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What's some really unpopular opinion you have?
(lemmings.world)
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this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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Most human males should be castrated.
Men commit almost all rape and murder, but no one seems to think this is a problem we need to do anything about. If any other group committed 90% of serious crimes – let's say immigrants – people would be calling for them to be rounded up and exiled. But when it's men, that's just the way things are, nothing to be done about it.
But we know exactly what to do about it when we're talking about other species. We castrate male cattle because bulls are dangerous and steer aren't. Violent criminals typically have elevated testosterone levels. It doesn't take a genius to realize that putting men on testosterone-blockers is going to make them less dangerous.
What will be the other effects?
I'm an anarchist, so I don't want to force this on anyone. But if I believed in prisons or police, I would also believe in mandatory castration.
I somehow don't believe that.
There's a feminist movement. One of the major theses of the feminist movement is the rape and murder overwhelmingly committed by men. I'd like it if a lot more people were feminists, but it's not correct to say that no one cares.
And that would still be an insane reaction to that fact even if it was true, which no self-identified anarchist should support. Rehabilitation must still be the goal of any justice system.
Okay, that's reasonable. However, that doesn't mean that we should accept absolutely any solution to eliminate misogyny no matter the cost. There are wildly more creative and practical ways to go about this.
Spicy hot take: we shouldn't be castrating bulls. Technically you would probably achieve your goal of taming a bull by castrating it, but at the disproportionate expense of the bull's personality, health, and bodily autonomy. Now we're not bulls or trained in bovine social cues so we don't miss the minds of castrated bulls, hence why there's no controversy; it's not obvious. However, men are
Correlation ≠ causation!
The other effect is that men will have their bodily autonomy violated. Women have been suffering a related torment from patriarchal governments banning their access to abortion. Generally, women's bodily autonomy has been systematically disregarded, and they have suffered through bizarre mutilations and "treatments" aimed at making them more palatable to men.
I gotta be blunt with you: I typically let stuff like this slide. I understand that a lot of women and other vagina-owners have been put through a tremendous amount of pain by men, so I'm usually willing to give you space to vent. And if it's worth anything to you, I'm sorry that this stuff still happens, and we need to take concrete action to prevent rape and femicide.
But you wrote a really detailed paragraph defending sex-based eugenics. The thing about eugenics is that it never really went away. Seriously, go scroll through Reddit and see how long it takes before some "bleeding heart liberal" goes on a tirade about how people they don't like need to be castrated. The world is absolutely flooded with eugenicists ready to torture and murder people, and there's no telling what suffering they'll impart on humanity if we don't challenge them wherever they pop up.
It is especially irritating to see someone who claims to be a comrade express views like this. It makes me less confident to call myself an anarchist when my views are associated with eugenics. We already have a tremendous amount of ill will generated by "anarcho"-capitalists and "anarcho"-primitivists; we really do not need more bad takes.
Now I would prefer it if you dropped the eugenics, but if you really can't drop the eugenics then at least stop dragging anarchists through the mud. I'm sorry if I've been harsh...but just know that I'll be equally as harsh in your defense when the eugenicists come to neuter you.
Since everyone seems to have focused on the thing I said I would believe if I weren't an anarchist (mandatory castration), I guess I should clarify what the anarchist version of this belief is. When I say "most males should be castrated," I mean it in the same way as "most children should go to school." I don't think that parents or any other authority should force children to go to school if they really don't want to. However, I think it's good for children to go to school, I would personally encourage them to, and I think it should be a social norm. I feel the same way about men taking T-blockers. If I got to design society, I would make the norm that when boys reach the age where they get the talk about puberty, they would be given T-blockers and told that taking them will make them less likely to want to hurt people. They wouldn't be forced to take them, but I think many would choose to if it were seen as a normal and safe way to be a man.
I don't think there's any conceivable way we could make this a social norm, so this is just a pipe dream of mine. Nevertheless, it's a good fit for a "really unpopular opinion" thread.
I agree. My point was to show that there is a double standard in how mainstream society treats men committing a lot of crime compared with any other group committing a lot of crime. I was not trying to say that attitudes towards immigrants, etc. committing crime are correct.
Point taken, although I'd say that only a small proportion of feminists take male violence as seriously as you would expect people to if it were any other group committing almost all crime.
That's true. I don't think this idea is practical at all, although I don't think any practical idea would be as effective in preventing violence as this one.
I actually agree. Humans should not use animals for food or labor, so really the only place we should interact with cattle is in zoos, and I think trained professionals should be able to handle uncastrated bulls.
True, but come on. When we remove the source of testosterone in other mammals, they become less aggressive. About half of all humans have high T levels starting in adolescence, and it's exactly at that age when their crime rates shoot way up. And some of the most violent people in society also have the highest T levels. Do you really think that's all just a coincidence? Can you think of a another non-tortured explanation for these observations?
Right, I don't think we should violate people's bodily autonomy to prevent crime, which is why I think castrating men should be a norm, not a mandate. However, a lot of people are fine with violating people's bodily autonomy if it stops serious crimes. They want the state to crack down on people putting heroin in their bodies and becoming violent as a result. Well, I don't see why they logically shouldn't also want the state to crack down on people having testosterone in their bodies and becoming violent as a result.
I proposed two methods of reproduction in a world where most men were chemically castrated: (1) men would go off T-blockers while trying for a baby, or (2) people would rely on a small number of uncastrated sperm donors. Of those, (1) is not eugenics, but (2) could be, depending on how the donors were selected. Obviously eugenics is not compatible with anarchism, but as you said, there are a lot of people who still believe in eugenics. My argument is that people who think that the state should limit who gets to reproduce to make society safer should also want it to limit the number of people with high testosterone to make society safer.
This is the type of take I give when people ask for "really unpopular opinions." It's not something that I talk about when I'm trying to advocate for anarchism. And I mean... I don't think you have much to worry about people associating anarchism with this idea. The only person other than me I've ever heard expressing an opinion like it was a weird blogger 10 years ago who was definitely not an anarchist.