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Utah Governor Signs Net-Porn Bill
All Names Have Been writes "House bill 260 has been signed into law by Utah's governor. It creates a list of websites that are not 'safe for children' and forces ISPs to block these sites for those who request it.
In addition, content providers who host or create content in Utah for profit must now rate their websites or face 3rd degree felony charges.
A similar law in Pennsylvania was struck down last year." (See this earlier story, too.)
Despite the fact that both states have elected Bushes as governor, we've never done anything quite as pointless and unenforceable as trying to outlaw internet porn.
Thank you, Utah, for boldy diving head first into the shallow end of the pool to prove how stupid it is for the rest of us.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
I love how it seems to be OK for legislators to just completely ignore the Constitution these days, just in order to make a point.
I used to think the judiciary was out of line but apparently they're now the only people willing to stand between us and total madness.
Can't wait for this to go to court. Shame they can't fine the representatives who waste the people's time and money passing crap legislation like this.
Boycott everything - they're all trying to fuck you one way or another
The first slashdot post said the governor was considering it. This one says he has.
Now, Dupe Nazi, how else am I supposed to know he actually signed it, unless there's a follow up article? Guess? Assume?
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union go further and warn the bill violates the US Constitution's First Amendment on free speech and the Commerce Clause. Six other states have had similar legislation ruled unconstitutional, resulting in huge legal bills for residents, Media Coalition director David Horowitz told the Salt Lake City Tribune.
You would think that they would learn not to mess with the free speech rights of adults and children here. The main objection to these kinds of bills is that the block access to sites giving medical or social information about topics like teen sexuality, pregnancy, and homosexuality. This is due to the fact that the blacklist is drawn up by a bunch of conservative idiots rather than people that know the difference between Debbie Does Dallas and Gray's Anatomy. The laws prevent teens who have a right to know this kind of information without the consent of their parents (the ACLU has defended teen medical rights before) which is stupid since most of the problems with teen sex are due to ignorance on the part of teens about sexuality. Since they are taught nothing but abstinence, those who do have sex don't use protection. And because of the lack of communication between parents and teens in this case, the teens won't tell their parents nor will they get medical help which just makes the situation worse. One of these days they'll figure out that teaching children proper morals and letting them deal with the dangers of the world regarding sex is better than just blindfolding them and threaten them with eternal damnation if they have sex before marriage.
--
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Wired article as proof
Texas has a ban on dildos. Can't buy then, although, here in Houston you certainly can find a lot of porn shops sans dildos. I think this is the same thing really. Banning what people do in the privacy of their own homes. It's wrong.
Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
Ahh, there's the realization of De Toqueville's Tyranny of the Majority - a majority (Mormons in this case), running willy nilly over silly things like 'constitutional rights' that might do something dastardly like supporting unpopular minority rights.
Meh, unfettered democracy is a stupid, dumb idea and this is a perfect case study - the tyranny of the Mormons.
Hard to take that seriously, perhaps, but it is chilling...
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
How about parents not letting their children use the internet unsupervised?
Heaven forbid parents actually be forced to keep an eye on their kids.
People seem to be screeming about the first ammendment being raped here by some right wing governor in Utah. Can we be resonable and think clearly for a second (i know this is slashdot but let's try.)
So this state passes a law that says ISPs have to filter content for people that want it filtered. Person A living in Utah says they like porn so they don't call their ISP and everything continues like normal. Person B thinks this is a great idea because they don't like porn and don't want their 10 year old "accidentally" getting to a porn site so they call their ISP and have it filtered (which by the way, this isn't really stomping the rights of the child since A) they are a minority and have very few rights as it is and B) the parent pays for the service and is there for the one who is able to control it).
Now this doesn't screem to me that the constitution is being abused. It just tells me that people are silly. The reason i say they are silly is because there are a bunch of ISPs that already filter out porn and those kinds of sites as a service to their (largely christian) customers, so why do we need a bill for this? Just tell everyone that wants the content filtered to switch from their current ISP to one of the christian ISPs.
As soon as some wife (or mother of an 18year old) of someone who would pay for porn, has this restriction put on thier account--but the guy is too scared to tell her that he wants porn--the porn industry is going to throw thier heaps of money in along with the ACLU in getting this bill struck down. Then the bill will just end up costing the state even more money (which will get passed on to the taxpayers).
Bottles.
Poppycock. Clearly, the first amendment protects free speech - and this is a clear abridgement of this right. Just because perhaps most of the good citizens of Utah don't agree with their children being able to view pornography does not justify this move.
