Slashdot Mirror
Internet Decency Commission Is Broke
Repton writes, "Another one from CNET's News.com: A commission set up by the government to look into ways to keep youngsters from Internet smut has realized that they have no funding. This is a sad state of affairs, but somehow I don't feel too much sympathy." Perhaps people "charged with evaluating high-tech tools and other methods to keep online pornography away from children," but on a beer budget, should enjoy a few hours reading through the Censorware Project's Web site. At a library in Utah, say.
So you don't think they're respected, I mean aside from /., which doesn't respect much in the way of internet regulation?
;) I'm going to assume so...
Freudian slip suspect == respect?
Even if they had EFF people, and peacefire people, etc, etc, do you think they'd be funded? How so?
Again, the committee figured it wouldn't be good to go and solicit funds, as it'd make the case that they were paid to look the other way, or advocate certain positions, instead of being truly independant. It's too bad we can't figure out a way to make things independent without government funding sources.
-- Ender, Duke_of_URL
There is nothing wrong with pornography, as shown by the free nations of europe
"Does that make sense?"
I bet it does to the government that wants to track everyone on the Internet anyways! If it's such a big deal to people children should not have unsupervised access. Is this really so tough? What ever happened to beating the crap out of kids that did stuff you didn't agree with? Supposedly positive reinforcement is a better training mechanism but usually a good shellacing does the trick. Your unique ID is a really bad idea (TM).
Human nature is ridiculous. We form groups based on similar ideals and then try to crush one another. Ridiculous.
"My God is Right!"
"No, mine is Right! Let's shoot one another!!!"
"Hey, great idea! Let's tell our friends, then we can ALL come and shoot each other!"
Another example:
"BSD sucks!"
"Linux sucks! Let's wrestle!"
Humans suck.
Picture if you will an Aibo programmed to hunt down and kill ALL first posters...
:)
It makes me smile
Why should millions of god fearing christians which make up the majority of the population be subjected to this disgrace simply becuase you think it is OK! We are a majority and make up over 50%, therefore it doesn't matter what you think, after all this IS a democracy and if our christian majority says that prOn is wrong, then a democracy says it is wrong. If you don't like democracy when you're not part of the majority, then move to China where I hear they let you look at all the prOn you like, but forget about the NYT .
:) here's your smiley.
I thought the basis was letting a notional "higher power" (with Christianity pretty directly implied) make all your problems go away, like maaagic.
Why only some things, and who decides? Descendants of the monsters who brought us the witch trials and the inquisition are walking around free like they were people with minds and everything. Where's my right not to have that in my face?
The average US citizen will cheerfully trade liberty for convenience and a bit of illusory safety. They simply don't want a free society.
Case in point....
Why doesn't the news do reports on people being addicted to various hardcore porn mags? Certainly people can get strongly attached to them, but why doesn't the news talk about censoring the mail, by third parties in order to keep kids from borrowing their parents credit card and buying dozens of mags a month?
I think they could fund themselves if they put a few banner ads on their website. Nothing too hardcore, maybe stay away from the kidie porn too... :) F*ck them, they can starve!
Christianity
I love this.
In Northern Ireland, people were killing each other until recently, because of atrocities committed under the banner of differing brands of 'Christianity'. Further back, 'Christians' committed atrocities including rape, pillaging, mass genocide and infanticide against anyone who disagreed with them, under the generic heading of 'The Crusades'. Please do not assume the moral high ground because of your fundamentalist beliefs. What you preach is not Christianity, but fascism, to be abhorred by any reasonable person.
The Church ruled society with a rod of iron until the fifteenth century or so, by having sole access to the scriptures, and interpreting them in a way which suited their needs to control the populace, and extract taxation from them. The taxation was used to further aggrandize the church, by funding pogroms like the Crusades and build bigger and better churches and cathedrals. Cathedrals may be nice to look at, but they were paid with by the blood and sweat of the masses.
The poewer of the church was broken by the invention of the printing press, which allowed the dissemination of, yes, pornography, and also the Bible. from this, the Protestant movement grew, as the populace were, for the first time, in a position to challenge the Church and their 'interpretations' of the Bible.
The Internet is the greatest technological breakthrough since the printing press in terms of reforming social values. Eventually, like with the printing press, institutions and ways of thinking which fail to adapt will crumble before it. This is inevitable.
Let us all Praise the Lord for this, because I believe the Internet is his will, to lead his children to enlightenment and he abhors oppressive, sectarian religion of ANY type.
Where in hell did you get this statistic from. It may be the case in the village where you live, my friend.
For the record, there are more agnostics, aethiests and Moslems in the world than christians.
Praise the Lord :)
URLS ain't what they used to be, that's for sure.
I hear the pope is going to give an apology to the world for all the crap that the church has been 'responsible' for since the beginning (crusades, inquisition, aiding and abeting nazi holocaust, fun stuff like that). The Pope can afford to apologise. The catholic church did really well out of it all. They had enough spare cash to fund research into the Pill (while forbidding catholics to use it), and to invest in real estate, such as the red-light district in Toronto (so I understand).
Just for the record, fighting in Ireland is not only about religious oppression. England first "colonized" the sovereign nation of Ireland before the Reformation.
Agreed entirely. However, the churchmen in Ireland have each played a major part in stoking the sectarian hatred ever since.
Since all the value in setting up the comission is in telling your hard-right constituents that you started it, funding is not necessary. In fact, actually having any results could lead to a backlash by normal American voters. So, expect the smut to be off the net as soon as they get prayer in the schools and ban abortion. It just ain't gonna happen, folks.
But why block kids from porn sites or racist sites? Surely it's better to say "This is what some people think, and this is why it's wrong" or if they're old enough "and you have to make your own decisions, but I think..."
Would it ever be possible to use proper English on at least the headlines and not some flavor of street-talk??
This is actually too bad, it looks like there are a few clueful people, college admins, etc, as well as activists with the usual sprinkling of 'influence as much as you can for our large company' corporate types.
I'd really like to see them address this statement:
When the market will soon not be allowed to even look at products. (becasue of DMCA, etc, etc) I wonder how they're going to gloss over that...
-- Ender, Duke_of_URL
So, Mizzuz Grammar, gimme a concise (same letters or less) grammatical topic that delivers the same content.
C'mon, I know you can do it!!
-- Ender, Duke_of_URL
Magic-Number!!!!
Wave a magic gun around, and turn them all into puree, errrr.... wait, DAMN Am I the only person who mis-read that? -- Ender, Duke_or_URL
Hahahah!!!
From www.adherents.com:
1.Christianity: 2 billion
2.Islam: 1.2 billion
3.Hinduism: 900 million
4.Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 900 million
5.Buddhism: 350 million
6.Chinese traditional religion: 225 million
7.primal-indigenous: 190 million
8.Yoruba religion: 20 million
9.Juche: 19 million
10.Sikhism: 18 million
11.Judaism: 15 million
12.Spiritism: 14 million
13.Babi & Baha'i faiths: 6 million
14.Jainism: 4 million
15.Shinto: 4 million
16.Cao Dai: 3 million
17.Tenrikyo: 2.4 million
18.Neo-Paganism: 1 million
19.Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand
20.Scientology: 750 thousand
21.Rastafarianism: 700 thousand
22.Zoroastrianism: 150 thousand
So your statement is correct, although I don't know what your point is (nor the point of this entire thread!)
