And having less poor people (as a percentage of the total population) in future generations would be beneficial for future generations of poor people as well since it would mean that the country would be capable of having a more generous social safety net. A country's economic prosperity in large part depends on its average IQ, after all, which will go up in this scenario.

To elaborate:

I don't see a cardinal difference between saying these two things:

"We want more people coming here who can contribute and who are not going to be burdens, and we're capable of determining with pretty good accuracy which immigrants are likely to be net contributors and which ones are likely to be net burdens."

"We want more people being born who will be able to contribute and who are not going to be burdens, and we're capable of determining with pretty good accuracy which people are likely to have smart children and which people are likely to have dull children, with smart children being much more likely to be net contributors during their lifetimes than dull children are. We should thus encourage people who are likely to have smart children to have more children while also encouraging people who are likely to have dull children to curb their fertility."

There would be no grounds to criminalize such artwork. Unless of course one believes that such artwork makes minor-attracted people more likely to harm actual minors, but this hypothesis would need to be proven. I don't think that the state can get away with criminalizing rape fantasy roleplaying simply based on an unproven hypothesis that this increases actual rape, for instance. It would require solid evidence in favor of its case beforehand.

Yes, I know. People can sometimes use safe, harm-free outlets as an alternative to engaging in a harmful real-life activity. For instance, engaging in rape fantasy roleplaying (with a safe word and everything) with oneself as the rapist rather than actually going around raping people. This would allow one to get the thrill of being a rapist (if one actually gets turned on from that) without actually being a rapist in reality and while also allowing one's sexual partner to stop if necessary by saying the safe word. Of course, when you forgot the safe word, you could have tragedies like this occur:

https://www.reddit.com/r/sex/comments/chd8nw/i_23f_forgot_our_safe_word_so_my_boyfriend_24m/

By that logic, though, should sex with childlike adults be criminalized? Or at least criminalized specifically for minor-attracted people?

Perhaps a more apt analogy would be criminalizing photos and videos of white people wearing blackface? There's nothing inherently offensive about white people merely looking black. Blackface, on the other hand, ...

I know that this is a very morbid question, BTW. But still, I hope that it's OK for a Philosophy forum.

Do you have a specific argument to counter the argument from parturition?

Isn't any ideology a social construct--not just eugenics?

Sure, one can say that grouping human beings into races is more arbitrary. I'm not really going to challenge that. But isn't the genetic distance between different humans--both on an individual level and on a group level (however one actually defines these human groups, whether in terms of families or in terms of something else)--something that can be both easily and objectively measured? I'm practically certain, for instance, that Ukrainians and Belarusians are much more similar to each other than either of these two groups are to, say, Sentinel Islanders.

First of all, if you know how a bell curve looks, then you'd realize that I did not say that *all* people of a particular race are innately smarter than *all* people of some other race. After all, there is a lot of overlap between human races (however one defines them) in regards to IQ.

Secondly, what's your explanation as to why exactly Ashkenazi Jews are, on average, smarter than white gentiles are? If you reject the evolutionary explanation for this, then what's your proposed alternative explanation? A Jewish conspiracy?

Human races don't have their own unique properties, sure. But what is objectively identifiable is one's DNA and one's DNA relation to other people. These things can presumably be mapped on some kind of chart. How one subsequently divides the genetic clusters afterwards might very well be arbitrary, of course, but the DNA data points' locations for various people would be objective, no?

Should we also reject the periodic table because it is a social construct?

I think that points #2 and #3 on JayMan's FAQ are a good response to the "race is just a social construct" argument:

https://archive.is/rX8Uj/again?url=https://jaymans.wordpress.com/jaymans-race-inheritance-and-iq-f-a-q-f-r-b/

TBH, I frequently hear people talk about regular porn (whether of the gay or the straight variety). But Yeah, as much as I dislike the fact that some people have a pedophilic sexual orientation, the fact remains that they have it and that it is incurable and unchangeable short of castration (which completely eliminates one's sex drive altogether). I think that if such people are capable of permanently having completely harm-free sex lives through dolls and robots, then this should of course be encouraged unless there would be some other factor--such as such dolls and robots making these people subsequently more likely to harm actual children. Honestly, I think that even the most unpopular minorities should have someone be willing to stand up and speak up for them just so long as they aren't actually advocating harming anyone else.

