The argument from cinema is flaky and a moral critique of Hollywood's influence is unavoidable. But we're talking about porn here, not cinema. This is decadence and depravity. How can you confuse cinema with the construction of an international whoredom? The numbers are also incommensurate.

And TikTok is the antithesis of culture. It's consumerist rubbish that encourages a vapid, thoughtless, and illiterate consumption of shallow material. The article even mentions the monetary motivations of those posting. Any gimmick will do just to make a buck.

Let us not relativize culture. If you relativize it, then your argument falls apart anyway. Authentic culture serves human beings. It involves learning from, developing, deepening, refining, and correcting what came before. Trash content doesn't do this. It is cultural poison. It ruins people's minds and wrecks society.

This use of O-1 visas is merely another sign of the downward trajectory of our polity. We are following Plato's description of social decline perfectly. Perhaps aesthetically, it is fitting that Trump is the poster boy of this abuse of O-1 visas, but he is at best an emanation and a catalyst of broader and deeper social and cultural processes. In the absence of a minimum of sound moral authority, you can expect the poison that lurks in the mud to hatch out and begin to dominate the polis.

>And TikTok is the antithesis of culture. It's consumerist rubbish that encourages a vapid, thoughtless, and illiterate consumption of shallow material. The article even mentions the monetary motivations of those posting. Any gimmick will do just to make a buck.

My brother, you've just described modern American culture perfectly.

What's the difference between Hollywood popcorn films and corn?

> Let us not relativize culture. If you relativize it, then your argument falls apart anyway. Authentic culture serves human beings. It involves learning from, developing, deepening, refining, and correcting what came before. Trash content doesn't do this. It is cultural poison. It ruins people's minds and wrecks society.

The walls of Pompeii beg to differ.

https://pompeiiarchaeologicalpark.com/social-norms-and-eroti...

https://mariasorensen.substack.com/p/the-forbidden-erotic-ar...

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/archaeology/a627393...

I am sure there would have been people at the time decrying the creation of pigments and paints as the fall of civilization due to "decadence and depravity." Didn't matter much, did it?

> We are following Plato's description of social decline perfectly

Plato was a wrestler. Plato would like totally be a gym bro, bro.

It has been a while since I've read Republic, but I remember Book 8 differently. To quote the IEP,

   Tyranny arises out of democracy when the desire for freedom to do what one wants becomes extreme (562b-c).  The freedom or license aimed at in the democracy becomes so extreme that any limitations on anyone’s freedom seem unfair.  Socrates points out that when freedom is taken to such an extreme it produces its opposite, slavery (563e-564a).  The tyrant comes about by presenting himself as a champion of the people against the class of the few people who are wealthy (565d-566a).  The tyrant is forced to commit a number of acts to gain and retain power: accuse people falsely, attack his kinsmen, bring people to trial under false pretenses, kill many people, exile many people, and purport to cancel the debts of the poor to gain their support (565e-566a).  The tyrant eliminates the rich, brave, and wise people in the city since he perceives them as threats to his power (567c).  Socrates indicates that the tyrant faces the dilemma to either live with worthless people or with good people who may eventually depose him and chooses to live with worthless people (567d).  The tyrant ends up using mercenaries as his guards since he cannot trust any of the citizens (567d-e).  The tyrant also needs a very large army and will spend the city’s money (568d-e), and will not hesitate to kill members of his own family if they resist his ways (569b-c).