Since when is sending someone who is an adult and asks for them nude pics a crime?

Also, more to the point, without a victim there couldn't be any insert_non-victimless crime. Are you sure you want to make that argument?

Seriously, just face it, you guys are falling all over yourselves to slut shame and blame the victims here. Pathetic.

The socie of children views an overly studious child in a negative light, similar to how the society of people in general might negatively view a woman who hands out nude photos of herself. Nude pictures, in and of themselves, do not carry inherent negative consequences any more than liking math carries inherent negative consequences - it's the way those things are viewed by the relevant society that causes problems.

And that you don't view "being threatened with wide exposure if you don't obey someone else's whims" as harm is pretty fucked up. I would rather be beaten up any day over having my autonomy taken away or have to deal with e idea that there is someone out there who is actively trying to make my life hell, even if they aren't going to actually touch me in the process.

My point getting involved in this discussion was that the person I responded to said that blackmail is ALWAYS the fault of the person being blackmailed because they were doing things wrong. Provided examples of things that are not wrong but that have lead to blackmail in the past, and pointed out that just doi something society doesn't particularly approve of (but that harms no one - taking nude pics and giving them out to presumably consenting adults) is nowhere near e same level of wrong as actively seeking to take control of another human being with threats.

You can keep on trying to slut shame here, god knows, any time a subject like this comes up on Slashdot that's what people do, but you won't persuade me that people who did nothing illegal are somehow at fault or responsible when someone else chooses to engage in an illegal act. I don't care how tempted you may feel a given target of blackmail made themselves, that still does not put the fault anywhere but on the person who chose to break the law.

The problem is that when you take that "reasoning" and apply it more generally it completely falls apart.

Example: a kid says, in class, that they enjoy math. Some other kid kicks he shit out of them for being a nerd. Is the one who enjoys math stupid for acknowledging it, or can we say that the person who decided to kick their ass is wrong to have done so?

I don't care if people pretend to be puritans, I don't care if there's a social stigma attached to having certain beliefs or behaving in certain perfectly legal ways, when someone takes advantage of those social stigmas to abuse another human being, that person is at fault.

Seriously, I bet every fucking person defending this shitbag would be changing their tune had it been someone going after nerds rather than going after women. It's a pretty common thing on Slashdot, actually.

Yes. Without the Janitor choosing to take advantage of the embezzler, there would have been no blackmail.

Nope.

Blackmail is ALWAYS the fault of the person seeking to take advantage of another person.

In this case, women took nude pictures (or videos, I guess) of themselves. Not illegal, and it's only naughty if you're a puritan, and frankly even then it's pretty pathetic to think of it as anything naughty. Do you consider yourself to be some kind of bastion of morality? If so, what gives you the right? And if not, then where the hell do you get off trying to say other people are being naughty or not in regards to things that are completely irrelevant to you?

In other, more extreme cases, people have been blackmailed for things that carry a social stigma but are, according to decent human beings, perfectly OK. Example: Secret Jews during the Nazi regime. You think they were at fault (you DID say 'ALWAYS') because unscrupulous neighbors threatened to turn them in? Example: Closeted gay folk. You think they are at fault because some people decided to threaten to out them? Example: People who believe in religion X when religion Y is the official religion of their country. Example: People who don't toe the party line in countries where the party is the law. Example: Do I really have to give you more examples, or are you able to acknowledge that maybe your hyperbole and your victim blaming are wrong?

The person at fault when it comes to blackmail is the person who chose to try and take advantage of another human being. Period. And you should damn well know better if you're old enough to be posting on the Internet unsupervised. And you should feel bad about being so stupid you didn't think your opinion through before trying to voice it with your all caps removal of any possible wiggle room in the form of 'ALWAYS.'

The difference is that the synthetic diamonds are too perfect, supposedly. But yeah, it's dumb.

