  > Banning porn is not going to do a whole lot. Pornography is illegal in South Korea

Yet, there's a lot of porn there too. A whole lot of voyeur porn too. As well as prostitution, which is also illegal.

Making something legal or illegal is just signaling. The real part is how it actually is implemented in practice. And as you imply, things are pretty complex. We really need to be careful about our own tendencies to want things to be simple. It always backfires...

▲ simplify 7 days ago | parent [-]

Not being 100% effective isn't backfiring. No law is ever absolutely effective. But making something illegal objectively makes it more difficult to obtain, and is certainly effective at reducing access, even if it's not 100%.

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vunderba 7 days ago | parent | next [-]

In many cases, bans can have unintended side effects which might make the means of acquiring/distributing/producing "banned X" far worse (aka the cure is worse than the disease).

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bobthepanda 7 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

At least in the case of South Korea, all porn is treated equally illegally, so the country has a really high incidence of secret cameras peeping in places like women’s bathrooms, because that’s just as illegal as a scripted porn film.

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godelski 7 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You're the only one who asserted a percentage. So allow me to clarify, when I wrote that comment I had no belief that a law need be 100% effective for it to be a useful law. I also believe there's a lot of room between 100% effective and "backfiring". I don't believe this is a binary situation but there's a spectrum (that isn't one dimensional)

I hope with this added context that my previous comment will make much more sense and you can interpret it closer to what I intended.

I'll just add, I don't think most people work in those absolutes. So I'd be wary of jumping to the extreme interpretation. People might interpret you as being disingenuous and using the logical fallacy "logical extreme" or "reductio ad absurdum". But I'm pretty sure you're not doing that because then I'd be grossly misinterpreting you, right?

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simplify 6 days ago | parent [-]

I misread your "It always backfires" comment as making something illegal always backfires, rather than the desire to make things simple always backfires (note that "always" implies 100%). So now I see all you're saying is "be careful", which is fine.

	▲	godelski 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		This is just how people speak. Sometimes qualifiers are critical, sometimes they are a bit of exaggeration. But always doesn't mean always because only a sith deals in absolutes.