ISPs are forced to provide a filtered internet connection at the request of the customer. Freedom of speech doesn't mean I have to hear what you say. If I (as the person paying for the internet access in the house I own), choose to filter my internet, then I am allowed to do so.
Whether or not forcing ISPs to offer a filtered internet for those who want it is right is not a First Ammendmant issue.
Well, in this case we are talking about Utah and backasswards laws based on childish religious beliefs. So you probably just should have assumed. But in other cases, yeah, a followup would probably have been needed.
This does not bode well for the people and ISPs in Utah. Without the 'common carrier' protection, an ISP is liable for any/all content viewed/received by a subscriber. All you need is one pervert to download illegal pron, or one child to download (without authorization) a piece of media and the lawsuits would be be staggering.
Let's take a look at the bill:
So this bill is creating an OPT-IN list, preventing access to sites only to those customers who ask the ISP to do this. How is this violating free speech? If I don't want spam and decide to use a spam filter, am I violating the free speech rights of the spammers?THere's still something dangerous with the state deciding which material is objectionable, and which isn't, even if the blacklist is optional.
for instance, lets say we have two borderline objectionable sites, both with some potentially redeeming social content on them. one's content has liberal leanings. the other has conservative leanings. do you want the government even making a recomendation as to which one is ok for your children to see? do you want it giving a commercial advantage to one over the other? do you want one to enjoy the validation of the government's implicit endorsement, while the other suffers because of the persecution of the government's placement on the list?
If the consumer wants a "filtered" internet, he can get it already:
He can go sign up with one of the religious-affiliated nationwide ISPs that already have strict caching and blocking in place (mostly dialup, but if he's serious about the filters, it's an option).
He can go buy any number of software packages to "lockdown" his computer. Net-Nanny comes to mind.
Or if his kids are really that big of a problem when it comes to following his rules, he can even turn that fancy computin' machine off, who'd have thought, and confiscate the power cord to keep them from visiting inappropriate websites.
There is no reason for a law here, and there's certainly no reason to shift the burden from the consumer to the ISP.
Think of the children, please. Maybe some of you guys don't have to worry because you spend 4 hours-a-day actually SEARCHING for porn on the web, but please, a 5 or 6 year old girl, or even a boy?
Maybe you're complaining about something being taken from you (porn, "freedom of speech", etc). But I value the children's innocence much more.
And please don't blame it on the "evil censorship monster", because a simple meta tag would have taken care of everything. If the porn market can't regulate itself, then it's about time the Internet providers do.
And please, don't go with all "But this is today, TOMORROW THEY WILL" crap. What do you think the "F" in FUD means?
a majority (Mormons in this case), running willy nilly over silly things like 'constitutional rights' that might do something dastardly like supporting unpopular minority rights.
Ya know, I love people that think that just because something happened in Utah, that the Mormons must be involved.
Have you even READ the bill? Or the article? Or previous posts? Here, I'll paste it in for ya:
"Upon request by a consumer, a service provider may not transmit material from a content provider site listed on the adult content registry."
UPON REQUEST BY A CONSUMER.
So, lemme ask, am I trampling on someone else's constitutional rights when I block that crap using Squid so my kids can't get to it at home? According to your logic, I don't even have the RIGHT to have that content blocked if I so desire.
Sounds to me like the pr0n can still flow freely, if that's what the subscriber wants.
5 mod points says that this list wont be accessible to the public, so the average person wont be able to critique the selctions, and that the ISPs will have to pay for the list for the privilege to comply with the law.
You are missing that it is not your ISP duty to censor internet for you. What if they censor too much or too little maybe? If you are worried about your children then there are programs made especially for that. Use them instead.
Or move to China maybe.
I'm also a member of the LDS church and appreciate AArnott's comments.
I just want to point out that while I disagree with your political viewpoint, many members of the church do not. There are plenty of democrats, republicans, independants, and who-knows-what-else members. Trust me, if you want to have a heated discussion (haha, yeah) at a family gathering such as a reunion or thanksgiving, just bring up politics.
Calling Utah a "religious dictatorship" is quite ignorant. Sure there is a large number of LDS members there but it really has nothing to do with internal politics. Regarding it's Republican vote last year, consider that ALL the midwest states voted red.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
I'm a "Mormon", or more accurately, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I'm an ex-Mormon who lived in Utah for three years while attending BYU, and you're full of shit.