Anyway, to the larger issue - gold and platinum are both valuable and, essentially, useless because of their value. Gold, if it were essentially as cheap and plentiful as aluminum would become much more useful since it could be used in many more apications than it is today as it would no longer be hideously expensive to do so. Same with platinum and other things. So, sending enough of whatever is rare/valuable to completely transform the way we use whatever it is can have a different kind of profit based on removing the scarcity.

Fr materials not sent to Earth to transform the way a material is used, what makes the economics of space mining sort of more reasonable is that the stuff is already in space. The value of a kilogram of anything is pace is the value it has on Earth + 22,000 USD. Once the cost of refining stuff in space drops below 22,000 USD per kilo everything after that is good. Even when/if launch costs drop, as operations build up in space refining will get cheaper as well due to infrastructure building up. In any case, it's not completely unreasonable.

Were I a multi-billionaire I would probably be more than willing to throw money at this. At best it transforms industries and makes me staggeringly more wealthy, at worse I've gambled some of my wealth (but I'd still be vastly wealthy) on something with potential, lost, but at least (hopefully) advanced space science in the process.

Increasing the general level of knowledge (awareness) about mental health issues is certainly a benefit when talking about the issue of depression in a certain subgroup.

Many people I run across in tech circles have positively medieval notions about mental illness - people who are depressed are depressed because of personal weakness/defects, etc. As a result, many will not be willing to acknowledge that they, themselves, are experiencing depression, or might think that they should just toughen up and gut it out, and eventually the consequences can be quite dire.

Making it easier to get help when you need it - without judgment and without making people jump through hoops (outreach) will also help.

Imagine how much better things could be if people stopped being ashamed over shit they had no control over and were able to easily get help to make it better? Imagine how much better things could be if you didn't have people actively mocking and dismissing even the mere suggestion that things could and should be better.

You guys are also thinking in the wrong terms - social issues don't get "solved" - they get improved. Real life is messy and complex and there isn't one true solution - it's not as simple as most engineering problems. That you guys don't seem to recognize that says more about your inability to think clearly outside of your discipline than it does about the disciplines you dismiss so easily.

Here's an example that should be near and dear to those reading this site:

Open source.

Or, do you think that somehow, magically, open source became a thing without activists helping to increase awareness of benefits (or even existence) of OS solutions and reaching out to various organizations and individuals to get them to try it?

And here are some social issues that have been greatly improved by outreach and awareness:

When I was a child, if you were physically disabled you were pretty much fucked. Want to go to school but you're in a chair and there are no ramps? Tough luck. Want to go to college but you can't hear the lectures or can't see the blackboard? Tough luck. Want a job but your potential boss is creeped out by your withered hand and refuses to hire you? Tough luck. Today? Substantially better. Activists educating the public and reaching out to those who can change things helped make it something worth remedying because clearly based on the status quo before, most able bodied people didn't give a shit.

When my mother was a child, it was perfectly legal to discriminate against people of color, and the right to do so was in fact enshrined into law in many states. Today? Much better. Largely because of activists reaching out to educate people who were in a position to do something about it but previously hadn't felt it was important enough to do.

When my grandmother was a child, women were essentially the property of their husbands and had very few legally guaranteed rights, and mostly unable to vote. Today? Much better. Again: activists, awareness and outreach, and people in power being forced to acknowledge that it was something worth doing.

If you really can't think of things that activism has helped and you really are dismissing social workers because they haven't "solved" problems, you really, REALLY need to pull your head out of your ass. So, too, do the people who called you insightful.

I'm violating my statement I wouldn't come back but:

You said Lucasarts was worried about having same sex relationships in the game because of previous controversy and that they had to protect their profits, correct?

Who, other than homophobes/bigots would raise a stink over gay relationships being available in a game to the point where it would hurt profits from reduced sales?

Tell me. Please. Explain how someone raising controversy because gay relationships are treated the same as straight relationships in the game isn't a homophobe or a bigot. Explain to me how not putting gay relationships into the game at the start - was not catering to the homophobes and bigots initially, and had nothing to do with not upsetting the delicate sensibilities of homophobes and bigots.

