Serious question about torrents: How is this not stealing?
I'm not trying to be judgemental. I certainly don't have any room to do so as I used Napster and the likes back in the day. Now with the advent of Amazon Prime, Hulu, Netflix, etc, I'm genuinely curious to know the moral argument for using services and platforms that utilize torrents to distribute media other creators are actually trying to sell?
Edit: Apparently this question has upset a good number of people. It was a genuine inquiry. It would have been nice to see your thoughts in written form instead of the downvotes.
To those that did answer--thanks! Really incredible how complicated the licensing arrangements are across the world.
We were fine for a while. Netflix killed film/series piracy for me - for a while it literally made no sense.
Then, every copyright owner realized they want a slice of the streaming cake - (HBO, Disney+, all the cable networks...) and started making their content exclusive on their platforms. Now, instead of a single Netflix (or anyone else, really) subscription I would have to pay for a dozen, that I would rarely use for more than one series/film. Or I can't even get it at all, because it's not available in my country. Or only available with subtitles in a language I don't understand. Or I can't watch it on the hardware I want to.
The music industry got their shit together and even the most copyright-paranoid artists are on Spotify, or on Bandcamp (which is subscription-free). When the film industry does the same I'll gladly start paying them money again.
Same boat, I haven't torrented a movie in years because Netflix gave me a good way to pay for them.
But now I have two streaming subscriptions and the catalog between them is still too sparse. I think I'd need 4 or 5 separate subscriptions to stop losing the "is this somewhere that I can watch it?" game.
Plus I have a VPN account that my phone and tablet are connected through almost all the time. I don't like having to leave that turned off when I want to watch something, often I'm multitasking and it means whatever else I'm doing is now connecting from my home IP address.
I'm using PIA, but they were purchased recently by Kape Technologies so I'm not sure if I'll re-up when my subscription expires. Where I'm at right now is they're probably more trustworthy than Comcast, and less likely to do something like selling my IP address -> personal identity to advertisers.
Still, I figure on balance I'm better off having my internet browsing aggregated with all the other traffic coming out of their endpoints versus coming from my modem's IP address.
i signed up for PIA using paypal (i thought i was just setting up my payment source, but they fully created an account) and they sent me an username + password in plain text via email.
On the one hand, not great. On the other, what can someone do with access to your PIA account? I don't think that gives them any ability to snoop on your traffic, and there's no user data in the account for them to steal.
They could mooch off your access within the 5 device limit, or sign in online and pay your bill?
Never were fine in Australia. Half of the Dr. Who were absent because of "legal reasons". I can't recall now (I don't have subscription for almost 3 years) but there were bunch of TV shows I wanted to binge and they were unavailable or partially available. Big Bang Theory never were on Netflix IIRC, I had to pay for one of the seasons. I don't think anything from HBO is there and so on.
I'm not playing those games, I can torrent whatever I want to seen in better quality - with subtitles in variety of languages, HD or SD, some number of audio tracks with different translations if I wish (even though I don't need it after leaving in English speaking country for some time) and so on.
> The music industry got their shit together and even the most copyright-paranoid artists are on Spotify...
To be fair, unless their play count rivals Taylor Swift, those artists probably still aren't making much money. I have quite a few friends who are professional musicians and this is a common complaint.
Im nit saying spotify isnt a positive thing for consumers (and maybe also artists in the long run) but there's definitely a tradeoff to having one platform to rule them all.
For whatever reason, video content is tightly tethered to copyright based gatekeeping profits. The cycle can be seen in literally every country.
Similar reasons for why Youtuber film-makers aren't treated seriously by Hollywood film-makers ie their portfolios aren't taken seriously. There's a weird snobbishness in the whole industry
Personally, I think it should be tiered. I'm willing to pay ~$2 for older films (that's what my grocery store charged when I was a kid), ~$5 for new releases, and I expect a discount for paying month to month vs ala carte. So, if I watch one movie/week, $10/month seems fair since I'll probably watch 1-2 new releases and likely won't watch a movie every week. If I watch 2x that, then $15-20 seems fair. If I watch a movie every day, $50/month seems fair. Maybe pay extra for higher quality.
