I might have mixed this up. I could not find a comment about child pornography specifically. He used the term „stamp of disapproval“ in his book DUCY? on pp. 137-139 regarding keeping drugs and prostitution illegal and not giving condoms and std vaccinations to young girls.

https://books.google.at/books/conten...VTcnq6w&edge=0

I will PM David and ask him if he remembers ever using that same logic in regards to child pornography.

I don‘t think your objection that there are other violent depictions which are illegal is problematic. I can think of legitimate reasons to depict murders. I can‘t think of any for pornographic depictions of children.

Looking into it more, while it can lead to an increased prevalence of some relatively rare diseases, it looks like mostly a myth that it is more unhealthy than other similiar meat.

Clean meat will obviously lead to a great reduction in violence and should be celebrated as a significant moral breakthrough for modern society. The discussion here ITT is only on the edge case of eating lab-grown human meat, and it is a strategic (as well as analytical) mistake to broaden the discussion to all lab-grown meat (or in general to associate clean meat with human disgust reactions such as to eating human meat).

The possible world where eating human lab meat is common is one where the taboo against cannibalism is much weaker. If that society's economic base collapses and it devolves to an earlier stage of human development, whatever social structure develops afterward is more likely to accept cannibalism as a part of its regular diet than it would be for a society with a stronger cannibalism taboo.

Doubtful. Civilization could collapse and humanity would still have a long way to devolve before Donner Party survivalism becomes necessary.

I doubt I ever meant for my concept of "stamp of disapproval" to ever apply to child pornography. Because I don't know whether making it legal to use privately in your home might in fact help some people to avoiding hurting children or whether it increases the chances. Same goes for lab grown human meat. Does your neighbor eating it increase or decrease the chances you will be next?

Your neighbor's cannibalistic tendencies will be satiated by the availability of human meat at first, so they will initially be less likely to eat you. However, there will later be a "back to nature" movement akin to the GMO movement where people will push to have advances in science undone because we don't understand science. And then you're screwed.

Research on areas like this is iffy and tough, for ethical reasons.

But what we do know is that some behaviors (like non-sexual violence) does not seem to be very affected by simulated or portrayed behavior, whereas others (for example sexual violence) seem more likely to be affected. This is of course commonly measured through "acceptance" for the various behaviors, not actual occurrence. Statistical studies of course suffer from basic causation vs correlation problems, but there is generally a stronger case for a causative relationship between portrayal of sexual violence and acceptance than for portrayal of non-sexual violence and acceptance, esp. when you include demographic studies that take in societal developments. Proper experiments are of course not possible to setup, due to ethical concerns.

Does any of the above necessarily carry over to cannibalism? No, not really. But my argument is merely that using a catch-all argument ("it is not real, therefore okay") is bad. It should be case-by-case.

And there is always a case to be made against normalization of various deviant or dysfunctional behaviors. In this I am not including disaster phenomena like the Donner party or the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571.

Admittedly, on a personal level i find the idea stupid and distasteful. And if this is what we're going to use the technology for, count me in against those who'd rather see it banned.

If you have people out there who can't avoid raping or eating their neighbors without simulated stimuli, you should just lock them up, drug them down and throw away the keys.

There are behaviors that a society can't accept and thus there are people a society can't accept. Sure, that's an argument that have been questionably used to punish many non-harmful behaviors between consenting adults, but here we're onto actively harmful deviancy.

There are 7 billion people in the world, we'll make do just fine without these ones running around.

There is no chance you meant what you wrote.

See what banned? Just human, or all artificially-grown meat?

It's a technology that faces a ton of opposition, and to be honest if the application is going to be to have cloned human meat for dinner - I'd say the opposition scores good points.

You think it more honest to just throw grandma's shin bone, stringy flesh and all, in a pot, cook, and serve?

Baby butt roast may soon be on the menu in celebrity chief's restaurants.

Cloning is not going away, the Pandora's box is open - adjust your morals and ethics to fit the new paradigm. Social mores and taboos will contain any sins from the majority; the more egregious sins of the extreme minority is of little consequence.

My rather uninformed perception is that the tech which might be used to create lab-grown meat is the same tech that's used for tissue regeneration, which I'm guessing is probably why the possibility of growing human tissue came up in the first place?

How about we ban lab-grown human tissue for eating, keep it for medical purposes, and enjoy some lab-grown beef?

That sounds like a perfectly reasonable way to go about things.

I think you're underestimating the potential benefits to lab-grown meat. Cheaper, healthier, less pollution, less animal cruelty, etc.

Also, well named is correct, some of the companies researching clean meat started with technology originally developed for skin grafts.

No doubt Sklansky foresaw this possibility, as well as foreseeing the possibility that tasting human meat gives an incentive to murder otherwise less-harmful sociopaths. He just took the skeptical path and humbly refrained from jumping to any-conclusion before seeing what actually happens.

I'm well aware of the positives of the technology.

What I disagree with in the original argument posed is the sentiment that "if only a simulated experience, it must be okay". That is a poor argument, which is not even supported by research. Some behaviors do not seem to be affected much by simulation / representations, others seem to be.

But my personal views are also relevant (to me). The argument seems to lead to the slipperiest of slopes. Biotechnology could ultimately make the most abhorrent of deviant desires possible to experience almost fully. If that is an outcome, I'm personally completely fine with banning such technology all-together. The middle-ground of making sure the technology is regulated strictly from an ethics perspective is of course a far more likely outcome, and in that case I see no issues with it. It won't make it full-proof, but it will give us a venue to motivate ethical use and punish those who still choose to abuse it.

