Ace

Accessibility of porn has increased at a level never seen before - just in the last five years with the advent of all the porn 2.0 websites. We're in uncharted waters with the scale that this thing has gone to. I think a rational person ought to make a calculated decision at a certain point, can't keep waiting forever until some conclusive scientific report comes out to change your behavior. And this is one of those things - best case scenario porn is a way of killing time, like watching some mindless tv show - so there's nothing to lose giving it a go. Worst case you're messing with your ability to enjoy one of life's greatest experiences over the long-term. A lot of big porn sites put out statistics on visitors - if you're a young man in the Western world who doesn't access porn multiple times per week you are absolutely in the minority. Pornhub is a big site, but just one of many - and they get 2.1 million unique visitors per hour - it's insane! Totally unprecedented. And that's all completely separate from the ethical issues we've discussed which should be extremely troubling for anyone who wants to be a virtuous person. We can cite examples of webcam girls putting themselves through college, and so on - but there are so many documentaries that have been done on the porn industry, books written by those who have lived in that world - they paint a pretty grim picture of a life that chews people up and the long-term outcomes are not good. So I say good on the original poster, it's going against the grain for sure in today's society but I think the ethical/practical argument is pretty damn compelling.

I'm not sure how much scientific evidence we'll find of that. If you're interested - google "NoFap" there's a website, vlogs etc. Basically - you find yourself looking and porn/masturbating frequently and take a chance on giving that up for a while - 30 days, 60, 90 - I've seen some guys claim to have gone a year. I think it's mostly porn which is the problem that really distorts your sexual arousal response - that's my experience and for many. I don't think masturbating is inherently bad - but that becomes intertwined with porn for a lot of guys and so giving that up for a time along with the porn is the normal strategy. It's super cliché and totally anecdotal - but so many report many positive effects - physical, mental, sexual - that was my experience too. I think porn can be like a drug. I'm being a bit vague - I'd say the biggest difference I noticed - in sex you want to be 100% present in the moment, focused on your partner - and when regularly consuming porn I found that to be lacking for myself - sometimes to an extreme point, struggling to perform. After throwing the porn away an average girl becomes way sexier just as she is and any kind of physical intimacy and sex became far better for me. And I mean for those of us under 30 in this internet age - we don't have any experience of sexuality without pornography. Your sexual life and consumption of pornography are never separated - and when you do that for the first time I think anyone who hasn't had that experience will be very surprised at how much more of an impact it was having than you thought possible.

Dumping porn from your life has massive personal benefits, ethics notwithstanding.

I don't think you can make a clear philosophical case in the moment that it is unethical - if the situation does not involve force and those participating are doing so voluntarily. But like Sabras was saying - sexual abuse or at least some form of dysfunction - early sexual experience etc. is almost universal amongst women who end up in the sex industry - whether it's porn, stripping, prostitution. I can't possibly imagine some girl raised in a loving and supportive home with good parents would decide - "the way I want to add value to the world is by letting guys I've never met before fuck me on camera and cum on my face so other strangers can masturbate to it." Unless you're willing to say that you'd be totally proud and supportive of your daughter choosing hardcore porn as a career I think it's impossible to argue that it's not morally questionable. I stopped watching porn earlier this year - but more for practical than ethical reasons if I'm honest. I think frequent porn consumption/masturbation badly distorts your sexuality, arousal response, etc. There's all this "NoFap" stuff on the internet and if you go on youtube there's lots of videos about it. But honestly in my experience physical intimacy and sex are so much better when you've cut pornography out of your life. And definitely - once you make the connection and see some poor, broken girl who's suffered through horrible things in her past on the screen - it's not nearly as hot to watch.

But realistically it'll never fly because without boutique tax credits and a laundry list of welfare programs - the government has nothing to sell to voters. And the unending progression is towards further complication of tax code, social programs, etc. because if you simplify it then you need fewer workers to administer it and then the public sector unions have a fit. Maybe it would be a little better economically, maybe not - who cares. Ethically it's no improvement. And no possible chance it's ever going to be implemented so why waste a minute of your life thinking about stuff like this.

I remember being very struck by that statement "dancing with ghosts" when I heard it first. But I understood the distinction as being that of people with self-knowledge and a philosophical outlook and those without. Politicians and the people who control the levers of power in society are ghosts just as much as the rest of them - they aren't aware of the truth of their position at all. Once you've gained even a degree of self-knowledge - you get a really stark feeling that you're walking around in a world full of ghosts. It's really liberating in the sense that all the torture and anxiety that the desire to conform and be accepted by the people around you used to cause fades away into nothing. In work and casual interactions you play the game to fit in but you're very aware of the shallowness. But then of course, the downside is that it can make you feel very alone in the world. Realistically - if you're a philosophical person with self-knowledge - you can try to give up and just blend in with the ghosts but it'll fail miserably and you won't be happy for more than a short while. You can't go back. But don't do the other thing which way too many philosophical/libertarian guys do! - which is to become terribly negative and walk around with this thinly concealed rage and disdain for the world which unconsciously poisons all your interactions with people. Then everyone else being hopeless ghosts becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I make an effort everyday to be optimistic and positive in my interactions with others, sometimes it feels kind of phony but I just press on through. I think the key is to look for little glimmers of life in people - and if you keep looking you do find those. And when you see that just open yourself up and be honest and see how far that potential in someone else can go. I find that to be a hard question though - how much do you compromise. Being an unyielding zealot for the truth in every situation and thereby ending up all by yourself I don't think is going to make you happy. But neither is trying to just blend in. It's easy to get discouraged as you meet new people and see how shallow and empty they are. Fraternizing with ghosts is only a short-term solution - that's my experience. That wonderful feeling of closeness with another human being that you so long for is fairly quickly replaced by an ever increasing sense of distance if you can't connect at a deeper level. If the only alternative is being alone forever or having shallow relationships I'd pick the latter. But I'm not prepared to throw in the towel on that one just yet. Life can be a real grind once you take on this philosophy business, man I feel it sometimes. But don't fool yourself for a second and think that the ghosts are all a happy bunch, not a chance. And again, no matter how hard you try, you won't be able to blend in. No human being can be alone for a long time and happy. Meeting someone you can really connect with and with whom you can be totally open seems like such a wonderful prospect because then you really can just scare everyone away with honesty - and who cares. So I genuinely believe at a certain level it's a numbers game and you just have to keep pushing until you can make that happen - and keep improving yourself and accomplishing great things as you work towards that. But if you just give up and become cynical then you end up as the damn ghost.