You could imagine a video game where God appears before someone and requires them to commit pedophilia or else God is going to commit some extremely massive and even worse atrocity. Then committing pedophilia in this video game would be the lesser evil, no? Certainly in comparison to God committing an extremely massive genocide.

In such a scenario, you'd be committing pedophilia since God would essentially put a figurative gun to your head, thus making this virtual pedophilia morally ambiguous.

To elaborate on my previous post here, the US actually did have alien suffrage in certain states up to the early 20th century or so. We could indeed bring back this tradition if we want--for instance, through a US Supreme Court ruling that would state that the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection of the laws requires US states to allow alien suffrage. Extremely far-fetched right now, no doubt, but in 2050 or 2100? Who knows!

How exactly do you propose ruining this dictator's life? Other than of course by overthrowing and executing them, a la Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi? But of course doing this has its own problems--subsequent risk of instability, et cetera.

Sanctions are more likely to affect ordinary people than the political elites of a particular country, no? Ex.: the sanctions on Iraq between 1991 and 2003.

I'd actually argue that it would indeed be fairer to get rid of hereditary voting rights and to have uniform voting rules for everyone, citizen and non-citizen alike: For instance, being required to live in the US for a grand total of 18 years and also not having the citizenship of any other country (regardless of whether or not one is already a US citizen). And also being required to pass the equivalent of the US citizenship exam before one can actually vote even if one is already a US citizen. Any deviations from this rule would, of course, be subjected to strict scrutiny.

That would likely make the problem worse rather than better. A ghettoized population might be more rather than less susceptible to radicalization. In contrast, if gentiles will live among Jews, intermarry with Jews in large numbers (almost half of Israeli Jews said that they would be willing to consider marrying a non-Jew if they lived in the Diaspora: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/nearly-half-of-israeli-jews-would-consider-wedding-non-jew-if-in-diaspora-583715 ), speak Hebrew, celebrate the Jewish holidays, learn about Jewish culture, traditions, history, and literate at school and at university, et cetera, then there are likely to be significantly less problems between gentiles and Jews in Israel. Of course, some gentiles (Russians, Belarusians, etc) might be more suited for such a large-scale assimilation into Israeli Jewish life than some other gentiles (Arabs, Muslims, etc)--at least if we're hastily generalizing here. For Russians and Belarusians, for instance, there is already a huge ex-USSR community in Israel which they can integrate into and whom they can intermarry en masse.

And for what it's worth, I'm not specifically targeting Israel here. I also support generous immigration policies for other countries--for instance, for other Western countries, Turkey, the Gulf states, East Asia, et cetera. But I certainly don't support open borders or anything close to it. I can elaborate if necessary, but basically, I don't believe that the social safety net would actually be sustainable with an open borders regime. And I'm also strongly worried about cultural compatibility in certain cases, such as with immigrants who are likely to commit massacres along the lines of the Charlie Hebdo massacre several years ago. (But I also oppose, say, a categorical ban on all Muslim immigrants, which is why I view Israel's opposition to gentile immigration, even of the non-Muslim kind, as being excessive.)

Interestingly enough, Africa and Asia could achieve either population parity or at least close to this by 2100 thanks to Africa's population explosion right now.

Thanks for informing me about this book, Athena! I'll go look it up! :)

BTW, are you the same Athena as from Historum?

Libertarians distinguish between nation-states and private property, but ironically their argument against nation-states (as in, that they were built and founded on coercion) could also often apply to private property as well. Yet if there are normative arguments in favor of private property in spite of this (even in the view of libertarians), then there can also be normative arguments in favor of nation-states.

