Dark matters

My blog isn't going as expected. Writing posts is hard. I get more ideas than i manage to write down. I mean not only writing down, but making a nice easy to read post out of it. I've read a bit about disorganized thinking and when i read what i have written, it pretty much looks like it. My thoughts are jumping back and forth. It is an advantage when thinking, but not when i want to communicate my ideas.

I admire those, who can write well and everybody seems to get the points across. So far i have not found out what is more important, the easy reading or the points. I'm writing this blog because i don't want the results of my quest get lost. So i'm pretty much focusing on the points. However, the one post that has been read the most, was written in an inspirational moment.

You already know that i want to find out all there is to know about pedophilia. My way of disorganized thinking, where my thoughts easily jump light years from fact to fact, makes it a surprising adventure, at least for me. The ideas do i get from reading as much as i can, from as many different fields as possible. I don't think that pedophilia can be fully explained using one field of science only. Too much different stuff seems to be involved.

The puzzle

They way i think resembles a puzzle game. I'm trying to keep an overview and are turning pieces here and there. Actually i'm all over the board and are connecting pieces and tearing them apart again where ever i'm looking at. Some researchers start with research questions like: What is the cause of pedophilia? The problem with questions like that are the hidden assumptions. The previous question assumes the existence of a cause that "creates" pedophilia in one way or another.  Moreover, it focuses on pedophilia. This might lead to a dead end. Imagine a game of dice, where we only investigate the outcomes of 6 eyes. What causes the dice to turn up with 6 eyes? When assembling a puzzle, one does not start with any question, one merely examines the bits and connects them.

More often than not, i'm trying to write about it when the picture is not finished. I do so, because the picture becomes bigger all the time and it's probably never finished. My picture is basically multi-dimensional, but for my blog, all thoughts have to be put into a linear order. This is the hard part.

Evolution

As a older teenager, i learned about pederasty of the ancient Greeks, but that was all i knew until last year. The Decent of Chester story enticed me to think along its lines. The story is a nice read, but has obvious flaws. However, it points out a major common mistake - the chronocentric approach. One might not be able to explain pedophilia using  current settings. Hence, my first question was: Would pedophilia  made sense 5000 years ago? Another mistake is forgetting that current human behavior is strongly regulated by moral and laws. A personal observation questioned the sexual nature of pedophilia.

Evolution is often misunderstood. The goal of human evolution is not a society where each person lives in comfort. There are many, "who have made it", who are considered "successful"; but who are not willing to reproduce. This thinking is turned upside down. The goal of evolution is not to provide humans with a nice live, but to ensure that genes get replicated. Taking it to the extreme, if "white trailer park trash" people fornicate like rabbits, then they are evolutionarily superior. Our personal judgement might differ from what evolution prefers.

Another mistake is to assume that evolution has any goals or that there are any reasons for everything. Nothing is selected for because it might be beneficial in the end. Evolution does not think, it only is brutally preferring the one with advantage, might that advantage be as tiny as possible. After writing almost 2 paragraphs, i realized my mistake. Evolution does not prefer anything - it's not a conscious presence or a thing. Evolution is more like a law of nature dictating, which genes survive.

One of the next blog posts i have in mind is about some kind of pedophilia and it's role in human evolution. An earlier piece turned out to be wrong, so i have to make sure that i'm not missing the obvious signs of mistakes. But another appearing piece is a shade darker.

Psychology and Neoteny

Human psychology has one common denominator - the human. Therefore everything is linked to everything else. So i'm not completely wrong, if i see connections everywhere. The question is: Does a certain connection matter? To make the matter worse, in psychology there is no clear cause and effect. Often the assumed effect has influence on what is claimed to be the cause. Hence, i'm trying to visualize those pieces as part of a network. Everybody has heard of evil cycles, and that might be a good approximation. If the feedback is strong enough, then some loop becomes active and a phenomenon can be observed.

Psychology gets even more interesting, when put into connection with the evolution of humans and the human brain. This stuff called neoteny has a huge impact. Coming to that conclusion, i tweeted:

The discussion of #pedophilia must include #neoteny. Neoteny has more influence on psychology than one might think.

