Most of the time when people say they have an unpopular opinion, it turns out it’s actually pretty popular.

Do you have some that’s really unpopular and most likely will get you downvoted?

  • donotthecat@lemmy.eco.br
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    1 year ago

    Well, men are also most of the victims of serious crime and do most of all dangerous jobs. These are all consequences of taking more risks.

    Men commit almost all rape and murder, but no one seems to think this is a problem we need to do anything about.

    Really? No one?

    But we know exactly what to do about it when we’re talking about other species. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that putting men on testosterone-blockers is going to make them less dangerous.

    It doesn’t take a genius to realize that, it takes a fool, because it’s not necessarily true. It may make them less aggressive, but what else would happen? You’re giving an easy answer to an extremely hard problem.

    YES, there are many people thinking about this. What about we make society less toxic first, for example? But I commend you for posting an actual unpopular opinion.

    • Turbula@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Well, men are also most of the victims of serious crime and do most of all dangerous jobs. These are all consequences of taking more risks.

      That’s true. I don’t see what it has to do with my argument, though. I’m pretty sure that testosterone increases risk-tolerance, and that’s part of why it correlates with aggression. Are you suggesting that men have elevated risk-tolerance for reasons other than testosterone, and that risk-tolerance is responsible for aggression instead of testosterone? Or are you saying that risk-taking is important so it’s worth keeping men the way they are even if it causes most serious crime?

      No one? YES, there are many people thinking about this.

      Most people see violent crime as a problem, but few see it as a problem with men. When people discuss crime, I never hear them frame the problem as “there’s something causing men to commit 10 times as much rape and murder as women: what is it and how do we stop it?” Even feminists who talk about male violence generally don’t frame it that way.

      It doesn’t take a genius to realize that, it takes a fool, because it’s not necessarily true.

      No empirical data can lead us to accept something as “necessarily true,” but it stretches credulity to think that castration would reduce aggression in pretty much every kind of male mammal we try it on except humans and further that the most aggressive humans coincidentally have elevated testosterone levels. I don’t think that you actually believe that, since you said:

      It may make them less aggressive, but what else would happen?

      I specifically listed the other effects I could think of. If you think something else bad might happen, just say what it is. If your objection is that we should be cautious because there might be unexpected effects… well sure, that’s true, but it’s also a general-purpose objection to any suggestion to change anything ever. You can’t really have any interesting opinions if you accept that reasoning.

      What about we make society less toxic first, for example?

      I’m in favor of that. But I think there’s a limit to how much you can improve society via culture alone. You could probably design a culture where people would be a lot less selfish than they are today, for example. But I don’t think you could get people to never be selfish at all, because some amount of selfishness is part of human nature. I think the same is true for aggression, and that the minimum amount of aggression you could get from people is in large part of function of testosterone levels.

      Furthermore, “make society less toxic” is a goal, not a policy. A policy to reduce violence by making society less toxic could be something like teaching children to play cooperative games instead of competitive ones. That would probably have a small effect in a few decades. But I think chemically castrating men would have a bigger effect in a shorter amount of time than just about any other policy you could think of, and those effects would be in addition to anything else you did.