In a word: "yes". But I don't think what I wrote was true. It was all couched in a hypothetical "if". I was responding to some dude that said that even if linux was only safer because it was a smaller target, that didn't matter. I was saying, essentially, that the reason linux is safer (intrinsically more secure vs. just a smaller target) actually does matter.
You guys are all correct. I was just responding to one dude who said "it's OK that linux is only safer based on being a small target: the point is it's safer". I was saying saying "if that was the reason it was safer, it would be a valid point to bring up". I was not saying that is actually the only reason it is safer.
You guys have provided the reasons it's more secure. Good! But you're responding to a claim I didn't make. Honestly, if it will make you all feel better I'll try to find someone who does hold that opinion so you can browbeat them about it, but I'm not your guy!
Have you listened to all the clips? The ARG (alternat reality game) was pretty cool, but it's the sound clips that are amazing. They tell a story that is at once true sci-fi, well-executed, and emotionally rich. Download all the.wavs and give 'em a listen. I think it's easily over an hour, so do it when you have time.
However, the "small target" argument is offered in response to claims that Linux is safer, not in response to claims that Linux will remain safer. Therefore that argument is void.
Not necessarily. If the small target reasoning is correct then it is fair to say that there's nothing safe about linux, there's something safe about being a small target.
Let's just say only red cars came with airbags. It would be correct to say "red cars are safer" but it would also be fair to say "the color is irrelevant, the fact that they have airbags is what matters."
I think it's fair to say that some of the safety of linux derives from the fact that it is a smaller target, and to that extent has nothing to do with linux. You can easily just give that point away as a given and then continue to point out the other ways in which it is actually intrinsically safer.
I'm not so sure that Linux is safer due to it's smaller target audience.
I didn't mean to imply that I thought that myself. I don't know enough to make an expert assessment. I just meant that if that is the case, it's worth mentioning and does have a significant impact on the discussion of which OS will be safer in the future (and other such associated security issues).
no matter how easy the install would be he's still gonna think windows is "good enough" pay close attention to history- where there is a lack of knowledge- there is no choice
Err... Joe 6-pack has to change eventually. To Vista or to Linux. (Or Apple, I suppose.) And a lot of Joe 6-packs have heard distant rumbling, kind of like thunder on the horizon, that Windows is bad or kills kittens or something. Every day MS gives people more reasons to consider a move to Linux - even regular users. And I don't see his as an anti-MS troll. I currently have (between work and home):
Apple MacBook Pro (dual boot OS X, Windows XP Pro) openSUSE desktop/test server Vista Ultimate desktop Windows XP Pro desktop
So I do most of my work in Windows and I admire a lot of the powerful things you can do (excel is my favorite Windows program). But it doesn't change the fact that even if Vista and Office 2007 are better, they are different. And most people know this. And as long as they are doing something different, they think "why not try that linux thing I hear so much about. Isn't it free?"
Linux needs to be ready for those users to capitalize on the turbulence of MSs switch to Vista and 2007 over the next couple of years.
I don't know why people think that giving reasons that explain why something is true somehow reduces the importance of that truth.
I don't think that's the point. The point is that if everyone switches to linux because it is safer, and if the reason it is safer is that it's a smaller target, than the end result will be that the "truth" that linux is safer will end up as a thing of the past.
It's not a question of "reducing the importance", it's a question of pointing out that the safety of linux is not a property of linux itself, but merely a byproduct of its relative popularity in the world. In other words linux isn't safer (if this reasoning is correct), less popular OSes in general are safer.
That changes the truth itself, not the importance of it.
In a proper debate on the issue you would deserve a specific study citation... it would be my responsibility to back up my statements. My statements were based on (what I considered convincing) pages with second hand discussion and peicemeal quotations of researchers and peicemeal quotations of their studies. I don't want to do further work. I acknowledge your criticisms of my post. I pass on properly debating it... and I think I am especially free to decline since my post was a reply to someone else... and that that person appears to have have been satisfied with it. I agree to disagree on the general subject.
What an entirely rational and civil post. I understand where you're coming from, and I can agree to disagree under those terms as well with one minor caveat: it seems to me that there really aren't as many experts on porn in the Slashdot community as there are on (for example) evolution, and yet I'd wager support for the two (porn and evolution) is pretty similar.
Part of what frustrates me is the very fact that - despite using it on a regular basis - no one is even bothered to actually do the research. While on an individual level I certainly understand that you don't want to expend the time and energy getting into a protracted debate outside your area of expertise, it's frustrating to me that porn seems to be outside virtually everyone's area of expertise and yet everyone continues to indulge without considering seriously the possibility that it may have harmful effects.
I have tried Marathon before, but it's a pain to track down the files and try to get it to run. I will give it another go.
Before you say anything about Halo's story ringing hollow, however, I have to ask if you've actually listened to the audio story over at ILoveBees. That was the real masterpiece of the Halo universe that took me from "best executed video game story" to "truly amazing universe".