You said they were worried about protecting their profits for controversy, so back it up and show how that has nothing to do with catering to bigots and homophobes in this case, when the only people who would cost them money in lost sales would be the homophobes, and the only increased costs in production could have been avoided by simply reducing the number of straight relationship options to get a couple of gay ones in.

Difficulty: if you mention moral/religious objections you then also need to make sure the moral code you're citing doesn't allow gayness to be ok but has nary a problem with constant mass murder and torture.

Bonus: explain how gay relationships only being available behind a paywall while straight ones are in by default, or how there are no gay options for companion NPCs is somehow equal and should be gratefully accepted.

This ought to be good.

Also, on a side note: you've been making a lot of personal assumptions about me and you've also now accused me of lying. I've been paying you the courtesy of at least assuming you are honest in your opinions, even if I disagree with them. I'm going to change that assumption now - I don't think you're arguing in good faith, I think you're just spoiling for a fight and not willing to listen openly to arguments from other points of view, and I think you do have an agenda other than what you're claiming. I'm in this argument because it involves the decent treatment of people - you are involved because someone said something you don't like about a corporation. There is no way a reasonable person without an agenda would be so invested in defending a corporation - so you're either unreasonable or dishonest,

I'm at least honest enough to wonder why I bothered engaging with you past the first reply, but fortunately that's something I can remedy.

Let me try one last time:

Lucasarts and Bioware chose to CATER TO HOMOPHOBES/BIGOTS rather than implement same-sex relationships in their game.

When it became clear that they wouldn't profit by CATERING TO HOMOPHOBES/BIGOTS they then implemented a lesser version of relationships for players interested in same-sex relationships.

Some people are saying that Bioware and Lucasarts are wrong because they are doing this half-assed implementation that is half-assed because BIOWARE AND LUCASARTS CHOSE TO CATER TO HOMOPHOBES/BIGOTS and designed their game in a way that reflects that choice.

You, on the other hand, are now saying that these people who are upset at Bioware and Lucasarts because of their ORIGINAL DECISION TO CATER TO HOMOPHOBES/BIGOTS are wrong because Bioware and Lucasarts decided to belatedly pull their heads out of their asses and offer same-sex relationships as a fucking marketing point for an expansion to their vastly underperforming game. You seem genuinely mystified that people aren't just saying "YIPPEE!!! There is absolutely nothing cynical about them including this feature as a big bullet point on the package and they certainly will not ever CATER TO HOMOPHOBES/BIGOTS LIKE THEY DID INITIALLY and we should be happy that we get this little bit that obviously reflects their choice to CATER TO HOMOPHOBES/BIGOTS!"

I bolded the important part because maybe it just needs to be louder and bigger to sink in.

I'm done here.

You are missing my point. I will make it simple:

Bioware chose to Implement relationships in the game in a way that clearly did not value inclusivity - they could have written the relationship lines of dialogue to be gender neutral, they could have had the actors record an extra line when the line was gendered, etc. they obviously have a flag for determining what conversation options are available for a given NPC based on player gender, so it should have been relatively easy to plug in those other lines.

But, they obviously - because they are choosing to implement the same-sex relationships now in a very awkward way - did not consider same-sex options important during design.

They do not get to come back and say "before we prioritized profits over people, but now that we realized it doesn't matter, we are going to do the right thing" and then pretend like they're good people.

Moreover, other people don't have the right, when someone else points this out, to basically accuse the people who had been disregarded before,of whining or telling them they should be grateful they at least got something. Well, I mean, they have the right to, but it just makes you look silly.

As to your final point - that Bioware is including all players. Yep, they sure are, except that because of their choices and biases going in, not all players are being included equally, but people are now saying to those players who were obviously an afterthought, that they should be grateful and any complaints are just whining. You don't think there's something just a little off about that? I know I do.

