A letter I sent my senators, please consider similar.

[Ken]

The point about the pandemic job losses under Trump is that they happened because we didn't have any sort of centralized government economy.

The response in Europe was completely different. Job losses were minimal because the system of unemployment is more robust and the government subsidized employers to keep people employed. Unemployment payments in Europe were mostly funneled through employers and you had to actually stay employed to receive benefits.

We sort of tried that approach through the PPP loans but that was a one-off ad-hoc program that just dumped enormous amounts of money into the economy via businesses with no actual tracking or accounting. But that was because we didn't have any sort of infrastructure ready. And the state unemployment offices were mostly a joke and overwhelmed.

On the opposite side of the equation, job gains responded much faster in the US than in Europe, probably because there is less central bureaucracy.

But compared to every other industrialized country on earth, we had just about the least top-down pandemic response of any. States were basically left to their own devices which actually gave us a grand experiment on different approaches. We can compare Washington to Ohio for example, Or California to Florida.

[ohio jones]

We can compare Washington to Ohio for example, Or California to Florida.

And you have, extensively, mostly in threads on that subject. This is not one of them.

[Ken]

We can compare Washington to Ohio for example, Or California to Florida.

And you have, extensively, mostly in threads on that subject. This is not one of them.

You are, of course missing the point. Which is that we DON'T have a centralized top-down economy in this country which is why there is so much diversity in policies and responses among the different states. When it comes to pandemic response, tax policy, transportation policy, housing policy, education policy, or anything else.

Outsider is complaining about living in a centralized economy when that simply isn't reality. And that is also why our internet and social media world is so laissez faire and lightly regulated compared to anywhere else. The EU, for example, is much more serious about top-down regulation of social media and the internet than we are. Yet curiously, Outsider also wants to take the most heavy-handed top-down government-regulated approach to social media and the internet. Instead of far less intrusive and family-based solutions.

[ohio jones]

Outsider is complaining about living in a centralized economy when that simply isn't reality.

Speak for yourself and don't decide what someone else is meaning to say or exaggerate what someone else posts.

[Josh]

As I said earlier, this isn’t a thread to find people defending Trump or the Republicans.

This is a thread to call out the evil of obscenity and protest and discuss how the lawful and proper thing to do is to ensure that no young child is ever exposed to such filth. If that means fewer adults can choose to see such filth, than so be it.

[Ken]

As I said earlier, this isn’t a thread to find people defending Trump or the Republicans.

This is a thread to call out the evil of obscenity and protest and discuss how the lawful and proper thing to do is to ensure that no young child is ever exposed to such filth. If that means fewer adults can choose to see such filth, than so be it.

That is just platitudes. And in any event, porn isn't what sucks kids into social media anyway. I see hundreds of kids on their phones. It isn't porn that is sucking them in.

And even if you are going to focus on porn, the devil is in the details so to speak. How are you going to define pornography and obscenity? Are you going to put the entire internet behind a government-mandated age-based paywall?

Obviously it is possible to do. The Chinese have done it. But they also have over 50,000 government internet cops policing the internet and everything everyone sees or posts. That is literally the definition of "Big Brother"

And no, don't tell us about ID.me and other private companies that do age verification. The age verification is only half of the equation. The other and more difficult half is deciding what material needs to behind your age-based firewall and enforcing it, especially when the web is literally world-wide.

More importantly, what makes you think when the government is given such tools that they are going to stop at porn? Once such tools are built there will be intense pressure from both the right and left to include other content that isn't porn. Such as:

• information about abortion access and online abortion medications
• information about transgender medicine and online access to the same
• BLM, DEI, CRT, and all the similar anti-racism content that has conservatives in a lather
• medical misinformation (anti-vax, etc.)
• political misinformation (false claims of election fraud)
• foreign meddling (political content sourced from Russia, China, etc.)

And that doesn't even get into the whole issue of AI-generated content.

I think it is incredibly naive to think we can build a robust government censorship machine for one purpose and not have people seeking to use it for new reasons.

