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Why are sex workers forced to wear a financial scarlet letter?

thewalrus.ca

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Re: Why are sex workers forced to wear a financial scarlet letter?

#411

Post by rendang »

bambax wrote: post #332
a-user-you-like wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah, except that you get more of what you subsidize. Besides being immoral, it’s destructive to society.

For some time now it seems moral / christian crusaders are invading HN. All those accounts have very low karma (sometimes even negative) and insist on "values" and "morals". I wonder if it's the result of a concerted effort or the inevitable consequence of HN becoming mainstream. It's probably the latter, but it's pretty annoying.

Why would social conservatives and Christians, who make up a large share of US population, not be expected to be present among HN commenters?

Re: Why are sex workers forced to wear a financial scarlet letter?

#412

Post by MichaelCollins »

tablespoon wrote: post #335
gautamdivgi wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t prostitution essentially porn without the cameras? Why ostracize legal prostitution? If porn is allowed, prostitution should be too. Yes, there are issues of exploitation and licensing. They are at both places - maybe less for porn because it’s not as much in the shadows. Bring sex work out of the shadows. Just normalize it.

> Isn’t prostitution essentially porn without the cameras? Why ostracize legal prostitution? If porn is allowed, prostitution should be too. IIRC, porn would be illegal, except the performance aspect gave it First Amendment cover. It might also be significant that porn seems to have traditionally involved a 3rd party paying two people to have sex, so that's arguably not prostitution. It's probably arguably illegal pr…

Legal hack: Recite poetry while robbing the bank, so the first amendment protects you!

Re: Why are sex workers forced to wear a financial scarlet letter?

#413

Post by rendang »

colpabar wrote: post #254
patrick451 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your point? Sans morals, nobody would care murder either.

If you kill someone I care about, I will want to see you punished. So many people agree with this that we have laws saying you can't kill people or else you'll be punished. But if you pay someone to have sex with them, so what? If both parties consent to everything, then who is harmed? Some people get mad because they think it's immoral, but not everyone.

> who is harmed

This is begging the question (assuming morality must be based on harm or consent). Not everyone agrees on the morality of all sorts of things. Human sacrifice has been licit in various times and places. Lending someone a high-interest payday loan is a consensual transaction but morally suspect according to many, and so on.

Re: Why are sex workers forced to wear a financial scarlet letter?

#414

Post by yamtaddle »

bckr wrote: post #329
jjk166 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a problem now, but in a strictly rational economy a company that was so obviously going to acquire a massive paying userbase should have had no issue finding investors back when it would have been useful. Adult content hosting sites face some unique (read expensive) challenges relating to both scale and content moderation. It's not like you can just run videos through a nudity detector to stop your servers f…

Just a point of pedantry, "child sex abuse material" (CSAM) is a new, more descriptive and accurate term.

Pretty sure that mainly caught on because corporations are more comfortable putting "CSAM detection" on a feature list than "child porn detection".

Re: Why are sex workers forced to wear a financial scarlet letter?

#415

Post by TremendousJudge »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #309
TremendousJudge wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think your comment has exposed any flaws in GPs point. The first point doesn't refute anything GP said. If Amazon, Google, Meta, etc, are natural monopolies like utilities, then have the state regulate them as such. If they aren't, have them broken up like Standard Oil. You yourself have pointed up that monopolies are bad for the users. Second, even if "free market" is used by (some) economists to mean a spec…

In what way are any of the those companies a monopoly? Maybe I could see an argument about Apple in the USA but I don't see it for those 3.

Google owns most people's window to the internet: from the browser and sometimes even the operating system all the way to what sites they get to see, and even the content itself. Amazon handles most online shopping in the US, may have an even larger share in other countries. Meta owns most of the social networking and messaging apps of the world. I'd argue there's plenty of evidence that each is a monopoly in its own category, aggressively eliminating any competition from the market.

Re: Why are sex workers forced to wear a financial scarlet letter?

#416

Post by bambax »

rendang wrote: post #411
bambax wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some time now it seems moral / christian crusaders are invading HN. All those accounts have very low karma (sometimes even negative) and insist on "values" and "morals". I wonder if it's the result of a concerted effort or the inevitable consequence of HN becoming mainstream. It's probably the latter, but it's pretty annoying.

Why would social conservatives and Christians, who make up a large share of US population, not be expected to be present among HN commenters?

Because they weren't in the past. And because HN is an international forum for tech geeks; I think social conservatives and Christians are underrepresented in tech; and I am quite certain the kind of social conservatism and "Christianity" that exist in the US doesn't exist in the same proportion, or with the same beliefs, elsewhere. In Europe for instance, so-called "pro-lifers", while they exist, make up a small minority of the public.

Re: Why are sex workers forced to wear a financial scarlet letter?

#417

Post by feet »

rendang wrote: post #409
feet wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom of religion was supposed to be a thing in the US. Sin is not a good reason to make a law that binds those who don't follow the same religion

We fought a whole war to end chattel slavery because a movement largely composed of pious Christians believed it to be sinful.

There was also a large amount of Christians who thought slavery was permitted by the Bible so I don't think that argument has a leg to stand on

Re: Why are sex workers forced to wear a financial scarlet letter?

#418

Post by feet »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #400
feet wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom of religion was supposed to be a thing in the US. Sin is not a good reason to make a law that binds those who don't follow the same religion

The first amendment restricts congress, not voters. Voters are free to vote for whatever politician they like for whatever reason they like, including religious reasons. The constitution does not demand that religious citizens demarcate and compartmentalize their religious and civic beliefs when they go to vote.

In theory it should restrict the representatives who got voted in from using their religious beliefs in legislating

Re: Why are sex workers forced to wear a financial scarlet letter?

#419

Post by bambax »

mrguyorama wrote: post #351
bambax wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some time now it seems moral / christian crusaders are invading HN. All those accounts have very low karma (sometimes even negative) and insist on "values" and "morals". I wonder if it's the result of a concerted effort or the inevitable consequence of HN becoming mainstream. It's probably the latter, but it's pretty annoying.

Basically half the US thinks this way and votes this way. If you are a conservative and upset at my comment, understand the people you vote for SIGNIFICANTLY support the religious nuts.

I'm not from the US, don't live there (and don't vote there).
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