Hacker News Reader

Comment by johncena33 | Hacker News Reader

> Others may feel camgirls are collecting undeserved money, they don't do actual noble valuable work, just cash in based on their genetics and immorality.

As someone who is a supporter of legal sex work and pornography. The "cashing on genetics" part bothers me the most. I don't know how to process when good looking people can earn thousands of dollars almost doing nothing (particularly on digital platform like OnlyFans), whereas regular people have to work day and night to earn a living. Right now, when sex-work is stigmatized, it seems fair because they are getting paid a lot while suffering the stigma. Similar to a lot high-risk job is also high paying because of the high risk. But once sex work gets accepted in the society, then why should they get paid so much without the work like rest of the society. Maybe if sex-work gets destigmatized it will not be very high paying profession.

View on HN

> The "cashing on genetics" part bothers me the most

Well, welcome to all of life. More attractive people, taller men etc. get hired, promoted and trusted more. Not just in porn, not just in regular modeling or acting or singing, but also in any job. They get better options in the dating market.

Genetically more intelligent people have higher chances at high earning jobs.

The pattern on cashing on genetics is extremely widespread and it's also not entirely clear it can be abolished without screwing up society. We do need the right people for the right jobs. You don't want to watch ugly people's porn (except if that's your thing, no kink shaming implied!), or marry stupid people etc. etc. You may try to console yourself that individual hard work can override all that, and it can to a degree, but we like to kindle ourselves in the fairytale of the "just world fallacy". Reality is harsher.

In the coming decades, this will start to become a very important question I fear. What happens when "cashing on genetics" is something you can buy. Children being primed with the "best" possible genetics to ensure they're the most attractive jawlines, and lips that pout "perfectly" created as if made in a factory.

Genetically being superior today is essentially a lottery, while then, it would be something you can buy. Imagine that society.

Harari writes about this a lot in his book Homo Deus and 21 lessons. Up till now the rich and the poor still had a roughly egalitarian fundamental physical/biological existence. Sure, healthcare could extend and improve one's life to some degree even in the past but everyone is still fundamentally limited by the same intrinsic constraints. Rich people don't live 3 times as long, still suffer from diseases like Alzheimer, Parkinson, cancer etc.

But what if some people become fundamentally better, an actually clearly superior "race", ie the Nazi myths of superiority becoming fact (as applied to this new optimized race/new entity)?

Society isn't prepared to talk about it.

It is definitely unfair, but is it any different to an intelligent person cashing in on their genetics? I have a very well paid job as a software engineer which comes relatively easily to me. As you say, lots of people have to work really hard just to make a living.

I don't think it's just the stigma, to be fair. Earning lots of money through OnlyFans requires more than good looks, in the same way that earning lots of money through a tech startup requires more than just writing code. Also, people have cashed in on genetics for as long as modelling as been around, and obviously sex work is even older than that

Haha entire evolution has been all about "cashing on genetics". As a society our aim should be to let people of a wide variety of genetics, cash in on their respective "lottery" instead of arbitrarily drawing lines at intelligence or even steadfastness or whatever else.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com