8 ms·

In the spectrum of postmodern quasi-meaningless decisions made to give some appearance of action to appease people who are more likely to complain than do somet

In the spectrum of postmodern quasi-meaningless decisions made to give some appearance of action to appease people who are more likely to complain than do something useful, this is on the harmless side. What really bothers me is the underlying idea that a picture of a beautiful woman is offensive. It seems like we’re on a path of “regression to the mean” where only mediocrity is acceptable, and anything remarkable is offensive. If I felt offended every time I saw a picture of a man more beautiful (and attractive) than me I might as well disconnect and go live in the woods.

pfannkuchen 3y ago
It’s not about the woman being beautiful. It’s about the in-joke where the cropped image itself is tame but the implicit context is pornographic. This in joke makes (many) women uncomfortable, I think. Personally I don’t care either way, I just like to understand differing perspectives. Being offended by this one seems fairly reasonable as far as things go though.
- low_tech_love 3y ago
  I guess being offended or not by this is entirely subjective, as we can see from our wildly different perspectives on the matter. I guess that’s why we should never base a ban on it, right?
- ml-anon 3y ago
  Replace Lena.jpg with calm.jpg
- politelemon 3y ago
  Trying to imagine the reverse, if I were in a field dominated by women and there were "Lenny" images used frequently and used as an in joke or commonality, I think I'd feel uncomfortable too as would many of us. From the comments I'm seeing though, I don't believe we're exercising the empathy needed to understand.
  - roenxi 3y ago
    I dunno; that sounds very hypothetical. Do you have a more specific example? I don't see why I'd be unhappy about, eg, working with a group of nurses with a fireman calendar in the lunch room [0]. Even though it is unprofessional, since that is active sexualisation, this is just a girl with a pretty face. Very attractive people of both the equivalent and opposite gender exist. I can't speak to your instincts and interpretations, but objectively they are not a threat to my emotions. [0] https://www.australianfirefighterscalendar.com/ https://www.australianfirefighterscalendar.com/
    - acdha 3y ago
      This is also sexualization: Playboy isn’t a fine art magazine or anatomy textbook where you’d at least have some plausible professional context. If someone just took a picture of a pretty woman which wasn’t intended to be pornography, nobody would be talking about this.
  - low_tech_love 3y ago
    Would you ask for it to be formally banned by a scientific umbrella organisation?
- numpad0 3y ago
  Aren't we supposed to be decades past "women has no sexual desire, sex are for men" era? I support the ban, it's kind of weird a cutout porn is the benchmark, but I just don't see how LGBT-era human modeling and anti-porn stancing go together. Hypocritically speaking, the notion that cis-male/bi-person/lesbian-women porn[0] as reference image makes women uncomfortable has to be wrong. 0: and this is very rough edged caricature, no reason gender has to be specified here or subject has to be ignored
  - acdha 3y ago
    Would you bring a copy of Playboy into the office? Would you say it’s okay because you won’t show anyone more than the upper half of an image? That’s the problem: it’s nothing to do with what people do in their private lives, it’s about bringing pornography into a professional context. In this case it’s also objectively an obsolete choice for anyone working on modern imaging technology so it’s not even defensible on technical merits.
    - numpad0 3y ago
      I don't object to removal itself, and I don't find it too appropriate, I just have problems with post-hoc rationalization that comes attached to it. "Images of attractive woman offends other women" shouldn't even be a politically safe statement to make. That'll be one hell of a hallucination if an LLM said it.
      - acdha 3y ago
        It’s not attractive women but pornography. Nobody would care if this was a picture a computer scientist had taken of herself at work because they needed a test image, it’s the “produced for the sexual pleasure of male viewers” part that makes some people worry that their colleagues view them the same way.
        numpad0 3y ago
        > Nobody would care if this was a picture a computer scientist had taken of herself at work because they needed a test image I've seen, although from great distances, enough of these instances. They WILL come at that person and harder in those cases. Sexual content are less likely to be cancelled when more male is involved, contrary to superficial reasoning. This applies even if gender of creators are not apparent at all. It's a really gross primal phenomenon.
ml-anon 3y ago
[flagged]
keepamovin 3y ago
Picture of a beautiful woman is offensive I don't think that's it. I think it's the idea that Playboy objectifies women, and "porn" objectifies people. Which is understandable. From that lens, Lena's picture could be seen as the IEEE equivalent of plastering the locker room doors with porn mag photos.
- Fnoord 3y ago