I have a lot of faith in Bungie from Myth and what I hear of Marathon. I don't think they'll let me down in Halo 3 - and the fat boys and pre-pubescent teens will get their kicks too.
East vs. West, Console vs. PC, RPG vs. jRPG... each side takes a different spin on tabletop gaming... jRPGs concentrate on the story element, western RPGs capitalize on non-linearity. Whichever you think works better is up to the audience.
Excellent observation.
And for what it's worth, I'd like to point out that popularity is a pretty complex issue. We seem to operate under the assumption that it's some kind of direct relationship to quality or some other simplistic explanation (e.g. like how good the controls are). The modern narrative about popularity when it comes to art is that blockbusters are kind of mundane and inoffensive with enough explosions/sex/(pick your easily reproduced element to look down on) while the *real* talent shows up in indie/niche creations that you have to be intelligent/free-thinking/(pick your vaguely cool counter-cultural trait) enough to really get.
And while I'll agree that Creed and Nickelback basically suck, the Beatles and Pink Floyd were really good. So sometimes the popular stuff really is good, and sometimes the niche stuff really isn't (no example here: not looking for a flamewar).
FWIW, Halo is my favorite game of all time on any system. From NES, Sega, SNES, PS, XBOX, GC, Wii, 360 (consoles I've played) and over a decade of PCs, I prefer Halo. Why? The story. Just visit ILoveBees.com and you'll get a glimpse of the thought and talent that goes into the world creation. Does this have anything to do with how popular the game is? There's no way to know. Did they get the gameplay just right? Hit the market at just the right time? Was the story good enough to develop an initial core of fans who pushed the game to the frat boys that made it a blockbuster? We'll never know, in my opinion, and the only lesson is that oversimplifying popularity is for fanbois and trolls.
Meanwhile, do you doubt that pornography is ubiquitous in the internet? Certainly my tax dollars have been wasted studying this. Has there been some huge upswing in rapes that the news media has ignored? No?
Please show where I thought this study meant people were more like to rape each other if they watch porn. It's possible, but I'm actually content to say that attitudes about porn and feminism taking a downward plunge based on porn (both of which are indicated by the study) is negative even if the actual incidence or rape shows no perceptible increase. A misogynist is a bad thing, even if its not a rapist.
If you want to argue that pornography is bad because it somehow causes people to become more likely to commit rape, there seems to be a lack of evidence to support that view.
Agreed. Good thing that's not what I was arguing.
If you want to argue that people who consume porn should be watched more closely because they are more likely to commit rape (mere correlation), well, I'm sure you know all about Bayesian reasoning as it applies to profiling.
Err... not sure that I do, but I know about 1 - false positives and 2 - the Constitution, so if I did want to advocate that I'd be in a tight spot. Good thing I don't.
If you want to argue that you find porn distasteful and it should therefore be illegal, then, hey, that does seem to be how we make laws in this contry, and to Hell with the social consequences./i
There's a lot that I find distasteful that I would fight to keep legal on the basis of freedom. I can't honestly say that porno in general is one of those things. I have a hard time filing it under "free speech". But I'm certainly not advocating making all porn illegal. I think defining it and banning it would lead to trouble. I don't even want to get into that game.
My only intention in writing this stuff is to raise awareness of the fact that some good research indicates that there are negative conequences associated (causally) with porn-viewing in an effort to just kind of raise the banner of people who don't want porn and object to it personally. I don't really expect to persuade porn-watchers to stop (just looking at how I get modded on these topics convinces me that porn watchers aren't really rational about their porn) but if there are any fence-sitters or people who have already noticed negative effects in the porn they or their signicant other consumes: let this be the evidence that supports their intuition and leads to hopefully healthy choices about porn. Even if it's not to quit, hopefully it's to cut back.
Porn effects different people different ways - I just think that for men and women to make responsible choices about it they should be aware of the consequences. And this research indicates what some of those consequences are for the general population (or at least for college-age kids).
Rather than assuming that I'm some kind of biased crusader, I welcome any similar randomized study that has been performed since this one that fails to reproduce the results. You see as far as I know it's impossible to do such a study because ethics boards won't allow it, and therefore your contention that it is "irreproducible" is entirely without basis. If there have been similar studies, please share the citations. (my previous post)
reject it if you like... my assumption (fair or not) is that I am not going to convince *you* of anything, not matter what I cite.
Well, it's hard to really imagine you coming up with something more insulting than that. If I may ask, is it the fact that I'm Mormon that persuades to ignore my plainly-stated open-mindedness on this issue, or the fact that I happen to have a negative opinion on the impact of pornography?
Again, I have no dispute with you walking away claiming victory on both points.
What makes you think victory is my motivation? There are rarely, if ever, clear-cut "victors" in an anonymous internet debate. You're interested in attacking the author of the study, I'm interested in: 1. Pointing out that that's a pretty irrelevant discussion 2. Learning if there are any credible, randomized studies that contradict this. I know there are stacks of observational studies that go both ways, but observational studies lack the power of randomized ones (especially to determin casuality) and thus if you have any randomized studies I'm extremely eager to hear them.
