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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9715510" data-attributes="member: 18">I don't know what article you're talking about - maybe someone I have on ignore mentioned it? Is it one by Nick Kristof? He's written some stuff which was quite good on real (i.e. actual people) exploitative material in 2021 and thereabouts, but I'm not aware of him writing about pure fiction, and any unsupported attempt to equate the two is, clearly, to my mind, bad faith.As for a better or worse world? I'd say it's a straightforward step on a path to a worse world. One where purity of thought as determined by religious extremists and aging "liberals" who have extremely puritan viewpoints is held above all else. The same sort of people who think it's fine to harm sex workers so long as you hurt sex work. New York City's 55-y/o+ intelligentsia is full of such people (seems to be quite specific to that city). I don't think it's particularly complicated.Re: ESG pressure, the trouble is, that's not actual ESG pressure. That billionaire pressure. You're confusing the two, or the article is.That article acts like Ackman is a well-meaning and helpful guy out to save people, but that's frankly, that's deeply disingenuous. That's like thinking, in D&D terms, that because a demon kills a devil, the demon is a good guy, the demon is to be praised, the demon is helpful. Ackman is a total power-crazed idiot who constantly throws his weight around, and 95% of the time it's for evil. That article covers the one time he ever did anything good. But the billionaire is a demon, not a saint. Just look at how much he's been behind the persecution of college students opposed to the genocide in Gaza. He's been a huge, vocal and very public supporter of completely extra-legal action, even outright violence against them, and has supported vigilante organisations and so on. Or equally all the insane threats he made at people who outed his<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/jan/11/bill-ackman-wife-plagiarism" target="_blank"> plagiarist wife </a>as a plagiarist! He's written articles about "racism against white people" (and he specifically means very rich white people lol), for god's sake. This is the guy who is a positive actor?He's absolutely the exactly same kind of person as the Aussie nutjobs, just he's worth $9.5bn. And you're praising him because his broken clock was right once? Kind of seems that way but I suspect you actually have no idea who he even is, and just blindly Googled the article without understanding the context of it. At least I hope so.Also, again we're talking about real explotiative and in many cases already outright illegal material (that laws just weren't being enforced on) in that article, whereas what's was done here was that fully legal fictional material is being removed. If you equate the two without a very detailed and well-supported argument, I'd have to say that's obviously spurious.What are you talking about? Loads of people are saying it was a bad choice. Literally don't know what you're talking about. Also you seem to be misusing the phrase "biting the bullet" repeatedly, because it makes no sense here or when you use it later, at least not to me (traditionally it means biting down to endure pain being inflicted on you, like by someone sewing up a wound, but you appear to think it means "engaging with an argument" or "making an argument that..."?).I don't really care how an extremely wealthy, utterly self-delusional (c.f. his campaign to be Governor of Oregon, a place he's never lived in) and pretty smug aging New York journo who is long past his prime and has been on the very wrong side of several issues over the last few decades feels. Should I? Can you explain why? He's not all the way to "Aussie nutjob" but equally I don't think he really understands the situation or has considered the consequences. He's a man with specific concerns and otherwise a very narrow view of the world. The only nice thing I can say about Kristof is that he genuinely seems to care about Africa and is genuinely upset by deaths there (and still does good reporting on Africa, has done for decades), unlike a lot of people, and that he was good on reporting about bad stuff Pornhub etc. were doing in 2021. Apart from that? Not a good guy, says and thinks a lot of, to my mind, very stupid things. Particularly short-sighted things.I mean, you're pushing Nick Kristof (I think) as a moral standard, but this is the guy who sweatshops are a good thing (multiple articles on it!)[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/06/opinion/in-praise-of-the-maligned-sweatshop.html[/URL][URL unfurl="true"]https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/opinion/15kristof.html[/URL]One counterpoint - there are many: <a href="https://fair.org/home/kristofs-moralistic-journalism-was-often-full-of-holes/" target="_blank">Kristof’s Moralistic Journalism Was Often Full of Holes</a>The man is a simple-minded moralist (which I can vibe with when they're right, but often they aren't, that's the problem) and it's ironic that you say you're allergic to "simple solutions to complex problems" and then praise him and seem to hold him up as a moral standard, frankly. He's a semi-broken clock that is somehow right a few times a day (rather than just once, like Ackman), and most of the times he's right it's about suffering in Africa.</blockquote>

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