I actually understand the mechanics, but I'm getting at the laughably tone deaf way this is handled when I talk about the way the new stuff is being implemented.

And, again, it actually IS regressive the way this is handled, even if Bioware isn't solely responsible for how things were implemented.

Anyway, the issue here is that gay folk are being treated like second class people and using this as an example of how, but everyone's just so eager to tell them to stop whining about it that they're missing the reason it happened in the first place and why these folks might be upset about it.

If you're going to have relationships in the game and you're also going to claim that you are inclusive, it's a big sign that you aren't very inclusive when you wind up having to retrofit that inclusion after the fact AND you designed your systems so badly that the only way you can add inclusion later indicates it was never actually a consideration. Bioware and Lucasarts (and a lot of people here on Slashdot) are pretending like its the people who have been excluded who are in the wrong here, not the people being exclusionary. It's adding insult to injury.

And the problem here is that your entire argument basically sums up why gay folks are bothered by this in the first place:

They weren't included at the beginning because of concerns about profit, but then when people decided that not being discriminatory (or, to be kind, pretending gay folks don't exist) wouldn't cost them money, THEN they decided to relent and give those gay people their VERY OWN PLANET where they can be as gay as they want (but only there for now - if you want to go anywhere else you have to stop acting gay). Oh, and if you complain that this is kind of not a very good way of handling things, well, you're just being a whiny gay and GEEZE why can't you people ever just be grateful? (Not you saying this, but many people in the comments here are being exactly like that).

Gay stuff wasn't included originally based on a business decision. The fact that it was a business decision doesn't somehow abrogate the parties who made that decision from being discriminatory dickheads ESPECIALLY when they were making that decision and using the name of a company that had previously been decent about implementing gay stuff in their games.

Now they're implementing gay stuff in the game, but because of their original (stupid) decision not to, it's really hard to retrofit it to the whole game, so instead they're making a little gay ghetto planet and acting like people should be just thrilled with how progressive they are, without realizing just how horribly tone-deaf that implementation is.

It's craven and condescending. They were more concerned with profits than people before, and then when they realized profits weren't going to be hurt (because the game is not doing well), they gave in and are now trying to hold themselves up as bastions of progress and tolerance, and they have people like you coming in here to say "Geepers, they were just trying to protect their investment, but once they realized that they could treat gay people like, well, people, they relented, it's ever so reasonable!" and making excuses for them.

I would have respected them more had they simply said "We don't think it's worth catering to gay people in this regard and need to protect our profits" and left it at that. At least it would have been honest.

One of the heterosexual relationship options in the game for male Sith Warriors is the ability to take and torture a woman with a shock collar. Eventually you can more or less break her to the point where, if you marry her, she will joke about haha, remember when you used to torture me by shocking the shit out of me while I wore that shock collar, well, let me go get it so we can get frisky...

You can also commit (gleefully) mass murder, psychological torture on families by killing their loved ones and then rubbing it in their faces, blackmail for profit, and a whole host of other unsavory activities that you are rewarded for.

I guess what I'm saying is that any parent who is worried Little Timmy might get the offer to sit on Darth Fabulous's Meat Saber should *probably* not let their kid play this game in the first place, and definitely shouldn't be catered to when they express their preferences for what should/shouldn't be included in a video game for their kid.

I played it only for a few months, but I remember being struck by just how particularly bloodless and neuter the "romantic" dialogue was - I assumed it was written that way to facilitate more diverse relationships if people wanted to go down those paths. I don't recall much in the way of gendering in the language etc. Honestly, they could probably just disable the gender check in relationship options and other than a few possibly awkward lines it wouldn't be any worse than it already is.

Then again, my observation might be entirely based on the fact that I was an absolutely terrifying, psychotically evil Dark Side Sith chick and my relationship option was Quinn, who really, he's NOT gay, you're *sure* Bioware?