1) Did this legislation come about as a result of the elders in the church?
Absolutely not. The Church stays strictly out of politics, except where a serious moral issue is involved, and then only the moral at issue is taught, but the vote and the law is up to the members individually.
Don't kid yourself. The Mormon church is very much involved in politics. They run the political scene in Utah, and they have ever since Brigham Young was both the governor of the territory and the polygamous prophet of the church (the Constitution be damned). To maintain its non-profit status, the church cannot endorse any given party or candidate, but it does speak up on legislative issues, and it does so frequently and aggressively. For example, when the gay marriage proposition was up for vote in California, the Mormon church organized a massive door-to-door campaign to try to deny the gays their right to marry. And the fact that less than 1% of your top leadership are Democrats speaks volumes about the political undertones in the Mormon institution. Being a Democrat in the Mormon church all but seals your prospects of holding influential positions in the organization.
Even among the members of the Church, it is a matter that often brings up discussion (sometimes heated) as to whether or not laws to restrict rights to behave immorally should be made. But this is not Church mandate or policy. It's up to the members.
The coercion to conform to a homogeneous political stance is subtle, but very real. Apparently you've never sat in an Elder's Quorum meeting when they pass around a petition to stop a race track from being constructed in your town, or anything of the sort. Just try to express a little individuality and not sign that petition. You'll be able to cut the stigma in the room with a knife.
In conclusion, be sure to research "the Mormons" using legitimate sources. That means: if you want to know what we "Mormons" believe in, ask a good, practicing Mormon.
I am sick and tired of hearing this complete and total bullshit, and I am even more annoyed by people to buy it. As they say, you learn more about a man from his enemies than his friends. If you wanted to learn about Toyota's, would you trust the information given to you by a Toyota dealer, or by a consumer reports magazine? Okay, for the best information, if you want to learn about the Mormon institution, you should seek out sources that are as objective as possible. Want to know about the historicity of the Book of Mormon? Ask any non-Mormon professor of anthropology, paleontology, metalurgy, archaeology, Egyptology, or pre-Columbian Native American studies, from any reputable university in the world (okay, there may be one or two out there who will go out on a limb and state that the story in the BoM is plausible, but that's as far as anyone -- even the Mormon apologetics -- will go). And practicing Mormons will conveniently neglect to tell investigators of the church about fun little facts in its history, like Joseph Smith marrying other mens' wives, the blacks being denied the priesthood before 1978, or the death penalty oaths in the temple ceremonies before 1990. Until they are baptized and locked into the organization, of course -- then they just need to pray until they feel good about it all.
... block these sites for those who request it.
This is an opt-out policy. Fine with me.
I do have a problem with the rating of a website. A subjective measure at best.
Customers should have the option to block websites if they request it. It is no different than blocking a channel on cable.
I guess I don't see how this applies to My rights online other than the rating system. (It looks like another "feel good" policy. There is almost no way to enforce it.)
"I love how it seems to be OK for legislators to just completely ignore the Constitution these days, just in order to make a point."
Given that the blockage is optional, how is the Constitution being violated? (Note: I'm actually asking in all seriousness, I'm not challenging your point.)
"Derp de derp."
That's only the start, really.
- Why pass a bill when you can buy commercial software to do this for you? I'm sure you can even get software for free to do it. That is simply technical incompetance.
- Why not choose an ISP that does filtering already, like AOL, or a local company which will do the filtering?
If people want ("demand") filtering, then there will be, and is, a commercial interest in providing that filtering ("supply"). Passing a law is simply ridiculous.
I can't wait for this to be shot down in courts. Fsck Utah.
</libertarian-rant>
The space unintentionally left unblank.
As an ex-mormon still living in Utah with a large very mormon family and many mormon friends, I can agree with your post. Many people i know say they're voting for this or against that because it's what the church wants. Not "officially" of course, but they do let stuff slip out. As for the anti-gay legislation, there was an article in the newspaper about how the church denied having officially taken any side in the campaigning going on for that. I laughed out loud when I read that one.
but in 5 years I am thinking that slap-the-bitch.com might be a sight I would want blocked.
Then block it. Who exactly is stopping you?
That is this thing known as "Freedom".
There are these people known variously as "cowards", "fools", "scumbags", and "fascist fuckheads", among many other terms who do not understand that to have "Freedom" takes something known as "Courage".
Which is a dwindling resource in this modern world.
