[jgilias]

That's why I said I can't figure out what I think about that. I mean, on one hand I don't view watching porn as something immoral or whatever. On the other hand, it does seem somewhat sad that anything that can in principle be used for porn overwhelmingly will be.

[yreg]

But why does that make you sad? Some people will use it to watch porn, some people will use it to watch cat videos, some people will use it to watch minecraft clips.

It's a multipurpose service, using it for any specific purpose doesn't negate the other ones.

Would say /r/spacex be any better if there was no /r/gonewild? I don't see how one would harm the other.

[jgilias]

That's a very good question. Thanks for asking, as it made me think about this more in-depth.

The porn thing is apparently just a proxy to a deeper philosophical issue. So, basically, in all likelihood we're just primates with an oversized brain. And this oversized brain of ours lets us do marvelous things. As in, we can be as a sort of a mix between the fantasy races of technologically advanced dwarves and mentally advanced elves, to the point where our technology and our art borders magic. We can gain insights into the most minute details of how nature itself functions, and we can use these insights to reach stars, to communicate to each other over vast distances at the speed of light, to trick our senses into believing a different reality, and even to very likely soon be able to cure ageing itself.

But then. A large portion of us uses our oversized brains to just try and consume more, see more genitals, and you know, just try and live our primate lives the best a primate can imagine. And many of us technologists earn our keep by directly or indirectly working on tricking the behavioural circuits evolution has given us to redirect our resources to even more tricking of our evolutionary circuits. Be it the circuits that make us eat sugar, scroll down 'just one more time', or make us believe that we're actually mating. With screens.

So, the fact that one of the first uses we put pretty much any applicable technology on has something to do with genitals makes me remember the research where a chimp would forego peanuts in order to view pictures of female chimp genitals, the research where a hamster would mate to death, as long as you keep exchanging partners, as well as Jon Lajoie's super-hit 'Show Me Your Genitals'. It makes me remember that despite all the wonderful things we can be, at the end of the day we are just what we are. Nothing less, but also nothing more. And that does make me somewhat sad. Not very, just somewhat.