For the record, there are more agnostics, aethiests and Moslems in the world than christians.
Not to worry. No religion has a monopoly on meanness and intolerance.
Just for the record, fighting in Ireland is not only about religious oppression. England first "colonized" the sovereign nation of Ireland before the Reformation.
The commision could do any of three things...
1) Reply to one of those "Make Money Fast" emails we all get.
2) File for an IPO.
3) Start a pr0n site.
That should get 'em going.
-AC, you know who I am dammit.
In real life, people are trying to legislate, sue or pay others to raise their children. Every plastic bag imprinted with "This is Not a Toy" is testament, as is every lawsuit suing heavy metal bands for responsibility for teen suicides.
And how many kids have you raised, buddy? Everybody's an expert until they actually try it.
Because I know if my kids were using my cc. It is the ease of access that is the issue. I received 4 unsolicited prono spam e-mail advertisments this week one advertising "squash" fetish sites where small animals are stepped on by women wearing high heels. If folks started receiving this type of junk mail advertisements with seductive pictures and text via snail mail there would be alot of justified concern. There are some things I have a _right_ not to have shoved into my face.
People are stumbling all over each other trying to censor this and that. When all is said and prevented from being said, what's left?
Technical nirvana? Electronic panacea? *chuckle*, not hardly. Just a bunch of commercial noise.
I don't even know why kids need to be accessing the net anyway. Perhaps there was a time when such a thing could have been an enriching experience but that time has passed. Hearing people complain about there being porn on the net is akin to people complaining about finding dirty magazines while scavengin the landfill. It's damn funny.
Sure there are excellent sites on the net. I know they're out there. But they've also been outnumbered to the point of statistical insignificance.
What's my point? Well, lets see. Sure I'm a
bit jaded and pissed off. But there is more to this than a rant. I'm here to make a proposal.
It's time to abandon ship. Yep. It's over,
this incarnation of the WWW. It failed and did
so miserably. The very foundations, the DNS
system have succumbed to various colors of corruption and our marketing buddies have turned
our leisurely information tool into something
that follows us and carefully archives our every move. Search engines? Ha! Weighted and useless.
Where does this leave us with the WWW today?
Functional to some extent but I guess the same
could be said of television as well.
I propose we set up a *private* network
of non-profit servers. There will be no advertising, there will be no commercial involvement. Anyone ever hear of the galactic library? I think it would be damn nice to have
something similar to that. Proliferation of knowledge, the important stuff. Not this pseudo-intellectual superhighway stuff. I mean
solid information.
You see, we don't need the assistance of the government or some corporation to make this happen because we have everything we need already. *We don't need them*. One nice thing about the net, if you want to drop into another universe, you can just create one on another port....Think about it.
You know what kills me the most?
The STATS that you have just shown !
From www.adherents.com:
1.Christianity: 2 billion
2.Islam: 1.2 billion
3.Hinduism: 900 million
4.Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist:
900 million
5.Buddhism: 350 million
6.Chinese traditional religion: 225
million
7.primal-indigenous: 190 million
8.Yoruba religion: 20 million
9.Juche: 19 million
10.Sikhism: 18 million
11.Judaism: 15 million
12.Spiritism: 14 million
13.Babi & Baha'i faiths: 6 million
14.Jainism: 4 million
15.Shinto: 4 million
16.Cao Dai: 3 million
17.Tenrikyo: 2.4 million
18.Neo-Paganism: 1 million
19.Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand
20.Scientology: 750 thousand
21.Rastafarianism: 700 thousand
22.Zoroastrianism: 150 thousand
From the 80's onwards, people have been telling me that there was a "official statistic" that "clearly" showed that Christianity was the biggest religion of all.
So I looked for where they got that satistics, and I asked many questions.
Almost EVERYTIME I asked, and almost everytime I looked into the matter, it all points to the Encyclopedia Britannica, and I went to the library to check, "Walla !" there was the stat in there.
And I did asked the people who published the Encyclopedia Britannica where they obtain their statistics from, they couldn't give me a definite answer !
Yes, I did asked !
And yes, after more than 15 years, the Encyclopedia Britannica people still can't tell me where they obtain those figures from !
It seems like someone from the Encyclopedia Britannica DREAMT OF THE FIGURE and put them out in such a way that they have since became THE STATISTIC everybody and their cousin are refering to.
Let me say it again, the stat that you have just shown us is TOTALLY BASELESS.
I am not saying that there aren't many Christians.
I am not desputing that there _MAY BE_ a possibility that Christianity _is_ the BIGGEST religion of all.
But still, the stats that EVERYBODY HAS BEEN RELYING ON is a BASELESS STATISTICS, and nobody can come out with the VALID PROOF that the stats is based on an ACTUAL COUNTING based on VALID SCIENTIFIC METHOD !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
You asked:
"How did you get only four million in Shintoism? It's by far the main religion of Japan, and I know Japan has many more than four million people. Also, China, which has about a billion people, is mainly Buddhist, isn't it? 350 million Buddhists just doesn't add up, especially with all the converts around the world. And aside from that, with these figures Christianity dominates over other religions, but not all combined. Two billion is not fifty percent of six billion."
Well... let me tell you this - the stats is a FAKE !
I have been looking, searching, and re-searching for the SOURCE of _that_ statistics everybody is referring to, and EVERYTIME it comes down to the Encyclopedia Britannica.
It all originated from the Encyclopedia Britannica, someone working for the Encyclopedia Britannica put up a stats which showed that Christianity is the biggest religion of the world - in term of followers - and yet, the people of Encyclopedia Britannica can NOT tell me where they obtain those figures from.
Why?
Because, those figures are FAKE ! That's why.
Someone just script out some figures from thin air, and put it into the Encyclopedia Britannica, and then EVERYBODY ELSE AND THEIR BROTHER IN-LAW quote that stats as though it is the HOLY GRAIL.
Geeesh !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Slashdot / Andover / VA Linux could benefit projects like this and Mozilla.org so much....
but they dont.
----------
"They misunderestimated me." --George W Bush, Nov. 6, 2000
This is a joke, isn't it? Sorry, but I feel that in this case a smiley was really needed.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Just to pick nits,
I believe that you are conflating the Puritans with the Victorians. It was the Victorians who made sex into something taboo. To the Puritans (well, the Pilgrims anyway) sex was something a bit dangerous, that needed to be kept under control, but was also something necessary and praiseworthy, when operating within properly approved of limits. (But see "The Whore on the Snowcrust" for a (slightly) contradictory opinion.)
