Is Java not (still) cool?
439 karma · joined May 30, 2020
Right now you can do visual scripting and live code editing is coming in the next update. The developers on Discord are super approachable and helpful.
Several game developer friends of mine who use Godot are excited to start working with this so they can show off their work and get my feedback in real time.
Finally, I'm a MAP and I use (drawn) cub pornography as a way to alleviate my sexual urges, helping me remain a productive non-dangerous member of society. Are you really saying that for someone like me porn has no positive purposes?
Also by definition porn /is/ visual depictions of sex.
People are upset about the privacy and free speech aspects of this law, as well as the annoyance of having to hand over your personal information for something as basic to human nature as your sexuality. I think there's a 100% chance that there will be a data breach at some point and a bunch of people will have their porn habits leaked to the web. Not to mention the chilling effects when it comes to something like looking up more taboo kinks and not wanting your ID associated with that.
It's not just porn. I'm a member of the furry fandom. I regularly publish fiction in that community, I have life long friends in that community, it's a community that has helped me through a lot of dark places in my life, a community where I can explore taboo subjects in a safe setting. For most people it may just be 'porn', material they use to jerk off, but the fandom is a major part of my life. E621 and other sites aren't even necessarily 'pornographic', I rarely look at 'furry porn' to masturbate as a matter of fact. I'm being 100% honest when I say I follow the artists I follow for the art. It's just that in the furry fandom things like depicting sexuality aren't necessarily taboo.
Preventing other people from participating in this community, whether it's fear that their identity is going to be leaked correlated to their fursona, concern over increased tracking of possibly undesired sexual minorities, or just the pain in the ass required to take that first plunge and sign up for E6, feels like an attack on a major part of my life.
And personally, I don't feel like I should have to take responsibility for some parent who freaks out every time their kid sees breasts, but isn't willing to install parental controls on their fucking computer.
Why is it bad for our kids to see two humans have sex?
When you say porn is bad for kids, I think you mean that mainstream porn can be misogynistic, addictive (like most pleasurable things), and give people unrealistic body standards and expectations about what sex is like. All of which I agree with.
Okay, so, if I had a website that just showed consensual sexual relationships between a husband and wife in a committed relationship, just doing normal sex like people do, would that be okay for kids to see? Would it be okay for me to show my kid if they were curious about what sex was like? What if that was something I /wanted/ my teenager to jerk off to as opposed to something I wasn't curating? Wouldn't it be better for me to be able to say "Here's what normal human sex looks like, you'll experience this yourself when you're older and ready for it, but I was a young teen and I know young teens get horny too, just don't spend all day masturbating to it" rather than letting them stumble onto whatever they find on PornHub? I mean we educate kids about every other aspect of human existence, but sexuality is some weird taboo...
I'm just confused here, I mean, are we saying that young people are irreparably harmed by visual exposure to the human reproductive system? If so, why would we as a species have evolved that way? And if not, then how can we justify a blanket ban on young people seeing all forms of recorded sexual activity?
If you look at my comment history you'll see I'm not a normal person, and I don't really understand 'normal' views on human sexuality. Maybe it's because I lived so long in a clothing optional community...I don't really understand why it's okay for parents to show their kids extremely violent media but showing two people having sex, even if it's educational, is considered some form of abuse. But then again, as I said, maybe I'm just mentally ill or something...
I suppose my concern is that I believe it is important for people to be able to freely share ideas. If someone has an idea of drawing someone naked, they should be able to share that. Painting it is a way of sharing it. And I generally interpret AI imagery as that form of art and a high-fidelity expression of that idea. I generally reject the concept that an artist needs consent to display someone in a non-commercial situation, because ultimately it is just an expression of an idea.
I agree that sex requires informed consent. But this isn't sex. This is someone making art that pisses another person off because people typically feel that sex and nudity are very private and very personal. And while I believe you have autonomy of your bare naked ass, I don't believe people have ownership over someone else saying "Here's what I think so-and-so's bare naked ass would probably look like."
I mentioned my background because I don't feel like my bare naked ass needs to be private, I don't really see the issue of someone sharing a picture of me naked, anymore than any other sort of picture. The same goes for sexuality. And of course we aren't talking about real pictures, we're talking about a person's impression. Photorealistic perhaps, but still an impression, an idea, a construct.
But there's another point I want to bring up. Sure, just because it's illegal doesn't mean it's right or should be encouraged. And these tools have a lot of potential to hurt people. I mean, I could take an AI generation of someone proudly masturbating on camera, threatening to spread it around Facebook unless the victim pay me. And if they don't? Their friends could reject them. Family members might accuse them of being a slut. They could lose their job. That would be a terrible thing to happen to the victim. And I am sure it would be incredibly distressing for the victim. I'm not sure 'sexual assault' would be the correct term, but it is in the same category of awfulness. And these continuing improving tools make such scenarios possible.
But there is another thing that makes such scenarios possible: western society's bizarre view of sexuality, or at least bizarre in my mind. Even nudity is bad, I guess because it reminds people of sex? I don't think it's a bad thing to masturbate, I think most people would agree. And I think most people would agree that our hypothetical victim shouldn't be subject to social ostracism, shame, and possible unemployment. Perhaps even the image wasn't AI generated but real.
And yet...I get scam emails claiming that someone has a webcam picture of me masturbating and will share it if I don't send bitcoin to some address all the time. I've seen people get fired from their jobs for a lot less than a picture of them masturbating. Call it prudishness, call it what you will, but most Americans have very strong and frequently negative reactions to sex and nudity. I remember reading an article not too long about about a teenager girl who took her life after someone leaked some sexting pictures she took of herself to social media. Have you considered that perhaps someone seeing a (in this case fake) picture of you doing something sexual shouldn't be a life-destroying event?
