> A bit of diet, exercise, and an once of prevention is worth its weight in gold.
All those cases of just eating less sugar / exercising more / sitting less are unfortunately really hard for most individuals. We really should strive to create environments where doing the good thing is as easy as possible. Like offering free daily work breaks for sport or having healthy lunch meals for children in school.
Great, now we’re “prejudiced” for not wanting to subsidize other people’s risky sexual behavior.
Did it ever occur to you that if there is, as you suggest, a large health burden associated with casual sex culture (and, according to the article, drug use culture), that maybe the “conservatives” are correct to be “prejudiced” against it?
If the effect of peoples' real aggregate behavior creates a negative effect that you might suffer from in the future, e.g. breeding antibiotic resistant bacteria, then the more effective position is to STFU with all of the moralizing and support policies that actually work, even if you have to pony up a bit to pay for them. It's cheaper for you in the long run -- you're not just paying to support risky behavior, you're paying so that behavior that is going to happen anyway doesn't put you at risk in the future.
Your options are to be angry today and sick or dead tomorrow, or to let it go, support effective policies today, and get a better shot at a successful tomorrow. Yelling at people doesn't work.
Parent is responding to accusations of "conservative prejudice." That is its own moralizing.
You can make the pragmatic argument that it's pointless to try to control the risky behaviors of others, or to expect the people engaged in those risky behaviors to bear the cost of them. But it's pretty insulting to then disparage others as "prejudiced" for not liking this deal, while having no criticism of the behavior itself. "People are going to do what they want" -- well maybe some people want to be upset about subsidizing behavior they don't approve of.
> then the more effective position is to
(emphasis added)
I agree with you that people have the right to be upset, to moralize, etc. My insinuation was that it isn't effective as public policy, which is the extra step that moralizing conservatives seem eager to take.
I'm fine if they want to sit in the corner and whine, but if they're going to use this whining to enact policies that don't work, and that haven't worked despite decades of trying, then I'm going to push back, and yes, I'm going to be a little insulting, especially seeing as they have no problem berating the people that they don't approve of.
People who insist on maintaining a delusion despite evidence that it doesn't work, and despite examples of other policies in other places that produce better results annoy me. Why should I have to pay for the externalities of their stupid opinions when I'm not the one the one having them? (See, it sounds just as ridiculous from the other side)
I'm hard pressed to design a good, reproducible experiment on the question one way or the other.
> The field situation consisted of a park-bench discussion of a topical social issue, arranged by a public-opinion interviewer. Prepared experimental variations were introduced by one of the discussion partners, a confederate of the interviewer. In the critical variation, the confederate insulted the subject during discussion. In other variations, he tried to persuade but did not insult, or else simply gave certain arguments without intent to persuade. Attitude-change results supported the hypothesis of negative change in the insult condition.
Eleanor Gordon-Smith spent two years interviewing people who changed their minds, and suggests this:
> The strategy is this: Ask where people’s beliefs come from as well as what they actually believe.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-the-difficult-secr...
The paper has been cited only about 40 times in the half-century since it was written, but I found one recent interesting citation:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327127198_The_Monta...
Uncivil remarks uniquely diminished the speaker’s reputation, and had little impact on the reputation of the targets of the attack, the perceived winner of the verbal exchange, the reputation of the speaker’s party, or the sense that the country is moving in the right direction. Incivility made the speaker seem less warm and did less to affect perceptions of dominance or honesty. This warmth deficit explained the reputational costs of incivility.
I'm skeptical of the study for a variety of reasons, mostly coming down to the issue of what people tell researchers vs what they actually do. But it's good to know that somebody is at least trying.
If I were trying to get moralizing conservatives to agree with me, then not insulting them would indeed be the first part of an effective strategy. However, I'm not trying to change minds, because that is also fruitless.
For the same reason that trying to convince ordinary people that their promiscuous lifestyles are bad won't actually change their behavior, trying to convince moralizing conservatives that their entire worldview is wrong isn't going to change their perspective.
This kind of person is not trying to achieve an effective outcome through policy, they're trying to use policy as a weapon against people they don't like. Debating the effectiveness of various policy options won't move that particular needle, so why bother?
This is a little problematic for me. You are basically saying people have a right to whine, but not a right to try to remedy the situation causing their whining.
Say you live in a fictional country X. Country X has a problem called "Raw Water Fever" where people get these massive chronic migraines because they take untreated stream water and squirt it up their butts with a baster (this is called "basting" - and gives a nice euphoric effect due to some yet-undetermined combination of native bacteria in the water reacting with gut bacteria). Previous efforts to get people in country X to use treated water fail because they complain the treated water doesn't produce any euphoria. The country also tried outright banning basting, and that was also ineffective.
