from the looking-for-love-in-all-the-wrong-places dept.
Amazon and Microsoft employees caught up in sex trafficking sting
The tech industry has a clear history of sexism and misogyny, but a recent Newsweek report highlights another problem. The publication got its hands on a slew of emails sent to brothels and pimps between 2014 and 2016 that document the industry's patronage of brothels and purchasing of services from trafficked sex workers. Among the emails, which were obtained through a public records request to the King County Prosecutor's Office, were 67 sent from Microsoft employee email accounts, 63 from Amazon accounts and dozens more from companies like Boeing, T-Mobile, Oracle and local Seattle tech firms.
Some of the emails were collected during a 2015 sting operation that targeted sex worker review boards and resulted in the arrest of 18 individuals, including high-level Amazon and Microsoft directors. Two opted for a trial, which is currently set to begin in March.
Seattle's sex industry has grown right alongside its tech industry and the city's authorities have said that some men spend up to $50,000 per year on sex workers. Brothels are even known to advertise how close they are to tech offices. Alex Trouteaud, director of policy and research at the anti-trafficking organization Demand Abolition, told Newsweek that the tech industry is a "culture that has readily embraced trafficking."
Newsweek: Tech Bros Bought Sex Trafficking Victims by Using Amazon and Microsoft Work Emails
Related: "Pimping" Charges Against Backpage Executives Dismissed
Related Stories
Executives for the online classified advertising website Backpage have seen the charges against them dismissed:
Last month, a California judge tentatively ruled that he would dismiss charges lodged by California's attorney general against Backpage.com's chief executive and two of its former owners. The tables seemed to turn after a November 16 hearing in which Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman decided against following his tentative ruling. But on Friday, the judge issued a final order that virtually mirrored the earlier one: charges dismissed.
[...] Judge Bowman agreed with the defendants, including former owners Michael Lacey and James Larkin, that they were protected, among other things, by the Communications Decency Act, and hence they were not liable for third-party ads posted by others.
"Congress struck a balance in favor of free speech in that Congress did not wish to hold liable online publishers for the action of publishing third-party speech and thus provided for both a foreclosure from prosecution and an affirmative defense at trial. Congress has spoken on this matter and it is for Congress, not this Court, to revisit," the judge initially ruled. Judge Bowman issued nearly the same language (PDF) in his latest ruling: "By enacting the CDA, Congress struck a balance in favor of free speech by providing for both a foreclosure from prosecution and an affirmative defense at trial for those who are deemed an internet service provider."
Previously: Backpage's Dallas Offices Raided, CEO Charged With "Pimping"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:37AM (16 children)
I was about to submit this myself before I noticed Fnord beat me to it. Newsweek clickbaited the headline to what I'm sure will be hilarious effect but the story looks solid. Here are some choice bits from the original source:
Don't use your work email to solicit sex. Looks like Microsoft is not going to be of much help to those caught:
But do they actually know the women are trafficked? Maybe so:
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:45AM (2 children)
Some seem's
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:25AM (1 child)
Use your big words, bro.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:59AM
It's wrong because it's illegal. You need to decriminalize the most of the wholesome aspects.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @02:22AM (2 children)
A "brother"? Is that M$ internal terminology, like "Cast Member" for a Disney employee?
Interesting too that many of the high flying rockstar tech bros at M$ and Amazon can't get free nookie.
(Score: 2, Informative) by legont on Wednesday December 27 2017, @02:59AM
Free is almost always more expensive.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:18AM
To get free nookie on a regular basis, you have to invest time and effort and usually money into getting to know potential partners and/or making oneself attractive to those that enjoy casual nookie, and then of course invest time and effort and usually money into getting particularly close to a partner. That time and effort is something that rich and powerful men don't have in abundance, so for them investing just straight up cash for a prostitute is much easier.
Also, part of the attraction of prostitutes for a lot of high-powered men is precisely that it's not free, and thus a transaction in which their partner(s) has no power to refuse them when they request a particular act. So even if they could get free nookie, they choose hookers instead.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:22AM (9 children)
God fucking damn it. I do anti-trafficking work and seeing this makes my blood fucking boil. These are human beings we're talking about here, and THESE overprivileged fucking d00dbr0 sociopaths...they're not just saying they don't care about the exploitation, the horror and fear and pain and suffering, they're saying they get off on it! People who "buy sex" are shit. End of story. Sex trafficking is commercial rape. These fucking johns are doing it because they get off on the power differential.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Entropy on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:37PM
Not every sex worker is trafficked. They just focus on the ones who are because more people think of that as wrong.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:58PM (2 children)
I'm with you. There ought to be a way to teach oafs like this a lesson. Maybe we should bring back the pillory.
