Porn is the bellwether for consumer technology

[showcase]

Okay, the title overstates it a tad, but it's an interesting theory nevertheless. From a recent Slate article:

slate.msn.com/id/2094788

DirecTV is obviously familiar with porn's track record as a driver of nascent technologies. The adult industry's decision to embrace VHS in the early 1980s, for example, helped kill Sony's Betamax, despite the latter format's superior quality. The infant Internet grew quickly thanks to erotic chat rooms and bulletin boards to the chagrin of AOL, which sought to sell the online world as family-friendly. Since fewer than 6 percent of American living rooms boast HDTV sets and many of the most popular network shows (e.g., The Simple Life) still don't use HD cameras, the industry understands that viewers need a nudge to join the revolution.

If porn is such an evil, how come there's such a broad and important consumer base for it? I mean, if it's big enough to kill BetaMax...

[Z]

interesting article in todays NYT re: the porn industry's response to file sharing / copyright infringement issues.

www.nytimes.com/2004/02/08/business/yourmoney/08porn.html

[thebin]

I don't think there is anything intrisically "evil" about porn personally- but think it should be as hard to access as possible for children and generally kept out of the public view with an eye toward the same. I don't think parent's should be forced to explain it to their children. The internet and private videao/dvd strikes me as the perfect forum for those who want it.

[DFW HOYA]

Porn didn't kill Betamax, it was the corporate decision by Sony not to license the technology. JVC, Pioneer and others gravitated to what would today be called the "open source" VHS platform. Kind of like what befell Apple--closed systems lead to atrophy.


Next, if you follow the definition of evil from Webster's, that it is "arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct", you could certainly argue that porn was evil.

That's not to put all adult-oriented issues in that category, but as a Supreme Court Justice once put it, "you know it when you see it."

[thebin]

Since you have gone out and stated that porn "was evil," I am tempted to ask you to be a bit more explicit as that is as you must know extraordinarily vague. The following can be construed a personal question you may prefer not to answer- but one I don't feel bad about asking given that you entered this particular fray vountarily. Do you think that there is something evil about adults watching one or more consenting adults doing sexually explicit things on film- or in person for that matter? I believe this is a matter not of morality but of decorum and taste- to be made by each individual without interference from the government. I believe that is not a policy issue at all as long as it is kept discreet so as not to flaunt it in the faces of those whose taste won't tolerate it- but for my part, I can't begin to think of consensual sex among adults- even if it goes beyond two married adults of the different sex, "evil."

[DFW HOYA]

My point was that, if you accept that definition of evil, porn applies. If you see that definition as ill-fitting, perhaps not. However, I think the definition of "evil" has certainly changed over the years (A character like Simon Legree was evil for his time, where today's evil is reserved more for genocidal types. Maybe another word other than evil would be a better topic.

The "consenting adults" defense has holes in it--broadly viewed, anything and everything is OK if there is consent--does that make polygamy or assisted suicide acceptable, for example?

What adults do is one thing, but the creation, promotion, and distribution of it is another. So, a different question: is the porn industry objectionable, its material, both, or neither?

[thebin]

Certainly it is an area fraught with consistency pitfalls- but I don't mean to use consent as the rationale for my value-neutral stance on porn. I just don't have an issue with people watching other people have sex and only qualified it as "consenual" to preclude child porn, snuff films, etc. I am ambivalent about the inherent morality of porn in general - as a policy view- which is not to say that I don't reserve the right to have a different view towards the permissiveness of my children to view it- or my wife and she to retain the same right. But those are issues that should remain personal and free from policy discussions IMO. So consent was not my standard in my argument- just my qualifier when I say that I find almost all forms of legal porn to be value-free in my libertarian eyes. Porn is a form of sexual recreation enjoyed in some form by perhaps billions. I don't find the female-friendly form of porn to be found on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine to be any less heinous that the graphically explicit male-friendly porn to be found in Hustler- although I know that is the accepted view on the coasts among urban elites by now for the most part. TO many, female porn= sensual and erotic. Male porn=degrading and disgusting. I don't buy that crap. Its all porn. Its just geared to different tastes and I find women are often hypocritical about porn being OK as long as its to their taste only. (Sex in the City.) Marriage on the other hand is a social contract that does and must make profound impact on policy - so I would not consent to legal polygamy just because it was consnual. You might be disappointed to hear that I do consent to homosexaul marriage as a beneficial boon to the good of marriage on social policy as well as the fact that it is simply the logical extension I think of eqaul rights. I don't believe pornography (as oppsed to marriage) when consumed in private has sufficient implications on social policy to warrant the resultant liberty-reducing interference- one I would find odious from a government. ( I am in favor of several forms of assisted suicide however.) Now you use another word- objectionable- which I am more comfortable with you and others throwing around in association of the "porn industry." That is a value judgement you or I are free to make with regrds to the industry- and the material, without I don't think implying that there is a role for government interference beyond the regulation that keeps this material from imposing itself on non-willing participants or passers-by.

As stated, I think there is some role for regulation in regards to promotion and distribution- to keep it away from those who don't want it in their life AT ALL, but not with any eye towards the severe limitation of responsible distribution and promotion.

[BeWise]

Pornography is just one aspect of moral degeneration in our society. The growing acceptance of reprehensible conduct is indeed an evil that threatens every institution we honor and respect.

As irreverence increases, the value of life decreases. People become immune to compassion, empathy and pity. Their hardened hearts accept the unacceptable and condone the reprehensible. Good becomes relative and so does evil.

Secular images bombard the modern individual to such an extent that few spiritual reinforcements are available. To many, the word of an entertainer or of a commercial sponsor has more influence than the word of God.

Technology and the mass media do not offer to society many images, symbols or role models representing traditional spiritual values. What we get instead are countless messages incessantly suggesting that we should disregard traditions, enhance pleasures and upgrade our physical reality. Many of us have been converted to state-of-the-art morality.

Despite the current absence of spiritual role models, we must remember that universal ideals of right and wrong do not change. The revelations of God and the wisdom of sages and saints do not get reinvented, repackaged or rediscovered every year. Good and evil are defined by Divine wisdom not by the mass media or individual preferences.

[HS86]

These divine values that you espouse have not existed for most of humanity's existance. A human life, for most of history, has never meant much.

Only in the past 100-200 years or so has value been placed on it, and even then, not much. How else do you explain the widespread wars and killing of the past two centuries?

Most of humanity has never valued life with high regard. Even the Crusades, which were fought for "divine right" cause massive amounts of torture, rape and death.

[thebin]

I have to agree. I think the real era of respect for individual life (in practice rather than theory) is a construct mainly of the post-enlightenment West, whose unique characteristic in world history is actually its move towards secularism.