Looks like… one of the Number islands from FireRed? I like the scale we get of the normally unreachable highland area.

Y’all seem to have reached an impasse here in the realm of pure morality, so lets try something a little more grounded (and surely less controversial!) Political application. I won’t even slippery slope, I promise.

Lets suppose your favored political party has gained power (however briefly) and is able to push through legislation banning the consumption of any media depicting an immature person in a sexual context, regardless of whether it involved an actual child.

What would enforcement look like? You can’t simply follow the traffickers or CPS reports, as criminals could simply create the media for themselves on a private harddrive (say by drawing a picture or writing erotica) so law enforcement would need some way to investigate any citizen’s home and private spaces for potential contraband.

Do you think that there is a government currently on this planet clear enough of corrupted elements to avoid abusing this power to target their own political enemies?

Up to now, you’ve been following the track your society has laid out for you, growing and building yourself into a useful and civilized adult. Unfortunately, this where the tracks end.

No one will blame you if you fall into the perpetual cycles of materialism and let the world grind you up in exchange for occasional pleasure of increasingly empty quality.

The only escape I have encountered is to find something that calls to you, and to treat it as more important than yourself. The hard part about that is that other people, your friends and family and strangers online, who do not themselves worship the same, will criticize your choice. And you’ll have to decide which you can afford to do without.