No matter how much you may want to write me off as a biased crusader and paragon of intellectual inflexibility, I'm actually quite open to having my mind swayed on this issue; or at the very least recognizing that my position is not as backed-up by evidence as I thought.
Look, I'm getting tired of this. I don't need you to repeat facts that are an integral part of my day to day profesion. I know how to do statistical analysis. It's what I do for a living. And at no point have I said "this study demonstrates causation between pornography and commiting rape". It does illustrate causation (that's why we do randomized experiments!), but the causation was between pornography and attitudes about rape. Not rape itself. Specifically attitudes about the fair punishment for rape. That is the causation the study demonstrated. It also demonstrated causation between watching pornography and attitudes about "the women's liberation movement".
So this: Are there studies which discriminate between (a) pornography *causing* someone to be more willing to commit a rape and (b) being the sort of person who would commit a rape *causes* one to consume more pornagraphy? is a giant straw man. Maybe someone, somewhere is making the claim that this type of study has been done. I am not that person.
However, pornography has become ubiquitous for modern teenagers thanks to the internet, and thus far the social impact seems positive.
That is your response? Your personal opinion versus a randomized statistically vetted study? This is where the old saying about someone who knows just enough to do serious damage comes into play. You're shown you get "correlation != causation" and that's terrific, but you completely mangled the application of the correct principle to reject a study that actually does demonstrate causation, and then you counter the study with nothing but your what - gut instinct? What all your buddies say?
web cam "sex" seems to me to be a wonderfully safe and healthy outlet for normal teenage drives.
Again... we're not even in the same playing field. I'm interested in STUDIES. Experiments. Journals. Peer-revied publications. This is just some dude talking. And while there's nothing wrong with that in and of itself, it's really not very convincing to pit 'some dude talking' against "acadmic, professional, randomized experiment".
Furthermore, I'd argue that the large majority of males are being exposed to porn on a semi-regular basis, which calls into question the setup of the study.
That's certainly true now, but there was no internet when the study was conducted back in 1981-1982. So I think the %age of males exposed to explicit video porn was probably a lot less, and in any case the results stand for themselves in this regard. Whatever else the participants were watching on their own, exposure to an additional 48 minutes per week had a significant impact.
Browsing at -1 can make my eyes bleed, but at least I can quickly filter stuff.
Does this mean the study you cited above linking porn to desensitisation towards rape really only applies to the country in which it was performed (I'm assuming the US)? That would make a bit more sense, though still very little.
I think that most pro-porn people are subjecting this study to levels of scrutiny they wouldn't apply otherwise. It's a double standard. When you compare gun-control laws and crime in different countries you know that there are large number of important legal and social differences. I would not look at a study that compared gun crime in, say, the US and Israel and say "it's preposterous to draw the comparison" if it weren't for the fact that I know very well what some of the reasons are for not drawing the comparison. (Off the top of my head: You can go down to the civilian armory in Israel and borrow an Uzi. There's no system like that in US. So right away you know gun availibity is very different between the two countries).
So yeah - the study was conducted at a school in the east in 1981 or 1982. I would say that it probably is valid to apply it in general to people in that general age group (18-34) across the US and possibly some elements of Western Europe. When there are reasons to doubt the applicability (e.g. large differences in the role of women, rape or sexuality between the eastern US and, say, Japan) then it's not applicable.
But I wish people would drop the double standard where they essentially say "unless you can prove applicability, I'm going to simply ignore the results altogether" and be rational. Does this *prove* that attitudes are the same in 2007 as 1982? Does this *prove* that the study can be generalized from college-age kids to senior citizens? No. Of course it's open to that criticism. But writing the stufy off entirely seems to me to be an obvious over-reaction based on a pre-disposition not to question porn.
I wish there were bigger studies and more recent studies. It's a hard case to make because it's hampered by not having more and better evidence. But that doesn't mean that we have 0 evidence. We just don't have as much evidence as I wish we had. And when you don't have enough evidene to settle a question (as in this case) that doesn't mean you have no evidence, it means you don't have enough.
I'm not trying to say this one study is proof. It's just evidence. Treat it for what it is: one scientific study with extremely powerful results but limited applicability.
Eh... if that's not damming evidence, I don't know what is. "Damning" just points out the the evidence is negative, and as for whether or not it's evidence: what else do you consider the results of an academically rigorous experiment of precisely this question?
There's a reason I said "evidence" and not "proof". It certainly is evidence, but I don't think its enough evidence to settle the question beyond argument.
The reason he cited a 20-30 year old study was because it was virtually the only study ever to come up with the results he wants to hear and to quote.
