tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post243143962824892941..comments2024-03-27T18:24:19.683-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: Hooray for Steven LevittUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger76125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-14610748933404093902011-05-23T13:07:04.965-07:002011-05-23T13:07:04.965-07:00My wife is a modern, strong, "independent wom...My wife is a modern, strong, "independent woman. She's empowered. Which means I'm not sure if my daughter is really my daughter. Which means I don't care much what she does. Regardless of what I do, she'll probably be a ho like her mother. Oh, well."<br /><br />Strong an empowered equates to "ho" for you? Your daughter (or whoever's she is) is probably better off without your concern.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-8477019060530569862011-05-21T21:59:36.908-07:002011-05-21T21:59:36.908-07:00Just because we don't like something doesn'...Just because we don't like something doesn't mean it is a good idea to outlaw it. Prohibitory laws tend to backfire. When things like drugs, prostitution, and gambling are made illegal, they do not disappear, they just go underground, which creates worse problems.<br /><br />Suppose that despite your best parenting efforts your daughter decided to become a prostitute. (Yes, it happens.) Would you rather have her work in a safe, clean legal brothel, or out on the street where she would be exposed to much more danger? <br /><br />Hard drugs are bad, but banning them leads to worse things: a much higher crime rate, huge profits for criminal cartels, corruption of law enforcement, etc. And the government's efforts to control these secondary problems are turning the country into a police state. A better approach would be to legalize it, and regulate it. <br /><br />As rational thinkers, we need to realize that we do not live in an ideal world, and that wise policy consists of choosing the least-bad option rather than holding out for an unattainable ideal.Frank N. Steinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-9864375746227228992011-05-21T08:16:23.912-07:002011-05-21T08:16:23.912-07:00"Your comments about drug abusers are just as...<i>"Your comments about drug abusers are just as true for alcoholics in many cases. You think there are no winos living on our streets with ruined lives."</i><br /><br />Don't put words in my mouth. Drugs and prostitution were the two examples given in the comment to which I responded. That's why I didn't mention alcohol.<br /><br /><i>"How is banning alcohol the answer?"</i><br /><br />Who said anything about banning alcohol? I certainly didn't. In any case, your dragging alcohol into a discussion of illegal drugs is disingenuous and just plain ignorant. Alcohol in moderate quantities has demonstrable medical benefits. Also, unlike the so-called hard drugs, it's not addictive to most people who consume it regularly. It's actually extremely hard to become physically addicted to alcohol. I forget the exact stats but only about 10% of those who drink alcohol regularly become drunks. That's certainly not true for regular users of heroin, cocaine, etc. <br /><br /><i>"Banning drugs doesn't work."</i> <br /><br />If you mean a half-assed "war on drugs", you're right. <br /><br /><i>"In a free country people are not going to stop doing something just because social engineering zealots like you want them."</i><br /><br />I never said they would. In fact, I never said any of the things you ascribe to me.<br /><br />I don't know if you made that first comment I replied to but your comment is just as ignorant as that one was. Either you're very consistent or you have lots of company.Kylienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-16538921881847397852011-05-21T04:56:54.436-07:002011-05-21T04:56:54.436-07:00When prostitution is outlawed, only politicians wi...When prostitution is outlawed, only politicians will have prostitutes.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-30839204800173446552011-05-21T04:54:10.467-07:002011-05-21T04:54:10.467-07:00I wouldn't want my daughter to become a lawyer...I wouldn't want my daughter to become a lawyer or politician, either. Does that mean we should outlaw lawyers and politicians?Stannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-74132522481069473042011-05-21T04:52:47.742-07:002011-05-21T04:52:47.742-07:00We have legalized prostitution already. It's ...We have legalized prostitution already. It's called politics.LBKnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-77606234567139309152011-05-21T04:01:02.238-07:002011-05-21T04:01:02.238-07:00My wife is a modern, strong, independent woman. S...My wife is a modern, strong, independent woman. She's empowered. Which means I'm not sure if my daughter is really my daughter. Which means I don't care much what she does. Regardless of what I do, she'll probably be a ho like her mother. Oh, well.Jasonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-61211861187210175162011-05-21T03:52:19.940-07:002011-05-21T03:52:19.940-07:00We have legal prostitution now. It's called &...We have legal prostitution now. It's called "marriage".LBKnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-30921782362648547952011-05-21T03:51:15.602-07:002011-05-21T03:51:15.602-07:00If your descendants are mixed race, would you stil...If your descendants are mixed race, would you still consider them part of your "posterity"?Stannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-76645998597515356502011-05-20T22:14:13.109-07:002011-05-20T22:14:13.109-07:00Reply to Kylie:
Your comments about drug abusers ...Reply to Kylie:<br /><br />Your comments about drug abusers are just as true for alcoholics in many cases. You think there are no winos living on our streets with ruined lives. How is banning alcohol the answer? Banning drugs doesn't work. In a free country people are not going to stop doing something just because social engineering zealots like you want them to.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-6707701989869155782011-05-20T13:36:54.191-07:002011-05-20T13:36:54.191-07:00anon,
"I didn't even mention though, wha...anon,<br /><br />"I didn't even mention though, what immigration has to do with this I'm sure you'll explain to me."<br /><br />Read the original post again.Wandrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-67243645018669350982011-05-20T08:13:15.840-07:002011-05-20T08:13:15.840-07:00"Should something be illegal? Well, if my cou...<i>"Should something be illegal? Well, if my cousin did it, would I want him or her to go to jail?<br />Drugs? No.<br />Prostitution? No."</i><br /><br />I'm guessing that you've never lived in a neighborhood in which illegal drug use and prostitution are routine features of daily life (for which people are seldom arrested since the police are busy with more serious crimes).<br /><br /><i>"The extended family can help them out, and sticking them in prison isn't going to do that."</i><br /><br />I have never known a drug addict to get cleaned up with help from his or her extended family (including help in the form of paying for rehab). The ones I know who got clean and stayed clean for an appreciable amount of time did so as a result of stints in jail.<br /><br />I have seen families searching the streets, looking for an addicted family member in order to help him or her. In every case I can recall, the wayward addict actually hid from family because s/he preferred a life of addiction on the streets to a clean life in the bosom of his or her family or defiantly met the family and refused to budge. In every case (involving both blacks and whites), the families seemed genuinely stable and sincerely nice. They were at the very least truly concerned to have left their comfy middle-class environments to search for their kin in such a seedy locale.<br /><br />Next time, try commenting on something about which you are not entirely ignorant.Kylienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-45632597887881378282011-05-20T05:07:44.218-07:002011-05-20T05:07:44.218-07:00Yes, it's just not safe.
It's not even sa...Yes, it's just not safe.<br /><br />It's not even safe to go out your front door, and yet you IDIOTS want to allow people to open the doors to their own minds!?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-66996435058383706292011-05-19T20:18:59.041-07:002011-05-19T20:18:59.041-07:00You idiots [and yes, Komment Kontrol, I meant to u...You idiots [and yes, Komment Kontrol, I meant to use the word <b>IDIOTS</b>] need to google <a href="http://www.google.com/search?safe=off&&q=schizophrenia+marijuana" rel="nofollow">schizophrenia + marijuana</a>.<br /><br />No one who has had to suffer through any intimate interaction with mental illness could possible be in favor of legalized pot.<br /><br />It's insanity.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-62907815474937526052011-05-19T15:18:20.903-07:002011-05-19T15:18:20.903-07:00"..most post-baby boomers selfish assholes wo..."..most post-baby boomers selfish assholes would rather have access to their pot then realize the social costs"...<br /><br />Yeah like what, Mr reefer madness?<br /><br />What "social costs"? The worst thing I ever did after smoking pot was get really hungry. I once ate a whole pizza all by myself. I would say the "social costs" of banning Marijuana are far worse then legalizing it - like just for starters making users "criminals" and giving billions to the drug cartels, as we gave billions to the "alcohol cartels" (the mafia) when we stupidly banned booze in the 20's.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-81362205304809324042011-05-19T14:21:07.466-07:002011-05-19T14:21:07.466-07:00Anon 6:31PM:
So, when do you suppose we will be g...Anon 6:31PM:<br /><br />So, when do you suppose we will be getting a society that will support those laws? And what should we do till then? <br /><br />I have this really crazy idea. How about if we accept that adults get to make bad decisions about their own lives? And also that while we may try to put a lower bound on just *how* bad the decisions can be, that involves some pretty ugly tradeoffs?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-76129522516631898792011-05-19T13:25:44.785-07:002011-05-19T13:25:44.785-07:00I think in the most literal sense, we cannot have ...I think in the most literal sense, we cannot have laws based on 'what I don't want my daughter to do'. But moral sense is integral to good laws, and thinking about those close to us does highlight certain moral questions.<br />After all, when a man's daughter is raped or when his mother is stabbed to death, criminal laws are no longer about abstract principles but about REAL people. It comes home. Good laws seek the right balance between personal emotions and rational impersonality.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-1241275937373066152011-05-19T09:56:21.368-07:002011-05-19T09:56:21.368-07:00Svigor: Then...dispersing the addicts among the su...Svigor: <i>Then...dispersing the addicts among the suburban population via subsidized housing as the only way to break up the "concentrated addiction" and give the downtrodden some dignity...