This tweet got me over 20 times more impressions than i have followers. Somehow it hit a nerve and got me thinking more about neoteny. Humans are sometimes called the juvenile ape (that is what neoteny is about). Now, that makes humans some kind of a super breed. Neoteny in humans must have been selected for and probably still is. This evolutionarily pressure might have some side effects. Breeders of dogs know that too much of selection for a certain trait can ruin the offspring. If sexual orientation is indeed neotenous, then it might be fragile. Following that train of thoughts gets me into the darker areas of the bigger picture.

Should i avoid the darker sides? I already got the advice to do it. Dealing with those dark matters might lead to self-hate and depression. That is true. Avoiding the darker side might make me more happy, but i know that it is an illusion. Once i set out on my quest, i feel obligated to consider all aspects.

Faulty neoteny

Humans mature much later than they should. Our closest cousins in the animal kingdom are adults by age 7 or 8. Human maturity is much delayed. There are adults suffering from the Highlander-syndrome, who never grow up. Those are the extreme cases, but everybody knows somebody who looks much younger than their age. Not only do they look much younger, they give the impression to be younger on an emotional level. Something is either responsible for either that or absent. In an earlier post i wrote: "Sometimes, things are not caused, but rather not prevented." Here, a faulty mechanism might be at work (or lazy).

In Sexual orientation or what is wrong with dogs? i came to the understanding of sexual orientation as based on neotenous attachment. Most people are looking for love, not just sex. It seems, one needs to have the right dosage of neoteny to get it right. Too low a dosage and one behaves like an animal when it comes to sex. But what happens, if one got a dosage that is too high? 

Maturation in youths is accompanied by a brain development process called myelination. Simply put, the axons of nerves get a fatty insulation. This process is thought to be initiated or controlled by sexual hormones, for which the HPG axis is responsible. There are some studies showing that this axis does not work properly in homosexuals and pedophiles. If this dysfunction has any influence on the myelination, then the question arises: How is the missing white matter related? Is it the fatty insulation that should have showed up on those sMRI pictures?

Evolution formed humans as juvenile apes, driving the neotenous features to an extreme. In some sense humans are driven onto an edge, some are pushed over. The best racing cars in Formula 1 have engines that only hold one race. If engineers had their way, they should break down the second the car crosses the finish line. It is the same with the tyres, if one can finish the race with the current set, one should not enter the box for a change. Humans mature at an age several times older than our cousins. With our high maintenance brain humans are very much the fragile Formula 1 cars of nature. Part of the entertainment in Formula 1 is the anticipated event of breakdowns, the question is which team is the unlucky one. 

  

Paranoia

Some pedophiles hope that science eventually will find out the reason for pedophilia and that this will end the stigmatization. Sometimes this hope seems to be delusional. There have already been published books like Feierman or articles by Bruce Rind. They tend to be ignored by the media and public or cause an outcry. The actions in the USA don't leave much hope that science will help. 

When i'm in the mood for conspiracy thought, i can imagine that the cause of pedophilia is already known. But those involved in research need their funding. Publishing the final result will ultimately make that field of research obsolete. What are those researchers gonna do? Flipping burgers?

Mobbing is a human heritage

First of all, i do not condone any mobbing. 

Actually i despise it, i can not stand the thought that somebody is mobbed. I know that 9 out of 10 people find nothing wrong with mobbing, but i still find it wrong. I am not alone in this, many politicians and celebrities are against it, among them prime ministers, presidents, first ladies, kings and queens. Mobbing is something no civilized human should do.

Mobbing is a barbarian act. It sends out subtle signals that the target is not worth friendly thoughts. It is meant to undermine self-esteem and to cause significant psychological harm. Mobbed people start questioning their self-worth. It is so damaging that some youths take their own life due to mobbing. Hence, mobbing is something no civilized human should do.

We are civilized and not barbarians. We consider barbarians to closely resemble apes or our ape-like ancestors. We have evolved from that and we are certainly proud of that. We are civilized thanks to the evolution of mankind. Some million years ago, our ancestors were much like our closest cousins in the animal kingdom, the chimpanzees. Chimpanzees have anger issues and plays frequently turn into aggressive fights which causes damages to those involved. Our other cousins, the bonobos, turn to love in order to resolve social problems. We are too civilized to resort to sex in order to solve every problem.

So, how did we get civilized?

Again, i'm turning to the russian silver fox experiment. The aim was to find out how dogs got domesticated. Rather brutally, the experimenters divided their foxes according to their aggressiveness. Ten generations later, and cute friendly domesticated foxes where the result. The researchers in this experiment played God, knowing what they were looking for and providing ultimate selective pressure. Humans were not so lucky, we were left to do that on our own. So how did we do that?