  If Playboy objectifies women (Playboy falls firmly in the category softporn) then I guess some people are really worried about websites like Xhamster, Pornhub, and Onlyfans. Playboy shows no intercourse (AFAIK, been a while), it contains stories and background info, and professional and entertaining poses. It falls firmly in the category of softporn. I know this is a Whataboutism 101, and you could say 'it is objectified woman in marginalized profession'. I'm not saying I disagree. What I am saying is that there must be a long road ahead. It seems the cat is out of the bag? Now, my daughter is in pre-puberty. Back when I was in puberty, I bought a Playboy or two and one Penthouse. Would I have an issue if my daughter bought a magazine with men (and/or women) posing (half-)naked if she were in puberty? I'd be surprised, given what you can find for free on the internet, with [much] worse curation. No, that seems normal to me, even healthy to be curious like that. But I am honestly scared shitless of all the crap which can be found on certain websites, as well as things happening in school like revenge porn (which recently became illegal within its own category in my country; a step I very much agree with). My point being that, to me, there seem to be much worse issues ahead worth tackling.
  - matsemann 3y ago
    You're missing the point entirely. It's not that this image or porn is bad (or not), but that an image from a soft-porn magazine is used in a professional setting when you're not explicitly wanting to go down that road. What others do on their own is fine. But this image gives porn-connotations to people just wanting to do their job. It's equivalent to having a poster of a woman in the office bathroom. Have it in your own home, it's fine, but don't push it on others.
    - 3y ago
Shawnj2 3y ago
From my understanding part of the issue is that people would use it as a test image for the sake of using Lena as a test image rather than actually picking a suitable image for their testing. I mean also this is a scientific publication which should try to stray towards neutrality and this image is a cropped playboy still. This is blatantly not an appropriate image to use in an academic publishing not even getting into copyright issues. If you absolutely need to use a photo of a beautiful woman for your testing you could use literally any photo taken in a standard photo shoot which isn’t overly sexualized that is appropriately licensed.
larodi 3y ago
Being offended by cropped image of something that viewers may not know is a nude image is just another level of discovery of what can potentially be rated offensive. I remember this article where some girl dropped her PhD to do onlyfans and made like millions in very short time. Wonder what she was offended by? Perhaps offensively expensive tutoring costs, or generally non-competitive pay in academia which it seems is not to be discussed as something researchers from all genders are usually put off by? Sorry, this is such a hypocritical nonsense to ban the Lena image, that it really amazes me somebody cared to be so politically correct while on a daily basis a researcher around the world is marginalised by their seniors by not being listed as the first author of an article. THAT is offensive, not some pixels in the age of TikTok and Insta.
- GaryNumanVevo 3y ago
  The subject of the photo, Lena Forsén, has explicitly called for it to be retired. No need to get all up in arms about what's "offensive"
  - larodi 3y ago
    Thats another story, and while my previous comment on a general basis stands (or rather I stand firm with this position), because the same twisted logic gets applied to other "bans", I stand corrected in the light of your note. Lena has a right to demand the image to be retired. But last time I read interview with her this demand was not included in her responses. thanks for update.
  - low_tech_love 3y ago
    That’s misleading. She has been quoted multiple times saying she was amused and thought nothing of it. Until a bunch of activists came and told her she should be offended, and that the matter was of great importance to the future of mankind. Then of course she changed her mind, why not.
    - acdha 3y ago
      I would assume that as an adult she’s capable of making her decisions and we should respect that. Even if you disagree, there is no reason why we need to continue using it and it’s not a good choice purely on technical grounds, so a better question would be asking why anyone would be so committed to continuing to use an objectively obsolete image over the objection of its subject.
barfbagginus 3y ago
[flagged]
akoboldfrying 3y ago
I personally won't be satisfied until GitHub changes their default branch name to using_the_lenna_image_is_violence. Then, and only then, will I know that meaningful change has taken place.
neuromanser 3y ago
I too think we're growing hypersensitive, but that's not the only argument for switching to a different picture: the the model has requested the image not be used, long ago IIRC.
- ralfd 3y ago
  And decades before she was always fine/amused/proud with it being used. Probably she is just being tired being always asked about the issue. https://media.wired.com/photos/5c5354d391d0df22c1dee493/master/w_2240,c_limit/Backchannel-Lena-Final.jpg https://media.wired.com/photos/5c5354d391d0df22c1dee493/mast...
  - low_tech_love 3y ago
    AND found a way to sound cool while doing that. (My fingers are itching to add some comment about the fact that she’s Swedish but I’m sure that has no correlation whatsoever with jumping in on meaningless postmodern cancel culture bandwagons)
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
I'm offended by the notion that any woman depicted nude is somehow pornographic. I'm also offended that people say it objectifies women- as if they lack agency.

