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Comment by logfromblammo | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately for your opinion, creating a state apparatus to surveil, capture, diagnose, and execute such individuals is far more dangerous than allowing such people to exist.

You may be expecting far too much of your government. My opinion is that if pedophilia became a mental illness treatable by execution, enemies of the powerful might discover that their hard drives had been filled with outlawed images without their knowledge, rather than just having convenient car wrecks or drug overdoses.

Why just murder someone when you can simultaneously discredit and vilify them?

If you truly believe that such people are too dangerous to live, the logical course of action is for you to go out and murder them yourself. Are you prepared to deal with the consequences of that? Would it be better to just hire a professional to do it on your behalf? Would that become more acceptable if the professional is a state employee?

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When you are convicted of a serious pedophilia related crime with irrefutable evidence against you or a confession, the min. sentence should just be execution. The likelihood of re-offending is so high and they have already done monumental damage that it's much better from a Utility point of view to just put that person down.

Sexuality is something you can't re-wire. You don't get to choose your sexual desires and compulsions. You can't "pray the gay away." Some people are asexual and they are attracted to nobody (or thing, if that's what you fancy. No judgements). Similarly, you can't stop a pedophile from being a pedophile. The only difference with pedophiles is that they are wired to cause serious negative Utility, so the negative Utility brought by killing the pedophile will be less than the negative Utility the pedophile brings if they are left alive to continue to commit atrocities.

Recidivism rate is actually quite law compared to other crimes. As for execution, you are playing chicken with people who hare far less to lose. It will also give them a great tool to silence any victims because most victims do not want their abusers killed and many will make the choice to tolerate the abuse rather than have a family member killed.

To say nothing that the level of hatred will only lead to pedophiles thinking through system is being rigged against them and thus be less likely to even try to live a non harmful life. Germany's program which does the opposite of what you want seems to be the far better method for ensuring the least amount of children are abused.

>The likelihood of re-offending is so high and they have already done monumental damage that it's much better from a Utility point of view to just put that person down.

I call bullshit. If you put such a strong statement out there you better back it up. I'd like to supply you with a quote from an actual study:

"The prevalence of recidivating for another sex offense was low (13% or less) while nearly half of sex offenders did recidivate with some type of offense."[0]

[0] https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/238060.pdf, pg. 13

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