What's there to get? People, overwhemingly men, pay for adult content from performers, majority women.
It often involves a supposedly personal touch (like chatting with (someone pretending to be) them, or being able to pay for custom content).
Nothing really exceptional in any way other than scale, democratisation (anyone of age can sign up to post content) and the digital transformation. Back in the day people used to buy porn magazines with their niche preferences, and write in letters to share their stories / fantasies and get responses back.
But in this case its not OnlyFans doing the (potential?) fraud, it's the individual performers and potentially their agencies. OnlyFans just provide the platform and turn a blind eye.
> The way I'm used to this sort of thing happening is some company brings in a new proprietary standard, makes bank, then all the competition bands together to form an open standard to try and stop them. There is a bit of a tick-tock feeling as consortiums use more open and accessible standards to slowly lever power away from incumbents.
And that leaves you with two standards (at least), non interoperable between them. In the case of hardware this can be really annoying, constraining and inefficient both for consumers and at large.
How likely is it that that can be avoided if, as in this context, the starting point is the current standard not being that great? It pretty much has to end in 2 different competing standards. Or there can be 2 different flavours of the existing standard which are quite likely to break interoperability and make reusing the name an annoyance rather than a help.
A downside of existing standards is it means it is quite hard to innovate on them.
> Nuclear weapons are a MAD red line that will result in total annihilation of the attacker. They are only useful in a defensive capacity.
Also in a "if I'm going down, everyone else is going down with me", which is Ian's strategy in this war (for good reasons). If the IRGC had nukes, and was severely threatened (like, killing the Supreme Leader and threatening to kill all of the replacements until they bend to the US/Israel will), they might have decided to go out "with style".
Yes, but the whole point of having nukes as a deterrent is that the US wouldn't have arbitrarily killed their leader in the first place. "If i'm going down, everyone else is going down" is the feature, not a bug.
To be clear I don't like the idea of MAD one bit. But this is indeed how it's meant to work.
> No data falling into wrong hands, no left behind rootkits, no ransome threats etc
You won't necessarily be able to know that the data hasn't already been exfiltrated and that the backups aren't post-compromise. Or that by restoring the backup you won't get back to the state that allowed them to get in in the first place.
> But already unable to defend itself from Russia, EU countries
I'm sorry, but this is just crazy talk. Russia cannot enforce its will on Ukraine, one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in Europe, with a (at time of invasion) relatively small and underequipped army. Yes it has grown through conscription, has been equipped by foreign and domestic supplies, has made some brilliant advances in tech and tactics... but when it was attacked, it was weak. And Russia lost its best troops and equipment failing to defat that.
Why would anyone think that the Russia that cannot defeat Ukraine would fare better against Poland? Let alone French warning strike nukes, or French, British, German troops and planes and what not.
It’s funny how you basically explain precisely why the war in Ukraine has gone on so long but refuse to recognize it.
As Russia’s economy has continually reshaped over the last 4 years there has been increasingly a domestic demand for war. You point out all the evidence yourself:
> Yes it has grown through conscription, has been equipped by foreign and domestic supplies, has made some brilliant advances in tech and tactics...
Russia (well its oligarchs and rulers) has increasingly benefited from perpetual war. Yes, soon it will need to switch positions to expansion to maintain its economy, but this situation in Iran presents a perfect opportunity if things play it Russia’s interests.
You also will find that if you paid any attention to European politics over the years this is a serious topic to all leaders there.
But I don’t mind if you’re not convinced, I had similar people on hacker news unconvinced Russia could sustain operations in Russia longer than a few months because they were doing so poorly… 4 years ago.
> Russia (well its oligarchs and rulers) has increasingly benefited from perpetual war
No it has not. It has a ballooning debt crisis (at different levels - regions, military contractors, banks) which will pop at some point; the budget is so unbalanced they're projecting to reduce military spending (unlikely), increase taxes, and still have a pretty heavy deficit. They've been given the gift of the Strait of Hormuz being closed, so oil and gas revenues will grow, which will definitely buy them more time. But they are running against a clock, and they cannot win in Ukraine.
> You also will find that if you paid any attention to European politics over the years this is a serious topic to all leaders there.
Yes, because Russia only responds to strength, so you need to be strong militarily to be able to dissuade them from attacking you. That doesn't mean that realistically they have a chance of winning any conflict.
> Europe in general has been tightening up their rules / taxes / laws around startups / companies especially tech and remote.
Like? Care to provide any specific examples? "Europe" is a continent composed of various countries, most of which have been doing a lot to make it easier for startups and companies in general.
I'm still just so surprised any time I encounter people who think AI will be overall good for humanity
I pretty strongly think it will only benefit the rich and powerful while further oppressing and devaluing everyone else. I tend to think this is an obvious outcome and it would be obviously very bad (for most of us)
So I wonder if you just think you will be one of the few who benefit at the expense of others, or do you truly believe AI will benefit all of humanity?
> So I wonder if you just think you will be one of the few who benefit at the expense of others
It's not a zero sum game, IMO. It will benefit some, be neutral for others, negative for others.
For instance, improved productivity could be good (and doesn't have to result in layoffs, Jevon's paradox will come into play, IMO, with increased demand). Easier/better/faster scientific research could be good too. Not everyone would benefit from those, but not everyone has to for it to be generally good.
Autonomous AI-powered drone swarms could be bad, or could result in a Mutually Assured Destruction stalemate.
> improved productivity could be good (and doesn't have to result in layoffs
It already has resulted in layoffs and one of the weakest job markets we've seen in ages
Executives could not have used it as an excuse for layoffs faster, they practically tripped over themselves trying to use it as an excuse to lay people off
No, a zero sum game would require for the "winners" to take it from the "losers", and there is a limited amount to go around. If there is a majority of "winners" by expanding, some neutral, some negative, that is not a zero sum game.
It often involves a supposedly personal touch (like chatting with (someone pretending to be) them, or being able to pay for custom content).
Nothing really exceptional in any way other than scale, democratisation (anyone of age can sign up to post content) and the digital transformation. Back in the day people used to buy porn magazines with their niche preferences, and write in letters to share their stories / fantasies and get responses back.
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