That's a valid statement that nobody in this comment chain was disputing. It is exactly why the person you're responding to is assuming anyone who can leave, will leave, in that event (and why "you should join the reserves if you're that keen" is an irrelevant comeback-- nobody was saying anyone's keen, only that people aren't keen and will leave to avoid it if able).
They have done very well in the manufacturing sector via IP theft starting in the 1970s.
I don't see how that's relevant to much post-2008 in the tech sector, which is primarily software driven and where China has very intentionally built their own walled garden.
I know you've made a handful of comments all to this effect throughout the thread, but it's really not helpful in this particular comment chain. Yes, we know your quality of life in Europe is great. Yes, we know life is more than just GDP. "What we mean that the countries are poorer" is obviously GDP in this comment chain, and this comment chain is not disputing your quality of life, it's pointing out that we (collectively) have the money to have that quality of life here in the US, too.
But thats a flawed metric. How much cash do you need saved to send 2 kids to university in US vs typical Europe, without burdening them for their best years of life with crushing debt? How much is left afterwards? How much after acquiring some long term illness with expensive treatment or being in bad accident? Don't think that due to being young this ain't your concern, all elders have messed up health in many ways. Retirement. And so on. These are direct costs and its all about money. Ie US couple with teens just about to go to college with say 500k are same or poorer than similar family in Europe having say 200k savings, or will be after few years. Or maybe not, depends.
I'd say its uncomparable directly, or very, very hard. You can say visit both places and walk around and see the general state of the country and its people, compare capitals. This is where money is spent (or not).
Not going into happiness, stress levels, depression/anxiety and meds consumption, obesity levels or longevity, that would be too easy I agree. Although this is also money related, more than anything else.
80% of US college grads have debt under 30k. Despite the bleak picture painted, servicing that interest at say 7% is $175 a month, or about 3.5% the average salary of a new grad.
This pales in comparison to some of the elephant in the room ways most common ways to go broke, which is to say get something like a child support judgement against you (20% pretax, like 26+% post-tax in middle income brackets) or have an alimony payment (these conveniently don't generally show up in bankruptcy statistics because they are not dischargeable). Medical debt can at least be discharged in bankruptcy.
> Whole generations aren't being addicted to and made impotent by porn.
They literally are. Mostly men, though, so you might not really get it.
> There is an increase in ED prescriptions among young people but there's no evidence whatsoever that this is connected to porn and is much more plausible that there's just less stigma about it,
Yes, just like cancer rates and mental illnesses. The number increases aren't real, we're just getting better at detecting it. Surely, nothing ever gets worse in the world. /s
You're right, though, that most of this is pseudoscience. Most of the "problem" with porn is psychological, rather than strictly physical, and psychology is generally pseudoscience.
> Well, no, violating a binding legal agreement is illegal.
Not touching the rest of this thread's arguments, but that isn't really true. Breaking ToS, or any other contract, is not "illegal"-- it's not a crime. It opens you up to civil (not criminal) penalties if the other party sues, but that's it.
Parental control software has existed for decades. It hasn't worked.
Over 70% of teenagers <18 today have watched porn [1]. We all know (many from experience) that kids easily get around whatever restrictions adults put on their computers. We all know the memes about "click here if you're 18" being far less effective than "click here if you're not a robot."
Yes, there were other ways of trying to solve the problem. Governments could've mandated explicit websites (which includes a lot of mainstream social media these days) include the RTA rating tag instead of it being a voluntary thing, which social media companies still would've fought; and governments could've also mandated all devices come with parental control software to actually enforce that tag, which still would've been decried as overreach and possibly would've been easily circumventable for anyone who knows what they're doing (including kids).
But at the end of the day, there was a legitimate problem, and governments are trying to solve the problem, ulterior motives aside. It's not legal for people to have sex on the street in broad daylight (and even that would arguably be healthier for society than growing up on staged porn is). This argument is much more about whether it's healthy for generations to be raised on porn than many detractors want to admit.
> Over 70% of teenagers <18 today have watched porn [1]. We all know (many from experience) that kids easily get around whatever restrictions adults put on their computers. We all know the memes about "click here if you're 18" being far less effective than "click here if you're not a robot."
And we all turned out fine I might add. In fact there's a lot more attention to consent and respect for women than 20 years ago.
Of course not counting the toxic masculine far right but that doesn't have anything to do with porn but everything with hate.
Absolutely not. You might personally feel like (or want to tell yourself that) porn didn't negatively affect you. I can tell you with certainty that porn negatively affected my social and sexual development. (I was literally afraid to physically open my mouth around girls when I was 10 years old because of porn.)
> Of course not counting the toxic masculine far right but that doesn't have anything to do with porn but everything with hate.
There are plenty of pipelines between porn and "toxic masculinity."
“Ease of access” and “easy access to the most depraved shit you can think of that’s out there” is what changed. That is what is wrong and why many people feel we need to find some way to control that access.
