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Regarding your assumption: I have a family member who's a child psychologist specializing in abuse cases, and according to her the vast majority of those who co

Regarding your assumption: I have a family member who's a child psychologist specializing in abuse cases, and according to her the vast majority of those who consume CP have abused children. Hard numbers are hard to come by because of the illicit nature of pedophilia, but studies involving anonymous surveys (in which the individual's name is withheld and their answers can't be used against them by law enforcement) supports that.

InDubioProDubio 10y ago
According to her? Her!? And what would a woman have to lose, if there was a whole caste of psychologically outcasts to disappear? No social justice warriors and priests to be pressured into services with loaded husbands? Your expert is not neutral, this whole machinery that spawned her, heavily depends on all gears turning as they turn now. Which doesn't make the machinery bad, quite contrary. I support the upholding of pressure on pedophiles - it guarantees a sort of basic contract security, even if society would be near-collapses. In a era of total surveillance, their crime-rate is bound to drop to zero- but the continued exploit of thought-criminals is a necessary stabilizer. Viv la Leviathancybernetics!
wyager 10y ago
That sounds extremely vulnerable to selection bias. If she specializes in child abuse cases, obviously she's going to see more child abusers. People who own CP but don't abuse children would be unlikely to interact with her.
- openasocket 10y ago
  She didn't perform the study, she just told me what the literature says.
  - Pica_soO 10y ago
    Now that those "literature" correlates with my feelings, suddenly i can appreciate its self-evident scientific value. I wish there was a way to take back all those comments on psychology/sociology papers i posted on hacker news.
Lawtonfogle 10y ago
I don't buy it for a second. Instead, I think that those who use but don't physically touch an actual child are so unlikely to get caught, the numbers are horribly biased. To give some example numbers, say that 5% of those who view the material ever directly harm a child. And say that 100% of those who harm a child view the material. Now, say that 50% of those who harm a child get busted, but only 1% of those who don't get busted for viewing the material. The end result would be that of those caught about 5 of every 7 who viewed material harmed a child directly. Now, the numbers are made up, but there are many values that lead to a false conclusion if people only look at those caught.
- openasocket 10y ago
  Those surveys were of people convicted of possession of CP only.
  - Lawtonfogle 10y ago
    And how many charged with child molestation will have the police raid their homes and check their computers? How many will end up only being charged with child porn to spare the actual child the trauma of going through a case and how many times is there not enough evidence to convict for child molestation but there is plenty to convict for child porn?
    - openasocket 10y ago
      Admittedly, I don't have the study on me, so I can't confirm this. But I imagine the study would screen out anyone like that, that seems like a pretty obvious thing to do.
  - adrianratnapala 10y ago
    Yes but how do those convictions happen? If it comes from an interweb honeytrap, then it will give somewhat unbiased data. But I suspect a lot of people caught for possession are people at the fringes of a abuse case where the cops couldn't prove this individual actually abused someone, but could get them on the lesser crime.
ScottBurson 10y ago
Even if there's some truth in that -- and I agree with the others here who have pointed out the likelihood of selection bias -- it doesn't actually bear on the question of whether greater availability of CP makes the consumers more, or less, likely to abuse children. Supplying these people with computer-generated CP -- maybe even giving them some ability to generate scenarios to their liking -- might give them a way to release their urges in fantasy, reducing their desire to act them out. I know, it sounds disgusting. But if it turns out to actually work, I think we have to set our disgust aside. If not, well, back to the drawing board.

InDubioProDubio 10y ago

According to her? Her!? And what would a woman have to lose, if there was a whole caste of psychologically outcasts to disappear? No social justice warriors and priests to be pressured into services with loaded husbands? Your expert is not neutral, this whole machinery that spawned her, heavily depends on all gears turning as they turn now. Which doesn't make the machinery bad, quite contrary. I support the upholding of pressure on pedophiles - it guarantees a sort of basic contract security, even if society would be near-collapses. In a era of total surveillance, their crime-rate is bound to drop to zero- but the continued exploit of thought-criminals is a necessary stabilizer. Viv la Leviathancybernetics!

wyager 10y ago

That sounds extremely vulnerable to selection bias. If she specializes in child abuse cases, obviously she's going to see more child abusers. People who own CP but don't abuse children would be unlikely to interact with her.

openasocket 10y ago
She didn't perform the study, she just told me what the literature says.
- Pica_soO 10y ago
  Now that those "literature" correlates with my feelings, suddenly i can appreciate its self-evident scientific value. I wish there was a way to take back all those comments on psychology/sociology papers i posted on hacker news.

Lawtonfogle 10y ago

I don't buy it for a second. Instead, I think that those who use but don't physically touch an actual child are so unlikely to get caught, the numbers are horribly biased. To give some example numbers, say that 5% of those who view the material ever directly harm a child. And say that 100% of those who harm a child view the material. Now, say that 50% of those who harm a child get busted, but only 1% of those who don't get busted for viewing the material. The end result would be that of those caught about 5 of every 7 who viewed material harmed a child directly. Now, the numbers are made up, but there are many values that lead to a false conclusion if people only look at those caught.

openasocket 10y ago
Those surveys were of people convicted of possession of CP only.
- Lawtonfogle 10y ago
  And how many charged with child molestation will have the police raid their homes and check their computers? How many will end up only being charged with child porn to spare the actual child the trauma of going through a case and how many times is there not enough evidence to convict for child molestation but there is plenty to convict for child porn?
  - openasocket 10y ago
    Admittedly, I don't have the study on me, so I can't confirm this. But I imagine the study would screen out anyone like that, that seems like a pretty obvious thing to do.
- adrianratnapala 10y ago
  Yes but how do those convictions happen? If it comes from an interweb honeytrap, then it will give somewhat unbiased data. But I suspect a lot of people caught for possession are people at the fringes of a abuse case where the cops couldn't prove this individual actually abused someone, but could get them on the lesser crime.

ScottBurson 10y ago

Even if there's some truth in that -- and I agree with the others here who have pointed out the likelihood of selection bias -- it doesn't actually bear on the question of whether greater availability of CP makes the consumers more, or less, likely to abuse children. Supplying these people with computer-generated CP -- maybe even giving them some ability to generate scenarios to their liking -- might give them a way to release their urges in fantasy, reducing their desire to act them out. I know, it sounds disgusting. But if it turns out to actually work, I think we have to set our disgust aside. If not, well, back to the drawing board.