Why is that an oxymoron?

Well, I don't think there's anyone left that considers it evil or immoral other than people who work for record labels or the motion picture association.

That's actually funny that they ask those kind of questions but if some non-unionized company asked the same type of questions to determine whether a potential hire had union sympathies it would be an absolute outrage. I think that you only owe honesty to those who are honest with you. Could you really be happy in an environment like that? If it were a stepping stone to some better opportunity that would be one thing, but union jobs are usually about getting comfortable for the long haul. If the union guys are making more money than management that probably tells you something about the sustainability of the business. And in the future if you wanted to do something else - business owners aren't chomping at the bit to get more guys with union backgrounds hired for their company. I don't think there would be any ethical failing in telling them what they want to hear on those questions. But, I think if your principles actually matter to you - working in such a place would drive you insane over the long-term.

Only people whose business experience consists of being a writer for some hipster publication could describe this whole "women never get the chance to make themselves heard in the workplace" stuff while keeping a straight face lol.

Hi there! I moved to Calgary earlier this year, before that I was in Edmonton and we had a pretty good thing going with a meet-up group of 4 of us. A couple of us moved away and things fell by the wayside. Just recently we've done a couple of Google hangouts and I realized how much I missed that level of conversation which is pretty absent from day to day life. If there's anyone in Calgary or anywhere else in Southern Alberta who'd be interested in meeting up shoot me a message I'd really enjoy that. This is supposed to be the most libertarian part of Canada but I've not seen too much of that yet from most of the people I meet haha! Thanks,

Well that's insulting to argue that by having criticisms we don't understand and aren't being empathetic.

There was talk of acceptance of false dichotomies leading to despair early in the call. I think this guy's situation was not a false dichotomy. It's really simple - play along with things as they are, or speak the truth and your family will destruct. The "third option" presented was just the first option combined with a list of positive effects of religion so the caller could feel better about taking that course. But really is that going to work? He's realized it's not true, so ultimately, what he will have to do is lie to his wife, children, and community. His children will ask questions and he will not be able to be honest. So does he maintain this until the kids are grown up and moved out and then turn to honesty? I wanted you to grow up in a stable family, so I played along with something I didn't believe in for decades, but now I want to be honest. Or does he have to keep it up for life? It seemed pretty sugar coated to me, the caller felt like a weight was lifted, Stef said he's a lucky guy, ride off into sunset... sadly, I think it's going to be very difficult for him. How can you have any kind of true connection under such circumstances? I'm not religious, I certainly don't have a sense of community that I would have if I were a member of a religious group. So I'm missing something in my life, and from the description of it in this call, it sounds like something with some very positive effects. So... Am I doing something wrong? Is an apology owed to Islam as well? Islam is even better than Christianity at promoting family values - STD rates are among the lowest in the world in the middle east, single motherhood and divorce rates are incredibly low. Chopping hands off leads to low theft levels... And really, is there any group of people in the world more willing to stand up for their beliefs? Maybe it's a ridiculous comparison sure and I don't want to be flippant.. But this is philosophy right, and standards should be universal.

So now indoctrinating kids into religion doesn't count as force anymore? Religion is false and irrational, but it promotes good values around the family. I can remember a lot of podcasts solidly rejecting that notion. For this guy's particular situation, the question comes down to what is a better option - to keep going along with a belief system you know is false and lie to your wife and children in order to maintain familial stability - or be honest and face profound social consequences. That's a very difficult question. But.. the call seemed to descend pretty quickly thereafter into a description of how the outcomes from a religious upbringing are in many cases better than a secular one. I seem to recall some pretty good arguments against utilitarianism in earlier podcasts. I can't remember which one it was specifically but there was a podcast where Stef said - and it really stuck with me - The only way you'll ever be truly happy is by learning to love the truth. Maybe that's the unfortunate reality here - there are children involved and they have to come first - so the caller's happiness is not of consequence in the calculation. I don't know how anyone could ever be happy living a lie they are fully aware of.

The whole Youtube prank and pick-up genre has become a crowded space and it's getting more and more extreme to garner views. I'm not sure what you're asking really, obviously unwanted physical contact is an assault, and exposing yourself to groups of people in a park is a good way to end up on the sex offender list. That seems like a bit of a jump to make though, that there's a trend on youtube of pedophiles raping underage girls?