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Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

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Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#31

Post by yummyfajitas »

thailandstartup wrote: post #10
thailandstartup wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree 100% - in the unregulated environment, the real evils of sex-traffiking and prostitution of minors exist side-by-side with quasi-legal adult prostitution. Properly regulated brothels don't have traffiked workers or minors, do have STD testing and are safer for the workers and the johns. As with drugs, many of the problems are created by prohibition, and those who insist on prohibition are responsible for the…

Interestingly, the one area where prohibition works very well is prohibition on firearms, but this is not a popular prohibition in the US.

Do you have evidence for this?

(Note: I'm looking for something a bit stronger than "Country X has gun prohibition, a different social structure, different demographics and different laws, and has lower homicide rate than Country Y which does not have gun prohibition.")

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#32

Post by yummyfajitas »

anaphoric wrote: post #13

I used to know Jim Buckmaster, the CEO of CL back in the day in Ann Arbor. He dated my sister for several years. Any ways Jim is a really smart and together guy, and I would suspect in his heart that he takes a pretty dim view of people who shop for sex. At the same time I know him to be a person of principle and I suspect those principles are some type of Chomskyan libertarianism. BTW I wonder what Chomsky would say…

Chomskyan libertarianism?

I'm not very familiar with Chomsky, but as I recall he has opposed freedom of speech, freedom of contract (for low skill workers), and favors taking wealth from some and giving to others by force. Wikipedia describes him as a socialist.

That sounds like the exact opposite of libertarianism to me. Could you explain what you mean by the term?

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#33

Post by jbellis »

korch wrote: post #27
sliverstorm wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> send one hundred or more paid lobbyists to DC. With what money? Not only does Craigslist not really have any profitable business interests to protect, but they don't have the money to do that even if they wanted to.

Craigslist makes over $100 million a year. And they have just 60 or so employees. And I bet they have dirt cheap fixed costs. The website hasn't fucking changed in a decade, and it's more popular than ever! They're probably the Internet company with the highest profit margins! Craiglist is the fucking showcase example of Metcalfe's law. But like bank robbers who foolishly think they wouldn't get caught on the 10th ro…

> I'm an unabashed Craiglist hater simply because he completely fucked up and missed the boat and failed us developers by not transforming the most popular and best single Internet site of high signal/noise anonymous contact into the best open mashup API of real-time, localized, semantic data

Not only has CL failed to innovate, it actively goes after and shuts down third parties who do interesting things with CL data. :(

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#34

Post by anaphoric »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #32
anaphoric wrote: post #13

I used to know Jim Buckmaster, the CEO of CL back in the day in Ann Arbor. He dated my sister for several years. Any ways Jim is a really smart and together guy, and I would suspect in his heart that he takes a pretty dim view of people who shop for sex. At the same time I know him to be a person of principle and I suspect those principles are some type of Chomskyan libertarianism. BTW I wonder what Chomsky would say…

Chomskyan libertarianism? I'm not very familiar with Chomsky, but as I recall he has opposed freedom of speech, freedom of contract (for low skill workers), and favors taking wealth from some and giving to others by force. Wikipedia describes him as a socialist. That sounds like the exact opposite of libertarianism to me. Could you explain what you mean by the term?

Sorry, you are right. I misspoke. He rather has 'anarchist' leanings. He is against "systems of domination without justification".

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G6kf7XM9Nk
Chomsky has a complex position that defies quick labels. I think his analysis of the system is pretty accurate, but, of course I don't really see him as having presented any type of workable solution/alternative. But what brilliant analysis and critique!

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#35

Post by araneae »

patio11 wrote: post #21

I hear quite often that prostitution would be a wonderfully pleasant industry if it were only legal, which does not square with the experiences of countries where it is legal or tolerated. You pretty much have to be running schoolgirls out of homeroom to get the Nagoya police to so much as glance in your direction, but Japanese prostitution is a very, very ugly place to be, and much of it is based on trafficking. I l…

It may not be pretty, but neither is working in a mine or fishing. At least the death rate is lower.