I mean i'm talking about the self-domestication of humans.

First of all, nobody planned any domestication few million years ago - at least a document with that evil plan hasn't been found yet. Hence, it happened by accident. The Zaire river divided the ancestors of chimpanzees and bonobos. One environmental condition created our aggressive cousin, the other one must have been the paradise still harbouring the bonobos.

We assume that savannah took over the forest space forcing the ancestor of homo ergaster from the safe trees down to earth. And by chance, the big cat dinofelis developed an appetite for those apes. Bigger groups had better chances in fighting off dinofelis. Living in bigger group requires social intelligence and less aggressivity towards the other members. This is exactly the same criterion those silver fox researchers used for their selection. But who throw out those who failed the criterion? Who made the decision, which member is to be thrown under the wheels or in front of the next big cat? Nobody! At that time, homo ergaster didn't hold elections, courts or even elected a chief. 

It must have been peer pressure. Those who didn't fit in due to their aggressiveness, were driven off. It seems unlikely that our ancestors kept an account and after a certain number of strikes punishment was due. It is more probable that not fitting in was answered with constant signals to get lost. 

How do you subtle convince someone to leave?

Actually, that was not necessary. Evolutionary pressure utilizes tiny advantages. So tiny that the differences are almost unrecognizable. It is enough that friends stayed together during an attack by dinofelis. All what is needed is to make sure that unpopular members of the group get more exposed positions. Hence, everything that communicates the message of lower worth will do. If one does not feel entitled to love, one does not seek the safe center. This is exactly what shame is producing in modern humans. It ultimately destroys self-esteem. Hence our ancestors were driving those less popular individuals towards more exposed positions. Fortunately for mankind, they were rather successful. In some sense, we can be grateful that our ancestors were so proficient at mobbing. Without them, we would not have become civilized. Mobbing is partly responsible for human evolution. I guess 9 out of 10 people know that.

Disclaimer

Not everything in this post is meant to be taken dead serious.

Missing white matter - why is it important?

James Cantor PhD from CAMH made the discovery of missing white matters in some of his research subjects, which i discussed recently. It is a brilliant discovery, since virtually nobody looks for the expected amount of this cabling matter in fMRI images.

White matter denotes the area filled mostly with the dendrites and the axons of neurons, while the lump with the nucleus sits in the gray matter. Electrical impulses travel along those tentacles, a bit faster on those with a myelin sheath than along those without. Hence calling it cabling matter is quite correct. Without any cabling matter, our brains simply wouldn't work. But what are the effects if we are missing a bit here and there?

Everybody knows and loves cars. Imagine you are driving in winter time on an icy road. Something happens and you have to break. The foot presses onto a pedal, hydraulic pressure increases by that action and via brake lines is transferred to the wheels. Here, cylinders are expanding and moving brake pads onto disk or drums. Modern cars have ABS. This system has wheel speed sensors, which are connected to a controller by some cabling matters. Another set of cabling goes to valves. If everything works fine, this system will prevent the wheels from locking; and even on an icy road one maintains full control over the vehicle.

What we have here is a control system (the ABS) on top of another one (human - pedal - brake lines - brakes). Even newer cars have traction control and automatic brakes. The latter are intended to avoid rear-end collisions. Those are control systems on top of the other two. One can think of them as a hierarchy of control systems.

The brain is a more advanced version of that. Not only do we have neurons in our brains, we also have endocrine glands. In addition to that, our brain is getting rewired all the time. Our reflexes are like the simple brake system in cars, and everything else sits on top of it. Like the ABS in cars, those higher brain functions work like moderators.

Pretty often, questions with respect to mental illnesses are formulated as "What causes symptome X?" This type of questions shows the traces of the medical heritage, where viruses cause illnesses like influenza. Understanding the brain as a hierarchy of control circuits, one should rather ask "why aren't the emotions sufficiently moderated in bipolar disorders?"

I wonder, if missing white matter is responsible for that. The missing white matter discovery by James Cantor seems to be more important than commonly known. To my layman's eyes some psychological disorders look like missing some kind of moderation at some level. Often one reads the phrase "loss of control", which is similar to a car with a broken ABS on an icy road. If missing white matter were responsible, then we could find a treatment that rebuilds it. Missing white matter also rises the question, what prevented its growth in the first place? Already we suspect that children placed under lot of duress and stress during their childhood show long lasting mental damages later in life. It seems like higher hormonal values of cortisol and adrenaline might have had an impact. So how can we counter the effects?


