I’m going to assume this is a genuine question asked in good faith.
I’d say these are pretty wild mental gymnastics, but I think I kind of get where you are coming from because of the following point that I’ll concede:
I don’t think that any society which tries to establish just rules and laws on the basis of scientific rationality should ever consider “thought crime” to be a thing, and we should push against that ever becoming something punishable.
This is however also me doing mental gymnastics to try to be charitable to your messages. Now for why I think people are very understandably bothered by this.
First of all, in the context of this post, this is not just about thoughts but also producing material that can be shared online. I don’t know whether you’ve followed the news as of late, but it should be pretty clear that for day-to-day life (i.e. without scientific rigour being applied to every aspect) it matters more what is perceived as true as opposed to what is true. From the point of view of the victim, whether the nudes are “real” or not does not matter nearly as much as the fact that knowing people who’ll view them will think that they are. This is, beyond shame, because of the fact that this may then be used against the victim for employment discrimination, harassment, or worse.
Now let’s move on from that and address just the “thought” bit. Trying to view that through a reductionist, materialistic point of view is pretty misguided in my opinion. Here, you’re dealing with people, feelings, and social relationships. I’d say that learning that someone, anyone, is fantasising about me (and I did not suspect it, and it’s unreciprocated), is, at the very least, likely to change the social dynamic because someone I considered a friend or coworker, and that I interacted with under the assumption that I was the same in their eyes. Furthermore, I’ll add that I am a somewhat strong looking man, and have thus far not felt physically or mentally threatened the (very) few times this has happened. Add power dynamics which are not in your favour in this equation and yeah, no wonder people freak out…
But all in all, I’d say that analysing human interactions on the basis of human beings being purely rational is naive at best honestly. There are varying degrees, of course, but I don’t believe anyone is purely rational.
I’m going to assume this is a genuine question asked in good faith.
I’d say these are pretty wild mental gymnastics, but I think I kind of get where you are coming from because of the following point that I’ll concede: I don’t think that any society which tries to establish just rules and laws on the basis of scientific rationality should ever consider “thought crime” to be a thing, and we should push against that ever becoming something punishable.
This is however also me doing mental gymnastics to try to be charitable to your messages. Now for why I think people are very understandably bothered by this.
First of all, in the context of this post, this is not just about thoughts but also producing material that can be shared online. I don’t know whether you’ve followed the news as of late, but it should be pretty clear that for day-to-day life (i.e. without scientific rigour being applied to every aspect) it matters more what is perceived as true as opposed to what is true. From the point of view of the victim, whether the nudes are “real” or not does not matter nearly as much as the fact that knowing people who’ll view them will think that they are. This is, beyond shame, because of the fact that this may then be used against the victim for employment discrimination, harassment, or worse.
Now let’s move on from that and address just the “thought” bit. Trying to view that through a reductionist, materialistic point of view is pretty misguided in my opinion. Here, you’re dealing with people, feelings, and social relationships. I’d say that learning that someone, anyone, is fantasising about me (and I did not suspect it, and it’s unreciprocated), is, at the very least, likely to change the social dynamic because someone I considered a friend or coworker, and that I interacted with under the assumption that I was the same in their eyes. Furthermore, I’ll add that I am a somewhat strong looking man, and have thus far not felt physically or mentally threatened the (very) few times this has happened. Add power dynamics which are not in your favour in this equation and yeah, no wonder people freak out…
But all in all, I’d say that analysing human interactions on the basis of human beings being purely rational is naive at best honestly. There are varying degrees, of course, but I don’t believe anyone is purely rational.