And Craigslist prostitution is much, much prettier than street prostitution, high profile murder cases aside.

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#36

Post by steveklabnik »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #32
anaphoric wrote: post #13

I used to know Jim Buckmaster, the CEO of CL back in the day in Ann Arbor. He dated my sister for several years. Any ways Jim is a really smart and together guy, and I would suspect in his heart that he takes a pretty dim view of people who shop for sex. At the same time I know him to be a person of principle and I suspect those principles are some type of Chomskyan libertarianism. BTW I wonder what Chomsky would say…

Chomskyan libertarianism? I'm not very familiar with Chomsky, but as I recall he has opposed freedom of speech, freedom of contract (for low skill workers), and favors taking wealth from some and giving to others by force. Wikipedia describes him as a socialist. That sounds like the exact opposite of libertarianism to me. Could you explain what you mean by the term?

Chomsky is a 'libertarian socialist', which is very different than Socialism. See the giant thread here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1653063

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#37

Post by ck2 »

Congrats on CL on finally taking the high road without being legally forced to first.

Claiming that it should be okay to do something questionable because everyone else does it is never the right attitude. Prostitution ads should not be right next to ads for cars, even if others do it.

Those that claim how many illegal things would be better if legalized and regulated are naive.

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#38

Post by bmelton »

ck2 wrote: post #37

Congrats on CL on finally taking the high road without being legally forced to first. Claiming that it should be okay to do something questionable because everyone else does it is never the right attitude. Prostitution ads should not be right next to ads for cars, even if others do it. Those that claim how many illegal things would be better if legalized and regulated are naive.

The points have been discussed so often elsewhere in this thread, but I just wanted to point out that, for me at least, this is very much the low road.

Bowing down to socio-political pressure without being demanded to, for a service that is very clearly popular and (I believe) ought to be legal is, in my opinion, spineless.

I understand that their heart is in the right place, and I'm very understanding that their belief system may not match my own, so I applaud them for doing what they feel is right... but that is all that I can applaud them for.

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#39

Post by weeksie »

patio11 wrote: post #21

I hear quite often that prostitution would be a wonderfully pleasant industry if it were only legal, which does not square with the experiences of countries where it is legal or tolerated. You pretty much have to be running schoolgirls out of homeroom to get the Nagoya police to so much as glance in your direction, but Japanese prostitution is a very, very ugly place to be, and much of it is based on trafficking. I l…

Don't paint every country with the same brush. In Australia it's legal and regulated. Sure, there are dodgy brothels (usually the asian ones) but the normal ones are mostly college girls who are earning a bunch of extra cash.

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#40

Post by jat850 »

araneae wrote: post #35
patio11 wrote: post #21

I hear quite often that prostitution would be a wonderfully pleasant industry if it were only legal, which does not square with the experiences of countries where it is legal or tolerated. You pretty much have to be running schoolgirls out of homeroom to get the Nagoya police to so much as glance in your direction, but Japanese prostitution is a very, very ugly place to be, and much of it is based on trafficking. I l…

It may not be pretty, but neither is working in a mine or fishing. At least the death rate is lower. And Craigslist prostitution is much, much prettier than street prostitution, high profile murder cases aside.

Really?

Compare: "The workplace homicide rate for prostitutes (204 per 100,000) is many times higher than that for women and men in the standard occupations that had the highest workplace homicide rates in the United States during the 1980s (4 per 100,000 for female liquor store workers and 29 per 100,000 for male taxicab drivers)." [0]

to:

http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/26/pf/jobs_jeopardy/

And 204 per 100,000 encompasses only fatalities due to homicides - not counting other health risks (drugs, disease, etc.)

[0] http://hoydenabouttown.com/20080407.1544/prostitution-regula...

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