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Stamping Out Online Sex Trafficking May Have Pushed It Underground

nytimes.com

311–320 of 361 posts

Re: Stamping Out Online Sex Trafficking May Have Pushed It Underground

#311

Its so simple for me. Just like with weed.... Legalize it! Why are we concerning ourselves with how people pleasure themselves in private? It's disgusting. Of course, have law enforcement root out the kiddie stuff, and have a legal framework to ensure safety (STI testing, etc) but my goodness, the efforts we currently go through to catch consenting adults in mutual benefit...

Sex trafficking is not consenting adults. There is a significant difference between a sex worker who voluntarily engages in their profession vs. people who are forced into it.

[deleted]

Re: Stamping Out Online Sex Trafficking May Have Pushed It Underground

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever tried being really really ridiculously good looking?

Yeah, commenter you're responding to is basically saying "to get a coding job, you'll need to look through dozens of job sites, prepare for interviews, fail a bunch, keep up-to-date on your skills, take informational interviews, and heavily work personal connections." Unless you're a standout prodigy, in which case people will message your LinkedIn begging you to consider interviewing for six-figure positions.

The problem is you want a coding job, which requires lots of preparation and perhaps talent. Getting a job flipping burgers is much easier - you just have to show up. but everyone wants the coding jobs ;-)

Re: Stamping Out Online Sex Trafficking May Have Pushed It Underground

#313
post #282

Stamping out murder only has pushed it underground! Stamping out rape has only pushed it underground! Stamping out kidnapping has only pushed it underground! I long for the day all of these practices can be legalized and done safely and in the open!

Nobody is proposing that sex trafficking should be legalized.

On the wider issue of prostitution, there is a fundamental difference between it and the crimes you mentioned: murder, rape and kidnapping are always wrong, regardless of whether money is involved. On the other hand, most people don't have a problem with sex between consenting adults; they only have a problem with it if there is payment involved. This of course raises the question why an otherwise acceptable act becomes immoral when it is in exchange for money...

Re: Stamping Out Online Sex Trafficking May Have Pushed It Underground

#314
post #180
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that making sex workers lives harder?

If they have to follow more laws, their work gets harder. If prostitution was just decriminalized, their work would just have been easier, it would have been a normal job like every other job.

"Just decriminalized" means there is no confidence or way to assume that the sex workers are routinely tested. Pass.

As a sidenote, this reminds me of another reason why criminalization is a waste of time as it only ensnares the poor or impatient, while an even distribution of the more privileged ones of us engage in the exact same behaviors but where it is legal, remaining upstanding citizens by every metric.

Re: Stamping Out Online Sex Trafficking May Have Pushed It Underground

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus, you'd have the assistance of legal sex workers in rooting out the traffickers.

Any evidence of that being true? Some sex worker is going to helpfully point out how Alex is bringing in East European “models” or how Miguel just brought some girls up? And what’s going to happen to the legal sex workers when they start snitching on the Rudaj or Zetas?

Any Canadians want to weigh in on this?

Re: Stamping Out Online Sex Trafficking May Have Pushed It Underground

#316
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right/left axis is becoming useless, except as a branding system. It's much more useful to find out if someone is outcome/negotiation oriented vs. thinks in absolutes.

While I think that your distinction is interesting, I find that even people who say they are absolutists are willing to negotiate based on some criteria.

I don't know anyone that self defines as "absolutist", but many that simply are that way.

My elementary school was a religious one. There was something that deeply annoyed me about how they reasoned. I couldn't put my finger on it then, but I got a knee-jerk reaction as soon as I heard it. It was just that: love is better than hate, virtue is better than sin, etc. so you must comply with what God/they/your parents said because they loved you vs. your bad instincts, inspired by the devil that is Bad.

By the time I started high scholl in a public school, the dictator had died and we transitioned to democracy. Tolerance was the magic word. We can now speak our minds, accept others' opinions, discuss frankly any idea.

But then the left was the forbidden set of ideas making itself a space. Forty years later they're hegemonic and "zero tolerance" (I hate that expression) and beware of what you say are back.

They're exactly the same as their parents (that they consider troglodites) just with a different set of dogmas. Ideas change easily with the fads, but mindsets not so fast.

The trick is to present an idea that's absolutely good on paper like: "don't you think that everybody should have what they need to live?" But ignoring all the practical details of implementation: if it's at all possible, if the proposed measures are useful to reach that goal, etc.

No one of them would call themselves "absolutists", that sounds like ancient regime, or fascists, nazis. But they reason in absolutes and there's no way to touch them with words. They won't negotiate because they just vote for politicians that promise to magically implement that wishful thinking. The politicians will negotiate to reach power, though, they know better.

Re: Stamping Out Online Sex Trafficking May Have Pushed It Underground

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus, you'd have the assistance of legal sex workers in rooting out the traffickers.

Any evidence of that being true? Some sex worker is going to helpfully point out how Alex is bringing in East European “models” or how Miguel just brought some girls up? And what’s going to happen to the legal sex workers when they start snitching on the Rudaj or Zetas?

There hasn’t been a recorded murder of a sex worker in Vancouver in nearly a decade. [1]

1. https://www-macleans-ca.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.macleans....

Re: Stamping Out Online Sex Trafficking May Have Pushed It Underground

#318
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right/left axis is becoming useless, except as a branding system. It's much more useful to find out if someone is outcome/negotiation oriented vs. thinks in absolutes.

That is super interesting! I recognize I tend to think in absolutes an try to adjust for it. I also am tempted by elegant solutions over practical ones. I get stuck on consistency as a value. Not that consistency or elegance are bad, if they work. I'll add that Haidt's analysis that the value placed on compassion relative to loyalty or fairness is a good predictor of party rings true. Compassion > fairness -> democra…

That works until globalization takes your job to Singapur and the left wing party that you vote for starts saying that we should let all the poor inmigrants in because it isn't fair to let them die in Libya. Then the left becomes a high-income urban professionals ideology while the blue collar workers start voting Trump or Johnson... Hillary said just as much a few months ago.

Re: Stamping Out Online Sex Trafficking May Have Pushed It Underground

#319
post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sex trafficking is not consenting adults. There is a significant difference between a sex worker who voluntarily engages in their profession vs. people who are forced into it.

> Sex trafficking is not consenting adults By the dictionary defintion, this is true. If you look at what gets called "sex trafficking" in the media, by politicians, by police and prosecutors, and in some cases, by the legal system, this is not true. One common definition is anyone who travelled across state (or country) lines has been trafficked, which is a bit like saying anyone who moves to SF for a tech job is a…

> which is a bit like saying anyone who moves to SF for a tech job is a victim of human slavery

too real :(

Re: Stamping Out Online Sex Trafficking May Have Pushed It Underground

#320
post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the sex industry isn't at all as scalable as the pot industry. You can't grow a field of ass and sell it yourself. Plus, the cost of entry is pretty low, I hear.

Robot sex will be the next big thing.

Nah.. VR will do just fine.
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