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PaperclipPerfector  17hr ago (text post)   814 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 20, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Oof. That's a mess.

While it (and even the publicity) might not completely kill this guy's career, it definitely chops a lot of potential off it. There's some civilian uses for the sorta skills the software parts of that career field do, and some cybersecurity shops won't really care, but quite a lot of them either depend on background checks or lower levels of clearance that are gonna red flag this. Even if he didn't plan on staying in the DoD, having a security clearance before leaving can be worth a lot of salary.

(LinkedIn points to a higher education nonprofit, which... works, I guess, though depending on exactly where it falls in 'higher ed' would raise different concerns if he really were a threat. Dunno if it's more or less of a Google Problem than having your real name tied to the other sort of 1000-year-old dragon.)

And while not the most central case of where these definitions break down, and squicks me a bit (especially "intent to continue doing so" as he stops being a teenager, though not being able to read the complaint leaves me some concern for how accurately that's being repeated), it's still the sort of thing that also gets played at Cannes or put into a school library when there's a sufficient bow slapped on top. Law is filled with these sorta graduations, but if you wanted a similar level of 'officially banned, unofficially tolerated or sometimes feted' the first place to come to mind would be marijuana legalization, which... hasn't worked out great.

It's not clear whether it's illegal in the strict formalist sense. Ashcroft v Free Speech is usually what people point to as suggesting that obviously fictional works can't be generally prohibited, but that opinion allowed such speech to be restricted under the rules around obscenity, and Congress did do that. While that definition is vague (imo badly so) and counterproductive (imo badly so), modern technical advances have made Rehnquist's dissent much more persuasive at the same time that SCOTUS's makeup is more skeptical of the ACLU takes. From a legal realist perspective? It's a clusterfuck to determine if any one piece has 'redeeming value' (though a majority of furry porn is straight-up porn that would directly fail by honest tests, and others by close-enough checks), whether it offends community sensibilities, whether the ways it does offend community sensibilities are actually the sort the courts unofficially overlook because it's a proxy for 'animus', what the age of characters even are (is this goat the probably-older-than-universe-but-woefully-immature Asriel from Undertale, the unknown-aged-but-probably-late-high-schoolish Ralsei from Deltarune, an aged-down version of either, an aged up version of either, or an Original Character Donut Steel?), yada yada. Prosecutors generally don't want to deal with it, but they have on rare occasions with especially clear cases.

On the other hand, this isn't criminal prosecution: especially this level of higher-tier security clearance. There's a reason you can tell who's been through that level of interview from those who've just heard about it by the extent they flinch at certain questions. For all the official guidelines are about really overt behavior showing sympathy to foreign governments, illegal behaviors, or blackmailable targets, the practical guidelines are looking for broader understandings of strong impulse control and good judgement, pretty vaguely defined. If playing War Thunder is an unacceptable security risk -- and I think it's pretty persuasive that it is -- it's not like this is that unreasonable.

On the gripping hand, the extent the underlying laws and definitions are a mess and largely unconfrontable is gonna keep making the paradoxes more present, both here and in cases with more serious consequences. I get that critics of the law are (understandably!) looking for cases with perfectly sympathetic defendants and especially clear legal processes, both for normal legal tactics and because a decent number of the 'it's ephibophilia' people end up taking off the mask, but in practice there's been thirty years of establishing a pretty harsh new social norm.

((On the other gripping hand, it's quite possible we'll seriously confront those central cases where the definitions completely break down and decide that's because we do need to crank up enforcement of stricter social and legal norms. Totally fictional porn by people who are just working through their own missed opportunities in their youth still have the Kabier problem, and there's a lot more evidence in favor of even sometimes-above-age-of-consent sexualization being either risky or prone to abuse.))

It's not clear whether it's illegal in the strict formalist sense.

It probably isn't, but as you observed, you can be denied a security clearance for behavior that is not illegal. For example, smoking weed in a state where it's legal (granted, that is still federally illegal), or having too many foreign contacts, or having financial problems or a gambling habit.

It used to be, of course, that homosexuality was grounds for denying a security clearance. The reasoning was that it "made you vulnerable to extortion," but even an out and proud homosexual would be judged unsuitable. Homosexuality is now a protected class, but being a furry hentai aficionado is not (yet).

So yeah, looking at underage hentai, even if they are 1000-year-old vampires, is probably legal but still likely gonna get you flagged as "deviant with lack of impulse control and judgement" by a background investigator. (I too have questions about "intent to continue doing so" - who actually tells the humorless polygrapher who's about to torpedo your career, "Yes, I totally intend to keep doing this"? But then I have watched a lot of police bodycam and predcatcher YouTube, and the things people will admit to on camera is amazing, so...)

