@Cacophanus Generally yes. I think when we have hybrid styles where the melee is primary, it's most often with a smaller arm like a pistol. We tend to weight heavily to one side too, so secondaries are often situational and not viable for sustained combat.
The first point of me laughing off the analogy as ridiculous was to show you that some deductions aren't as cut and dry as others, that I well understand you can make conlusions based on reasoning. I'm sure you can agree that some claims are harder to support through rationalization than others, it's not as cut and dry in this instance as "golfers buying golf clubs".
The second point was to indicate weaknesses in such a methodology if that analogy is representative of your reasoning. You have yet to engage with that in good faith, either clarifying your rationalization further than the basic analogies you've provided. You also haven't countered how Japan works for comparative analysis. You brought up a law change that was not even relevant and showed how little you understand of the country you're claiming doesn't matter in doing so.
I do not make a claim on whether they do or don't because I do not think existing rationalization supports either side well enough to make a claim, and that there is not enough data to make an objective claim.
The study you linked is not representative of people who hold expert opinions. Many experts in the real world hold opposing views, and pretending that such a small sample indicates a general consensus is borderline disingenuous, grasping for straws. I'm sure you don't immediately believe every "expert" opinion you hear either.
As if we've never handled taboo topics in research. Proper research on lolicon effects is feasible and has precedents like anonymous surveys with randomized response techniques to minimize stigma and experiments comparing jurisdictions with or without widespread lolicon (e.g., Japan's trends). You're dismissing it just to protect flimsy anecdotes and heavily biased data because you're uncomfortable admitting you lack evidentiary basis for your conclusion.
The most important aspect of lolicon is not if offenders consume it, but whether it enables and leads to real-world action that harms real people. You say your conclusion is rational but studies in adjacent content like violent fiction haven't been able to find significant correlation between fiction and the real world. If humans really operated this way why don't we see this effect in any other domain? It's rational at the surface level but weakens quickly once you start comparing it.
If lolicon -> higher offense rates will you also argue that violent fiction -> higher offense rates? Even a study that shows a causal link on something less taboo than pedophilia with harmful offending behavior would be better than basing it on a single weak analysis of media coverage.
@suvikyi Then there's no substantive evidence that would convince you besides the raw police numbers being revealed
You are basically siding with incriminating surveys over statements from judicial officers
If only the raw police numbers would convince you then be transparent about it
@Roasted_Babies To be honest, that you ignored the previous statements I've made reiterated to you, that you avoid engaging with scrutiny of your methodology, gives me the impression you aren't here to engage in good faith. If you trying to force a point, there is no reason to continue.
@Roasted_Babies As for the existence of any actual pipeline/causal link, or that lolicon has strong correlation with actual acts of CSA, that is something I do take a position on. I think comparative analysis and the existing studies we have, on top of my rationalization, are enough.
@BIMBOSATTVA_ Opposite experience for me, I much prefer newer music and I don't think that will change. I still like a like of older music too, but outside of some nostalgic tracks and a few standout artists from the 2000s I could write off most of that decade.
@Roasted_Babies Some things you shouldn't make claims on without good evidence, this is one of them. Whether or not pedophiles in the majority consume lolicon isn't anywhere close to as simple as your golf club analogy, if that's the basis for your claim you need to do better.
No it doesn't, it's a sample of 25 media pieces, only 7 of which involved "VCSAM" exclusively. Imagine taking evidence that weak that as proof of anything, even the author admits limitations. The age of consent raise in 2023 was national, all prefectures prior to that already had ordinances to raise it higher, 16-18 usually.
I do believe in plenty of things without requiring strong evidence, that's "source", however, not all things are equal. That is again, why I pointed out the flaws in your methodology, to point out that I don't think there's enough evidence to make a reasonable conclusion. The implicit claim there is that I don't think your position is rationally sound, not that I don't believe in anything without evidence.
Notice how you sidestepped the rest of the rationalization about your analogy being poor because of the differences? I'm pointing out that there are flaws with your analogy and the rationalization you're using, that it is a much more complex distinction than what you've provided. If you can't engage with that what point is there in even having this discussion? It's just you trying to dodge methodological weaknesses in your own position and force a narrow concession on a single venn diagram point.
Your own analysis of the articles you linked used a very short range of years for its sample and yet you pointed to it. If the last 12 years after the increases in age of consent and criminalization of CSAM don't show a meaningful increase and you think that doesn't count as supporting a claim, why would you ever link to that kind of analysis as meaningful support for reasonable "judicial/police concern"?
@Roasted_Babies The second part on that is for causation and correlation with actual CSA, which, not your specific argument, but I think is still important to include. Again, you responded to my post without grasping the full context.
My position on this is:
"I don't think enough data exists to make a reasonable conclusion."