There are places where prostitution is legal, such as Nevada or Amsterdam. I've seen stories done on brothels there and the women seem like they choose to do that work. Is that all bullshit? Is it advanced play-acting for the cameras? Are the same criminal dynamics and exploitation at work there too?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Informative) by urza9814 on Wednesday December 27 2017, @05:59PM
Surely there's still some exploitation there, but generally far less. Legalization can do a lot of good. As with any market, if it's illegal, it cannot be regulated. Even laws against murder and assault don't necessarily apply since everyone involved is already a criminal by default. In a city/state where prostitution is legal, you can report and prosecute abusive customers, and any brothels or pimps can be held to local labor laws. You'd still have some who break the law and get away with it, just like you still have people illegally selling stolen goods on the street...but if the market is legal, then it's easier for any victims to get help without fear of being prosecuted themselves.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday December 27 2017, @08:23PM
I've been told one of the major crime families, the Bonnanos IIRC, run most of Vegas' prostitution. There's always going to be an element of criminality here because of how intimate this is; you simply cannot give up your body and control thereof to a perfect stranger without experiencing some kind of soul tarnish. And the "free market" being what it is, and Americans' fucked-up attitudes about sex being what they are, you can bet there are all kinds of perverse incentives and weird, shady arrangements with the law even in Vegas.
A good friend of mine, a now 50-year-old survivor who was trafficked from 12-16 during the Reagan years, told me her "worse dates" (her phrasing, not mine) were cops, professors, clergy, and judges.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:39PM
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday December 30 2017, @01:38AM (3 children)
God fucking damn it. I do anti-trafficking work and seeing this makes my blood fucking boil. These are human beings we're talking about here, and THESE overprivileged fucking d00dbr0 sociopaths...they're not just saying they don't care about the exploitation, the horror and fear and pain and suffering, they're saying they get off on it!
"
100% yes. I won't say it makes my blood boil, but by god it creeps me out - they sound subhuman. (Ironic as what they're saying makes others subhuman to them.) You're at +5 already, if not, and you'd have stopped there I'd be flinging another +1 your way.
" People who "buy sex" are shit. "
Can we agree to disagree on that matter? I think there's a lot wrong with the industry as many instances of it end up, I don't think there's anything *intrinsically wrong* with fully consentual and safe sex work.
Would you like to explain to this person why sex work is intrinsically a bad thing:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1866249/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_16
And for a more real-world story, albeit delivered in a less realistic fashion, the final segment (25+ minutes) of this is another case where sex works is a moral and kind solution to a fairly hard problem:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1935828/?ref_=nm_flmg_wr_7
" Sex trafficking is commercial rape. These fucking johns are doing it because they get off on the power differential. "
Again, 100% agree that it's as bad as groomed rape. I'm tempted to word the second part more as "because they can get away with it", but effectively that's "because they have the power to, and know they'll get away it", which is beginning to converge with yours. (I miss out the "get off" part as I don't know if that's a certainty.)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday December 30 2017, @04:10AM (2 children)
All the women (and the men, this happens to men too!) who suffered from this and survived that I've met told me their johns were getting off on the power differential. I still see this. The latest exhibit was some asshole who fucking posted his location data at some brothel with the status "Finally, someplace where women can't complain about being sexually harassed on the job!"
These are not good people.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday December 30 2017, @07:08PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday December 30 2017, @08:18PM
You aren't wrong, but personally I think it should be limited to things done solo behind a webcam. There's too much danger inherent in close contact like that, and most men are overwhelmingly more powerful physically than most women. This may be a good niche for teledildonic peripherals, interestingly...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 5, Funny) by frojack on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:08AM
Here all this time I thought it was us normal users getting fucked, and having to pay for it too.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:17AM
$50,000 per year on sex workers is immoral. Get a Ferrari, Lambo, whatever. That gives you pussy AND you can have fun driving, too.
Of course some of these guys are responsible for windows 10 so I don't expect good judgment from them.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by anotherblackhat on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:29AM (2 children)
Between 0.1% and 0.2% of Microsoft employees in Seattle used company email to solicit prostitutes.
An unknown percentage of those prostitutes were trafficked.
From these two questionable numbers, the conclusion? the tech industry is a "culture that has readily embraced trafficking."
Actually, those numbers seem remarkably low. Estimates vary, but most studies claim over 10% of men solicit prostitutes.
