What I thought about child marriage as a cause area, and how I've changed my mind — EA Forum
forum.effectivealtruism.org
Summary: I have been working on a research project into the scale, tractability and neglectedness of child marriage. After 80 hours of research, I th…

saw this pointed out here and felt it deserved it’s own post

let me mention that this is exactly the sort of argument I’ve seen pedophilia enthusiasts break out many times:

hmm, we thoughtful inquirers should look at this incredibly tenous evidence I’ve curated. it raises questions about whether we should be superrrrr chill about sex with children. questions with answers that, I’m sold on!

  • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
    16·
    1 year ago

    Someone should do a rewrite of “A Modest Proposal” in the form of one of these EA posts. It’d probably do pretty well.

    • Soyweiser@awful.systemsEnglish
      16·
      1 year ago

      I did 80 hours of study on this, and turns out that the children had only negative QALYs (from now on NQALYs), and the reduction of poor parents surplus children actually increased the total QALYs (and that is not even counting the benefits you get from using the children), therefore in this essay I will…

      It is funny, some of them are so afraid of paperclip generators while they don’t realize that they themselves can easily be made to believe horrible things if you just back it up with enough stats, papers and contrarian blog posts.

      • Evinceo@awful.systemsEnglish
        5·
        1 year ago

        some of them are so afraid of paperclip generators while they don’t realize that they themselves can easily be made to believe horrible things if you just back it up with enough stats, papers and contrarian blog posts.

        I think that’s why they’re so afraid of them. They think that paperclip optimizer is the default outcome for an intelligence because it’s the outcome they’re pushing themselves towards.

        • Soyweiser@awful.systemsEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          Yeah, it is interesting how often those kind of things happen, see also the far right people all mad about gender being 1984 newspeak while not knowing that newspeak (in the books and iirc why Orwell wrote it) is a flattening of ideas, complex ideas get put into simple dichotomies, reducing the possibility to say and explain certain things. (This itself fits back into a general problem of rightwingers failing to understand media (wonder how the effect works, do people stop to understand media and become right wing, or the other way around, did musk become dumber because he starts to go into qanon or is he dumb and that is why he is convinced by qanon?).

          Also, are memes newspeak using this logic?

            • Soyweiser@awful.systemsEnglish
              3·
              1 year ago

              Certainly, it was more a musing about the effect and he is a very large public example of it all. (I also had recently seen his dumb pizzagate meme post, and wondered again if he has ever heard of the word epistemology, it is amazing how much he is like Trump in that he believes the last thing somebody tells him)

    • zogwarg@awful.systemsEnglish
      9·
      1 year ago

      Something something Poe’s law, something something. Honestly some of the shit i’ve read should have been satire, but noooooo.

      • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
        9·
        1 year ago

        Given that the energy cost would probably kill off a significant portion of bumblebees or something, it’d have to do a lot of damage to TESCREAL to be worth it, just on utilitarian grounds alone. Given that these people seem to lack self awareness I don’t think satire would have any appreciable effect on them.

          • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
            13·
            1 year ago

            countercounterpoint: I did my best. Had to jump through a bunch of hoops to get through the content barriers. Here’s the result:

            Cause Prioritization Analysis: “Kid Meat” as a Sustainable Choice Empowering Lower-Income Irish Families

            Scale:

            • Community Impact: Empowers lower-income Irish families by creating a market for their “kid meat,” contributing indirectly to controlled populations.
            • Potential Reach: Niche market initially with opportunities for growth due to the appeal of supporting marginalized communities and sustainable products.

            Neglectedness:

            • Empowerment Approach: Offers an avenue for economic empowerment to lower-income families through sustainable production.
            • Market Demand: Addresses the growing consumer interest in supporting marginalized communities and sustainable food choices.

            Tractability:

            • Producer Collaboration: Involves collaboration with lower-income families for sustainable sourcing and processing.
            • Ethical Marketing: Crafting a narrative to highlight the ethical and community-based benefits of consuming “kid meat.”
            • Consumer Awareness: Educating consumers about the positive impact of supporting marginalized communities through sustainable food choices.

            Conclusion:

            Strengths:

            • Empowers lower-income Irish families through market access and recognition for their “kid meat” produce.
            • Aligns with growing consumer interest in supporting marginalized communities and sustainable food choices.

            Challenges:

            • Effective communication to ensure consumer understanding and embrace of the community-driven initiative.
            • Balancing pricing for consumer affordability while ensuring fair returns to producing families.

            Overall Assessment:

            • Scale: Niche market initially with potential for expansion.
            • Neglectedness: Addresses economic empowerment indirectly through sustainable consumption and support for marginalized communities.
            • Tractability: Feasible with challenges in effective community-driven communication and pricing strategy.

            Next Steps:

            • Producer Collaboration: Engage lower-income families for sustainable sourcing and processing.
            • Ethical Marketing: Craft a narrative highlighting the community-based benefits of consuming “kid meat.”
            • Consumer Education: Create awareness about the positive impact of supporting marginalized communities through sustainable food choices.
            • Pricing Strategy: Balance pricing for consumer affordability and fair returns to producing families.

            By navigating these challenges and leveraging the strengths of the initiative, “Kid Meat” aims to create a sustainable market opportunity that not only supports ethical consumption but also directly contributes to the economic empowerment of lower-income Irish families, aligning with consumers’ interests in supporting marginalized communities.

            • maol@awful.systemsEnglish
              5·
              1 year ago

              Actually back in the 60s I think one of these skull-measuring types came to Ireland. He gave IQ tests to kids and concluded that we were a dysgenic, low-IQ people. So there’s another “data point”