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So onlyfans owner has died of cancer.
Which means that in the next 72 hours we will hear a lot of hot takes about onlyfans. Then it will be Trump all over again.
One of the things I noticed when trawling reddit was absolute lack of sympathy from anyone. The guy may have been the most exposed to culture war dude in the world - some hate him because of onlyfans, some hate him because he is jewish and aipac donor.
For onlyfans - I don't think this is boon for humanity. And I think in a way it is just Sports Betting but for women. Mild to severe ruin of your life for the slim chance to make it big. There could be such things as too many creators, too many influences, too many habibis living in Dubai and Bali.
I can never particularly get worked up over OF. With the proliferation of AI image and video gen, there's already a race to the bottom and drastically reduced profits (and costs). There's also a massive skew towards the top few performers raking in most of the money, and the average creator makes a trivial sum.
Not that I'd care much either way, if a woman has an OF, I would consider that a red flag that significantly reduces or eliminates my desire for a longterm relationship, but I respect their right to do it anyway. God knows nobody is likely to pay much for pictures of my bussy, and I'm not sure how much of that is attractiveness or the sheer abundance of free options. I can say I have never, ever, in a quadrillion years been tempted to pay for the stuff, most of the time the free alternatives are fine or leaks are easily available.
Aren't they into that kind of thing over on rdrama?
You're telling me I could have been getting paid this whole time? BRB, I need to renegotiate for more Drama Coins. Or start a union.
I'll pay you 10000 marseycoins right now for a dick pic.
You didn't specify if it had to be my dick, so I'll point you to Google and donate the proceeds to charity. Probably a charity for autism, that's the right call.
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Rare case I directly disagree with you, even though I sort of accept:
I can't help but think that they're not really giving 'informed consent' to the activity if they can't really grasp the real odds involved (they overestimate their chances of success, nobody dissuades them of this) and the first order harmful effects, much less the second order ones, that can result.
I would never hold a gun to a woman's head to prevent her from prostituting herself (although, if it were my own daughter, I might take several less drastic but still severe measures), but I think the legality of the choice doesn't really absolve the morality of it.
Its one of a pretty long laundry list of things that I expect many women will enthusiastically hop into if enticed, yet come to regret later and be very angry that someone didn't dissuade them at the time.
This is perilously close to an argument against liberalism for the general public.
Personal liberty is always awesome until the bill comes due. It's not a philosophical abstraction, it's a real concrete phenomenon. Everyone will always tell you they love the idea, except for the moments where they really have to live with it. And then of course a decade out after the event, someone will come along and tell you "the game is rigged," because new regulations prevent retail investors from exercising their full autonomy on the platform to engage in high risk trades. So then regulations get relaxed, a dozen more people shoot themselves in the head and you're back to square one again. Lather, rinse, repeat.
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I'll bite that bullet.
However, I'm a professor of the benefits of localism, so I'd be arguing against liberalism in the particular social order I would prefer to exist in, not strictly speaking saying it shouldn't be applied anywhere.
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And let them be. If you make stupid decision as an adult against all advice, then you suffer consequences. That's how you grow and become mature. And if the consequences are severe enough, there's then a tiny chance that you'll be a warning for a younger generation contemplating their own version of OF-level stupidity.
Only if the errors are recoverable from.
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This has always been my approach. I've always drawn a funny contrast between freedom and freedumb. Only in a society with total personal responsibility can you have complete freedom. Anything else is freedumb. We'll never reach the state of the former though, that's why freedom will always be a joke. It's privileges people care most about. Not their personal autonomy to eat the consequences of their own actions.
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Ah, the famed equality between sexes in action.
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Look, I think that a society that only allows people to make good choices is tyrannical, even if it's benevolent tyranny. I am not maximally libertarian, but someone selling pictures of them riding a dildo does not rise to the level of harm where I will tolerate (if not endorse) governmental intervention.
I think you have every right to personally disapprove. I do and would disapprove too, if my daughter contemplated something like that, I'd be immensely disappointed, assuming that society and cultural mores around sex stayed much the same as it currently is today. But if it was entirely normalized? I wouldn't forbid her, even if my own upbringing made me queasy. In a similar vein, I don't think there's anything wrong with working as a janitor, but I don't want my kids to become janitors.
If we apply the standard that people who aren't maximally rational and numerate can't do certain risky things, then we would very quickly find ourselves in a situation where the average person can't drink, gamble or smoke or drive large SUVs. I don't drink (much), gamble (at all) or smoke (barring vapes, which are far less harmful) but I am also opposed to a blanket ban. If they're old enough to vote and not obviously retarded, they can do what they want with their own bodies. I don't see it as my business or that of the state.