If i were a benevolent dictator, i would initiate research programs:

• one for looking into the missing white matter indicator for certain disorders,
• another one in laboratories: what prevents and what encourages white matter growth.

Psychotherapy means learning on a rational and emotional level. Often it means to recognise signals of distress or to identify certain situations. Then "supporting thoughts" should aid us to get through the situation. From my personal experience i know that psychotherapy can be demanding and one gets a headache from them. Taking a paracetamol might be ill-advised,  it could harm the establishment of new circuitry. If pharmacy had something else, something that would make white matter growth easier - maybe it could support traditional psychotherapy.

Disclaimer

I'm not a psychiatrist, neurobiologist, or psychologist. The views presented here are based on common knowledge, which might not be scientifically correct.
Google on "white matter disorder" gives several results, among other this, where the connection between white matter and bipolar disorder is mentioned.

Addendum 2015-09-09: James Cantor reported the missing white matter, he also reported a lower IQ among his pedophile subjects. Glial cells are considered to be related to IQ, the more glial cells the higher the IQ. Glial cells provide the myelin sheathing of axons, hence contribute to white matter density. It could be as simple as JC has seen a lower IQ on his sMRI pictures.

Why is everything upside down?

I mean, every morning the sun goes up in the east, she set in the west. During night, i can see the stars wandering from the east to the west. Hence, for me it's obvious that the universe revolves around the earth (or me). But Copernicus made sense of the movements of the few wandering stars, now called planets, by putting the sun into the center. This makes me think.

Sexual orientation sounds pretty much like a direction one looks into in order to find a mate. Or like an arrow pointing to the right one. But that makes no sense for bisexual persons. Kinsey showed some diagrams, which resemble a profile.

Edited 2015-08-30: Kinsey presented his results as a profile, while he used a one-dimensional model for sexuality. Newer research uses an additional axis of intensity for the definition of sexual orientation. However, many researchers are measuring the intensity of sexual arousal for each age/gender group.

We are more or less attracted to others. The sexual orientation science put humans into categories and measures if we are attracted to them. But for me those categories make no sense. Mostly they are gender and age based, leading to homosexual or heterosexual, pedophile, hebephile and teleiophile categories. There is no division into latino's or nordic blonds. Moreover, most boylovers are attracted to boys who go through puberty - right at the border between prepubescent and pubescent. This confuses boylovers, since they don't understand if they are pedophiles or hebephiles. It seems that the categorization is somewhat arbitrary. Shouldn't we ask, what are you attracted to? Then we might know what we are looking for. If we look at the wrong categories, then we might never understand what makes certain others so attractive.

Sex conversion therapy tried to break sexual arousal. Those therapists punished their patients if they showed arousal to clues. I say "punished", since giving electric shocks is nothing else. This therapy is based on the understanding that arousal causes desire. But haven't we learned to react positively to signs of our desire. Aren't we on the lookout for the right one? Maybe, arousal is a mirror image of our desire. Then those conversion therapies had to fail.

Some researchers are looking for single direct causes of pedophilia. So far they didn't had any success. If we compare the normal sexual development with a train on rails, then we might see a problem. Most trains arrive at their destination. Some do not - they crash, break down or derail. A train might go downhill and the brakes are failing. Getting more and more speedy the next curve is a challenge too much to master. The train jumps out from the track. Did the brakes moved the train sideways? Of course not. All disasters happen by a chain of events. Pneumatic train brakes can fail in many different ways. Brake lines can get disconnected, holes are punched into storage tanks, storage tanks can be depleted by human mistake. All different root causes are making the train go faster than advised.

There are indications that homosexuality has something to do with the X-chromosomes, since extreme skewing of X-chromosomes in mothers is correlated with a higher number of homosexual sons. The X-chromosome contains several genes that influence the brain development. Here we might have one tripping root cause, but homosexuality manifests itself only after a chain of events. Researchers are looking for root causes, but the layout of the rail tracks and the existence of switches is critical for understanding the chain.