If Microsoft employees were average, and at least 50% male, I'd expect something closer to 5%, not 0.2%
How does 0.2% compare with, say, the advertising industry? Or the police?
(Score: 5, Funny) by krishnoid on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:49AM
Well, here's an industry-specific data point [theonion.com].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:08PM
This story reminds me of the cobalt mining one and smacks of a PR or journalist hit piece designed to make a splash. Oh, so the Wall Street banker bros and salespeople in any industry out partying on the company dime aren't the ones blowing money on coke and hookers? It's actually the quiet nerdy guys banging out code in their cubicles building platforms for fake news that are to blame?
Give me a fucking break. I would buy that if I didn't know good and well that a geek would go with internet porn and robots over hookers every time, because they are too uncomfortable with women to even pay for sex with them; they'd be mortally afraid the girl would laugh at their equipment or how clumsy they are.
I call bullshit x 10^7.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:33AM (10 children)
It is a non harmful activity by consenting adults.
Like pot, just legalize it, tax it and regulate it.
That solves most of the problems associated with illegal prostitution like human trafficking, women getting robbed who cannot go to police, women who get beaten / being 'pimped', sickness without good healthcare..etc.
if you legalize it, the women pay taxes, have healthcare, are protected like police like any other legitimate business. It also empowers women (and men as well)..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @02:46AM (2 children)
A protected class of illegal immigrants, since otherwise they are looking at getting deported, in some cases back to countries or debts which will just see them shipped off to some other worse country than the US to 'pay back their debt'.
Having said that, prostitution definitely needs to get legalized in the US, we have enough STD dangers as it is right now, and having sex workers as a well regulated industry could do something to help alleviate that as it would offer an outlet for people who otherwise might make questionable decisions because they are sexually frustrated.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday December 27 2017, @06:51AM
But I'm not sure it needs to be legalized in a "free enterprise" mode. Yes, legalize it, but have lots of inspections to ensure that the participants are willing and healthy.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:43PM
We call that "legal immigrants".
(Score: 4, Informative) by Grishnakh on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:29AM (6 children)
It is a non harmful activity by consenting adults.
Because the religious nuts in this country don't believe this, and think it's morally wrong and must therefore be banned.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @04:10AM (5 children)
It's illegal because people don't typically choose to go into prostitution. This whole happy hooker libertarian bullshit needs to die.
Seattle stopped prosecuting prostitutes years ago and focuses all attention on the Johns, pimps and others involved in the exploitation of prostitutes. Situations like this are specifically why prostitution isn't legal and shouldn't be legalized in the future. It's just too much of a problem to identify which prostitutes are choosing to do it and which ones are being coerced.
What's more, there's no good reason for the practice in the first place that wouldn't be solved by women not being such stuck up bitches. If women knew how to treat men with the level of respect they demand, there really wouldn't be the need for prostitutes. Instead, women use withholding sex as a weapon and whine about being raped even though they chose to participate in the process rather than just cases where they actually objected or resisted. Even just freezing would be reasonable to infer as non-consent, but when somebody is actively participating, that is consent.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @04:40AM (3 children)
People don't typically choose to collect trashcans, or clean sewers. Should we make those jobs illegal as well?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @07:34AM (2 children)
Yes, as soon as is practicable. Unfortunately, society can't do without people doing those jobs yet. Bring on the robots.
Until then, those jobs should be more highly paid, so that people might genuinely choose to do them. If someone has the "choice" between doing a specific job for someone else, or starving, then that is akin to slavery. It's not a choice if the only alternative is death.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:38PM
They do. In NYC Dept of Sanitation jobs are highly sought after because of the generous benefits and retirement package.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday December 28 2017, @01:51AM
If someone has the "choice" between doing a specific job for someone else, or starving, then that is akin to slavery. It's not a choice if the only alternative is death.
You can say the exact same thing about MANY jobs out there. Banning the job isn't the answer, the solution is to institute Universal Basic Income so people don't need to do shitty jobs just to stay alive, and then they'd only choose to do shitty jobs if they paid enough to make it worth their while. If this happened, prostitution would shrink a lot most likely, so that only women who really liked it would do it, plus women who just wanted the money; the prices would go up a lot, so it'd basically eliminate most street prostitution, and only the high priced call girl stuff would still be around, which honestly is fine.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:45PM
Just replace "happy" with "generously compensated". Straw man fixed. And if people didn't go into careers that people don't typically choose, then nobody would be working at all.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday December 27 2017, @02:35AM (4 children)
Child Pornography on the Internet [warplife.com]
"We have our own orphanage!" -- Russian kiddieporn site
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:16AM (2 children)
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." This sword cuts both ways. Ultimately, trying to remove CP from the Internet is unfeasible, it will always be there unless we are willing to destroy the Internet by giving absolute control of our digital lives to the powers that be.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:28AM (1 child)
If you're searching for kiddieporn at bing it suggested ten or so alternative keywords for each keyword you search for.