The Internet didn’t come along until I was well into adulthood. Think about what porn access looked like in the late ‘70s and ‘80s. As a teen we were “lucky” if by some rare miracle a friend stole their dad’s Playboy, Penthouse, or Hustler and stashed it in the woods (couldn’t risk your parents finding it under your mattress) for us dudes to learn the finer points of female anatomy. In a week it would be washed out from the elements with nary a nipple to be seen. Those magazines (even hustler) was soft compared to what a few clicks can find today. Basically you got degrees of nudity back then, but we appreciated it.
Hardcore video was very rare to see as a horny teen kid in the ‘80s. Most porn movies was still pretty well confined to theaters, but advent of VHS meant (again by sheer luck) you had to have a friend whose parents happened to be in to it, who had rented or bought a video, it was in the house and accessible, all the adults had to be gone from the house so you could hurry up and watch a few minutes on the family’s one TV with a VCR. You needed to build in viewing time along with rewind time to hide your tracks.
Now…parents just leave the room for a few minutes and a willing kid with a couple of clicks could be watching something far beyond the most hardcore thing I saw as a teen.
I doubt that the porn in the 70s was less bad than the porn today. Legal CSAM was being sold openly so what makes you think that it was more tame than modern stuff?
The fact is that as difficult as it was to get, you got a hold of it and watched it. Why would 'ease of access' make any difference if you didn't have easy access and got it anyway?
Are you implying that perhaps 15-25 mins worth of porn video total throughout all of someone’s teenage years due to such rare access of the material would have a similar emotional and mental impact as having the ability to see that much daily for years as is possible now?
There could have been years between the opportunities we had. I don’t think you conceptualize just how infrequent the opportunity would present itself.
For instance [1]. I am speaking out of experience, as a GenZ person who has been first introduced to the entire world of sex and porn at EIGHT years old. I myself feel it has harmed my brain in ways which I'll likely never fully understand.
A couple of comments above, you said: “Why would 'ease of access' make any difference if you didn't have easy access and got it anyway”
So exactly what is the target of the “difference” you are referring to then here? You are referencing a differential in something…if not psychological impact from the viewing of said material…what would that something be?
Person 1: "People are exposed to many more chemicals now than in the 70s, and they smell worse"
Person 2: "I don't think that they actually smell worse, and people were still exposed to chemicals in the 70s, so why would it make a difference?"
Person 1: "Are you saying that the health effects of chemical exposure are lessened because they are exposed to some chemicals as opposed to a lot of chemicals?"
Person 1 is using a claim that is not proven by their statements to make Person 2 responsible for a claim they never conceded was true.
Person 2 is disputing that Person 1's mechanisms make a difference not that their conclusion is valid.
In this case Person 2 has no duty to prove that bathing in it is fine or that getting exposed to a small drop is dangerous.
If Person 1 is claiming that there are harmful effects, they are required to prove that they exist and explain why bathing in it causes those effects while being exposed to it otherwise does not.
Person 2 has no duty to prove anything (or to enter the conversation at all), but Person 2 isn't going to convince anyone of their viewpoint by choosing not to attempt to prove their point. By choosing to say "not my problem," Person 2 is accepting liability for not attempting to change their opponent's minds if/when they get out-voted on the issue in the real world, as is currently happening.
What an interesting deflection. My initial comment mentioned the significant difference in access to porn between today and 40-50 years ago. You made a claim that it was meaningless. You brought the concept of its “effect” to the conversation.
It is interesting that you are accusing me of deflection when you are arguing with me about why it is my duty to prove you wrong instead of defending your premise. Let's start with the specific harms that porn causes.
No, I never made any claim that you have any duty to do anything at all, that is something you are inventing. Frankly, I don’t care if you explain anything or not. I provided information about the ease of access of porn among young people pre-internet. You made a claim that ease of access didn’t matter. I asked for clarity on that and you don’t want to provide it.
> would have a similar emotional and mental impact
You never stated what that impact was, and then tried to make me explain why you are wrong without you defining what your hypothesis is. What is the emotional and mental impact of porn? Why do you press for clarity from me, when you are the one that should be providing it?
I brought up that ease of access was significantly different then and now. That’s the lived experience I brought to the greater conversation. You didn’t argue that I was wrong about that ease of access, you decided to bring its effect into the conversation and said it didn’t matter. I made no reference to the effects in my original comment because it wasn’t about that. It was about ease of access being different. Only after you brought up effect did the conversation shift that way.
You left your thought and argument (whatever that was), incomplete. That’s your prerogative, but it’s a poor debate technique if your hope is to convince someone of your opinion.
But it's been illegal to peddle porn to minors for much longer than it's been illegal to peddle social media, so it's a good proxy for how effective our current efforts are.
The approximate substitute-good for porn is actual sex, which parents generally stop teens from doing. The substitute-good for social media is talking to people in person, which parents are generally happy with.
