CodeSgt

The established fact is that porn addiction utilizes the same nuerological pathways as substance addiction.

I said nothing of the outcomes, though I wouldn't be so sure. We don't have any data on the outcomes of porn addiction. I wonder how many young men have committed suicide in large part due to their porn addiction, or how many have lost their jobs. It's certainly a non-zero number.

Almost every single drug addict and alcoholic has an emotional basis for their addiction. Be it childhood trauma, a predisposition to anxiety/depression, etc.

The fact that these reasons exist doesn't make the addiction any less of an addiction. It's often a reason why rehab centers try to take a holistic approach and not only tackle the addiction, but the surrounding lifestyle choices that further enable the addiction.

It's not "addiction is a masked emotional needs problem" it's, "addiction is often accompanied by emotional needs problems". Subtly different, but different nonetheless.

> Again I really wish more data was collected on this

You obviously know the answer to your question since I repeatedly stressed my lack of data and how it was anecdotal.

We don't have any data either supporting or debunking that claim, I only am repeating what I've seen play out hundreds of time in various digital spaces. Some phenomena just haven't been studied in good enough detail to have hard data in either direction. A lack of data for an assertion doesn't disprove that assertion, it just makes it temporarily unprovable.

I'm sure the majority of men in healthy relationship prefer sex with their partner to porn. I'm also sure there are a non-trivial amount who do prefer porn.

I understand what you're trying to convey and I'm sorry but it's just not true.

Brain scans show the pathways for porn addiction are very similar to those found in cocain and amphetamine addicts. Perhaps this is true for you, but don't discredit porn addiction as not a "real addiction" when it's an established fact that it is one on par with substance abuse.

Yeah fair enough, I'd agree with that assessment and I think that definition of "full stack dev" makes it a much more attainable target.

> Obviously, everyone prefers the real thing to porn.

That makes intuitive sense, but is far from the reality. Many men, even in otherwise healthy relationships, prefer porn.

Again I really wish more data was collected on this but anecdotally I've seen hundreds on online discussions from both women who are concerned about their partner and declining sex life and from men who want to quit using porn to better service the needs of their partner.

Porn addiction is real, serious, and more common than you may think.

I'm not so sure. The average age someone is the first time they watch porn is 11, well before some of the issues you mentioned would manifest.

When a porn addiction is developed before you hit your teens it's hard to blame a dysfunctional sex life on externalities.

I think that all the things you listed are definitely culprits, but I wouldn't be so quick to discount porn.

Anecdotally, I myself and many otherwise healthy, sociable young men I know have pretty serious porn addictions. I really wish there would be more research done on the negative impacts of pornography, especially on young men and teens/pre-teens.

I know typically any anti-porn sentiment is met with "Oh you're just being a puritan", but the reality couldn't be further from the truth.

On social issues, I'm very liberal. Yet so much porn during my developmental years has done so much damage that as an adult I'm just now really understanding the full extent of it, and breaking that addiction is incredibly difficult

I know it is, it's just as subjective as OP's generic "drop in living standards "statement. And while subjective, I can't imagine it's uncommon. A lot people really have a difficult time conceptualizing life before the internet. It's become almost an extension of reality that we take for granted as an absolute, when in actuality it's a luxury afforded to us.

I was just correcting your misusage of the term. Everything else you've said has come from you projecting your beliefs onto the discussion.

I also think your perception of social aid in some other countries is wildly distorted. These benefits often come with the side effects of significantly higher taxes and subpar offerings. There's a reason why the US harbors the majority of the worlds prestigious universities and has the best patient outcomes of any medical system in the world.

Of course I agree that things could be improved, they always could. But it's not as trivial as you'd like it to be.

Okay? I never said it was legal.

> answered a single question, I did not endorse anti-competative practices across the board.

I also didn't say they could do "whatever they want". Could you please be a good faith conversationalist and reply only to what was actually said, as opposed to your misinterpretation of what was said?

I answered a single question, I did not endorse anti-competative practices across the board. In this particular case, they built it therfore they should be able to choose how to distribute it and establish privacy standards as they wish.

