be useful.
I don't think I have any good reason to believe the progressive movement will have any greater luck with "minor attracted person" being made the term of choice.
True, but "minor attracted person" originated in academia in people studying pedophilia specifically because the distinction you mentioned had broken down to the point of being unusable. The progressive movement adopting the term is merely the inevitable progression to it too losing its distinction. I don't know that it is possible to ever maintain the distinction since the topic holds so much power over people's emotions.
I cant help but think George Carlin would have something to say on the matter.
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At this point, that's a mark against whatever is under consideration. "originated in academia" might as well be a synonym for "pulled out of someone's butt with zero basis in reality" for anything except the hard sciences.
Consider two groups. Group 1 consists of convicted child molesters who report attraction to kids. Group 2 consists of people who aren't known to have had any sexual contact with kids and report attraction to kids. If an academic studies Group 2 and uses the technically correct term pedophile, people--particularly non-technical people--will assume they are referring to Group 1 because the term has lost its nuance and studies based on Group 1 are far more common for various reasons. Thus minor attracted person was coined to convey that lost nuance. By "pulled out of someone's butt with zero basis in reality", are you asserting that such confusion does not exist with the term pedophile, that such nuance is unnecessary, or something else?
Actually, I am in complete agreement with your comment. I do believe that there is a meaningful difference between Groups 1 and 2 and that it is reasonable to differentiate between the two. I will have to re-evaluate which term I meant was butt-derived because your reply is so sensible that I must have been thinking of something else. I will also add that people attracted to Phoebe Cates in Fast Times at Ridgemont High are also considered part of Group 1 because she was meant to be 17 yrs and 366 days old in that scene.
OK, after reviewing my previous post, I stand by my statement. GENERALLY, soft science academic activity is mostly butt-derived. In this case, you raise an excellent and valid counter-example. Still, if a Harvard PhD tells me it's raining, I'm going to look outside the window.
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Since when have Progressives ever been about "losing its distinction" across sex groups? Really, the fact they even feel the need to launder the term actually says quite a bit; they didn't need to do that for any other sexual fargroup, but they aren't just going full speed ahead with the language they already have. I think that says a great deal about their confidence/seriousness about the matter.
If the Progressives succeed in making this term lose its distinction it'll only be an incidental qualifier for their standing policies of "if you pass a paper bag test you are permitted to rape children" and "[fargroup] sex is good -> children can be [fargroup]-> [fargroup] sex involving children is good", thus the term "MAP" is designed to solidify gains in this area by adding yet another thing over which to cry discrimination should one want to criticize those policies.
"Abuse of unearned and generally-inescapable social authority to (implicitly, explicitly, or by force) demand normally-unwanted sexual activity from people that don't otherwise want to give it" is common to both terms- the first by popular definition, the second from the fact it's explicitly designed to promote the ability of favored groups to do this (or "comes from academia" for short).
Neither are particularly prosocial positions.
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And even then, probably restricted to specific fields of study where hypotheses can be readily falsified via experimentation. Physics and Chemistry are pretty safe (for a given value of safe) but Biology is looking shaky.
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I have no dog in this fight, but I don't think we should keep anything "highly hated." Hate is a bad thing. I think that there is probably an optimal level of social scorn we should direct towards pedophiles in order to minimize the amount of pedophilia in the world, and I think we should calculate that amount rather than just go nuts and hope for the best.
My best guess is that the target should be just enough scorn to dissuade them from committing crimes, but not so much scorn that we dissuade them from seeking professional help. I'm reasonably confident we've overshot the mark. It's quite possible that a modest reduction in hatred directed at pedophiles would actually result in fewer children being molested.
Should we hate murderers? What about people like SBF who stole billions?
No. Again, hate is bad. Hate does not help you make good decisions, and hatred-based law enforcement mechanisms are not known for their efficiency. The appropriate angle to approach social engineering problems like "How do we stop people from committing fraud and/or murder in the manner that gets us the best value for our tax dollars," is heartless rationality, not hatred.
Hatred is for suckers. It makes you easy to manipulate and prone to error.
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Hatred for evil is appropriate. Pedophilia is evil. Controversial, I know.
