Interesting Links for 25-03-2013

[andrewducker]

• Children should be allowed to get bored
  (tags: boredom children )
• Trends in UK Church attendance - 6% of the population, average age 51.
  (tags: religion uk )
• Interracial Sex Still Taboo for Many Porn Stars
  (tags: porn usa race )
• The first results from the Planck satellite tell us that our explanations of the universe need a little work.
  (tags:

Comments

[bart_calendar]

The porn stars are being coy because they don't want to offend their audience

[bart_calendar]

P.S.

Here is Stoya (probably the most rational porn actress other than Sasah) talking about interacial porn and how fucked up the industry is about it.

It's safe for work if you have headphones (she uses the words "shit" and "fuck.")

Her basic point is that the industry thinks that only racist assholes in red states want to watch interacial porn so they market it as "blackzilla" or "nigger cock", when that's completely pointless because the average porn consumer doesn't give a shit if the guy she's fucking on camera is white or black.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nuHxhGkHGg

[bart_calendar]

Also, if you are interested here is Sasha Grey talking about the unstated problem with "interacial porn" i.e. why the fuck aren't asian men represented at all in porn, interacial or mainstream.

http://pornstarsashagrey.blogspot.fr/2011/07/sasha-grey-on-interracial-porn.html

[andrewducker]

Dammit, meant to listen to this last night. I'll get to it soon!

[artkouros]

Those new condoms look intriguing - but I have to admit I was expecting something a little more exotic from the name, Origami.

[erindubitably]

This infographic says a survey of 10,000 porn stars shows that 53% have done an interracial scene (and has a lot of other interesting statistics as well).

[drdoug]

I saw this and thought of you
http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/markets-in-almost-nothing.html
It's an economist going "markets sell almost nothing that's really important".

[andrewducker]

Yeah. Mind you, he's leaving out some very important things. Like food. And power. And my Playstation. But there are a lot of things that are important that you can't buy, and lots of things that you can't have decent markets for (which is why I approve of the NHS.)

[drdoug]

Interesting but not surprising stuff on the trends in UK Church attendance. A couple of things that leapt out at me:

- The financial situation is getting worse faster than attendance is falling. The two main costs for the church are buildings and staff (mostly clerics' stipends). Buildings and ministers are falling much more slowly than attendance and membership. The cost per member is soaring. That can't go on for ever.

- From 2000 to 2010, the average age went from 43 to 51: the churchgoing population aged 8 years in 10 years. That's an eye-popping rate, or at least, a clog-popping one. It's another trend that can't go on for ever, and so won't. I don't understand why the prediction (which really annoyingly isn't shown differently on the chart) for 2010 to 2020 is to only increase to 56. But the average age can't get above 80, absent complete and unprecedented medical miracles, and almost certainly won't get above 65 before the church completely collapses.

[andrewducker]

I think they're being hopeful they'll bring in new young people. I can see the rate slowing if enough old people are dying that the trickle of new people starts to be a significant proportion of the remaining members.

In any case, yeah, by 2020 the Church will be in serious trouble, and by 2030 it should be, effectively, gone.

[alextfish]

Unsurprisingly, the Christian world has been talking about this trend as well. I think your statement that the Church will be gone by 2030 is overoptimistic on your part ;) You may well be right about certain old parts of it like the URC though.

If you split up the numbers slightly more, it emerges that in "traditional" churches (URC, a lot of the C of E, etc) the average age is going up as its members' ages do; but there are a number of churches more modern in style that attract large numbers of much younger people (teens, twenties, thirties). Charismatic churches are holding steady or declining very slowly, and several groups such as Pentecostals or black majority churches are actually growing.

There's a lot more detail on pages like this one.

[andrewducker]

I'm sceptical of "large numbers". Unless they're just not showing up on wider polls, those churches that are expanding are still a lot smaller than the mainstream churches, and basically a blip as far as national demographics go.