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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   11885 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026

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The reason why CSAM shouldn't be possessed or distributed is because its production is inherently harmful. Not because it's disgusting.

My sympathies lean toward the side of "a grid of pixels shouldn't be illegal", but with CSAM there is a problem: it is easy to make CSAM in third-world countries, so there is no way for the US government to actually shut down production short of using international law enforcement or military force.

That said, this is the same US government that kept military forces in Afghanistan for many years, spending huge sums of taxpayer money, without eradicating child sexual abuse in the country. So it would be somewhat hypocritical of it to go really hard after the already-produced CSAM based on such a justification as I gave above, given that this government had a chance to stop child sexual abuse in Afghanistan and didn't do it.

I said "my sympathies lean", and I should clarify: I am generally extremely pro free speech, but I can definitely imagine exceptions: the fabled nuclear codes, a recipe to create a bioweapon that would kill 99% of the world population Stephen King style, etc.

is because its production is inherently harmful

Tell that to the Snapchat users; I'm pretty sure they've generated 90 if not 99% of all material that counts as this.

I'm sure they screamed did not consent to their finger pressing the send button.

I gotta imagine you'd see a lot of arguments-

"It's disgusting," "making it is terrible," "having this exist encourages production, consumption, and interest," various religious and specific ethical motivations etc etc.

Production is bad is probably the most clear and obvious bad outcome but the vast majority of people would be against drawn or AI versions.

Production is bad is probably the most clear and obvious bad outcome but the vast majority of people would be against drawn or AI versions.

I've actually wondered about how people would feel about a government making an "authorized list" of confirmed AI-generated CSAM with no CSAM in the training data, that would be the only legal form of such content to own. Assuming that the mere consumption of CSAM doesn't encourage victimization of real children, this seems like the best all around compromise, if you can figure out how to distribute it in a way the government can't easily track.

If the government can easily track it, it just becomes a blackmailer's wet dream. Although, we're in an era where "they fabricated all of the evidence connecting me to this" is an increasingly plausible claim, considering where generative AI is.

I'm definitely not comfortable with AI content trained on actual cp. That feels like extending the abuse of the victim into eternity.

I am 100% against CSAM existing in any capacity, but your objection raises a question - is it about training data? Would an AGI that can act based off of extrapolation salve your objections?

I mean, personally I think porn of real people should simply be illegal (outside of private production and consumption i.e. it's okay to take naked pictures of your spouse and enjoy them).

But in terms of a compromise within our current legal and social frameworks, yes, I think it makes sense to allow for AI-generated content so long as it's not derived from actual CSAM. Not healthy for the user, but that occurs to me as their problem, and I have no reason to believe it would make them more likely to actually engage in abuse.

And then there's written or drawn erotica which should also -- again I say in compromise with the current framework -- be unconstrained IMO. The idea that it should be illegal to write about or draw... pretty much anything strikes me as ludicrous. Especially given the ambiguity (re: age, etc.) inherent in many such works.

Thank you for indulging my curiosity!

Mandatory abortions for women who rape boys when?

That's an argument for banning production, not distribution or possession.

As anyone with small children will tell you, you get more of of what you tolerate.

If you tolerate the distribution and possession of child porn you are going to get more child porn. You may claim that you do not endorse it's production, but you will be the person enabling and encouraging it.

I'm only against those last 2 to the extent that they provide incentive to production. To whatever extent that they don't (e.g. perhaps existing images that were pulled from some FBI evidence locker), it's ridiculous that possession or distribution would be illegal. Unfortunately, it's one of those legal fights that doesn't seem possible to win, though. It's also hard to parse out exactly how much the extents involved here are, and some actual studies and models might be valuable, but I don't know if such scientific research exists for this kind of material.

Some people argue that the original victim is re-victimized each time the media is seen; I find this ridiculous as well, as there's no magical link between the markings on paper or pixels on a screen and the original person from whom the light was reflected and captured by a camera. In terms of the harms to the person who consume such media, I believe each individual is responsible for the harm that comes about from their choice to consume whatever media. If we were in a situation where so many people eschewed such responsibility that it was causing societal problems, I could see the argument that being illiberal in this case is worth the tradeoffs, but I don't think we're there, and I'm skeptical that we'd get there.

That said, who knows how fast society will change in the near future thanks to AI accelerating everything, and short-form social media content causing massive amounts of distributed media production by children. It's not a ridiculous concern, but one that I still think is wrong.

I'm only against those last 2 to the extent that they provide incentive to production. To whatever extent that they don't (e.g. perhaps existing images that were pulled from some FBI evidence locker), it's ridiculous that possession or distribution would be illegal.

"So long as nobody was killed when the gang broke into the house and robbed all the items, it's ridiculous that the fence be prosecuted!"

Trying to divide out "but I didn't produce this shit" from the rest of it is where we get our current legal system of plea deals, non-prosecution, and egregious offences going unpunished because legal technicality.

"No, I didn't produce it, so it should be legal for me to possess it". "No, I'm not the producer, just the distributor". But that still leaves a market for the product, and "I won't produce it but I'm happy to deal with as many producers as possible and distribute their wares for a cut of the profits" means you get more of the product.