Which is why I keep circling back to giving parents robust tools to regulate the internet habits of their children rather than expecting the government to do it for them.

[Josh]

That is just platitudes. And in any event, porn isn't what sucks kids into social media anyway. I see hundreds of kids on their phones. It isn't porn that is sucking them in.

Ken, what percentage of children see porn before they are 18?

What age are they when they first see it?

And even if you are going to focus on porn, the devil is in the details so to speak. How are you going to define pornography and obscenity? Are you going to put the entire internet behind a government-mandated age-based paywall?

Pornography is not hard to define. We already completely ban pornography involving anyone under 18. Simply extend that definition that already works well to over 18.

And no, don't tell us about ID.me and other private companies that do age verification. The age verification is only half of the equation. The other and more difficult half is deciding what material needs to behind your age-based firewall and enforcing it, especially when the web is literally world-wide.

Except it’s entirely possible to do for child pornography and is also possible for tobacco marketing and coupons.

More importantly, what makes you think when the government is given such tools that they are going to stop at porn? Once such tools are built there will be intense pressure from both the right and left to include other content that isn't porn. Such as:

• information about abortion access and online abortion medications
• information about transgender medicine and online access to the same
• BLM, DEI, CRT, and all the similar anti-racism content that has conservatives in a lather
• medical misinformation (anti-vax, etc.)
• political misinformation (false claims of election fraud)
• foreign meddling (political content sourced from Russia, China, etc.)

How ridiculous. None of that has anything to do with pornography.

And that doesn't even get into the whole issue of AI-generated content.

I think it is incredibly naive to think we can build a robust government censorship machine for one purpose and not have people seeking to use it for new reasons.

Which is why I keep circling back to giving parents robust tools to regulate the internet habits of their children rather than expecting the government to do it for them.

The real question is why Ken is such an apologist for free pornography to be openly available in the Internet with no restrictions whatsoever.

[Ken]

The real question is why Ken is such an apologist for free pornography to be openly available in the Internet with no restrictions whatsoever.

Really Josh? Don't you ever get tired of inventing straw men to argue against?

[Josh]

The real question is why Ken is such an apologist for free pornography to be openly available in the Internet with no restrictions whatsoever.

Really Josh? Don't you ever get tired of inventing straw men to argue against?

Well, you’ve spent this thread telling us how it’s impossible to stop having unrestricted pornography all over the Internet, and I’ve shown how it actually is possible. My question is why you make so many excuses for the way things currently are. It is possible to imagine a better world.

[Ken]

The real question is why Ken is such an apologist for free pornography to be openly available in the Internet with no restrictions whatsoever.

Really Josh? Don't you ever get tired of inventing straw men to argue against?

Well, you’ve spent this thread telling us how it’s impossible to stop having unrestricted pornography all over the Internet, and I’ve shown how it actually is possible. My question is why you make so many excuses for the way things currently are. It is possible to imagine a better world.

The person you are describing here is not me. But sounds an awful lot like someone named Josh any time the issue of guns and gun control comes up.

It is, in fact, very easy to filter porn off of internet streams. My school district does it on every single school device. No matter how old you are, you aren't getting on PornHub on a school issued Chromebook. I've said here repeatedly, I'm completely in favor of giving parents much more robust tools to do the same. But I also recognize that porn is actually a peripheral issue when it comes to kids and cell phones and the internet. I'm not sure why you are so porn obsessed. Social media is actually the much more toxic influence. I see what kids are doing every day on their phones and it isn't porn. It's watching influencers on TikTok. It's group chats. It is endless YouTube rabbit holes. It is Instagram and other social media sites. It is gaming. When left to their own devices (so to speak), what they aren't doing is porn.

So in addition to porn filters (which already exist) what I also favor is getting kids off social media algorithms completely. Not by locking down the entire internet behind an age-based government run firewall in which every single site on the internet is rated for content by federal internet police. But by giving parents better controls and the ability to do things like only allow algorithm-free youth versions of social media platforms to be installed on their kids phones.