Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are:
- Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
- Do not quote yourself.
- Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.
- No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
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Theory: People hear murder, and think, "Oh, the best you'll do is get them a couple years off, no judge will let a murderer go free." But when someone hears "molesting a child", they think, "They're probably guilty regardless of what you think, but you have a chance of convincing a jury and then unleash this monster on us."
Of course, this is working on a subconscious level.
I suppose the theory you're supposed to think of is "molestation is more graphic than murder"? That can be tested by substituting another, more graphic word for murder, e.g. "shot, exploded, cut up". (Trying not to get too graphic here.)