Will Wilkinson - Latest Comments in How to Be Grotesquely Reductionist and Utilitarian about Human Love and Life

Re: How to Be Grotesquely Reductionist and Utilitarian about Human Love and Life

TGGP — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 20:21:54 -0000

Re: How to Be Grotesquely Reductionist and Utilitarian about Human Love and Life

"Q" the Enchanter — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 18:47:32 -0000

"Since I have no easy access to women who sell sex, will you share my life so I can use you for sex?"

Is that line from the Church-approved edition of The Game?

Re: How to Be Grotesquely Reductionist and Utilitarian about Human Love and Life

blah — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:39:29 -0000

Will, slinging around the word "grotesque" while calling for the legalization of prostitution is kind of an own goal.

Re: How to Be Grotesquely Reductionist and Utilitarian about Human Love and Life

josh — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:29:35 -0000

"they were written with more than the goal of reducing the numbers of poor, fatherless children. No, they are there to protect the future."

For an exploration on the efficacy of anti-prostitution laws on meeting these stated goals see Malthus, Thomas R.

Re: How to Be Grotesquely Reductionist and Utilitarian about Human Love and Life

Matt McIntosh — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 10:31:34 -0000

You should ask him what he thinks of cloning yourself instead of having children and watch the smoke pour out of his ears.

Re: How to Be Grotesquely Reductionist and Utilitarian about Human Love and Life

Michael W — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 10:03:15 -0000

Thanks for describing exactly why I believe Christianity and Islam should be relegated to the past. If you live as the proponents of those religions preach, you exist only to prepare yourself for your life in heaven, the 'hell' with everything in the here and now, thus the justification for our continued willful injustices on the poor and the propagation of war. It all just doesn't matter since we're going to heaven anyway -- as long as we admit we're flawed.
I, like Will, am making the most of this life everyday and I remember that my actions do have consequences on the quality of my life in the future and the quality of life for others (an instinctively moral concept devoid of religious pretense). Oh, I do have a son, and I teach him to do the same thing.

Re: How to Be Grotesquely Reductionist and Utilitarian about Human Love and Life

Robert — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 08:53:48 -0000

Our lives are for our living. Our duty is to treat one another as free and equal persons, as ends in themselves, which means we are duty-bound not to use people and their lives for purposes not their own.

Amen, brother Will.

Re: How to Be Grotesquely Reductionist and Utilitarian about Human Love and Life

Slocum — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:57:49 -0000

"This isn’t rocket science; men with easy access to prostitution or to promiscuous women have little incentive to marry."

Nonsense. Even considering humans only as 'biological types', this is nonsense. The children of prostitutes, or even the children of promiscuous, single mothers are not notably successful in modern society, nor have they been historically. Men have a strong incentive to marry a high-quality woman and invest in both her and their children. And, BTW, the investment in families is driven by love -- loving spouses and children is something we're 'designed' to do, not something we do in spite of our biology.

But, of course, that does not necessarily mean monogamy -- in addition to the above, there is also a biological incentive for additional sex on the side. And that is the Eliot Spitzer pattern.

Re: How to Be Grotesquely Reductionist and Utilitarian about Human Love and Life

GilM — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 02:10:33 -0000

Banning prostitution seems like a pretty indirect and inefficient way to use coercion to promote procreation.

Can't we simplify things and just herd people into reproduction camps?

Re: How to Be Grotesquely Reductionist and Utilitarian about Human Love and Life

shecky — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 00:02:41 -0000

It's interesting that the ban on prostitution has made the practice extinct where I live. My future, and ours, is thus protected!

And certainly, if the ban were lifted, I wouldn't be able to keep myself from buying sexual services from these women. It's important that our society protects me from myself in this way.

Re: How to Be Grotesquely Reductionist and Utilitarian about Human Love and Life

Kevin B. O'Reilly — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 23:39:08 -0000

Still waiting on your defense of browsing the Craigslist "M4T" listings "just for fun."

Obligatory: 8-)