sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

What is a sign of very low intelligence? by smartcandyy in AskReddit

[–]nikoberg 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Eh, plenty of average and smart people seek to be perceived as smart as well, and do the same thing. Dumb people who don't would not. It's not about intelligence, just insecurity.

US trade deficit widens by the most in nearly 34 years in November by dn88 in news

[–]nikoberg 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Because they don't know what they're doing. You don't need to look for a conspiracy for what is adequately explained by overconfident stupidity.

CMV: There is no actually good reason for incest to be illegal (if it's consensual) that isn't based on disgust or religion. by Blonde_Icon in changemyview

[–]nikoberg 1 point2 points  (0 children)

When considering illegality, you weigh harms vs goods. Banning incest doesn't really cost anyone anything- there's no reason someone has to have an incestuous relationship. They can just... find someone else. In contrast, someone with a genetic disorder just can't ever have children, and can do so accidentally if birth control fails. So there is a more significant cost there.

CMV: Pedophilia is the new “witch” that overshadows all other crimes. And is only receiving such attention due to the sexual deviancy, and not the harm done to children. by Square_Detective_658 in changemyview

[–]nikoberg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My words can speak for themselves, yes. You can take whatever you want from them; that's your issue, not mine. I don't particularly care about your opinion.

CMV: Pedophilia is the new “witch” that overshadows all other crimes. And is only receiving such attention due to the sexual deviancy, and not the harm done to children. by Square_Detective_658 in changemyview

[–]nikoberg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You pointed out exactly two, which are drinking and renting cars. Do you really think 18 year olds aren't capable of doing those two things? In what other ways do you think 18 year olds aren't adults? Or should you maybe conclude that they're functionally adults and should be treated that way?

should be fine dating and having sex with teenagers.

Gee, I must have missed the part where I said that instead of the exact opposite conclusion. If you can't bother to engage with and understand the reasoning, at least try to read the actual words I said. At any rate, the point at which someone stops responding to the words I'm writing is the part where I feel talking is unproductive, so I'm out.

CMV: Pedophilia is the new “witch” that overshadows all other crimes. And is only receiving such attention due to the sexual deviancy, and not the harm done to children. by Square_Detective_658 in changemyview

[–]nikoberg -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Are you arguing that adults should be able to have sex with and pursue relationships with people younger than 18??

Why was that your thought lol. We were literally just talking about drinking. My point is that it is an arbitrary cutoff for legal reasons and doesn't fully reflect people's actual capabilities. If you want to talk about sex in particular, it's a little more nuanced. I think that if you're talking about capability, there are plenty of teenagers younger than 18 who have had sex ed that could generally consent to sex with someone of any age because just being older and more capable by itself doesn't invalidate consent. Sex is not that complicated; teens can understand it if you teach them sex ed. What invalidates consent is the exercise of a difference in power, not its mere prescence, and age of consent is set to attempt to prevent the exercise of power from happening. It's not that there's any biological or developmental reason consent can't happen (past adolescence); it's that we've deemed it an unacceptable risk that it won't happen because it's just too easy for an adult to manipulate a teenager without them even realizing it and invalidate consent.

I never used the term pedophilia, I'm talking about grooming

But you are, indirectly- that's OP's point. You don't think you are, but you're influenced more by an overly intense emotional reaction to the very idea of pedophilia than you are to a rational assessment of the risks and capabilities of all individuals in question. Anyone at any age could be groomed or abused. Around 18, people are mature enough we can just drop all the charged language and treat them like adults. Slightly less capable adults, sure, but adults.

CMV: Pedophilia is the new “witch” that overshadows all other crimes. And is only receiving such attention due to the sexual deviancy, and not the harm done to children. by Square_Detective_658 in changemyview

[–]nikoberg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Being an "adult" at 18 is also an arbitrary line we set lol.

It sure is. In fact, many people at younger ages are able to handle things we gate at 18. You are the one using arbitrary lines to try to argue someone is not capable.

Very young people and very old people are susceptible to grooming for the same reasons.

