4 ms·

A lot of comments are saying things like "oh, we all knew this already." But a lot of the cultural discourse around AM completely misses or forgets this. A lot

A lot of comments are saying things like "oh, we all knew this already." But a lot of the cultural discourse around AM completely misses or forgets this. A lot of prominent people were brought down by it, and it's treated in the context that they were talking to real partners, presumably because that's a bit more salacious than the sad truth.

dwighttk 2y ago
What’s the difference between talking to a real partner and talking to a bot if you’re dumb enough to think the bots are real?
- jollyllama 2y ago
  The way someone answers this question probably correlates to their opinion on police entrapment.
  - refulgentis 2y ago
    First, flattened "cheating on your spouse" to "salacious lies" because they failed at it. Now, flattening "doing bad things is bad" to "supporting police entrapment." Beginning to think this is trolling.
    - jollyllama 2y ago
      I'm sorry it comes off that way. I genuinely think these are interesting distinctions. If I had to make an analogy, I would react differently if I found a bag of weed in a kid's backpack vs a bag of oregano that the kid was fooled into thinking was weed.
      - pc86 2y ago
        Somewhat related but if you're selling either one the court (in the US at least) will treat them the same. If you tell an undercover cop that you have cocaine and you sell them a baggie of baking powder, you'll get arrested and charged with selling cocaine.
      - LeFantome 2y ago
        To be fair, the additional distinction here is that you found nothing except that you know they asked where they might buy weed. Obviously nobody was meeting with these chat bots physically. Real or fake, that is an important distinction.
        dwighttk 2y ago
        >you found nothing except that you know they asked where they might buy weed. And that they gave money to someone for what they thought was weed
      - SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
        I guess the question there is "what are you punishing"? If it's your kid and you don't want them smoking weed, they clearly went out for weed. Are you punishing the act or the intent? Which is the disappointing bit?
    - itishappy 2y ago
      That's way reductive. Is that really what you think they're trying to say?
      - refulgentis 2y ago
        It's what they said: as written, it generates a high volume of replies saying the same thing, namely, that the posts are extremely reductive. But do feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, curious for your thoughts.
        itishappy 2y ago
        It's not actually what they said as written though. Your quotes do not come from their post, they reflect your own interpretation. I'm suggesting that this interpretation differs from my own and what I assume is the original posters intent. (FWIW, they say the same thing.) I also don't interpret the other replies here to be saying the same thing as you. They're discussing the idea that getting caught trying to have an affair (that happens to be fake) has interesting parallels with getting caught trying to buy drugs (that happen to be fake). You're accusing the poster of trolling.
        refulgentis 2y ago
        I appreciate the feedback. Looking at the other comments for a 3rd time, it's clear I'm not the only one expressing skepticism. I can't find any more to discuss here, it would feel awkward sitting in a side thread, where no one else is engaging, scrapping over how to sort other people's comments. ex. people saying the follow up analogy is flawed doesn't say "I agree with jpohhhh", so someone looking to police here should feel they can validly. And I don't like arguing with the cops, never goes well afaik :)
  - dotnet00 2y ago
    If by police entrapment, you mean cases where, say, someone tries to put out a hit and doesn't realize that the person they're hiring is a cop, I think that's totally fair. That's still indicative of serious intent to commit murder, and it really is just luck that they happened to hire a cop to do it rather than running into someone actually willing to kill. Same with the AM stuff, it doesn't really matter that my hypothetical SO was too dumb to notice they were talking to bots. Their intention was to cheat, and so the trust would be gone. At that point, how am I supposed to believe that they aren't cheating in other ways? It brings to mind another thing that sometimes happens lately, where "prank" channels on YouTube or TikTok film themselves committing crimes, thinking that since they don't actually mean any harm, or say, are using fake weapons, it isn't a crime anymore. But, of course, it is a crime, the people who are being "pranked" in this manner believe they're actually in danger. There has even been a case where a prankster got shot for pulling a knife on someone as a "prank", and the shooter was found innocent because it was reasonable self defense.
  - mindslight 2y ago
    The problem with police entrapment isn't that the bag contains oregano instead of real marijuana. Rather it's the creation of new "crime" that wouldn't have happened otherwise. So with Ashley Madison it's not so much the bot dynamic itself creating the distinction, but rather all the push advertising getting people to sign up out of curiosity when they perhaps wouldn't have sought such a thing out otherwise.
thebruce87m 2y ago
A bit like the Silk Road guy that thought he was murdering people, but it was being faked by the FBI.
- 1oooqooq 2y ago
  or how they simulated an arms sale and then lost track of the guns
- codetrotter 2y ago
  Was it even the FBI that faked the murdering? I read a pretty long story about the guy and to me it sounded more like one or more people were scamming him for money, and then the same group of people posed as someone else and scammed him twice this time by among other things making it seem like they had murdered the people that scammed him for him.