Please. The Pilgrims have enough real misdeeds to their "credit". No need to blame them for things that they didn't earn.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Puritans? Champions of religious freedom? You mean the folk who drove out the Unitarians? They championed their own religious freedom. Not those of anyone else.
... well, there was uncertainty as to whether or not they could loose it. From a strict Predestinationist stance, they couldn't, but it felt dangerous, so best to play it safe.
As for the "Puritan culture of repression" that could use some specification. So here is how I understand it.
The Puritans believed that only some small fractions (The Elite) would be saved from hell. They believed that most folk came into the world already damned, and there was nothing that they could do about it. OTOH, those who came into the world with God's favor shining on them
Now the sign of God's favor on you was success in the world, so whatever you did that increased your success (i.e., prosperity), must be favored by God, because the sign of God's favor was success.
The converse relationship was also assumed. The unsuccessfull were already condemned by God, so you really didn't need to feel any pity for them. You could if you wanted to, and dared to risk the wrath of God, but you had no obligation to. This justified slavery, indentured servitude, and many other things that appear vile to us.
This was the essence of the "repressive Puritan culture" as I understand it. (See "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" for a particularly vivid statement of the relationship between the worshiper and the deity.)
The hanging/burning of witches was not more common in New England than in England, and less common there than in either Scotland or France (much less Germany), so I don't feel that the Puritans really deserve to be blamed too harshly. I don't find them nice people, but there weren't very many people that I would consider nice at that time period. The Friends come the closest (and they are actually a bit later). Of course there were many small, usually rich, groups that had espoused moralities that I find reasonable. But they didn't notice that they refused to extend the espoused morality into their relations with their servants.
I think that in general no modern person of reasonable morality will end up approving of the morality that was common in the pre-mechanical age. Before machines started taking over the labor, the folk on top always coerced the folk on the bottom into performing unpleasant labor. This is still somewhat true, but much less so than it was.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Correction... Real christans make up the majority.
They are not offended by people who think for themselfs.
They are not offended by the actions of others.
They are however offended by your notion that anything your doing even comes CLOSE to being christan...
Mind you I'm realising I'm stupid... your not even a fake christan... your a troll... ohh crud... ok you got me on this one...
I don't actually exist.
One could equally ask at what point certain genres of photographs stopped being "harmful to minors".
It all goes back to first principles. Those who believe that sex outside of a marital context is wrong will define material which teaches children otherwise as ipso facto harmful.
Oh? But what about those who believe that sex inside a marital context is wrong, who in point of fact believe that marriage itself is wrong?
Everyone's beliefs are their own. They should not be able to impose them on others.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
But of course, this is exactly how society functions - by imposing an agreed-upon set of rules of conduct on its members. Take away the rules and you have anarchy.
Well, I'm all for anarchy, but that's neither here nor there...
Funny how it only becomes "imposing their beliefs" when we don't agree with it. One never hears any objections to imposing our belief in, say, the wrongness of rape on other members of society.
Of course. If you agreed with it, they're not "imposing" anything. You'd folow that belief anyway, because it's your own, so what do you care?
One point is that those people clamoring for censorship are a MINORITY. A loud, annoying, vocal minority, but a minority nonetheless. Polls won't tell the story properly, because the majority of the polls done on the subject are biased in the questions. "Do you believe children should look at sick, gay, animalistic, heathen porn, or do you think there should be filtering software in place to protect the children from evil sick twisted sh*t like this?"
Ok, admittedly, that's a bit obvious, but it brings the point across. Most polls I've seen on the subject use questions no better than that.
The majority of the human race is non-christian. The fundies, deep down, believe that only x-tian beliefs matter, and then proceed to impose those beliefs on the "heathen few" that disagree. They can't live and let live. They insist on regulating that which should not be regulated. There's some areas (most areas in fact) that the law should not cross into, and ethics and morality are one of them. Rape is not an issue of ethics or morality. Rape is an issue of hurting another person. It's deemed incorrect by society to hurt another person against their will, so punishment insues. We do not jail rapist because their sense of morals are skewed. We jail them because they are a physical danger to other members of society.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
impose v. tr.
- To establish or apply as compulsory; levy: impose a tax.
- To apply or make prevail by or as if by authority: impose a peace settlement.
- To obtrude or force (oneself, for example) on another or others.
- Printing. To arrange (type or plates) on an imposing stone.
- To offer or circulate fraudulently; pass off: imposed a fraud on consumers.
Okay. The difference is in the definitions #1 and #3. From #1, all laws are imposed. From #3, any law you disagree with is an imposition. So it's semantics here. Therefore, we're both right. 'Nuff said.> Rape is not an issue of ethics or morality.
Maybe we need to explore our definitions of "morality". In my book it most definitely is a moral issue -- as are things like theft, murder, and kicking the neighbor's dog. It is precisely that -- harm to others -- which makes them wrong.
Okay, it IS an issue of morality. But my point was that the morality of it has nothing to do with WHY it's illegal.
Rape is illegal not because it's wrong, but because the person (rapist) is a danger to society (and/or members of that society). Therefore society must protect itself from that person, and lock 'em up.
Along those same lines, there are things that are morally okay that are still illegal, because they hurt society as a whole. I can't think of an example offhand. I have brain problems at the moment, in that I had to sit through company meetings today.
Ooh, while looking at the preview, I thought of one. Prostitution. Not a very good example, but hey...
Everything is wrong, to someone. But only those things that hurt society (and/or members of such) should be illegal.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
who gets to be the lucky department that gets to administer this? the collective drivers license departments of each state? who gets to pay for such administrative burden? a pr0n tax... thats all we need...
Why do we insist on attempting to regulate morality? If parents are worried about their kids viewing internet porn then they need to stop blaming the media/tv/internet and teach their kids about sex and drugs etc. You can intruduce regulation that makes it harder for people to provide content, but that doesn't replace the need for parents to raise their children.
Uh, these people went broke beacuse no one ever gave them any money. Its not hard to reach 0$ when you start there...
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
the first few words:
"WASHINGTON--At its first and only meeting so far..."
Well Shoot, I should hope so! None of them people meeting before their first meeting!!
Maybe I should have defined what I meant better.
I didn't mean blocking out as in "denying them the right to act upon something" such as consuming alcohol, having sexual intercourse, or stealing, etc. I meant denying them knowledge of it and what it does. I really think that having your parents speak to you about things is a lot better than learning it from the street.
I guess a good example of what i'm trying to say is this: I think a child with a parent who explained to them what sex is, the consequences, the potential health problems it can cause, and ways to prevent pregnancy and STDs would probably be better off than a child with parents who do nothing but preach abstinence and "sex is bad, mmkay?". We all have our opinions and mine is probably as biased as the next, but almost everyone I know that have parents who tried to inform and explain things to them at the appropriate times have turned out far better off than the ones who got to learn it from the world because their parents refused to acknowledge informing them about it. There are always the exceptions of course.
Yeah AC, and everyone responds to that comment with this chestnut. Are you saying you are unable to raise your own kids? Just because some people can't doesn't mean that no one else can, or that anyone else wants to raise somebody elses kids.