Rather than assuming that I'm some kind of biased crusader, I welcome any similar randomized study that has been performed since this one that fails to reproduce the results. You see as far as I know it's impossible to do such a study because ethics boards won't allow it, and therefore your contention that it is "irreproducible" is entirely without basis. If there have been similar studies, please share the citations.
Zillmann and Jennings Bryant, the authors of the study, are a pair of crusaders for a cause.
Well, now we all know exactly what a text-book ad hominem attack looks like. Thanks.
a greater tolerance for homosexuality; a belief that women should be able to choose other priorities beside motherhood; less belief in marriage; a belief that women may enjoy sex and choose to participate in it for reasons other than pleasing their husbands or conceiving children - in short, the goals of most feminist groups of the time. (from Zimmermann)
So you've proved Zimmermann was an anti-feminist? I guess if you can't attack the study, attack the author, right? (See comment above.) The fact is that the actual study had nothing to do with this quote which I don't believe is even taken from the same article. Zimmermann tested for things like "how much do you support the women's liberation movement on a scale of 0 to 100" and found that 6 weeks exposure to porn (48 minutes per week) had a causal relationship to a steep (and statistically significant) drop in support for women's liberation. (Which, consiering the time period was 1981 or 1982, likely included the ERA).
Zillmann and Jennings Bryant are women-belong-in-the-kitchen-barefoot-and-pregnant misogynists who define modern liberation and social equality for women as "misogyny"
I'll say this for you: when you decide to engage in logical fallacy, you don't do it 1/2-way. Were they nazi sympathizers who kicked kittens in their spare time too? Cause, you know, that's an equally valid criticism of the study.
That is the context around (and explaining) the results that our Stormin' Mormon crusader is so eagerly trolling* back 20-30 years to cite.
Or it could be that there have been no similar randomized studies since then. You know, kind of like I said. But hey - you can make me eat my hat if you can find some and prove me wrong.
A major goal of scientific experiments and statistical methods is to approximate as best as possible the counterfactual state of the world.[citation needed] For example, one could run an experiment on identical twins who were known to consistently get the same grades on their tests. One twin is sent to study for six hours while the other is sent to the amusement park. If their test scores suddenly diverged by a large degree, this would be strong evidence that studying (or going to the amusement park) had a causal effect on test scores. In this case, correlation between studying and test scores would almost certainly imply causation.[citation needed]
Well designed statistical studies replace equality of individuals as in the previous example by equality of groups.[citation needed] This is achieved by randomization of the subjects to two or more groups. Although not a perfect system, placing the subjects randomly in the treatment/placebo groups ensures that it is highly likely that the groups are reasonably equal in all relevant aspects.[citation needed] If the treatment has a significantly different effect than the placebo, one can conclude that the treatment is likely to have a causal effect on the disease. This likeliness can be quantified in statistical terms by the P-value.[citation needed]
I've posted it in a few other places. I think the study was reported in at least 2 articles. The one I've been using is by Zillmann and Bryant (as are the other ones) from the Journal of Communication in 1982 with a title that includes "and the trivialization of rape".
Personally, I really enjoy being treated as an object.
What you mean is you enjoy some level of emotional detachment from time to time. If, in certain narrow circumstances, your desires and your partners desires line up in such a way that you can both be treating the other as objects without any negative repercussions, that's fine, but it's hardly a defense of objectification in general, since objectification in general carries no guarantee whatsoever that it will only take place in a mutually beneficial way. If porn causes men to objectify women, then it is going to cause them to care less about whether those women want to be objectified or not. If you like sadomasochistic sex (just as a hypothetical) that's fine for you, but it doesn't mean that it's a good idea to watch something that encourages sadism in general.
And any thing you show as positive is going to corrupt people towards that point of view (smoking,violence, being a republican, being a liberal).
I'm extremely skeptical that any of your proposed alternatives would have as significant an impact in as short a time. You honestly think that people who start smoking once a week are going to be twice as lenient towards rapists in a month and a half? There's a serious question of magnitude that you seem to be sweeping under the rug here.
How good or bad rape is has been changing a lot over the last 100 years. It got really bad for a while there. Lately, it's been overused and it's not as bad.
I disagree. The sentencing guidelines for forcible rape by a stranger have not gone through a radical increase or decrease of such a huge magnitude in the last 100 years (to my knowledge). I think that laws around rape (such as disclosing the accuser's name or attitudes about burden of proof) may have changed, but attitudes about forcible rape by a stranger have, I think, been relatively constant.
Slashdot Mirror
In a word: "yes". But I don't think what I wrote was true. It was all couched in a hypothetical "if". I was responding to some dude that said that even if linux was only safer because it was a smaller target, that didn't matter. I was saying, essentially, that the reason linux is safer (intrinsically more secure vs. just a smaller target) actually does matter.
I wasn't saying it wasn't more secure.
You guys are all correct. I was just responding to one dude who said "it's OK that linux is only safer based on being a small target: the point is it's safer". I was saying saying "if that was the reason it was safer, it would be a valid point to bring up". I was not saying that is actually the only reason it is safer.
