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It seems more misguided than horrible. I'm not a psychologist, but indulging in pathological behaviors would seem to strengthen them. Heroin addicts need to qui

It seems more misguided than horrible. I'm not a psychologist, but indulging in pathological behaviors would seem to strengthen them. Heroin addicts need to quit, not use methadone forever.

stickfigure 4y ago
Is that true? Someone on HN once described it like "eventually you get tired of the addiction and want to quit" (if you live long enough, that is). No personal experience, but I have known a couple former addicts and this seems to reflect their reality. Maybe an effective approach would be to maximize harm reduction until the addiction has run its course? That seems to be the Portugal solution, and it seems to be successful.
- AussieWog93 4y ago
  I don't think it's accurate to equate pedohilia with drug addiction. It's a sexual orientation, not a chemical dependence. Do gay men eventually get tired of being homosexual and turn straight?
- awillen 4y ago
  The truth is that addiction, like all mental illness, is complex and unique to each individual. Diagnosing mental illness generally consists of identifying some number of symptoms out of a possible list - often something like five out of eight possible. That means two people can be diagnosed with the same thing with only two overlapping symptoms. So basically, don't listen to the guy who starts with "I'm not a psychologist" and then decides to play armchair psychologist.
Auracle 4y ago
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themisphile 4y ago
danachow 4y ago
> I'm not a psychologist, but indulging in pathological behaviors would seem to strengthen them. Heroin addicts need to quit, not use methadone forever. Yes, clearly not a psychologist, nor an addiction treatment specialist. Methadone is often used indefinitely as maintenance therapy for opioid use disorder.
krageon 4y ago
> indulging in pathological behaviors Let us take this lesson from "pray the gay away" camps and other types of "conversion therapy": You cannot take these preferences out of people, it just does not work. At best, you can make it clear how they are is a travesty and a lot of them will hide it for the rest of their life successfully. This is not a good solution compared to what you were talking about earlier because it increases human suffering by a lot and doesn't have an advantage over a suffering-free solution. That said, I don't think I could justify to myself to create such an AI. I've quite simply been so disillusioned by the depravity of man and especially in this case I want nothing to do with it even peripherally. Perhaps that makes me a little hypocritical. Philosophically it would still be nice to solve this issue, even if it is just so no more children need to suffer (which should always be the main goal).

It seems more misguided than horrible. I'm not a psychologist, but indulging in pathological behaviors would seem to strengthen them. Heroin addicts need to quit, not use methadone forever.

stickfigure 4y ago

Is that true? Someone on HN once described it like "eventually you get tired of the addiction and want to quit" (if you live long enough, that is). No personal experience, but I have known a couple former addicts and this seems to reflect their reality. Maybe an effective approach would be to maximize harm reduction until the addiction has run its course? That seems to be the Portugal solution, and it seems to be successful.

AussieWog93 4y ago
I don't think it's accurate to equate pedohilia with drug addiction. It's a sexual orientation, not a chemical dependence. Do gay men eventually get tired of being homosexual and turn straight?
awillen 4y ago
The truth is that addiction, like all mental illness, is complex and unique to each individual. Diagnosing mental illness generally consists of identifying some number of symptoms out of a possible list - often something like five out of eight possible. That means two people can be diagnosed with the same thing with only two overlapping symptoms. So basically, don't listen to the guy who starts with "I'm not a psychologist" and then decides to play armchair psychologist.

Auracle 4y ago

[dead]

themisphile 4y ago

danachow 4y ago

> I'm not a psychologist, but indulging in pathological behaviors would seem to strengthen them. Heroin addicts need to quit, not use methadone forever. Yes, clearly not a psychologist, nor an addiction treatment specialist. Methadone is often used indefinitely as maintenance therapy for opioid use disorder.

krageon 4y ago

> indulging in pathological behaviors Let us take this lesson from "pray the gay away" camps and other types of "conversion therapy": You cannot take these preferences out of people, it just does not work. At best, you can make it clear how they are is a travesty and a lot of them will hide it for the rest of their life successfully. This is not a good solution compared to what you were talking about earlier because it increases human suffering by a lot and doesn't have an advantage over a suffering-free solution. That said, I don't think I could justify to myself to create such an AI. I've quite simply been so disillusioned by the depravity of man and especially in this case I want nothing to do with it even peripherally. Perhaps that makes me a little hypocritical. Philosophically it would still be nice to solve this issue, even if it is just so no more children need to suffer (which should always be the main goal).