"As always, pedophilia is not the same as ephebophilia." - Eliezer Yudkowsky, actual quote

As the old adage goes, a libertarian is someone who knows the price of everything, the value of nothing, and the age of consent in every jurisdiction

Feynman had a story about trying to read somebody's paper before a grand interdisciplinary symposium. As he told it, he couldn't get through the jargon, until he stopped and tried to translate just one sentence. He landed on a line like, "The individual member of the social community often receives information through visual, symbolic channels." And after a lot of crossing-out, he reduced that to "People read."

Yud, who idolizes Feynman above all others:

I also remark that the human equivalent of a utility function, not that we actually have one, often revolves around desires whose frustration produces pain.

Ah. People don't like to hurt.

holy fuck the number of people telling on themselves in that thread

No, he terminally values being attracted to children. He could still assign a strongly negative value to actually having sex with children. Good fantasy, bad reality.

So the said forces of normatively dimensioned magic transformed the second pedophile's body into that of a little girl, delivered to the first pedophile along with the equivalent of an explanatory placard. Problem solved.

please stop disguising your weird fucking sexual roleplay (at best, but let’s be honest, these weird fuckers need to imagine a world in which pedophilia is morally justified) as intellectual debate

The problem is solved by pairing those who wish to live longer at personal cost to themselves with virtuous pedophiles. The pedophiles get to have consensual intercourse with children capable of giving informed consent, and people willing to get turned into a child and get molested by a pedophile in return for being younger get that.

this one gets worse the longer you think about it! try it! there’s so much wrong!

"Child sexual abuse is at the same time an appropriate reward for a virtuous person, and an appropriate punishment for an evil person." — Eliezer Yudkowsky, our best hope for solving ethics

edit: what the fuck is that thought experiment he's responding to, even. are those terminal morons unquestioningly assuming a harmful and immoral fetish could validly be considered a "terminal value"? jesus christ

It's gotta be a rule that nothing earns you more clout with internet weirdos than defending pedophiles/ephlehebbleleoflphiles

Problem solved

Uggh this is some seriously fucked up creepy shit. I had more to say but I can't put it into words or joke about this without seeing red. Just gah, I'm gonna go take a shower.

Another reminder that he is a libertarian.

"As always, pedophilia is not the same as ephebophilia."

That's correct, but as we all know, people don't say things that are true just because they are true. Otherwise we would be walking around quoting Wikipedia at random for most of the day.

We actually say things because we want to do something.

Edit: Ok now I actually read what he wrote and it makes no sense

Wat

Then entire weirdness of this all aside, the older a person gets the more likely they'll be seen as attractive by the general population. You don't suddenly become sexually attractive once you reach the age of consent.

My personal belief is that most pedophiles can be put into two groups:

Those developmentally stunted, who can't see themselves as adults and therefore lust for people of their own 'mental age'.

And those who have a thing for power, and having an erection over controlling a minor, guiding them through everything and having full control over them.

There may be a third option - these people who try hard to argue that pedophilia and ephebophilia aren't the same thing, but I just write them off as idiots.