RE: Call For a Ban On Child Sex Robots
2nd question first - In the context of violence? There is a big difference between someone who enjoys GTA and someone who's going to go shoot a place up in real life. And all scientific studies show that video games don't cause that difference. So yeah, basically talking about mental illness and instability.
1st question - I think you misinterpret why people play video games. It's not to enact their urges. It's a power fantasy and competition no different than playing football. Some people find some settings more interesting. Like high fantasy and knights, or modern day with guns, or WW1 somewhere in there. Whatever. It makes the competition or power fantasy more appealing. But in the end it's just that.
However you also seemed to misinterpret me. I'm totally on board with things that cause no direct harm to others being legal.
I just said that in the case of someone with serious sex crime issues embedded in their personality (just as I think it's probably true with the unstable who, without video games, would still go on a shooting) your best outcome is medicating symptoms rather than curing anything and it might increase their urge for the real thing. Not because it does something to them. But because it lightly scratches a really itchy itch.
No activity that doesn't involve harm to others should be banned. No VR, no video game, no board game, no nothing.
If a person cannot control their urges then you have a point, but I think the people who have no ability to control their urges are quite rare and do not make up the vast majority. Since policies such as a ban would effect the majority the most then we have to consider the statistics of it all.
This is a logically consistent position to take but then how did you arrive at this position? And why do you go against the grain? It seems a lot of people want to ban this particular kind of sex bot, but of course there are some people who want to ban all sex bots and those people are logically consistent on the other side.
Consistency doesn't matter if there's no sound reasoning behind the position. If we have no reason to believe they'd do harm then why are they wanting to ban? I'd guess because they get weirded out.
You being weirded out is not a good reason to criminalize behavior. Furries weird me out but they aren't hurting anyone.
You can be logically consistent in your faith.
Not really. You can be faithfully consistent. At least when the framework of the discussion is motivation.
When you're pushing something that is innately illogical it's kind of fake to call it logically consistent. It's not founded on that in the first place. It's founded on religious faith, or emotion. Logic implies reasoning was used to get there.
If your argument is "I will not be using logic so I am logically consistent. Because not using logic ever is consistent use of logic." Well... you might be right on a technicality but it's kind of avoiding the meat of the issue.
" logically consistent on the other side."
Except they have no logic, as you have shown, the science is against them.
What they are really consistent on is their "feelings", and making decisions for others based on them.
You can be logical without being scientific. Religious people can be logical. Being logical simply means not contradicting.
So if the person really believes we should be able to ban stuff which causes no victims and which according to no studies has been proven to cause any harm, then in essence there does not need to be a justification to ban anything in the future as long as enough people feel it should be banned.
Extrapolate into a future where we are all extremely connected, high tech, and then tell me why wouldn't we have people who claim people who have violent thoughts should be monitored or policed in some kind of way due to the argument that if a person thinks about it too much they become more likely to do it?
"So if the person really believes we should be able to ban stuff which causes no victims and which according to no studies has been proven to cause any harm"
This may be a semantic point, but I think the "believes" part merits additional scrutiny. I have no beliefs that are not based on a logical argument that can be verbalized. Perhaps there's an exception on something that affects only me personally, like food flavors, but nothing comes to mind - all my positions can be rationally dictated to a third party.
I'm not against having disagreements about logic in good faith. For example, I drive a motorcyle, but a lot of people think that is basically insane because of the danger. My rational position that the risk is justified by the reward based on my riding skill and what I get out of it is equally as logical as another's hypothetical position that the risk of injury far outweighs the value of the reward (for them). The value is subjective, as is the risk, so as a result, so is the logic. This is fine when we aren't imposing our beliefs on others.
If someone just "believes" something, that is by definition in absence of a logical argument, until and unless they offer something resembling one. It's faith, feelings, etc.
As a result, I don't agree that having a "belief" for something with no rational thought process can be logical.
What I mean is, a theist can offer a logically consistent proof that God exists while an atheist can also offer a logically consistent proof that God doesn't exist. The premises really determine the flow of the argument.
So if someone starts with a premise like "my feelings are always right" and "I trust my feelings absolutely" then from this they can be logically consistent in saying they trust their feelings more than any scientific studies, and from there they can say their feelings are the only justification necessary to ban anything or create any law in the future.
In a feelings based society, the laws would be created based upon the mood of the zeitgeist. If a large enough demographic group of people feels a certain way about a certain thing then they can channel their feelings into policy and enforce their feelings through the law.
So a logical argument can be made that any law is justified if enough people feel the same way about it and the outcome of that law is irrelevant beyond how it makes people feel. This would in my opinion at first glance be a logically consistent argument where the number 1 priority in society is to protect the feelings of it's members.
Put these phrases into context?
People who live by these sorts of phrases could have a totally different way of justifying right and wrong. If something feels right or feels wrong will have the most weight.
The Law of Attraction may not be an actual law but it makes sense when a million people feel the same way.
References
"then from this they can be logically consistent in saying they trust their feelings more than any scientific studies"
Yeah, and this is what I meant by this being a semantic argument. They are logically consistent within their own admittedly stated premise of being illogical. They cannot be logical because their initial premises flowed from not being logical (argument without evidence, can't prove the negative fallacy, etc.), but they can remain logical within their own (essentially hypothetical) parameters.
As for the Law of Attraction, that's half self-help nonsense, have actual truth. Believing in the law is what creates the change - the change in attitude, the change in actions. Some (perhaps most) people need to believe in "fake" laws in order to display attitudes that will correlate positively with success. That's why books like "The Secret" sell, and some people swear by them. They aren't wrong if believe in the book caused them to make changes with the results they wanted. It just didn't happen for the "magical thinking" reasons they may think it did, it happened because of their own positive action or attitude changes.
It is frustrating in psychology when patients attribute their own successes to demonstrably fake ideals such as these, but it is often better than the alternative, because some people would rather believe in "The Secret" than rationalism for their own motivational reasons.