Moral Panics

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Re: Moral Panics

Postby a2z » Mon Apr 24, 2017 8:47 pm

UK Crime Agency's Latest Moral Panic: Kids Modding Videogames May Be A Gateway To Becoming Criminal Hackers
I always considered modding video games to be just a normal step in the progression towards becoming aware of the importance of programming skills, but I guess the witless wonders in charge of law enforcement in the UK see things differently!
PARANOID FANTASY:
This world can seem very seductive. Where you can make "friends" quickly and easily and you are praised for your skills, rather than being criticised for being a "nerd". But it is also a place where the vulnerable or naive can become criminals without quite realising what they are doing. The bad news is that suspects are getting younger. Seventeen is the average age, according to the National Cyber Crime Unit, but some are as young as 12.

REALITY:
Of course, all of this ignores that the vast majority of people who mod games or use cheat codes don't go on to become criminal hackers.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170421/13435537210/uk-crime-agencys-latest-moral-panic-kids-modding-videogames-may-be-gateway-to-becoming-criminal-hackers.shtml
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Re: Moral Panics

Postby a2z » Tue May 09, 2017 8:13 pm

How Moral Panics Can Turn Into Therapeutic Tools: The Dungeons And Dragons Edition
After the initial shock wears off, sometimes people come to their senses!
This game, once thought by parents to create potential Satan worshipers out of their little darling children, has already been pushed as a fantastic starting point for would-be creative writers. More recently, however, therapists have begun using the game as a therapeutic tool in sessions with patients.

LINK:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170502/10104037288/how-moral-panics-can-turn-into-therapeutic-tools-dungeons-dragons-edition.shtml
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Re: Moral Panics

Postby cactuspete » Fri Jun 16, 2017 7:16 am

Freaking out over tiny risks: A case study from a moral panic
People just never seem to learn. Skepticism is the best approach to take, especially if a news story is sensational or outlandish or has anything to do with sex. When it comes to sex, people's imaginations go wild, but the reality is actually quite boring.
We are naturally drawn to narratives that inspire panic. This is a phenomenon in American culture that goes back at least as far as the “white slavery epidemic” of the early 1900s. It resurfaced in the 1980s, as we became increasingly paranoid about satanic cults embedded in daycares selecting children for ritualistic abuse (no evidence of such a phenomenon ever materialized). Today, the term “sex trafficking” has made its way into our common discourse as if it were an identifiable phenomenon.

LINK: http://www.learnliberty.org/blog/freaking-out-over-tiny-risks-a-case-study-from-a-moral-panic/
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Re: Moral Panics

Postby ergot » Fri Aug 11, 2017 3:32 pm

The real reason El Salvador jails women for stillbirths? It's called 'moral panic'
Society often reacts to perceived, imaginary threats and sometimes over-reacts to overly-hyped threats. Often these reactions are way out of proportion to the reality of the situation and as such would seem maladaptive, but humans often make profound errors in judgement, sometimes on a grand scale.
According to Cohen’s theory, the media plays a crucial role in whipping up moral panic. In El Salvador, mainstream media outlets went into overdrive to foment the frenzy over abortion, calling on the state to do more to capture homicidal mothers and using the words “abortion” and “homicide” interchangeably. One newspaper article reported that “the number of newborns being thrown into latrines, trash receptacles, or vacant lots by their own mothers is alarming.”

ARTICLE: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-viterna-el-salvador-abortion-crime-moral-panic-20170730-story.html
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Re: Moral Panics

Postby shadylady » Sat Sep 30, 2017 6:35 am

Officials: Teacher May Have Given Flutes Tainted With Bodily Fluids To OC Schools
So far this sounds more like a moral panic than a legitimate complaint. Southern California is notorious for having law enforcement who over-react to stories that are little more than fantasies. Ever since the McMartin case back in the 1980s there has been a constant string of cases like this. Many have been falsely convicted based on false accusations of this kind.
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Re: Moral Panics

Postby cactuspete » Sat Sep 30, 2017 10:48 am

Flutes Across the World
So, first of all this guy was a private contractor and not an actual teacher. Secondly, he literally helped people make thousands of flutes and so although he could have somehow coated the PVC pipe used to make the flutes with his bodily fluids, it seems a little farfetched to imagine that he had an adequate supply of such fluids to be able to cover anything more than a small percentage of the PVC pipe. The most interesting question here is how was this bodily fluid discovered and how did they decide that he was the donor, so to speak. Certainly a DNA test could determine the origin of the bodily fluid, but then there's the question of how one or more of the flutes wound up with some of it on them. Good call posting this to the MORAL PANICS thread since that's what this looks like so far.

