army1987 comments on What is moral foundation theory good for? - Less Wrong

9 Post author: novalis 12 August 2012 05:03AM

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Comment author: sam0345 14 August 2012 08:16:25PM *  2 points [-]

For example, where exactly is this liberal sacredness around sexual autonomy?

Providing that which was specifically requested, concrete examples of liberals sacrificing human lives to sacredness in the particular matter of sexuality, will of course result in this post being marked down, and were I to point to examples of the more obvious and extreme examples of sacrificing lives for sacredness, such as the environment, it would be marked down even more.

But here goes:

Let us suppose a capitalist was doing something that frequently caused harm to others and himself, for example operating a car battery recycling center where he dumped acid containing lead sulphates in on the ground, in drains, in a nearby stream, etc. Then he would be strongly regulated and supervised.

But female sexuality frequently results in harm to their children, their husbands, and themselves, and it is pretty much unthinkable to restrict it, even in the case of a married woman with children. Similarly, the response to the AIDs epidemic was to invent an imaginary heterosexual aids epidemic, rather than shut down the bathhouses. I am pretty sure that if Chuck E Cheese's cheese was killing vast numbers of people due the frequent presence of dangerous molds in the cheese, it would be shut down very rapidly without anyone worrying about restricting the liberty of cheese eaters to eat as much cheese as they liked, in any form they liked, any place they liked.

Similarly, vaccination against certain sexually transmitted diseases. They want to vaccinate vast numbers of people that are unlikely to need it at considerable expense, and possible risk of harm, in order that those that do need don't suffer possible stigma by having to request it. If you actually wanted to provide herd immunity, you would vaccinate the main disease reservoir, which is adult male homosexuals, not schoolgirls. If this was, say, an expensive rabies vaccine, people would get it on the basis of potential exposure, and animals would get it on the basis of being a potential disease reservoir. Instead it is being targeted at those least likely to benefit, and least likely to cause risk for others, because targeting it where it might actually be most useful might stigmatize the recipients. No one seems to worry that Chuck E Cheese might be stigmatized by visits from the health inspector, and they would worry even less if some customers were dying because their cheeses had the wrong molds growing in them. On the contrary, they would think it a damned good thing if they got stigmatized for harms that they indirectly or carelessly caused.

We face a vast pile of very restrictive regulation to prevent harm to that which liberals consider sacred, on the basis of vague, small, questionable, and nebulous externalities, yet if women fail to express their sexuality in what used to be the approved channels, or express their sexuality in what used to be unapproved channels, this is apt to cause massive externalities, particularly to children. And if female sexual autonomy is sacred, unlike Chuck E Cheese's cheese, male homosexual autonomy is ten times as sacred, as we saw in the AIDS epidemic.

Cheese gets aggressively regulated for a vague, slight, and quite possibly nonexistent risk of harm. Sexual misconduct does not, despite major and alarming harm, and not only is it not regulated, but aggressively protected from social disapproval.

If someone wants to sell homemade sauerkraut at a farmer's market, they need to first hire a team of lawyers and consultants to shepherd them through the bureaucracy, lest they somehow cause inadvertent harm to their customers, but if a woman feels that sex with her husband is insufficiently fulfilling and starts banging a pimp from time to time, because the pimp is so much edgier and cooler than her husband, the entire apparatus of state is not only not going to do anything to restrain her, it is going to use violence against her husband and children to prevent them from reacting negatively to this development.

Comment author: [deleted] 14 August 2012 11:40:37PM *  -1 points [-]

OK, let's put the Rawlsian veil of ignorance down. So I don't know who I'm going to be. I'd still prefer a few parts-per-thousand probability of getting AIDS than a 10% probability of having a sexual orientation for a gender with whom I'm forbidden from having sex with.

(OTOH, a monogamous relationship, incl. marriage, is more-or-less-implicitly a contract where you agree --among other things-- not to have sex with anyone else, so I do agree that the behaviour of “the entire apparatus of state” you describe in the second part of the last paragraph is wrong.)

EDIT: Retracted -- numbers are way off (see below).

They want to vaccinate vast numbers of people that are unlikely to need it at considerable expense

How much?

Comment author: CarlShulman 15 August 2012 12:28:21AM 4 points [-]

a 10% probability of having a sexual orientation for a gender with whom I'm forbidden from having sex with.

Wikipedia indicates that this number is substantially too high. Random representative samples seem to give results of a few percent or less, with higher figures coming from non-representative samples such as prisons, urban areas which concentrate the gay population from surrounding regions, and unscientific polls by condom manufacturers.

Comment author: [deleted] 15 August 2012 10:17:09PM 0 points [-]

I had also underestimated the probability of fatal STDs by an order of magnitude: AIDS alone caused 4.87% of all deaths in 2002. (OTOH, the fact that there are quite a few countries with a two-digit prevalence of HIV makes me seriously doubt sam0345's claim that “the main disease reservoir” “is adult male homosexuals”. There's no way gay men comprise a major part of 26% of Swaziland's population.)

Comment author: sam0345 16 August 2012 02:02:27AM *  -2 points [-]

quite a few countries with a two-digit prevalence of HIV makes me seriously doubt sam0345's claim that “the main disease reservoir” “is adult male homosexuals”. There's no way gay men comprise a major part of 26% of Swaziland's population.)

AIDS in Africa is not spread by homosexuals, but by foreign aid: More precisely, by needle reuse in health facilities supported by foreign aid.

In the west, AIDS is, in its pattern of affliction and causation, wrath of God disease. In Africa, AIDS is, in its pattern of affliction and causation, wrath of progressivism disease.

The more AIDS patients you have, the more money you get, so no incentive to sterilize needles. And everyone feels a pleasant glow of progressive holiness and piety at the sight of non homosexuals and non drug users getting AIDS, so no one really wants to halt this display of holiness and sacredness.

The typical African AIDS victim is the faithful wife of a faithful husband who catches the disease because she attends a foreign aid funded clinic while pregnant. That will teach them to be married and faithful.

Comment author: CarlShulman 17 August 2012 09:17:01AM *  3 points [-]

An article in New Scientist from a decade ago talking about a "controversial new analysis," without any follow-up in subsequent years is a pretty weak source. Here is Robin Hanson's post, arguing for the same claim with more recent and better sources, although still unconvincing.

Comment author: sam0345 15 August 2012 04:01:39AM *  4 points [-]

They want to vaccinate vast numbers of people that are unlikely to need it at considerable expense

How much?

Last I heard, $400 for a course, $100 for a dose. If this did not involve sex, such a vaccine would be targeted at at risk populations.

A ten pack of combined tetanus and diptheria vaccine costs $20 and everyone is at roughly comparable risk, so it is reasonable to give the tet/dipth vaccine out like lollipops or McDonald's toys. Maybe the HPV vaccination should be handed out free at the sex clinic, but it seems to me that the reason that they want to give it to schoolgirls is because they do not want to give it out free at the sex clinic.

Comment author: fubarobfusco 15 August 2012 12:54:07AM 0 points [-]

OTOH, a monogamous relationship, incl. marriage, is more-or-less-implicitly a contract where you agree --among other things-- not to have sex with anyone else

Cheating is quite common; about 20% of married people have affairs and the rate is higher in putatively-monogamous unmarried partnerships. Around 3% of children are the result of affairs.

I'm not sure what other sorts of "contracts" have a 20% chance of default. I don't think banks would offer you a loan if they thought there was a 20% chance you wouldn't pay up. Even Florida's foreclosure rate isn't that bad!

Comment author: [deleted] 17 August 2012 08:38:06PM 1 point [-]

End-user licence agreements of commercial software?