I currently pay for Netflix and Amazon prime, mostly so my kids can watch cartoons (we don't have c cable or satellite TV) and because my wife likes fast shipping (we watch way more Netflix than Amazon Prime though). I don't expect to pay more than either service to have access to a better selection of movies.
i already pay for: netlix, hulu, hbo, amazon prime and youtube premium.
so i already shell out a LOT of money to media companies, so i'm ok with pirating if a specific movie/series is not in any of those services because the owner of the movie/series i'm pirating is probably getting my money through any of those services.
You already know that answer is going to be different for everyone, so I don't know why you bother asking it.
A better question is when are film studios going to stop profiteering with their license fees and allow their works to be available on any platform (instead of meticulously negotiating with one platform and moving around every couple months).
The question opens up other questions exactly like you mentioned.
For eg: If it was never about the price point, and more about it being available on a single platform, would you be fine with paying a very high subscription fee for a platform which holds all the catalogues?
Let me be clear, I torrent things too, but I've never really had an answer to the piracy question. I wouldnt just want to blame it on all the studios seperating out the catalogues into their own service.
I'd at least like to see what a more fair & open content market would look like. So far it's just anti-competitive, anti-consumer bullshit for TV & Movies. I haven't pirated a game after Steam got big. I haven't pirated any music after Spotify came around. Clearly the model works.
Literally Youtube. If google actually seriously got into the media business by buying up some smaller film catalogs worldwide(i'm sure AMC/criterion/some other country specific catalog collections will be easily purchasable for them as a starter), we could see streaming services go under overnight.
I think anti-trust litigation from old lawmakers is the only thing stopping them
Kind of an interesting angle. YouTube is limited in how it can compete against the film monopoly/oligopoly due to broader anti-trust concerns at Google
Sometimes as a legal user you are faced with far more obstacles than the illegal user. All kinds of limitations that are made to curb piracy but actually just hurt legitimate users. This applies to every type of protected content, be it music, video, games, ebooks, etc.
This makes paying users less likely to sympathize with the content provider. And then you see those transparent attempts to skew numbers so they can generate some compassion ("This episode of GoT was pirated 30 million times which means we lost 30 million possible subscribers!!11" type thing) and you start having a really bad impression about them whether you pay for the service o not.
I am forced to torrent content that I already legally pay for just to get a proper subtitle or voice over for example, because sometimes I get a different experience for the same content based on the country I'm in.
Also as a legal user you might end up paying for subscription service you don't use. I'm subscribed to netflix and HBO and don't remember the last time when I used them... Now and then try to find something to watch but it is all shit.
Not sure why this is getting down voted. Outside of official statements from the content providers, who are happy to bury their heads in the sand and pretend the flagged problems don't exist, general consensus is that most anti-piracy measures ruin the experience for legal users far more than for pirates. Pirates might accept lower standards of service given the all time low price of free. Paying customers of course have much higher expectations.
And the fragmentation of titles across platforms doesn't help one bit. We're basically heading to the same situation with today's cable business.
Personally, living in a country whose language I don't master means many of the titles in my Netflix catalogue are unwatchable. Anime being in Japanese and only dubbed or subed in the local language and nothing else. In English speaking countries the exact same titles have English sub or dubbing.
You have to separate morality and legal technicalities to answer this properly.
For the legal part, stealing is for physical objects, eg. the victim doesn't have disposal of this stolen good anymore. This is not true for intellectual «property» since it's a copy.
This is why copyright & copyright infringement has been created, whose original purpose was to protect authors from publisher and protect publishers that made advances to authors from other publishers.
For the moral part, you have no clear answer, circulation of free copies obviously reduces revenues of authors, but also it allows access of content to people that wouldn't have paid for it anyways, case where the loss of revenue is shaky.
To extend further, it's related to consumer frustration, while it's no question that being frustrated if you don't own a Ferrai is frivolous, if you can't afford it, you have to steal it from someone, the frustration occurred for copyright content is solely based on publisher/distributor strategy on maximizing revenue. The thing is, total revenue has a, albeit unknown, maximum theoretical possible, hence after a trigger frustration left is purely and solely a strategy to protect revenue.