You guys have provided the reasons it's more secure. Good! But you're responding to a claim I didn't make. Honestly, if it will make you all feel better I'll try to find someone who does hold that opinion so you can browbeat them about it, but I'm not your guy!
Your point, however, is wrong. Linux isn't more secure because it is targetted less.
Sheesh people, can you not read the word "if"!? and if the reason it is safer is that it's a smaller target
It was hypothetical! I don't actually think that's the only reason linux is safer.
Have you listened to all the clips? The ARG (alternat reality game) was pretty cool, but it's the sound clips that are amazing. They tell a story that is at once true sci-fi, well-executed, and emotionally rich. Download all the .wavs and give 'em a listen. I think it's easily over an hour, so do it when you have time.
Then let me know what you think.
I knew there was something I was forgettiting...
However, the "small target" argument is offered in response to claims that Linux is safer, not in response to claims that Linux will remain safer. Therefore that argument is void.
Not necessarily. If the small target reasoning is correct then it is fair to say that there's nothing safe about linux, there's something safe about being a small target.
Let's just say only red cars came with airbags. It would be correct to say "red cars are safer" but it would also be fair to say "the color is irrelevant, the fact that they have airbags is what matters."
I think it's fair to say that some of the safety of linux derives from the fact that it is a smaller target, and to that extent has nothing to do with linux. You can easily just give that point away as a given and then continue to point out the other ways in which it is actually intrinsically safer.
I'm not so sure that Linux is safer due to it's smaller target audience.
I didn't mean to imply that I thought that myself. I don't know enough to make an expert assessment. I just meant that if that is the case, it's worth mentioning and does have a significant impact on the discussion of which OS will be safer in the future (and other such associated security issues).
no matter how easy the install would be he's still gonna think windows is "good enough" pay close attention to history- where there is a lack of knowledge- there is no choice
Err... Joe 6-pack has to change eventually. To Vista or to Linux. (Or Apple, I suppose.) And a lot of Joe 6-packs have heard distant rumbling, kind of like thunder on the horizon, that Windows is bad or kills kittens or something. Every day MS gives people more reasons to consider a move to Linux - even regular users. And I don't see his as an anti-MS troll. I currently have (between work and home):
Apple MacBook Pro (dual boot OS X, Windows XP Pro)
openSUSE desktop/test server
Vista Ultimate desktop
Windows XP Pro desktop
So I do most of my work in Windows and I admire a lot of the powerful things you can do (excel is my favorite Windows program). But it doesn't change the fact that even if Vista and Office 2007 are better, they are different. And most people know this. And as long as they are doing something different, they think "why not try that linux thing I hear so much about. Isn't it free?"
Linux needs to be ready for those users to capitalize on the turbulence of MSs switch to Vista and 2007 over the next couple of years.
I, for one, demand more hatetrid.
And also Less Capitalization.
I don't know why people think that giving reasons that explain why something is true somehow reduces the importance of that truth.
I don't think that's the point. The point is that if everyone switches to linux because it is safer, and if the reason it is safer is that it's a smaller target, than the end result will be that the "truth" that linux is safer will end up as a thing of the past.
It's not a question of "reducing the importance", it's a question of pointing out that the safety of linux is not a property of linux itself, but merely a byproduct of its relative popularity in the world. In other words linux isn't safer (if this reasoning is correct), less popular OSes in general are safer.
That changes the truth itself, not the importance of it.
In a proper debate on the issue you would deserve a specific study citation... it would be my responsibility to back up my statements. My statements were based on (what I considered convincing) pages with second hand discussion and peicemeal quotations of researchers and peicemeal quotations of their studies. I don't want to do further work. I acknowledge your criticisms of my post. I pass on properly debating it... and I think I am especially free to decline since my post was a reply to someone else... and that that person appears to have have been satisfied with it. I agree to disagree on the general subject.
What an entirely rational and civil post. I understand where you're coming from, and I can agree to disagree under those terms as well with one minor caveat: it seems to me that there really aren't as many experts on porn in the Slashdot community as there are on (for example) evolution, and yet I'd wager support for the two (porn and evolution) is pretty similar.
Part of what frustrates me is the very fact that - despite using it on a regular basis - no one is even bothered to actually do the research. While on an individual level I certainly understand that you don't want to expend the time and energy getting into a protracted debate outside your area of expertise, it's frustrating to me that porn seems to be outside virtually everyone's area of expertise and yet everyone continues to indulge without considering seriously the possibility that it may have harmful effects.
Anyway... rant over.
I have tried Marathon before, but it's a pain to track down the files and try to get it to run. I will give it another go.
Before you say anything about Halo's story ringing hollow, however, I have to ask if you've actually listened to the audio story over at ILoveBees. That was the real masterpiece of the Halo universe that took me from "best executed video game story" to "truly amazing universe".
I have a lot of faith in Bungie from Myth and what I hear of Marathon. I don't think they'll let me down in Halo 3 - and the fat boys and pre-pubescent teens will get their kicks too.
