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Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

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Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#171

Post by vertex-four »

empthought wrote: post #170
vertex-four wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very specific right, and very very based in a specific morality, isn't it? There's certainly a good many people who don't think sex is as magical or special a thing as you obviously do. Many think of sex work as nothing more special than being expected to perform labour for several hours a day for a pittance.

No, it's not based in any other morality than having bodily autonomy free from exploitation. If you want to disambiguate it from sex, consider whether someone should be able to sell (and thus another person to buy) an organ. Then consider that the demand for purchasing sex massively outstrips the demand for purchasing organs.

Selling an organ implies the loss of something necessary for a full life. Not having an organ results in shortened lifespan and lower quality of life. If you could grow back the organ in a matter of seconds, we wouldn't have an issue with it. It'd be sore and likely physically demanding, but so's a lot of work.

Selling sex doesn't imply the loss of anything.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#172

Post by empthought »

vertex-four wrote: post #171
empthought wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not based in any other morality than having bodily autonomy free from exploitation. If you want to disambiguate it from sex, consider whether someone should be able to sell (and thus another person to buy) an organ. Then consider that the demand for purchasing sex massively outstrips the demand for purchasing organs.

Selling an organ implies the loss of something necessary for a full life. Not having an organ results in shortened lifespan and lower quality of life. If you could grow back the organ in a matter of seconds, we wouldn't have an issue with it. It'd be sore and likely physically demanding, but so's a lot of work. Selling sex doesn't imply the loss of anything.

> Selling sex doesn't imply the loss of anything.

Literally thousands upon thousands of current and former prostitutes disagree.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#173

Post by Spooky23 »

garrettgrimsley wrote: post #62
Spooky23 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think mutual consent and money for sex are probably fine. The problem is that reality isn't black and white. Trafficking is very real, especially in Chinese communities, where victims are shuffled all over the place on cheap intercity busses. These are complex problems, and the typical HN lazze faire approach doesn't address that complexity.

Can you provide information about this? I've seen reporting about restaurant and salon workers bussing around, but it was largely voluntary.

Voluntary in the sense that people are working off some "debt" owed to smugglers that can never be repaid.

Chinatown busses are a snake pit of all sorts of crime. Here's an article that scratches the surface. There are numerous sources in the news and academic publications about the links to sex and other human trafficking to these busses.

http://news.wgbh.org/post/human-trafficking-modern-day-slave...

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#174

Post by empthought »

vertex-four wrote: post #166
empthought wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Implementing the Nordic model would in some cases undo some recent advances in identifying and blocking these ugly clients and result in some workers being violently abused or even possibly killed. Sorry to break the news to you: all clients are ugly clients, since they're all just fine with the idea that people's bodies are something to be bought and sold.

So's all of capitalism - what is employment but the buying of somebody's body and mind? But I don't see people like you arguing towards the end of that, or the reduction of the circumstances which cause people to perform sex work - only reducing people's options within the framework we've already forced them to live in. I know people who have chosen sex work over a minimum wage job at McDonald's - apparently they thi…

> So's all of capitalism - what is employment but the buying of somebody's body and mind? But I don't see people like you arguing towards the end of that

This isn't germane to the issue, which is that purchasing sex is a reprehensible act. However, there is indeed a strong strain of anti-capitalist thought in radical feminism; it surprises me that you don't know this.

> Also, I assume you don't actually mean bodies, as that would imply you're similarly against non-sexual modelling, acting, etc etc, where people employ people directly for their bodies, to varying degrees.

I meant literally their bodies, not images of their bodies, or actions that their bodies perform. I meant direct access to their mouths, rectums, vaginas for the purpose of sexual gratification. I suppose if purchasing that kind of access had other purposes besides sexual gratification, "sex" wouldn't seem like such a special case.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#175

Post by JustSomeNobody »

dzdt wrote: post #91
1024core wrote: post #21

Why is it that in such cases, the government reaches for the CEO right away; but when Wells Fargo employees open millions of fraudulent accounts, it's not the CEO's fault? If I were to commit identity theft (which is basically what the WF employees did), then I would be facing jail time; why hasn't anyone in WF been charged with criminal fraud yet? Why not the CEO?

I think Matt Levine's take on this is right on: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-09/wells-far... . Senior management wanted employees to do REAL cross-selling to make money, but the metrics were set so high that employees turned to fake accounts to meet the standard. The fake accounts did not benefit the bank in any substantial way: So that's about 2.1 million fake deposit and credit-card accounts, of…

It doesn't seem possible that 5000(!) employees did this and the CEO had not a clue.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#176

Post by vertex-four »

empthought wrote: post #172
vertex-four wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selling an organ implies the loss of something necessary for a full life. Not having an organ results in shortened lifespan and lower quality of life. If you could grow back the organ in a matter of seconds, we wouldn't have an issue with it. It'd be sore and likely physically demanding, but so's a lot of work. Selling sex doesn't imply the loss of anything.

> Selling sex doesn't imply the loss of anything. Literally thousands upon thousands of current and former prostitutes disagree.