MONITOR YOUR CHILDREN WHILE THEY ARE ON THE INTERNET. I know it's a crazy notion to keep an eye on your children, but deal with it. If *I* want to look at porn all day, it's my right as a a citizen of the United States to do so. You don't have a right to stop it. If you don't want to see any naked women, fine. I don't want you to cause potential lag on the websites I'm browsing. There's gobs of software on the internet, which is usually linked to on the site agreement of any porn site, that you can install, and thus prevent your children from doing something you object to. You're a parent, and it's your right to tell them what to do on your internet connection. But you don't pay MY bills, therefore if I want to look, you shouldn't have any right to tell me.
Learn something new.
You are a brainwashed cult member. While the church still allows it, I recommend you use this big bad internet to do some real research of your own which will undermine every single lie purported by the Cult of Mormon. I researched it myself when I was dating a girl who came from a Mormon family and even though she was not currently practicing, the psychological issues that developed as a result of the cult-like attitudes of her family pretty much split us apart. Mind control really is a bad thing. Try out this free thought thing, really, you'll like it.
The coercion to conform to a homogeneous political stance is subtle, but very real. Apparently you've never sat in an Elder's Quorum meeting when they pass around a petition to stop a race track from being constructed in your town, or anything of the sort. Just try to express a little individuality and not sign that petition. You'll be able to cut the stigma in the room with a knife.
I am a life long member of the LDS Church. This statement, assuming it to be true, is appalling. If any political literature, let alone a petition, is passed around on any church property, let alone any meeting, that is a blatent violation of published church policy. Period.
Two examples:
As volunteer supervisor at a church owned softball park during games one night, I escorted a church member off the park for soliciting signatures for his town council election petition. You cannot do that on church property.
As Sunday School President in my ward I stopped a ward member from entering an adult sunday school class to distribute school prayer referendum brochures. She left very angry when the ward Bishop agreed that it was not a proper thing to do.
I have other instances of similar events but I think that is enough.
Anyone doing such a thing in any LDS Church meeting is not doing so within the policies of the church. Maybe the policy manual in Utah is different than here in Arizona but I doubt it.
The leadership of that ward should be chewed out for that one!
Where do you get the idea that kids have rights to do anything without parent consent? Parents can pull thier kid out of public schools, homeschool them, keep them in the house 24 hours a day, and they would not violate one right of the child.
I don't know where you get your ideas from, but parents have an absolute right to pick what their kids will read, what they will watch on tv, and what websites they can see. If a parent wishes to enroll their kid in a church school, and shut any outside access to information, then until that kid turns 18 s/he has no choice.
I know of people with a 12 year old, and they won't let her use the internet for any reason, and when she watches tv, it has to be pre-approved. She is not allowed to date, and she wears clothing her parents buy her. She is also enrolled in a private school, and the parents review the curriculum, to ensure they approve. If the parents don't approve of something, they either will pull their kid out that day, or withdraw altogether. And the parents are 100% in the right.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Your country doesn't consider minors to be part of "the people" then?
the problem is,
1) ISPs wasting money on useless filters
2) parents using computers as babysitters since the filters are infallible, right?
3) said parents randomly suing ISPs because their infallible filters didn't filter out some site
We've been here before folks!
The issue here is not if it's optional or not for the Customer.
The issue that will kill this law is that the Government (the AG of Utah) will be responsible for maintaining a list of sites to block.
It is the speech of the people ON THE BLOCKED LIST who are being silenced by the government. You can even add violation of due-process becasue there's no detail as to who, what, or why a site is added to the list.
Thise issue has ALREADY been decided by the SCOTUS.
Do we need another 20 judges on this one too?
Can these people in government read?
'As they say, you learn more about a man from his enemies than his friends.'
Unfortunately, enemies often are convinced of the truth of half truths, so they are not good sources of information.
I agree. But I think what he means is that you'll get more of the truth when talking to a former member of the LDS church than an active one. I think there are two reasons for that. Reason number one is that there are no worries. It's like a retired politician saying everything he ever wanted to, but didn't before in fear of not being re-elected. The second reason is that many opposers (certainly not all, however) typically spend a great deal of time forming opinions and even more time doing the research to back it up.
But it's always good to get as many sides as you can. I'm glad to see Mormons who are supportive of their religion throwing in their two cents.