East vs. West, Console vs. PC, RPG vs. jRPG... each side takes a different spin on tabletop gaming... jRPGs concentrate on the story element, western RPGs capitalize on non-linearity. Whichever you think works better is up to the audience.
Excellent observation.
And for what it's worth, I'd like to point out that popularity is a pretty complex issue. We seem to operate under the assumption that it's some kind of direct relationship to quality or some other simplistic explanation (e.g. like how good the controls are). The modern narrative about popularity when it comes to art is that blockbusters are kind of mundane and inoffensive with enough explosions/sex/(pick your easily reproduced element to look down on) while the *real* talent shows up in indie/niche creations that you have to be intelligent/free-thinking/(pick your vaguely cool counter-cultural trait) enough to really get.
And while I'll agree that Creed and Nickelback basically suck, the Beatles and Pink Floyd were really good. So sometimes the popular stuff really is good, and sometimes the niche stuff really isn't (no example here: not looking for a flamewar).
FWIW, Halo is my favorite game of all time on any system. From NES, Sega, SNES, PS, XBOX, GC, Wii, 360 (consoles I've played) and over a decade of PCs, I prefer Halo. Why? The story. Just visit ILoveBees.com and you'll get a glimpse of the thought and talent that goes into the world creation. Does this have anything to do with how popular the game is? There's no way to know. Did they get the gameplay just right? Hit the market at just the right time? Was the story good enough to develop an initial core of fans who pushed the game to the frat boys that made it a blockbuster? We'll never know, in my opinion, and the only lesson is that oversimplifying popularity is for fanbois and trolls.
Now go listen to "Indier than Thou."
Disclaimer: The last Nintendo console I bought was an SNES, so I don't think I could be counted as a Nintendo fanboy.
Well you could just be looking at the question through the lens of nostalgia.
I guess I missed the part that went to causation.
d _trial
Then I guess you don't understand they point of randomized experiments. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randomized_controlle
Meanwhile, do you doubt that pornography is ubiquitous in the internet? Certainly my tax dollars have been wasted studying this. Has there been some huge upswing in rapes that the news media has ignored? No?
Please show where I thought this study meant people were more like to rape each other if they watch porn. It's possible, but I'm actually content to say that attitudes about porn and feminism taking a downward plunge based on porn (both of which are indicated by the study) is negative even if the actual incidence or rape shows no perceptible increase. A misogynist is a bad thing, even if its not a rapist.
If you want to argue that pornography is bad because it somehow causes people to become more likely to commit rape, there seems to be a lack of evidence to support that view.
Agreed. Good thing that's not what I was arguing.
If you want to argue that people who consume porn should be watched more closely because they are more likely to commit rape (mere correlation), well, I'm sure you know all about Bayesian reasoning as it applies to profiling.
Err... not sure that I do, but I know about 1 - false positives and 2 - the Constitution, so if I did want to advocate that I'd be in a tight spot. Good thing I don't.
If you want to argue that you find porn distasteful and it should therefore be illegal, then, hey, that does seem to be how we make laws in this contry, and to Hell with the social consequences./i
There's a lot that I find distasteful that I would fight to keep legal on the basis of freedom. I can't honestly say that porno in general is one of those things. I have a hard time filing it under "free speech". But I'm certainly not advocating making all porn illegal. I think defining it and banning it would lead to trouble. I don't even want to get into that game.
My only intention in writing this stuff is to raise awareness of the fact that some good research indicates that there are negative conequences associated (causally) with porn-viewing in an effort to just kind of raise the banner of people who don't want porn and object to it personally. I don't really expect to persuade porn-watchers to stop (just looking at how I get modded on these topics convinces me that porn watchers aren't really rational about their porn) but if there are any fence-sitters or people who have already noticed negative effects in the porn they or their signicant other consumes: let this be the evidence that supports their intuition and leads to hopefully healthy choices about porn. Even if it's not to quit, hopefully it's to cut back.
Porn effects different people different ways - I just think that for men and women to make responsible choices about it they should be aware of the consequences. And this research indicates what some of those consequences are for the general population (or at least for college-age kids).
Rather than assuming that I'm some kind of biased crusader, I welcome any similar randomized study that has been performed since this one that fails to reproduce the results. You see as far as I know it's impossible to do such a study because ethics boards won't allow it, and therefore your contention that it is "irreproducible" is entirely without basis. If there have been similar studies, please share the citations. (my previous post)
reject it if you like... my assumption (fair or not) is that I am not going to convince *you* of anything, not matter what I cite.
Well, it's hard to really imagine you coming up with something more insulting than that. If I may ask, is it the fact that I'm Mormon that persuades to ignore my plainly-stated open-mindedness on this issue, or the fact that I happen to have a negative opinion on the impact of pornography?
Again, I have no dispute with you walking away claiming victory on both points.