If I could sell pictures of my body for monetary gain and without repercussion?
self_made_human_nudes_uncensored_gone_wild.jpg
If hot women lined up to fuck me for money? Brother, I'd do it for free.
I already sell my body in a very real sense, since my mind is attached to it and so are my hands. That is what working for a wage means. I don't see anything qualitatively or morally wrong about sex work in a vacuum, the problem is the lack of vacuum. The kind of woman who is willing to prostitute herself is highly likely to be immensely unsuitable for me. That's just basic priors IMO. But history has no end of examples of respected courtesans or temple priestesses who were gussied up prostitutes. And society was fine with it, at the time.
Besides, I do occasionally watch porn, and I'm not a hypocrite to the degree that I would try to ban pornstars while jerking off to them.
I hope it is clear that I am willing to tolerate, if not endorse, many things that I disagree with or disapprove of. I ask only for the same charity in return. If OF caused giga-AIDs and the imminent extinction of the human race, I'd look the other way. It's not that bad.
I suspect that much of the incandescent rage against pornstresses in fact comes from men who are addicted to porn, and are filled with rage against the women who hold the reins on their addiction.
Luckily for them, AI is already freeing them from the tyranny of human providers!
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Quite possibly, but I pride myself on being an internally coherent and consistent person, and I definitely can't empathize with such... hypocrisy? Incoherence? I don't know.
Sure, I can understand it in an intellectual manner, but it's like intentionally seeking out fentanyl without external pressure and then shooting your dealer for selling to you. Sure, it's a bad idea, but this hypothetical (and hopefully fictional) person is being a bit silly. The dealer, at least here, didn't force them to buy it. If you hate pornstars, not jerking off is an option, and if that doesn't work, we can give your SSRIs for hypersexuality.
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Maybe I'm not someone who's hung up on labels as much as another person is but frankly, I don't give a damn whether it's a black cat or a white cat so long as it catches mice. Call it tyrannical, call it freedom, call it whatever the hell you want; I really don't care. What matters is whether you end up a better society or not. That's the real test. Not whether the government is right.
People who are incapable of understanding harm until after it's already happened to them are the ones most susceptible to being harmed and being negatively impacted. The best way to avoid getting cancer is to not lead lifestyles that are conducive to fostering it. There's nothing prejudicial about saying to someone "look if you don't want to die of lung cancer, don't smoke." If you're someone that truly wants to make good decisions and stay out of harm's way, then the first thing to 'not' do is smoke. Whatever else someone's predisposition may be. "No raindrop ever considers itself responsible for the flood." A societal attitude that says "I'm not personally for this choice, but I respect someone's right to pursue it," makes an implicit demand upon themselves and others that even if they don't partake of the activities that lead to bad outcomes, one should be obligated to permanently live at risk being surrounded by those bad influences. You're still a part of the problem. The fact that you aren't the source of it doesn't mean you aren't a contributor.
You don't need to be "maximally rational" to perform a basic risk to reward calculus. As an individual, sure, you can do whatever you want. But the state has to concern itself with the collective health and welfare of the society as a whole. And you can be as crazy and stupid as you want, but that doesn't mean you need to receive state assistance for doing so. You can collect your Darwin award for that. I've done innumerable ignorant things in my life. Never once have I done something stupid.
State lotteries directly promote vice. Can we start with ending those? How much are people supposed to tolerate transparent hypocrisy? I know, I know, hypocrisy is not the worst thing. But you don't have to make it official and ludicrously overt.
I don't get why we can't make lotteries a reward for savings (replacing half the interest or something). "Want to play the lottery? Start sticking $50 a week into this account and every so often you get a ticket. Good luck!" Mandate the interest rate at more than 1/3 of fed funds; payout ratio needs to total 1/3 of fed funds, and let entrepreneurs figure out how to pool together to get headline prizes out there.
Everyone "wins" because all the losers have their whole savings and interest after the drawings and because of that they'll get more chances next year.
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Personally I have no problem banning it. It’s not like lotteries are some kind of alternative investment vehicle.
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This position works because the government of the person who said it is not democratic. It actually does matter in America if the masses think the government is right or legitimate in what it does.
If the illusion of democracy is good enough for you then you will of course be satisfied with that answer.