pfannkuchen 3y ago

It’s not about the woman being beautiful. It’s about the in-joke where the cropped image itself is tame but the implicit context is pornographic. This in joke makes (many) women uncomfortable, I think. Personally I don’t care either way, I just like to understand differing perspectives. Being offended by this one seems fairly reasonable as far as things go though.

low_tech_love 3y ago
I guess being offended or not by this is entirely subjective, as we can see from our wildly different perspectives on the matter. I guess that’s why we should never base a ban on it, right?
ml-anon 3y ago
Replace Lena.jpg with calm.jpg
politelemon 3y ago
Trying to imagine the reverse, if I were in a field dominated by women and there were "Lenny" images used frequently and used as an in joke or commonality, I think I'd feel uncomfortable too as would many of us. From the comments I'm seeing though, I don't believe we're exercising the empathy needed to understand.
- roenxi 3y ago
  I dunno; that sounds very hypothetical. Do you have a more specific example? I don't see why I'd be unhappy about, eg, working with a group of nurses with a fireman calendar in the lunch room [0]. Even though it is unprofessional, since that is active sexualisation, this is just a girl with a pretty face. Very attractive people of both the equivalent and opposite gender exist. I can't speak to your instincts and interpretations, but objectively they are not a threat to my emotions. [0] https://www.australianfirefighterscalendar.com/ https://www.australianfirefighterscalendar.com/
  - acdha 3y ago
    This is also sexualization: Playboy isn’t a fine art magazine or anatomy textbook where you’d at least have some plausible professional context. If someone just took a picture of a pretty woman which wasn’t intended to be pornography, nobody would be talking about this.
- low_tech_love 3y ago
  Would you ask for it to be formally banned by a scientific umbrella organisation?
numpad0 3y ago
Aren't we supposed to be decades past "women has no sexual desire, sex are for men" era? I support the ban, it's kind of weird a cutout porn is the benchmark, but I just don't see how LGBT-era human modeling and anti-porn stancing go together. Hypocritically speaking, the notion that cis-male/bi-person/lesbian-women porn[0] as reference image makes women uncomfortable has to be wrong. 0: and this is very rough edged caricature, no reason gender has to be specified here or subject has to be ignored
- acdha 3y ago
  Would you bring a copy of Playboy into the office? Would you say it’s okay because you won’t show anyone more than the upper half of an image? That’s the problem: it’s nothing to do with what people do in their private lives, it’s about bringing pornography into a professional context. In this case it’s also objectively an obsolete choice for anyone working on modern imaging technology so it’s not even defensible on technical merits.
  - numpad0 3y ago
    I don't object to removal itself, and I don't find it too appropriate, I just have problems with post-hoc rationalization that comes attached to it. "Images of attractive woman offends other women" shouldn't even be a politically safe statement to make. That'll be one hell of a hallucination if an LLM said it.
    - acdha 3y ago
      It’s not attractive women but pornography. Nobody would care if this was a picture a computer scientist had taken of herself at work because they needed a test image, it’s the “produced for the sexual pleasure of male viewers” part that makes some people worry that their colleagues view them the same way.
      - numpad0 3y ago
        > Nobody would care if this was a picture a computer scientist had taken of herself at work because they needed a test image I've seen, although from great distances, enough of these instances. They WILL come at that person and harder in those cases. Sexual content are less likely to be cancelled when more male is involved, contrary to superficial reasoning. This applies even if gender of creators are not apparent at all. It's a really gross primal phenomenon.

ml-anon 3y ago

[flagged]

keepamovin 3y ago

Picture of a beautiful woman is offensive I don't think that's it. I think it's the idea that Playboy objectifies women, and "porn" objectifies people. Which is understandable. From that lens, Lena's picture could be seen as the IEEE equivalent of plastering the locker room doors with porn mag photos.