Sorry, but if you would actually read my post, you would notice that I am not proposing that it should merely "exist", but that it should come enabled by default on all new devices.
My point is that being enabled by default on all new devices 1) would also be fought by people very similar to you (if not you specifically), and 2) would not be effective if the enabled-by-default software is not effective, which would also require additional work that you and people like you would fight.
I do agree it could be done. I disagree with your characterization that it would be easy/easier, or that the current age verification efforts are entirely nefarious and not actually trying to work the problem.
To be honest, the first moment I saw the page, it did seem to give my eyes a negative reaction, but after reading a few of the results, it started to look fine pretty quickly.
That would be easier if both GPU and display manufacturers weren't eschewing newer DisplayPort versions for older versions with DSC (which is not lossless despite its subjective claims of being "visually lossless"), while building in newer HDMI versions with greater performance.
To be fair, the DisplayPort 2.0/2.1 standardisation process was riddled with delays and they ended up landing years after HDMI 2.1 did. It stands to reason that hardware manufacturers picked up the earlier spec first.
what resolution is it that you can drive with "newer HDMI versions" but you cannot drive with DisplayPort 1.4 w/o DSC? The bandwidth difference is not really that much in practice, and "newer HDMI versions" also rely on DSC, or worse, chroma subsampling (objectively and subjectively worse).
I mean, one has been able to drive 5K, 4K@120Hz, etc. for almost over a decade with DP1.4, for the same res you need literally the latest version of HDMI (the "non" TDMS one). It's no wonder that display screens _have_ to use the latest version of HDMI, because otherwise they cannot be driven from a single HDMI port at all.
Having monitors that supported its native resolution through DP but not HDMI used to be a thing until very recently.
I noticed this outage last night (Cloudflare 500s on a few unrelated websites). As usual, when I went to Cloudflare's status page, nothing about the outage was present; the only thing there was a notice about the pre-planned maintenance work they were doing for the security issue, reporting that everything was being routed around it successfully.
This is the case with just about every status page I’ve ever seen. It takes them a while to realize there’s really a problem and then to update the page. One day these things will be automated, but until then, I wouldn’t expect more of Cloudflare than any other provider.
What’s more concerning to me is that now we’ve had AWS, Azure, and CloudFlare (and CliudFlare twice) go down recently. My gut says:
1. developers and IT are using LLMs in some part of the process, which will not be 100% reliable.
2. Current culture of I have (some personal activity or problem) or we don’t have staff, AI will replace me, f-this.
3. Pandemic after effects.
4. Political climate / war / drugs; all are intermingled.
There's no sweet spot I've found. I don't work for Cloudflare but when I did have a status indicator to maintain, you could never please everyone. Users would complain when our system was up but a dependent system was down, saying that our status indicator was a lie. "Fixing" that by marking our system as down or degraded whenever a dependent system was down led to the status indicator being not green regularly, causing us to unfairly develop a reputation as unreliable (most broken dependencies had limited blast radius). The juice no longer seemed worth the squeeze and we gave up on automated status indicators.
> "Fixing" that by marking our system as down or degraded whenever a dependent system was down led to the status indicator being not green regularly, causing us to unfairly develop a reputation as unreliable (most broken dependencies had limited blast radius).
This seems like an issue with the design of your status page. If the broken dependencies truly had a limited blast radius, that should've been able to be communicated in your indicators and statistics. If not, then the unreliable reputation was deserved, and all you did by removing the status page was hide it.
> whenever a dependent system was down led to the status indicator being not green regularly, causing us to unfairly develop a reputation as unreliable (most broken dependencies had limited blast radius)
You are responsible of your dependencies, unless they are specific integrations. Either switch to more reliable dependencies or add redundancy so that you can switch between providers when any is down.
The headline status doesn't have to be "worst of all systems". Pick a key indicator, and as long as it doesn't look like it's all green regardless of whether you're up or down, users will imagine that "green headline, red subsystems" means whatever they're observing, even if that makes the status display utterly uninterpretable from an outside perspective.
Thing is, these things are automated... Internally.
Which makes it feel that much more special when a service provides open access to all of the infrastructure diagnostics, like e.g. https://status.ppy.sh/
>It takes them a while to realize there’s really a problem and then to update the page.
Not really, they're just lying. I mean yes of course they aren't oracles who discover complex problems in instant of the first failure, but naw they know when well there are problems and significantly underreport them to the extent they are are less "smoke alarms" and more "your house has burned down and the ashes are still smoldering" alarms. Incidents are intentionally underreported. It's bad enough that there ought to be legislation and civil penalties for the large providers who fail to report known issues promptly.
Only way to change that it to shame them for it: "Cloudflare is so incompetent at detecting and managing outages that even their simple status page is unable to be accurate"
If enough high-ranked customers report this feedback...
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