This is both low-effort and building consensus. Put more effort into your arguments and avoid this kind of flat evidence-less claim, please.
Are you saying that the rape of children is not an inherently evil act? I’m not sure how I provide evidence for this. Is a simple moral fact not enough?
There are literally people disagreeing with you in the replies. Read those, and don't make universal moral statements if people are going to disagree with you, because then it's not fact, it's opinion.
So you’re saying child rape isn’t evil?
Alright, I was gonna quietly let the ban evasion slide if you were willing to take correction, but instead you're right back to antagonizing mods who are telling you to shape up.
Re-applied permanent ban.
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Paedophilia the sexual preference is not evil. Rape of children is evil.
I'm not particularly defending Nyberg here; she did some stuff that crosses my line. A paedophile who sticks to loli hentai, though, is perhaps pitiful but not evil.
No. It is, in itself, evil. Even if never acted upon.
Why?
I am rapidly losing faith in humanity here.
This is very much like saying "the desire to genocide armenians is not evil, only acting on that desire is evil." Or "the desire to torture dogs is not evil, only actually torturing dogs is."
No. The desire to commit evil acts is evil. Pedophilia is evil, even if never acted upon. And everyone is right to be wary of anyone who claims to be, or appears to be a pedophile, because that is evil.
That said, it is laudatory to resist temptations and to refrain from evil, even if you desire to do evil. And the Lord will reward those who are faithful and commit no evil though they have the desire.
Taking for granted that the desire to commit an evil act is also in itself evil - a controversial opinion, certainly, but one we can just entertain for the moment - this doesn't imply that pedophilia is evil, since pedophilia is a preference, not a desire. It's very possible for someone to enjoy the idea of themselves raping children without having any actual desire to act on it by raping children. It'd be easy to claim that this is splitting hairs, but it'd also be wrong to claim as such, since preference doesn't imply anything about a willingness to act, whereas desire does, and this is a very meaningful, very consequential difference in terms of how that person behaves. You can, of course, just posit that this preference is something that's intrinsically evil, which is perfectly cromulent.
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It's probably time to define what the criteria for evil is, or what even evil means to you. Honestly sounds like the argument needs to depend on what is evil, not if pedophilia is evil. If you can define evil in a clear and explicit manner, then whether pedophilia is evil can be matched against that definition/criteria.
I haven't seen anyone actually say pedophilia is good, so it's obvious nobody here is in favor of it. If you can get people to agree on the definition of evil, then whether or not pedophilia is evil should be self-evident. Otherwise, I think the argument is moot since it seems to me people are using different criteria for evil throughout the conversation.
This is a starting point for a definition, but it's tautological and weak without defining evil itself.
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Despite hatred of the sin being obviously appropriate, there is something to say for redemption being possible even for the worst of sinners.
Of course in practice this is so difficult that we literally need God to intervene to make it possible, but isn't the principle good?
Redeeming the worst of humanity, even as we may need to imprison them perpetually or even put them to death, is still something that ought to be attempted. And I've seen too many lives destroyed by blind hatred of even things that ought to be hated to recommend it to anybody.
All well and good, but the progressive movement is wedded to the idea that sexuality is something you're born with and which cannot be changed through outside interference. As such, no paedophile can be "redeemed": from the perspective of the progressive movement, if you are sexually attracted to children, you always will be, and nothing you do (or anyone else does to you) will change that. Ergo, every paedophile must be treated as a potential future child rapist.
If we were to move away from the "born this way" framework, acknowledge that sexuality is susceptible to direct outside intervention and that "conversion therapy" for paedophiles might actually work (at least in some cases), we can have a conversation about paedophilia as a sin distinct from the sinner. Until then, paedophiles will be forever irredeemable, as a consequence of the framework progressives called for to interrogate sexuality.
Don't forget that "born this way" is self-justifying as well as unchanging. If you're "born this way" it's "natural" and good and any shaming or even different treatment is bigotry.
Well the people on my socials most inclined to trumpet, and/or presuppose, the "born this way" narrative WRT LGBT+ people definitely don't apply that logic to pedos - think wood-chipper memes - regardless of whether that's consistent with other things they say.
