4 ms·

To be frank this is nonsense. People in the public eye are miserable so it doesn't matter if they're more miserable? Making lide worse isn't harm? I don't even

• roenxi 3y ago
  > I don't even know what harm would mean, then. Suffering some sort of detectable injury, for example. I'm hedging a bit because there could easily be something obvious I'm not seeing, but I don't really see how Taylor Swift of 2024 is worse off than the one of 2023 here. She hasn't suffered any physical harm. I don't think this harms her reputation. It isn't going to cause her financial prospects to drop. There is emotional harm, but that has always been a bit of a cop out taht people use when they just don't like something and I don't see why it has to cause emotional harm. There doesn't have to be any stigma around this, it looks like it is just going to be one of those things that happens. Automated fake porn is obviously different and I can see why she might be upset. But it isn't so clear she - or anyone else - has actually been harmed in any serious way. I get upset by a bunch of things that are frankly more materially impactful on me than this is on her and it isn't appropriate to say they harm me. Tax springs to mind as a light example. And speaking of WWII, we'll note that although war became much more horrific, it became so much more horrific that we seem to have stopped doing so much of it. So although objectively the machine gun makes fighting much worse, it actually led to less killing overall.
  • maxbond 3y ago
    > There is emotional harm... I agree. Things like this are potentially traumatic. This reduces to a form of cyber bullying. Cyber bullying has gotten people killed. > [T]hat has always been a bit of a cop out taht people use when they just don't like something... I disagree. Furthermore I would describe saying that there wasn't harm, and then admitting that there was but that it doesn't count, as a copout or equivocation. > Tax springs to mind as a light example. I shouldn't need to point out why harassment and taxation is an apples to oranges comparison. > [A]lthough war became much more horrific, it became so much more horrific that we seem to have stopped doing so much of it... We do a huge amount of war. I'll wager you're not aware of all the conflicts categorized as a "war"/"major war" in the list below (I wasn't when I came across it a few days ago). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_confli... I'm not even sure how to respond to the idea that war getting more horrific is a boon except to say that you should think on that again.
    • roenxi 3y ago
      Bullying is targeted though. I doubt that this instance is someone trying to annoy Swift. She could theoretically not have noticed the episode at all and the faker would still be happy. I don't see why this has to make her feel like she is under some sort of attack. She isn't; most of the people looking at this stuff think she is a very respectable human being. Some fanatically think she is one of the best. > I shouldn't need to point out why harassment and taxation is an apples to oranges comparison. Sure. But you can see how (1) me being worse off and (2) me being upset about it are not sufficient for people to be persuaded that harm is being done to me. I mean, technically there is a point there but most people don't consider it appropriate to describe taxes as "harmful". * War and Peace There is a lot of war in the world, but if you look at the overall trends we're actually in a period of remarkable peace [0]. Absolute number of wars is way down, and death rates due to war will be way down (note that population growth is exponential so absolute numbers being a little higher actually means rates are dropping). [0] https://ourworldindata.org/conflict-measures-how-do-researchers-measure-how-common-and-deadly-armed-conflicts-are https://ourworldindata.org/conflict-measures-how-do-research...