Sometimes, we have to lean back and investigate other explanations, switching cause and effect, looking for chain of events and evil cycles. Sometimes, we assume that things exist, when they do not. Freud claimed that humans are born bisexual. He assumes that children are sexual, but i think they haven't learned the meaning of the artificial demarcation line located around the belly button. They aren't sexual, but just enjoying bodily pleasure. Some animals aren't homosexual, they are just not picky with whom they enjoy pleasure. Sometimes, things are not caused, but rather not prevented. This might be the case with missing white matter.

Sexual orientation in human adults might be a neotenous thing, which means we should compare human adult sexual behavior with behavior of juvenile animals. Are boys entering puberty later than girls, because they are left behind? Or is it the case that late puberty was evolutionarily selected for? Moreover, that this evolutionary pressure was exercised on boys. I say exercised, because boys enter puberty earlier than decades before. Now, how was this evolutionary pressure exercised?

Sexual orientation or what is wrong with dogs?

Brain teaser

Dogs greet their owners by wagging their tails, whimpering to attract attention, sniffing and licking. What do dogs do when they encounter a bitch in heat? Do they wag tails, sniff behinds, lick? Yes they do. That begs the question, are dogs sexually attracted to their owners?

What have dogs to do with the sexual orientation of humans?

In some sense dogs are domesticated wolves. Humans have gone through a process called self-domestication; probably during the time as homo habilis. The result in both cases is neoteny, the retainment of juvenile features. Neoteny seems to have a bigger impact on human behavior than acknowledged so far.

Neoteny

The famous russian silver fox experiment was aimed at finding out how domestication turned wolves into dogs. The selection in this silver fox experiment was based on the behavior as the sole criterium. However, the changes in behavior were accompanied by physiological changes, which show signs of neoteny. Neoteny denotes the retainment of both physiological and behavioral traits. The physiological traits can be characterized as Kindchenschema. Those silver foxes started to look cute. Is this a coincidence?

Not only did the foxes became more tame, but also showed smarter behavior. Smart in this case means social intelligence. The foxes attracted attention and wanted to play, something that reminds us of dogs. Playing in the animal kingdom is an act mostly juveniles do. Cubs and pups play with each other and test their strength. Playing as a pup meant learning how to subdue prey. Sometimes the parents get involved and "teach" them a lesson or two. This playing with each other can be considered the earliest of teaching.

The selection of juvenile playful non-aggressive behavior in those silver foxes is a possible explanation for the emerging neoteny. That pups in general are not aggressive towards siblings is another result of evolution.

Pups do not have a dominance hierarchy, which is retained in dogs, see Alexandra Semyonova. Pups and dogs live in groups that are defined by one-to-one relationships. It is often said that dogs consider their owners as a parent, much like the imprinting of wild gooses, which are raised by humans. But this would render any sale of older dogs to a different owner as problematic. Hence, it is not imprinting that bonds dogs to their owners. Cattle, which is another domesticated animal, also reacts on human presence. This however, seems to be more like a Pavlov's dog reflex. Any human is regarded as a signal for feeding time or milking.

Dogs must consider humans as another element of their social group. The learn the verbal and nonverbal communication anew like they did with their siblings. In order to function in a domestic setting, they had to develop social intelligence, pretty much like homo habilis did in the human evolution.

Attachments

The first pair-bonding of pups is to its parent. This mother-young bonding ensures nurture and a successful reproduction. This and the non-aggressive rivalry with siblings gets transformed into one-to-one relationships, which are attachments. This is the reason, why dogs greet their owners in the same way they are courting a bitch. The mating aspect gets overshadowed by the neotenous attachment, at least there is an overlap of juvenile attachment and sexual behavior. 

Hence: No, the dogs are not sexually attracted to their human owners. They don't seek a mate in humans, but a play partner.

Sexual orientation

The wikipedia entry on sexual orientation focuses a lot on the sexual aspect, while I in my previous post started to question the sexual nature of the desire part. The arousal is without any doubt of a sexual nature, the body responds to clues in a sexual way. The arousal part could be some kind of learned response to clues. John Money considers lovemaps and phylisms in his theory of paraphilias. Somehow one learns what the desired partner looks like and starts responding to clues in a more reflex like manner. Bem's disputed theory  "exotic becomes erotic" could be reformulated as "attracted becomes erotic". During a certain stage in childhood humans acquire a lovemap, which  might be nothing else than a preference for certain types of attachments. 