In the end, you get frustrated people just to have copyright holders a better peace of mind and revenue, and nothing else, so there's a moral balance to keep that you can't reduce to a black and white situation.
A genuine inquiry should get a genuine answer. Let me try to provide one.
Copyright law with its duration of 95 years after the authors death is practically universally seen as the result of money being transfer from large companies into the control of politicians that voted in favor of the law. Normally when laws get written as the result of money changing hand we call it corruption, but as the supreme court have show, that is not always so.
Some people have tried to fix the problem from within, but the US political system makes third-party initiatives like that rather hard. Internationally, the result of the corrupt process spread through international trade agreements where nations has to either implement the same laws or risk getting trade sanctions from the US, and thus internationally nations has accepted the same corrupt law in exchange for getting through trade deals.
There is no moral ground for following current copyright law except blind following. Instead what we get is individual moral decisions where for example a person might feel it being acceptable to view 95 minus 1 year after the authors death old video on youtube, but find it wrong to view a recently released cinematic movie. Each person uniquely define when, where and how they feel copyrights exclusive monopoly is morally defensible and when it is not. The result is that you get about as many different moral view on the issue as there is people.
For example, here (in Hungary) we are paying some extra 'contribution' whenever we buy storage (HDDs, SSDs, SD cards, USB sticks) that is intended to compensate artists and distributors for lost revenue because the assumption is that we'll likely store pirated stuff on them.
Therefore downloading is not illegal here (sharing is, which kind of puts torrents into a strange place).
The collected money is in general handed out by Copyswede [1], but for music it's handled by STIM [2]. STIM also supposedly handles paying money to artists played for customers at the barber, and all these special cases, and music played on TV, and so on.
I don't know for sure, but I think that the money is divided based on official sales data, so the artists who sell most also gets most of the "cassette tax" as it is known, because it was introduced as an added tax on cassettes back in the 80s.
It is not popular with consumers, since you have to pay extra for blank CDs, DVDs, USB sticks, and hard drives even if you don't use them to copy music. The tax is not to cover loss of income due to piracy, I just learned from the Wikipedia page, but to enable private copying of music without having to buy extra copies from the producer. As I said, since you have to pay even if you use the CD as a Linux boot disc, it's not very popular with the public, but a lot of people don't even know about it.
Yes. Almost no money is given to the artists, most of it is eaten by the organization that claims to be representing them and has good political connections.
Same in Russia. But they tax not only storage but basically everything that can play music and/or video including desktops, laptops, tablets and phones.
Spotify doesn't have even half of my collection of Johnny Horton (which I torrented as well).
Also, I'm afraid of censorship. Some of the early 20th century county singers we throwing n-words left right and center and you won't find them on Spotify. Same for Apple Music. With Apple Music it even worse. Music disappears from the library _suddenly_. Just because same shady firm has it's license expired in Australia. Internet is full of stories of people who were unable to re-download movies or music form iTunes because the right owner has deleted it from the store. No, no money back.
So the only place where I pay for music is Bandcamp, which lets you download the stuff you paid for, right here, right now in variety of formats including lossless.
The argument for piracy is always a mix between those who aren’t willing to pay for the media, and those who aren’t willing to put up with the limitations and restrictions of DRM.
Sometimes you can compromise with one side if the other is really good. Spotify is a good example, where it really is more convenient to pay $10 for every song you could ever think of.
On the other hand, there’s no similar buffet-style movie service that has more than 10% of the movies I want to watch.
It’s hard for someone to justify paying $60/month on the four streaming services (since the market is so fragmented) and still not able to watch Iron Man 2 (though 1 and 3 are there)
I don't pirate, nowadays mostly because I already have a couple of subscriptions and not enough time to consume all the content I already can.