I mean, come on. Porn is _not_ harmful. Bad parenting, however, is. Children who are under a certain "magic" (or "Evil" for the mormons) age will find looking at porn is just boring - they'd quickly loose interest and wander off. Children past the age would experience no ill affects....other than a slight rise in libido, of course. So why block it? I'm 16, and since I was about 6 I've had free access to information - and I've never looked back. Heck, in this country (the UK), the government sent a very nice leaflet home to all parents saying how "The internet was dangerous for children" but "trying to censor anything is an excise in futility, as tech-savvy kids can get around most blocks". It then went on to say that "talking to your children" is the best answer there is.
Can't you do that over there?
And I want that list....
My UID is prime. Is yours?
And forcing ISPs to pay for a product that the concerned parents could just as easily get for themselves.
If they hadn't legislated providing the means to filter the content, it would have been fine.
Actually... they should have just produced the list and then certified whatever software complied with the list. Let parents choose whatever software or filtering set up they want and pay for it themselves but gain the benefit of a standard list that is up for public scrutiny unlike the current offerings.
You preserve community standards, you offer the parents a solution and you don't force anybody to pay for anything unless you want to complain about the couple of cents on the dollar of your taxes being used to produce the list.
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world. It's just a lie you've got to rise above. - John Mayer
Am I missing something or is this Utah law really as idiotic as it seems at face value?
I'm sure all the Russian and Finnish ISPs are just all shaky in their boots and peeing themselves in terror at the might of the Utah State Gummint.
FUCK! What a bunch of retards.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
I agree that only seeing the sites you want to see is a good thing, but why in the world involve the ISPs? This is like requiring taxi companies to refuse to take you to a list of restaurants you don't like. If you don't want to go there, don't go there!
But the point is there's no way, short of monitoring every moment of a child's internet usage (which isn't truly practical) to ensure they don't end up going there.
It's not about whether an adult wants to go there or not - it's about whether an adult has the means to ensure their children don't go there.
The law's treatment of ISPs is nothing like a taxi firm, it's like a news seller:
Hardcore porn, right now, can be sitting anywhere on a newseller's shelves - right amongst the comics. Worse, it's virtually impossible to identify which links will and won't take a kid to porn or what endless cycles of pop-ups will. That's the equivalent of hardcore porn makers wrapping their content in Yu-Gi-Oh covers to ensure it gets more impressions.
What the law is saying is: Utah magazine publishers aren't allowed to wrap an innocent looking cover around their porn mags anymore and, as Utah can't legislate against out of state magazines, they're requiring news sellers to put magazines from a given list on the top shelf.
It's not even as if it prohibits free speach. You still have the right to speak. It's just that parents are being given the right to decide they and their families don't want to listen (and still have the right to decide to listen if they want to).
I agree it's not an ideal system. I agree it's not perfect. I agree some non-porn sites will mistakenly end up on the list. I agree there are better alternatives out there (though, as many parents evidently don't know of them, "better" is obviously a relative term).
But, just because something's not ideal, it doesn't mean it should automatically be ignored if, as non-ideal, it's still better than not doing it.
What are the costs? The real, genuine costs? Minimal if anything - a piece of cheap software that blocks a supplied list really doesn't cost much at all. Give a decent programmer a few hours, they can knock it up for you. Other than that and the Utah state government's money - the other costs are arguably negligible.
What are the benefits? Maybe not as great as promised but they do exist. Block a few thousand typo domains like hotmale.com, the obvious ones kids try like playboy.com and the most prolific ad/spyware based ones and you can make a reasonable sized dent - even if you can't catch everything.
Do the benefits outweigh the costs? Yes. Does it trample any civil liberties or anything else with a hard to immediately prove but ultimately huge cost? No.
So stop whining. You see flaws in it? Write to the Utah congresscritters and senators. Suggest better solutions. They evidently see it as a problem worth addressing, they obviously see the benefits as outweighing the costs - so suggest your better solution and see if they'll act on it. Just don't bitch for the sake of bitching that people chose a non-perfect solution that they still regard as better than the costs of implementing it.
You're missing the point. This isn't the ISPs censoring the Internet, it's the government. The state provides the list of all the sites to block. Even if it's opt-in, you have to be able ot see the damage this coudl cause. Most people in Utah aren't going to read the entire list to see what's on it, they're just going to request the censoring from their ISPs for the good of the children. A side effect of this is that the government will be able to shape the content that gets delivered to these households now.
To address your cable television comparison, what would you do if the state provided a list of channels that the cable companies had to block on request. On the list just happened to be all news channels except for FOX News. The state would be shaping the views of its citizens. This same thing can happen with this list of bad sites. It probably won't be that blatant, but there are many borderline sites with content that many would still find worthwhile that willl be blocked.
