[colinplamondon]

Allowing porn monetizes and aids a probabilistic percentage of revenge porn, child porn, deepfake porn, and human trafficking.

Even if a waiver is signed, there's significant duress in many cases. There's a lot of pain and evil enabled by allowing porn to spread on an algorithmic newsfeed.

[jackblemming]

And people can beat people with baseball bats instead of playing baseball. Unless you have quantifiable numbers, no real discussion can be had. In the absence of numbers, I’m for allowing the purchase of baseball bats.

[BudaDude]

From the perspective of advertisers, this analogy is not applicable. It is important to emphasize that I agree with the notion that tumblr should also have NSFW content. However, advertisers exhibit extreme sensitivity towards their brand being associated with anything even remotely detrimental, and they are inclined to swiftly disassociate themselves without hesitation.

[carimura]

well according to the Director of the Dept of Homeland Security (DHS) human trafficking division, the estimated annual global profits are $150B [1]. The total revenue of the MLB is just north of $10B for comparison. Not really applicable given your straw man example but thought it was an interesting fact nonetheless.

[1] https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2022-02/CCHT%20Annua...

[csnover]

I feel like it may be helpful for you to try to understand how poorly constructed this argument is by reflecting on all of the pain and evil that has been enabled by allowing something you enjoy or care about to exist.

How confident do you feel that your religion, or people acting on behalf of it, have not engaged in violent acts of revenge, torture, child abuse, or human trafficking? Does it not cause significant duress in many cases to teach people to feel shame, to tell them normal feelings are sinful, that they will suffer for eternity if they break the rules? No one needs to worship any particular religion—there are plenty of other ones, after all—so perhaps yours should not be allowed because it’s associated with bad things?

Do you eat meat from industrial farms? Use electronics containing conflict minerals? Wear clothes made overseas? Play video games from studios notorious for crunch? All these industries cause significant amounts of suffering and many are exploitative. They fund wars, genocides, slave labour, child labour[0][1], human trafficking, and animal abuse. They cause duress, evil, and pain. Shall we disallow them? We don’t need to eat meat and it would be healthier for most people and the planet if they didn’t. We can go back to buying only domestic clothing, or just make our own. We all lived without smartphones until 15 years ago, so those can go. Games are just like porn—merely diversions—so if we discount all the joy they bring to people, they really have no value to society at all. Should we get rid of these things, too, because they are associated with bad things?

Allowing books aids a probabilistic percentage of people who want to promote violence and hatred toward others, deliberately spread falsehoods, advocate for and explicitly describe abuse, and give instruction on how to cause harm. Even when there are disclaimers, sometimes they cause significant duress to readers. There’s a lot of pain and evil enabled by allowing books to spread… do you get the picture?

All human enterprise has problems, and inductive fallacies like these are no way to judge what should or should not be allowed.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36186445

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33299929