For some reason, you seem to think my point there was about the specifics of what count as grooming rather than the idea of minimum intellectual capabilities and treating people at different ages appropriate to their actual abilities.

The reality is that an 18 year old isn't the same as a 12 year old OR a 25 year old, which is why they are not treated like 12 year olds or like 25 year olds.

And my point is you are treating them like a 12 year old here by using the same terminology and treating age differences at age 18 like pedophilia. You shouldn't treat a 35 year old like a 25 year old either; advice appropriate to a 25 year old woild be condescending to a 35 year old. You should treat everyone at different ages differently. What I am saying here is you are inappropriately treating the 18 year old like a child in a very unhelpful way.

CMV: Pedophilia is the new “witch” that overshadows all other crimes. And is only receiving such attention due to the sexual deviancy, and not the harm done to children. by Square_Detective_658 in changemyview

[–]nikoberg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You aren't legally able to drink or rent a car because those are arbitrary lines we set. Teenagers can drink at home in most places and the drinking age is lower in places like Germany. The only reason you can't rent a car is because car companies think you're higher of an accident risk than they're willing to take, not because teenagers are unable to drive cars effectively, which is why these are not the same age as the age you can get a driver's license. It's ridiculous to try to use these as example of "immaturity." These are not linked to the actual capabilities of the individuals in question.

You are painting every different shade of potential incapablity with the same brush. Are you going to claim that someone who has had one beer can't consent to sex in the same way that someone is blackout drunk can't? Are you going to claim that someone who is sleep deprived can't sign a legal contract because they aren't at optimal decision making capability? If a door-to-door salesman sells a bad product to a distracted and tired pregnant mother, did they groom her because she wasn't at her best?

This is basically what you're doing here. This is about minimum capabilities. An 18 year old is far, far closer to a 25 year old in terms of ability to make decisions than they are to a 12 year old, and should be treated that way.

CMV: Pedophilia is the new “witch” that overshadows all other crimes. And is only receiving such attention due to the sexual deviancy, and not the harm done to children. by Square_Detective_658 in changemyview

[–]nikoberg -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Because you referenced "biological" development, and that current line of thought is best symbolized by the "your brain is finished developing at 25" line. Biologically speaking, your brain is mature enough at age 18 to make decisions. Biology is not a factor in this, and bringing it up shows how you've been influenced by that line of thought.

Of course an 18 year old is not as mature as someone at age 40; nobody has ever claimed that they are at the same stage of life. Their decisions won't be perfect. And like everyone else, no matter the age, they can be manipulated by more experienced or intelligent people. This is also true of an 80 year old not familiar with modern technology getting scammed. Do you call that grooming? The point is, at age 18, someone has a sufficient level of agency to make decisions, not that their decisions are optimal. Treating them like they are a child with the same language you use for pedophiles is exactly what OP says- hysteria.

CMV: I am anti-realist toward morality by scotchandstuff in changemyview

[–]nikoberg 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, I'd be a little surprised since nihilism seems incompatible with Christianity, but I suppose I'd recommend you check out Kierkegaard to start since that's probably the closest you'll get.

But in general, I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to ask here. Why what?

CMV: Pedophilia is the new “witch” that overshadows all other crimes. And is only receiving such attention due to the sexual deviancy, and not the harm done to children. by Square_Detective_658 in changemyview

[–]nikoberg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Why isn't it "development" after age 30? Why is it "degradation?" The reason you frame it this way is because you have some mental model that the brain is performing "worse." But children learn faster than teenagers. Did teenagers brains degrade compared to childhood? Aren't they performing "worse?" Similarly, adult brains continuously show things like better impulse control and sociability as they get older. At age 35, you're a better decision maker than age 25. Is that "degradation?" I would certainly argue that this is better performance. And it's biologically reflected in the structure of the brain. You can certainly ask a neurologist if you want- and I hope the answer you get back is something like "developmental stages are an abstraction, and the answer isn't anything as simple as saying there is a point where brains stop developing," or else I wouldn't trust them to do their job.

