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>likely going to acquire mental illnesses I find hard to believe humans are so sensitive that some visual stimulation is going to give them mental illnesses. W

by meruru 7y ago

>likely going to acquire mental illnesses I find hard to believe humans are so sensitive that some visual stimulation is going to give them mental illnesses. We evolved in an environment where violence was part of real life and a real threat to our own well being, seeing it on a screen will elicit emotions we may not be used to in modern life, but causing mental illness is a stretch.

hollerith 7y ago
>We evolved in an environment where violence was part . . . We also evolved in an environment without screens, that is, a world without any selection pressure to distinguish between actually dangerous experiences and experiences generated by screens.
marak830 7y ago
Id like to preface, I'm not trying to reduce what these people are going through. But it's relative. I grew up on farms, I've slaughtered animals and I've seen seemingly stable 30 year olds completely break down when they see a video of an animal being humanely slaughtered. I've also heard stories from mates of mine in the military that I'd prefer not to see on video. People are desensitised from things they are raised with. Some shit (kiddie porn and extremely graphic BDSM and rape), isn't something you really want people to be able to accept. Knowing that it's something that really happened vs a movie is a big difference.
- meruru 7y ago
  >People are desensitised from things they are raised with From my own experience, that's not required. I grew up pretty sheltered myself and I have no problem seeing that kind of content occasionally. Maybe it would be a different story if I were being exposed to this sort of content constantly. I don't know. That said, I hadn't actually read the article when I posted and found it pretty surprising. It seems there's a lot going on there. >seemingly stable 30 year olds completely break down when they see a video of an animal being humanely slaughtered. My reaction was more about things like this. I tend to think that's an overreaction and at least partially feigned and self-deceptive.
  - marak830 7y ago
    So take that, and then change it to a human child. I was trying to use a fairly light-touch subject matter. At that point, if you don't have a reaction(from seeing it multiple times), its probably tome to seek professional help.
    - meruru 7y ago
      >At that point, if you don't have a reaction(from seeing it multiple times), its probably tome to seek professional help. You're already assuming there must be something wrong with me because I'm not getting scandalized by the idea of seeing violence. That's exactly the kind of reaction that makes me skeptic. Just so it's clear, I do dislike seeing violence, I just don't think it's that big a deal in general.
      - marak830 7y ago
        No I was using a low level difficult thing to watch, instead of a horrifying thing to watch. If you think watching child porn to rate the videos as safe or unsafe for a platform such as Facebook or youtube, and that seeing cp is something you can handle multiple times safely, then I urge you to seek some help. In all honestly, being able to ignore multiple videos like that - which you can believe in their primary are real - without being affected, the you may, in all honestly, have some compassion issues, and in your own best interests, seeking help cannot hurt.
        megous 7y ago
        Having compassion doesn't mean breaking down when seeing [eg.] gutted child on a screen. You can still know it's wrong, feel sympathy and want to help, etc. Where I'd draw the line is seeing that, and wanting/asking to kill more, or enjoying that, or feeling the need to justify the act, or not stopping to consider the act.
ljcn 7y ago
It's well known that viewing graphic material can trigger PTSD, e.g. in the police force. These moderators will be exposed to similar.
Fnoord 7y ago
> I find hard to believe humans are so sensitive [...] Perhaps that says more about you than about humanity. There's two very good reasons why cops use checksums instead of watching child pornography. 1) It goes faster (on the long term once the scripts/programs are written). 2) Its mentally exhaustive to check such footage. Why? One word: empathy. Also, why is it that cops become so tense, or racist? Because of what they experienced. If your experience is shooting someone for the first time in your life, yielding a kill, then that is going to have a severe impact on you. If its #81, then its just a statistic.
jstarfish 7y ago
The job is to view an endless parade of the most creatively horrible things people have ever said to each other or captured on film, all day every day. The job itself requires you to actually scrutinize the details-- averting your eyes is not an option. The job is to look at and mentally process each artifact. Violence in our origins at least had a point. Kill for survival. Kill for food. Killing meant something. Raping children never served any biological purpose, nor does watching actual people explode. There are many reasons we try to make the world such that neither is a part of anybody's life. (ed) Put it this way-- if it's so harmless for people to be exposed to, why moderate anything at all?
- meruru 7y ago
  Yeah, to be honest I wrote that before reading the article and I was painting a much rosier picture than what it was described. I do wonder what is the distribution of content they have to moderate. Is it a continuous stream of violence or is that something that appears once or twice a day? >if it's so harmless for people to be exposed to, why moderate anything at all? Obviously if the public doesn't like it enough, you're going to moderate it away. Some places don't even allow cleavage, so it's not like something has to be harmful to be moderated.
geggam 7y ago
When I worked at Y! groups a couple times legal would ask us to remove images. I am about as insensitive as it gets but a few images of babies being molested will trigger some deep emotions. I cant imagine doing that day in and day out.
Const-me 7y ago
> We evolved in an environment where violence was part of real life and a real threat to our own well being It's beneficial for survival to have some strong reaction on observing violence. Could be "charge", "run for your life", or something else, but it was never "click a mouse button and move on to the next violence scene". Similar for gore, evolutionary correct reaction is "run and/or vomit". People who failed to react in a strong way did not pass genes: joined the violence scene they observed, caught the same decease and joined the gore scene they observed.
otakucode 7y ago
Human brains are very adaptive. Consider the following scenario: A person is standing on a stage, in front of many of their peers, giving a speech or receiving an award or some other public recognition. Someone comes up behind them and swiftly pantses them, dropping their pants and underwear instantly, exposing them nude from the waist down. Would you expect this event to result in psychological trauma to the person? The answer depends entirely and completely upon that persons prior experience. If the person has been raised as a nudist, and spent a great deal of time in their life nude in the presence of strangers, it would be a non-event on the level of sneezing. If the person has been raised the way most individuals in our society are raised, with tremendous social scorn and shame heaped upon every topic related to the body, with zero experience of being naked or witnessing nudity in a public setting... it could be monumentally traumatic and cause them intense psychological harm that lingers for decades. When society was familiar with violence, violence had less of an effect because of that. Now that violence is very rare, and we repeatedly insist to one another that things on a screen are basically the same as the things themselves (which we do with our language we use when talking about fictional depictions, using instead the words that would be more correct only if we were describing real in-person situations), we sensitize ourselves and invent the possibility of these images destroying us psychologically. It is a self-imposed weakness, but one which intellectual recognition of can do almost nothing to remove.

