Interesting Links for 01-01-2016

[andrewducker]

• Polyamorous Guy Who Brought Ukulele to Party Explains Feminism to Young Women
  • satire polyamory feminism
• Glorious pink puppy playing in leaves
  • pigs video cute
• Counterproductive Behaviors of Social Justice Activists
  • advice behaviour justice
• How public money and crazy policies speed water off the land and into our homes
  • flooding UK government
• Who

Comments

[bugshaw]

How completely messed up practices become normal: o_O I have seen myself do the thing part-way down, where new person gets used to it; every time we get a new joiner I take them through the data and they hit some bits hard and I explain they were an historic bodge and we have to live with the weirdness. Maybe I should stop that.

[andrewducker]

Certainly worth re-examining from time to time.

[bart_calendar]

I suspect most people with pedo tendancies are like peter - they know their orientation is wrong so while frustrating do their best not to act on it.

A couple of psychologists have talked about - and there's been a few experiments with - using CGI and photoshop and stuff to create virtual child pornography (where no living child is harmed or used in the process) in order to give them and outlet. Apparently doing so lowers temptation considerably.

But trying to make that a legal thing in western countries has a huge amount of resistance due to the ick factor.

[bart_calendar]

Also, one of the subplots of the new Atwood book is a company that has perfected sex robots. And they quickly find out that a huge market is for ones that appear to be children, because people with those fantasies can suddenly live them out without harm.

[asher63]

This is interesting. I'd heard about the problem and the proposed solution (or mitigating measure), but I wasn't aware of any empirical results one way or the other. Clearly, if it helps people, do it.

But you are probably right about the ick factor.

[bart_calendar]

I can't find the study where they used simulated child pornography. (It was in a former eastern block country.)

But it was based on this study which showed that the availabily of child pornography in any form at all lowered the rates of people acting on their pedo tendencies with actual children.

http://phys.org/news/2010-11-legalizing-child-pornography-linked-sex.html

They used that to see if the pedos reacted any differently at all to simulated child pornograph - which is easy to make - and they pedos didn't notice any difference.

[bart_calendar]

The real problem and purpose of the paperless train ticket system is that it makes it much, much easier for the government to track people's movements.

It will also suck for the homeless, people without bank accounts, etc....

It constantly amazes me how easily people are led to giving up their privacy in exchange for convenience.

[skington]

The problem with the homeless, unbanked, or people with a bank account just not the one used to pay for the ticket (e.g. group travel, ticket was a gift / expensed by the company) is entirely because this initiative is coming from the banking industry. If it was just Yet Another Digital Thing that e.g. you'd send to your phone, you wouldn't have this problem.

As for tracking people, if you use a card for anything (payment / withdrawing cash) you can be tracked down pretty easily already.

[fub]

That link about water management in the UK is interesting. But I do not completely agree with the conclusion that EU farm subsidies are the cause for flooding. The purpose of the farm subsidies is to ensure that the EU has enough arable land to be able to be self-sufficient in terms of food production. If we import food from abroad, then there is no need to actively use that land to grow food, but it is important to keep it in a condition that it could be used for that purpose to qualify for the subsidies.
Yes, arable land does not retain water well, but maybe it's more important what you do with the water after it has fallen on the land?

[gonzo21]

That legislation on immigrant workers needing to earn £35,000 after 5 years of being in the country or they will be automatically deported is absolutely shocking. Just... christ, that's appalling.

[snarlish]

yup, that's a fucking abhorrent policy

[gonzo21]

That's going to cause so much misery and grief. For no reason at all other than 'fuck the foreigner! Yay!' Fucking racist arsehole conservative wankers.

[benicek]

Well, that £35K rule is going to be interesting for the NHS if the UK leaves the EU and all the low paid EU citizens who make up most of the catering, portering and cleaner workforce have to be deported. Nurses have been added to the protected list.