The obvious response to this is to not ask the ISP to sensor your connection. However, many people will, and they'll still have their content filtered by the state. It's okay if someone chooses to only get their news from FOX, but it's not ok if the government coerces them in that direction. The correct solution to the problem they present is choosing one of the many content filtering products on the market to protect their children. The only problem here is that the state is doing it. That is bad. I don't know whether it's constitutional or not, but I think the state has been given power that is so easy to abuse that it will be, whether intentionally or not.
On the other hand, parents that would choose that state provided content filtering will probably agree with the choices made anyway.
Not really.
From TFA:
The controversial bill (PDF)will require ISPs to block access to websites deemed "harmful to minors" on request. This blacklist will be drawn up by the state's Attorney General.
The law empowers the AG to determine what is "harmful to minors." That is the first problem: our federal constitution forbids laws that abridge speech as this one does by turning the state AG into a gatekeeper of literary, artistic, sexual, or other content. Community standards? Fine, prosecute; but you can't legislate with such a broad brush.
Far from the niceties of an opt-out solution, this noxious law requires ISPs either to block sites themselves or give customers filtering software. Either solution will result in normal, nonpornographic content being blocked, too. That will creates costs and headaches for creators and consumers.
Now, it's one thing for parents who use imperfect filtering software to say, "I don't care if my kid doesn't get to see some good web sites as long as all the bad ones are blocked." But the state has no such luxury, being nobody's parent; indeed, our Bill of Rights is there to slap down the state when it overreaches, and it is overreaching here. The slap will be forthcoming in court and it will be applied severely.
I guess I don't see how this applies to My rights online other than the rating system.
Even if you can't appreciate what's at stake, you'll understand soon enough if you're a Utah resident and your state persists in this folly. Lawsuits against this kind of mischievous puritanism end up being very costly for taxpayers. That should be incentive enough to rein in the state's Taliban.
No, I didn't. I just don't share your frame of reference. The frame of reference that applies to religionists is not the frame of reference that applies to me.
That is a claim that can be tested. Fine. I'll provisionally accept it. Let's test. Now, pray to your God and retrieve the answer as to exactly what object I am thinking of as I write this. Post that answer here. I'll give you and your God a hint: "Asia's..." what? One word, two syllables. Language unspecified; I'm a martial artist and speak two Asian languages. Let's see you and your God solve that one with prayer. You won't come up with it by guessing, I can tell you that.
Now: unless you can meet that very simple standard of testability, I will continue to accept that all the evidence -- and there is tons of it -- indicates that what you are doing is inventing and/or accepting a made-up story to explain things that have yet to be explained, and may in fact not be explainable. For instance, I am not inclined to make up an untestable story about how the universe started in order to explain the fact that I don't understand how it started. That's not productive behaviour in my frame of reference.
Back to our test. Now, since in all human history, no prayer of record has ever returned useful, previously unknown results, I'll not be holding my breath for your ability to get your prayer answered. So let me be clear: Until you can bring objective proof of the existance of supernatural processes into the natural world, there is no reason that I should accept that what you are saying is anything other than a further manifestation of your own inner story-telling processes.
No. I don't. You're confused to think so -- that's actually politically correct nonsense. In fact, I don't take your word for it, and unless you come up with some proof, there is no reason whatsoever I should take you at your your word.
Without proof, your word on this matter is precisely of the same value as the word of a voodoo practitioner fresh from his chicken sacrifice, or the word of someone who thinks keeping his vegetables underneath a crystal pyramid will improve them as compared to, say, refrigeration. These things are interesting as a metric of human behaviour, but they are not objective fact and therefore not worthy of accepting at face value. As it turns out, all the evidence so far indicates that belief in God (more generally, any God or Gods) is simply irrational behaviour. No more, but sometimes less.
No. It doesn't break the scientific method. It simply puts religion in the same boat with phrenology and astrology and many, many other beliefs without rational foundation.
The fact is, belief does not in any way presage or validate its subject; no matter how deep the rationalizations go, no matter how many like-minded believers there are, and no matter how profound the the depth of the belief. That power is beyond religion; and yet science is a functional implementation of that power -- we can actually validate what is, as opposed to what is simply believed.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Surely, if the consumers know to ask, they could pick an ISP which did this, or subscribe to a system which does it independent of their ISP. If there is no such ISP, and this bill has any purpose at all, then one will appear to suck up all those customers.
