At least you guys have laws concerning dogs. Here in the USA, you can move, with your Rottweiler, into a apartment complex that advertises “no dogs allowed,” because you’re a weak-willed whinny bitch that claims to be suicidal if you don’t have your walking, barking, breathing killing machine with you. Next, gun-owners are going to claim they need their AR-15’s for “emotional support.”
The XL Bully was responsible for 10 of the 19 deaths caused by dogs in the UK in the period between 2021 and 2023, and in December 2023, the UK Government added the breed to the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, making it illegal to sell, breed, abandon or have a Bully XL in public without a lead and muzzle in England and Wales.[5]
This is a ‘just grow up’ moment. Enough destroying a thousand acres of forest just to make a spectacle of a useless datapoint. You just KNOW these Felicias ordered SEPARATE limos to their middle-school grad party.
I get the mindset for these people. Their dog is probably never going to go nuts and maul someone, the vast majority will never go nuts and maul someone, it’s your big good boi! Its not the animals fault it literally has been bred to be a killer, you didnt train it like that, thats not the environment it lives in… and yeah thats all true but when it goes wrong it goes spectacularly wrong and people die.
Its like people who have pet bears or big cats, like… yeah all the positives and all but its absolutely equipped to kill the fuck out of you should the mood strike it.
It’s obviously a bit weird for a tourist attraction and it feels like a bait and switch. But for me it’s not surprising. I’m from Western Europe, we don’t have much in the way of natural water around here. All rivers and such have been fucked with for hundreds of years and there is very little natural about them, even though they look beautiful.
There’s this one small river about 50 meters from my home that looks especially pretty. It has a meandering path, with lush nature all around it and a pretty bridge you can stand on to enjoy it. The council maintains it and keeps us updated on how they maintain it, what future plans are and all the unique and often endangered species living there. It looks natural, but keeping it that way is a lot of work and it wasn’t formed by nature at all. In fact I know that same river actually runs through a pipe for over a mile. It’s a big industrial area a couple of miles away. So they put the river in a pipe to protect it and not have it interfere with the industrial area.
Another bigger river nearby runs through pipes in several places. It made big news a couple of years back. They were working on the freeway and at one point there was a bridge over the river with the freeway running over it. They wanted to put the river in another place, build a new bridge, build a new freeway etc. In order to do that, the river was kind of in the way. So they put the river in a series of pipes and actually had the river temporarily go over the freeway. I drove under it many times, as the project took a while to complete. It was so bizarre to think about. It didn’t look like much, just a big steel truss with pipes high up over the freeway. The new bridge did turn out very pretty and if you would look at the river now you won’t believe they actually put it into pipes.
I would think the highly populated parts of China would be much the same, with water management being done for a long time. Most people don’t think about how constructed our world really is, even the nature parts. I’m sure there’s plenty of parts with actual nature, but not anywhere there’ve been a lot of people for a long time.
I guess what’s weird is how abashed the government’s response was, like it was some embarrassing secret. In Austin, we had a major project that regulated the flow of a downtown creek by pumping water upstream from the lake and creating a flood bypass tunnel. This was all over the news and was a point of pride when it was completed. Here, the government seems to be acting like they did this in secret to fool people.
I know its a bit cliche, but cultural differences? I’ve heard of “the concept of face” / saving face being a greater factor in how the government goes about things in some East-Asian countries than what us Americans and/or Europeans might think necessary.
First of all, “porn addiction” is not a thing. Clickbait news organizations use it to drive traffic. Religious zealous use the term to demonize those who differ from their own worldview. Licensed medical professionals do not use it.
The quotes in the article are from a 73 year old man complaining that the youth these days are weird, immoral, and lazy. Old people have been documented saying that for hundreds, thousands of years.
It has been continuously been reviewed and rejected by the APA due to lack of scientific evidence supporting it’s existence.
There are people out there with compulsive disorders that can be associated with any activity, including consuming pornography. I will not deny that there are people suffering from such conditions that should be helped. There is no evidence that pornography is itself addictive.
This case is just an old man yelling at a cloud. It’s just like the satanic panic of the 1980’s. It’s just like the false (and somewhat racist) claims against MSG. It’s propaganda masquerading as science. It’s morality masquerading as medicine.