What makes you think victory is my motivation? There are rarely, if ever, clear-cut "victors" in an anonymous internet debate. You're interested in attacking the author of the study, I'm interested in:
1. Pointing out that that's a pretty irrelevant discussion
2. Learning if there are any credible, randomized studies that contradict this.
I know there are stacks of observational studies that go both ways, but observational studies lack the power of randomized ones (especially to determin casuality) and thus if you have any randomized studies I'm extremely eager to hear them.
No matter how much you may want to write me off as a biased crusader and paragon of intellectual inflexibility, I'm actually quite open to having my mind swayed on this issue; or at the very least recognizing that my position is not as backed-up by evidence as I thought.
And still: correlation is not causation.
Look, I'm getting tired of this. I don't need you to repeat facts that are an integral part of my day to day profesion. I know how to do statistical analysis. It's what I do for a living. And at no point have I said "this study demonstrates causation between pornography and commiting rape". It does illustrate causation (that's why we do randomized experiments!), but the causation was between pornography and attitudes about rape. Not rape itself. Specifically attitudes about the fair punishment for rape. That is the causation the study demonstrated. It also demonstrated causation between watching pornography and attitudes about "the women's liberation movement".
So this: Are there studies which discriminate between (a) pornography *causing* someone to be more willing to commit a rape and (b) being the sort of person who would commit a rape *causes* one to consume more pornagraphy? is a giant straw man. Maybe someone, somewhere is making the claim that this type of study has been done. I am not that person.
However, pornography has become ubiquitous for modern teenagers thanks to the internet, and thus far the social impact seems positive.
That is your response? Your personal opinion versus a randomized statistically vetted study? This is where the old saying about someone who knows just enough to do serious damage comes into play. You're shown you get "correlation != causation" and that's terrific, but you completely mangled the application of the correct principle to reject a study that actually does demonstrate causation, and then you counter the study with nothing but your what - gut instinct? What all your buddies say?
web cam "sex" seems to me to be a wonderfully safe and healthy outlet for normal teenage drives.
Again... we're not even in the same playing field. I'm interested in STUDIES. Experiments. Journals. Peer-revied publications. This is just some dude talking. And while there's nothing wrong with that in and of itself, it's really not very convincing to pit 'some dude talking' against "acadmic, professional, randomized experiment".
Furthermore, I'd argue that the large majority of males are being exposed to porn on a semi-regular basis, which calls into question the setup of the study.
That's certainly true now, but there was no internet when the study was conducted back in 1981-1982. So I think the %age of males exposed to explicit video porn was probably a lot less, and in any case the results stand for themselves in this regard. Whatever else the participants were watching on their own, exposure to an additional 48 minutes per week had a significant impact.
Browsing at -1 can make my eyes bleed, but at least I can quickly filter stuff.
Amen to that. I usually do the same thing.
Does this mean the study you cited above linking porn to desensitisation towards rape really only applies to the country in which it was performed (I'm assuming the US)? That would make a bit more sense, though still very little.
I think that most pro-porn people are subjecting this study to levels of scrutiny they wouldn't apply otherwise. It's a double standard. When you compare gun-control laws and crime in different countries you know that there are large number of important legal and social differences. I would not look at a study that compared gun crime in, say, the US and Israel and say "it's preposterous to draw the comparison" if it weren't for the fact that I know very well what some of the reasons are for not drawing the comparison. (Off the top of my head: You can go down to the civilian armory in Israel and borrow an Uzi. There's no system like that in US. So right away you know gun availibity is very different between the two countries).
So yeah - the study was conducted at a school in the east in 1981 or 1982. I would say that it probably is valid to apply it in general to people in that general age group (18-34) across the US and possibly some elements of Western Europe. When there are reasons to doubt the applicability (e.g. large differences in the role of women, rape or sexuality between the eastern US and, say, Japan) then it's not applicable.
But I wish people would drop the double standard where they essentially say "unless you can prove applicability, I'm going to simply ignore the results altogether" and be rational. Does this *prove* that attitudes are the same in 2007 as 1982? Does this *prove* that the study can be generalized from college-age kids to senior citizens? No. Of course it's open to that criticism. But writing the stufy off entirely seems to me to be an obvious over-reaction based on a pre-disposition not to question porn.
I wish there were bigger studies and more recent studies. It's a hard case to make because it's hampered by not having more and better evidence. But that doesn't mean that we have 0 evidence. We just don't have as much evidence as I wish we had. And when you don't have enough evidene to settle a question (as in this case) that doesn't mean you have no evidence, it means you don't have enough.
I'm not trying to say this one study is proof. It's just evidence. Treat it for what it is: one scientific study with extremely powerful results but limited applicability.
Eh... if that's not damming evidence, I don't know what is. "Damning" just points out the the evidence is negative, and as for whether or not it's evidence: what else do you consider the results of an academically rigorous experiment of precisely this question?
There's a reason I said "evidence" and not "proof". It certainly is evidence, but I don't think its enough evidence to settle the question beyond argument.