I think some or all of the underage content would be covered and illegal under federal obscenity law, if in the same marijuana sense. There probably is a Stanley v. Georgia right to receive non-obscene furry porn, though I wouldn't want to wager that much on any one piece as passing that test and I wouldn't be absolutely confident in Stanley surviving modern review.

I too have questions about "intent to continue doing so" - who actually tells the humorless polygrapher who's about to torpedo your career, "Yes, I totally intend to keep doing this"?

I tracked down the full complaint and security background paperwork (attachment 2, relevant page 147) on the FOIA project. 'Intent to continue' seems attached only to the supercategory of 'these types of images', even by the government's telling. Especially if Bierly didn't realize how deep shit he was in, not completely disavowing future consumption of above-age furry porn and/or insufficiently distinguishing between it is... plausible. And it's kinda clearance investigator's jobs to not let people they're investigat_ing_ realize the shit is neck-high.

((Hell, there are some internal parts of how tags/blacklisting worked at e621 at the time where that might have augmented that confusion even had Bierly been very aggressive about blocking underage content, though I expect no one wants to hear about those details.))

But short of his account getting linked to his real name, and maybe not even then, we're probably never gonna know with more certainty than just what he wants us to think the story is.

On the other hand, this isn't criminal prosecution: especially this level of higher-tier security clearance. There's a reason you can tell who's been through that level of interview from those who've just heard about it by the extent they flinch at certain questions. For all the official guidelines are about really overt behavior showing sympathy to foreign governments, illegal behaviors, or blackmailable targets, the practical guidelines are looking for broader understandings of strong impulse control and good judgement, pretty vaguely defined. If playing War Thunder is an unacceptable security risk -- and I think it's pretty persuasive that it is -- it's not like this is that unreasonable.

It does seem like the space between "can't get security clearance" and "criminal prosecution" should be fairly large.

Yeah, and it's not necessarily a completely overlapping set of circles -- there's a lot more security clearance red flags in totally-legal levels of financial mismanagement than in getting in an ill-advised fistfight. A clearance isn't an official designation that you're a good person, or even a completely trustworthy one, so much as trying to hedge off certain security risks. As I said, I'm not sure the clearance determination here is wrong.

But the heuristics are wonky, here. I'm sure mine aren't representative, but it's hard to name ones that are compatible with what we do.

Really, I'm not entirely sure why this is an issue. Security clearance depends on a low blackmail attack surface, so as Puritanism [about what books one reads, in this case] in the population increases or becomes more powerful as a social force, things that wouldn't be an issue in more liberal times start to become viable blackmail avenues.

And yes, that means society is leaving talent on the ground; on the other hand, defending people who hate you is stupid and if their fake moral standards get them killed because of it, then so be it. Maybe the survivors will smarten up.

Every time I see furry artists cancelling each other because one of them drew a guy fucking a cartoon dog that was only 17 years old in one of the Nickelodeon spin-offs, I become even more grateful that foxy Maid Marien didn't groom me as a toddler.

Wouldn't even have such a problem with furries if they'd stick to their own communities and leave the rest of us to play Blue Archive in peace. But the number of furry communist they/thems who do nothing but witch-hunt for artists who drew, said, or thought something "problematic" makes the entire community too toxic to coexist with. I can't imagine how awful it is to actually be a part of it.

It'd be funny if it were just the they/them Marx fandom furries -- hell, it wouldn't even be the most defamatory thing from DogPatch Press, somehow. But I think that the problems the furry fandom fight with are just particularly prominent, because the most arguable border cases and the central version of the prohibited content are visible without the FBI getting involved or having to read three hundred pages of crappy Harry Potter AU fanfic for context, and the resulting internal discourse has given some of the witchiest and witch-hunterist people a lot of ammo to work with.

There's been similar problems throughout the various writing spheres, Archive Of Our Own gets regular attacks over it, it's one of the main Tumblr Discourse platter options. And the New Right has its own versions. I think there's a broader matter where it's become the new room temperature.

I mean, SomethingAwful was the original furry community. That should tell you all you need to know about how things were going to play out.

The fact that 4chan splintered from SA because of loli is similarly informative about the politics of its people, for good and ill.

Furries are hypermasculine superstimulus, loli (and shota) are hyperfeminine superstimulus, neither one wants to admit the obvious implications (though zoophilia is the lesser of those), and the narcissism of small differences does the rest.

(Actually, I wonder if that means diaperfurs/cub fans are more likely to be bisexual? Furries are generally gay and lolicons are generally straight, so maybe furry lolicons are more likely to be a mix compared to the average.)

