We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day This is bonkers. Firstly, the BBC’s reporting of the numbers was full of bald assertions. Jon Brown, head of sexual-abuse programmes at the NSPCC, was quoted in the BBC report, saying that ‘accessing hardcore pornography is warping [children’s] view of what is acceptable behaviour’. This claim was made in spite of the fact that decades of research has failed to demonstrate any link whatsoever between exposure to pornography and sexual-assault prevalence.
Children have not transformed in recent years into a marauding gang of sexual offenders; nor are they any more sexually aggressive today than in the past. In fact, these stats say less about our children’s newfound tendencies towards sexual perversion and more about our own warped idea of what constitutes sexual criminality.
– Luke Gittos
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
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A lot of middle class employment in charities and the public sector depends on identifying alleged problems and then developing bureaucratic strategies to do nothing about them.
You and Yours on Radio 4 invites us to be appalled that the state does not regulate absolutely everything.
then developing bureaucratic strategies to do nothing about them… And blame freedom.
I used to wonder why there were so many rules and taboos about sex. After awhile, I began to see that if you can control sex, and throw in controlling how people make a living to provide for their families, you’ve pretty much obtained power over two of the most powerful psychological drivers most people have.
Include some fancy palaver about the importance of self-sacrifice, in order to counteract that pesky self-preservation thing, and you’ve got a neat little trifecta enabling you to run most anything, and manipulate most anybody.
I don’t wonder anymore.
This claim was made in spite of the fact that decades of research has failed to demonstrate any link whatsoever between exposure to pornography and sexual-assault prevalence.
And this is doubly significant, because they sure as hell were looking. Usually when a social scientist wants a result they can manufacture one, given enough time and enough data torture. Even “hard” sciences have this issue, although usually easier to refute.
All that looking and not finding suggests that not only have they not demonstrated any link, but also that there is absolutely no link to find. They utterly fail to understand the concept of “escapism” and how humans can actually tell the real from the imaginary.
When I came to Juvenile Court from Criminal Court, the amount of child sex offenses shocked me.
In my U. S. town of about 300,000 I deal with about two incidents of straight up child on child at school sexual assault in a week. Most of them are held her and grabbed her privates with threats, but there are rapes and attempted rapes. Almost all of the defendants and victims are 13-17. That’s about 72 a year, which adjusted for British population comes to what, 15,000 and change?
Those are cases that are actually brought to court and basically all of which result in a guilty plea or conviction after trial.
There’s more to it than that. What you do with your naughty bits affects the people around you. If I’m going to be expected to help support unrelated (to me) girls who get knocked up at fifteen, I’m going to be pushing for some way to keep girls from getting knocked up at fifteen.
That’s about 72 a year, which adjusted for British population comes to what, 15,000 and change?
Sorry, your point is?
New Zealand has an absolutely terrible rate of sexual offending. But then it pretty much always has had. It’s not rising though, even though it is easier for women to come forward, and DNA testing makes conviction easier if they do, which suggests that slowly society is getting less violent towards women and girls.
The idea that pornography causes men to behave badly towards women runs contrary to the evidence. It appeals to the wowsers because they are pretty much opposed to any fun at all, but we don’t need to follow their lead.
In the US the rise of the internet correlates to a halving of the per capita rate of rape. If pornography increases the likelihood a man will rape, there’s a huge counterbalancing effect. What that would be isn’t clear to me.
“…decades of research has failed to demonstrate any link whatsoever between…”
decades of research has also failed to demonstrate any link whatsoever between global “warming” and the frequency of hurricanes, but the alarmists don’t shut up about it or stop spreading their meme.
This, like that, is a politico-religious campaign and has nothing to do with facts or data.
World of Warcraft
More seriously, it could be that pornography makes men more prone to desiring certain kinds of sex, but that the ‘use’ of pornography also reduces (by more than the first effect increases)the need for 2 person sex. The first effect might dominate in individual cases, which make the headlines. This is pretty uninteresting speculation however. The fact remains that the theory that pornography increases rape is super-unproven.
It’s still dismaying to think of children becoming jaded and unshockable by the time they are out of middle school.
Eric, a magazine has a limited range of pictures, whilst you can keep looking on the internet for more and more. Might-have-been rapists are internet-addicted, looking for something new. (Or so I’m guessing- I’ve nevernevernever looked for porn, officer, ever! I just hear about these things.)