Look at OnlyFans and how that started off (a platform for creators!) and how it has ended up (come pimp your stable of hos on here!)

Some people argue that the original victim is re-victimized each time the media is seen; I find this ridiculous as well, as there's no magical link between the markings on paper or pixels on a screen and the original person from whom the light was reflected and captured by a camera.

I hope this is tongue-in-cheek because if meant seriously, it's a lack of empathy and theory of mind that borders on the shocking. The original images of abuse are only pixels and marks on paper, there's no magical link between the recordings of me raping my five year old kid and the kid himself! C'mon, don't blur out the features of the kid in the photos used in the article, I wanna be able to imagine forcing my cock down his throat! There's no magical link! So there's no harm done! MAP rights when?

; I find this ridiculous as well, as there's no magical link between the markings on paper or pixels on a screen and the original person from whom the light was reflected and captured by a camera.

You need the concept "unknowingly harmed". You also need to give up the idea that harming X involves an interaction with X.

It's pretty normal to ban distribution or possession to prevent production - look at ivory.

Also, it's pretty normal to treat something produced by serious enough harm to be somewhat tainted by that harm. Interest in the Benin Bronzes declined considerably as it became known that they were essentially made by the worst slavers in Africa, we don't particularly like dealing with the outputs of Nazi 'research' labs (such as they were), etc. etc. That by itself isn't usually considered enough to merit a ban by itself, but e.g. consumption of actual torture porn or gore stuff is both rare and heavily frowned upon even when that doesn't affect production.

Neither argument applies to fiction, though.

It's pretty normal to ban distribution or possession to prevent production - look at ivory.

I'm not familiar with countries that ban possession of ivory, although its sale is often illegal.

There's also cases of goods whose possession is legal but production and distribution is not (for example, Portuguese drug policy).

Interest in the Benin Bronzes declined considerably as it became known that they were essentially made by the worst slavers in Africa

I mean, surely people always knew that those people were slavers? It's not exactly a secret what they were up to.

The bronzes are very prominently displayed in the British Museum and Nigeria apparently wants them back. They seem fairly popular though not at an all time high of popularity. Of course, the Benin bronzes were only indirectly enabled by slaving, so it's not really the same as your other examples.

consumption of actual torture porn or gore stuff is both rare and heavily frowned upon even when that doesn't affect production.

Indeed, but the consumption of fictional sexualized depiction of minors is heavily frowned upon by the general public even though it's been normalized in certain toaster fucker parts of the internet.

Neither argument applies to fiction, though.

Sure, but there's other arguments that apply to fiction. Such as:

  • People who produce or consume fictional disgusting material may have something wrong with them and belong in an institution rather than among a community of like minded people

  • People who produce or consume fictional disgusting material may eventually move on to producing or consuming real disgusting material

Etc.

I'm not familiar with countries that ban possession of ivory, although its sale is often illegal.

You're usually banned from importing it, even when it belongs to you, which is sort of a compromise. There are nasty cases of hundred-year-old pianos being destroyed by having the ivory hacked off the keys, things like that.

I mean, surely people always knew that those people were slavers? It's not exactly a secret what they were up to.

There's people and people. In the UK, the pressure to repatriate the bronzes and the buzz around them came from the progressive crowd who I think were pretty surprised to learn the historical context (I personally didn't know until maybe 2021?) and the pressure to export seems to have dropped considerably. You're right it's not the same, and maybe I was muddying the waters, but I don't know that many torture porn cases so I was feeling out the area.

there's other arguments that apply to fiction.

There are, but they're very far off "you are literally watching with pleasure a terrible thing being done to a real person that actually happened". And consequently their force is hugely diminished. Masturbating to George Floyd being suffocated to death is not the same as reading a KKK fantasy novel, even one in which equally lurid things happen.

The argument that "People who produce or consume fictional disgusting material may eventually move on to producing or consuming real disgusting material" has been trotted out many times and tends to come off very badly. DnD didn't make people satanists, nor did Doom. Grand Theft Auto did not product a wave of, well, grand theft auto. Porn is blamed for lots of nasty new sexual behaviours - mostly choking - but the direct evidential link seems weak and not in the direction that is given (it's a girl-desired thing not a guy-desired thing).

Likewise "People who produce or consume fictional disgusting material may have something wrong with them and belong in an institution" generally doesn't pass the smell test, unless you're willing to lock many, many people into a mental home and you're confident that your definition of 'disgusting' is widely shared and not going to come back to bite you.

In practice, many people privately consider these arguments hackneyed and their force has been dropping through the last century. There will always be crusaders and busybodies but equally there's a reason why governments generally avoid going on loud crusades against immoral private sexual acts that aren't actually crimes. Such crusades aren't popular and the government knows half its MPs will become collateral damage.

There's people and people. In the UK, the pressure to repatriate the bronzes and the buzz around them came from the progressive crowd who I think were pretty surprised to learn the historical context (I personally didn't know until maybe 2021?) and the pressure to export seems to have dropped considerably. You're right it's not the same, and maybe I was muddying the waters, but I don't know that many torture porn cases so I was feeling out the area.

