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Comment by mattowen_uk | Hacker News Reader

Buried under miscellaneous:

> NN GANs for photorealistic-but-legal child porn

Hmmm.

What would be the legality of this, given mere possession is illegal in many jurisdictions? The only way i see this positively, is as a kind of methadone for pedophiles, where they can wean their habits without further harming more children.

Honestly i see this as a gateway drug for real harm, but for sure it is a damn controversial and thought provoking proposal.

Yes it's an obvious gateway to real harm as you said. Which is why, last I checked, it was outlawed in Britain. You aren't allowed to skirt the law by using artistic representations of criminal acts. Which led to the tragi-comic episode of a man being locked up for forwarding a porno featuring an actor in a Tony the Tiger costume.

Has it actually been demonstrated to be a gateway? It reminds me of the argument that playing GTA is a gateway to becoming an actual thug.

I expect this is an area where erring on the side of caution is the better course. There's compelling evidence at least that high pornography consumption can lead to development of more extreme perversions and fetishes (check google scholar to confirm since I don't remember the studies). The known treatment in this case is psychotherapy, which is yet another reason that accessibility to mental health care ought to be universal.

Yes. To demonstrate lets phrase the question thus: Does watching videos of people drinking cola, make people more likely to actually buy and drink more cola?

For more details, I recommend reading material from the advertising industry, starting with Edward Bernays https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_(book)

I'm not sure this has been demonstrated academically. https://www.springer.com/about+springer/media/springer+selec...

"Most significantly, they found that the number of reported cases of child sex abuse dropped markedly immediately after the ban on sexually explicit materials was lifted in 1989. In both Denmark and Japan, the situation is similar: Child sex abuse was much lower than it was when availability of child pornography was restricted."

(I must admit I haven't looked into it much however, you will have to decide for yourself how much you trust Diamond M et al).

However, anecdotally, after I masturbate to pornography my desire to engage in real-life sexual activity markedly goes down. That is the point of masturbating to pornography, isn't it?

I think a more relevant question would be something like: Does watching rape porn make people more likely to rape? Does watching porn make people more or less likely to rape? Or something similar to that.

I'm sure there are places where porn has been illegal but later become legal, looking at how it changed the rape statistics might give some weak evidence (though correlation is not the same as causation of course).

Why make it so narrow? Simply does viewing X behaviour promote X behaviour? A hundred years of advertising says yes.

Advertising doesn't just show the product being consumed (not that modern pornography shows just sex). But, take cola commercials as an example. You barely see the product in these advertisements anymore, just the branding associated with the product. What you see are actionable items to associate with the item; sexy men and women, a luxurious lifestyle, fun, friends, wealth. They're associating a lifestyle with the brand in a Pavlovian way, so when you see the logo on the side of the box, or the can, you don't even think cola anymore, you think lifestyle. That's what a hundred years of advertising has taught us.

The closer comparison one can make the better, right?

Drinking coca cola isn't illegal or even looked down upon. Rape porn isn't advertisement for rape and is not meant to encourage people to rape. Coca cola advertisement/product placements is designed to make people buy it more.

The two cases are in my opinion very different.

Do you suggest rape porn or rape scenes in movies promote more rape in the real world? What about violence in video games? I don't claim to know the answer, but I've thought that was disproved (though I haven't really looked into it).

I read it as a joke, the entry ends with "You know what they say in SV: every good startup breaks at least a few laws…".

Edit: also, the page has the following subtitle "Proposals for new technologies, businesses, startups, satirical or serious. ". I think it's clearly satirical.

Child porn is never a laughing matter. It destroys lives.

I must disagree, personally. Everything can be a laughing matter. At times, everything /should/ be a laughing matter.

There's no way I would have made it this far if I couldn't occasionally laugh in the face of the darkest parts of life. Jokes about a loved ones' recent suicide, my best friend's child sexual abuse, and my own struggles with depression, have all made me and the person I was talking to feel better.

It's hard to feel bad when you're laughing.

I’m not saying it’s a good joke though, or even should be defended.

FFS. I vote we make those illegal now.

I am honestly shocked by that! When you google authors name, you get bunch of anime faces + GAN research papers. So clearly, this is not a joke, but his personal interest/fetish developed after long hours behind his PC. I believe he needs medical treatment and not propose "startup ideas"!

I'm not sure if this is sarcasm or not, it's hard to tell over the internet. But if it's not, out of curiosity, how did you make the connection between anime and child pornography?

Illegal in Germany.

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