If I’m understanding correctly, it’s not the porn itself that’s addictive. Some people have a personality disorder that results in a compulsion to fixate on something to the point that it interferes with living their lives normally. Their mental illness would have forced them to fixate on something eventually, for some people it just happened to be porn.
Porn is like alcohol. Under moderation, consuming it is usually okay (although not explicitly healthy) but heavy consumption can lead to real problems.
I understand where you’re coming from, but there’s some significant differences between the two.
The biggest being: alcohol is physiologically addictive. If you’re addicted to alcohol and try to stop, you very likely will suffer from a variety of physical symptoms of withdrawal. Alcohol use itself inhibits brain function and cognition that can lead to a downward spiral of bad decisions that is far beyond anything porn can do.
Any amount of alcohol is bad for you, even a small amount. There are some argued health benefits- the argument for reducing stress, for example, but it’s pretty close to scientific consensus that alcohol is not worth the benefits.
Porn on the other hand… It’s controversial and difficult to find great research because of the history of social, political, and religious stigma and the reliance on self-reporting for studies. However, pretty much every claim that it’s bad has been debunked, except in those rare cases involving compulsive disorders. The one solid physiological affect I can find it that it probably lowers blood pressure. There are some possible social affects that are much trickier to study and isolate- empowering women and de-stigmatizing sex.
Except that there is plenty of evidence that alcohol is physically addictive and causes withdrawal symptoms. So, by my logic, alcohol addiction is a thing.
Because it’s not just my logic. I’m leaning on the history of years and years of medical professionals and scientists doing research. And their conclusions are that alcohol addiction is a thing porn addiction is not.
And your source is… Some religious leader? An “alpha male” podcaster peddling supplements? Some conservative politician who is trying to keep women barefoot and pregnant?
Anecdotally, it’s true. Many guys I’ve known have talked about what they’ve done in the bedroom. Everything from “surprise anal” to ignoring obvious struggling during blowjobs.
This is coming from guys who would otherwise never hurt a fly, but become absolute shitheads when their caveman brain takes over.
Whether something is “a thing” depends on what “a thing” is.
If you’re saying it isn’t a mental disorder, you’re correct, depending on the diagnostic manual, like the DSM-5.
However, any addiction can be a clinically significant mental illness if it is impacting a persons ability to function.
If someone is habitually neglecting their health, finances, or social bonds (especially relationships), then porn addiction is definitely “a thing” (mental illness).
Do you not see any problem with allowing the media to make up mental illnesses? What’s next, protesting? Voting for another party? Refusing to worship the right god, the right way?
If someone is habitually neglecting their health that’s already a recognized mental disorder. Ascribing that to the subject of their fixation when there is no evidence that the subject caused that is, at best, irresponsible, and at worst pushing a religious or political agenda.
Oh no I perfectly understand that. In various comments around this article I’ve said that the people with mental illnesses that compel them to overuse anything are valid and should be helped.
But throwing around the word “porn addiction” as the article is doing is irresponsible and misleading.
And it’s possible I missed this, but I haven’t found any evidence that any members of this tribe have been diagnosed by any medical professionals with any sort of mental illness. It’s just a 73 year old complaining about the world around him changing. And even then, none of his actual quotes from the original NY times interview mention pornography addiction- that seems to have been entirely added by the editors of the various new outlets that have picked this story up. They are trying to sensationalize this story and rile up evangelicals.
In the same way Screwfix direct don’t need to know my marital status to sell me tools (which is why they call me captain when I go) I don’t need to know what kind of genitals a baby has to celebrate the beginning of their life.
Seriously! It’s like some people don’t give a damn about torturing animals if it brings them the slightest bit of pleasure. I wonder what it could be about society that would make these people think this kind of behavior is acceptable. In no other sector of civilized society would people have such a complete disregard for the well-being of other sentient beings for a short pleasant experience. Why can’t they be like the rest of the humans and never do anything that would cause suffering to animals out of pure selfishness?
It’s like some people don’t give a damn about torturing animals if it brings them the slightest bit of pleasure gets them a few clicks on social media.
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