The reason he cited a 20-30 year old study was because it was virtually the only study ever to come up with the results he wants to hear and to quote.
Rather than assuming that I'm some kind of biased crusader, I welcome any similar randomized study that has been performed since this one that fails to reproduce the results. You see as far as I know it's impossible to do such a study because ethics boards won't allow it, and therefore your contention that it is "irreproducible" is entirely without basis. If there have been similar studies, please share the citations.
Zillmann and Jennings Bryant, the authors of the study, are a pair of crusaders for a cause.
Well, now we all know exactly what a text-book ad hominem attack looks like. Thanks.
a greater tolerance for homosexuality; a belief that women should be able to choose other priorities beside motherhood; less belief in marriage; a belief that women may enjoy sex and choose to participate in it for reasons other than pleasing their husbands or conceiving children - in short, the goals of most feminist groups of the time. (from Zimmermann)
So you've proved Zimmermann was an anti-feminist? I guess if you can't attack the study, attack the author, right? (See comment above.) The fact is that the actual study had nothing to do with this quote which I don't believe is even taken from the same article. Zimmermann tested for things like "how much do you support the women's liberation movement on a scale of 0 to 100" and found that 6 weeks exposure to porn (48 minutes per week) had a causal relationship to a steep (and statistically significant) drop in support for women's liberation. (Which, consiering the time period was 1981 or 1982, likely included the ERA).
Zillmann and Jennings Bryant are women-belong-in-the-kitchen-barefoot-and-pregnant misogynists who define modern liberation and social equality for women as "misogyny"
I'll say this for you: when you decide to engage in logical fallacy, you don't do it 1/2-way. Were they nazi sympathizers who kicked kittens in their spare time too? Cause, you know, that's an equally valid criticism of the study.
That is the context around (and explaining) the results that our Stormin' Mormon crusader is so eagerly trolling* back 20-30 years to cite.
Or it could be that there have been no similar randomized studies since then. You know, kind of like I said. But hey - you can make me eat my hat if you can find some and prove me wrong.
The no exposure group watched 48 minutes of "educational and entertaining" film per week for 6 weeks. This film had no "objectionable content".
And I highly recommend stats courses. I really think they should almost be a gen-ed requirement in this day and age.
Which is the entire point of randomized studies.
_ imply_causation#Determining_causation
A major goal of scientific experiments and statistical methods is to approximate as best as possible the counterfactual state of the world.[citation needed] For example, one could run an experiment on identical twins who were known to consistently get the same grades on their tests. One twin is sent to study for six hours while the other is sent to the amusement park. If their test scores suddenly diverged by a large degree, this would be strong evidence that studying (or going to the amusement park) had a causal effect on test scores. In this case, correlation between studying and test scores would almost certainly imply causation.[citation needed]
Well designed statistical studies replace equality of individuals as in the previous example by equality of groups.[citation needed] This is achieved by randomization of the subjects to two or more groups. Although not a perfect system, placing the subjects randomly in the treatment/placebo groups ensures that it is highly likely that the groups are reasonably equal in all relevant aspects.[citation needed] If the treatment has a significantly different effect than the placebo, one can conclude that the treatment is likely to have a causal effect on the disease. This likeliness can be quantified in statistical terms by the P-value.[citation needed]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not
I've posted it in a few other places. I think the study was reported in at least 2 articles. The one I've been using is by Zillmann and Bryant (as are the other ones) from the Journal of Communication in 1982 with a title that includes "and the trivialization of rape".
Personally, I really enjoy being treated as an object.
,violence, being a republican, being a liberal).
What you mean is you enjoy some level of emotional detachment from time to time. If, in certain narrow circumstances, your desires and your partners desires line up in such a way that you can both be treating the other as objects without any negative repercussions, that's fine, but it's hardly a defense of objectification in general, since objectification in general carries no guarantee whatsoever that it will only take place in a mutually beneficial way. If porn causes men to objectify women, then it is going to cause them to care less about whether those women want to be objectified or not. If you like sadomasochistic sex (just as a hypothetical) that's fine for you, but it doesn't mean that it's a good idea to watch something that encourages sadism in general.
And any thing you show as positive is going to corrupt people towards that point of view (smoking
I'm extremely skeptical that any of your proposed alternatives would have as significant an impact in as short a time. You honestly think that people who start smoking once a week are going to be twice as lenient towards rapists in a month and a half? There's a serious question of magnitude that you seem to be sweeping under the rug here.
How good or bad rape is has been changing a lot over the last 100 years. It got really bad for a while there. Lately, it's been overused and it's not as bad.
I disagree. The sentencing guidelines for forcible rape by a stranger have not gone through a radical increase or decrease of such a huge magnitude in the last 100 years (to my knowledge). I think that laws around rape (such as disclosing the accuser's name or attitudes about burden of proof) may have changed, but attitudes about forcible rape by a stranger have, I think, been relatively constant.