Seth says:

The best way to counter an ideavirus, any ideavirus, is not by challenging the medium in which it spreads. It didn’t stop pirate radio or salacious TV shows or online porn. What has always worked the best is countering one ideavirus with another one. To use the same medium to spread a different, better, more powerful ideavirus.

You should read the entire post really.

I came to the conclusion earlier in the year that this is exactly what we should do with pornography. So much is horrible and insulting, but I’m sure it’s because it was driven underground. If it were all more public, talked about, discussed and mused over, I think it would actually become a healthy part of our society.

There seems to be a trend towards this. The problem appears to be getting worse, but sometimes you have to stir up the muck before the pond starts getting cleaner.

Drown out plastic porn with intelligent erotica (keeping it graphic where it should be) and I think we will all become better lovers.

An intriguing insight:

TV is not vulgar and prurient and dumb because the people who compose the audience are vulgar and dumb. Television is the way it is simply because people tend to be extremely similar in their vulgar and prurient and dumb interests and wildly different in their refined and aesthetic and noble interests.

- David Foster Wallace

Hat-tip Ben Casnocha