  - thebruce87m 2y ago
    IIRC the FBI flipped at least one of the moderators and faked a murder, along with picture “proof” that they staged. You are right though, I believe others were scamming him too. Casefiles has an excellent three-part podcast on it.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
sofixa 2y ago
To be fair, wanting to cheat on your partner to such an extent you'd set up an account on a website dedicated for that is already a step too far for many people barely any less bad of an act than the actual act of cheating.
- jollyllama 2y ago
  For sure. But as an external observer, my reaction is quite different. In the first case, it's very much "this sad dummy was sexting a chatbot." In the second case, it's "wow, it turns out this guy was a philanderer." Not sure why.
- nerdjon 2y ago
  I have to disagree with anyone that thinks it is "barely less bad". I mean we make countless bad decisions as humans, many of them rash last minute decisions in a time of desperation. Given the ease of just making an account and talking to someone vs actually going through with something I feel like just being on a platform like this is villainizing what could have been a moment of weakness. But that doesn't mean that you would have gone through with it. I would also put out there that there may be a decent subset of people that just the idea that someone might be into them without needing to actually do anything beyond that, is enough. I fully acknowledge that there is a lot of nuance to this, but I would hope that as a society we could acknowledge a huge difference between a bit of fantasy/role playing and actually going through with something.
  - lukas099 2y ago
    Yeah, it's bad that they'd do something like this behind their partners' back, but a lot of them probably signed up in a moment of weakness and never planned to take it further. It's like flirting when your partner isn't around. It's bad (assuming it isn't something you've agreed upon), but if you stop it before it goes to far it's not as bad as going to bed with somebody.
  - noufalibrahim 2y ago
    I think the model is that of a "gateway drug". While the long term intentions (infidelity) might be the same, social barriers prevent many people from taking it forward. Signing up on a website is something a lot of people do for a lot of things and making that the entry point to something exciting and forbidden is good marketing at best and psychological manipulation at worst. For some (perhaps most) people, just creating an account and taking a peek is usually not enough to push them over but for many others, it's enough to start a chain reaction that will end up somewhere which will have real consequences for them and multiple people related to them. Not a good idea and a company that's making money off of this without even considering that is not very ethical in my estimation.
refulgentis 2y ago
> A lot of prominent people were brought down by it Source? Don't recall this at all. > it's treated...they were talking to real partners...presumably because that's...salacious There's stigma against cheating that isn't mitigated by failing at it.
- fsckboy 2y ago
  men attracted to the idea of women who are cheating are not themselves precisely cheating. there are some who would wish to stigmatize this, but other (men) who would not.
  - codetrotter 2y ago
    The slogan of Ashley Madison was “Life is short. Have an affair.” So the assumption should be that most of the real people on the site whether they are the man or the woman, are in a relationship with someone IRL but went to AM because they wanted to cheat. They ask you about your relationship status so probably the leaked data can tell us how many reported being in a relationship vs not. (But also keep in mind people might lie about it, in either direction.)
  - itishappy 2y ago
    As a man, if I found out my partner was flirting with guys at the bar every weekend without my knowledge or consent, even if she didn't go home with any of them, I'd still stigmatize the hell out of that.
    - taylodl 2y ago
      Hopefully you aren't married. There's a HUGE difference between "flirting" and "fscking."
      - itishappy 2y ago
        I know. I don't care. I don't want a partner who to all observers (myself included) appears to be trying to cheat. My bare minimum relationship standard is a partner who does neither, and I hold myself to the same standard.
zogrodea 2y ago
I think treating people for what they intended and actually tried to do to do (cheat on their partner), even if they didn't manage to carry out their intent because of external circumstances is fair. I think that's a common opinion? Although I might be wrong. Many countries punish "attempted murder" (trying to carry out the act but failing, the same way people caught in this scandal attempted but failed at adultery) so it makes sense to me to not strongly distinguish between "tried cheating on their partner but failed" and "tried cheating on their partner and succeeded". How would you think the conversation about AM would/should be modified, in light of the fact that people were (unknowingly) talking to chatbots instead of real partners? I think I already made my views clear, but I would actually like to hear other opinions since I don't think I understand any view but my own on this. Maybe other people would prefer the conversation is about spambots on social media websites instead of what the people on those sites tried to do? Edit: nvm. I saw (after I was already done typing) the sibling comments to my current one, and that makes more sense.
- zarathustreal 2y ago
  Both actual cheating and attempted cheating are morally wrong. Actually cheating has an additional negative consequence attached: potentially exposing your partner to disease and / or infection

dwighttk 2y ago

What’s the difference between talking to a real partner and talking to a bot if you’re dumb enough to think the bots are real?