Countries do what they believe makes sense in their circumstance. And if it produces the outcomes that are agreeable to the people there, who are you to tell them they're wrong (by that standard)? It's a very western centric attitude that leads people to say something like that. But man judges everything in relation to himself, so it's not uncommon. And as the US loses power overtime as all empires do, you'll see it being lowered into the grave and people will be saying "but... we're... free! This isn't supposed to be happening..." And they won't be able to come to grips with where they went wrong in their thinking.
You misunderstand. I don't care that the Chinese have a different system, I may even admire parts of it. I'm saying that the democratic/American system cannot be blase about this in the same way. Americans are very puritanical about their liberty, if nothing else.
Countries don't do things, people do. The question is whether the American people will tolerate that argument baldly put. I think there's obvious financial incentives in destroying the last guardrails of the old world, but the arguments about freedom that license it find far more purchase than they did in the past and that's because of the people.
It's self-evident to me that Islam Is Right About
WomenGambling. But "this is simply a net loss for society and you're fooling yourself if you think we need to run this experiment again - humans are still as weak and stupid as they ever were" probably would have failed on many, many people and that matters.Xi doesn't have to care. Small d-democrats do.
If by puritanical you mean have our head up our own ass, then I’d agree. Americans tend to fetishize the concept. We proudly go around thinking we’re the freest and most open society on Earth. And in some ways that’s accurate. But in reality America is an open society with a closed mind. Americans tend not to listen to the rest of the world.
And people are what make up countries. Families make up nations. Nations make up state’s.
And democrats only have to pretend to care. To me bread and circuses are insufficient to have a functional democracy.
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I don't particularly endorse the State subsidizing bad behavior, at least the kind that imposes significant negative externalities. At least not till the world becomes so ridiculously rich that even the US of A today looks like a ghetto, which I do think is a very real possibility.
At the same time, I am very leery of States attempting to ban or onerously restrict the activities of consenting, sane and intelligent people. I am okay with safeguards for those who do not meet that cut, children shouldn't be kicked out of home at the age of six and told to fend for themselves.
The problem with setting your metric as whatever produces a "better" society is that there is far from perfect consensus on what counts as better. There are idiots who looks at nuclear power and cheap energy with enormous material abundance and think nah, ban that shit. This is not a retreat into complete epistemic uncertainty or helplessness, most people do agree that a society that is richer, healthier and smarter is generally good. Yet I am concerned by the sheer number of people who disapprove of the idea of turning Mercury into a Dyson Swarm/Matrioshka Brain. It's
freecheap real estate and a lot of negentropy for the taking. Or the idea that we should become biological immortal or genetically enhance our cognition and eliminate all disease.The benefit of strongly valuing personal liberty is that it allows the free market for ideas to flourish. People and societies that make smart decisions win in the end, most of the time.
Don't know what you're talking about here. There are plenty of places in the US that resemble third world countries. I grew up in the hood myself.
The whole notion of "two consenting adults" was always a fallacy because the world itself is more than two consenting adults. What two consenting adults do on the moon is irrelevant to everyone else because there's nobody else to have an opinion about it. So only on Gilligan's island do arguments like that have any real merit.
Unfortunately that doesn't absolve any society on Earth from having to take a stance on the matter. All I can tell you as one individual is what kind of society I feel most at home in and would like to live in. Compromises have to be made on all sides and nobody is going to get 100% of what they want. But if you want to take things item by item, you can always ask yourself which parties benefit and which ones lose by restricting or banning certain activities? I've never been one of those people who accepts the prevailing western ethic that says "do whatever you want, your happiness is all that matters." The notion that stress is to be avoided at all costs or that something is "bad" if it inhibits your right sacrifice the good for what makes you happy in the moment is an ethic that needs to be taken out to pasture and shot.
Even among some of the most restrictive societies on Earth are not entirely against personal liberty. They just don't conceive of it the same way others do. Why don't I care about the opinion or personal choice of some rando on the other side of the world? Because he literally has 'zero' ability to affect or impact me. Why do I care about the opinion or personal choice of my community? Because I have to live here with the rest of them.
"You think personal liberty is you doing what you want. I am not against personal liberty, I merely have a different conception of it. My conception is very similar, it is you doing what I want" -- Kim Jong Un, probably
— Tretiak, probably
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There's gotta be a line somewhere though, right?
If your child is reaching towards boiling water on the hot stovetop, you'd probably grab their hand to stop them, even though they might not be too badly burned, its not something you want them to risk, and a bad injury will very likely vastly diminish their quality of life in ways they can't easily predict.
