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Comment by wkat4242 | Hacker News Reader

If they could have stopped BitTorrent they would have long ago.

So no, this is totally ineffective. And it's not like there's actually a problem. There's no crisis of messed up kids or young adults. We all had access to porn in some form and we all turned out fine. I used to watch the late night pay tv which was just 'scrambled' by removing the sync signal. It was easy to put that back with some electronics chops. I saw my share of gangbangs and cumshots and I did not get messed up or get weird ideas. In fact I often get compliments I'm a sensitive and caring lover. I never do or push for the dirty porn tropes (unless she asks for them :)

So did most of my school friends. Also video tapes got passed on at school and later CDroms (when the writable DVD came I was already an adult). We all had plenty.

This is all to mitigate a "crisis" which doesn't actually exist.

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I don't want to ban porn or anything but the problem has definitely become worse than when I was growing up. I have a zoomer roommate that had unfettered access to the Internet and has some trauma she's still working through. I think the intense age verification laws popping up are going to be a big net negative but I think something needs to he done. I just don't know what that is. Maybe educating parents and children?

> some trauma she's still working through

From watching porn?

Im also "almost zoomer" that had unfettered access to much more diverse internet that zoomers ever had. Videos of extreme violence, murders, porn, war, bullying, and all blends of those to a degrees would surprise most. That happened when I was 7+ years old.

Does seeing these things mean I am broken in some way? It for sure didnt make me agressive or violent, actually Id say that it had quite the opposite effect.

I dont buy the "we must protect children by denying them access to whatever I feel like to prevent trauma", in fact the opposite, I feel the denying of access creates trauma when the false world-view eventually gets shattered by truth. It wasnt problem when I was 8, because I didnt have a false view about the world. It didnt traumatize me, I was just learning ugly stuff about real world.

Now it seem the only publicly acceptable option is to shelter everyone (without their consent, and ideally awarness) until they 18, and then throw them into the world and watch them struggle as they try to reconsile their dream-like version of reality with real world.

The content easily available on the internet in the 00's is way far far far beyond what is available today.

Liveleak was an everyday video host and they had terrorist beheadings on the front page. Once the masses moved online and the power players consolidated everything into modern social media (reddit, facebook, youtube), it kinda sucked all the air out of the room and killed all the small sites, of which there was no shortage of "test the limits of free speech" content.

That being said, the modern incarnation of social media has probably caused far more youth mental destruction than rotten.com or faces of death.

> but I think something needs to he done

This is exactly the problem. You have no idea what you want and will thus cave to whatever direction the winds blow.

There's a difference between passing on video tapes and having a pocket machine with an unlimited amount of adult content. Just my opinion, but I think it's worrying kids can access it in basically a few clicks.

But I agree, forcing verification will not be effective enough, kids will find their way. The real solution is more education on this topic from younger age.

Some porn videos were shared via Bluetooth in my school. From my perception, things you get from real people makes you more likely to think it's something real you ought to know about and not just an internet thing. Seems much better to me that kids can discover it on their own terms and know it for what it is

Every six months or so I'm amused remember that Bluetooth used to be synonymous with file transfer, verbified even.

Then don't give your kid a smartphone. Even with a safety argument - a regular cell phone does that. The smartphone is just not necessary at a young age.

It's a choice and it comes with consequences. Parents can step up if they so choose - the problem is they don't choose.

If even the exact parents a child don't care, why should I? They've decided it's okay, and it's their kid. I'm inclined to just agree with them and move on.

>Just my opinion, but I think it's worrying kids can access it in basically a few clicks.

This has been true for millions of kids (now adults) in the US since at least 1999.

There is actually a crisis of messed up kids and young adults and access to porn is related to it, but in the opposite way. The thing that is messing up boys and girls is anti-male puritanism that condemns male sexuality as inherently degrading and evil.

As girls grow up and become women, they become disinterested in men, due to the perceived danger. When boys grow up they become avoidant men who are scared of approaching and asking out women, due to the perceived risk of ridicule, shaming and legal action. This prevents the formation of stable marriages, which then culminates in low birth rates.

True, consensuality is difficult to ensure if you're not good at reading the signs. Especially with autism. It is deeply important though. I frequent sexually tinted parties and we have security, safe zones and coloured armbands (though these don't replace explicit consent, just an interest to be asked for it in the first place).

I don't think it's specially a male issue to worry about this because some of my female friends mention being worried about this too. But because of the role models still prevalent even in progressive communities they don't have to do the approaching so much so it's less of a problem for them.

I also think this is a very specific autism/adhd thing. I see this mostly in neurodivergent friends. And avoidant attachment is more of an upbringing thing (physically or emotionally absent partners). It doesn't really have anything to do with porn.

I don't care about stable marriages or birth rates though. I'm happy to be polyamorous. A lot happier than before I knew it existed. Having a traditional family would be a prison for me and I've always felt that way. The religious community in particular advocates this as the only moral way but it isn't. In fact my poly friends are much nicer and considerate people than my religious friends.

The human population is way too big anyway. If we had half or a third of the population we'd have far less problems. Environmental pollution, housing, fighting over scarce resources leading to wars. I'm proud not contributing to this by not having kids.

> There's no crisis of messed up kids or young adults

This is objectively not true. Not to say that a porn ban combined with age restrictions would help, but it's just objectively not true.

* Rise of incels as a thing, and even violence committed by them

* Various loneliness epidemics

* Rise of movements such as the 4B in South Korea, where women flat out refuse traditional relationships with men

* the rises in STDs and teen pregnancies can probably be explained by other factors

* The rises in various diagnosis (ADHD, etc) and rates of sexual assault can probably be explained by just having more rigorous reporting and testing, as well as higher awareness, but the rise of specific types of sexual abuse (like a popular one, choking without consent, which can easily lead to brain damage) can be directly linked to its prevalence in porn

* significant differences in opinion on equality and general political leanings between boys and girls

That's not to say that porn is a problem, and removing it for <18 will magically make everything fine. But things are decidedly messed up for a lot of teens and young adults, and parts of that messed upness can be potentially inspired by porn, and "the manosphere". The second one is more important IMO.

The single biggest driver of the things you mention is the war on boyhood. It has nothing to do with porn or "the manosphere" and everything to do with the alienation of young men in effort to force equal outcomes.

I wish the left would just own up and take the L on this, and go back to race/gender/sexuality blind "everyone is awesome and everyone is equal" policy. Maybe we could start winning elections again.

Could you expand on what you mean by "war on boyhood"?

I'll defer to my fellow liberal men:

https://www.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/wiki/missions...

I don’t see anything specifically about boyhood or childhood on that page or on the rest of that sub-Reddit’s wiki. Do you have a more precise link?

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