Furries heavvvvily predate SomethingAwful: for adult content focuses VCL dates back to something like 1995, PureYiff and YiffStar to 2002. For SFW content, Werewolf(.)com was not solely furry but had more furry and therian content than SA, was on its second or third software iteration by the time 4chan launched; WereWeb had been launched, had its height, and died before 4chan launched. And that's ignoring IRC or UseNet communities.

The entire original Burned Furs mess happened before 4Chan existed, and started before SomethingAwful was founded. (Thankfully.)

Furries are hypermasculine superstimulus, loli (and shota) are hyperfeminine superstimulus, neither one wants to admit the obvious implications (though zoophilia is the lesser of those)

Sorry but I'm lost. Do you mind elaborating? What's a (hyper-masculine/-feminine) superstimulus, how is furry masculine, how is dubious anime porn feminine?

I assume the obvious implications you imply are that furries probably wanna fuck animals and hentai people probably wanna fuck children.

how is furry masculine, how is dubious anime porn feminine?

Look at the faces.

Furry [well, unless it's actively trying to avoid this... and ends up looking like a girl/boy in a onesie] is typically so far divorced from facial neoteny it might as well be bara. Anime characters, by contrast, tend to have round faces and large eyes- emphasis is on soft/round/cute/happy, not hard/angular/ugly/angry.

(Western animation tends to have a mix of both- the largest exception to that was, of course, My Little Pony (specifically Gen 4), and now you know why 4chan liked it so much.)

Mind you, this is just the broad strokes of it- it's a lot more detailed (and honestly, a lot more normal) than I make it out to be- but these are the broad strokes as they relate to the people who are most taken by that stimulus.

I'm still having laughing fits from his post, so sorry if there's typos in this.

I think what he's getting at is that all furry porn is literally gay bathhouse sex orgies, with slightly more literal bears. It's hyper-male-sexuality in the sense of bro-y casual sex where the guys drink beer and lose their keys fisting each other.
If characters are sexual they are grotesquely so, with comically large sex organs and insatiable appetites (often literal ones, because eating each other is sexualized too). Non-sexual characters literally don't exist somehow, because the scenes bounce from frat party to shower room to bdsm club. Even the straight porn is gay male hyper-stimulus. All the furry transsexuals you see dress as bimbos and get enormous fake breasts because their fetish is at its core a hyper-male sexual fixation.

And on the your hand your typical loli book has an awkward girl who looks like a potato thinking about her feelings for 30 pages (or 60 chapters if it gets serialized). She is possibly caught in a love triangle between her kindly vampire English tutor and a dark and handsome werewolf delinquent who rescued her from bullies on his motorbike. One or both of these relationships may be socially forbidden, heightening the emotional tension. When they finally have sex there will be flowers in the screentone background.
The story would become a best-seller on Amazon's ero-fiction self-publishing charts before being banned.

The way he said it is guaranteed to upset both sides (which is why it's so hilarious), but the basic truth behind it is undeniable.

The way he said it is guaranteed to upset both sides (which is why it's so hilarious), but the basic truth behind it is undeniable.

Huh? Why is it guaranteed to upset both sides? It seems obviously directionally correct to me (I'd nitpick that femininity is more prominent than masculinity rather than being hyper-feminine, which implies the near absence of masculinity to me) from the lolicon side and I have pointed to research supporting much the same conclusion in the past:

Recall Kinsella's suggestion that lolicon be understood as men performing the shōjo to come to terms with an unstable gender identity (Kinsella 2006: 81-83). If being a man ceases to promise power, potency and pleasure, it is no longer the privileged subject position. Akagi explains that lolicon is a form of self-expression for those oppressed by the principles of masculine competitive society (Akagi 1993: 232).32 Lolicon is a rejection of the need to establish oneself as masculine and an identification with the "kindness and love" of the shōjo (Akagi 1993: 233). This interpretation reverses the standard understanding of lolicon as an expression of masculinity to one of femininity. This is, of course, not the only way to approach the wide range of lolicon images, but it certainly highlights the complexity of "pornographic content" and its uses.

What's there to be upset over?

for those oppressed by the principles of masculine competitive society

Fucking academics. Saying "men who are getting off using the mental/sexual pathways that [normal] women use to get off with, by projecting themselves onto the self-insert female character just like everyone who read 50 Shades does, maybe because a thing or combination of things in their brains makes that the more attractive option" doesn't need to be this hard.

But then again I'm also of the opinion that the real reason we don't have an accurate taxonomy of sexual behaviors is that we don't have the language to express them, they're all defined by their [statistical] normal distribution anyway, and then people just take language not meant for them and wield it as a weapon so maybe it's pointless anyway.

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