As to power, please explain how this power manifests itself.
You're kidding, right?
Ever watch the evening news?
Rape, molestation, and murder are not crimes of passion. They are crimes of power. When a man (or a woman) rapes a woman (or a man), the desire for lust is typically not even present. The act is about power. Nothing more! When you use Hot Or Not and anonymously rate somebody's appearance, that is the type of "innocent" power that builds itself up into something loathsome and terrible. A raping spree is the logical conclusion to an unhealthy obsession with Hot Or Not. When the website ceases to become satisfactory, the only recourse is to go out into the world and do monstrous things.
All I'm saying is that this is not a good thing. Disagree if you want, but we'll have to agree to disagree.
Your culture of drug and prostitution legalization, your sprawling "red light districts" and your seedy side-streets, are "sick" to people that at least have some semblance of a moral compass. The only reason that the incidence of rape in your country is lower than it is here is because you have all but written rape out of the laws of your country!
"Screw anything and everything" seems to be the motto there, and I say so be it. Your society has become so decadent and self-destructive that in time it will be unable to support itself. All the socialist "safety nets" in the world will do nothing. It's funny how you mock America while at the same time ignoring that it is wildly successful precisely because it rejects the failed doctrines that you so vociferously cling to.
Slashdot uses the same post-it-and-get-it-rated paradigm that AmIHotOrNot does. HotOrNot uses pictures, and judges people based on their physical attributes. Slashdot encourages people to post comments, and then everybody gets to rate whether they are intelligent and interesting.
You're right that both Slashdot and Hot Or Not are Web sites where people rate complete strangers anonymously. But you yourself point out the major distinction: Slashdot is an intellectual contest, whereas Hot Or Not is a beauty contest.
Don't get the difference?
When was the last time you heard about a rapist preying on smart chicks? A woman with the IQ of Albert Einstein is not going to be raped if she weighs 400 pounds, has hideous breath, a face like a pizza, a cleft palate, and a peg leg. It's not going to happen.
Now, if you're claiming that both types of "popularity contests" are shallow, then you will get no argument from me. My only point is that beauty contents are inherently more dangerous than spelling contests, because it's the physical attraction that leads people to violence, not the intellectual. For you to suggest otherwise is a bit naive.
Call me an old fuddy-duddy, but I think that Am I Hot Or Not is one of the more damaging sites on the World Wide Web. The whole notion that people gaze upon women who are complete strangers, and who have submitted their pictures to the Internet for the express purpose of determining their "hotness", is (I believe) a sad commentary on today's society. I could fill reams of paper with talk about how unbelievably shallow this is.. from both sides. Both the "raters" and "ratees" are engaging in behavior so childish, so juvenile that it defies the imagination.
Now, if the shallowness was the only problem, Am I Hot Or Not would at least be tolerable. But unfortunately, it goes further than that. For all the talk about Internet pornography, it has to be said that at least porn does not lie about what its intention is: pure sex. It doesn't make excuses, it doesn't hide behind ulterior motives, and it doesn't masquerade itself behind some Greater Purpose than getting some teenager off. (Note that I'm not claiming that pornography is acceptable.. only that it's brutally honest.)
Am I Hot Or Not, however, is downright dangerous. By encouraging people to anonymously rate complete strangers they have never seen before and will (likely) never see again, they are giving people a sort of bizarre power over these people. Power is the most addictive drug known to man; heroin is positively benign when compared to power. And human beings abhor a power vacuum once they have been exposed to it.
Let's face it; one can only sit in front of the Internet for so long. After that, it becomes necessary to "up the ante." So then, for many of the site's users, the need to exert this power over strangers on the Internet suddenly becomes the need to exert this power over strangers in Real Life (meatspace.) And this manifests itself in things like rape, molestation, and murder. Recent statistics have shown that the vast majority of rapists and child molesters have been addicted to Internet pornography. It would be interesting to see how many of these same criminals have been visitors of Am I Hot Or Not.
And please don't try to suggest that the rapes and murders of dozens if not hundreds of women and children are acceptable because the site uses Linux and Apache. People, this may come as a shock to you, but it is possible to put Linux and Apache and our other favorite pieces of software to evil uses! Yes, I agree that we should advocate free software.. but only where it is appropriate. Using Linux to facilitate rape is no better than using it to design weapons of mass destruction. Let's grow a backbone and speak out against it.
Slashdot Mirror
As to power, please explain how this power manifests itself.
