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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   26359 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 8, 2024

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Given the backlash to a lot of these banned mods, for the high crime of "removing diversity", I'm shocked the authors access to AI tools hasn't been attacked. They've been attacked nearly every other which way. Dehosted, de-DNSed, de-banked, etc, etc.

What are you referring to? Which games and which mods?

Baldur's Gate, Hogwarts Legacy, Spiderman Remastered, Starfield

Basically any mod that changes the game to be less gay, less mud brown, less pozzed, gets removed from the largest collection of mods on the internet. All of this is pretty well trod ground, for me at least.

Some controversial mods collected here: https://rentry.org/Non-NewtonianMods

And here: https://moddinghaven.com/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page

It's weird to see those mods all listed together. If I'm reading them right some are nude mods for Hogwarts legacy, and since the characters in that game are generally in highschool, that makes the mods CP. They are listed alongside mods for other games that basically just swap out pride flags. One thing is not like the other.

One thing (removing pride flags) is similar to the other (removing digital representations of clothes) in that they are both 100% harmless. Producing child porn is bad on the basis that in order to produce child porn, you must commit crimes against some child. Characters in video games are not sapient, and nothing done to them can constitute an immoral act or even have a moral dimension.

People's response to CP generally makes significantly more sense if you model it as a disgust reaction to the people who'd consume it rather than any true concern for children's wellbeing. The fact that no children were harmed (EDIT:) in this case doesn't matter nearly as much as the fact that some creep is actually finding some enjoyment in life.

People's response to CP generally makes significantly more sense if you model it as a disgust reaction to the people who'd consume it rather than any true concern for children's wellbeing.

Sure, the response generally makes sense, based on people following their base compulsions rather than actually caring about the ethics. That doesn't justify it, though. Going up to a morbidly obese person and calling them a fatty makes sense if you model it as a disgust reaction to the fat and to the type of person who would let themselves get that fat, but that wouldn't justify such an action.

"[I]f you try to create a libertarian paradise, you will attract three deeply virtuous people with a strong committment to the principle of universal freedom, plus millions of scoundrels."

And to be fair, this is a problem not limited to weirdos with very strong feelings about the skin color of dwarves in Dwarf Fortress. XivModArchive was inspired in part by limitations and restrictions going on at NexusMods, and quickly had to deal with everything from anatomically-correct mounts to the "they're actually adults, they just look li- shotgun".

Is it illegal CP, or at least illegal depictions of imaginary minors? I don't think so, or at least it isn't in all major jurisdictions.

I don't think fully fake CP should be illegal. But it is very distasteful.

Previous discussion here.

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