So, the government decides that the right solution to this problem is to reach into your wallet to subsidize free per-use testing kits for the whole country. These testing kits would be able to tell you whether the water you are about to squirt up your butt has the Raw Water Fever bacteria present.
If you protest, the government says that while are allowed to whine about them reaching into your wallet, that's about all you are allowed to do because they already attempted previously to ban basting and it was ineffective.
Are you cool with this, or would it leave a bad taste in your mouth? Now, say that basting is not country X's only source of problems, it has lots of other problems stemming from behaviors you don't partake in. The government wants to reach into your wallet for each of those problems too. How are you feeling at this point? Are you glad to give up your hard earned money to help citizens of country X continue their favorite behaviors safely? Or does it leave a bad taste in your mouth and make you want to move to a different country where the citizens' behaviors align more with your own?
Like just replace the word basting with the word sex in your example.
"The government tried outright banning sex"--sounds pretty ludicrous! Has any government even tried such a thing in all of history?
Personally, I welcome the prospect of my tax dollars being used to help people rather than kill and maim them. The amount each individual has to contribute for such a thing is likely incredibly low as well.
> Sex is something hardwired into people
This is an appeal to nature. We naturally want to do it, therefore we shouldn't try to resist it? There are many counter examples: violence, incest, tribalism, and other undesirable evolutionary behaviors are hardwired into people (and animals) too, yet our efforts to reduce/temper their influence and emergence can be quite effective (though not 100% effective). Why is sex any different? I think we could temper sexual activity with the right messaging (and more importantly, leading by example) to youth.
Something like "sex is something that should be reserved for a committed relationship, not a recreational activity you should do casually - the latter leads to a lot of problems in society. Nevertheless, the choice is up to you and here are the risks and things you need to know either way..." Obviously "accidents" would still happen, but the idea would be to address the root cause of sex-related issues in society instead of throwing your hands into the air and deciding to just treat the symptoms.
> violence, incest, tribalism, and other undesirable evolutionary behaviors
None of the explicitly mentioned things in this list are similarly essential to the continuation of humans and human civilization. Like violence may in reality be unavoidable, but that doesn't mean it's strictly necessary.
But I do agree that appeal to nature alone isn't very strong. Like to me, I guess it's moreso what seems like extreme impracticality in trying to control people's sexuality to a finer degree than is already in place.
I agree trying to "control" people's sexuality is extremely impractical. That's why I think it needs to be more a cultural value that we collectively decide is worth teaching to kids (and leading by example), not something the government forces on us. I think that would work because it worked for me and my extended family as far as I can tell (with a few exceptions).
I would like to believe I have somewhat of a unique perspective on this. I was raised with the exact cultural values you talk about, and I ultimately chose to reject them (at least partially).
However, I do want to acknowledge what seems like a destabilizing, negative effect "hookup culture" or the like has had on society. Dating apps are part of this whole issue as well.
My own position is that I want to be in a committed relationship but never married. So I guess you could peg me as a serial monogamist.
Take alcohol for example. You might say "you can't prevent people from drinking, look at Prohibition, it was a complete failure, don't even try", and in a certain sense you are right. You can't prevent all people from drinking.
However, you can prevent many people from drinking (or at least, reduce the total amount of drinking to more moderate levels) by:
- Not glorifying alcohol via pop culture and movies (especially American binge drinking at age 21)
- Restrict/regulate alcohol advertisements and marketing to reduce the influence of "drinking = happiness" messaging
- etc.
Or, stated in other terms, you can exacerbate your country's alcohol-related issues by glorifying alcohol and enshrining it in popular culture.
In the same vein, maybe we wouldn't have as big of a problem if we didn't glorify casual sex encounters so much in our media. If popular media/culture instead glorified things like self-restraint, commitment, etc, I'm sure some % of people would be influenced.
Hmm, let's see how well that worked with sexually active teenagers in the bible belt, shall we?
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/abstinence-programs-i...
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/08/23/5452891...
https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news...
To date I have yet to come across anything in mainstream media that comes close to 'glorifying' the type of relationship I have with my partner, or non-monogamy in general. Can you give any examples of this?
I'd also argue I'm in a committed relationship, but I'm not going argue semantics.
I'm more talking about shows and movies that make it seem like non-committal hookups and switching sexual partners rapidly for any reason is cool and totally normal:
- How I Met Your Mother (Barney)
- The Office (everyone has slept with everyone by the end)
- Game of Thrones
You could argue the "good" characters like Tyrion typically showed more commitment in their sexual activities than "bad" characters like Theon who just knocked up random women for fun. But even then you have instances where the "heroes" like Arya have one night stands with no consequences (because HBO wanted to be edgy).