If you have a tree that grows into someone elses yard, you are responsible for cutting it back, if your dog bites someone, you're responsible for the med bills, if you 1rst grader shoots someone in the neck, you are responsible.
I have yet to see a shitty kid that didn't have either biological problems, neglect problems, abuse problems, or some other form of parental incompetance.
- I like pudding.
No Dude, you're totaly right. Heaven forbid a parent might have to raise their kid(s) on his/her/their own. If these people had taught their kids right from the beginning, i wouldn't have to cringe everytime i watch Ghostbusters on Cable, or click the "enter" button on those p0rn sites ;-) Mommy and Daddy should have to watch over their kids. I gotta watch my puppy, otherwise he'll piss all over the floor or eat the packing peanuts or harass the cat. I say, watch your own damn kids so that my Gov't can spend my money on something worthwhile. mrBoB
>Hear, hear! We need to do away with all >morality-based laws. Meth? Crank? Horse?
>Barbies? Crack? Ludes?
>Well, personally I'm against 'em, but who am I to
>judge? Inner city youths need to make a living,
>too.
Inner city youths make a much better living off drugs now than they would if the drugs were made legal. So do the hundreds of thousands of police officers and prison guards who make a living off the War on Drugs (that, by the way, you lost before it started).
America has passed a milestone recently. You now imprison more people than any other "free" civilization has in all of history. Congratulations. Your morality war is really working out well for you. Keep up the good work.
Maybe you should start handing out 15 year sentences for looking at porn, too, like you do for smoking a little weed. After all, it hurts as many people (ie. none), and annoys pretty much the same people. And a ban on it would be about as effective.
>Rape? Incest? Kiddie porn? Spouse abuse?
>Horrible! Or, well, at least I think so. But I
>wouldn't want to be mistaken for a religious
>zealot.
Those aren't illegal because they are immoral. They are illegal because they actually hurt other people. Even a dimwit like you should be able to grasp the difference.
So are they only financially broke or are they morally bankrupt as well??
If you voted for Nader, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!
Hi,
I really apologize for the tone in this letter but I have to ask where you're coming from?
Please answer this: What in hell makes you think it's easy? I really don't understand how you can assume that.
It is perfectly possible to develop a filter list that will filter the really egregious cases without filtering political speech and the like.
Go for it, chief. When you can't read the weather because winter was hard on cars don't come crying to us. Sorry, dude. No censorship. No way. I was born in that fucking bullshit. No hell in way. Read my lips: An entire society in beautiful doubletalking doublethinking self-destructive suspended animation.
Its just not possible to do it in a commercial context.
What does that mean?
the stubborn refusal of the technical...
Whatever. (Now was that stubborn refusal or do I have a point?)
If effort is not made to make it easier for parents to filter genuinely offensive content, then the current bunch of
censorware will go into wide use
In my experience, no one should ever make compromises against their conscience. When I say conscience I mean not guilt nor some learned morality, but having the wisdom to see the cliff you're jumping from. Such compromises only make people numb, apathetic, cold, and terribly bitter. Sickening. Fear of such compromises make people into flamers, but not quite as bad as the fool who continually let's things slip.
I approve of the 2nd Amendment. Do I think there should untrained shooters playing gang lords? No. I think people should protect their ideas or rather themselves, from oligarchs? (Ayn Rand agrees also contrary to most people's beliefs.) Should they do it with broken patent laws? Hell no. Guess what? Supporting a broken ideology is no better than allowing a broken tool to go to market. I view choosing between one or the other as a distraction from spending my time on productive efforts such as teaching people about technology and the importance of this modern day printing press.
Incidentally... ZDNet (yes, I used to go there) did a poll after Columbine and found 55% of parents would let their kids play games. Where do they get 75% from?
Rares
PS: I generally tend to come out flamethrowers blasting on issues like this. Part choice, part habit. There's worse things in the world right now than a short fuse. granted it's a short fuse that's tied to a stick of dynamite ages old.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Do you really think young teenagers get pregnant because of porn on the net and magazines? As much as we'd like to blame things we don't like, it still doesn't justify it. It's not like a teenager gets pregnant from wanking in the toilet, or in front of the computer. Teenagers have gotten pregnant for ages, and it's increasing because sex is now being tolerated before marriage. With higher toleration of drugs and booze, it's a lethal combination. Especially when kids think they don't have to use protection (surely a "brilliant" idea from comrades who says it's better that way).
Before, kids were forced to get married before anyone noticed, or they went to a "clinic", possibly getting scarred for life. So going back is definately not an option, or possible. About drugs and booze, they're too much used now, but it's more like a symptom adding to the problem, than the real problem itself. I don't know about alcoholism, and maybe it's genetical, but people getting problems with drugs or booze usually have bigger problems lurking under the surface, in combination with making some bad decisions.
We have more freedom now, especially social acceptable freedoms. I think it would have boggled our minds to talk to someone who lived (and died) 100 years ago, and vica versa. But this newly-won freedom also gives us more responsibility in our own lives. Our current problems is the price we pay for getting rid of old rules and dogmas so fast.
You said:
"Sex sites demean women and men in them, they teach that sex is something you can purchase or engage in with out relationships or consequences."
This is such a standard-phrase I just have to attack it. I believe you cut everything over one comb here. Surely it depends on how the pictures were taken, if the persons involved consented, in fact, love to do it! We're all different, and if there were such thing as "pornism" (aka racism), I think that's very much present in todays society.
So how this would "demean" those pictured on the site I don't know. Maybe it's you who feel demeaned? Do you seriously believe that illegalizing and banning activities, you are helping those individuals? There are laws against murdering, yet still people get shot every day in the US. You can't make a rule for everything to fix it, what you can do is make people aware of how they live, without judgement. It's impossible to forcibly rescue other people, but you can help them realize how to help themselves. Sometimes using strong methods can help, sometimes it makes matters even worse. Most important is to help yourself, or else you risk doing more damage than good.
About sex having implications and consequences, that also depends on how you do it. I don't think a pornsite is designed to teach kids about ethics, they should get that from somewhere else. Surely educated people who view pornsites doesn't suddenly think condoms are all rubbish. Well it's time to educate those kids, and stop being afraid.
Fact is, there are people all around the world that like to have promiscuous sex. Even with multiple partners at the same time, without necessarily involving too much long-term relationships in it. That may mean there are different feelings involved than in a long-term relationships, but they're still feelings that need to be acted out.
Now it's not up to you or me to judge what relationships are most healthy. But many monogoman long-term relationships are not as beneficial as we may believe. Not only counting abusive relationships, but also relationships where the partner is too much emotionally dependent on the other, and countless other types. They're not something to illegalize, they're something to make people aware of! Hopefully without putting them down or judging them, so that we can feel better about ourself for a little time.
In the end, we don't have relationships with others as a goal in itself. It's more like something we can learn and grow on, preferrably but not always, while having fun! A perfect relationship is not one that lasts forever, but one that ends so that we can continue with our next, or be alone if we need that. A relationship doesn't have to involve strong feelings or sex, you can have more than one relationship at the same time, even sexual ones.