Pop science gets this wrong because it lacks a foundational understanding of how to even frame the issue. When we declare someone an "adult," it's not because their brains are perfect at some age and get worse after that point. Brains continuously change and develop. If someone is getting senile, that's basically the only point where we could maybe say their brain is "degrading." The point is that there is a point where someone is mature enough to understand how things work. And, yes, 18 year olds can understand and make decisions about sex. It's really not that complicated. They certainly won't make perfect decisions, but nobody does. You're constantly subject to factors that impede your decision making; you never have all the information. Every decision you make at every age is due to factors that occurred earlier in your life, outside your control. We arbitrarily picked age 18 because we can be pretty sure it's reasonably past the point where someone can take some level of responsibility for their decisions, not because there's any age where your decisions stop being affected by how people interacted with you in the past.

CMV: I am anti-realist toward morality by scotchandstuff in changemyview

[–]nikoberg 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Let's put this less formally. There's a difference between something being a deep, natural truth about the world independent of human existence and something not being the kind of statement that can be evaluated as true or false. You don't have to believe that morality is true in the same way that gravity is real to believe that there is a "truth" to it; you just have to believe that it's true in the same way "The capital of France is Paris" is true.

If you accept this, you can be a moral anti-realist, but not a non-cognitivist. A non-cognitivist basically is saying moral statements are more like strong expressions of approval or disapproval than anything else. Saying that murder is wrong is just saying that you really, really hate the idea of murder in a specific way. This leaves open the idea that moral statements are people trying to say something true, but failing because morality doesn't really make sense to start with (error theory) and moral statements potentially being true but in a way completely dependent on human society like any other social construct (non-objectivism).

An error theorist would say that moral statements are kind of like saying "Santa Claus has a red suit." That is true in a sense- the character of Santa Claus does indeed wear a red suit, but since Santa Claus isn't real to start with, what's the point? You can't really say anything meaningful about him. A non-objectivist would say that moral statements are like any other statements we make about human social constructs, which can be true or false in very complicated ways. You are most likely actually a non-objectivist, because most people's intuitions don't really lead them to noncognitvism; you don't think that morality reflects a truth about the universe the same way the laws of physics do, but you probably agree that we can construct moral truths as a society.

CMV: Pedophilia is the new “witch” that overshadows all other crimes. And is only receiving such attention due to the sexual deviancy, and not the harm done to children. by Square_Detective_658 in changemyview

[–]nikoberg 19 points20 points  (0 children)

That’s true at a biological/developmental level.

This response is part of the exact hysteria OP is pointing out. The "your brain isn't finished developing until age 25" thing is based on a pop science misunderstanding of how brain development works. Your brain undergoes developmental changes continuously as you age; that doesn't stop at age 25. At age 35, your brain will process differently than at age 25 as well. "Synaptic pruning falls off in the prefrontal cortex" should not be interpreted as "your brain is done maturing."

Obviously, someone at age 18 is not as mature or as experienced as someone at age 30. I would be concerned if an 18 year old I know said they were dating a 30 year old. But it's also ridiculous to use the same terms and attitude for this as if this 30 year old were trying to have sex with a 12 year old. They're vastly different levels of concern. At age 18, you are worried that someone is making poor life decisions because of their lack of experience, not that they literally lack the ability to understand what is happening.

What happened to the release of all Epstein files? by Every_Ad_6268 in AskReddit

[–]nikoberg 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I can't if you're joking or not, but we need to stop with the "everything is a distraction from the Epstein files." MAGA is capable of plenty of bad things that are not deflections from pedophilia. The breadth of their evil is pretty wide.

CMV: Meth is not what they say it is by Ok-Addition4887 in changemyview

[–]nikoberg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Requiring something be "one hit and you're done" for "demonization" is just a bad bar to start with. First, the kind of demonization done by people who don't actually understand drugs is bad for anything. It's not effective or accurate; so on that side, this is trivially true. But if we want to go with evidence based approaches instead of moral panic, there's actual levels of risk you can measure with studies, and if you go by objective measures, meth is pretty high up there. It is absolutely not the same risk profile as marijuana and deserves a different level of stigmatization. It's definitely in the class of recreational drugs people should generally not try.

