[A_Duck]

What's the author trying to say here?

It's good that the law isn't the only line between good and evil. A bit of stigma is a bottom-up way for people to shape society.

If nobody invites you to dinner parties because you run a startup that combines payday-lending and day-trading, that's a good thing. It's free alpha for companies doing more worthwhile things.

[3form]

I don't like mixing of everything 18+ in the article. I think the author wants to put all the stigma in one basket, and I don't it's as simple. For example, porn meets some actual human needs and has a certain function - but gambling? Simple abuse at scale.

I think like you argue, society shaping business is good. And some people should really reevaluate what they're going for if that's too much for them.

[LorenPechtel]

Very much agree.

I have no problems with the porn industry--if anything I think the requirements are too strict. Being able to inspect the records during business hours looks innocent enough, but it assumes you have an office and business hours. And it requires more dissemination of real identities than ideal. Virtually all the sins it's blamed for aren't accurate. About the only valid objection is that porn is no more realistic sex than Hollywood is realistic life. And because we won't do something sensible like actually teach kids about it there are problems from not having other models and not understanding how unrealistic it is.

Gambling, nuke from orbit. Large scale gambling operations have no redeeming social value.

[embedding-shape]

> For example, porn meets some actual human needs and has a certain function - but gambling? Simple abuse at scale.

Now I'm as as free-minded as people typically gets, but both of those are just "entertainment" for me, one is not more "essential" than the other, what exact "human need" does pornography meet that somehow gambling doesn't also meet, since we're not talking about "fun" or "entertainment" here but something else it sounds like.

[8-prime]

While the porn industry has issue, at its core it isn't constructed to extract money from you.

Boiling Gambling down to just being "entertainment" is a bit too reductionist in my opinion.

[embedding-shape]

> While the porn industry has issue, at its core it isn't constructed to extract money from you.

For what purpose do you think that industry was indirectly created for, if not to make money from people? Even if it might not have been created with that intent (although I'd still argue it was), today it surely is mainly driven and maintain with the (at least) implicit purpose of extracting money from people, that's literally why we call it an "industry" instead of just a "community".

[adrian_b]

Like others have said, any industry has the purpose of extracting money from the customers.

The original poster has not expressed this correctly, but I assume that the intention was to say that the gambling industry is different from all other industries, not because it extracts money like any other industry, but because it does not return a product or service for that money.

The porn industry is no different from any other entertainment industry and it provides a service for money.

Gambling does not really provide any service, it just exploits the hope of the gamblers that they might gain something by gambling, which at least on average, never happens.

I do not think that one can call the stimulation of this hope of gaining as entertainment. There are some gamblers for which gambling is really entertainment, i.e. they are rich and they do not seriously expect to gain anything, but the majority of the gamblers do not do this to be entertained but because of the irrational hope of gaining enough to solve all their problems.

[8-prime]

Thank you. That is want I attempted to say.

[IshKebab]

I don't think that's the issue with gambling - all commercial activity is constructed to extract money from you.

The problem with gambling is that people often get addicted and ruin their lives due to it.

While that probably can happen with porn I think the likelihood is a couple of orders of magnitude lower.

[lurkshark]

> it isn't constructed to extract money from you

I mean yes, it is; It’s not a charity. I guess you could argue it tends to do it slower than gambling?

[3form]

Sure - what comes to mind:

- helps in managing sexual needs, which can be difficult to handle otherwise, and especially replace

- educational: whether it is about workings of sex, ideas to improve your sex life with a partner, or something to discover about yourself

I suppose there's more to it, but most other things I can think of are an extension to meeting sexual needs.

[itake]

> helps in managing sexual needs

There are plenty of "sexual needs" that society says "no, you can't satisfy them." (for example, Nguyễn Xuân Đạt).

I don't think sexual needs are needs that can't be managed without media.

> educational: whether it is about workings of sex

I find when a partner characterizes porn, the sex is worse... Maybe other people enjoy the sounds or behaviors seen in the videos, but not for me.

[3form]

>I don't think sexual needs are needs that can't be managed without media.

Of course they can, but it still helps - that's why I used that wording.

Also replacement of one sex need with another feels more viable than with other needs, given how the chemical machinery of the body seems to work.

> I find when a partner characterizes porn, the sex is worse... Maybe other people enjoy the sounds or behaviors seen in the videos, but not for me.