- Steeltoe
What do you do today to limit yourself?
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Well, there's so much smut on the internet anyways, it's like real life, if you look hard enough you can find plenty, people just don't advertise as much because you can do it anonymously on the internet. It's no wonder they went broke, you can't censor people's sexual urges and whatnot.
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
With all the censorship that's going on (attempted anyways) it's a wonder why lots of politicians aren't saying that the internet is out of hand and should be regulated totally...oh wait, the big comapanies that make it a frontier are putting money in their pockets. If those damn companies weren't so concerned with making money, there would be no market for smut on the internet, and it would be a lot cleaner of a place, if you want porn, you can go buy a playboy.
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
No one wants to hear about people's addictions to smut, if they want a story about that, they go see 8mm and then feel very disturbed about it. Censorship of porno in the US has been an uphill battle and one that i don't think will ever be won, because there's always going to be that open-minded person who will argue a valid point, and they're going to be up against someone who grew up learning that porn is bad, or they were molested by some sicko that was one of the porno addicts, so it's just a viscious cycle and we need to invest more money in important stuff, like getting the sickos psyciatric help.
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
One could equally ask at what point certain genres of photographs stopped being "harmful to minors".
It all goes back to first principles. Those who believe that sex outside of a marital context is wrong will define material which teaches children otherwise as ipso facto harmful.
This kind of mentality will prevent the formation of a sane society, one that is not afraid of sex and the human body
Or, one might argue a "sane" society is one in which people respected sex and understood its role, responsibilities and consequences, making modern society rather more delirious than sane.
First principles.
Lee Kai Wen
Two years of posting and still 89.5% Slashdot pure.
We used to have a saying in Botswana: "The gorilla cannot see the ugliness of his own eyes." We are all the worst judges of our own failures and shortcomings.
Do a survey of peoples' attitudes toward their own sense of ethics, and I can tell you what you'll find: 95% will tell you that their own beliefs are fine -- the problem is the other guy.
And that's a conservative estimate.
Lee Kai Wen
It was not my intention to impugn the character of upscale druggies. My post, for those who missed its intent, was parody. Which means it was supposed to be bad reasoning.
Lee Kai Wen (neither 'burb-dweller nor drug user)
Hear, hear! We need to do away with all morality-based laws. Meth? Crank? Horse? Barbies? Crack? Ludes? Well, personally I'm against 'em, but who am I to judge? Inner city youths need to make a living, too.
Rape? Incest? Kiddie porn? Spouse abuse? Horrible! Or, well, at least I think so. But I wouldn't want to be mistaken for a religious zealot.
And I would never dream of forcing my belief in, say, the immorality of murder down someone else's throat.
We all know that "morality" is just a code word for "religion", which makes morality in government unconstitutional.
Doesn't it?
Lee Kai Wen
They merely prove my point - that different folks have different first principles. Those who assume that, say, pictures of two women having sex cannot be harmful to minors do so because they depend on a certain set of first principles. Begin with a different set of first principles, and you arrive at a different conclusion.
Everyone's beliefs are their own. They should not be able to impose them on others.
But of course, this is exactly how society functions - by imposing an agreed-upon set of rules of conduct on its members. Take away the rules and you have anarchy.
Funny how it only becomes "imposing their beliefs" when we don't agree with it. One never hears any objections to imposing our belief in, say, the wrongness of rape on other members of society.
Lee Kai Wen (who thinks laws against bestiality are imposing someone's morality)
If you agreed with it, they're not "imposing" anything. You'd folow that belief anyway
OK, for the sake of argument, I'll grant that laws against rape are not an imposition on me. They are, however, an imposition on someone -- namely, in this case, the rapist, who disagrees with it.
Generalizing, it becomes apparent that every law is "imposed", because someone disagrees with it. In fact, this is the whole purpose of having laws -- to force compliance on the part of those who disagree with them. Any time someone disagrees with a law, then the law can said to be "imposed", at least on the one disagreeing with it. Yet, that doesn't stop us from imposing the law anyway. I mean, why would we even have a law, unless there were someone who disagreed with it?
Which brings me back to my original statement: it's funny how no one ever calls it "imposing morality" when it's their morality being imposed -- only when they become the imposed-upon.
One point is that those people clamoring for censorship are a MINORITY.
Those who oppose them are also a minority. The great middle doesn't much care one way or the other.
Rape is not an issue of ethics or morality.
Maybe we need to explore our definitions of "morality". In my book it most definitely is a moral issue -- as are things like theft, murder, and kicking the neighbor's dog. It is precisely that -- harm to others -- which makes them wrong.
Lee Kai Wen
Okay, it IS an issue of morality. But my point was that the morality of it has nothing to do with WHY it's illegal.
Which is precisely where we disagree. I say, "Rape is illegal because it is wrong." You say, "Rape is illegal because it hurts other people." I say, "So, what? Who cares if other people get hurt? As long as I don't get hurt, it's no skin off my nose." To which you reply, "But it's wrong to hurt other people."
And I say: Bingo! Rape is illegal because it hurts someone, and it's wrong to hurt someone! And we're right back to morality.
Back to dictionary.com:
morality:
1. The quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct.
2. A system of ideas of right and wrong conduct: religious morality; Christian morality.
3. Virtuous conduct.
4. A rule or lesson in moral conduct.
I'm operating here under the first definition: society defines rules of "right" or "good" conduct: this conduct is good; that conduct is not. This conduct is right; that conduct is wrong. This conduct is desirable; that conduct is not. Therefore, we pass laws against conduct which, as a society, we do not accept. In particular, we do not accept conduct which hurts other people. Why? Because we think hurting other people is wrong.
Therefore society must protect itself from that person, and lock 'em up.
We throw people in prison for two reasons: to protect society, true. But also to punish. That's why it's called the penal system. We punish, because the criminal has done something deserving punishment - he has done something wrong.
Lee Kai Wen
Bill Gates is probably the most decent then.
You can't handle the truth.
Heck yeah. Tell em all that you set this up, so you get the vote.
But don't give them the power, since you really don't want what they would try to do to happen, and you couldn't enforce it anyway.
The world rocks.
Eh...
I always find it offensive when government agency tries to take away MY rights because of "the children". I could care less if some 13 year old boy sits at the computer and looks at porn, saves him the time and expense of getting it in hardcopy. I can't believe that viewing the naked human form will cause so much psychological damage that the government feels the need to restrict my right to free communication.
YAaaaaaaa!!!! Down with the control of the internet!!
WURD!!
It's not that hard to raise funds on the internet... just put some p0rn banners on your site ;-) That way they can start censoring immediately, with their own site!
(Or maybe i should not reply to articles when i've just woken up)
Such committies are a waste of time and money, with luck, some goverment lackey with more intelligence then the people who make up and control the commitee in the first place "accidently" forgot to sent a memo giving them their funding. Hooray for accidents :-)
- Fight crime, shoot back.