Fnoord 3y ago
If Playboy objectifies women (Playboy falls firmly in the category softporn) then I guess some people are really worried about websites like Xhamster, Pornhub, and Onlyfans. Playboy shows no intercourse (AFAIK, been a while), it contains stories and background info, and professional and entertaining poses. It falls firmly in the category of softporn. I know this is a Whataboutism 101, and you could say 'it is objectified woman in marginalized profession'. I'm not saying I disagree. What I am saying is that there must be a long road ahead. It seems the cat is out of the bag? Now, my daughter is in pre-puberty. Back when I was in puberty, I bought a Playboy or two and one Penthouse. Would I have an issue if my daughter bought a magazine with men (and/or women) posing (half-)naked if she were in puberty? I'd be surprised, given what you can find for free on the internet, with [much] worse curation. No, that seems normal to me, even healthy to be curious like that. But I am honestly scared shitless of all the crap which can be found on certain websites, as well as things happening in school like revenge porn (which recently became illegal within its own category in my country; a step I very much agree with). My point being that, to me, there seem to be much worse issues ahead worth tackling.
- matsemann 3y ago
  You're missing the point entirely. It's not that this image or porn is bad (or not), but that an image from a soft-porn magazine is used in a professional setting when you're not explicitly wanting to go down that road. What others do on their own is fine. But this image gives porn-connotations to people just wanting to do their job. It's equivalent to having a poster of a woman in the office bathroom. Have it in your own home, it's fine, but don't push it on others.
  - 3y ago

Shawnj2 3y ago

From my understanding part of the issue is that people would use it as a test image for the sake of using Lena as a test image rather than actually picking a suitable image for their testing. I mean also this is a scientific publication which should try to stray towards neutrality and this image is a cropped playboy still. This is blatantly not an appropriate image to use in an academic publishing not even getting into copyright issues. If you absolutely need to use a photo of a beautiful woman for your testing you could use literally any photo taken in a standard photo shoot which isn’t overly sexualized that is appropriately licensed.

larodi 3y ago

Being offended by cropped image of something that viewers may not know is a nude image is just another level of discovery of what can potentially be rated offensive. I remember this article where some girl dropped her PhD to do onlyfans and made like millions in very short time. Wonder what she was offended by? Perhaps offensively expensive tutoring costs, or generally non-competitive pay in academia which it seems is not to be discussed as something researchers from all genders are usually put off by? Sorry, this is such a hypocritical nonsense to ban the Lena image, that it really amazes me somebody cared to be so politically correct while on a daily basis a researcher around the world is marginalised by their seniors by not being listed as the first author of an article. THAT is offensive, not some pixels in the age of TikTok and Insta.

GaryNumanVevo 3y ago
The subject of the photo, Lena Forsén, has explicitly called for it to be retired. No need to get all up in arms about what's "offensive"
- larodi 3y ago
  Thats another story, and while my previous comment on a general basis stands (or rather I stand firm with this position), because the same twisted logic gets applied to other "bans", I stand corrected in the light of your note. Lena has a right to demand the image to be retired. But last time I read interview with her this demand was not included in her responses. thanks for update.
- low_tech_love 3y ago
  That’s misleading. She has been quoted multiple times saying she was amused and thought nothing of it. Until a bunch of activists came and told her she should be offended, and that the matter was of great importance to the future of mankind. Then of course she changed her mind, why not.
  - acdha 3y ago
    I would assume that as an adult she’s capable of making her decisions and we should respect that. Even if you disagree, there is no reason why we need to continue using it and it’s not a good choice purely on technical grounds, so a better question would be asking why anyone would be so committed to continuing to use an objectively obsolete image over the objection of its subject.

barfbagginus 3y ago

[flagged]

akoboldfrying 3y ago

I personally won't be satisfied until GitHub changes their default branch name to using_the_lenna_image_is_violence. Then, and only then, will I know that meaningful change has taken place.

neuromanser 3y ago

I too think we're growing hypersensitive, but that's not the only argument for switching to a different picture: the the model has requested the image not be used, long ago IIRC.

ralfd 3y ago
And decades before she was always fine/amused/proud with it being used. Probably she is just being tired being always asked about the issue. https://media.wired.com/photos/5c5354d391d0df22c1dee493/master/w_2240,c_limit/Backchannel-Lena-Final.jpg https://media.wired.com/photos/5c5354d391d0df22c1dee493/mast...
- low_tech_love 3y ago
  AND found a way to sound cool while doing that. (My fingers are itching to add some comment about the fact that she’s Swedish but I’m sure that has no correlation whatsoever with jumping in on meaningless postmodern cancel culture bandwagons)

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

I'm offended by the notion that any woman depicted nude is somehow pornographic. I'm also offended that people say it objectifies women- as if they lack agency.