INCEST=worng or not

Originally posted by TacDavey
I would say incest is wrong. I am surprised to see so many people defending it, honestly.

Aside from a religious take on it, could that just be because of social upbringing? Maybe. But I don't think just because something is ingrained into our society means we should seek to go the other way. Sometimes things are taught and implemented into society for a reason.

For one thing, there is the genetic problems that are more likely to occur in children born of incest. Which, if I'm not mistaken, get's more and more likely the more it is done down the line. Even if the chance is fairly low from the start (It's not that low actually, according to wiki a study found 20 out of 29 children born from incest relationships had birth defects.), where would the cutoff point be? Do we regulate how many generations incest is allowed? I know your family is big on inter family relations, but your quota for incest generations is up and you can't marry each other? That get's complicated and messy. If you're going to stop incestuous relations at any point, you should simply stop it all together.

There's also the potential psychological damage incest can create.

As for punishment. That's a tough one. I don't think anything violent should be done to them. Jail seems the better option, though probably not for a very long time. I think it's more like punishing suicide. It would be pretty hard to actually place a viable punishment on suicide. But having one is more sending the message that "we do not support this".

That's my take on it anyway.

This was essentially my take on the subject as well when I suggested, that if any part of the subject is wrong, that you should inspect the entire unit.

Genetic problems are unwanted. But birth control doesn't discriminate familial ties.

Originally posted by TacDavey
There's also the potential psychological damage incest can create.

we should criminalize personal choices that cause psychological damage?

EDIT: sorry, let me rephrase: we should criminalize personal choices that have a chance of causing psychological damage?

would you be in favor of criminalizing all things which people can become addicted to, then?

Originally posted by inimalist
we should criminalize personal choices that cause psychological damage?

EDIT: sorry, let me rephrase: we should criminalize personal choices that [b]have a chance of causing psychological damage?

would you be in favor of criminalizing all things which people can become addicted to, then? [/B]

Addicted? Where did addiction come into this? Actually someone said that sleeping with a cousin is not incest, so that leaves parents, and siblings. What's your take on this?

Originally posted by Stoic
Addicted? Where did addiction come into this?

if you read the post I've quoted, Tac suggests potential psychological distress as a reason why incest should be criminalized. Therefore, it would be interesting to see how he applies this logic to things like tanning, chocolate, shopping or video games, all which have empirical evidence suggesting they can cause excessive psychological distress through addiction, whereas there is nothing I know of that suggests incest specifically causes psychological distress that wouldn't be expected from normal relationships that are somewhat unconventional.

you know, just looking to see if there is some type of theoretical consistency in the position and all that jazz.

Originally posted by Stoic
Actually someone said that sleeping with a cousin is not incest, so that leaves parents, and siblings. What's your take on this?

consenting adults should be left to themselves regardless of what I think

Originally posted by inimalist
no, totally, and I'm not accusing you of manipulating numbers or whatever, it is just easy to present figures and percentages in a way that makes things seem different than they are.

2% is 1 in 50, whereas 4% is 1 in 25. That change is massive, no? If you found out that eating muffins raised your risk of cancer from 2% to 4%, it doesn't sound that dangerous (only raised by an additional 2%!), but when you describe muffins as raising your cancer risk from 1 in 50 to 1 in 25, it seems far more ominous. This goes both ways too, something that goes from .25% (1 in 400) to 1% (1 in 100) is still highly unlikely, but you could describe it as a 400% increase, which makes it seem huge (though, of course, 1 in 400 to 1 in 100 is a huge increase, the absolute values are still very low). lol, boy do I love numbers....

interesting about women over 40 though, do you have a source? I'd like to look into it

Well you could probably say the same for a lot of things that give a percentage on chance. 4% does not sound much to me ,especially when the average is already 2% I wouldnt be too worried.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/theres-nothing-wrong-with-cousins-getting-married-scientists-say-1210072.html

Also what Tac said does not make much sense tbh. Again, he seems to be talking from a completly social standpoint, which changes depending on where you are. Mindlessly following a social taboo is ridiculous unless you can bring your own logic to the table on why you agree with it. Simply saying "well so many people cant be wrong!" is foolish.

There are 7 billion people on this planet. If you can't find someone other than your family to mate with, you have problems.

If your bi-sexual and have both sexual members, otherwise theres only half that which is barely enough godamit!

Also its probably easy if you were just an basic animal that just thought of "mateing" then yes, you would have a point, i think the matter is a bit deeper than that.

Originally posted by AbnormalButSane
There are 7 billion people on this planet. If you can't find someone other than your family to mate with, you have problems.

Right.

