How about slavery? Should that be legal? Stealing food, medication? Age limits?
There are all sorts of things that are illegal which, in rare cases, would be better off being legal. But the legal system is a somewhat crude tool. Proponents of these laws would argue that in most cases, these options do more harm than good. Whether that’s true or not is an open question from what I can tell. Obviously if the scenarios you provide are representative then the answer is clear. But I’m not sure why we should assume that to be the case. Addiction and mental illness immediately come to mind when I think of the most probable reasons for people to decide to take these options.
I don’t want to live in a world where women have to prostitute themselves to afford rent. Have them be homeless until the homelessness situation becomes severe enough that we resolve it. Otherwise, IMO, we are just boiling the frog. There will be no protests, no riots, because selling our kidneys and having sex for rent is just enough for us to get by.
Maybe these options should be legal in developing countries. But in the developed world we can truly afford to avoid these scenarios for all mentally healthy and non-addicted individuals. So, let’s do that, rather than lowering our standards. If some portion of the population must suffer before we realize what we’re doing wrong, then that’s a price that needs to be paid.
The kinds of enslavement most people are familiar with is the enslavement of African-Americans. As far as I understand, they were originally enslaved as part of inter-tribal warfare and raids in Africa. This is a sort of force/expropriation, which seems distinct from the sorts of “bad options” talked about in the post, in that they aren’t really options, they are forced. Also, this kind of slavery has been exceptionally brutal compared to other kinds of slavery.
I’m not super familiar with other kinds of slavery historically. As I understand, it has often been debt slavery.
The numbers you find on the internet are that currently there are more slaves in the world than there were slaves in America at the time when all African-American were slaves.
Slavery and theft harm others, so they are not relevant here. Age limits would be the most relevant. We have age limits on certain things because we believe that regardless of whether they want to, underage people deciding to do those things is usually not in their best interest. Similarly, bans on sex for rent and kidney sale could be justified by the belief that regardless of whether they want to, people doing these things is usually not in their best interest. However, this is somewhat hard to back up: It’s pretty unclear whether prostitution or homelessness is worse, and it’s easy to think of situations where selling a kidney definitely would be worth it (like the one given in the post).
I don’t want to live in a world where women have to prostitute themselves to afford rent.
I don’t want to live in that world either, but banning sex for rent doesn’t resolve the issue. It just means we’ve gone from a world where women have to prostitute themselves to afford rent to a world where women just can’t afford rent, period.
Have them be homeless until the homelessness situation becomes severe enough that we resolve it. Otherwise, IMO, we are just boiling the frog. There will be no protests, no riots, because selling our kidneys and having sex for rent is just enough for us to get by.
You don’t think having to sell your kidneys and have sex for rent to get by is bad enough to get people to protest/riot?
Also, it seems like you’ve implicitly changed your position here. Previously, you said that when someone sells a kidney/trades sex for rent it would usually not be in their best interest, and that those options would usually only be taken under the influence of addiction or mental illness. Now, when you say that people would do those things “to get by” it sounds like you’re implying that these are rational choices that would be in peoples’ best interest given the bad situation, and would be taken by ordinary people. Which of these do you agree with?
Just so you know, there are a lot of people disagreeing with me on this page, and you are the only one I have downvoted. I’m surprised that someone who has been on LessWrong as long as you would engage in such blatant strawmanning. Slavery? Really?
Saying “It looks like your argument would also justify Terrible Thing X” is not (necessarily) strawmanning.
If people had the option to sell themselves into slavery, then some would take it, just as if people had the option to sell their kidneys, then some would take it.
So far as I can see, there is nothing in the OP that says “this business about taking away people’s least bad options only applies when that option isn’t too bad” or that gives any concrete reason why “don’t take away the option of selling yourself into slavery” would be wrong while “don’t take away the option of selling a kidney” is right.
How about slavery? Should that be legal? Stealing food, medication? Age limits?
There are all sorts of things that are illegal which, in rare cases, would be better off being legal. But the legal system is a somewhat crude tool. Proponents of these laws would argue that in most cases, these options do more harm than good. Whether that’s true or not is an open question from what I can tell. Obviously if the scenarios you provide are representative then the answer is clear. But I’m not sure why we should assume that to be the case. Addiction and mental illness immediately come to mind when I think of the most probable reasons for people to decide to take these options.
I don’t want to live in a world where women have to prostitute themselves to afford rent. Have them be homeless until the homelessness situation becomes severe enough that we resolve it. Otherwise, IMO, we are just boiling the frog. There will be no protests, no riots, because selling our kidneys and having sex for rent is just enough for us to get by.
Maybe these options should be legal in developing countries. But in the developed world we can truly afford to avoid these scenarios for all mentally healthy and non-addicted individuals. So, let’s do that, rather than lowering our standards. If some portion of the population must suffer before we realize what we’re doing wrong, then that’s a price that needs to be paid.
The kinds of enslavement most people are familiar with is the enslavement of African-Americans. As far as I understand, they were originally enslaved as part of inter-tribal warfare and raids in Africa. This is a sort of force/expropriation, which seems distinct from the sorts of “bad options” talked about in the post, in that they aren’t really options, they are forced. Also, this kind of slavery has been exceptionally brutal compared to other kinds of slavery.
I’m not super familiar with other kinds of slavery historically. As I understand, it has often been debt slavery.
The numbers you find on the internet are that currently there are more slaves in the world than there were slaves in America at the time when all African-American were slaves.
It’s not merely a historic problem.
Slavery and theft harm others, so they are not relevant here. Age limits would be the most relevant. We have age limits on certain things because we believe that regardless of whether they want to, underage people deciding to do those things is usually not in their best interest. Similarly, bans on sex for rent and kidney sale could be justified by the belief that regardless of whether they want to, people doing these things is usually not in their best interest. However, this is somewhat hard to back up: It’s pretty unclear whether prostitution or homelessness is worse, and it’s easy to think of situations where selling a kidney definitely would be worth it (like the one given in the post).
I don’t want to live in that world either, but banning sex for rent doesn’t resolve the issue. It just means we’ve gone from a world where women have to prostitute themselves to afford rent to a world where women just can’t afford rent, period.What I said here is wrong, see this comment
You don’t think having to sell your kidneys and have sex for rent to get by is bad enough to get people to protest/riot?
Also, it seems like you’ve implicitly changed your position here. Previously, you said that when someone sells a kidney/trades sex for rent it would usually not be in their best interest, and that those options would usually only be taken under the influence of addiction or mental illness. Now, when you say that people would do those things “to get by” it sounds like you’re implying that these are rational choices that would be in peoples’ best interest given the bad situation, and would be taken by ordinary people. Which of these do you agree with?
Just so you know, there are a lot of people disagreeing with me on this page, and you are the only one I have downvoted. I’m surprised that someone who has been on LessWrong as long as you would engage in such blatant strawmanning. Slavery? Really?
Saying “It looks like your argument would also justify Terrible Thing X” is not (necessarily) strawmanning.
If people had the option to sell themselves into slavery, then some would take it, just as if people had the option to sell their kidneys, then some would take it.
So far as I can see, there is nothing in the OP that says “this business about taking away people’s least bad options only applies when that option isn’t too bad” or that gives any concrete reason why “don’t take away the option of selling yourself into slavery” would be wrong while “don’t take away the option of selling a kidney” is right.