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Comment by Syonyk | Hacker News Reader

Were I to spend half an hour providing a set of links, would it actually change anyone's opinion on the matter? It seems to be the sort of viewpoint that isn't easily changed by a few research papers.

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> Were I to spend half an hour providing a set of links, would it actually change anyone's opinion on the matter?

I'd say I disagree with "The experiment of "all the porn for all the people with no limits" has been tried, and the results have been absolutely abysmal for humans" and I'm open to changing my opinion about it, granted the papers/links are from good sources, author has some sort of credentials, the methodology makes sense, they're transparent and the results are (somewhat) reproducible.

Are you suggesting, that nobody ever changes their opinions based on research papers?

Pretty much. I can pitch documents after document and it still comes back to "well thats nice but i'll believe me".

This is anecdotal fallacy. I observed people changing their opinions here, at HN.

This is not the sort of topic where that happens. Everybody is aware that if you spin the data this way or that on these sort of topics (broadly - social science with strong preformed views that tends to directly apply to oneself) that you can prove whatever you want, and all a plurality one way or the other demonstrates is the trending bias among those publishing in such a field.

When people do change their minds on such topics it tends to be from lived wisdom rather than learned knowledge. Or starting to see such things through the perspective of your children, rather than yourself.

On a topic that is emotionally loaded, personal, and increasingly political?

I question if having provided a few links would change anyone's opinion, yes. I started out planning to add a pile of them, but it's hard to find anything that comes across as "neutral" - either the sources are very pro-porn sources arguing that there's no problem, or they're very anti-porn sources - anti-trafficking organizations, web filter/accountability software, etc.

I'm not sure the endless stories of how porn has screwed up young men on Reddit will really change minds either. Perhaps if someone is on the fence, the stories and encouragement of getting over it will help, but that's not really the point being discussed.

So, no, I didn't think it was worth the effort to do a heavily researched set of links on this topic. Sorry.

You're not gonna change the opinion of your opponent. However you can affect the opinion of silent observers.

Reddit links aren't research. Try to find scientific articles.

I see you still haven't bothered to provide any sources, so I'll just conclude you're talking out of your ass. Sorry.

As someone who has been affected by pornography at a young age.

Your point is true. I'd vouch for it.

As someone who has been subjected to pornography at a young age, it did absolutely nothing meaningful to me.

You should probably be more concerned about the gratuitous violence that America loves, considering the amount of school shootings you get over there.

For me, 35. I want to get penis removed for no other reason than the shame it brings me.

It's my root of depression. Just because it didn't effect you doesn't mean it doesn't effect others. Show some compassion for a change.

Are you suggesting to ban everything that led to a depression in somebody?

Who said anything about banning?

I'm just relaying my experience to a very valid thing. Pornography can, does and will cause damage.

Porn should be more heavily moderated. Where three words in Google can display explicit imagery isn't right.

Can you not comprehend that?

I'm not using Google, but in DuckDuckGo, "Safe Search = Moderate" is the default, which does what you want. Also you can tweak your search URL making it "strict" if you want. I agree with such approach.

Good starting point but too late for that now.

Obscene graphical content is everywhere. What about discord? Slack, Telegram, Matrix? Even IRC.

So you can't comprehend. Thanks for validating.

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