Try searching google for kiddieporn at google it won't offer any suggestions at all.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @06:15AM
I see that Microsoft offers a superior search engine.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by oakgrove on Wednesday December 27 2017, @08:07PM
I ain't clicking on that shit
(Score: 5, Insightful) by unauthorized on Wednesday December 27 2017, @02:55AM (10 children)
Oh get fucked, the tech industry has a long history of baseless assertions of sexism and misogyny.
So it's not specific to the tech industry, is it? If you go to a place where there is a significant minority of a certain group (Microsoft employees) and take a large sample of people, then you will find some of those people in your sample. What you've found is that Microsoft employees are people too (crazy, I know), and some of them make the same kinds of choices other people do.
Yet another piece of religious propaganda by the propaganda wing of the church of feminism (praise be the holy vagina).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:09AM
It's ok to group all people in the tech industry, but not ok to group people by religion, gender, sexual identity/orientation, race. Why do people continue to think that painting broad strokes on any group is bound to get it wrong?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Grishnakh on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:32AM (2 children)
Microsoft employees are people too (crazy, I know)
What? That's total bullshit. The beings that came up with Windows 8/10 cannot be classified as "human". (Or if they are, then that really means that humans are a horrible species that deserves eradication.)
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Wednesday December 27 2017, @04:14AM
Hey, come on. Flatworms can be people too!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @06:56AM
"Or if they are, then that really means that humans are a horrible species that deserves eradication."
We're working on it (global warming, nuclear war, and so on).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by HiThere on Wednesday December 27 2017, @07:00AM (5 children)
Actually, it *is* true that the tech industry has a clear history of sexism and misogyny. Consider who are most of the participants... the guys who couldn't get a date in high school. The ones who were too shy to approach a girl. Those with a tunnel-vision interest in tech that didn't look outside of it except when their body coerced them. Of course those people are going to have a high level of sexism and misogyny. They need something that their lifestyle has denied them, and it's the easiest thing in the world to blame those who hold the desired item, and won't share it with them.
This doesn't excuse acting out their social incompetence in a way that takes advantage of those less powerful, but it sure makes the desire to do so intelligible.
P.S.: This same argument applies to that fraction of the top 1% in income who act ethically. They still get blamed. (I happen to think that it's a small fraction, but I'm biased.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 5, Touché) by unauthorized on Wednesday December 27 2017, @09:18AM (4 children)
Bullshit, introversion is not causative to sexism or misogyny.
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Wednesday December 27 2017, @04:54PM (2 children)
It's not introversion directly (or entirely), but that is one component. The main component is thwarted "desires". (Desire is a bit too weak, but anything else that I can think of is too active.) This doesn't always lead to blaming the focus of desire, but often does. If you doubt this, watch the fans on the losing side of a football game.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Thursday December 28 2017, @10:18AM (1 child)
I'll have to call bullshit on that too. Can you support your claims with any evidence?
Why football specifically? Why not the losing side of a game of Chess or Warhammer or Starcaft? Why not people who die in a tabletop RPGs? This is blatant cherry-picking. In fact, the more a certain activity seems to appeal to introverts and intelligent people, the more measured people tend to deal with loss. Reality seems to contradict your narrative.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday December 28 2017, @05:30PM
Foot ball specifically because there are large numbers of fans, and they tend to make obvious actions. I have observed similar reactions at chess matches. Nationally it was readily observable in Bobby Fischer vs. Borris Spassky. You can also observe it at tennis matches, and anywhere else there are fans and matches.
Please note, these aren't the only places that this "blaming" happens, they're just places where it's easy to observe. When someone wants something and is prevented from getting it there's a strong tendency to blame the party that denied the desire. Or those who supported that party. This is readily observable all over the place if you look.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Thursday December 28 2017, @01:56AM
He's making no such claim, just like he isn't claiming that simply being male is causative to sexism or misogyny. Tech workers aren't the only introverts in the world, you know; introverts comprise (IIRC) roughly 30% of the population. And plenty of introverts have no trouble getting dates, are outgoing enough to approach women, etc. It's not some rare, crippling disease, it's very common and just describes a psychological mindset that a significant fraction of the population has, and which differs from the other rough grouping of the population that prefers more time with social contact.