The analogy is laughably bad. First of all, considering what pedophiles are actually after, there is a far more appealing (literal CSAM) material available. Golfers only have golf clubs, there's no less appealing option for them that can be considered equivalent. Lolicon isn't almost fully exclusive to that single group, either. How many people who don't engage in golfing buy golf clubs? Clearly there's interest in it that doesn't derive specifically from pedophilia, which begs the question whether lolicon is genuinely appealing to the major portion of pedophiles you claim and how tangential the relation is. Then, you have existing data in the real world that brings the idea of its correlation into question, like the availability of sexual material in some countries leading to lower sexually-related crimes overall, especially in Japan, where lolicon has a much higher visibility and yet actual CSA rates are much lower.
The difference between the golfing analogy and the lolicon/pedo correlation & causation is enormous.
@Roasted_Babies I don't have any strong data on that so no. I don't form conclusions like that unless I have good evidence for it, nor have you provided it. The venn diagram is a single part of the overarching discussion, don't respond to a post with words like "causal link" if you don't get it.
@Roasted_Babies No, Asmongold rejects the idea that it's just harmless fiction with no broader implications. None of us would be critical of him right now if he had only said "pedophiles are more likely to consume lolicon".
@Roasted_Babies I am aware of the analysis, it's for media coverage, which can have bias and is often sensationalized. Moreover, the empirical findings are based on 25 articles. Media and judicial framing aren't good evidence to support it being a concern.
It is disappointing to see Asmon default to these appeals. We've had similar debates in the culture taking place as long as I've been apart of it. 20 some odd years and I've yet to come across a single piece of substantive evidence showing a causal link or strong correlation.
Yesterday, this was probably one of the strangest interactions I had with any content creator on the internet. Now I really like Asmongold, but this take has always been his consistent L. What started as a post critical of his take ended up with a "debate" on X, nitpicking details like sample sizes and whether the hentai was opposite-sex or that it was "real research" vs literature reviews.
He ends up ignoring or dismissing studies as not relevant or insufficient, doubling down on his gut instinct that attraction patterns to fictional child-like features must overlap with real world pedophilic ones.
Same emotional shortcut moral panickers have always used... "Violent games make kids violent." "Rap music causes gang crime"... same with D&D/satanic panic, comic books, heavy metal, etc., that was common between 1980 to the 2000's
He ignores all the data from the national crime statistics from Japan or the Czech Republic, how Otaku culture is emeshed with loli tropes... or that Japan is lolicon central, and yet has one of the lowest CSA rates.
The separation of fiction and reality is clearly segmented for healthy adults, and they compartmentalize it just fine. That's why video game violence or horror movie splatter fests don't ever translate into real-world violence.
The studies that do find correlations with offenders suffer from massive selection bias, where they test convicted pedophiles who already consume real-world illegal materials. These studies don't predict the behavior of the non-offending consumer base. Same line of reasoning as saying most school shooters played first-person shooter games, and then trying to generalize FPS games as problematic.
The reason why I talk about this so much, despite hardly interacting with lolicon content myself, is that the same "intuition" has greased the slippery slope of censorship, creating the regulatory mess we have today with video games and media as a whole. That WHOLE RED TAPE allowed the injection of woke, DEI, and other kinds of garbage, as the people regulating them tend to be the exact karenocracy being run by middle-aged foids that Asmongold is always critical of.
It's just totally disappointing as I expected him actually to look into the data, but instead defaulted into "gut level intuition mode" that so many moral satanic panicers fell into.
@Roasted_Babies Substantive evidence would be a representative study with large, diverse, low-bias samples that demonstrate either causal or independent correlation between fictional media that lolicons consume and real-world effects like elevated CSA rates and offenses.
@OlqzCdZAcG13641 I agree, it's pretty silly isn't it? Thankfully a lot of people are also pushing back against the labels and criticism. It seems more people disagree with the criticism than not. The character design for Eve in the previous game was also heavily criticized by some people here.
Some people in the West are up in arms over the character design for Evie in the trailer for the recently announced Stellar Blade sequel Blood Rain. Critics have labeled her neotenous and tomboyish features as “pedo-bait.” Anti-AI critics are also pushing back against the use of generative AI in production, particularly the hallucinated or malformed Hanzi on some art assets (though intent here is unknown).
I think the “pedo-bait” accusations are absurd. Evie’s aesthetic draws from long-standing preferences for youthful appearances in media, combined with phenotypic traits more prevalent in East Asian populations. Much of the criticism reflects ethnocentrism, western discourse—more prominently on the left but not exclusively—applies its own universal benchmarks, leaving little room for how these differing factors shape East Asian media. They fail to engage with the work on its own cultural terms.
On generative AI, the push-back against the anti-AI contingent is the most welcome aspect of the current discourse. Generative AI is already embedded in development pipelines across a majority of studios, per the GDC report. I do, however, critique the inclusion of assets with generative artifacts such as the malformed Hanzi. It is more important than ever for studios to apply proper human review so that final and promotional assets meet or exceed the quality of traditional human work. AI should function as a force multiplier rather than a lazy shortcut that degrades output; otherwise it risks raising consumer concerns that will strengthen opposition. If Shift Up continues using it while ignoring demands to abandon the technology and also rectifies the quality issues, this will represent a positive step for acceptance of generative tools in commercial projects.