[Nextgrid]

Always funny to see the senile politicians blaming porn as the biggest threats to children and not their collapsing economies.

I'm sure when those kids grow up and work long hours for the rest of their lives (if they can find a job at all!) just to be able to afford rent they'll at least be grateful they weren't able to access porn in their teenage years.

[tossandthrow]

While the failing economies definitely is orders of magnitudes more important, the problem of hyper stimulants is definitely worth giving some attention.

The effects of porn, SoMe, ultra processed foods, etc. Likely also affect the real economies in ways wondo not yet fully grasp.

[ryandrake]

I love how the rationale for porn bans changes with the times: First it was bad because of religion/morality. Then the world changed a bit, people aren't as religious, so it became bad because the performers are trafficked and exploited. Then the world changed a bit, OnlyFans turned the tables, actually empowering and enriching performers. Now, porn is bad because of... "hyper stimulants"?? I wonder what the next reason is going to be.

[tossandthrow]

It is reframing of the same underlying reason to ban porn wrt. Hyper stimulants and religion - said in layman terms, people don't fuck when they can wank to porn. It is mostly a sociatal pressure to keep men motivated regardless of framed as hyper stimulants or religious reasons (which you can buy into or not).

The trafficking is another category, though, and I think still very active.

[Nextgrid]

> the problem of hyper stimulants is definitely worth giving some attention

True, so we should start by not having every single computing device/service crave for attention, and not surrender our society's social fabric to Meta. Enforcing the GDPR would fix it overnight by making it not profitable, but instead we're relaxing it and doubling down.

[ffsm8]

And blaming porn of all things..

Tbf, it's an establish pattern in Germany at this point. I mean you can't even sell games with explicit content in Germany, categorically... Though it's only selectively enforced. So you can still buy games like Baldurs gate or GTA, but some need to censor things etc.

[taneq]

Teach your kids to code, build electronics or tune engines, and they won’t have time for porn.

[Nextgrid]

Don't worry, you will spend all your time working a dead-end job to afford rent (so some retiree can enjoy his life) and taxes (so politicians keep getting paid to propose such stupid bills) so there won't be any time to watch porn anyway.

[bko]

Wouldn't the more reasonable argument be "The economy is failing. Keep the kids gooning to distract them"

[trallnag]

Maybe it's similar to the handling of home office. A person at home isn't spending 30 bucks for lunch in the city. The kids have to stop gooning and go back to lurking around in shopping malls

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

Let the kids think they're getting away with something. It's actually in 1984, literally teens thinking they're rebelling by getting access to porn.

[soraminazuki]

Why is this thread hidden? Many of them are reasonable responses to "think of the children"-type harmful policies.

[asah]

I hate these kinds of bills too, but it's a logical fallacy to address only the single biggest problem (assuming you agree on what it is).

[thomasuebel]

True. The problem is there are no further bills. All other problems aren’t addressed…

[slightwinder]

Who said it's the biggest threat? It's one of many problems which is taking care of. This reads like really poor whataboutism..

[Nextgrid]

> It's one of many problems which is taking care of

I hear about digital freedoms (for porn restrictions, chat message monitoring, etc) being attacked on a weekly basis, often with "think of the children" as a justification.

I don't hear about the fact that Western economies being property-based Ponzi schemes on their last legs being discussed very often, if at all. Instead everyone is trying to extract even more out of it by screwing over the next generations, the very children they are supposed to be thinking of.

[slightwinder]

So you only hear what you want to hear. Noted.

[yubblegum]

Porn is damaging at multiple levels, specially for young adults to say nothing of "children".

+Should be clear is that exposing children to porn or normalizing porn in no way promotes "healthy economies" either.

[Asooka]

Mass surveillance is far more damaging. Also there are several porn block solutions on offer for parents to install on their children's devices. There is absolutely zero need for the government to be regulating mass surveillance on everyone to block porn for children. We are replacing the damage caused by porn on a small handful of people who are predisposed to get addicted and got exposed to it at a young age due to bad parenting, with damaging all of society with mass surveillance, which is not even guaranteed to stop kids from seeing porn.

[trumpeta]

sure but so is social media and ultra processed food. Both with much greater impact, why not start there?

[em-bee]

because porn is primarily a moral problem, the others are only mental and health problems. surely moral problems are way more serious, right?

[thomasuebel]

Because no porn lobby?

[slightwinder]

Imagine society is able to tackle multiple problems all at once.. Seems like fiction for some..

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

But they don't fix multiple problems all at once. Most of the time they don't even fix one at a time. And often, as I think is the case here, they pretend they are fixing a problem when really they are doing something else. In this case its the usual 'save the children' wrapping on more rigid control and surveillance of peoples use of computers and the internet.

[slightwinder]

> But they don't fix multiple problems all at once.

No, they do, they do it the whole time. Those might not the problems you care about, and not all attempts might be successful, but each new or changed law/regulation is fixing something. And there are many new of them over the year.

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

Each new law/regulation is indeed intended to fix something, the problem is what? I'd love to have the optimism that its the problems that population are experiencing, but in most cases its the problems that the rich and powerful are experiencing. Like 'the internet is allowing people too much power to communicate with each other without state intervention', so they fix it with laws to remove that power. Or 'I am very extremely wealthy, but I want to be in more wealthy, and other people to be poorer so my great wealth has more relative power', so they pass laws to cut social programs to fund high income tax cuts. And so on,..

[bdangubic]

society does not want to tackle any problems - especially when it comes to kids. you need continued social discourse to win elections so no one is actually interested in solving anything

[danaris]

[Citation needed]

Multiple studies have shown that porn, in and of itself, is not damaging. The phenomenon of "porn addiction" appears to come entirely from people who think they shouldn't be looking at porn for various (mostly religious) reasons still looking at it, and feeling shame.

[sixtyj]

Probably not dangerous for adults. But if you combine high-speed internet, unlimited mobile data - it's basically a debilitating affair for kids aged 8-18.

The BBC did a documentary about the knowledge of porn among kids, and how 16-year-olds go to the doctor's office saying they don't have erections...

[poly2it]

Can you also provide a citation?

[danaris]

Sure, here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-apes/202207/...

> People who believe they have a porn addiction typically think their sexual behaviors are abnormal.

> In reality, however, their sexual behaviors tend to be similar to others'.

> Porn addiction typically involves a moral incongruence between sexual attitudes and sexual behaviors.

> By medicalizing problematic porn use, people can avoid taking personal responsibility for sexual behaviors.

[poly2it]

Thank you, it's refreshing to see a medical take on an unquestioned thesis I see oft repeated even by intellectuals.

[sixtyj]

BBC Channel 4 did some documentary about porn and damage it does to young ones.