by meruru 7y ago

hollerith 7y ago

>We evolved in an environment where violence was part . . . We also evolved in an environment without screens, that is, a world without any selection pressure to distinguish between actually dangerous experiences and experiences generated by screens.

marak830 7y ago

Id like to preface, I'm not trying to reduce what these people are going through. But it's relative. I grew up on farms, I've slaughtered animals and I've seen seemingly stable 30 year olds completely break down when they see a video of an animal being humanely slaughtered. I've also heard stories from mates of mine in the military that I'd prefer not to see on video. People are desensitised from things they are raised with. Some shit (kiddie porn and extremely graphic BDSM and rape), isn't something you really want people to be able to accept. Knowing that it's something that really happened vs a movie is a big difference.

meruru 7y ago
>People are desensitised from things they are raised with From my own experience, that's not required. I grew up pretty sheltered myself and I have no problem seeing that kind of content occasionally. Maybe it would be a different story if I were being exposed to this sort of content constantly. I don't know. That said, I hadn't actually read the article when I posted and found it pretty surprising. It seems there's a lot going on there. >seemingly stable 30 year olds completely break down when they see a video of an animal being humanely slaughtered. My reaction was more about things like this. I tend to think that's an overreaction and at least partially feigned and self-deceptive.
- marak830 7y ago
  So take that, and then change it to a human child. I was trying to use a fairly light-touch subject matter. At that point, if you don't have a reaction(from seeing it multiple times), its probably tome to seek professional help.
  - meruru 7y ago
    >At that point, if you don't have a reaction(from seeing it multiple times), its probably tome to seek professional help. You're already assuming there must be something wrong with me because I'm not getting scandalized by the idea of seeing violence. That's exactly the kind of reaction that makes me skeptic. Just so it's clear, I do dislike seeing violence, I just don't think it's that big a deal in general.
    - marak830 7y ago
      No I was using a low level difficult thing to watch, instead of a horrifying thing to watch. If you think watching child porn to rate the videos as safe or unsafe for a platform such as Facebook or youtube, and that seeing cp is something you can handle multiple times safely, then I urge you to seek some help. In all honestly, being able to ignore multiple videos like that - which you can believe in their primary are real - without being affected, the you may, in all honestly, have some compassion issues, and in your own best interests, seeking help cannot hurt.
      - megous 7y ago
        Having compassion doesn't mean breaking down when seeing [eg.] gutted child on a screen. You can still know it's wrong, feel sympathy and want to help, etc. Where I'd draw the line is seeing that, and wanting/asking to kill more, or enjoying that, or feeling the need to justify the act, or not stopping to consider the act.

