andrewducker | Corner Cases Example

Corner Cases Example

Here's a perfect one:
1)German employment law states that if you've been unemployed for over a year then you must take any job offered to you.
2)In a bid to cut down on the trade in women and other mistreatment of prostitutes, Germany has legalised brothels.

Can you guess what the end result of this is?

Read about it here.

I'm looking forward to reading your responses to this one :->

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I don't think that becoming a prostitute necessarily causes more mental anguish than becoming a waitress, custodian, or factory worker, and the "sex is bad" arguments people have been advancing in this thread haven't convinced me otherwise.

It may not for you but it would for the majority of people. I am one of those people.

Are you saying that the majority of people do not believe that it would cause more mental anguish, or that they are just incorrect and they would find that it does not cause more mental anguish if they tried it?

I'm saying that most people would not suffer more mental anguish from being a prostitute than from working in any number of other occupations, despite what they might believe to the contrary. Obviously, there isn't a lot of hard evidence to support this, but there isn't a lot of hard evidence to support the contrary proposition, either.

I think there is an awfully large amount of evidence of the pain and suffering caused by people in the sexual trafficking industry for example. That you can't see this is quite frankly staggeringly mind boggling.

I find it pretty mind-boggling that you can't see the difference between sex workers in a country where prostitution is illegal, and those working in a place where the industry is legal and regulated. Why do you think prostitution was legalized to begin with? To hurt women?

And there's not a lot of hard evidence to support the idea that tax-payers suffer much from having to pay more taxes if they're unlucky enough to get on a higher wage - it's all just whinging about nothing as far as I can see.

Why don't they just get a life?

Thanks, I'd been wanting to see another example of what a "non sequitur" is! That was really helpful!

Well, you're the one whinging about where your hard-earned dollars go. The obvious choice for you is to quit your job so you won't have to pay income-tax and stop buying things so you don't have to pay sales-tax and then you'll be where you want to be.

So, you don't have to pay taxes if you don't want to, it's entirely your own choice. It's not as though you're being forced to, is it?

That's not a very good argument, since it could be used to justify any tax expenditure.

Well yes. But still no different to you believing the unemployed should have to take any job offered or have their benefits taken away. Their choice is take this job or starve. Your choice is pay your taxes or starve. If you don't want to pay any taxes you have an option that'd allow you not to. But if you're not willing to take that option then you've no right to insist others should have to.

I'd say it's social conditioning that "personal space" is to be controlled and is incredibly private and sensitive and must be pure, whereas your mind space, self-confidence, feelings of worth as a human being, are all free to be shat down the toilet. A teacher who pats you on the ass will get in a lot more trouble than a teacher who tells you to be quiet until you have something sensible to say. Which is likely to be a more genuinely damaging case, social concerns aside?

I have more nightmares about my ex-boss wreaking havoc on my life than about people who've taken control of my decisions, body, etc., away from me, or anything else along those lines. I have more personal fear of people making my life miserable through clever use of slander, libel and conspiracy than I have fear of rape or murder or ...

I want to live in a country where I can stay on the dole forever because I'm a Xenophobe.

You keep referring to "sex is bad arguments", but I think this shows your naievity. I haven't seen anyone here arguing that sex is bad, but rather that forced or non-consensual sex is bad. By saying we are arguing "sex is bad" you are setting up a straw man. I think sex is a good thing, but that forced sex is bad.

Limiting unemployment benefits to those who cannot work, rather than those who find the available jobs to be offensive, is not "forced sex". Withholding unemployment checks to those who don't wish to be sex workers is not "forced sex". No one is entitled to an unemployment check. It's a privilege extended to those who have made every effort to find work and failed, because with limited resources there are better uses for money than supporting people who don't like the jobs they might be able to do.

Um, excuse me for butting into the conversation, but telling a woman that she must take a job where she will have sex with random strangers is forced sex.

I'm just going to repeat what I said above, since it appears you didn't read it:

"Limiting unemployment benefits to those who cannot work, rather than those who find the available jobs to be offensive, is not "forced sex". Withholding unemployment checks to those who don't wish to be sex workers is not "forced sex". No one is entitled to an unemployment check. It's a privilege extended to those who have made every effort to find work and failed, because with limited resources there are better uses for money than supporting people who don't like the jobs they might be able to do."

No, I read it. I disagree. I know women who have chosen to work in the sex industry, both in countries where it is legal & where it is illegal. In both cases, I'm told that it's only a good move for those who are not coerced in any way. Withholding an unemployment check because a woman refuses to have sex with random strangers is coercion.

Kirsten, you're young and living in a city with a thriving sex industry. Go work in one of the local brothels for a week or so and THEN come back and argue this perspective.

I'm not saying this to be a smartass. I believe you are sincere (as opposed to just arguing to amuse yourself) but to anyone who knows you and what your life is like, your argument comes across as being incredibly insensitive and hypocritical. If you are going to make the argument that prostitution is no worse than data entry or picking strawberries, you have to be able to back it up.

Of course you won't get the same experience from "slumming it" as the women you're presuming to pass judgement upon - there is something horrific about entering the sex trade under coercion that you will fortunately miss out on - but even "slumming it" can be an enlightening experience. At the very least you won't be able to remain as ignorant as you are now.

If I were to do that, I'd be working in a country where prostitution is illegal. The whole context of the discussion is one where prostitution is legal.

And this is relevant because ...?

The whole point of legalizing prostitution was that conditions for prostitutes are much worse when it's illegal, IIRC.

And the point of your argument is this:
I don't think that becoming a prostitute necessarily causes more mental anguish than becoming a waitress, custodian, or factory worker

If we were arguing about the effectiveness of an algorithm, it would be entirely appropriate for me to expect you to provide some kind of proof. The same holds true for moral arguments.

From what I know of the local sex industry, the working conditions of brothels in California (at least for middle-class, US Citizens with other employment options) are not too badly affected by their illegal status. Also, as you well know, the legality of a job does not protect one from mistreatment. If you had the opportunity to work for a week in a German brothel, I'm confident you would find the two experiences comparable - or at the very least, much more relevant than no experience at all, which is where you stand now.

(I have to go to a meeting now, but I'll try to get back to you tomorrow.)

As far as I can see the point of legalising prostitution was that women who have got to the stage where prostitution is the best choice are going to do it whether or not it's illegal and so the government might as well make things easier from themselves and make a bit of money on tax at the same time, not because they really want to make things better for the women involved.

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Corner Cases Example

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