But for me the answer is fairly obvious: availability. If video content was as convenient to consume as music, then pirating wouldn't be making a comeback. You can subscribe to all major streaming services and it's likely you won't find a given niche tv series or cult movie, unlike with music that with a single spotify sub you can listen to basically any formally published album (Ok, I know it's not strictly true, but it's closer to this state than with video)
I don't use torrents etc but to give you a customer perspective: Because of the proliferation of services and the lock-in each one of them is trying to promote, if you want to follow your favourite shows you would have to subscribe to all of them and it becomes expensive very quickly. As an European there is always the problem that some great shows that are available in the US might not be available in your country. To make mattter worse, if you're in switzerland like me you might have the option to watch a show only in German (which I don't speak) and they don't even give you access to the original english soundtrack. Faced with all these annoyances, I canceled them all. If they don't care about the customer experience I don't care about them. I use a (legal) service which allows me to watch on demand any TV show broadcast from most of European TVs in the last 7 days. It works well, it's cheap and most shows have they original english soundtrack. Some other people use torrents or dodgey streaming websites.
To me, stealing implies depriving someone of something.
If I take your car, you don't have a car anymore.
If I make a copy of your movie, you still have that movie.
Arguably, you're being deprived of the money from the sale of the movie, but there are already other terms that can be used (piracy, copyright infringement).
Better ease of use: I'm in France, I don't know what service has what or for how much time. Most French services will tend to propose dubbed version only, or not let me remove subtitles if I don't need them. With torrents I get access to everything on one application, with the audio and subtitle settings I want. Also I have a shitty connection so if I want good quality streaming is no-no: so I download and watch once it's done and when I want.
Edit: and for the moral part, most Hollywood people preach for communism. So let them show the way.
It isn't stealing. After you torrent something, someone else doesn't have less.
It also isn't treated as stealing by (most countries'?) legal frameworks. It's copyright infringement - and not even commercial infringement (where you are making money by infringing). Non-commercial copyright infringement isn't even criminal - it's a civil matter.
The problem is that shows/movies are spread all over these platforms, or are not even available on them. I'm happy to pay my Netflix subscription each months, but if a show I want to watch is not on it, I will pirate it. I'm not going to pay for multiple video streaming services each months.
It gets really frustrating when one service has seasons 1-3 of a show but I need to subscribe to another service to get seasons 4 and 5. I've even seen the case where season 1 and 3 are on a service but season 2 is somewhere else.
Add in the fact that these deals change all the time so season 3 might be somewhere else by the time I'm caught up and ready to watch it and the whole system is madness.
When you steal from someone, you take something that belongs to them. If someone steals your bike, you don't have a bike anymore. When you torrent, you create a _copy_ of your friends _copy_. your friend still has his copy, but now you have a copy too.
For me the argument is and has basically always been availability.
I don't live in the United States and if I want to watch say Westworld, even though it's airing on the national broadcaster for free, it only does so in French, which I don't understand. There's nowhere I can legally watch the English version so my only option is piracy.
In other cases it's because the market is fragmented. Were I still living in the US, I'd happily pay $20/mo for a Netflix subscription (and do) but I wouldn't pay $10/m for each of Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, Disney Plus, HBO for American stuff plus another $10/mo for each anime streaming service that has an exclusive.
Legally, it is stealing. However, just because something is illegal doesn't make it wrong.
However, you could also think of it like the digital equivalent of sharing. If someone purchases a movie or TV series on physical disks, they could loan it to you without breaking the law. In fact, they could even make a copy of the disk and not break the law. The only way to break the law this way is by having multiple copies in use at the same time. This is just digital sharing without checks in place to make sure multiple copies of the content aren't used simultaneously.
That being said, who is really harmed when I give someone a copy for free? I'm not stealing from the content creator (I paid, after all), and I'm not selling it, and there's no guarantee that the person I gave it to would have purchased it. If the creator hasn't lost anything and I'm not taking credit for it, nobody was harmed. In my eyes, this makes piracy acceptable as long as I don't sell it.
If we didn't have such strong copyright protections, content creators would be forced to compete with piracy by offering convenience, but instead they sue. Netflix has proven to reduce piracy because they offer convenience, but that only works for content they can provide.
No it isn't. If I steal your bike you no longer have a bike. You no longer have the benefits of using it for transportation, society is worse off. As you explained copyright is very different from that. So, let's not call these 2 different things the same.