The pressure to return artifacts has declined because of Peak Woke, not because of the specific connection of the Benin Bronzes to slavery. The claim that the Bronzes belong in the British Museum as lawful trophies of a just war against slavery is mostly advanced as a piece of right-wing trolling, although I believe it unironically.

The pressure to return artifacts has declined because of Peak Woke, not because of the specific connection of the Benin Bronzes to slavery.

This seems akin to arguing that the reason the water level dropped over the past few hours isn't because of the gravitational effects of the moon and the Sun on the Earth, it happened because of low tide. Taking for granted that Peak Woke being in the past is a thing (I must admit, there are enough witness accounts to make it plausible that in some places, some of the time, some of the most extreme of the woke effects have somewhat receded, even if my personal experience isn't concordant with it), it being in the past is something that happened due to many things that happened between then and now. I don't think anyone can truly know exactly what and how much each specific event went into the recession from Peak Woke, but it seems plausible that scratching the surface of some woke cause and finding previously-unseen facts that are embarrassing to the woke was a major part of it.

In general you are correct, but in this specific case I remember the moral panic around historical connections to slavery around the time the Edward Colston statue was pulled down in Bristol, and nobody except the aforementioned right-wing trolls connected it to the moral panic about the return of African artifacts (including the Benin Bronzes) going on at roughly the same time.

My theory of Peak Woke is that the pro-establishment left eventually realised that being tarred and feathered by the anti-establishment right was a lot scarier than being called racist on social media by the anti-establishment left.

You don't think the two were somewhat related? I don't mean the trolling argument you mention, more that like Joe Biden's habit of sniffing women it was a case where applying woke principles became clearly problematic from woke's own perspective (utilitarian in the case of Biden, moral in the case of the BBs) in ways that couldn't be blamed on the Right, and produced a measurable reduction in enthusiasm from woke activists.

DnD didn't make people satanists, nor did Doom. Grand Theft Auto did not product a wave of, well, grand theft auto. Porn is blamed for lots of nasty new sexual behaviours - mostly choking - but the direct evidential link seems weak and not in the direction that is given (it's a girl-desired thing not a guy-desired thing).

Perhaps it's my viewpoint from 2026, but, none of these seem as shocking or disgusting as sexualized depictions of children. It seems obviously false that there is no media you can consume habitually that has an effect on your behavior or beliefs. Ultimately that boils down to an argument against the existence of culture.

you think 10% of Japan and many, many teenage boys who like goth loli should be literally locked in a mental home.

Japan seems like a profoundly ill society, so I'm pretty comfortable biting that bullet.

In practice, many people privately consider these arguments hackneyed and their force has been dropping through the last century

Indeed, but most people still see consuming this stuff as disgusting and at the very least indicating people who shouldn't be alone with children, even if they don't think it should be literally illegal.

Either we are talking about different things, or your disgust is stronger than many. Are you okay with a chaste yuri manga that depicts two middle school girls kissing? Or are you talking about depictions of raping a baby?

(Sorry to get sordid, but one sort of has to given the context. Another reason why these discussions get increasingly difficult when they have real stakes.)

You also just have to deal with the fact that not everyone wants to bite your bullets. I have read said yuri manga, and think OP's trailer looked fine, and I don't feel bad about this and have no intention of going to jail for it. I am therefore incentivised to a) dismiss any arguments of this kind in any other field knowing that one day you will try to come for me, and b) look very very carefully for any of your behaviours that could be used to divert the mob. (I don't mean that as a threat, obviously, I'm discussing the general case.) Are you sure that a critical number of your countrymen aren’t concerned with you (hypothetically) playing a game where you can murder prostitutes? That you post here, in this known den of sluggishly schizophrenic incel right-wing racists?

In practice everyone kind of understands that pursuing these kinds of cases with vigour gets really nasty really quickly which is why we still have a broadly-permissive society. I would strongly encourage you to read this post about how Australia's laws unintentionally drove one of our posters to attempting suicide. This stuff has real consequences.

I would strongly encourage you to read this post about how Australia's laws unintentionally drove one of our posters to attempting suicide. This stuff has real consequences.

I'm sorry this happened to him but the guy sounds like a real piece of work and if I found out my buddy wrote and collected books about kids raping each other I'd never talk to him again and I surely would make sure he's never left alone with any kids. This stuff is totally fucked up and I'm pretty sure the vast, vast majority would agree with me on this whereas most people don't care about GTA.

Whether or not this requires criminal penalties is debatable, but not everything that is unacceptable should be illegal.

Suit yourself. I hope the leopards never bite your face.

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Censorship is very dangerous and a very bright line needs to be drawn around any exceptions made to the general anti-censorship principle. Documentation of crimes in the real world is a much better place to draw this line than things like obscene subject matter or a prurient tone; there's much less room for slope-slipping and constant renegotiation of norms. (I would actually be in favor of much harsher treatment of the live action porn industry in general, though, for much the same reason - it's just a thin conceptual shell of "speech" over prostitution.)

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