Sex censorship killed the internet we love • Hacker News Board

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#451

Post by marcus_holmes » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 6:37 PM UTC

microcolonel wrote: post #424

lenticular wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Closed attitudes about sex lead to more teen pregnancy, less opportunities for women, etc. I don't see where it is beneficial. The arguments for sexual prudishness always seem to revolve around "cheapening it" with a heavy subtext of expecting women to maintain sexual purity especially. Most of Western Europe is quite progressive about sex, but yet I can't see how that has been a problem for them. While you may have…

> less opportunities for women What is the mechanism of that? I don't understand how it's necessary to expose broader society (rather than just people interested in it) to unavoidable sexual imagery in order to... have women in the workplace?

sex is treated as something that women give to men, sometimes in exchange for money/influence/drugs/etc.

in a truly equal world, with a healthy attitude to sex, female sexual desire would be recognised too, and sex would stop being something that women give to men, and instead be something that two people (of whatever genders) enjoy together.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#452

Post by jumpman500 » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 6:44 PM UTC

ropelike_object wrote: post #445

tripzilch wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not just American sensibilities that are in play. When you allow people to upload pornographic material you have to deal with the risk that they'll upload illegal material (shit that's illegal in Europe too (...)) Umm, disagree. If you allow people to upload beautiful, tasty delicious regular porn, they're not going to automatically upload ugly scary bad disgusting child porn, too. It's not like porn is a "gat…

Consider the premise of pornography's capacity to motivate violence. This is an often neglected concept. But we see it readily emerging as a cognitive awareness of real denial and promoter of outsider self image, and depersonalization. So, individuals suddenly notice that they have no access to real sexual gratification, they are only permitted participation as distant observer. They live isolated from the inside of…

I reject that this is porns fault. The man was young and disturbed. There’s a lot of things about present day society that drive people’s insecurities. Porn can be one. Porn addiction can definitely be a problem. It sounded more like this guy needed a real friend or therapist to talk to.

This guy could have spent 5000 dollars on having sex with a very attractive escort, rather then guns and shooting up a place. Maybe society shouldn’t make paying for sex a humiliating and degrading thing. Sex workers can be good people and people that pay for sex don’t have to be weak or sad people. The man was convinced sex and women would be forever alien to him and that didn’t have to be the case.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#453

Post by ggregoire » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 6:49 PM UTC

DSingularity wrote: post #345

crazygringo wrote: post #329

Again and again I see the comments of how crazy it is that we allow violence in films/TV/anywhere, but not sex which is peaceful and harmless -- as if this were some kind of idiocy or hypocrisy. There's a good reason we try to draw lines between areas where sex is "allowed" and "not allowed" -- because it's arousing and has the potential to be greatly embarrassing . It's private , in a way that violence isn't. I seri…

Man thank you. I would take it a step forward and argue that the reason it is so embarrassing is because sexually explicit content clashes with our basic nature. Unfortunately you cant say such things without being painted as a caveman who refuses to evolve.

Cavemen probably had sex in front of everyone without any shame.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#454

Post by marcus_holmes » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 6:58 PM UTC

door5 wrote: post #337

Tade0 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then again that bit about the Roma is somewhat accurate. On the other hand majority of the Roma refuse to assimilate, and on a much deeper level than pretty much any immigrant at that, so it's possible to imagine why this prejudice lives on.

This is my point though -- European racism is portrayed always somehow "different". It's the exact same story and there are no excuses for it. Anti-Roma prejudice is no more rational or justified than any other prejudice, and it's just as violent and dangerous.

The same can be said for Australian prejudice against aboriginals.

But I've never met a European traveler who expresses an anti-Roma opinion. I've met several US travelers who have expressed some really severe anti-African-American comments.

So, yes, the prejudice is probably the same, but the level of hatred, and the willingness to express it, is not.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#455

Post by dang » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 6:59 PM UTC

marcus_holmes wrote: post #127

I find the US prudishness thing so fascinating. I'm travelling at the moment, and meeting lots of Americans (and Europeans for contrast). There's definitely a huge difference in tolerance for swearing and blasphemy. Also several well-educated and seemingly intelligent Americans who hold strong racist opinions. But that's another subject. I guess it all comes down to the religion. Americans do seem to be more religiou…

This comment managed to take the thread down a nationalistic flamewar tangent, a racial flamewar tangent, and a religious flamewar tangent. That's a hellish trifecta. I get that you didn't mean to, but can you please not post like that on this site?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#456

Post by bambax » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 7:01 PM UTC

naasking wrote: post #307

bambax wrote: post #172

In general, superstitious behavior tends to win over non-superstitious behavior, even if it is a small minority . For example, say there are two communities in a given town; one of the community has decided that black doors were evil, and won't go through them. The other community doesn't care. Shops that have black doors lose the business of the superstitious community; even if that community is small, it simply mak…

> This may appear controversial, but the fact is you can't fight superstition with openness because openness accepts superstition and lets it grow and conquer everything. The only way to combat superstition is to actively fight it. You're assuming an awful lot of human cognition that doesn't seem justified. Firstly, that superstition "grows". In fact, empirically, the opposite seems to be the case: people have become…

I respectfully disagree.

