All of JoshElders's Comments + Replies

You raise interesting points. One could hypothesize that the downvoting of the original article was due to its placement in the prominent Discussion thread, and seeing it in the open thread people would have not objected to it there. It seems an unlikely interpretation of the bulk of the votes, I agree. The serious downvoting of the original article does weigh heavily on this.

I think those who answered the poll were probably a biased sample in a serious way. Who read it? People who were interested in discussing this topic, and people who were not AND who w... (read more)

That's very interesting. At what point can one start talking about implications of a poll without it being a spoiler?

I don't know the actual reasons why my original Discussion post "Assertion: a large proportion of pedophiles are celibate" was deleted -- I figure the community has its methods of operation and assume it was all done according to regulations. I am aware of reasons that were given in this thread for wanting it removed -- though I don't know the relationship of those reasons to why it was actually removed.

Survey results suggest consi... (read more)

Sometimes a sample is also a population. We might not be able to generalize to all nations, but knowing the effect on the US would be very interesting in and of itself.

Other times it seems reasonable to draw conclusions without a sample, if we expect little variability in the population on the measure in question. For instance, if Obamacare has been in effect in Massachusetts for a few years, you don't say "n=1" and that the results have no bearing on what will happen in other states. You might argue that there are reasons it won't apply due to differing conditions, but few would say that it is as irrelevant as "n=1" would imply.

I believe that they did look at crimes like murder and assault as a control for sex crimes in at least some cases.

I did hear of a study once (no, I don't have a citation) tracking US sex crime rates in relation to when the internet (broadband?) became widely available in different parts of the country, finding some tendency for rape to go down after the internet was available.

In any case, those are all helpful ideas for professional sex researchers but go beyond my competence.

Other reputable organizations like the ACLU also support decriminalization without thinking about issues of increased demand.

The sounds like you want to think about the issue of increased demand because you already made up your mind about the issue.

I have no idea how your comment relates to anything I said.

I think the ACLU positions is that even if there is increased demand and thus more production the harm that it causes doesn't outweigh the good of legalisation. Arguing such a position however needs analysis of the good that you create.

I think ... (read more)

Virtual child porn might well crowd out a market for real porn.

This speculation seems unfounded, considering this has not happened in adult porn.

The production of real adult porn is as legal as virtual adult porn. Since the production of real child porn would remain illegal, one might expect a difference.

It should still be possible to follow the money to the producers. One could consider making the purchase of such material illegal but not its possession.

No. Cryptography and covering your tracks by using anonymization services is trivial.

These... (read more)

You can run an experiment in a single large nation, such as the US. Policies are set at the national level in any case.

Thanks for the explanation. I was formulating a reply shortly after he made the post. At the time, Richard's post had a -4 karma, so I was actually prohibited from doing so (with my lowly karma ranking). I guess that is the system working as it should. As a newcomer in a situation where most reactions have been negative and none that I recall has moved beyond "grudging tolerance" to "friendly tolerance", it's easy to assume that any given opinion might be shared by lots of others.

The substantive posts I brought up are about matters of fact under conditions of great uncertainty -- for instance, drawing conclusions about a largely invisible group. I brought up the ideas of "civil rights", "taboo", etc. only in response to people saying it shouldn't be discussed here -- that wasn't my idea. And it looks like the predominant view among the regulars is that it isn't irrelevant to the mission of rationality, it isn't off topic, and that I am making cogent arguments. It's to be downplayed because it's too hot to handle, due to the expected reactions (quite possibly very much at odds with rationality) of the general reading public. I think there's considerable benefit on being clear about that.

It seems we have one key difference. Some of you believe that having this topic discussed in the open thread risks serious damage to LW because of the danger of a poor reputation. I am not convinced of this.

If it is not true, then I don't think anyone has suggested any other reason for harm. If this is true, then my participation may have been harmful, though the marginal harm from a little more discussion seems very small.

So far I made one post in the discussion thread suggesting some pedophiles do not molest children. Following advice there, I made my ne... (read more)

Through all of this, the profit margins are going ever downward. Producers want a good expected payoff to cover the risks of detection and criminal prosecution. Market forces should depress production for profit.

I don't like the idea of this forum becoming a haven for well-spoken advocates of taboo causes (in fact I'm unhappy with the extent to which it already is something of this sort), especially taboo causes I think are taboo for good reason.

Are these reasons because of the damage to reputation caused by the reaction of others, or do you see good reasons for the taboo that are more inherent to the subject itself?

If there were evidence that you were participating in the forum out of a general interest in rationality rather than just because you think rati

I am interested in perceptions of the damage expected to be caused to LW from discussion of this topic and wonder if people can be more precise in their thinking about this. Here are some other scenarios:

If some established members discussed pedophilia and their opinions were within the commonly accepted range of views on the topic, would that reflect poorly on LW? For instance, suppose there was a debate where one pole of opinion was the status quo, and others were that child sex abusers should never be released from prison, or that execution would be an ... (read more)

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.

n=4 (countries) is not enough to draw any robust conclusions.