Of course it is. Stealing is taking what is not given. People can play with words and logic all day but that's it. If you take something that was not given to you it's stealing. In case of torrents, the owner of the media obviously didn't sell it nor gave it.
Most likely the most legitimate reason is archiving. Streaming services often offer very poor quality for even 3 year old shows that make them look like they are from 10 years ago. Meanwhile shows from the 80s look much better as long as they are torrented.
They've already started. We've been replacing Dell laptops at work these past couple months and it was nearly impossible to fully boot Windows without signing in via a Microsoft account. The whole process just felt ridiculous, especially on a computer clearly intended for a business.
When my work computer just used a MS account I had 0 issues, when i was forced to put it on the domain and have an AD account etc I have had nothing but issues. Intrusive sys-admins are more annoying these days trying to control and lock things down in a more connected world.
>Intrusive sys-admins are more annoying these days trying to control and lock things down in a more connected world.
How about trying to stop a raging forest-fire and the primary tool you are supposed to use is a squirt gun?
The backend that we have to work with was designed around the concept of "1 network, X users" and the biggest threat was a boot-sector virus that formatted your hard-drive after silently replicating itself to every machine.
Now you need security in layers, because even if every god-damned employee was as smart as Tim Berners-Lee and didn't open every email attachment, drive-by downloads; 0-day browser exploits that give access to ring0 coupled with an OS that releases updates that are more likely to bjork your computer then actually solve the fucking problem these computers are sitting fucking ducks.
And because we are seen as "Intrusive" we can't even get the C-level assholes to listen to us, or to follow the rules that they see are necessary for everybody else.
The environment has grown so hostile that Becky in accounting doesn't need internet access, and you are lucky we don't limit the internet to 1 terminal in the lunch room with every port disabled and filled with a hot-glue gun.
Just because YOU are "smart with computers" doesn't mean your damn computer is safe.
We (SysAdmins) are fighting a desperately hard battle. We get shit on by the end-users, and Upper Management. If you have 1 frustration with your PC multiply it by thousand, and try to put yourself in our shoes.
I switched to https://ynab.com a while back. It's not exactly the same concept as what Mint was intended to be, but I couldn't be happier with the move.
I have been using YNAB for over 2 years since my 50 year old mother somehow found out about it. It is a different way to think about budgeting and the tool only excels if you work within the "YNAB principles". I would recommend reading the companion book You Need a Budget before starting with the app. It was important for me to digest and understand the philosophy before I started using the tool. Otherwise I believe I would have been turned off by the rigidity.
I seem to respond well to defined, rigid systems. I handle all my task management via the systems outlined in Getting Things Done. I'd be curious what other books are out there for handling aspects of life with a systemic, opinionated approach (professional life, social life, dating, etc.)?
I tried really hard to like ynab, but I just couldn't get the hang of it. I think the hangup is that I'm not really looking for a budgeting tool, I just want to categorize and see where my money is going - less so planning. Its easy to do that with Mint as budgeting in Mint feels more like an addon then a core concept.
Founder of Lunch Money (https://lunchmoney.app) here– I encourage you to check us out! I'd like to think we're a more non-opinionated and simple alternative to YNAB.
I'll just throw in an extra 1up here. I am a very happy customer of Lunch Money. It's the only app I have ever stuck with for any amount of time.
It is still early days for the product, bur it is rapidly improving and the creator is very good and communicate. The couple of times I have requested support (mostly for feature suggestions), she has gotten back to me very quickly.
I don't really use YNAB to strictly budget either, but more for tracking as well. Essentially, I budget the fixed categories (mortgage, property taxes, insurance, etc.), move some fixed amount to a savings category, and then leave the rest as "To Be Budgeted".
Then, as the month goes on and some of the categories that didn't have a fixed budget are "over budget", I just move the required money to the individual category to zero it out. Anything that caries over to the next month goes to the savings category.
I couldn't handle the forced system in ynab - it's clunky and I want a budget program not a whole new budget system. To me less useful than an excel budget because it tries to force you to do things it's way.
