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The dark side of an MIT brain

tech.mit.edu

41–50 of 51 posts

Re: The dark side of an MIT brain

#41
This "opinion piece" isn't very well written, and I'm genuinely unclear why it's on Hacker News.

Surely the author isn't the only hack journalist at MIT, and I doubt Mr. Wade is the only sex entrepreneur to emerge from MIT.

It's just not that interesting.

Re: The dark side of an MIT brain

#42
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could also say, "When a young man is in desperate need of money, and a wealthy corporation comes along and uses that vulnerability to get work, that's the definition of exploitation."

Culture and society put aside, all of them are the same. They are exchanges. You get something in exchange for something else. No exploitation in all of these cases. Exploitation is when you give something, getting nothing back; because you are forced to do it. When the girl went and connected with the sugary daddy, no body obliged her to do so. No exploitation here. She could have worked hard to make money, save, ta…

wrong:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/exploitation

Re: The dark side of an MIT brain

#43
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. If you asked guys whether they would rather be permanently poor but be able to have sex with attractive women whenever they wanted, or to be wealthy but have no possibility of sex, I'd expect it to be close. (Assuming of course a first world environment where poverty doesn't mean starvation).

If you asked guys whether they would rather be permanently poor but be able to have sex with attractive women whenever they wanted, or to be wealthy but have no possibility of sex, I'd expect it to be close. I'd be very surprised if it were close. I bet almost all guys would choose the former over the latter.

"I figure if I was a millionaire, I could hook that up."

Re: The dark side of an MIT brain

#44
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could also say, "When a young man is in desperate need of money, and a wealthy corporation comes along and uses that vulnerability to get work, that's the definition of exploitation."

Culture and society put aside, all of them are the same. They are exchanges. You get something in exchange for something else. No exploitation in all of these cases. Exploitation is when you give something, getting nothing back; because you are forced to do it. When the girl went and connected with the sugary daddy, no body obliged her to do so. No exploitation here. She could have worked hard to make money, save, ta…

> She could have worked hard to make money, save, take some loans and carry on her education. She definitively picked the easiest road.

I don't think you can call it "the easiest road" until you've been paid $500 to sleep with an older gentleman for a month.

And working hard, taking out loans, and saving money is an option, of course - unless the economy is down, or unless you can't afford to take time off school to work, or or unless you have other expenses like children or parents, or unless you can't get approved for loans.

Re: The dark side of an MIT brain

#45
post #3

"When a young woman is in desperate need of money and a wealthy man comes along and uses that vulnerability to get sex, that's the definition of exploitation." Seems like you could also say: "When a man is in desperate need of sex and a young woman comes along and uses that vulnerability to get money, that's the definition of exploitation."

Yeah, that's one thing that bothered me somewhat about the article: the implied assumption that any sort of consensual arrangement where the man is getting sex is by definition exploitative. If it were a young man getting paid by an older woman for sex, is that still exploitation?

Re: The dark side of an MIT brain

#46
The reason that people feel prostitution is wrong is because they feel that no-consequences sex is wrong and so providing an inducement is doubly wrong, likewise, that doing anything immoral for money is worse than simply doing it.

All the various comments which go on and on about exploitation fail to see what actually makes most people uncomfortable about the situation.

Re: The dark side of an MIT brain

#47
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could also say, "When a young man is in desperate need of money, and a wealthy corporation comes along and uses that vulnerability to get work, that's the definition of exploitation."

Culture and society put aside, all of them are the same. They are exchanges. You get something in exchange for something else. No exploitation in all of these cases. Exploitation is when you give something, getting nothing back; because you are forced to do it. When the girl went and connected with the sugary daddy, no body obliged her to do so. No exploitation here. She could have worked hard to make money, save, ta…

I sure as hell wouldn't be sitting in this office now if I didn't need the money.

Re: The dark side of an MIT brain

#49
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Culture and society put aside, all of them are the same. They are exchanges. You get something in exchange for something else. No exploitation in all of these cases. Exploitation is when you give something, getting nothing back; because you are forced to do it. When the girl went and connected with the sugary daddy, no body obliged her to do so. No exploitation here. She could have worked hard to make money, save, ta…

> She could have worked hard to make money, save, take some loans and carry on her education. She definitively picked the easiest road. I don't think you can call it "the easiest road" until you've been paid $500 to sleep with an older gentleman for a month. And working hard, taking out loans, and saving money is an option, of course - unless the economy is down, or unless you can't afford to take time off school to…

We geeks tend to downplay how hard physical labour can be, plus we ignore almost everybody around us routinely so this whole "sleep with some stranger for a month" business sounds at first glance to be the easiest thing in the world.

Er... not that I know anything about that.

Re: The dark side of an MIT brain

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She could have worked hard to make money, save, take some loans and carry on her education. She definitively picked the easiest road. I don't think you can call it "the easiest road" until you've been paid $500 to sleep with an older gentleman for a month. And working hard, taking out loans, and saving money is an option, of course - unless the economy is down, or unless you can't afford to take time off school to…

We geeks tend to downplay how hard physical labour can be, plus we ignore almost everybody around us routinely so this whole "sleep with some stranger for a month" business sounds at first glance to be the easiest thing in the world. Er... not that I know anything about that.

Honestly, I think that the physical part of the ordeal would be the easiest to deal with.
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