Don't assume SocJus crusaders believe something just because you think it follows logically from other things they believe. They are, IME, almost all capable of compartmentalizing to an extent that makes my brain hurt.
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Because it’s a perfectly valid word and while I wouldn’t hire her to babysit, I wouldn’t hire a trans activist microceleb anyways. It seems like a very long top level post that has no point other than relitigating a pointless and toxic culture war battle.
It seems to me like you are demonstrating problem's point - you don't know or care about the issue, so you assume the mainstream take is correct. But the mainstream position is so helplessly corrupt and biased that this results in you defending a documented cp-sharing pedophile. On the grounds that it's pointless to talk about him, in the same thread where people are arguing about shoe on head's socialism and how anti-semitic hlynka is. I notice that I am confused.
Also it's three words.
Frankly I've noticed I can't predict at all how people will react to things here, or what the basis is for people liking or disliking a post. People here will consistently upvote, say, source-less rants about how they feel like immigrants degrade their home country as top-level posts (which I find to be immensely low-effort content), but will react badly to other posts even if more well sourced. I also don't feel like my post clearly broke any rules in a way most of the other contributions here already don't.
I mean, I understand that people don't necessarily care about this, and that's perfectly fair. There's lots of things I come across here that I don't personally care about either, but I just ignore it and move on. It's a consequence of being in a general purpose political community. I certainly don't go on to leave pithy, low-effort comments about how little I give a shit about what's been posted. I also don't think that it's completely irrelevant to the current political climate.
It seems that people here upvote and downvote posts based on a completely alien set of criteria to me, and I'm too much of an autist to predict what's acceptable posting and what isn't. The only thing I can find that's consistent is that even here, speaking about Gamergate in 2023 is low status, and will be treated as such. It's the closest thing to something everyone has silently agreed not to touch, and doing so is considered a faux pas.
There doesn't seem to be any rules or guidelines on upvoting/downvoting, so it would depend on the individual's own whims. I would think you should aim to upvote comments that add to the discussion, even if you disagree with what is said.
I think your observation is generally correct, people seem to in general upvote comments/posts that bash immigrants or is anti-trans, or anti-establishment, or anti-woke. Conversely, anything that can be seen as a defense to those things seems more likely to get downvoted, even if those are good comments with sound logical arguments and good sources. I think if you frame it in a way that it makes it sound like you don't personally endorse that line of thinking, but that this is how people that might defend it might think that way, you're less likely to get downvoted.
Ultimately the only way to know for sure is to get a direct answer from the people that are upvoting/downvoting in the specific pattern you are observing.
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Gamergate is definitely low status. Really though, that just makes it stranger - this is the motte. We left reddit specifically because we are incapable of not discussing low status things. We have regular discussions about the holocaust, physical differences between men and women, and whether or not rich people are just better than everyone else. They are easy enough to ignore when I don't feel like reading them, and I can't see what makes gamergate different.
When I'm confused I go back to basics. Who, in this space for discussion of controversial topics, benefits from talking about gamergate? People who want to crow about sjws, people who are interested in internet history, people who are interested in how mainstream opinions are formed. Who benefits from not talking about gamergate? More importantly, who benefits from trying to stop other people from talking about it?
In my experience, when a strict taboo isn't involved, the people who benefit from stopping others from discussing a topic instead of just minimising the thread and moving on are people who are afraid their previous position on the subject made them look foolish. Usually because they still maintain that opinion, but don't feel they can argue for it successfully within the constraints of the current environment.
I don't know that that's what's happening here though, I'm sure there are other reasons someone might do that and I just haven't encountered them, and my experiences are no doubt coloured by covid.
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I’m not actually defending it- I think anybody involved in gamergate on either side can redeem themselves only by entering a very strict monastery for the remainder of their natural lives. Nor do I think this pedophilia is good or defensible.
I simply do not think it’s notable that someone who made a name for themselves as an activist around gamergate is a horrible person.
You can say that you weren't defending him on purpose, but you are in fact defending him by dismissing and disdaining anyone attempting to talk about him. Also I don't think talking about video games online in 2014 makes problem just as bad as nyberg, and I find it hard to believe you do.
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I think it is an abusive of language; both to try to change the way we think about something and to make words ugly. I hate the new speak.
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