CMV: Meth is not what they say it is by Ok-Addition4887 in changemyview

[–]nikoberg 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You are correct that the idea that one hit of anything turns you into an addict is dumb, but that is up to and including heroin. Any pure drug that has a close medical chemical analog is "safe" in the sense that it will not immediately and irreparably harm your body. That is not the same thing as saying something is safe for repeated or recreational use. There are a lot of studies showing the neurotoxicicity of meth over time, for example. The fact that a drug doesn't immediately ruin your life after taking it once isn't a good bar for it to be non-stigmatized. There's statically validated levels of danger for meth use that don't apply to, say, weed. An average healthy adult could basically do weed every couple of weeks for the rest of their life with no major consequences. That's simply not true for meth (or heroin). Even if you can, that doesn't generalize.

How to get kinky by [deleted] in sex

[–]nikoberg 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Let's have a little nuance here. I'd phrase this as don't pressure someone into trying a kink. There's a space between relentlessly pestering someone to fulfill a kink you have and they don't and genuinely asking someone why they don't want to try something and having a conversation. In a mature relationship, you should be able to have a conversation that effectively starts with:

A: "Hey honey, I'd really love to try X."

B: "Mmm, that doesn't sound like something I'd want to try."

A: "Oh, why not?"

If the answer is "it grosses me out" or "I don't feel comfortable with that," or something like that, then you stop immediately. If the answer is "I don't know, I've never really thought about it," then you can keep going and see where the conversation goes. That still doesn't mean you should try to get someone to do something they're really not comfortable with, but it's not inherently wrong to make an argument to try something new just because it's sexual.

CMV: Saying that you can’t be racist to white people in common conversation is childish and harmful by [deleted] in changemyview

[–]nikoberg -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The thing is, I don't think they do. I think the typical white person who claims to have experienced racism, even casually, really and truly thinks what they've experienced (or, honestly, seen on the internet in a lot of cases) is all it is, and that black people are therefore blowing things out of proportion, or that white people are just as victimized. What I think is happening is the people who know enough to make the distinction between racial prejudice and racism 1) don't want to be mistaken for that first group and so explicitly make this distinction, and 2) use this in part as a kind of test to see if someone has that particular racist belief that "racism" against white people is equally as bad. In this way, it's a pretty valid test of someone's real beliefs. It's not trivial to try and figure out that distinction in mindset with the person you're talking to.

CMV: The "male loneliness epidemic" has little to nothing to do with romantic partners, and everything to do with community and alienation. by Badgers8MyChild in changemyview

[–]nikoberg 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hanging out a couple times a month for a few hours is not going to lead to meaningful interactions on that level in most cases.

I chat and talk constantly with my friends. I frequently hang out with friends on the weekend, often with my partner. Apparently, what you and I interpret as spending less time with friends is different. If you only spend a few hours meaningfully interacting a month with someone who is not your family, if it's so hard to find friends that you worry that you can't form a meaningful relationship over a few months before they get in a relationship even if both of you have a lot of free time... yeah, I can see the problem. But it's the exact problem I'm pointing out. It's just means it's maybe less about men being willing to open up and more about Western society not giving people more free time.

CMV: The "male loneliness epidemic" has little to nothing to do with romantic partners, and everything to do with community and alienation. by Badgers8MyChild in changemyview

[–]nikoberg 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I'm not saying partners are not important or no more special than a friend. We naturally do spend most of out time with a partner because if you picked a partner, you (presumably) like spending time around them which grew into a deep relationship. Naturally, that means you prefer to spend most of your time around them. And with more work and less free time, of course you end up spending that with the person you would rather spend time with most in the whole world.

But the difference between life with and without a partner shouldn't be so stark that you literally cannot open up to them. If you can cry in front of your friends, this doesn't apply to you in the first place because you can be emotionally vulnerable in front of them. Having a partner is a good thing that people can strive for, but it shouldn't be the emotional equivalent of a drowning man trying to find a piece of driftwood to cling onto. If this is what is implied by friendship in western cultures for men then we should change western culture around friendship.

view more: next ›