𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝙼𝚎𝚘𝚠

? I quite literally don’t have this. So either I disabled it or it wasn’t there. I don’t remember it anyway and I can’t see it now either.

Yeah there’s been loads of threads with surprised Europeans when it comes to Windows ads, because we just don’t get them.

My EU Win11 doesn’t show any ads either.

No, they don’t want you selling Steam keys for cheap on other platforms.

Valve actually doesn’t earn anything from steam key sales. They don’t take the 30% cut on those, only on sales made in the Steam store. The only requirement Valve puts up is that you don’t start selling these steam keys (which are provided for free) cheaper than you can purchase the game in the Steam store.

I don’t see that hindering competition at all. It basically allows other marketplaces to sell Steam games, enabling competition in the first place.

It’s also not their software, and they did agree to an EULA which prohibits these things.

If you have an ASRock mobo, update the bios. Otherwise, you should be fine.

That’s fair but I personally wouldn’t recommend 4chan to kids either.

Roblox uses children as unpaid labour to produce content for their platform, as well as the risk your kid runs into nazis or pedophiles on the platform. That used to be rampant, not sure if they’ve managed to get a grip on that now.

5 days is the period for a no-questions-asked reversal. It’s a consumer right, SDD isn’t just B2B. Banks do in fact offer a “magic money back” button for SDDs.

SDDs are what happens when you for example purchase an item (regular SDD) or a subscription (recurring SDD) online and provide your IBAN to the company providing it. The company then taking funds from your account with nothing but that IBAN is done through SDD. And yes, your bank will let you reverse that within 5 days, no questions asked (precisely because only an IBAN is required).

After 5 days, it’s still possible (eg through MOI) but that’s not guaranteed. I know this stuff because I deal with it professionally on a daily basis.

Banks can and absolutely do honor chargeback requests, though the terminology is usually different, even in the EU. But these are usually always honored (eg SDD Reversal or MOIs).

Sepa Direct Debits work in basically every SWIFT-connected country too, so that’s most of the world.

Steam choosing what to host on their platform is fine. A random payment processor forcing their hand due to mild pressure from a fringe Christian group in Australia is not. Because those loonies will classify anything outside of a married couple having missionary sex as obscene and harmful.

This article is overly sensationalist/alarmist and doesn’t match the study behind it.

This is the study they’re referencing: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/5/3/388

It primarily focuses on internet addiction and video game addiction. Pornography is mostly mentioned in passing as “likely similar”.

In it, they review evidence that these things can be addictive, and that people experience pleasure doing them (this is the whole “same-areas-as-coke-and-meth” thing btw; the brain is happy playing video games, and it is also happy doing coke). However, they distinctly mention that behavioral addiction is not necessarily the same as substance addiction:

Together with studies on Internet addiction and Internet Gaming Disorder we see strong evidence for considering addictive Internet behaviors as behavioral addiction. Future research needs to address whether or not there are specific differences between substance and behavioral addiction

The exact quote about areas of the brain thing:

Georgiadis and Kringelbach concluded, “it is clear that the networks involved in human sexual behavior are remarkably similar to the networks involved in processing other rewards”

The brain rewards sexual behaviour. Makes perfect sense from an evolutionary point of view, so not exactly a shocking conclusion.

And regarding the “brain-altering” thing, the study also directly mentions that this is simply what happens when the brain is activated through its reward systems. This “altering” happens for everything that triggers some kind of dopamine hit. It’s not the case that porn does something special here; a model train hobby for example would do the same to enthusiasts for example.

I remember this study actually, I’ve seen it before. It is frequently misquoted or represented in an extremely alarmist way, mostly by people with a dislike for pornography. But the study doesn’t back up their assertions that porn is anything special when compared to any other behavioral addiction, it actually expressly doesn’t.

The inability to distinguish between selection and socialization means there’s no evidence for a causal link. At best, it suggests that people who commit sexual aggression generally like porn featuring it more, but even that is apparently a weak correlation apparently.

The meta analysis addresses porn in general. That includes fetishized content like violent or “taboo” pornography. It states there’s no evidence that it makes sexual aggression more prevalent, and that population studies show that it’s at least correlated with a reduction instead.

We can nitpick the wording all day long, but ultimately I think the takeaway is that there’s no evidence that it has negative effects, and there’s at least some evidence that suggests it has positive effects.

We don’t have a specific cordoned off section for meth and cocaine in our brains. Many things trigger those areas of the brain, including some pretty innocuous stuff.

Porn isn’t physically addictive like meth and cocaine. It can be psychologically addictive though, but that goes for a lot of things out there.

Stuff like meth and cocaine can actually alter your brain, porn does not.

Anyone can develop an unhealthy relationship with porn, but that goes for just about anything out there.

This is not contradictory.

The meta-study says that pornography contributing to sexual aggression is not proven. Meaning, it doesn’t make it worse.

Meanwhile the population study seems to suggest porn usage reduces sexual aggression, or is at least correlated with it.

There is a clear power disparity between a father and a daughter. It’s debatable if the daughter could even realistically consent in that case.

But a depiction of it in porn is in my view not inherently unethical. I can disapprove of it personally, but that doesn’t mean we should start banning it based on feelings of inappropriateness.

We depict murder and violence in movies and video games too. Actual murder is of course not exactly ethical, but we have no problem accepting it in a movie, because nobody is actually being murdered. You might not like to watch a movie like Saw or something (I personally don’t), but it doesn’t make the movie itself unethical. To me, porn is no different. There’s a clear separation between fiction and reality.

Where imo a line is crossed, is if said media actually makes a clear effort to promote these acts IRL. But that’s not the case here.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32691692/

Population studies suggested that increased availability of pornography is associated with reduced sexual aggression at the population level

Porn made with the willing consent of all parties involved, where everyone is compensated appropriately. No harm = no ethical problems as far as I’m concerned. Most big studios these days make sure of this. But there have also been pioneers that push the bar further up (e.g. Lustery, Ersties or Erika Lust).