Since humans live in social groups, the sought after attachment has to fit in. As such it is not really a one-to-one relationship, but a complex system. As it seems to me, the development of a lovemap is a fragile process, which can be easily distorted. The attachment, one has a toddler, has to change. It seems that lovemaps or attachment search develops along certain paths, not all paths leading to a heterosexual orientation. 

One explanation for homosexuality is the fraternal birth order effect, which also has been observed in pedophiles and male-to-female transsexuals. However, having many older brothers changes the family climate and might lead to a different attachment to the primary caregiver for the youngest than the older brothers had. 

If sexual orientation are basically lovemaps based on attachment patterns, then childhood attachment(s) are relevant for their development. Moreover, the glorified target is influenced by culture, like romantic and love.

Conclusion

The discussion of sexual orientation must include neoteny. Humans do not simply look for a mating partner, but for one to establish a relationship to. This relationship includes many other aspects besides a sexual component. Why do we still call it "sexual orientation" if only the arousal is sexual?

If I were Prime Minister for one day, what would I do?

If I were Prime Minister for one day, what would I do? What can I possibly do that I will be remembered for forever? I would declare an amnesty for sexual offenders prior year 2000.


Amnesties are controversial at least. It has to be thought through and it can backfire. Only historians are able to tell in hindsight if an amnesty was any good. This makes it such a risky operation that amnesties are rarely used today. Most amnesties were declared, when wars ended and war crimes had to be forgiven. Others were used to deal with an unwanted situation. The one I have in mind is no different.


Why would you declare an amnesty? Prisons are rapidly filling up with older men, punishment is dealt out for historical crimes according to today's standards and morales. Those old men  have broken the law. And breaking the law shall be punished. However, this shall be done in due time. A swift reaction to crime is what will deter crime in the first place. Moreover, punishing criminals comes at a cost. Not only is the court affaire very costly, so is the execution of penalties. Roughly each prisoner requires a full time equivalent. Housing costs, care and equipment add to that salary. Hence, a sentence given today is a huge investment into a rehabilitated returning citizen.

Isn't it declaring defeat? Yeah, probably. Let's face it, the situation is bad enough - so bad that it became an open secret. Admitting that the current actions have failed doesn't make it worse. However, it makes us realize that things went wrong. Hence, admitting defeat is the first step towards improvement. Correcting past mistakes keeps us occupied and we will neglect more important and pressing issues. We also use money which we need at other places.


So, you condone past offenses, right? Well, condone is the wrong word. Condoning some actions means that we accept that behavior, approve or sanction it. Amnesty is not about condoning, but about deliberately overlook certain actions.


So, why would you deliberately overlook past offenses? This has to do with priorities. We can not have a situation, where people are burglered in their own homes without police intervening, just because they are occupied with an archeological excavation. We live in the current and the main task of the police is to ensure peace and order. The police has to deal with today's challenges.


But don't you think of the victims? The victims of historical child sexual abuses are adults by now. A punishment for historical offenses will bring no relief and will have no therapeutic value. Moreover, victims and their relatives are more concerned with the prevention of future crime. If you look around, victims are engaging themselves so that nobody else will experience what they had to endure. So even victims will support an amnesty if it means prioritizing future crime prevention. There are children today that need protection and care.


How about the offenders, don't they deserve punishment? Do you really think that this amnesty will encourage anyone to commit an offense? This amnesty is about past offenses, not future ones. An amnesty will not cause pain, like a harsh prison sentence does. But the purpose of a harsh prison sentence is to rehabilitate the inmate. If that can be done at a lesser cost, then society will benefit from it. This amnesty will bring release and a relief to those imprisoned. They are given a chance, they likely will not get again. I can assure you that the rehabilitating effect of this amnesty is of greater impact than any harsh prison program.

As I said, those affected by this amnesty will not experience another one in their life time. I can guarantee that every politician will oppose this amnesty and it will kill any career by supporting it. This will drive home the point that such an amnesty will not happen again. I think those on the receiving end of mercy would at least think twice before reoffending. The recidivism rate will drop dramatically. One could reason that this amnesty prevents some future crimes. Isn't that great?


What does it cost us? That is the beauty of it. Any other action that I can think of (which will bring me fame) will cost us bucketloads of money. No this amnesty would reduce prison population, clear desks, clear court rooms. This room is badly needed for the queue of cases that have been delayed. If I were a criminal, I would consider a career change.


As a Prime Minister I could declare such an amnesty, because I would only be Prime Minister for one day.