As I said, our hypothetical blackmailer in this situation is doing something terrible. But they are allowed to do it because of our society's deranged obsession/fear of sex. Even though sex is something nearly everyone does (and should do), we are far more comfortable with our 10 year old kids seeing a fictional depiction of somebody's brains being blown out that a fictional depiction of two people making passionate love. I want you to just stop and think about that for a second, resist the temptation to say this is all necessary or normal. Doesn't that strike you as odd?
I'm hoping, really hoping, that society is moving in a direction where we have a healthier relationship with the human reproductive system. I think the Internet and access to pornography is helpful to that in some ways (and unhelpful in others), but AI also holds the potential move things in a better direction. Consider this: If anyone can make a sexualized image of anyone else at a click of a button, and everyone knows it, and nobody can do anything about it, maybe that will cause people to shift their morals around the shame of sex. I mean, even if our hypothetical blackmailer had a real image of me jerking off, I could just claim it's AI generated. Maybe rather than being horribly distressing, we would get to the point where someone making a fake porno of you is seen as a harmless prank.
I don't know...I'm high and probably full of shit right now, so take this rant as what you will. But I do know that something is dark and sick about our society when it comes to these things. I've seen so many people's lives hurt for breaking sexual taboos. I'm sure you feel strongly about not allowing people to be depicted without their consent. I'm sure many people in muslim-majority countries feel strongly about women being depicting without a Hijab (with or without their consent). That may seem like a false comparison, but consider it. Again, for me the idea of being thrown in prison for just being naked seems completely absurd. Look up people's rationality for the necessity of the Hijab and the necessity of public indecency laws around nudity and you might be surprised by what you find.
Anyway, I'll shut up now. I appreciate you replying and I didn't mean to make this post into soliloquy. TLDR: While I agree there are dangers associated with these technology I think that allowing it to remain legal for people to make fictional noncommercial depictions of other people in sexual situations ultimately moves society in a healthier direction that making these sorts of situations illegal, which reinforces what I perceive to be outdated and incredibly damaging taboos around what are normal (and necessary for the survival of our species) human experiences.
If I made fake porn of Donald Trump under your explanation, that is considered sexual assault, even if I tell everyone it is fake. Why?
Would making a parody video of Donald Trump getting beaten up also be considered assault?
Would making a parody video of the pope denouncing god be considered the same?
I'm sure all three are genuinely offensive. I'm just trying to understand, maybe its because I have a background growing up in a clothing optional community and being in poly relationships so I just have a much less taboo view of sexuality. But how can a fake video of someone that everyone knows is fake by itself be assault? It sounds like you just want it to be illegal because it offends you.
Instead of making it illegal to generate AI porn of celebrities, maybe we should examine our culture and why we see sexualization as so threatening. Why do we freak out if our kids see two people having sex but don't blink an eye when they see violence in movies?
My friend told me it didn't used to be this bad (we've known each other for years and he used to complain about how many homeless people there were in American cities when he visited me), but the population, at least from his perspective, seems to have surged in recent years. At the time he blamed COVID, which I am sure had an effect, but I had no idea how bad affordable housing had gotten in that country (although maybe I should have noticed since he always gripes about making STEM money and not being able to afford to live alone in Toronto).
I remember something he said once that has really stuck with me. Last time I visited he told me the homeless used to be the fringes of society that fells through the social safety net. But now in Toronto they seem to be a class all their own.
People should be rioting in the street by now.
I wonder if Congress realizes the mental health burden this lack of sufficient action has on their young population.
It's easy to feel powerless but if you want to be part of the solution one thing you could consider is donating 5-10% of your income to reputable charities that focus on direct action where it is needed most: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/charities/founders-pledge-cl...
Another thing you can do is encourage people not to vote for politicians who claim climate change isn't happening and learn how to counter common misconceptions and the techniques that best change people's mind: https://www.edx.org/course/making-sense-of-climate-science-d...
I really hope our species can solve this collective action problem because I'd hate to imagine how future generations will look back on us. People seem to think technology is going to somehow make things go back to how it was. That things will get better. Things are never going to get better, they are only going to get worse. How much worse depends on what we do today.
Imagine having more than two political parties...
Still, this seems like genuine uplifting news.
I spent years and years comparing myself against imaginary milestones, putting off my happiness for some constantly shifting goal instead of focusing on trying to cultivate daily moment to moment experiences that make me happy.
I had a recent shro trip that really gave me perspective for how much of my life I've spent just being anxious, thinking I couldn't be happy because I wasn't living the /right/ life.
There is no /right/ life. And you don't one day reach an expiration date on fullfilment.
It's not much, but its way better that most lifestyle changes (avoiding transatlantic flights, recycling, vegetarianism), and personally helps me feel like I am part of the solution rather than the problem.
I completely agree with this. I'm also familiar with people I've talked to, and myself at times, falling into doomsday scenarios.
No, we aren't all going to die, not in rich countries st least. It's just going to really, really, suck.
I appreciate your response, from what I gathered it seems like your justification for not asking permission is "well that's not up to me, its higher in the chain". Which I understand, I'm not criticizing /you/ in particular, I understand you are a mandated reporter, I'm critizing the policy itself. I'm saying people who call suicide hotlines should be informed they are talking to a mandated reporter at the beginning of the call.