I agree with voodoo. the only reason its so much more plentiful on the net is because you can do it anonymously and not become the next larry flint. but I think because it's become so much easier to get our hands on, and more importantly, free, it gets out of hand, before the internet you never really saw any Channel 5 special reports on "Addicted to Porn." Bah im rambling now. anyways the point of this is that the government isnt gonna be able to do much to stop this, and hell, I grew up with porn available to me if I wanted it, and I think I turned out fine, so maybe they should calm down. so lets not waste our tax money for this bulls**t. ok. im done now.
How did you get only four million in Shintoism? It's by far the main religion of Japan, and I know Japan has many more than four million people. Also, China, which has about a billion people, is mainly Buddhist, isn't it? 350 million Buddhists just doesn't add up, especially with all the converts around the world. And aside from that, with these figures Christianity dominates over other religions, but not all combined. Two billion is not fifty percent of six billion.
I think Cary would like to believe that none of us could be influenced unconsiously by what we read or see but unfortunately the evidence is that humans can be uncritical thinkers. There is a "herd" mentality out there. There are lots of examples outside of sex. Why else would violence against women and others be tolerated? Why does one piece of garbage on the street give permission for others to litter? Why do allowing racist or sexist remarks encourage more of the same? When it comes to sex sites or violence site the same thing applies. Sex sites demean women and men in them, they teach that sex is something you can purchase or engage in with out relationships or consequences. I work in a teen clinic and the young people who experience unplanned pregnancy, STDs,infertility,much less hurt feelings would report that the portrayal of sex as something that doesn't need careful thought is stupid. The folks who work in the porno industry are being explointed themselves-- and frequently have a history of physical and sexual abuse in their lives. There is a big difference between erotica and porno... I think this is what the US Gov is trying to get at
Everyone agrees there is material on the Internet that's not appropriate for minors
...verify an adult's age before showing photographs or other material "harmful to minors."
There's material on television and the radio which is not appropriate for children. So? What is censorship expected to accomplish?
At what point did photographs become harmful to minors? What is the fear here?
Bottom line guys -- I've said this before and I'll say it again. If effort is not made to make it easier for parents to filter genuinely offensive content, then the current bunch of censorware will go into wide use. Like it or not, the average person does not endorse the radical (and legally unprecedented) ideas of free speech that many on Slashdot advocate.
If the average consumer is not provided with some way to filter out hard core porn without filtering other (usually marginal) sites, they will say "screw the consequences" and filter them all.
And the stubborn refusal of the technical communities to attempt to provide a good filter list will be to blame. It is perfectly possible to develop a filter list that will filter the really egregious cases without filtering political speech and the like. Its just not possible to do it in a commercial context.
Remember: the Supreme Court can and will remove protected rights when public interest is strong enough. Just look at gun control.
--
-- Slashdot sucks.
Of course, if they get a job, then they end up abandoning their children. Leaving them in day care centers, etc. And if you've priced the day care centers, you know that on a minimum wage job THAT can't be afforded, so the job that they get had better pay well, or their kids will be on the street.
Parenting is a part of the answer, but just saying the word is no solution. It needs to be made possible, and not just for the folk who get higher end jobs. (Then there's the question of varying skill levels... but as things stand now, that's very much secondary.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Is this the "anything that offends me" standard?
I find your "holier than thow" addatude offensive. I find your stuffing religion in peoples faces offensive. I find your "my way" addatude offensive. Dose your standard still aply?
Or am I exempt becouse I have a diffrent opinion?
He is not amoral just becouse he isn't hypermoral he isn't anti-christan just becouse he dosn't blindly folow your version of the christan religion.
And on religion. Your version of christanity is flawed. Christ himself said "Judge ye not lest ye be judged" yet you have placed yourself in the position of judge...
I myself refer to Christ as an enlightend philosopher. I do not reguard him as a savur or a deity or son of a deity. Thats just how I see it.
As for society... It's not in the gutter yet but thanks to people like you who place imposable standards on socity and thanks to people who go in the other direction realising there is no pleasing your kind.. we are slowly being notched in that direction.
People like you who see anti-christan addatudes in ordenary activitys. People like you who see immorality everywhere... you discust me...
True morality has nothing to do with messing with other peoples lifes. True morality comes from within. To act moral. Not to cram it down everyone elses throats.
I would like to suggest that the most immoral, anti-christan, and indecent of all acts is censorship..
I don't actually exist.
>Further back, 'Christians' committed atrocities including rape, pillaging, mass genocide and infanticide against anyone who disagreed with them, under the generic heading of 'The Crusades'.
Yeah, but that's all water under the bridge now. =)
I hear the pope is going to give an apology to the world for all the crap that the church has been 'responsible' for since the beginning (crusades, inquisition, aiding and abeting nazi holocaust, fun stuff like that).
Should be interesting.
Lexis-Nexis.
:)
And the idea of paying $20 a month for super-filtered content is not only reasonable, but it goes on all the time. There are electronic equivalents to old-style clipping services which do nothing but gather, vet, and sort by worth information on topics you want.
Some no-charge search engines employ some variant of this as well, with human experts on particular search categories.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
bons made the excellent point that: "Creating a TLD for porn would go a long way to removing a decent chunk of the problem. Namely, it would make it easy to censor all those who are willing to be censored. Those who aren't willing to be censored will, of course, still be a problem. However, they're a problem regardless of the solution, much like spammers, they "know" that they're right, and that somehow gives them the right to behave as they choose to everyone else.
... when IBM buys / provides for / puts on employees desks Internet service, the end user in question is really IBM, rather than its employees. (Likewise, when the employees go home, and buy service on their dime, IBMs standards oughtn't apply.)
(First, I would amend that last sentence to read "they know they're in the wrong, but that the material gain they make alllows them to remain contemptous of the rights of others." Same difference.)
But this is an important point: the majority of pornographic sites would like to avoid legal liability for their content, and would probably *like* a way to be easily filtered by browsers who specifically don't want to see their content. Just not blocked to someone who specifically wants to. "Someone" in this case, though, really means some end user, even if it's an aggregate
timothy
p.s. Tipper Gore, remember, isn't in favor of "censorship." She wants it all nice n' voluntary. ["Captain, captain! The BS meter's just exploded out of the console! We must have encountered a Black Hole of Honesty!"]
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
So true. Parents must learn that can not prevent their kids from seeing, hearing, reading, and learning about "bad" things. You just have to teach them how to deal with these things. Parents should be willing to talk frankly about sex and nudity with children. Kids should not have to figure things like this out on their own. Not talking about these things is what makes a porn site dangerous. Kids who have an open relationship with their parents will either know enough not to care much about a "bad" site or be calm in the fact that they can ask their parents about it later.