That's pretty good for studies where we are counting "nations" to come up with our N.

Counting the reported amount of sexual abuse is problematic. It can a sign that people are less likely to report crimes that is in the case of the data for Japan particularly concerning as he suggests: "in these latter years the rapist was less likely to be known to the victim; proving lack of consent became easier."

He is certainly aware of the issue. I think the passage you quote stren... (read more)

There is no edit link when I do that, and I have an idea what might be going on. My karma is no longer sufficient to post in the Discussion area, so perhaps it has also removed my ability to edit the post. If so, this isn't a problem I can solve on my own.

In the discussion of mandated reporter laws, I was thinking not one iota of the interests of the perpetrators of the crime. I was thinking only of the best interests of the children.

There are awful situations, that's for sure. All I'm trying to address here is the differential between having a mandated reporter law and not having one. Reporting is of course very often the right thing to do, and it will of course be done a lot of the time without a mandated reporter law as well.

"Coming out" and making sure that society can protect itself is the

I'll confess that in this case I was thinking of a 14-year-old girl, and I've been mostly focusing on prepubescents in other places. For younger children, their parents are of course much more likely to be involved and key players. They too should be able to get outside help without automatic triggering of mandated reporter laws.

all of your examples are tradeoffs, which was my entire point. ... you haven't actually made these arguments you say you have ...

Mandated reporter laws and the sex offender registry were intended to be trade-offs, but unexpected consequences have made them bad for kids too.

The discussion here doesn't even mention the effect on pedophiles. Pedophiles who are concerned they might offend against children with low probability know that if they tell a therapist about their attraction, they might be reported, if the therapist decides they are an imminent dan... (read more)

Since increased availability would presumably be causally linked to increased production,

Given how easy it is to make copies in this day and age, I don't think that's a necessary link -- but you're probably right. My assumption in any case is that a given child porn image is consumed thousands of times, so the effect on the consumer end would dwarf the effect on the producer end.

Also, when you say that child porn with real children should be illegal, do you mean that just production should be illegal or that possession should be illegal as well?

The... (read more)

I'm with you all the way on this. Your views are pretty far from the mainstream of US public opinion, though.

selling their own old pictures when the child becomes adult could become legal

That view in particular would make you a pariah in many social circles.

• if it is proven that the pictures do not increase the crime.

All I want is the absence of proof that it increases the crime. Since Diamond has evidence that it decreases the crime, that's pretty clear.

Few ordinary kids rape other kids or otherwise break the law with regard to their sexual activity. That's not true. Having a strict age of consent at 18 doesn't stop 15 year olds from having sex with each other.

If there are jursidictions where two 15-year-olds having sex with each other is breaking the law, they are rare.

In addition parents ban children frequently from having sex and they still have sex. The church in which a child is might forbid them from having sex before marriage but they still have sex. Laws that regulate the sexual behavior of

Thanks for the tips on how to make more persuasive arguments. One reason I don't source many things is because I don't know what is controversial and what isn't. I sort of rely on a (politely) adversarial process. If someone questions an assertion I make, I can see if I can find a source.

A reasonable analogy might be sex education. Some conservatives oppose it because they think it will make kids (teens especially) think about sex and become sexually active. The data doesn't support that, of course, and the explanation is that kids are thinking about s

I'm reluctant to say what might possibly happen in the future, especially a century or two from now.

But I do not see a path to its happening, and I do not want it to happen.

Penile plethysmography happens a lot for convicted sex offenders, and has also been used with lots of volunteers.

A great many men have some physical attraction to prepubescents -- 50 percent or more.

Sources: http://www.ipce.info/ipceweb/Library/97-048_article.html

Sarah Goode addresses the subject, citing several studies in this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Addressing-sexual-Attraction-Children/dp/0415446260

You have done nothing of the sort. You have merely drawn a line around the class (a class of unknown size) of those who have such urges but have never acted on them. But is this concept a natural kind? Does it carve reality at a joint? Does this line on the map correspond to any line in the territory? Is it an empirical cluster in thingspace? I believe the answer is no. The reality appears to be that there are people who, alas, have urges of this sort, some of whom act on them and are caught, some who act on them and have not been caught, and an unknown n

I think this probably should be a taboo topic because a) the number of people possibly helped by better legislation about this issue is fairly low

Estimates of pedophilia in the male population are in the 1-5% range. That's a lot of people.

c) it's not actually something that we can easily get RIGHT.