One such normative argument is that different groups should have their own nation-state in order to protect and look after their own interests and also the interests of their Diaspora as well as to provide a safe haven for members of their Diaspora in the event that things will ever go seriously south for them. This argument does have some merit--for instance, different groups--such as Jews and Soviet Germans--did in fact historically experience persecution. And of course if there would have been a Jewish state in the 1930s, then more Jews could have escaped the impending Holocaust had they actually been able to foresee it. And of course such a Jewish state could have also pursued efforts on the international stage and elsewhere against Nazi Germany--for instance, trying to put pressure on Nazi Germany by assassinating top Nazi German officials or whatever.

For what it's worth, this argument isn't necessarily an argument in favor of total exclusion, but it does suggest that immigrants who move to particular nation-states should sometimes or even often assimilate to a meaningful extent in order to become a part of the broader body politic of this nation-state. Interestingly enough, pre-Hitler, some German nationalist groups actually were willing to accept assimilated German Jews as members. So, group membership does not necessarily need to have an ethnic criteria to it. For that matter, even South Africa had an "honorary whites" category.

I think that categorically excluding all non-Jewish immigrants without close Jewish relatives or family members is too restrictive. I also think that it's too restrictive to deny prospective immigrants to Israel the opportunity to convert to Judaism, even if they only want to immigrate to Israel for economic reasons.

I think that non-Jews who want to move to Israel should be forced to go through a process where they can prove that they are willing to integrate--either by serving in the Israeli military, by formally converting to Judaism, or by going through a new process which should be created which would function like a quasi-conversion and include a lot of the elements of conversion (Torah study, et cetera) but with them becoming an honorary Jew at the end. This would differ from a formal conversion to Judaism because this would allow them to keep their existing religion as opposed to adopt Judaism, but otherwise they would go through much of the same process as formal converts to Judaism would.

Of course, this would require Jewish law to be changed, since there's either a Torah passage or an ancient rabbinical ruling that states that non-Jews who study the Torah should be given the death penalty. Now, obviously few people in Israel nowadays would actually agree with the death penalty part, but still, good luck convincing Ultra-Orthodox Israeli Jews that non-Jews should be able to study the Torah unless they actually want to convert to Judaism--and I mean genuinely convert as opposed to converting only for economic reasons or whatever.

Frankly, one world is VERY dangerous due to the risk of global tyranny. No exit options!

Exit options are absolutely crucial since that way people who don't like just how they are governed could move somewhere better. I don't believe that everyone should automatically be able to move to their desired country, but I do believe that everyone should be able to move *somewhere* else.

But even for people who don't actually have an adult lover, we don't actually deny them sex dolls in other cases--for instance, if their sexual orientation is normal but they simply can't find a willing sex partner. Such people have easy access to sex dolls and yet no one is worried about them ever raping anyone.

TBF, though, one could have an actual lover and yet use fake porn or dolls on the side--if, for instance, one is attracted to adults but also has a pedophilia fetish that they can't quench short of some kind of action, even if it's (thankfully) to harmless simulated acts as opposed to extremely harmful real ones.

As for couples who engage in such taboo-violating being secretive about this, maybe--possibly. But they're still not going to get arrested or even fired if someone else actually finds out about this, are they?

As for the bodies being adult, Yes, but please keep in mind that there could be cases of adults having childlike appearances; for instance, an 18-year-old looking like they're 12 (though this would probably be easier if one is female). Or adult people who have a cherubic appearance:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherub

Really, if an adult is short, has no or very small breasts, has little or no body hair and facial hair, and has youthful, androgynous features, then they could simulate some or even many of the elements of children that pedophiles find attractive. For instance, adults with a cherubic appearance, as I mentioned above.