Response to the edit:

Yeah that sucks, but your experience doesn't define the broader landscape.

I had a sister with cancer, and we were very, very poor when she was diagnosed. She still managed to get treatment and make a full recovery, albeit we did end up with a good deal of medical debt. Nonetheless, she lived.

Why does your anecdote carry more weight than mine? It doesn't. I understand you're going through a very difficult time but the solution is not to deny statistics and established facts in favor of your poor experience. People die, it sounds like your family is genetically predisposed to lethal cancers.

Yes. They should.

By no means are 18.1% of the population living in "abject" poverty. They're living in what the US government classifies as poverty, but in the majority of these cases they still have a home, have food, have electricity, etc.

I'm not saying that they're living comfy lives, but when you throw around terms like "abject povery" you're really discrediting people who are actually living in abject poverty.

What are your plans to get the rate below 1%? What would you have done differently that wouldn't have wrecked the economy?

Yeah you're gonna need to back this one up chief. Not sure about you but I'd rather be living in a 1 bedroom apartment with modern appliances, internet, smartphone, and a laptop than I would in a 8000sqft that had none of these things.

We have a lot more expenses today in large part because standard of living has increased. Certain components, like home affordability and medical, have become much worse than they were. Many other components have improved.

I mean I'm not saying they're right, but it's really only this one election they're claiming is fraudulent. Not "any election we don't win" as you stated.

Why not?

Yes as it happens statistics are more accurate than anecdotes, especially if they're well documented and proven like this one.

Cancer isn't trivial to treat, people are going to die from it. Just, less people in America compared to other countries.

You're basically saying "Well I know people that died from this very lethal disease here in the US, therefore other countries must be so much further ahead". Which isn't really logically coherent.

I didn't say it was impossible, just very difficult.

What on earth are you on about? The US has the highest rates of cancer survival in the world.

Why is it unrealistic to expect a single doctor to have mastery in every medical specialty?

Why is it unrealistic to expect a school teacher to be able to teach every single subject?

Because in these fields, along with software development, there's too much breadth of material to sufficiently explore the depths of all of it. Having the breadth and depth of experience required to have mastery in every bit of minutia is a even slightly complex webapp is enormously difficult to obtain and maintain for a single person.

I obviously wasn't saying the only prejudice in the world exists against lazy people and that no other group of people were ever looked down upon. You've got to use context clues before getting all fired up like this. The was in response to how we purportedly "tie work to morality". It was obviously meant as something closer to:

> It's only people who are actually lazy and not doing anything useful with their lives that are looked down upon *for not working a typically job.*, and rightfully so

Really you should try to avoid taking things intentionally out of context and getting yourself worked up over, it's not healthy.

That's not relevant to the discussion, if you have something you want to say then just say it. Don't try to ask me a question you think you know the answer to and then tell me my answer precludes me from having an opinion on the subject at hand.

This is one of the most common methods I see employed by bad-faith conversationalist and it's sickening. Your point should stand on it's own merit, not on your ability to invalidate the "oppositions" side.

That's incredible.

This assumes the construction of these 50-100 year buildings were evenly distributed over a given time. If 90% of a towns or cities 100 year infrastructure if built in a decade, then it'll just lead to a lot of replacements starting in about 90 years, not continuous small replacements.

Debt is just a product of consumption.

I guess that depends on how you define value. Tobacco, while unhealthy, can have great value to the user. Those addictive apps provide a low cost leisure activity for millions of people. We all benefit from advances in food sciences every day. Many of those pernicious have a purpose and are often more helpful than they are harmful.

All the things you mentioned provide at least short term tangible benefits to the consumers. How will the average person benefit from the study of ancient languages and civilizations or esoteric physics? People already pay for documentaries they're interested in, there's a reason they're produced. Why do you think academia for academia's sake is inherently beneficial for the rest of society? I see this notion of expressed here and elsewhere that if something is academically challenging or interesting, it must therefore be good to spend time studying.

Plenty of people pay for art and music. I didn't say they weren't valuable, I said what you're trying to offer specifically may not be valuable. I know you think it's some incredible service that everybody wants, but have you considered that maybe it isn't?