Originally posted by Burning thought
Well you could probably say the same for a lot of things that give a percentage on chance. 4% does not sound much to me ,especially when the average is already 2% I wouldnt be too worried.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/theres-nothing-wrong-with-cousins-getting-married-scientists-say-1210072.html

well, like I said, a 1 in 50 chance is half the risk of a 1 in 25 chance, making it actually substantially different, and I can only assume statistically significant.

whether you think a 1 in 25 chance, or 1 in 50 for that matter, is an actual risk is a personal cost benefit analysis. However, in terms of numerical values and such, the difference between a 2% risk and a 4% risk is humongous.

EDIT: ugh, actually, that article is not very good at all. The way they have presented those numbers makes it actually impossible to determine any of the risks involved... i suppose i shouldnt expect much more from the media, but god damn...

Originally posted by AbnormalButSane
There are 7 billion people on this planet. If you can't find someone other than your family to mate with, you have problems.

strawman tactics 101

Originally posted by AbnormalButSane
There are 7 billion people on this planet. If you can't find someone other than your family to mate with, you have problems.

That's a well thought out argument.

Originally posted by Burning thought
Well you could probably say the same for a lot of things that give a percentage on chance. 4% does not sound much to me ,especially when the average is already 2% I wouldnt be too worried.

You can think about it as a doubling, twice as many birth defects.

[edit]

Originally posted by inimalist
strawman tactics 101

It was a joke, not an actual argument.

Incest is only wrong because society tells us it is. I don't really believe in right and wrong, personally. They're human constructs.

Originally posted by inimalist
well, like I said, a 1 in 50 chance is half the risk of a 1 in 25 chance, making it actually substantially different, and I can only assume statistically significant.

whether you think a 1 in 25 chance, or 1 in 50 for that matter, is an actual risk is a personal cost benefit analysis. However, in terms of numerical values and such, the difference between a 2% risk and a 4% risk is humongous.

EDIT: ugh, actually, that article is not very good at all. The way they have presented those numbers makes it actually impossible to determine any of the risks involved... i suppose i shouldnt expect much more from the media, but god damn...

You probably have more chance of dieing from a disease or condition before conceiving a deformed child so I wouldnt think on it that much. Not sure the billions of parents in the past actually cared about the 1 in 50 chance of defects they could come across whether they knew of it or not.

Are there more solid counter arguments that say theres a very high chance of defects from such relations?

Originally posted by AbnormalButSane
It was a joke, not an actual argument.

Incest is only wrong because society tells us it is. I don't really believe in right and wrong, personally. They're human constructs.

Its also interesting how soceity or at least the people who even listen to such generalised views from soceity pick and choose what is "right" or "wrong" purely based on popularity of the idea (or not?) for example I bet thousands if not millions of smokers would choke (pun intended) at the thought of incest.

Originally posted by inimalist
well, like I said, a 1 in 50 chance is half the risk of a 1 in 25 chance, making it actually substantially different, and I can only assume statistically significant.

whether you think a 1 in 25 chance, or 1 in 50 for that matter, is an actual risk is a personal cost benefit analysis. However, in terms of numerical values and such, the difference between a 2% risk and a 4% risk is humongous.

EDIT: ugh, actually, that article is not very good at all. The way they have presented those numbers makes it actually impossible to determine any of the risks involved... i suppose i shouldnt expect much more from the media, but god damn...

There you go again bringing statistics into this, when the question is whether it is wrong or right to sleep with a sibling or a parent. You then deflected by saying "consenting adults should be left to themselves regardless of what I think." Can you explain the concept of strawman tactics, I seem to be missing something here.

Originally posted by Burning thought
You probably have more chance of dieing from a disease or condition before conceiving a deformed child so I wouldnt think on it that much. Not sure the billions of parents in the past actually cared about the 1 in 50 chance of defects they could come across whether they knew of it or not.

Are there more solid counter arguments that say theres a very high chance of defects from such relations?

I don't think you are getting my point...

I'm not saying that a 1 in 50 or a 1 in 25 risk is too much risk or too little, nor am I saying people should or shouldn't take those risks.

I'm simply pointing out some errors in the way you were using statistics, however, given the article you got that from, it clearly isn't your fault.

In no uncertain terms, the difference between a 2% risk and a 4% risk is huge, no matter what we are talking about.

If you want me to connect this to incest, I would allude to the post I made above to Tac where I ask about other completely legal things people do every day that present huge risks. Obviously I don't think the presence of risk alone, especially in consensual behaviour, should be grounds to criminalize it.

Well I guess "huge" is a point of view, its just double. If I got £10 and then someone took it and gave me £20 because they were generous, I wouldnt say its a "huge" amount of extra cash.

Originally posted by Burning thought
Well I guess "huge" is a point of view, its just double. If I got £10 and then someone took it and gave me £20 because they were generous, I wouldnt say its a "huge" amount of extra cash.

Ah, but that's a one time thing. Over a lifetime of doubled money every day (or over many millions of children) you start to see the significance.

One way or another, point of view is still the same. Also giving birth may also be a one time thing.