- Friends
In the case of Game of Thrones, a lot of the more 'liberal' sexual encounters were really put in for shock value or an excuse for nudity, for example Oberyn's orgy scenes. I never really got the feeling it was trying to normalise these things, but that was just my interpretation.
Similarly for Friends my interpretation was characters like Joey were to be the punchline of a joke, not to say his behaviour was normal. It felt more to laugh AT him, not to normalise it.
My experiences of mainstream media seems to largely focus on the young bachelor(ette) who has casual sex as a 'phase', or the monogamous faithful couple who've grown up and matured. Despite this narrative, I really don't believe monogamy works for a fair percentage of the population. This leads to either two states:-
1. They never form close romantic relationships, leading to more casual sex and probably larger risk of spreading STDs.
2. They do engage in a monogamous relationship, only for it to turn sour because of the tensions it causes. In some cases this leads to a party cheating on the other. These people almost never go to STI clinics to get tested for fear it will ruin their relationships.
How about instead the mainstream media embraced the idea of wanting to have multiple sexual partners is fine regardless of your stage of your life or your relationship status? That way, we can have make sure that everyone is informed of the risks and getting the medical treatment they need to keep themselves and others safe (particularly regular testing). As soon as you start demonising it and saying you shouldn't feel that way, people will do it anyway and just hide it instead.
Even if not, are we asking the government to step in and ban Friends? Because if not, I don’t see how this observation gives us anything approaching a solution.
Of course it is useful - if you don’t know of a thing, you don’t know the consequences of engaging in that thing. It’s as axiomatic as the trite and age old saying “knowledge is power”. Your comment is completely disingenuous.
Absolutely not. Government should not have to solve every problem in society. The solution is for us (consumers) to not watch shows that promote values we don't agree with. And if you do agree with them... you reap what you sow.
actually doing something effective like taxing the purchase of alcohol to such a level that people don't do as much of it unless they are alcoholics.
So all we have to do is tax when people purchase their genitalia for the weekend.
Sure, but that doesn’t stop us from trying to influence people in other areas, so why should it stop us here. By this argument we should abolish all laws because what’s the point of telling someone “don’t murder” when “people are going to do what they want”?
Your post makes it sound like you are also against taxing cigarettes or taxing cars with big engines or banning guns since we should not (or it would be pointless) to influence behavior in such ways.
That’s obviously not true. Asian countries for example have far lower rates of drug use, sex outside of marriage, etc. than western countries. For example Bangladesh, the country where I’m from, has virtually no prevalence of HIV. (And it actually has quite a good system of health reporting so it’s not just failure to collect data.) Societies can in fact shame and coerce people into avoiding harmful behaviors.
Why subsidize an activity that puts health at risk? Sure, people will do what they want, but this just incentivizes people to put themselves at risk and makes everyone else pay for it.
>Your options are to be angry today and sick or dead tomorrow, or to let it go, support effective policies today,
You're asking for one portion of the populous to take on the burden cause by lack of restraint by another. There is legitimate reason for "moralizing" here. This is the point where what "two people do in the privacy of their bedroom" spills over into affecting everyone else.
It's ironic that "yelling at people doesn't work" yet we see just as much yelling and moralizing by the people who want the freedom to do whatever they want even when their actions DO negatively affect others.
Pragmatic argument: It's better economically and for productivity for people to not have HIV, Syphilis, etc. It's far easier to provide treatment and testing then to tell people to stop having sex.
Aren't those the same thing?
of course this is all hypothetical with the current state of US healthcare. step one has to be a reasonable cost baseline for people who don't elect a bunch of extra risk.
Hypothetically, you don’t need healthcare if you live/lived a near fundamentally perfect lifestyle. Accidents happen but then maybe don’t use knives or ever leave your home too.
Be a bubble boy.
> people who don't elect a bunch of extra risk
I'm not talking about preexisting conditions. I'm talking about conscious choices people make that increase their risk level. I'm not telling you how to live your life, but if our care is funded from the same pool and you live a riskier life by choice, I don't think it's unfair for me to ask that you pay proportionally more.
Charging people more for coverage is telling them how to live their life. And where is the line drawn? "Oh, you like to go 10mph over the limit? Higher medical coverage fees, sir. You're likely to get hurt. Oh, sir, you live in a rough neighborhood? Very likely to get shot sir, you should definitely have higher premiums, yes."
You may as well ask people to not have health insurance and just pay out of pocket for everything.
Btw - do you really think if you do this that costs will go down for you in this hypothetical system? They won't. Premiums will go up for everyone and the people who will profit are executive leadership.
Stop this. It isn't an economics issue. This is a moral issue. Your tract of reasoning is precisely why the world is growing so untenable for the human element. There needn't exist laws or programs or any other edifice by which regulation is effected. People need to be made to realize that they're being wholly indiscretionate and their disposition to do so comes at a cost, and it should be personal to make the point manifest.
