Comment Re:Neurosis Theater (Score 1) 395
Imagine a big lab where male researchers put playboy pictures on the wall.
That's not even a remotely reasonable take or example for what's happening here. This is a woman's face . It's a "Playboy picture" only in the sense that yes, it appeared in Playboy. It's not a nude. Pictures of, just for instance, Peter Sellers and Steve Martin have also appeared in Playboy. Should we now ban crops of these gentlemen's faces from those photos from appearing in an image processing example? I mean, seriously. It's puerile. Stupid. Regressive. Ridiculous.
Do you think that is professional ?
If a person's face, even, OMG, a handsome man or beautiful woman or other, should be used for an image processing example? Yes. Absolutely. 100%. Is it professional? Yes. Absolutely. 100%. I'm not in the least offended by the idea, nor should I be. It's a picture of a face. As for beauty, again, not offended regardless: male, female, trans, androgynous.
Do you think female researchers would feel comfortable working there ?
With pictures of people's faces on the wall? Even, OMG, women's faces? Well, if they don't, they need some therapy. What they don't need is for the walls to be sanitized so they can pretend that good-looking people don't exist, aren't interesting to others, and are somehow offensive in and of themselves.
What about people who fear cats? Should we then ban all pictures of cat's faces from lab walls and studies? How far do you want to take this? What about agoraphobics? Would you have us ban pictures of the outdoors from lab walls and studies? What about amathophobics? Should all labs have privacy walls so no one sees powders on the bench? What about, OMG, a picture of a pile of powder on the wall? JFC, call the Powder Police immediately.
Look, if you — or whomever — don't want to appear in Playboy or some other publication, I'm 100% behind you. Don't. Don't sign a contract that gives them rights to any photos. As for what other consenting adults have chosen to do, just fuck off, please. The only one in need of your take is you. As soon as you start telling me what I can do with a picture of someone's face, presuming copyright issues are squared away, I'm going tell you to fuck right off.
And what is triggering you ? Are you afraid they're going to come for your porn ?
Quite aside from the neurotic absurdity of the anti-adult-porn movement, no, this is something else entirely. This is moving normal things into the realm of moral panics. It's a bad thing. Entirely. On its own.
Trump and his american taliban allies are the ones you should be afraid of.
I am about as anti-regressive and anti-Trump as you can get. Lefter-than-left in almost all social and economic aspects, conservative only where it seems to me to be logical to conserve already-achieved progress. An outlook that includes conserving the achievements of separating personal liberties from absurd moralizations insofar as we have managed that thus far.
The problem here, what makes it worthy of comment, is that this particular moral panic in-a-teacup is straight-up regressive.