It's just that tech workers tend to overwhelmingly be introverted, just like they overwhelmingly tend to be male. The group he's describing is a small subset of the intersection of those two groups.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:30AM (6 children)
Substitute "tech industry" with any other industry and that sentence still works. Why is there this weird obsession with sexism in the tech industry as if people are surprise and shocked that it can exist there?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @04:27AM (2 children)
Mainly because it's still majority male and tends to pay well. Accusations like this are the ones that feminists used to chase men out of primary and secondary education.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @09:07AM (1 child)
Let's face it. It's Marxism. Feminism is just another kind of Marxism. Ban the fucking commies. Fuckers that they are.
(Score: 2, Troll) by unauthorized on Wednesday December 27 2017, @09:23AM
No, it's not Marxism. Karl Marx advocated for a society in which all people have equal standing in society. Modern Feminists advocate for a society where one's standing in society is based on morphological traits, in other words a caste system.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @09:03AM (2 children)
It's called Cultural Marxism. Pick on a minority group, even if it's a hopelessly unfixable one, and use it against the majority to disrupt and degrade it. In this case, male dominated tech industry. Put a bunch of girls in it and productivity will plummet. Yeah I know politically incorrect but who cares, truth is what it is.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:51PM
No, it's not, except by illiterates and ignoramuses. "Marxism" is not a catch-all scary word to attach to anything you vaguely dislike. It is a specific and very detailed theory that a very smart guy named Karl Marx spent a lot of time and words to construct. It's a theory with a fatal flaw, but nevertheless throwing it around loosely as you have is like watching a monkey smear his feces all over a computer screen and then cackle about how clever he is.
Why not dial back your loathing vocabulary a couple centuries to a classic better matched to your mean level of derision and call it "cultural devilry?". See? There you get the dissolute menace you want to insinuate without plaguing the rest of us with moronic pretense to educated authority.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday December 28 2017, @02:00AM
In this case, male dominated tech industry. Put a bunch of girls in it and productivity will plummet.
Personally I think that's bullshit, but even if it isn't, what's the problem? What is the tech industry doing these days that's so great anyway? Making a bunch of stupid, useless cellphone apps and web pages with horrible flat UIs? There's still a few small sectors here and there that are doing pretty cool stuff, like SpaceX, but overall it's just a bunch of wasted effort on reinventing the wheel, poorly. UIs, after all, hit their peaks between 2005-2010, and have been going straight downhill ever since.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:34AM (7 children)
The world's oldest profession meets the youngest. Sex has always been a transaction, and tech people might grasp that.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday December 27 2017, @04:01AM (3 children)
If you truly think sex is nothing but a transaction, I pity you immensely. That kind of zero-sum thinking is corrosive to the soul.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @05:30AM
People have always sought out other people for the sole purpose of sex. Recreational sex.
Not exactly the same thing the GP poster said, but there is some truth in what he said, in that FREQUENTLY it is transactional or at least selfish.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by OrugTor on Wednesday December 27 2017, @05:15PM (1 child)
Sex is a biological transaction. In the case of humans it is tainted by sentience. It becomes a control transaction. That is most of what you need to know about sex.
(Score: 2) by http on Wednesday December 27 2017, @07:07PM
I am so very glad my theory of mind is failing me here. Every parse attempt gets uglier before heap overflow.
And while I'm sorry that your existance is miserable, that it is is not my fault. So, no, I'm not paying for your therapy.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Wednesday December 27 2017, @08:13AM (2 children)
I'm pretty sure the early stone age tribes didn't have a concept of transaction. Yet there's overwhelming evidence that they did have sex (indeed, every single human on earth today is evidence for that).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:19PM (1 child)
Even in the stone age, people said to each other: You give me this and I give you that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @10:37PM
Prime example: "He is a good provider."
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @05:53AM
One MS employee was even caught using a Mac.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 28 2017, @07:29AM
Note how vices snuggle up to high-tech and capital cities - DC has a thriving "industry", Wellington NZ is home to the richest whoremasters (ex-China). It all has to do with industrial and political espionage and leverage. The "marks" get entangled and ensnared one way or another. Resistance is futile. Come "relax" with us, let your guard down, maybe talk about that secret program, that wonderful new AI software tech, have another drink, leave me your email...
Note how the US _used_ to have it together and the Manhattan Project was run in strict isolation.