Re: META: Keep the subject lines clean, please!

From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Wed Oct 11 2000 - 09:22:47 MDT


Samantha Atkins wrote:
>
> "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" wrote:
> >
> > NC-17 text in the message bodies, sure - be it far from me to deny any legal
> > minor the right to surreptitiously read racy subject matter online - but let's
> > not shock Mom whenever she happens to lean over the computer.
>
> Barf. "Gay" and "Sex" are not ok? Don't you think that is going just a
> little too far? Johnny can read about the SI that might just eat the
> world but not read that some people are gay or bisexual? Interesting.

Johnny can read playboy.com for all I care. In fact, my guess is that the
reading of online pornography by minors is a positive force in society.
Certainly, minors reading Extropians are a positive force in society.
Therefore, I'm saying we should help Johnny keep his secrets.

Olga Bourlin wrote:
>
> The problem is being sex-negative. The solution is to drag oneself out of
> the mawkish Victorian era. This is, after all, an "extropians" list,
> n'est-ce pas?

Yes, that's *why* online pornography is a positive social force.

QueeneMUSE@aol.com wrote:
>
> Oh OK, well, there's Christians in my family, and I am reading the list, is
> it reasonable to ask dont put athiest in subject line??

No.

I remember being a bit nervous about that, since my family was Orthodox Jewish
(and I wasn't, AND they didn't know) - but that's the sort of thing that can
probably be explained. You can probably get away with saying: "I'm not
reading that part," or "I disagree with them about that part," even if it's an
outright lie. I haven't seen any newspaper articles warning parents about
their children coming into contact with online atheism.

You're a bit out of touch with Mom Logic, aren't you?

But that's not the real reason - keeping "atheism" out of the subject lines
would be a major and unusual inconvenience and it really would border on
Family Correctness, like trying to keep message bodies clean. Keeping the
subject lines PG-13 is just ordinary netiquette, if you ask me.

> And also: a MAJor faux pas HERE: there's nothing pornographic about Gayness.
> Or having sex to stay young.

Of course there isn't.

> If we put something like "Teen Fuck Blowjobs" - sure, OK, I'd agree -
> otherwise, if you are grown up enough to handle the topics here you can also
> be a grown up
> and deal with it in the subject line

Of course you can...

> - and be honest with your parents if
> they are looking over your shoulder

...but *this* idea - Nadia, what planet did you grow up on?

-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:50:16 MDT