And literally thousands and thousands of current and former sex workers agree. They have conferences, and industry groups, they lobby Governments, they have systems by which they can ensure the safety of themselves and each other and pick out their own clients. This isn't the situation of somebody who was trafficked half-way across the world and forced into sex slavery.

The solution is not to make sex work illegal, or to make seeking it illegal. It's to help the people who don't want to be performing sex work. It's to give them food, and shelter, and training to re-enter the job market. But that's expensive, and it's difficult to explain to people with Christian moralities about sex why you'd allow people to perform sex work if they wanted to.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#177

Post by dorfsmay »

empthought wrote: post #136
dorfsmay wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the porn industry? Actors being paid to have sex. Should that be legal? What about marriage between a very rich and a very poor person, or between a citizen and a non-citizen? What about being paid for doing drug trials? Isn't that coercion of poor people? Should this be legal?

Pornography is a form of prostitution and its consumers should also do a little introspection about their use of it. Marriages usually involve many other things than sex-for-resources; it is certainly possible for economic coercion to be an aspect of marriage. It is not the defining feature of the institution, however. Drug trials are not a more socially tolerated form of rape so they are not really relevant here.

So should pornography be illegal in your opinion?

How are drug trial not a form of "rape"? They are not sexual, but you are exposing your body to potential damage in exchange for money. I really don't see how that's different than prostitution, in fact I'll argue that it is worse (we can make prostition less risky, we cannot eliminate risk from drug trial).

Some people absolutely have been getting married to be able to get out of poverty, and in my book this is worse than prostitution in the sense that not only do those people have to have sex with their " client", but they also have to live with them and probably do other work such has cleaning and cooking. At least with prostitution, the contract is clearer, there are negotiated limits on what is provided for the money. I'll argue that if society had less hangups about prostitution, they'd be less of those economical marriages.

If you think that drug trial for money is more acceptable than sex for money, I think you should have a little introspection about your attitude towards sex.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#178

Post by JustSomeNobody »

twblalock wrote: post #98
gscott wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are talking about 5,000 current employees being fired and many employees who were fired for reporting it. If he didn't know, then he must not know other things about Wells Fargo that are equally important.

> You are talking about 5,000 current employees being fired and many employees who were fired for reporting it. If he didn't know, then he must not know other things about Wells Fargo that are equally important. I'm sure that's the case, and I'm sure it's also the case for most CEOs of massive companies. Wells Fargo has more than 250,000 employees and more than 6000 branches -- more branches than any other US bank. T…

Then how does this spread around to all the branches if (way) upper management doesn't know? Does Suzy in Fl really spend her time chatting up Jackie in CA to get the scoop on all the D/L ways to cheat? They have a little IRC channel for duping WF management?

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#179

Post by vertex-four »

empthought wrote: post #174
vertex-four wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So's all of capitalism - what is employment but the buying of somebody's body and mind? But I don't see people like you arguing towards the end of that, or the reduction of the circumstances which cause people to perform sex work - only reducing people's options within the framework we've already forced them to live in. I know people who have chosen sex work over a minimum wage job at McDonald's - apparently they thi…

> So's all of capitalism - what is employment but the buying of somebody's body and mind? But I don't see people like you arguing towards the end of that This isn't germane to the issue, which is that purchasing sex is a reprehensible act. However, there is indeed a strong strain of anti-capitalist thought in radical feminism; it surprises me that you don't know this. > Also, I assume you don't actually mean bodies,…

> However, there is indeed a strong strain of anti-capitalist thought in radical feminism; it surprises me that you don't know this.

I moderate a handful of self-titled "social justice warrior" chatrooms, which are full of everyone from libertarian socialists to anarcho-communists. I'm reasonably aware of various strands of feminism. I've been having a discussion on the morality of sex work for much of today.

Sex work is immoral for the same reasons other work is immoral. It's not a special case, and shouldn't really be treated much differently. If you want to protect the sex worker from the necessity of performing their work, you should be similarly protecting the minimum wage retail clerk from the necessity of performing their work. Neither is worse than the other, and they have similar solutions.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#180

Post by throwaway2016a »

makomk wrote: post #115
dzdt wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Matt Levine's take on this is right on: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-09/wells-far... . Senior management wanted employees to do REAL cross-selling to make money, but the metrics were set so high that employees turned to fake accounts to meet the standard. The fake accounts did not benefit the bank in any substantial way: So that's about 2.1 million fake deposit and credit-card accounts, of…

Matt Levine just shows that Wells Fargo wanted a paper trail showing that they told employees not to do this. The interesting question is, what happened when whistleblowers told them it was happening anyway? Apparently, the answer is that they fired the whistleblowers. That says everything about what Wells Fargo really wanted, as opposed to what they said to cover their asses. Remember, he's an industry insider with…

Explain what exactly Wells Fargo upper management had to gain from the fake cards? They wouldn't generate real money for the company. The people who stand to benefit most are the individual employees.

I don't know the banking industry well so maybe there is some way for the company to make money off fake cards but I can't think of one. And because of that, I tend to believe that upper management really did not intend it to happen.

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