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Rotten Dot Com

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41–50 of 133 posts

Re: Rotten Dot Com

#41
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both are absolutely horrific and evil but I don't see why that one would be worse than the one the comment above you mentioned.

Not really answering your question, but the Belgian Congo photo is probably more notable and consequential. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nsala_of_Wala_in_the_Nsongo_Di...

I am aware it's more famous. I've already seen it, but I'm not sure it's more disturbing as a photo (admittedly I am not going to look at the one described above to compare).

Re: Rotten Dot Com

#42
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I think that it actually shows that the idea that information can cause "trauma" or another kind of "harm" unless some third party forcefully restricts your access to this information, is completely insane. Of course, this "third party" knows better, right.

It shows that exposure doesn't always cause trauma (which I don't think anyone claimed), not that it can't.

The uncomfortable truth is that monkey see monkey do is a real phenomenon. The majority of people who play violent video games and watch violent movies and watch real snuff vids online won't commit these acts.

That said, to say they do not influence you in any way is to deny all of advertising, if not the basic reality that the stimuli to which we are exposed in life are the primary thing that shape us beyond our genetics.

Do they make you more likely to feel detachment at the thought of horrors being inflicted upon others, does that influence your career path or political leanings?

The number of times I've seen a commercial for pizza or taco bell or seen a food mentioned on a tv show or movie and thought "hmm that sounds good right now, i'm gonna order that" is way more than 0.

To be clear, I'm against any censorship of violent video games, movies, art, etc.

You can of course argue that school shooters and Stephen Miller would do what they do without all the media (social or not) they've consumed.

That said, what are we, after all, other than some sort of combination of our genetics and environment?

It's hard to argue that there isn't some sort of link between the mention of taco bell and me immediately doordashing it, which makes it hard to reconcile the two positions.

Re: Rotten Dot Com

#43
post #6

I didn't realize why until much later into adulthood, but I was one of those teenagers fascinated with rotten.com, and all the other weird sites out there during this time. Looking back it was innocent exploration, but if I did what I did then today, I might get put on some watchlist. And today I can barely watch an arm breaking contest without cringing. Anyone else remember orsm, b0g? They rarely get mentioned among…

LiveLeak, Ogrish.com, Disinfo.com... man, and those are just the ones I can remember.

Re: Rotten Dot Com

#44
post #23
post #6

I didn't realize why until much later into adulthood, but I was one of those teenagers fascinated with rotten.com, and all the other weird sites out there during this time. Looking back it was innocent exploration, but if I did what I did then today, I might get put on some watchlist. And today I can barely watch an arm breaking contest without cringing. Anyone else remember orsm, b0g? They rarely get mentioned among…

It's kind of a miracle that most of us people who got exposed to all that stuff are still sane.

Surgeons, coroners, forensic pathologists, morticians, butchers, slaughterhouse workers, etc. are hopefully sane..

Some people just arent squeamish I suppose.

Re: Rotten Dot Com

#45
post #6

I didn't realize why until much later into adulthood, but I was one of those teenagers fascinated with rotten.com, and all the other weird sites out there during this time. Looking back it was innocent exploration, but if I did what I did then today, I might get put on some watchlist. And today I can barely watch an arm breaking contest without cringing. Anyone else remember orsm, b0g? They rarely get mentioned among…

Back then you had to go to Rotton to see dead bodies. Nowadays you can go to a mainstream news website. It's wild how national news websites will just have a casual warning of "O hey, the video you are about to see has dead people, just letting you know!"

Re: Rotten Dot Com

#46
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large-scale exposure caused no discernible degree of trauma. That's not a small phenomena that seems to have been ignored by policymakers and those who inform them.

> Large-scale exposure caused no discernible degree of trauma. How do we know this? All I've seen so far is anecdata. As my own anecdata, an ex of mine felt she had been traumatized by watching horror movies at a very young age. Many years later she still had flashbacks.

Statistical anomalies exist, sure. But if there was any meaningful negative impact at scale, you'd think it would've shown up over the decades in trending therapy topics, to people bringing up traumatic memories of the old Internet, to....to something at scale.

Re: Rotten Dot Com

#47
Mistakenly, i thought it was about Rotten Tomatoes, and i started thinking about how a movie like Michael ranked badly, the critics missed the whole point of watching a movie, to be entertained, sadly, here on HN, sometimes we miss the point too, if that involves some names

Re: Rotten Dot Com

#48
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kind of a miracle that most of us people who got exposed to all that stuff are still sane.

No, I think that it actually shows that the idea that information can cause "trauma" or another kind of "harm" unless some third party forcefully restricts your access to this information, is completely insane. Of course, this "third party" knows better, right.

the idea that information can't cause harm is obviously absurd. third parties should not restrict free speech, but that's an extremely simplistic/optimistic view. everything is about trade offs, there is no perfect solution. the truth is probably closer to: exposing young children to disturbing imagery at a young age is not optimal for healthy development, but free speech is important to a functioning democracy.

Re: Rotten Dot Com

#50
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kind of a miracle that most of us people who got exposed to all that stuff are still sane.

Surgeons, coroners, forensic pathologists, morticians, butchers, slaughterhouse workers, etc. are hopefully sane.. Some people just arent squeamish I suppose.

Slaughterhouse workers have very high rates of PTSD and depression. Healthcare workers who deal with death are also psychologically impacted.

Can't speak to the others.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10009492/ - slaughterhouse workers

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12174799/ - healthcare workers

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