I can't say that the content isn't majorly bad, or that the field is not rife with abuse. That's a real problem, but I think u related to the original question of "does it address a real need".

In this case I think the main takeaways are the ideas, techniques, and what you can learn about body from some of the more realistic videos. Somewhat unfortunately, many people pick wrongly, but I do believe right choices exist.

[itake]

The media projects that gay conversion initiatives fail at steering the ship the other direction. Governments (and society) expect personal repression and do not allow for outlets or replacements.

(for the record, these ideas I'm writing about are not my own, but my observations as a member of the society. I wish these topics were less taboo, but it is what it is.)

[TZubiri]

More importantly, one is legal, the other isn't, running a casino without a license is illegal and you can face criminal charges and jailtime, which I don't think is the case for operating a porn studio. This is regardless of the ethics, I'm actually pro gambling and anti porn, but that's the law is all I am saying, and I don't think it's a trivial difference, and for sure the author is bucketing to downplay their 'stigma'.

No buddy, not the same.

I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.

[strken]

One of the clients I've worked with was a female-led sex toy manufacturer. It was a nuisance trying to dodge some of the roadblocks.

Stigma and regulatory pressure don't always mean the company is evil.

[nekusar]

Just call the brand "Pickle Bread".

Cause it's made with dill dough :D

(gotta at least have a joke for a friday. its rough for a lot of us.)

(edit: seriously, tough crowd. hovering between -2 and -4. Like, this is a light-hearted joke. Not even insulting anyone, either.)

[ChoGGi]

No jokes allowed here.

I chuckled.

If you add something to the conversation and sneak the joke in, it'll usually pass by the fun police.

[cj]

> line between good and evil

Talking about good and evil in tech is a slippery slope.

What's worse, working at Meta building products causing addiction in kids, or building an adult content site?

I think there's an argument that Meta is morally worse, yet there's no stigma associated with having Meta on your resume. I find that interesting.

[gosub100]

Let me challenge your POV for a moment..

What about proportionally of abuse?

How many married people met on fb? Estranged family members reunited, long lost friends who found each other again? Etc.

It's impossible to know the number for those, but I vividly remember how difficult it was to find people before fb. And they made it trivial because of critical mass.

I'll acknowledge that this has also led to a lot of unwanted "finding" too. Again, we cannot calculate. But it's worth bringing up proportionality. Because you could make the same argument about a mass retailer like Walmart. They sell tires that were used in drunk driving crashes, they sold food eaten by obese people, they sold cigarettes (at least thru the 90s) to lung cancer victims, etc. You can skew the data however you like because they sold items to so many customers. But they also fed a lot of families and reduced the cost of living (sometimes by nefarious means) for a lot of poor people.

[LorenPechtel]

Facebook, as a community is fine.

The evil lies in the feed. All the standard addiction techniques are present. All the engineering to promote "engagement" is actually basically addiction. And the attempts to show you want you want have a strong tendency to show you more extreme versions of anything you previously watched. It's very, very easy for it to lead you down a rabbit hole into extremist territory. It's inherent in any such prediction algorithm unless somehow the selector understands to bias away from extremism.

[juliushuijnk]

> yet there's no stigma associated with having Meta on your resume.

You think so?

[ohyoutravel]

Meta isn’t as blatant about it, but they’re arguably much worse than anything else listed here. I think because it has legitimate uses up front, like keeping up with your friends or selling something on the marketplace, and the true evil is just below that veneer. Gambling and payday lending is right out front.

[raincole]

The article is about payment providers.

Do you think payment providers should act like moral police that decide how the customers can spend their money? If so, do you think Google/Apple/Microsoft should have a say in which apps the users can install? Should ISPs decide which sites the users can access?

[projektfu]

The article does talk about church and social gatherings, and uncomfortable SOs?

[subscribed]

Remember that payment providers are happy with X openly selling access to the CSAM generator (Grok).

[melenaboija]

That is successful and makes tons of money.

The author is saying it explicitly, you can’t flex as normal people do so you have to feed your ego finding different ways such as anonymous posts. Or talking to an stranger being drunk.

[antonvs]

> a startup that combines payday-lending and day-trading

Add in crypto and some AI, and there’s a $50m funding round waiting for you.