This issue is an old one that hits every medium. Some say that sex and violence on tv is warping young kids minds. They point to the shows that glamorize sex and violence as ruining kids. If the WWF's The Rock has more influence on your kids then you do, it is your fault, not TV's. Remember the big talk about Playboy magazines in 7-11 stores? Guess what parents...if a kid wants to get a Playboy, he or she will. Period. There is nothing that you can do about it. All you can do is teach them to handle it and answer their questions honestly. You can't raise kids in a bubble because someday they will have to go into the real world and deal with all of these "bad" things.
-- soldack
Your idea of a public database is a good one except in not noting how sites get in. Who is a valid judge? I think that a voluntary submission system may work for the most part but it may run into problems the same way some films do. Everyone knows that some films are just obvious porn. No one has a problem with those films. People do have a problem with some films that claim to use sex, nudity, and violence for art's sake. All of these things can and should be used in artistic ways. Should we limit artistic expression to avoid offending someone? Where do we draw the line? Who are we to draw one? Why does one need to be drawn anyway?
-- soldack
As stated in a Dilbert Comic strip, the staff of the IDC is pitting their intelligence against the collective sex drive of all the youth of America. I'm pretty sure that teens will find a way to get around anything they try. (NetNanny? Give me a break!) Edge: Teenagers.
The reason they ran out of funding is because they haven't been persuing the proper courses of action in reguard to Internet Decency. Instead of trying to develop new software that blocks sites with certain words, why not just make a law that states that any website that provides adult content requires proof of age in the form of a credit card or similar id.
That raises another point -- people wouldn't like giving out their CC over the internet, especially to pr0n sites. ("Honey, why is there a charge for $29.95 to a company called 'PureSexyTeens.Com' on our credit card bill?") Maybe a new type of adult id could be created -- once you turn 18, you get a card in the mail that has a number on it. It's completely unique, and all it does is state that you're over 18.
Does that make sense?
,-----.----...---..--..-....-
' CitizenC
' "Bug? That's Not A Bug, That's A Feature!"
`-----.----...---..--..-....-
While I think you're pointing to something interesting, I would have to say that your argument is fundamentally flawed. One of the hallmarks of (post- | *-)modern society is that there are profound linkages between diverse issues that constitute our lives. So, most any argument that makes the claim that "foo is the cause of bar problem" is going to run into some very messy ground. I mean, I would bet that I could argue that the cause of most of society's problems today are, say, an ill-supported educational system, but at the end of it, we'd just end up in a pissing match along the lines "well, my foo causes your foo" or "my foo is more of a fundamental problem than your foo."
What we'd really need to do is avoid that problem altogether and articulate a set of problems and things that contribute to them, and admit that they're all interrelated and that there's things on both lists that are we (and by this I've mean society) probably can't/don't/won't see.
On a related note, I have to admit that I'm troubled by these lines in your post:
I've seen women grow up with the only real core value passed down from their parents is to have more children in order to get a bigger check. In defense, I've also known one or two that believed in actually raising their children, but they are a decreasing minority.
If this is a reference to "welfare queens", then I would have to take offense. While I do not deny that there are individuals who do have additional children to gain additional (welfare) money, attributing their actions to "core values" does injustice to the actual experiences of mothers on welfare. Numerous authors have attempted to trace the various interlocking systems of power and thought that lead to such outcomes (for instance, in Rachael and Her Children, Kozol both does the math and interview mothers, case workers and administrators to find out, interestingly enough, that for some mothers on welfare, their aid is so low that they can't afford not to have more children. He also discusses how, importantly, the welfare system punishes nuclear families by considering fathers able to work and therefore the entire family unable to get welfare, thereby leading some families to chose deliberately to become "a single mother with absentee father" in order to survive). As I stated earlier, our problems are complicated and I worry that in our effort fix them we obscure or create others.
The cause is identified, the solution is harder, since this mentality may take generations to correct itself (and heres to hoping it will correct itself).
At least I can do my part and raise my children as best I can and not view them as little more than a financial liability. A few core values passed on, along with a basic sense of decency. Yes, decency, not censorship, something that should be natural and not governed. Difficult in a world where nice people supposedly finish last, but the validity of that statement depends on your viewpoint.
_________________________
What you are describing is not democracy, but mob rule. We (in the US) live in a *representitive* democracy and we have this thing called a Constitution that contains another something called the Bill of Rights. Perhaps you should try reading them some time. What this means is:
1) that issues are deliberated and thought out before mindlessly enacting laws. Unfortunately, congress seems to be as reactionary as you are at times. Even so, bad law is hopefully vetoed by the president of deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
2) The minority has equal protection under the law. This is *protection* from the tyranny of the majority.
3) We have the right to privacy and to be secure in our homes.
4) We have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What I take this to mean is that when I am all alone in my dungeon, if I enjoy tossing off to pictures of transvestites coated in polyurethane (SP?) sucking off goats while being spanked and flogged by midgets, then that is ok.
And from my experience on the net, you really don't see porn unless you really go looking. Sounds to me like you've been venturing into the red light district a bit.
Can anybody tell me why I am seeing so many fakeries on the Net?
I mean, there are so many people who are so publicly anti-porn (See that article on China's attempt of censorship and the author had to put the word "PORN" in it) but on the other hand, their hard drives may have thousands of kiddie-porn pictures and all other smut stuffs.
Isn't the etho of InterNet is LIVE AND LET LIVE - that is, you do your stuffs, I do mine, you leave me alone and I'll leave you alone, so long as what you do do not hurt me and vice versa?
I really long for the past days in the Net where everyone respect each others' privacy, and no one will come to tell you what you can do, what you can't.
Disclaimer: I am NOT for porn, but I am NOT going to ban porn just because I don't find it interesting. Just like I am not going to publicly asking those puritans to go to hell just because I am tired of their holier-than-thou views.
And one more question - just when all these will end?
Will it end when we are not allowed to watch, received, say or _think_ of anything someone, somewhere find disgusting?
What's the freedom of all these, eh?
Live and let live, fellas !!
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
However, my son will probably go a school, and that school will have to have internet access if he's to have any hope of an education. Now I kow that I will answer any questions he brings home, but I can't say that his teacher will be qualified to answer those questions in school. I can't even say if the teacher will be allowed to answer those questions out of fear of being sued by someone.
Schools, Libraries, and other places where children can log on (mall kiosks, cyber coffee shops, open lan parties) should probably have some sort of method available for filtering. After all, I can't be a parent if I'm not there, and a child does need to be away from his parent every now and then, to explore the world on his own and to expand his boundardaries.
The problem is what to filter and how to filter it. I think we can all agree on three things:
- Current censorware sucks. It just isn't good at doing it's job. It's like a blind man with a shotgun trying to stop a robbery.
- It's easy enough to censor sites that are voluntarily willing to be censored.
- It's also easy enough to censor sites that don't care if they're censored, but who don't want to go to the trouble of tracking down all the censorware sites and identifying themselves.