Here's the founder of Flutes Across the World. His name is John Zeretzke and there are dozens of videos featuring him posted to YouTube.
VID: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4XIk3W-XLk
VID: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKqI1bSdQFo
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Re: Moral Panics

Postby wildrose » Sat Sep 30, 2017 1:55 pm

BODY FLUIDS IN HOODOO: MENSTRUAL BLOOD,SEMEN, and URINE
I'm not suggesting this flute guy is guilty of anything, but one explanation for why someone might try to get someone else to ingest their semen is magic. I recalled something from a college anthropology class on this topic and so I tried a quick search and this is what I came up with.
Men can make use of their sexual fluids in love spells. Josh Geller (dclxvi@best.com) gave this simple formula for an orgasmic spell utilizing semen:

Masturbate to orgasm and preserve the resultant fluids. You should be concentrating on your desired result at the point of orgasm. Take some of the resultant fluids and insinuate a bit of them into the food or drink of your prospective victim.

For every man who uses his semen to attract a woman, however, there are probably a hundred women who capture a man's semen to rule and control him or to keep him faithful. The most popular way to do this in hoodoo is by making a knot-spell on the man and keeping it tied up in a nation sack. For this purpose, the semen can be fresh or gathered from a discarded condom -- or even stored in the freezer until needed. Most of the rootworkers who have told me about how to capture semen have noted that it is important that the woman not have an orgasm when capturing semen, because then she might get "mixed up in the spell," and fall victim to her own conjurations. "Hold yourself aloof," was how one woman put it to me. "Don't let yourself get mixed into it when you collect his stuff."

LINK: http://www.luckymojo.com/bodyfluids.html
This is not without precedent in popular culture. For instance:
https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/j5e888/sex-magic-how-to-cast-spells-with-your-orgasms
https://ultraculture.org/blog/2013/05/27/sex-magick-seven-steps/
Even songs allude to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Sugar_Sex_Magik
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Re: Moral Panics

Postby mrgreen » Sat Sep 30, 2017 3:11 pm

wildrose: Anthropology class is where I heard of that kind of thing too. There are all sorts of weird cultish groups in Africa, Latin America, SE Asia, and the Caribbean that practice different forms of magic based on different traditional belief systems. Most utilize "bodily fluids" in one way or another. So, that is an interesting theory you're suggesting although I'm skeptical of the "evidence" and the conclusions drawn from the so-called evidence at this point. Sounds more like a law enforcement circle jerk fantasy to me so far and another thing studied in social science courses would be moral panics and as already mentioned socal law enforcement and news media are famous for that kind of thing.

But as a side note, teenagers working at fast food places are notorious for "jerking off" into the mayo or onto a special burger that they save to the side for a special customer. If caught are they charged with a sex crime or a health code violation?
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Re: Moral Panics

Postby shadylady » Sun Oct 01, 2017 6:50 am

OC Parents React To News OF Flutes Tainted With Bodily Fluids, LA School Affected
So far the guy has not been charged with anything and he was a guest at the schools and not an actual employee. He was just one of those guys who go around and do paid presentations. Considering that he was a guest at dozens and dozens of schools throughout southern California and that he probably gave out thousands of PVC flutes, it seems unlikely that bodily fluid would be detected on more than a small percentage of all the flutes. As to the origin of the bodily fluid, that has not been revealed at this point. In fact, it has not even been directly stated that the bodily fluid was his or how the presence of bodily fluid was even detected in the first place or even more problematically whether the bodily fluid was sweat, urine, or semen. And then in this video there's the suggestion that the dried residue of bodily fluid could possibly cause some kind of health problem... that seems unlikely. So, at this point the story is 95% conjecture which of course leads people to develop paranoid fantasies over what actually happened.
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Re: Moral Panics

Postby mrfish » Sun Oct 01, 2017 7:32 am

mrgreen wrote:But as a side note, teenagers working at fast food places are notorious for "jerking off" into the mayo or onto a special burger that they save to the side for a special customer. If caught are they charged with a sex crime or a health code violation?

Thank you for putting this trivial crime into proper context. I have lots of friends who won't eat at fast food places because they fear that the workers may not practice proper sanitation or may even spit on the food or worse. Recall the Ridgecrest Taco Bell incident from a few years back, if you have any doubt that the workers at such establishments do that sort of thing.

As for this story about the flute guy, doesn't law enforcement have anything better to do? This whole story sounds like a waste of time, money, and other resources. I heard a rumor this week that cops aren't dealing with burglaries and car theft because they don't consider real crimes to be priorities anymore. And so, it would seem that they prefer to waste time on fantasy crimes like this one. I'd rather just let this guy go and bust a dozen or so real criminals and that's assuming that this guy even actually did anything that would amount to more than a trivial misdemeanor.

On top of that, has anyone considered the possibility that the "bodily fluid" in the PVC flutes was saliva and that saliva winds up in flutes as a NORMAL result of playing them? The punchline here is that the stupid cops may have caused hundreds of parents to become all worried over nothing. NOTHING AT ALL.
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