So if you see your freshly 18-year-old daughter reaching towards the high-quality webcam and setting up an Amazon wishlist, especially if you notice a skeevy dude with tattoos and a pornstache whispering in her ear, you might feel some obligation to snatch her metaphorical hand away before she takes a step that is likely to diminish her quality of life in ways she can't easily predict.
SEE ALSO: STUDENT LOAN DEBT
I'm coming around to a social order that's like this. Ties into my musings on 'age of consent' discourse.
I don't think we need to prevent all harms everywhere. But if we're not going to go full Darwinian and let God sort things out, then the guardrails we do set up could be contoured much more wisely than they currently are, ESPECIALLY if we want to try and optimize around humanity's long term survival and (a value I have) expansion into space.
Same.
I just have lived long enough now to see that certain decisions people make can cause irreversible harm, and it would genuinely be a net good to divert them from those decisions long enough for them to actually become productive and self-assured before they actually accept the full risk of the behavior.
And I'm a radical individualist and anti-federalist! I'm not asking for there to be some big central bureau intervening in everyone's individual decisions! That has its own major problems.
Just a system that insures against the fat-tailed harms as best we can.
IF NOTHING ELSE, we need to be internalizing the externalities so the costs fall specifically on those who create the harms or indulge the vices, rather than the rest of us. Cue my other favorite rant.
But is that the role of the state? It's the role of her parents, sure. But the state and the parents are different creatures with different relationships to the individual.
I don't think so, but under current laws and norms, if the parents intervene, particularly in a physical way, to try to reign in their daughter THEY will be punished for restricting her autonomy. One one side you can say the state's role is to protect her autonomy. But to the extent she's susceptible to influence of others, on the other side, the state's role is to protect a malign influence from her parents.
The maximum irony is that a guy who spends months 'grooming' a young girl (as long as he doesn't actually solicit sex or touch her) then helps her set up an Onlyfans and publish explicit content the very day she turns 18 is legally protected from any kind of reprisal from the family if they find out. He has done nothing that the law can punish, and if he doesn't care about social judgment, he escapes Scott-free.
And I'd suggest that current technology makes the groomer's job way easier than the parent trying to keep the daughter out of sex work.
Everyone gets that its absolutely creepy and predatory behavior but the law as written will make it impossible to actually do anything to prevent it other than try your best to monitor the kid's comms.
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But that's not the dilemma. Either you believe the state has a serious role to play in harm reduction, or it doesn't. All societies solve this problem differently and these things exist in some balance. A lot of people engage in high risk activity because 1) they don't think it'll happen to them or 2) someone else will foot the cost of their bad decisions. Adults especially are fully aware of consequences when they forecast their bad decisions. When the COVID lockdowns were in effect, I remember getting into a conversation with a guy who didn't want to take the jab. But he of course was perfectly fine with going to the hospital for whatever else he needed to get checked. Now on an individual level, if someone doesn't want to get the vaccine, that's perfectly fine with me. But you do have to die out on the street when you get sick.
Through direct intervention, I think it doesn't.
Through maintaining general social order, perhaps it might.
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See, neither of us disagree that there is scope for guard-rails or restrictions, we just disagree on where to put them. If we lived in a more enlightened and intelligent society, I would let my inner libertarian flag fly, and say that yes, society should allow every free sophont to own personal nuclear bombs or sell themselves into slavery.
Sadly, we live in a deeply imperfect world, with a lot of stupid people around who would not only screw themselves over (hey, it's their prerogative) but also impose substantial externalities. I don't mind second hand or indoor smoking being banned, but I do oppose a ban on cigarettes even if I don't use them. I am mostly okay with cigarettes being heavily taxed, which compensates for the externalities and has had meaningful and substantial reductions in popularity, at least in the UK.
The issue with the toddler analogy is that well, they're a toddler. I'm not sure even Von Neumann or Einstein were operating at the level of the average adult at 2 years old. Safeguards in place make sense. Adults/parents being able to override their autonomy is desirable.
But my 18 year old daughter? I would impose as much punishment as is legal, say threatening to cut her off from college funds or leave her life. But I wouldn't ask the government to make sex work illegal, that is going too far. At least some people, like Aella, do it while being far from stupid or poorly informed. Good for them, even if I don't particularly approve. I would sleep with Aella, I absolutely wouldn't marry her. But there are people willing to marry her (Bay Area autists for the most part), so it's not ruining her life. I don't want to ruin her life. I will sigh and look the other way.
Yep.
Right.