The issue here isn't that some, dim, people want to pretend the internet can be made a suitable playground for unsupervised children, but rather that the state wants to make the decision of what is suitable.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
I just spent like 5 minutes reading through the entire bill looking for any mentions of specific sites... for.. science.
That is a good, albeit scary, thing to point out. But I think Mormons are pretty pro-science and technology (hell, I think they even believe that the lost tribes of israel were taken up by extraterrestrials or something). It's the bible-beating south that should be watched closer in this regard.
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
This really is the stupid way to do things, young kids (say up to 8 or 10) only need a small selection of websites they do not need to traverse the wide sea of knowledge on the internet until they are old enough to deal with whatever they find there. Websites that are suitable for kids should apply for a rating that proves they are suitable, then a list of good sites can be compiled and if you want you can set your ISP to only allow good sites. The advantage of this is as follows:
-'Bad' sites may try and get themselves off a black list by constantly adding alias addresses.
-There is NO way to get all the 'bad' sites on a list, it only takes 1 site to 'ruin' a childs life.
I was given full net access, to my room, no restrictions, when I was about 13. I'd say if you can't handle being able to see what you want to see at 13, you can't handle life.
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Why is homosexuality a "moral issue", whereas polygamy is not? I woulds say that Mormons attempts to limits rights of others (in this case gays), is alot bigger "moral issue" than homosexuality itself could ever be!
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
For me, "most" equals "all".
What's wrong with making fun of people believing silly sounding, probably wrong stuff?
The average layman's belief in science is indistinguishable from religious belief: in both cases the believers are listening to a handful of "prophets" making astounding claims about the nature of the universe, based on things the believers have never seen and is not in a position to test for themselves. Science-believers have simply decided, based on what they have heard, that the scientists' explanation makes more sense than the others. Religious fundamentalists have come to the opposite conclusion. Most people hover somewhere in between.
Unless you are one of the top 1% of physicists, therefore, your "rational" beliefs are essentially religious beliefs, and your statement that "all" religions are wrong becomes nonsensical.
Here's an experiment, if you don't believe me. Go out onto a street, accost an average-looking housewife, and try to tell her about Jesus. Now accost another one and try to tell her about string theory. Dollars to donuts you'll get the same reaction from both.
Why are gay unions okay, but polygamy is not? I'm assuming, of course, that everyone involved is a consenting adult.
The scientist will tell you they performed experiments to confirm the results; that these experiments have been done repeatedly by different people; that their theories are backed up by evidence.
Only the scientist who has actually performed these experiments. That can't be said for most people...
The religious person will tell you it's true because of his wobbly interpretation of a book written thousands of years ago, or it's true because he claims "God said so". Also note how people following the "God said so" route cannot agree at all on anything; there are countless different contradictory religious viewpoints.
Too funny. The science-advocate will tell you that his beliefs are true because of his wobbly interpretation of what he's read in school or periodicals, or heard from his friends about wild (and not so wild) theories that were produced in an attempt to explain an environment whos complexity still eludes our ability to perfectly model. Or he'll tell you it's true because his professor said so. Also note how people following the science route cannot agree on anything, as theories change frequently; there are countless different contradictory scientific theories.
Now sure, it could be that there's a worldwide conspiracy where all the scientists are lying to us. But for those of us who don't subscribe to crackpot beliefs like that, the idea that the believing what scientists say is comparable to believing what one particular religious person says is absurd.
The funny thing is, it's not the scientists who are lying. A good scientist generally presents his or her ideas as a theory (with no misrepresentation involved). Unfortunately, when professors and the media pick it up, what gets presented to students and the public takes little regard for clarifying what is fact and what is a theory based on that fact. I personally find it easier to believe a level-headed religious leader than what gets distored by the news media.
The interesting thing is that it's only the Jesus-believers who seem to have a need to force their beliefs on random passerbys..
Yes, those against religious beliefs are generally more organized, instead showing up at odd moments to disrupt private conversations that they've been eavesdropping on just because they don't like or agree with what they are hearing.
But see, this is the issue. If you truly understand science, you'll know that neither quantum theory nor relativity are actually correct. They are merely the closest we can come to a model that defines the universe based on what observations we've been able to make. These theories, while very valuable for making predictions, will undoubtedly fall prey to a newer and better theory sometime in the future. The best one can hope for is that new theories will merely add to or slightly adjust those that already exist.
