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Alicorn comments on Open Thread, October 7 - October 12, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: Thomas 07 October 2013 02:52PM

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Comment author: JoshElders 11 October 2013 06:05:12PM 4 points [-]

Candidate for a forbidden topic: Celibate pedophilia

I saw a post somewhere (can't find it again) asking if there were forbidden topics on LessWrong, with the implication that this would be undesirable.

This post I made to the Discussion section was seriously downvoted: http://lesswrong.com/lw/it3/assertion_a_large_proportion_of_pedophiles_are/ There is no attribution behind downvotes, so the reasons can't be determined.

Perhaps it belonged here in the open thread; I'm not experienced enough to judge that. There are also complaints that it was obvious and had no significant rationality-related issues, but I humbly invite people to consider whether these may be rationalizations -- when evaluated against the relevance of posts in this open thread.

However, there are also comments that have upvotes:

"The existence of the article has potentially severe downsides for the site, and while we may wish this wasn't so, reality is what it is."

"taints reputation of LW"

"Writing about low-status topics is low-status. This topic is low-status. Making LW low-status goes against the goals of most readers, I guess."

Let's think civil liberties issues here. All the interesting civil liberties issues are about low-status cases -- if a group or some idea is popular with the majority, then no one is complaining and the "civil liberties" concept never comes up. Sometimes you might want to override your ordinary feelings about status to consider an oppressed group.

I speculate that what commonly comes to mind when "pedophilia" is mentioned is child sex abuse. Discrimination against (and punishment of) child sex abusers is entirely appropriate. I have ruled out that case by calling the topic "celibate pedophilia", but after that restriction is in place I suggest these associations: a desire to change society so that adult-child sexual activity is legal and accepted (e.g. NAMBLA), a desire to inflict harm on children, looking at pictures of children being harmed, and perhaps insisting to others that they shouldn't be disgusted by these desires.

I am opposed to all of those things, and I know there are many other celibate pedophiles like me. Some of the points seem irrelevant from a civil liberties point of view, but they are relevant from a status point of view.

So there are questions here of whether people want to personally change their status judgment based on those clarifications.

With regard to "tainting the site", there is an issue as to whether those clarifications can be conveyed in some way to avoid the fears of harm to the site based on low status. Does anyone want to clarify the risk of harm to the site?

Perhaps the net judgment of the LessWrong community is that it should be a forbidden topic. But if so, I think it's worth making a conscious note of that fact.

Comment author: Alicorn 11 October 2013 07:07:21PM 7 points [-]

Without commenting directly on your topic, I'd like to congratulate you on remaining thoughtful and civil in spite of censure, and not - so far - escalating your interest in discussing this on LW to the point of spam.

Comment author: JoshElders 11 October 2013 07:22:09PM 0 points [-]

Thanks. I try. It is discouraging to get so much negative feedback, and when it gets personal it hurts, but I try to steel myself for it. I feel more than a bit like a sheep in wolves' clothing, though I realize others will suspect the opposite.

Comment author: Dentin 13 October 2013 09:21:04AM 4 points [-]

It's only personal because you've made this topic part of your identity. That's why other posters were recommending you read through the sequences on identity, and why it may be worth reconsidering what you base your identity on.

Comment author: JoshElders 13 October 2013 03:29:19PM 0 points [-]

When people say with some heat that they don't believe what I say about my own actions and motivations, that seems pretty personal and has nothing I can see to do with identity.

"Celibate pedophile" is a pretty unusual identity. I think of it more as a description. It's hardly a bandwagon one jumps on. If (as seems true) a fair number of people have never heard of it before, then it doesn't seem like something that reinforces tired old patterns of thought. A far more common identity is more or less "NAMBLA" -- believing adult-child sex is just fine if only it was legalized. I decisively reject that identity.