You're kidding, right?
Ever watch the evening news?
Rape, molestation, and murder are not crimes of passion. They are crimes of power. When a man (or a woman) rapes a woman (or a man), the desire for lust is typically not even present. The act is about power. Nothing more! When you use Hot Or Not and anonymously rate somebody's appearance, that is the type of "innocent" power that builds itself up into something loathsome and terrible. A raping spree is the logical conclusion to an unhealthy obsession with Hot Or Not. When the website ceases to become satisfactory, the only recourse is to go out into the world and do monstrous things.
All I'm saying is that this is not a good thing. Disagree if you want, but we'll have to agree to disagree.
Talk about sour grapes.
Your culture of drug and prostitution legalization, your sprawling "red light districts" and your seedy side-streets, are "sick" to people that at least have some semblance of a moral compass. The only reason that the incidence of rape in your country is lower than it is here is because you have all but written rape out of the laws of your country!
"Screw anything and everything" seems to be the motto there, and I say so be it. Your society has become so decadent and self-destructive that in time it will be unable to support itself. All the socialist "safety nets" in the world will do nothing. It's funny how you mock America while at the same time ignoring that it is wildly successful precisely because it rejects the failed doctrines that you so vociferously cling to.
But far be it from me to interrupt your vitriol!
Oh, come on.
Slashdot uses the same post-it-and-get-it-rated paradigm that AmIHotOrNot does. HotOrNot uses pictures, and judges people based on their physical attributes. Slashdot encourages people to post comments, and then everybody gets to rate whether they are intelligent and interesting.
You're right that both Slashdot and Hot Or Not are Web sites where people rate complete strangers anonymously. But you yourself point out the major distinction: Slashdot is an intellectual contest, whereas Hot Or Not is a beauty contest.
Don't get the difference?
When was the last time you heard about a rapist preying on smart chicks? A woman with the IQ of Albert Einstein is not going to be raped if she weighs 400 pounds, has hideous breath, a face like a pizza, a cleft palate, and a peg leg. It's not going to happen.
Now, if you're claiming that both types of "popularity contests" are shallow, then you will get no argument from me. My only point is that beauty contents are inherently more dangerous than spelling contests, because it's the physical attraction that leads people to violence, not the intellectual. For you to suggest otherwise is a bit naive.
Call me an old fuddy-duddy, but I think that Am I Hot Or Not is one of the more damaging sites on the World Wide Web. The whole notion that people gaze upon women who are complete strangers, and who have submitted their pictures to the Internet for the express purpose of determining their "hotness", is (I believe) a sad commentary on today's society. I could fill reams of paper with talk about how unbelievably shallow this is .. from both sides. Both the "raters" and "ratees" are engaging in behavior so childish, so juvenile that it defies the imagination.
.. only that it's brutally honest.)
.. but only where it is appropriate. Using Linux to facilitate rape is no better than using it to design weapons of mass destruction. Let's grow a backbone and speak out against it.
Now, if the shallowness was the only problem, Am I Hot Or Not would at least be tolerable. But unfortunately, it goes further than that. For all the talk about Internet pornography, it has to be said that at least porn does not lie about what its intention is: pure sex. It doesn't make excuses, it doesn't hide behind ulterior motives, and it doesn't masquerade itself behind some Greater Purpose than getting some teenager off. (Note that I'm not claiming that pornography is acceptable
Am I Hot Or Not, however, is downright dangerous. By encouraging people to anonymously rate complete strangers they have never seen before and will (likely) never see again, they are giving people a sort of bizarre power over these people. Power is the most addictive drug known to man; heroin is positively benign when compared to power. And human beings abhor a power vacuum once they have been exposed to it.
Let's face it; one can only sit in front of the Internet for so long. After that, it becomes necessary to "up the ante." So then, for many of the site's users, the need to exert this power over strangers on the Internet suddenly becomes the need to exert this power over strangers in Real Life (meatspace.) And this manifests itself in things like rape, molestation, and murder. Recent statistics have shown that the vast majority of rapists and child molesters have been addicted to Internet pornography. It would be interesting to see how many of these same criminals have been visitors of Am I Hot Or Not.
And please don't try to suggest that the rapes and murders of dozens if not hundreds of women and children are acceptable because the site uses Linux and Apache. People, this may come as a shock to you, but it is possible to put Linux and Apache and our other favorite pieces of software to evil uses! Yes, I agree that we should advocate free software