I'd rather use Excel than be forced to use their stupid system.
You might like Tiller Money. It's basically the bank integration that Mint and YNAB have, but instead of being forced to use their interface it backs out the data into an Excel/Google spreadsheet that you can build your own system on top of. (It costs money, but after what happened to Mint I consider "sustainable business model that doesn't involve selling your data" a feature for this sort of service.)
While I can understand not wanting to create a Google account (even just to use as a login), my understanding is that if you use Tiller via Excel, Google will not have access to any of your financial data.
I've been using it for about two months now, and while it takes a little getting used to, it is so much more powerful for actually getting a handle on your finances. Highly recommend.
I finally feel like I have a solid handle on my budget, Mint never gave that to me.
I really like ynab, but they stopped importing my discover card months ago and they have basically declared that there is nothing they can do since their partner can't do anything about it. There is a contingent of their users who claim that it's better that way, but if I'm manually adding transactions and categorizing everything my self, then why not use an excel sheet instead of paying 90 dollars a year.
Been using YNAB for over 5 years now, since back when it was a pay-once desktop application. Can't live without it at this point.
The best part for me is how it handles where money you earn goes, it always goes to next month, not the current month (granted, after I graduated college it took me a bit to actually get back into this because of living with effectively 0 income for 4 years), so you know that you're already budgeted for the month when you get into it. That feeling is super comforting for me.
Typically, the rates negotiated with the various insurance companies are basically secret. No one wants to share the data and there is great incentive not to.
If you are in the insurer side, you think you have a competitive advantage compared to company Y. Sharing what you are paying per procedure is bad business
If you are on the Hospital side, you want to make sure the insurers keep paying more, and publishing means a quick race to the bottom.
This means that in most cases in america, you cant know what something is going to cost until after you get billed. Its great for literally everyone except the consumer.
My personal opinion is that this should be illegal. Prices for the same treatment should be equal regardless of patient or insurer. The insurance repayment policies could differ, but at least the base pay won't seem completely made up.
The base rate is the same (in theory), but insurance policy A is only going to pay 18% of procedure Z and policy B will pay 27%; uninsured patients will be offered a 50% discount if they pay promptly, otherwise the bill will eventually be sold to collections for 1% if it's not paid)
Don't like this part at all... "As part of this revamped experience, we’re retiring a few features of the original Google Finance, including the portfolio, the ability to download your portfolio, and historical tables"
According to the Mayo Clinic there are multiple medical benefits to circumcision [1]
To address some of the other points here, I can only give a anecdotal example from my own experience. My wife and I decided to have our son circumcised and not because of religious reasons, but rather because of those listed in the referenced article, among others--and after much condsideration. At the end of the day we decided that the benefits outweighed the risks.
As far as who should have the choice of this procedure, ideally it would be the individual on whom the procedure is being performed. However, the procedure and pain as an adult would certainly be more memorable. My parents made the choice to circumcise me when I was an infant--I'm glad they did because I don't remember any associated pain or discomfort.
I think that there should be more discourse over this parental choice. If parents are making these decisions for mere aesthetic or ritualistic reasons then that is a problem. However, labeling circumcision as 'genital mutilation' across the board is not accurate. There are advantages and disadvantages that should be weighed carefully.
Confirmation bias. You will never know if the benefits outweigh the risks and you denied the kid the choice. I wish I had the choice. Mutilations cannot be reversed. You probably did it because - 1 it was done to you, 2 some custom from a desert 2000 years ago and 3 you wanted Jr. to "be like everyone else". I've heard all the reasons. Cut his middle finger off too so he can't flip the bird - that could save him from a potential fight. Also sewing his mouth shut might prevent sass talk
"You will never know if the benefits outweigh the risks... "
You're probably right. That's why it was a weighted decision based on the information available.
Your other points do not match the same model we used to make our decision. Flipping someone off or giving the middle finger is a choice that one can make, and later apologize for and move on. Penile cancer or many STDs do not fall into that category.
I'm surprised that this topic is even on HN, and even more so by the presumptive and emotional responses that clearly didn't read the post in its entirety. So, I don't think this is a conversation I will engage in any further.