But should it be legal to, e.g. physically fight off the male interlopers who are pulling her into porn? Online grooming/blackmail gangs are a real thing. (That link is quite SFW but the implications are stomach-churning, fair warning) Maybe you can physically detain her for a period of time so she can't hang with the porno guys. That has legal precedent, after all. Maybe require her to wear a tracking bracelet outside the house. Of course, I'm told that's basically what parents do with their phones anyway.
I just find it interesting that you happily suggest using incentives to nudge her behavior around, but might balk at the idea of using even basic physical intervention. I am in agreement that creating a law that reins her in is too far.
Overall, I'm okay with "do your best to train your kid to use all common sense and restraint and to do the better thing, then let them go their own way."
I'm just not sold on the idea that 18 years of age is the correct checkpoint for many kids, and if we say its okay to use certain tactics to control their behavior before age 18, it runs into the same issue, why is it suddenly impermissible after they're 18? Your interest in their wellbeing hasn't shifted!
And no, I'm not limiting this to females. It might be useful to also prevent dudes from doing reckless and stupid stuff too. Its just that physically restraining a fully grown guy from doing a thing is a riskier proposition, for obvious reasons.
If there's an online grooming gang involved (and is it even grooming when we're talking about a legal adult?), then I would call the cops and ask them to take care of it, presuming that the activity was illegal.
I think physical restraint is, usually, a drastic escalation and violation of autonomy. My friends and family can pull me out of the way of a truck, but I'd yell at them if they stopped me from going out on a date with someone they don't like.
If my daughter told me she was going to attempt suicide, or do fentanyl, then I think I would do quite a few things that are clearly illegal, and damn the consequences. Starting an OF or doing sex work is not ideal, but not nearly as bad.
I have done plenty of things that my parents didn't approve of at that age. Some of those things went well for me, others... the opposite. A part of becoming an adult is realizing that the typical parent (mine and hopefully yours) is actually quite wise and knows what's good for you, even if they aren't omniscient.
I have my own issues with using age as the (primary) standard for capacity. I know 15 year old I'd trust to run a business, and 35 year olds who shouldn't operate a lemonade stand. I am too tired to go into exhaustive detail regarding the specifics of my views, but you can imagine something like a citizenship/adulthood/competence exam that anyone is allowed to try at any age. Nothing overly onerous, but enough to eliminate the idiots. You can pass it at 16 and legally emancipate yourself, or you might not make it till you're dying of old age if you're legitimately stupid. Then perhaps more demanding and specific tests for things that are quite clearly bad for you. Think Yudkowsky's Shop That Sells Banned Products.
You want to get surgery done by someone who isn't a licensed professional? Sure, pass this test of literacy and demonstrate an understanding of the principles of the Scientific Method and why med school is a good idea (you don't have to agree, you just have to understand), sign a few waivers, wait a week, and you're good to go. That includes waiving liability or the ability to seek compensation from the State.
If you break your spine while driving drunk, or lose your dick while fucking a blender, then I don't see why society should have to foot the bill. Maybe drug addicts who are violent, criminally inclined and disruptive and entirely unwilling to accept help shouldn't be eligible for housing or most welfare. If they're doing coke on weekends and making a million dollars a year as a quant, why the hell should I care?
Incredibly enjoying this discussion since its one of the few times I'm seeing major daylight between our respective positions, despite coming from almost identical premises, it seems.
I'm gathering that you're ultimately fine with full on Social and Natural Darwinism for deciding punishments and outcomes for risky behavior... but there's a certain amount of nuance when it comes to your own progeny.
Well let me drill down on that a bit. If you believed that her doing sex work was more likely than not (i.e. 51%) to make it so that she'd be unable to marry a reliable, respectable, supportive husband and thus grievously impact her financial future, her odds of being a mother, her overall mental health, are you still going to stand on the 'autonomy' position, even if she's getting some malicious actor whispering in her ear (but, importantly NOT coercing her)? Yes, I would hope she'd listen to her loving father over the Casanova trying to pimp her out, but if she slips up this one time that might be all it takes.
The position I'm arguing is that there are things that can create lifelong misery and consequences that are nonetheless NOT as serious as death or dismemberment, but have outsized negative impact compared to their benefits. Yes, people should be able to pursue such things. But if your own child, in their youthful indiscretion, is about to go jump off a metaphorical cliff into the water below,
Wouldn't you be willing to take some serious measures to avert that?
I mean, depends a bit on what "they don't like" actually means. "This woman is riddled with STDs and has a history of violent outbursts" might justify trying to stop you. But yes, that's a fair distinction.
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