And as I alluded to earlier to DS, I have no problem not pandering to the desires of sociopaths, cannibals or child molesters. I see very little value in such human beings. The most important aspect of civilization is given in the word itself, "civil". That word does not apply to those people. There is, as far as I am concerned, no room for them in society.

But since they can't always be identified ahead of time I assume you would be in favor of making the simulated version available if it was clear that it greatly reduced the amount of unsimulated crime.

This is actually an argument that has cropped up in regards to pedophiles and sex dolls based on children. It's a questionable argument at best. I see no reason to normalize such behaviors based on speculative clinical opinions.

The correct treatment for such individuals, as far as I am concerned, is institutionalization.

There are times when a society has to put its foot down and merely say "no". In my eyes, a minimum of ethical legitimacy in regards to deviancy has be in place for a society to have the right to exist. We're well beyond progressive and well into regressive if we don't set the barrier here.

I didn't say anything about "normalizing".

I asked if you would be ok with this stuff ASSUMING it prevented lots of crime. Speculative clinical opinions was not part of my question to you.

I never said that these people shouldn't be institutionalized. I was talking about people who hadn't been identified, mainly because they hadn't been caught doing a crime yet. If if if if there are people out there who you would like institutionalized but are never identified because dolls keep them from hurting a child, was the trade off worth it? If.

And I choose to disregard the "if" because I don't see the value in it. 2+3 is indeed 6 if we choose to treat the 2 as a 3, but it doesn't make it a very useful thing to do.

If people have these desires they should go seek help before they hurt anyone, not engage in simulations of eating their neighbor or raping their child. Sorry for the strong words, but it is not hyperbole. This is the territory of our debate. If you want to send a signals to potential offenders, that is the signal to send: Get help instead of hurting someone.

And no, I do not think condoning such simulations will in any way or form lead to less atrocities.

Then you shouldn't reply to that post as if you were answering my question.

I have no idea whether simulated pedophilia would lead to less atrocities. Or, for that matter, whether seeking help would do that. But the original post that I took issue with had you implying that a person who had these urges and was not sure if he could control them, should be institutionalized even if there was one way to maintain that control. You seemed to be saying that a person who had these urges, realized they were wrong, and found a solution should, still be locked up if the solution involved simulation. You also seemed to be saying that if such people existed it would be better to wait until they outed themselves by harming a child rather than to allow them to self medicate and never out themselves. In other words you seemed to be saying that if a human has this urge (which I guess I should make clear I personally don't have) and it can't be fixed by therapy, he should be locked up for an urge he can't help even if their is a (disturbing) solution and even if that means some children have to go through a traumatic event to make sure all these folks are rounded up.

But I still think that you actually didn't mean to imply those things even those your words did.

By the way, though it doesn't belong in this forum, the quoted sentence represents the single biggest flaw in the thinking processes of most posters on this website and people in general.

Years ago, Jeff Yass, CEO of Susquehanna Securities, asked me a seven card question which I answered. He then asked me how my answer would change if it was eight card stud even though there was no such game. I laughed, complimented him for realizing that knowing that answer could be helpful, and answered it. I kept in touch with him over the years as he went from a small stakes poker player to a billionaire and probably the world's foremost authority on options.

And the missing link from one to the next was 8-card stud. If only someone else had asked that question sooner...

Then you misunderstood.

I want such simulations to be a crime and I not only want the legal system to have the power to forcefully commit and institutionalize people who engage in them, I want them to do so. The only message I want the legal system to send towards such deviant desires is that there is absolutely no room for them in a civilized society.

The people who do not want to hurt anyone and are struggling with these issues have plenty of venues that aren't speculative, hypothetical and have a proven track record. Self-commitment, therapy, medication or chemical castration to name a few. They can use those.

No, answering speculative hypotheticals when there is no merit to the hypothetical isn't useful. Illustrating that via analogy was apt.

I agree with all that. But given you mentioned that the Donner party did nothing wrong I assume that you would be OK with lab grown human meat if it was the only way to treat a physical disease. And I assume that you don't think a mental disease deserves a stigma. Therefore if such lab grown meat cured a mental disease you would be OK with that too. But you implied otherwise even though I don't think you meant to.

Similar things could be said about child molesting urges. I, like you, are skeptical of using picture or toys, since it probably doesn't work and there are alternatives. But what if a psychiatrist used them as part of his therapy?

If in a "Donner party"-type situation or equivalent medical emergency requires simulated human meat or eating dead people who were not intentionally harmed for the sake of someone else's self-preservation, then yes I am fine with it. This in the same sense that I would not want to steal my neighbors cars, but if I was necessary to save a life I'd wouldn't think twice about it.

As for the latter question, I don't really feel comfortable discussing hypothetical medical treatments (being a psychologist myself) of such a controversial nature. But if it was professionals using a method that had had solid evidence backing it up as a therapeutic technique then we at least have proper grounds for debate. Perhaps that is a cop-out, but I think the issue is so controversial and so potentially damning that it would be unethical for me to say anything that could be construed as accepting. Of course that is a catch-22, as it also means the issue will likely never see the research needed to provide that evidence.

That catch-22 isn't that important in the real world however, when we know there are alternatives that are far less controversial and which can work.