It’s worth making a distinction between something inherently damaging like alcohol, and something that most people can engage with in moderation and face no issues, like sugar or porn.
I mean, porn and imagined girlfriends are a problem. A bit like alcohol, sweets, and in general addictive things.
They, eh, allow one to alleviate loneliness and sadness, but not really.
Now fantasy girlfriends are an existential threat to women? If a man wrote about how he has to compete with romance novels and sex toys he would be derided as a fragile loser.
They are a threat to women in that they supposedly make men a bit more likely to become fragile losers. In perception at least, I think in reality such men would become alcoholics or something else instead, or would just develop their imagination.
TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world 1 year ago
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
This I agree with, but your “in moderation” should be emphasized. Too much sugar - well, it’s obvious. Too much porn - one can really, honestly, seriously, I’m not joking, got serious hormonal and even mental problems.
TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yeah but not to the point of making a scandal about it. Porn faces more alarmism than it justifies, getting accused of being the downfall of society on a regular basis. There are merits in pointing out some people can have problems with it, but most can manage themselves just fine.
Even when it comes to sugar, the “obviousness” of the matter for many becomes a matter of judging people for their looks, or a moral outrage against gluttony and laziness, rather than any real concerns about people’s health and well-being. Say, you don’t really see people being judged for their lack of sleep in the way they are judged for being fat, even though that is also pretty unhealthy.
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
It’s not about looks, it’s exactly about health.
You do see people being judged for the behavior resulting from lack of sleep, wrong food, some addictive habits and so on.
elbarto777@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Like sugar
heh.
Meowoem@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
That’s just Puritanical hogwash though, the same crowd of voices come out with the same baseless assumptions and stretched one-sided logic about everything.
When video games came out the puritans all said violent video games would ruin the world but violence has continued to decrease YOY, studies show that they can actually help people regulate their temper and foster better emotional intelligence. Learning to handle stressful situations is something modern culture took out of our lives and video games created a safe way to replace, our brains need practice at identifying anger and frustration and channeling then correctly.
AI sex partners are likely a very similar thing, by allowing safe exploration and somewhere to develop experience and confidence communicating it’s very likely helping a lot of people establish the skills needed to find and flourish in a healthy human relationship.
Really though they’re just a bit of silly fun which doesn’t hurt anyone, if someone can read Jane Austen and Julie Cooper without turning into a rabid fiend then they can have a cumbersome duty conversion with a LLM. Women aren’t going to become self-pleasure addicted recluses because of sex bots if they weren’t already that way due to the Sims and late night adult only discord chat rooms.
Of course people who spend their whole lives fighting themselves because of some twisted puritanical claptrap they’ve had rammed down their throats are likely to fly off the rails at any moment, if you don’t come to understand yourself and your biological impulses then you’ll never be able to control yourself - most people aren’t using AI sex bots to shamefully fill a void they dare not comprehend, they’re not experiencing a genuinely non-judgemental conversation for the first time, they’re not racked with sadness because their life of avoiding joy has left them cold and isolated.
The fact puritans are scared of literally everyone fun only speaks of the puritan mentality and says nothing of the value of video games, porn, AI sex robots, or any of the other things they rally against.
(And yes I have a deep sadness and recognise many do, messing around with fun distractions to that is just the human condition and the driving force of many great developments)
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
You haven’t read my comment attentively.
Ah, and playing video games 12 hours a day will harm you.
Sexuality is a very important part of human existence and an AI partner can provide not only safe exploration, because safety in sex is not only about avoiding tripper FFS.
Meowoem@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Anything for 12 hours a day is bad for you; reading the Bible, studying math, working out in the gym…
I’ve tried being very attentive to your final paragraph but I can’t parse it, what is tripper? And and did you mean it can’t provide safety or that it can provide it plus something else (a tripper maybe?)
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
Not sure I agree about training or walking for 12 hours.
OK, my ability to communicate in my own language as well as others differs with mood.
I meant that an AI is as dangerous as a human is in those kinds of communication it does imitate. Thus it’s not safe exploration, it’s just exploration. And that it’s safe only in regards to some diseases, which was a joke or an irony if you will.