We are not less superstitious than our forebearers, at least not the ones we know something about, such as, for instance, members of the Enlightenment (including the Founding fathers of the US). When we say we are getting less and less superstitious we usually compare ourselves to some version of the "cavemen" we know absolutely nothing about, that we use as a straw-man.

Secondly, "actively fighting deeply held beliefs" is probably the only way to go, because if we don't, then said beliefs simply win over. Black doors don't matter any which way, but there are things that matter. For example, anti-vax people should be convinced first, but if they can't be convinced, they need to be ostracized, because they threaten the existence of the group. They may resent it and be very upset about it, but that's a small price to pay for survival.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#457

Post by dang » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 7:05 PM UTC

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #302

groestl wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One real-world example is Coca Cola [0]. While most of the consumers probably don't care, influence of a small but committed minority made Coca Cola kosher, halal, and vegan. [0] https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/the-re...

[flagged]

Can you please not take HN threads on ideological flamewar tangents like this and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17950484? They're off topic here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#458

Post by door5 » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 7:06 PM UTC

marcus_holmes wrote: post #454

door5 wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my point though -- European racism is portrayed always somehow "different". It's the exact same story and there are no excuses for it. Anti-Roma prejudice is no more rational or justified than any other prejudice, and it's just as violent and dangerous.

The same can be said for Australian prejudice against aboriginals. But I've never met a European traveler who expresses an anti-Roma opinion. I've met several US travelers who have expressed some really severe anti-African-American comments. So, yes, the prejudice is probably the same, but the level of hatred, and the willingness to express it, is not.

This is anecdotal, the data does not support your claim: http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/05/12/a-fragile-rebound-for-eu...

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#459

Post by darkpuma » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 7:12 PM UTC

tripzilch wrote: post #438

darkpuma wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just American sensibilities that are in play. When you allow people to upload pornographic material you have to deal with the risk that they'll upload illegal material (shit that's illegal in Europe too, it should be pointed out. And we could dive into a tangent to discuss the topic of ISP-level content blocking in America and the UK if you wish..) If you're unable to effectively filter that stuff out the ne…

> It's not just American sensibilities that are in play. When you allow people to upload pornographic material you have to deal with the risk that they'll upload illegal material (shit that's illegal in Europe too (...)) Umm, disagree. If you allow people to upload beautiful, tasty delicious regular porn, they're not going to automatically upload ugly scary bad disgusting child porn, too. It's not like porn is a "gat…

You've misunderstood me severely. I'll try to reframe my point; it has absolutely nothing to do with "gateway drug" arguments.

Suppose your country makes it illegal to distribute videos of people dying, and suppose you operate a video sharing website. A user uploads a video to your website that shows a bad traffic accident. You're not sure who the people involved in the accident are. The accident looks severe, people got hurt badly, but you aren't sure whether anybody died.

If you cannot confirm whether the traffic accident victims survived or died, do you delete the video or not? Do you ban traffic accident videos categorically so that your moderators are no longer forced to deal with this ambiguity? Do you ban the general genre of "people getting hurt" videos because your moderators struggle to differentiate people getting hurt from people dying? That's analogous to what tumblr did.

It's certainly not a question of whether or not videos of lethal traffic accidents will turn people into bad drivers. And neither is it a question of whether lethal traffic accident videos should be legal or illegal. It's a question of how moderation policies deal with legally ambiguous content.

Forget sex and violence; consider how youtube handles copyright infringement. People get 'copystriked' all the time in situations youtube's ContentID situation considers ambiguous, in situations that should be covered by fair use or in situations where no copyrighted material was used at all. Youtube has overzealous copyright moderation because they've decided that's the 'safest' way to stay out of courtrooms even though it pisses off and rips off their content creators.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#460

Post by leetcrew » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 7:19 PM UTC

door5 wrote: post #429

mason55 wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the difference between cultural discrimination and constructive criticism? Can you complain that the Saudis don’t (didn’t) let women drive or is that cultural discrimination? Anti-FGM campaigns? I’m being intentionally obtuse but there has to be a line somewhere. Or not and people should be free to argue without fear of the label “cultural discrimination”. FWIW I have no idea what the answer is.

It depends whether your criticism is informed and empathetic. Are you criticizing to prove that another group is somehow "lesser" or "other", or are you listening to and supporting activists from within those groups? How informed are you on the issue, etc.

how do you know which are the "correct" activist groups to support? there are many different groups that could be considered activist in most large countries. if you just pick ones that largely align with Western values, it doesn't seem much better than being uninformed.