You know, it's interesting that we highlight the health burden of other activities like smoking and some governments want to go as far as banning salt and sugary soda for the same reasons.
But on this one topic we treat people like they're monsters for suggesting we should be choosier about our sexual encounters. Not just that sexual freedom is prioritized in our society, but _exercising_ that freedom is treated like a virtue. Despite all of the obvious costs and despite the fact that most people end up being less active than we'd expect and on the other side of that spectrum a lot of people come to regret their choices.
People are engaged in this behaviour either way, it doesn't require subsidy.
What you do by enabling everyone to self-monitor is solve the collective harm of harmful viruses spreading.
So do you want to preserve your moral sensibility, or do you want to stop the spread of viruses?
I think it is perfectly reasonable to say, of people who choose the former, that they aren't very praiseworthy people.
Society is terrible at this, though. Issues like this tend to become proxy wars for other things.
I mean, look how mask wearing has become moralized. It should never have become a silly political fight, it should've been people helping people get masks and avoid disease. Instead, we have all sorts of nonsense like idiots burning masks or arresting someone alone on a deserted beach for not having a mask.
When you are willing to retire to a plot of land and live entirely upon it, including starving each winter, then you may throw stones at "subsidizing" other people's risky behavior. Until then, you don't get to pick and choose which behavior we subsidize and which we do not.
Alternatively, we can pass a law that says citizens can choose which kinds of risky behavior they are willing so subsidize with their taxes.
Nonetheless, the word itself has strong connotations and it's mostly neither nice nor effective to tell someone to their face that they are prejudiced. And I can't assume it to be the case about a potential reader of my post.
Regarding whether it is good policy, even with a conservative value system, my sibling comments have already presented most of the points I would make.
(a) try to reduce the number of people who engage in risky sex—through changing people's views, different upbringing and whatnot;
(b) try to mitigate the consequences of their behaviour—by subsidizing testing for infections and treatment.
Note that there's no dichotomy here.
I don't know if there's a good, reliable way to do (a); also, some people can be against it for ideological reasons. But (b) in the meantime is straightforward to implement and is known to be efficient. Why not implement (b) and make it work it while we are arguing about (a)?
> maybe the “conservatives” are correct to be “prejudiced” against it?
Conservatives should not be stigmatized for supporting (a), this is not prejudice, they can have the view they have on sex. But I don't see a single reason, except prejudice, that can make you go against (b), which is simply practical.
Because the most vocal "conservatives" are often the ones that, in private, are the most casual about sex. Not a day goes by without a news story about a conservative politician caught in some sexual scandal/coverup/fiasco. It is to the point that if I see any powerful man advocating abstinence I just assume he has a couple girlfriends stashed somewhere. Thou doth protest too much.
The dollar cost of casual sex culture is not a reason I have heard cited as an argument against casual sex in pop conservatism. If you want to get into what costs society a greater amount, gay men getting syphilis is going to be way farther down the list than people having large numbers of children. We heavily subsidize that form of sexual activity.
While I agree, €50 for an ONS is not exactly cheap.
This also helps less developed and rich nations than Germany. A USD 10 comprehensive test for basic STDs would be a huge game changer in Africa.
If you're talking about Syphilis diet and exercise could make the problem worse. Your opportunities for random hookups are more frequent when you are fit.
Against syphillis?
I suppose we've had the trifecta of bad HN comments: diet and exercise as a magic ward against all sickness, victim-blaming the AIDS crisis, and suggestions of recording everyone's sexual activity on the blockchain. I've flagged the story for this.
In retrospect, it could generalize even further than health because humans tend to follow "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." We cling to fixing things we break vs exercising even a bit of caution to reduce the chances of breaking things as a strategy, even when prevention is sometimes trivial or were talking about our own health.
>"If one man is taking PrEP and the other one is virally suppressed, there's no HIV risk at all," she says. "So why use condoms if you don't mind having a touch of syphilis?"
Humans really do take for granted the efficacy of antibacterials and antibiotics across the board.
These sort of harmful bacteria are completely and safely treatable now in most people, but the real potential threat is breeding drug resistant strains of bacteria, microorganisms and viruses. We shouldn't treat these fantastic tools like a pass to do whatever, we should instead use them sparingly and curb behavior. There are plenty of simple preventative practices than can reduce ever needing such treatments while mostly being able to continue doing what you'd like. A huge amount of these infections could be reduced drastically just by using a condom.
Rely on those prevention approaches first and drugs/treatment second to reduce the risk of creating situations where treatments don't exist. This can be said about a huge swath of preventable disease in the US. A bit of diet, exercise, and an once of prevention is worth its weight in gold.