ChairmanMeow

Yeah it's... almost suspiciously similar in fact. It looks like basically the same game but with fruit growing instead of drugs.

How did that come about?

Almost always South Parks villains are portrayed in a heavily satirized way. A common thing they do is to portray those attacking eg an environmentalist as 'normal', but then overly exaggerate how 'true' the attacks are. It's to ridicule the attackers, not who they attack, by showing just how ridiculous this villain has to be for the attacks to make sense.

The historical pronunciation of this letter is irrelevant because it's a modern word with a modern pronunciation.

No, the current president is also called Ferdinand Marcos.

The k-sound is used when the chi is prefixed in front of certain vowels. The ch-sound is the truly correct pronunciation here, there's no history involved for that.

Knuth, the guy who coined it, also says the ch-sound is the correct one, though he also says the k-sound is also acceptable. As long as you do not use the ks-sound at least :)

This article is overly sensationalist/alarmist and doesn't match the study behind it.

This is the study they're referencing: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/5/3/388

It primarily focuses on internet addiction and video game addiction. Pornography is mostly mentioned in passing as "likely similar".

In it, they review evidence that these things can be addictive, and that people experience pleasure doing them (this is the whole "same-areas-as-coke-and-meth" thing btw; the brain is happy playing video games, and it is also happy doing coke). However, they distinctly mention that behavioral addiction is not necessarily the same as substance addiction:

Together with studies on Internet addiction and Internet Gaming Disorder we see strong evidence for considering addictive Internet behaviors as behavioral addiction. Future research needs to address whether or not there are specific differences between substance and behavioral addiction

The exact quote about areas of the brain thing:

Georgiadis and Kringelbach concluded, “it is clear that the networks involved in human sexual behavior are remarkably similar to the networks involved in processing other rewards”

The brain rewards sexual behaviour. Makes perfect sense from an evolutionary point of view, so not exactly a shocking conclusion.

And regarding the "brain-altering" thing, the study also directly mentions that this is simply what happens when the brain is activated through its reward systems. This "altering" happens for everything that triggers some kind of dopamine hit. It's not the case that porn does something special here; a model train hobby for example would do the same to enthusiasts for example.

I remember this study actually, I've seen it before. It is frequently misquoted or represented in an extremely alarmist way, mostly by people with a dislike for pornography. But the study doesn't back up their assertions that porn is anything special when compared to any other behavioral addiction, it actually expressly doesn't.

It's also wrong, it's supposed to be a ch-sound as in Bach.

It's actually a ch-sound, as in Bach. But Knuth also thinks the k-pronunciation is fine.

Apparently the reason was to make these anti-corruption agencies more efficient. But Zelensky will now propose an additional bill to secure that no interference can happen.

See his full statement here: https://t.me/s/V_Zelenskiy_official

The inability to distinguish between selection and socialization means there's no evidence for a causal link. At best, it suggests that people who commit sexual aggression generally like porn featuring it more, but even that is apparently a weak correlation apparently.

The meta analysis addresses porn in general. That includes fetishized content like violent or "taboo" pornography. It states there's no evidence that it makes sexual aggression more prevalent, and that population studies show that it's at least correlated with a reduction instead.

We can nitpick the wording all day long, but ultimately I think the takeaway is that there's no evidence that it has negative effects, and there's at least some evidence that suggests it has positive effects.

We don't have a specific cordoned off section for meth and cocaine in our brains. Many things trigger those areas of the brain, including some pretty innocuous stuff.

Porn isn't physically addictive like meth and cocaine. It can be psychologically addictive though, but that goes for a lot of things out there.

Stuff like meth and cocaine can actually alter your brain, porn does not.

Anyone can develop an unhealthy relationship with porn, but that goes for just about anything out there.