[kelseyfrog]

I'm not a big fan of this form black or white thinking. We could apply this to guns, bombs, drugs and conclude that it was pointless to reduce numbers.

In it's extreme form, a sufficiently motivated teenager built a homemade neutron source[1] therefore we shouldn't control nuclear material. I just don't think this argument, taken to its logical conclusion, is valid. Is there a better way of reformulating it?

1. Silverstein, K. (2005). Radioactive boy scout: The frightening true story of a whiz kid and his homemade nuclear reactor. Turtleback Books.

[jampekka]

I didn't say there should be no restrictions for guns, bombs, drugs or even porn, even though they can't be fully rooted out.

The problem is the thinking that they can be rooted out. War-on-Porn would have just as horrible effects as War-on-Drugs has.

As for porn, I think the potential effects of it to kids are way overblown. Children should be educated (age appropriately of course) about sexuality so they can handle the stuff and situations they will see at some point anyway.

[gambiting]

>>age appropriately of course)

UK research into this is staggering though - children as young as 8 already report having seen porn, and learn behaviours from it. I also support the need for full, open, completely honest and comprehensive sex education, but there's a reason why even the most liberal programs in the world don't teach 8 year olds explicitly about sex other than mentioning it very broadly - 8 year olds are not ready to learn about all the details yet(this is an opinion of child psychologists, not my own), but obviously with porn you sidestep all of it, kids don't even get the chance to learn properly.

Part of it is obviously the fault of parents - a lot of whom are completely incompetent and who probably shouldn't use any electronic devices themselves, much less give them to children. But the sheer prevelance of porn is also a problem.

I don't know what the solution to this is. Definitely not what the government is suggesting, that's for sure.

[pas]

The solution is to fix those parents, as you mentioned, who are the sources of the problem.

They are the ones who can set up parental controls on devices, but don't. Or could not give unsupervised screen time to kids, but of course do, because it's convenient.

And of course fixing them would require changing a lot of things, like income inequality and funding a lot of family support programs, and in general shifting a significant chunk of the economy away from dumb shit to education. (By taxing the dumb shit and then using that as income.)

But of course a lot of those current parents don't want this either.

[kelseyfrog]

It's important to clarify why you think this standard applies to the things I've mentioned, but not to porn. There's some decision-making going on that isn't apparent.

I think porn is underblown, so it seems like we're at a bit of an impasse.

[jampekka]

> It's important to clarify why you think this standard applies to the things I've mentioned, but not to porn.

I do think this standard applies to porn, and e.g. the .xxx TLD wouldn't be KYC. And probably wouldn't cause as big a dark web porn explosion.

For me porn is in a bit different category from guns and bombs, and from drugs too. Guns and bombs and some drugs kill. Porn probably borns if something.

[kelseyfrog]

It kinda sounds like our differing perspectives are the biggest factors on the social effects of porn and subsequently our openness to compensating actions. Does that sound suspicious at all?

[jampekka]

We probably differ in assessment of social effects of porn. I don't find it very harmful at all. In the balance porn may be even beneficial if it helps to remove harmful taboos and hangups about sexuality.

In fact I find it totally absurd how depictions of horrible violence is quite OK for people who are shocked about genitals. Or profanity.

And I find that advertising in general, especially for children but also for adults, is more harmful than even the violence.

We probably disagree. I think my opinions are quite well founded, but so do probably you.

[kelseyfrog]

What bar would you place on evidence that would change your mind?