jollyllama 2y ago
The way someone answers this question probably correlates to their opinion on police entrapment.
- refulgentis 2y ago
  First, flattened "cheating on your spouse" to "salacious lies" because they failed at it. Now, flattening "doing bad things is bad" to "supporting police entrapment." Beginning to think this is trolling.
  - jollyllama 2y ago
    I'm sorry it comes off that way. I genuinely think these are interesting distinctions. If I had to make an analogy, I would react differently if I found a bag of weed in a kid's backpack vs a bag of oregano that the kid was fooled into thinking was weed.
    - pc86 2y ago
      Somewhat related but if you're selling either one the court (in the US at least) will treat them the same. If you tell an undercover cop that you have cocaine and you sell them a baggie of baking powder, you'll get arrested and charged with selling cocaine.
    - LeFantome 2y ago
      To be fair, the additional distinction here is that you found nothing except that you know they asked where they might buy weed. Obviously nobody was meeting with these chat bots physically. Real or fake, that is an important distinction.
      - dwighttk 2y ago
        >you found nothing except that you know they asked where they might buy weed. And that they gave money to someone for what they thought was weed
    - SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
      I guess the question there is "what are you punishing"? If it's your kid and you don't want them smoking weed, they clearly went out for weed. Are you punishing the act or the intent? Which is the disappointing bit?
  - itishappy 2y ago
    That's way reductive. Is that really what you think they're trying to say?
    - refulgentis 2y ago
      It's what they said: as written, it generates a high volume of replies saying the same thing, namely, that the posts are extremely reductive. But do feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, curious for your thoughts.
      - itishappy 2y ago
        It's not actually what they said as written though. Your quotes do not come from their post, they reflect your own interpretation. I'm suggesting that this interpretation differs from my own and what I assume is the original posters intent. (FWIW, they say the same thing.) I also don't interpret the other replies here to be saying the same thing as you. They're discussing the idea that getting caught trying to have an affair (that happens to be fake) has interesting parallels with getting caught trying to buy drugs (that happen to be fake). You're accusing the poster of trolling.
        refulgentis 2y ago
        I appreciate the feedback. Looking at the other comments for a 3rd time, it's clear I'm not the only one expressing skepticism. I can't find any more to discuss here, it would feel awkward sitting in a side thread, where no one else is engaging, scrapping over how to sort other people's comments. ex. people saying the follow up analogy is flawed doesn't say "I agree with jpohhhh", so someone looking to police here should feel they can validly. And I don't like arguing with the cops, never goes well afaik :)
- dotnet00 2y ago
  If by police entrapment, you mean cases where, say, someone tries to put out a hit and doesn't realize that the person they're hiring is a cop, I think that's totally fair. That's still indicative of serious intent to commit murder, and it really is just luck that they happened to hire a cop to do it rather than running into someone actually willing to kill. Same with the AM stuff, it doesn't really matter that my hypothetical SO was too dumb to notice they were talking to bots. Their intention was to cheat, and so the trust would be gone. At that point, how am I supposed to believe that they aren't cheating in other ways? It brings to mind another thing that sometimes happens lately, where "prank" channels on YouTube or TikTok film themselves committing crimes, thinking that since they don't actually mean any harm, or say, are using fake weapons, it isn't a crime anymore. But, of course, it is a crime, the people who are being "pranked" in this manner believe they're actually in danger. There has even been a case where a prankster got shot for pulling a knife on someone as a "prank", and the shooter was found innocent because it was reasonable self defense.
- mindslight 2y ago
  The problem with police entrapment isn't that the bag contains oregano instead of real marijuana. Rather it's the creation of new "crime" that wouldn't have happened otherwise. So with Ashley Madison it's not so much the bot dynamic itself creating the distinction, but rather all the push advertising getting people to sign up out of curiosity when they perhaps wouldn't have sought such a thing out otherwise.

thebruce87m 2y ago

A bit like the Silk Road guy that thought he was murdering people, but it was being faked by the FBI.

