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Sex censorship killed the internet we love

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461–470 of 520 posts

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's not perfect, but that really misses the forest for the trees. I for one agree we need to find a way to redistribute that wealth, but what exactly generated all of that ridiculous wealth on the first place? And people have access to more advanced goods and services than ever at unprecedentedly cheap prices. Again, I agree we need to lift up our lower class right now, but by many metrics, it's better to be…

I am not saying capitalism as such is terrible, or that we should abolish it etc. What I do think we need is to have a more healthy mix of properly regulated capitalism, higher taxation of top earners, closing loopholes and corporations storing cash overseas and healthy social programs, infrastructure development etc. As for " it's better to be impoverished today than to be middle class 50 years ago", there was certa…

Well, if I understand correctly, you are arguing against the phrase, "Capitalism is an elegant system for resource allocation". But I still haven't parsed what your argument actually is, beyond, some people have gotten left behind, which is certainly true.

I also don't understand the mindset that it's somehow somebody else's fault when a person accumulates student debt. Like, I'm sorry you made a poor choice, but nobody physically twisted your arm and made you take this loan. Protecting people from their own bad decisions is not, in my mind, proper regulation of capitalism. It's the infantilization of grown adult citizens. Butt I'm open to having my mind changed.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#462
post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 f…

> 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.

So you think 23% Enlightment-era peasants were religiously unaffiliated, like 23% of Americans are now? Some European countries are even majority atheist. You're also claiming that these countries had exactly these demographics even 200 hundred years ago?

> Secondly, "actively fighting deeply held beliefs" is probably the only way to go, because if we don't, then said beliefs simply win over.

That's speculation for one, and two, "actively fighting" can mean many things, some of which are constructive, some of which are not.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not only on the back burner, but as some kind of weird, separate thing. No one is connecting the dots to the puritans. True. It's why they repeated the very same prosecution complex trap during McCarthyism. Same finger-pointing scenario, it was just a different boogeyman to be afraid of - so it wasn't "the same".

Hate to break it to you, but witch hunts were a European thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch-hunt#Early_Modern_Europe The Salem affair is notable as "that one time we did the thing"; also, we hung our witches, we didn't burn them.

Sure these folks were Europeans, perhaps selected for nastiness.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#464
post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Look for where their funding comes from. Puppet organizations will often lead you back to U.S. state-funded organizations like the NED or BBG or billionaire-funded NGOs

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#465
post #368

What happened was we failed to consider the consequences of centralization: - Google with its search - Tumblr (or Medium) with its blogging platform - Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram with their connection to friends, family, and news - Starbucks with its roaming internet access - Youtube with its ubiquitous video distribution - PayPal with its payment network - Apple with its walled garden App Store It's no accident…

Why do we always ignore/forget LinkedIn?

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#466
post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are cultural differences, not genetic ones (for the most part). I think that’s quite a difference as one can adapt over the time span of a couple of generations (or even immediately by strong willed individuals) while race is much more sticky and impossible to shake once you’re born into it. Case in point, when a Roma family settles down, they can in theory just be another Eastern European family to those who d…

FWIW, I don't think cultural discrimination is acceptable either. I've met people who don't bat an eyelid when they hear European accents or southern/Boston/new-York accents, but are openly hostile to those speaking African-American vernacular. Similarly for Mexicans speaking Spanish as well. Also, I've never met a Roma person, but it's my understanding that they can trace their genetic ancestry to Asia, and that the…

Roma can trace heritage back to India, correct? I don’t see the problem - lots of Indian families have integrated quite well in Europe. But I admit I was wrong about comparing to other Eastern Europeans. At the end it’s still a lifestyle/ culture difference that leads to animosities IMO, not anything related to their genes.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#467
post #368

What happened was we failed to consider the consequences of centralization: - Google with its search - Tumblr (or Medium) with its blogging platform - Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram with their connection to friends, family, and news - Starbucks with its roaming internet access - Youtube with its ubiquitous video distribution - PayPal with its payment network - Apple with its walled garden App Store It's no accident…

Not sure about the Tumblr one.

WordPress apparently powers 1/3 of websites. But I also know that a lot of webhosts powering those WP sites forbid any adult content. Why? For two reasons — the difficulty in policing it, just as Tumblr had. But more importantly, the web host industry is built on people paying for resources that remain unused (massive overselling).

Adult sites actually use the resources; bandwidth being the primary (which is a lot cheaper than it used to be), but now that video porn is ubiquitous, the processing needed to transcode and deliver video is immense.

Which is likely why almost all porn is centralized now at a few top sites, that fund their operations through deals with porn creators or some kind of upper tier subscription.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's superstitious nonsense. Presumably it's historical and a means to control people.

Lets assume so, why specifically would these these rules be useful in controlling people?

I don't know if you're trying some Socratic method thing here. Mind just telling me what your favoured hypothesis is, if that's the case?

It's obvious that religious beliefs have poor epistemological backing and (to me) idiotic to hold. But I'm curious if you've got some novel hypothesis for their existence.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#469
post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with legalizing prostitution is that it opens up a sanctioned venue which human traffickers can use to slip under the radar. You can have the best regulation in the world and you'll still fail to have only the entirely above-board, willing sex work that the sex workers themselves would like. It's the same reason why e.g. we ban all new elephant ivory, period-- even ivory that supposedly does not come from…

Good theory. That totally could be an issue. Maybe sex work is like ivory, and not like, I dunno, all the other jobs human beings do! Or maybe not. Luckily, we can check NZ, since they legalised sex work, and research has since been done to see what the answer was: http://www.gaatw.org/publications/SWorganising/NewZealand-we... And actually, none of that is true! Actually it turns out that what really enables traffic…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_Netherland...

In some places, it's not merely a theory.

Why the discrepancy? Maybe it's geographic as the other commenters suggests. The Netherlands is in the middle of somewhere while New Zealand is in the middle of nowhere. That sounds plausible to me. I think it might also be cultural. The Netherlands is known around the world for their sex industry, New Zealand is not. This makes the Netherlands a more rational destination for profit seeking predators.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Warning: that sub is sort of NSFW and cannot be unseen once seen.

Was that... not obvious? Really, what were you expecting?

No it wasn't obvious, in the same way that /r/Ladybonersgonecuddly or /r/PeopleFuckingDying isn't what you expect. (both SFW)
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