As for the verbal aspect, I'm not sure that you could actually guarantee that. If two consenting adults will engage in a sexual roleplaying fantasy that simulates child *abuse* in particular, for instance, then the language would probably be astronomically harsher than in Lolita. It could also involve things such as simulated gagging and simulated choking and whatnot. Really quite gruesome stuff.

(No, I am NOT speaking from personal experience here, thankfully!)

Anyone?

I doubt that it would be very politically correct to try testing for biological explanations for this, which is why to my knowledge no one is actually doing this. It's similar to the race and IQ debate. Since genetic explanations for average racial and ethnic IQ gaps are taboo, extremely few people actually want to do research on them for fear of what they might discover. Environmentalist James Flynn himself pointed this out.

"because 'the never-to-be-conceived person' fails to denote anything."

What makes you say that?

For what it's worth, there is Don Marquis's future of value argument in regards to abortion. I think that it's overly ambitious in its scope, but one could view it as an argument in favor of prenatal personhood even for non-sentient prenates.

But of course I am highly uneasy about the future of value argument because anti-abortion people only apply it to existing organisms--not to organisms who don't actually exist yet. In other words, refusing to conceive someone and thus depriving this person of a future of value is perfectly acceptable; it's only when someone is already conceived and deprived of a future of value that they are actually being wronged. I'm not sure just how exactly one should square this circle. I mean, one could imagine there to be a case where it is wrong to refuse to conceive someone--for instance, if someone asks you to be their sperm donor, where you have ironclad legal guarantees that you will never be hunted down for child support afterwards, and where this other person says that they will never have any biological children if they can't have them with you, then I would indeed think that it would be morally wrong for you to refuse to donate your sperm to this person and thus allow them to conceive and create a new life. But this is a pretty exceptional case, IMHO.

Yes, actually you should. If a particular human will never actually exceed an ape in intelligence, then that's an argument in favor of treating this ape no worse than one would treat this human.

FWIW, in their book "Beating Hearts", Michael Dorf and his wife Sherry Kolb brought up the endowment principle to differentiate someone who is temporarily comatose or, in their specific example, someone who is temporarily frozen as a result of a skiing accident, such as Anna Bagenholm. Basically, since such individuals possessed sentience in the past and will possess it in the future, it would be wrong to deprive them of sentience because you're depriving them of something that they already had as opposed to of something that they never had. But of course I subsequently proposed this hypothetical scenario to Professor Dorf in an e-mail:

Let's say that you press a magic button that creates a frozen person with no memories and no past history in a physical condition similar to that of Anna Bagenholm back when she was frozen. In such a scenario, would this frozen person actually have a right to life? Should one actually have a moral duty to save their life, or would refusing to help them be comparable to refusing to conceive someone in the first place? After all, such a frozen person, in spite of them looking like an ordinary person, never actually had sentience to begin with but could acquire sentience if they will indeed be unfrozen in time.

There is of course also the bodily autonomy argument, but that's only relevant if one grants prenatal personhood.

Forgiveness is for those who ask for it and who genuinely want it, no?

AFAIK, black females are on average more crime-prone than females of other races are. Do black females on average have more testosterone, or what? Serious question, BTW.

Can't it be both transmitted AND innate? For instance, theoretically, some white person could become a racist by reading about black crime, black dysfunction, et cetera, and the reason that they would get this reaction from reading about these things would likely be due to their genes (or, alternatively, some other element of their biology). But if the situation in regards to blacks would have been significantly different--think Wakanda, for instance, but over here in the US--then such a person would have the same genes but would still have a very different experience with blacks and thus a very different reaction to blacks and very different views about blacks than they would have actually had in real life.

Does that make sense?

Technically speaking, the murder wouldn't be excused. The person would still be incarcerated. But they would be spared execution.

Castration could solve this problem quite nicely.

These two blog posts might be of interest to people here:

https://jaymans.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/what-if-its-not-their-fault-the-myth-of-free-will/

https://jaymans.wordpress.com/2013/09/25/no-you-dont-have-free-will-and-this-is-why/