- It's close to impossible to stop the ones that actively do not want to be censored. (Luckily these are almost always clueless gits who think that Pam Anderson is a porn queen)
The problem is choosing what to censor in a particular area. The standards for Omaha, Ne are puritan compared to the standards for New York City. Add Amsterdam to the mix and you really don't have a standard at all. perhaps the most interesting place to look at community standards would be New Orleans, where the community standards drop once you enter the Quarter and change depending on the time of year and the time of day.I think the answer is to have a standard method of identifying sites that should be blocked, and a number of publicly accessable databases to choose from. These databases should be able to point to one another in the same fashion that web pages do today. For example:
/porn.blk is a well know directory that porn sites can voluntarily add themselves to.
/nudity.blk is a directory of sites that contain nudity. It also points to porn.blk. When you use nudity.blk it automaticly means you're using porn.blk. You could call nudity.blk with a nofollow parameter ond only get the nudity.blk listings. :) .blk in existance. .blk sites thereby preventing your machine from using existing filters.
gay.blk is a religious list that lists all gay sites, including gay rights sites.
pagan.blk is another religious list that lists all wiccan, satanism, santaism, and other cool sites. For some obscure reason it has overlaps with gay.blk
gore.blk is Tipper Gore's personal list to hide all of the sites that should have never made it on her husband's internet. It points to all record lables, lyrics sites, and just about every
cthulhu.blk is a campus list thar lists all the
See, once you get a standard and let us all create .blk lists, much like we all create .htm files with hrefs galore, the internet will return to it's wonderful chaotic state, and everyone will be happy.
This post and the contents thereof are not patented and should be considered prior art if someone tries to patent it. Thank you.
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No Zen is good zen
The council spent all their money buying Adult Check IDs so they could "investigate" all the different kinds of porn sites out there, and the best way to get everybody on AOL so they could censor them all from a single point, just like China!
As someone who used to run ISP's for a living, (Yes I used Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, AND NT on occasion :-) ) I am quite used to getting the kind of call/letter/email from a member of the outraged public, along the lines of "I searched through all the newsgroups you carry, looked at all the homepages, did some searches on the search engines you link to, and eventually, after two or three hours, I found some filth!"
The Internet is not a kiddie playground, supervised by social workers and kindly policemen. It is an anarchic meeting ground - different races, different political views, and different business drivers all come together. Sometimes they collaborate, sometimes they fight. However, if we do not encourage the freedom of expression on the Internet, it will cease being the port-of-call that it currently can be, and become just a slower form of Cable TV.
There are things on the Internet I don't want my children to see - this is also true of TV. It's my responsibility as a parent to make those choices, to educate my children and to share with them why I am making those choices.
What I would welcome from a legislative body is a process for me to choose what content I view, control where my personal information is stored (and thereby, how big my data shadow grows) and have the ability to publish my thoughts and express my beliefs without fear of prejudice, reprisal, or bigotry.
It would also be nice if I could be assured that the communications I send and receive remain confidential, retain integrity, and that the channels I communicate over - be it email, web, IRC, telephone, letter, or whatever - undertake to protect those channels, and to maximise their availablity to me.
I know this may sound like a utopian dream, but this is the kind of aspiration most of us share - we are drawn to OS's like Linux and BSD not only because they extend the invitation to directly participate in their development, but also because those who have already participated in that development have chosen to build it as best they can. Focusing on stability and reliabity has given us a stable platform, which assures us that we can use it as a communications base without fear of being let down.
We need the same level of assurance in our communications - we need to have an assurance that our privacy is respected, the integrity and confidentiality of our communications is controlled and measurable, and that those who we trust to carry our messages will do so to the best of their ability.
Part of the answer to this may be strong crypto - certainly things like PGP, Thawte, and so on allow us to set controls on privacy and identity.
It is not the role of the government to protect us from ourselves - we do not want it, or need it.
Thinking alters Thinking.
From the article:
Similar panels in Washington enjoy budgets in excess of $1 million, roughly the cost of a single Tomahawk cruise missile.
Well, I suppose that's one way of keeping smut off the Internet... just blow up their servers.
NO CARRIER
It sounds like there's a lot of heavy-hitters on the panel (AOL, PSInet). It would be in their best interests to fund the panel to keep Al Gore's baby "self-regulating" and "self-policing". They make enough cash to buy little toys like, say, Time-Warner, why not fund it themselves (tax deduction!) aso they can use it to thump their chests and say "We are the dreamers of dreams, and we care enough about Al Gore's invention to make it free of smut and A-bomb plans and unbiased news... oops, scratch the last one."
Sounds like a big ole' slap in the face (with hot grits and beer). Geez, I'm crazy for not posting this anonymously...
"First things first, but not necessarily in that order."
- Doctor Who
This kind of mentality will prevent the formation of a sane society, one that is not afraid of sex and the human body, one in which even a child can tell the difference between images which are art or textbook material and those which are simply in poor taste.
If we continue sheltering our children from everything, they'll never learn how to protect themselves, and they'll never be able to deal with reality. And we're already seeing the effects of this phenomenon: millions who can't cope with the world around them, and in turn are more willing than ever to sell out their freedoms for a dubious-at-best sense of security.
And this decrease of freedoms and increase of governmental hand-holding creates more of these helpless people, which feeds the vicious cycle.
Even if the creation of a sane, healthy society is too "impossible" for lazy and unimaginative politicos to even consider, I think that there's still a quick, simple solution that won't cut our freedoms short:
Encourage parents to guide their kids while using the Internet.
[straw man:]
Of course, thousands of parents cry, "But we can't be there to monitor them 24/7!"
And, of course, the Powers-That-Be agree. Spending time with your kids means less time "working"... might hurt the economy if parents started doing that en masse.
But I'm not advocating that parents monitor children's access. By "guiding", I mean teaching kids how to use the Internet responsibly, and instilling a sense of responsibility in them that will follow them wherever they go. Of course, it might mean that parents might have to learn a thing or two about the Internet themselves, not to mention responsibility.
Overall, however, the benefits to society would be too great to ignore. Children growing up with a sense of responsibility and independence will create adults who aren't afraid to stand up for their freedoms, and who can fend for themselves.
Also, parents who think they need their kids' access "secured" because they "can't be with their kids all the time" need to severely reexamine their assumptions. What many are trying to say is "I can't spend any time with my kids because I'm at work all the time and I want a magic pill to take the burden of parenting off my shoulders."
The damage, if any, caused to kids by seeing a few pornographic images absolutely pales in comparison to growing up with no real parental contact.
Understandibly, there may be situations where this isn't possible, such as single parents (who, btw, have a very tough job and my utmost respect), but children of single parents are usually expected to act with some degree of responsibility and independence in all aspects of life, and these virtues easily translate to the online world. (Not to mention the opposite: that responsibilities in Internet usage can also serve as important lessons for Real Life.)
Treating the Internet as an excuse to take away kids' freedoms (and consequently, their responsibilities), only serves to erode any responsibility and independence they may have learned offline.
By ignoring, rejecting, and fearing the ideas laid out above, American society has become its own dirty little secret. Insisting on living a self-destructive lifestyle and avoiding our real problems with shoddy workarounds is insane. But somehow it's become the "American Way".
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Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.