How do you rationalize changing your son's sexual function without his consent and despite the fact that it is possible to do the same procedure later in life, with zero mental and very little physical immediate trauma?
To what extent did you go to educate yourself on that matter, given you have no personal experience?
For one, it has erogenous nerves in it. Or more clearly put: Friction and pressure on certain parts of my foreskin feels really good, even if the entirety of it is held fixed and none of the friction is applied to the glans. The parts that feel good are fairly forwards, so it is unlikely that any of that would survive a circumcision.
For the other, in penetration it both acts as liquid-less lubrication by allowing the penis to move freely inside it even if the vagina isn't very wet; and it also increases the range of sensations by feeling different when the movement is with the glans still inside the foreskin, and when it's deeper in and outside the foreskin. The "pseudo lube" aspect is also appreciated by women in my experience.
E: I see some people down-voted this and i am earnestly puzzled. I believe i have described only physical facts. Is this post too "frank" for a public forum, or did i get something wrong?
Sounds great, but you might be overselling it considering adults who have undergone circumcision for non-health reasons largely don't report loss of sexual pleasure (some do, some report greater pleasure). And there's also the fact if you're circ'd as a baby the brain has decades to adapt, and that's where the pleasure actually is in the first place.
I'm not overselling it since i did not attach a price tag. I said a change, not how much of a change.
And yeah, i can entirely see how different people might not give a damn about any of this. Some might even benefit. Men who're not very sensitive would have more fun without the foreskin and the direct stimulation and might not even notice the loss of the nerves in the foreskin, men with very active glands might not care about the difference in lubrication, women whose glands are naturally more productive might not care which type of penis their partner has.
Nevertheless, the sexual function is changed. There are things a circumcised penis can do better. There's also things an uncircumcised one can do better. I'm not saying either of them is better than someone else's, just different. Changed.
Fair enough. I conflated your post with the ones comparing it to FGM Type II, talking as if circ'd penises are horrifically mutilated and barely functional.
Pondered it a little, and i think you might be misreading some people unintentionally. Maybe you mentally match FGM to mutilation as a whole, which most people don't, and react to them as if they did? Note how something can be in the same class as something else, but have a much lower degree of impact. When someone says mutilated they may not necessarily be thinking "horrifically" or "barely functional". Heck, many people consider ear rings or tattoos mutilation.
Mutilation is a word with strong and harsh connotations. How would someone with a facial birthmark react if people said their face was mutilated? It's hurtful rhetoric largely unbacked by adult comparative sexual studies.
Edit: can't reply, but I think you're being uncharitable by saying I'm overreacting to the word "mutilation" because it's technically correct by the dictionary definition. We don't describe people with earrings or tattoos as mutilated unless we intend to insult them or the practice.
> facial birthmark react if people said their face was mutilated
That is not what mutilation means though. Like, literally not. Check the dictionary. You saying that just drives the point home that you're mapping a meaning onto it that is not intended by the other side.
The problem with these rituals is that they're sometimes performed by non professionals, and in this specific case not under medical supervision, and this may put the infant's health at risk by either late health complications or worse death.
Here's a case for two babies getting Herpes in NYC because of this practise.
I'm glad you at least thought about it, but I think you (and most American parents) made the wrong choice. You're violating your sons bodily autonomy, and depriving him of a functional part of his sexual organ, for what is mostly a matter of convenience.
The criticisms of Rosling seem to surround around him painting with a broad brush and forming distilled conclusions. The trouble is that if Rosling were to dive into the details of these data and leave out conclusions the average person listening would get lost, have no actionable thesis, or both. I would include myself to be among these people.
The admirable thing about his presentations are that he encourages his listeners to trust data and question their preconceptions.
Certainly his methodolgy is not perfect. However, given how the public forms decisions right now (See US presidential election), I can't help but think this mentality is exactly what is needed.
Amen. We have a lot of people digging through details in obscurity; we need a spokesman like this, of good will and broad understanding, instead of the usual shysters. There is a solid need for both roles; you don't criticize an epidemiologist for not being a surgeon.