ljcn 7y ago

It's well known that viewing graphic material can trigger PTSD, e.g. in the police force. These moderators will be exposed to similar.

Fnoord 7y ago

> I find hard to believe humans are so sensitive [...] Perhaps that says more about you than about humanity. There's two very good reasons why cops use checksums instead of watching child pornography. 1) It goes faster (on the long term once the scripts/programs are written). 2) Its mentally exhaustive to check such footage. Why? One word: empathy. Also, why is it that cops become so tense, or racist? Because of what they experienced. If your experience is shooting someone for the first time in your life, yielding a kill, then that is going to have a severe impact on you. If its #81, then its just a statistic.

jstarfish 7y ago

The job is to view an endless parade of the most creatively horrible things people have ever said to each other or captured on film, all day every day. The job itself requires you to actually scrutinize the details-- averting your eyes is not an option. The job is to look at and mentally process each artifact. Violence in our origins at least had a point. Kill for survival. Kill for food. Killing meant something. Raping children never served any biological purpose, nor does watching actual people explode. There are many reasons we try to make the world such that neither is a part of anybody's life. (ed) Put it this way-- if it's so harmless for people to be exposed to, why moderate anything at all?

meruru 7y ago
Yeah, to be honest I wrote that before reading the article and I was painting a much rosier picture than what it was described. I do wonder what is the distribution of content they have to moderate. Is it a continuous stream of violence or is that something that appears once or twice a day? >if it's so harmless for people to be exposed to, why moderate anything at all? Obviously if the public doesn't like it enough, you're going to moderate it away. Some places don't even allow cleavage, so it's not like something has to be harmful to be moderated.

geggam 7y ago

When I worked at Y! groups a couple times legal would ask us to remove images. I am about as insensitive as it gets but a few images of babies being molested will trigger some deep emotions. I cant imagine doing that day in and day out.

Const-me 7y ago

> We evolved in an environment where violence was part of real life and a real threat to our own well being It's beneficial for survival to have some strong reaction on observing violence. Could be "charge", "run for your life", or something else, but it was never "click a mouse button and move on to the next violence scene". Similar for gore, evolutionary correct reaction is "run and/or vomit". People who failed to react in a strong way did not pass genes: joined the violence scene they observed, caught the same decease and joined the gore scene they observed.

otakucode 7y ago

Human brains are very adaptive. Consider the following scenario: A person is standing on a stage, in front of many of their peers, giving a speech or receiving an award or some other public recognition. Someone comes up behind them and swiftly pantses them, dropping their pants and underwear instantly, exposing them nude from the waist down. Would you expect this event to result in psychological trauma to the person? The answer depends entirely and completely upon that persons prior experience. If the person has been raised as a nudist, and spent a great deal of time in their life nude in the presence of strangers, it would be a non-event on the level of sneezing. If the person has been raised the way most individuals in our society are raised, with tremendous social scorn and shame heaped upon every topic related to the body, with zero experience of being naked or witnessing nudity in a public setting... it could be monumentally traumatic and cause them intense psychological harm that lingers for decades. When society was familiar with violence, violence had less of an effect because of that. Now that violence is very rare, and we repeatedly insist to one another that things on a screen are basically the same as the things themselves (which we do with our language we use when talking about fictional depictions, using instead the words that would be more correct only if we were describing real in-person situations), we sensitize ourselves and invent the possibility of these images destroying us psychologically. It is a self-imposed weakness, but one which intellectual recognition of can do almost nothing to remove.