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< Who could have possibly predicted that a company which mechanized the process of targeting and turning young teenage girls into prostitutes would have a dark

< Who could have possibly predicted that a company which mechanized the process of targeting and turning young teenage girls into prostitutes would have a dark side? While I might ethically disagree with their business model I don't think your assessment is fair. Their platform is certainly a step up from those same individuals getting into the industrial porn industry.

jeffreyrogers 5y ago
But the vast majority of them wouldn't get involved in the industrial porn industry, so you reduce the harm to a small number of people while increasing the harm (by a lesser degree) to a much larger number of people.
- edmundsauto 5y ago
  This sounds like a utilitarian argument. Unfortunately, that means the weights of the increased harm vs. decreased harm are what determines the morality. And those are arbitrary. one could believe it is low harm for a young person to use OF, but massive harm to be in the traditional porn industry, and conclude that OF is a net plus. Ie, this argument is circular and based on preconceptions rather than a critical examination of the evidence.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > This sounds like a utilitarian argument. Unfortunately, that means the weights of the increased harm vs. decreased harm are what determines the morality. And those are arbitrary. Well, yeah and with a deontological argument, chosen moral axioms are what determine the morality, which are equally arbitrary. All arguments of “should” have arbitrary values at their root.
    - edmundsauto 5y ago
      OP was explicitly making a utilitarian argument, one that did not present relative weights or other assumptions about population size. On that, it failed to make its point, which is what my comment was about. If you wish to say that most philosophical arguments are people reinforcing their previously held beliefs, I would not argue with you.
      - jeffreyrogers 5y ago
        > OP was explicitly making a utilitarian argument No I wasn't. I was making an HN comment, not engaging in moral philosophy, which I find boring and arbitrary. It's no coincidence that the preferred moral philosophy under any regime is one that is favorable to that regime. Thus the Greeks had virtue ethics, Nazis a bastardized Nietzscheanism, and our contemporary society Rawlsianism. I actually agree with your criticisms, they were obvious to me when I wrote the comment, but we must ultimately decide what sort of world we want to live in (or have it decided for us), and I would prefer one without OnlyFans, that such a world is a fantasy for the foreseeable future is besides the point.
        edmundsauto 5y ago
        You may find the formalization boring and arbitrary, but independent of that, your argument was one of utility. An alternative argument, if you wanted to avoid such droll dry topics, would have been to say "I don't want OnlyFans to be a thing." Instead, you made an argument based on moral philosophy to support your opinion. That's totally fine! It also doesn't change the fact that your comment evaluated the moral utility of whether our world is better or worse for existing.
        jeffreyrogers 5y ago
        You could make this type of criticism of literally any moral argument (swapping out utility for whatever the underlying criteria is in alternative moral frameworks). This is why post-modernist philosophy has become dominant in the modern world. There is no successful response to it other than to ignore it and and realize that it is all, "boring and arbitrary" as I said earlier. Edit: Also, as I learned from a post-modern adjacent philosopher, Richard Rorty, there is sometimes benefit in making arguments in different moral frameworks even if you believe they are all ultimately arbitrary: different people are convinced by different lines of reasoning. But ultimately, I post on HN because it is fun.
        edmundsauto 5y ago
- Taylor_OD 5y ago
  < But the vast majority of them wouldn't get involved in the industrial porn industry This is a great claim that has no evidence.
  - jeffreyrogers 5y ago
    What percentage of people have an OnlyFans? What percentage of people get involved in the conventional porn industry? Is one much higher than the other (yes). Is the evidence rock solid? No. It rarely is, but that doesn't mean you can dismiss it out of hand.
    - Taylor_OD 5y ago
      I can dismiss making up numbers and conclusions based on no evidence. Just because you think something is true does not mean it is.

jeffreyrogers 5y ago

But the vast majority of them wouldn't get involved in the industrial porn industry, so you reduce the harm to a small number of people while increasing the harm (by a lesser degree) to a much larger number of people.

edmundsauto 5y ago
This sounds like a utilitarian argument. Unfortunately, that means the weights of the increased harm vs. decreased harm are what determines the morality. And those are arbitrary. one could believe it is low harm for a young person to use OF, but massive harm to be in the traditional porn industry, and conclude that OF is a net plus. Ie, this argument is circular and based on preconceptions rather than a critical examination of the evidence.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > This sounds like a utilitarian argument. Unfortunately, that means the weights of the increased harm vs. decreased harm are what determines the morality. And those are arbitrary. Well, yeah and with a deontological argument, chosen moral axioms are what determine the morality, which are equally arbitrary. All arguments of “should” have arbitrary values at their root.
  - edmundsauto 5y ago
    OP was explicitly making a utilitarian argument, one that did not present relative weights or other assumptions about population size. On that, it failed to make its point, which is what my comment was about. If you wish to say that most philosophical arguments are people reinforcing their previously held beliefs, I would not argue with you.
    - jeffreyrogers 5y ago
      > OP was explicitly making a utilitarian argument No I wasn't. I was making an HN comment, not engaging in moral philosophy, which I find boring and arbitrary. It's no coincidence that the preferred moral philosophy under any regime is one that is favorable to that regime. Thus the Greeks had virtue ethics, Nazis a bastardized Nietzscheanism, and our contemporary society Rawlsianism. I actually agree with your criticisms, they were obvious to me when I wrote the comment, but we must ultimately decide what sort of world we want to live in (or have it decided for us), and I would prefer one without OnlyFans, that such a world is a fantasy for the foreseeable future is besides the point.
      - edmundsauto 5y ago
        You may find the formalization boring and arbitrary, but independent of that, your argument was one of utility. An alternative argument, if you wanted to avoid such droll dry topics, would have been to say "I don't want OnlyFans to be a thing." Instead, you made an argument based on moral philosophy to support your opinion. That's totally fine! It also doesn't change the fact that your comment evaluated the moral utility of whether our world is better or worse for existing.
        jeffreyrogers 5y ago
        You could make this type of criticism of literally any moral argument (swapping out utility for whatever the underlying criteria is in alternative moral frameworks). This is why post-modernist philosophy has become dominant in the modern world. There is no successful response to it other than to ignore it and and realize that it is all, "boring and arbitrary" as I said earlier. Edit: Also, as I learned from a post-modern adjacent philosopher, Richard Rorty, there is sometimes benefit in making arguments in different moral frameworks even if you believe they are all ultimately arbitrary: different people are convinced by different lines of reasoning. But ultimately, I post on HN because it is fun.
        edmundsauto 5y ago
Taylor_OD 5y ago
< But the vast majority of them wouldn't get involved in the industrial porn industry This is a great claim that has no evidence.
- jeffreyrogers 5y ago
  What percentage of people have an OnlyFans? What percentage of people get involved in the conventional porn industry? Is one much higher than the other (yes). Is the evidence rock solid? No. It rarely is, but that doesn't mean you can dismiss it out of hand.
  - Taylor_OD 5y ago
    I can dismiss making up numbers and conclusions based on no evidence. Just because you think something is true does not mean it is.