I'm not sure why not. Of course the community doesn't seem eager to do so, but it's because of reputational hazard. Few people may believe me, but the reason I brought this subject up here is because I was genuinely interested in at least a few members of... (read more)

If you think that celibate pedophiles might be more in the category of "leper" than "someone down on his luck", then this article could be taken as suggesting that celibate pedophiles are the very sort of people you might be trying to help, if you're so inclined to help anyone. Maybe people in general have poor intuitions about who needs help. People in general have poor intuitions about a whole lot of things, but we don't throw up our hands and not try to make anything better.

That saying contains a long chain of unsupported inferences. Each transition can happen, but each step can easily not happen. The referenced post has to do with habits of discipline, and that's quite different from the kinds of thoughts I have in mind.

Suppose I'm really mad at my mother and I find myself wishing that she were dead. I can berate myself for having such a terrible thought. But instead I might recognize that such thoughts are natural. If I find myself enjoying the thought and going back to it again and again, I don't think that's going to lead... (read more)

I buy the claim that most people with pedophilic tendencies do not abuse children, but it does not follow from this that most child sex abusers are not pedophiles.

I agree it does not follow, but as an independent matter, it may well be mostly true. If I had to guess, I'd say 50%. I've seen figures ranging from 20% to 80%. It depends partly on whether you are including sex offenses against post-pubescent minors (and there's a lot more sex offenses against them than prepubescents).

They can test this by hooking up sex offenders to a gauge that measures pen... (read more)

I will say up front that my intention in writing it is primarily to reduce the likelihood of you abusing any children; and only secondarily to help you feel any better.

No offense taken. My priorities are the same as yours. I've got the non-offending bit covered completely, but I'll here take the viewpoint of someone who doesn't, because it's interesting. The idea that thinking about something makes you more likely to do it is addressed (as an indirect consequence) in an "open thread" comment I made titled "Assertion: Child porn availabil... (read more)

Not much point in addressing the character assassination.

But when I look at the icons below a reply, I see an "edit" icon. That's my intuition as to how to get to a place where I can remove tags. I don't see any such icon for a main post.

Assertion: Child porn availability does not increase child sex abuse

There are a few different reasons why people oppose the existence of child pornography. One is the harm to the children when it is made. This is a valid objection. I think that putting children in sexual situations should remain a serious crime. It does not apply, however, to virtual child porn, made with young-looking actors or any of the variety of animation-related techniques.

I believe one major objection to all forms, including the virtual, is rarely formulated: people find it gross an... (read more)

Thanks for taking the time to lay out this position. It is quite interesting.

My sentence "If I express the existence of those thoughts in public, I am subject to severe discrimination." wasn't entirely clear. I do not mean on the bus or even at a cocktail party. I meant public to contrast with private (never told to anyone). I cannot tell close friends or family either. That's a good way to lose close friends and family.

There are mental illnesses where intrusive thoughts are a symptom and treatment is to try to avoid having them. I know there are... (read more)

Thanks for the clarification on politics.

One way to diagnose it would be to start discussing a topic and waiting for the mind-killing dialog to begin. It might not. In this controversy there is no one else arguing on my side so far (and it's not even clear there is a substantive argument. All we're debating is whether it's OK to discuss the topic.) I don't think anyone can accuse me of ceasing to think or being impolite. And if it turned out that it's only the other side that stops thinking and goes into "hulk...smash" mode, that might say something in itself.

One might also hope that occasionally, every now and then, an issue might emerge from lizard-brain mode; things do change sometimes.

Well, if any of those 5 or more people who upvoted this think it's interesting enough to kick it up the chain rather than erasing the issue, you'll have to be the ones to do it. I couldn't even if I wanted to with my current karma ranking, and I don't really have the standing to, being a new member and being a member of the taboo group.

The community could end up deciding that it is a taboo topic, that's the way it is, end of story. Or perhaps there is fear that it could create a damaging controversy that would hurt the community? Or various other things th... (read more)

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.

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 ha... (read more)

I am not familiar with tags and the implications of their use. It was a good-faith effort to pick relevant topics. If there's a problem with them that can be explained, I'll certainly consider editing.

Is the reason you don't want it on the site really that it is off-topic? Could you formulate some criterion on the basis of which it is more off-topic than many posts in the open thread? Might it be more honest to say that it is a topic of negative value? On the verge of being a forbidden topic?

I am a celibate pedophile. That means I feel a sexual and romantic attraction to young girls (3-12) but have never acted on that attraction and never will. In some forums, this revelation causes strong negative reactions and a movement to have me banned. I hope that's not true here.

From a brief search, I see that someone raised the topic of non-celibate pedophilia, and it was accepted for discussion. http://lesswrong.com/lw/67h/the_phobia_or_the_trauma_the_probem_of_the_chcken/ Hopefully celibate pedophilia is less controversial.

I have developed views on ... (read more)