1oooqooq 2y ago
or how they simulated an arms sale and then lost track of the guns
codetrotter 2y ago
Was it even the FBI that faked the murdering? I read a pretty long story about the guy and to me it sounded more like one or more people were scamming him for money, and then the same group of people posed as someone else and scammed him twice this time by among other things making it seem like they had murdered the people that scammed him for him.
- thebruce87m 2y ago
  IIRC the FBI flipped at least one of the moderators and faked a murder, along with picture “proof” that they staged. You are right though, I believe others were scamming him too. Casefiles has an excellent three-part podcast on it.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]

sofixa 2y ago

To be fair, wanting to cheat on your partner to such an extent you'd set up an account on a website dedicated for that is already a step too far for many people barely any less bad of an act than the actual act of cheating.

jollyllama 2y ago
For sure. But as an external observer, my reaction is quite different. In the first case, it's very much "this sad dummy was sexting a chatbot." In the second case, it's "wow, it turns out this guy was a philanderer." Not sure why.
nerdjon 2y ago
I have to disagree with anyone that thinks it is "barely less bad". I mean we make countless bad decisions as humans, many of them rash last minute decisions in a time of desperation. Given the ease of just making an account and talking to someone vs actually going through with something I feel like just being on a platform like this is villainizing what could have been a moment of weakness. But that doesn't mean that you would have gone through with it. I would also put out there that there may be a decent subset of people that just the idea that someone might be into them without needing to actually do anything beyond that, is enough. I fully acknowledge that there is a lot of nuance to this, but I would hope that as a society we could acknowledge a huge difference between a bit of fantasy/role playing and actually going through with something.
- lukas099 2y ago
  Yeah, it's bad that they'd do something like this behind their partners' back, but a lot of them probably signed up in a moment of weakness and never planned to take it further. It's like flirting when your partner isn't around. It's bad (assuming it isn't something you've agreed upon), but if you stop it before it goes to far it's not as bad as going to bed with somebody.
- noufalibrahim 2y ago
  I think the model is that of a "gateway drug". While the long term intentions (infidelity) might be the same, social barriers prevent many people from taking it forward. Signing up on a website is something a lot of people do for a lot of things and making that the entry point to something exciting and forbidden is good marketing at best and psychological manipulation at worst. For some (perhaps most) people, just creating an account and taking a peek is usually not enough to push them over but for many others, it's enough to start a chain reaction that will end up somewhere which will have real consequences for them and multiple people related to them. Not a good idea and a company that's making money off of this without even considering that is not very ethical in my estimation.

refulgentis 2y ago

> A lot of prominent people were brought down by it Source? Don't recall this at all. > it's treated...they were talking to real partners...presumably because that's...salacious There's stigma against cheating that isn't mitigated by failing at it.

fsckboy 2y ago
men attracted to the idea of women who are cheating are not themselves precisely cheating. there are some who would wish to stigmatize this, but other (men) who would not.
- codetrotter 2y ago
  The slogan of Ashley Madison was “Life is short. Have an affair.” So the assumption should be that most of the real people on the site whether they are the man or the woman, are in a relationship with someone IRL but went to AM because they wanted to cheat. They ask you about your relationship status so probably the leaked data can tell us how many reported being in a relationship vs not. (But also keep in mind people might lie about it, in either direction.)
- itishappy 2y ago
  As a man, if I found out my partner was flirting with guys at the bar every weekend without my knowledge or consent, even if she didn't go home with any of them, I'd still stigmatize the hell out of that.
  - taylodl 2y ago
    Hopefully you aren't married. There's a HUGE difference between "flirting" and "fscking."
    - itishappy 2y ago
      I know. I don't care. I don't want a partner who to all observers (myself included) appears to be trying to cheat. My bare minimum relationship standard is a partner who does neither, and I hold myself to the same standard.

zogrodea 2y ago

I think treating people for what they intended and actually tried to do to do (cheat on their partner), even if they didn't manage to carry out their intent because of external circumstances is fair. I think that's a common opinion? Although I might be wrong. Many countries punish "attempted murder" (trying to carry out the act but failing, the same way people caught in this scandal attempted but failed at adultery) so it makes sense to me to not strongly distinguish between "tried cheating on their partner but failed" and "tried cheating on their partner and succeeded". How would you think the conversation about AM would/should be modified, in light of the fact that people were (unknowingly) talking to chatbots instead of real partners? I think I already made my views clear, but I would actually like to hear other opinions since I don't think I understand any view but my own on this. Maybe other people would prefer the conversation is about spambots on social media websites instead of what the people on those sites tried to do? Edit: nvm. I saw (after I was already done typing) the sibling comments to my current one, and that makes more sense.

zarathustreal 2y ago
Both actual cheating and attempted cheating are morally wrong. Actually cheating has an additional negative consequence attached: potentially exposing your partner to disease and / or infection