I agree that there are a lot of nuts spouting religious beliefs to people who obviously don't want to hear. But there are many more who observe much more reasonable beliefs with some evidence to back them up, and a clear statement of faith where evidence fails.
GreyPoopon
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Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
You certainly have that right. As a Mormon myself, I have no problem with you making fun of "us". Where people tend to be more sensitive, however, is when the "making fun" is done in a manner that spreads erroneous information about what the Mormons actually believe. Most of the "moronic" beliefs that I have heard being attributed to Mormons are actually not true. Now if you are one of those inclined to consider all religious beliefs as moronic, then not much can be done about that. But if you really knew what Mormons believed, I think you might find that they aren't quite as moronic as you may have been lead to believe thus far.
"Intel[l]igent design" folks are at least trying to justify their beliefs, but creationists creating the Earth before the Sun? Do you expect me to take you seriously on anything else when you are that naive/stupid/gullible?
I'm not sure where that comes from. The basic creationist belief (as outlined in the Bible) states that "And God said, let there be light...and the morning and the night were the first day." In other words, the "light" (the Sun) was created before all else. I'm not sure how all religions deal with it, but as Mormons, we also believe that the "creation" was more of an organization in the sense that matter was organized to create the Earth, sun, stars, etc... and not mysteriously created out of nothing. But the Sun was still created first.
And, yes, "Ra" (as I understand it, anyway) is representative of God. God has been represented in many different ways by many different religions and many different cultures. That certainly does not preclude the idea that they are talking about the same Being. We all have different understandings, and have recorded those different understandings in different ways. So I agree that it is rediculous to dismiss the similarities out-of-hand.
Why is it a religious issue to not want your children to see something like that old slashdot favorite image with "goat" in the name?
I'm sure there are plenty of athiests with children who would like to protect them from seeing a wide variety of images on the internet. Boobies? Come on. If the internet had nothing more extreme than Playboy Magazine, I seriously doubt you'd have legislation like this.
Also this does not infringe anyone's first amendment rights, because it is voluntary. If you want to continue to see everything, you do nothing. If you want to block the sites on the list, you have to request that they be blocked.
To summarize why I reject your logic:
Now, unfortunately, comes my reason why this bill won't do much good... It is amazingly easy to set up a new domain name. It is impossible for ANY group to keep an adequate list of sites to block. As soon as owners of a site find it blocked, they can spend about 15 minutes at most to get a new name that ISN'T blocked.
The best solution I ever heard was from one of the columnists in eWeek (back when it was PCWeek) circa 1996-7. Can't remember which one. His suggestion was a separate domain designator for porn. Something like .xxx
This way anyone could publish anything, but people who choose to avoid such things could simply block the .xxx domains.
How about some sort of domain naming based on something other than whether you are a business (.com), non-profit (.org more or less), US government entity (.gov, unless you are miliatry, then .mil) or from a specific country (.au for instance). What if the library were indexed in that manner? All the books published in France are in one section with no further subdivision. Yikes.
In another post I mentioned the concept of a .xxx domain. You could have a .christian or .hindu domain as well. That way filtering would work.
Of course you run into problems if you have something like the illustrated Kama Sutra... .hindu, .xxx or both?
The use of newer suffixes like .biz and .tv are a tiny step in the right direction, but it quickly becomes unmanageble...
The W3C is working on the semantic web which would help in categorizing information. Should be much more elegant than the simplistic example I just gave (which I admit is not my own, but came from PCWeek sometime around '96-'97). Of course their aim is to make information available, not specifically make it easy to AVOID certain information...
I agree with you that as a consumer of information on the web, I should be able to set up accurate filters. I for one do not want to see graphic violence for example.
I do NOT believe the government should ever, ever, ever enforce any form of censorship, BUT I also believe I as an individual should be able to accurately filter out crap I do not want to see. The KEY is that I, myself, get to define "crap".
What is with these religious socialists in Utah? All the lobbyists who forced this law on all their neighbors statewide could have started an ISP which blocks porn sites on request, with a default list for subscribers. That's right: free enterprise. If it were really popular, Utahans would switch over in droves; eventually, every ISP in Utah would do it that way. And it would create demand elsewhere for such boring ISPs. But no, they call on Caesar to do the Lord's work. What a gang of hypocrites - they obviously need porn more than the average person, or at least to get laid once in a while. That would prove there's a god.
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make install -not war
You know, I should get paid for this advertisment! And, I honestly cannot believe I got modded +5 for that. Only on slashdot (and maybe Fark...)