</i><br /><br />Well, personally I don't really see the benefits of that. But if you do, I suppose you're free to advocate that policy...RKUnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-24844037245229271332011-05-19T09:06:25.637-07:002011-05-19T09:06:25.637-07:00If an other person does not believe that even he h...If an other person does not believe that even he himself is and ought to be a rational agent of good will, how can that person be a member of the kingdom of ends?<br /><br />A materialist or a nihilist, does not believe he himself is or ought to be, a rational agent of good will.<br /><br />If they yet claim to know (how?) that you yourself are only an animal machine, behavior psychologically determined by masses, and that you do not deserve the rights and responsibilities of a free person.<br /><br />Then how can that person be afforded the universal and identical trust of a rational agent? In deed, in the world, you can predict what a Nazi under orders or a wild lion under instinct will do, only as far as you know who they are.Hieronymus Goathttp://hieronymusgoat.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-57112756483154110382011-05-19T07:26:06.722-07:002011-05-19T07:26:06.722-07:00"I think parents romanticise their daughters...."I think parents romanticise their daughters. I was watching a field hocky game at my daughter's private school and two middle school girls..." etc.<br /><br />Probably not as much as they romanticize their sons, although moms are more guilty of that..."she seduced my innocent boy...the sluttette." <br />Especially if she has no daughters herself.<br /><br />No, the reason we need to control adolescents is because both genders horny and curious without the common sense and foresight that is (supposed) to operate with adults. Their brains are still undeveloped and they cannot see consequences so well. Intellectually they may be able to tell you they do, but they don't.<br />Left to their own devices, they soak up the crudest common denominator because that is the nature of puberty. They need to be protected from themselves. I realize this because I once was a teenaged girl.little suzynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-82333652276180100152011-05-19T06:43:01.291-07:002011-05-19T06:43:01.291-07:00Steve's analysis overrates Levitt's thinki...Steve's analysis overrates Levitt's thinking by misstating the libertarian position and setting up the wrong sides in opposition.<br /><br />It's not Levitt's desire to keep his daughter off the pole vs. the desire of strangers to pay his daughter for sex. It's Levitt's desire to control his daughter vs. the desire of others to pay her for sex AND the adult daughter's desire to run her own life.<br /><br />And, yes, it's unsophisticated thinking on Levitt's part. You don't have to be all that sophisticated to realize that parents should not be able to use the force of the law to make kids do what they want after those kids are adults. (Presumably we're not talking about hypothetical laws that would allow 12-year-old daughters on the pole or the crack house.)<br /><br />If you're to make a good argument for banning either of those activities -- and I think you actually can make a decent case in both cases -- you've got to do better that "I want legal control over my kids forever." How many more nice Jewish boys would be forced into medicine and the law under this nightmare regime? Where would we get our stand-up comedians from?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-73254844072002842792011-05-19T06:13:08.050-07:002011-05-19T06:13:08.050-07:00Does Levitt want his daughter to be an alcoholic? ...<i>Does Levitt want his daughter to be an alcoholic? Should we thus ban alcohol?</i><br />again, please read up on Peter Hitchens.<br /><br />Smoking has been substantially reduced by social stigma + limiting access and raising prices. <br /><br />as for drug laws...<br />You need a willing society for these laws to work - most post baby boomer selfish assholes would rather have access to their pot than realize the social costs.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-11924642332290890852011-05-19T03:55:42.152-07:002011-05-19T03:55:42.152-07:00Virtuilitarianism ...
Maybe we need to write some...Virtuilitarianism ...<br /><br />Maybe we need to write something aimed at philosophers that argues against Kantian universalism when everybody else doesn't play by the rules of Kantian universalism. Then sit back and wait a couple of generations ...<br /><br />My natural tendency is to just try to make people aware of the facts and be funny about it and let people derive their own conclusions. But white people seem pretty incapable of grasping reality without a theory, so maybe I need to work top down, wrestle with the big theoreticians like Kant.Steve Sailerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11920109042402850214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-39879579838316817652011-05-19T03:44:51.590-07:002011-05-19T03:44:51.590-07:00We need a utilitarian philosophy that somehow impo...We need a utilitarian philosophy that somehow imposes a moral inflection on costs and benefits.<br /><br />Call it Virtulitatianism.jack strocchihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17534084770633227131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-62046347388229606862011-05-19T01:33:48.039-07:002011-05-19T01:33:48.039-07:00Would it kill you to use a comma?
Well, no, now t...<i>Would it kill you to use a comma?</i><br /><br />Well, no, now that you mention it, not really, I wouldn't think.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com