I already gave my references here. Understand that it was a very general number to make the discussion easier.
While it is true that between 8 and 12 months a baby has a sense of the self, they don't yet understand that they are a unique individual in the world. They just understand that they can interact with the world. Babies understand that they are unique individuals between the age of 18 and 24 months.
I have a test, I mean a "game", for you and your kid.:)
Place him in front of a big mirror, alone. Let him watch himself for a few minutes. He will most probably try to interact with his reflection. After a while, pretend to wipe his face with a piece of clothing but, instead, put a mark on his nose with it. Now let him continue to interact with the mirror.
The day your kid starts to touch his own nose instead of the nose in the mirror is the day he starts to understand that he exists as an independant object in this world. It has been observed that no kid between 8 and 12 months touched their nose but 75% of the kids did at 21 months (Asendorpf, Warkentin and Baudonniere, 1996).
In other words, babies do not become sentient at the same time but almost all of them are at 24 months. So for biological experiments, I'd recommend not using babies after the age of 12 months. We could always use tests like the mirror test after that but we would definitely be playing with fire...
Ok look, you are not backing your ideas with facts. You are simply asking more questions. Murder and thievery can be ethical under opression so it's a question of context. As for rape, it can be ethical in a bdsm scenario I guess.
Your argument seems to be that babies, sentient or not, must be protected. If that's the case, any other being that is not sentient has the same rights to be protected and that includes plants. If you disagree, you must explain why.
If you say that a being must be able to feel pain to be protected, then that rules out plants but it doesn't rule out animals. So if you want to make an exception for human babies, you must explain why.
Same reason we pass laws protecting corpses. What people feel matters. When we try to rationalize it into ideological laws, we make caricatures of ourselves.
If a law is based on logic and if that law itself is logical and not a caricature of the observed fact, I don't see where it could lead to problems. If you base laws on feelings, you get laws based on "sins". These laws can't be explained except by "It doesn't feel right but I can't explain it".
The human connection with babies is a very real one; we're hardwired for it. In fact, if a mother were willing to give up her infant for scientific study, that would be a pretty good sign that she needs urgent psychiatric care. I'm not sure that science is worth overriding that link.
I agree and this is why I say that they should be grown artificially to make sure there is no emotional link. Some mothers might be able to do it but there is an emotional risk. It has nothing to do with the baby itself though.
Further, we have a very useful allergy to dehumanization. As lizard-brained humans, we're not very good at separation of concerns. When it comes to dehumanization, things that shouldn't be slippery slopes are, in fact, slippery slopes.
Well, that is not really true. If it was, then slaves would have never been used. I don't see any objective basis for your argument. Could you, perhaps, clarify your point?
When it comes to neuroscience, the benefit of working on humans as opposed to chimps is that humans can tell you things. You don't have that benefit with infants.
The earth, the cells and the atoms don't talk either and yet we can still study them. You don't have to talk to your subject to learn something from it.
Anyway, when you observe a subject, you must make sure it doesn't know you are studying it because of the Pygmalion effect. So, I don't think your last point is really relevant.
Lewis, M. (1991). Ways of knowing: Objective self-awareness of consciousness. Developmental Review, 11, 231-243.
Asendorpf, J. B., Warkentin, V., & Baudonniere, P. (1996). Self-awareness and other-awareness. II: Mirror self-recognition, social contingency awareness, and synchronic imitation. Developmental Psychology, 32, 313-321.
Bullock, M., & Lutkenhaus, P. (1990). Who am I? Self-understanding in toddlers. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 36, 217-238.
Lewis, M. (1991). Ways of knowing: Objective self-awareness of consciousness. Developmental Review, 11, 231-243.
Asendorpf, J. B., Warkentin, V., & Baudonniere,
P. (1996). Self-awareness and other-awareness. II: Mirror self-recognition, social contingency awareness, and synchronic imitation. Developmental Psychology, 32, 313-321.
Bullock, M., &Lutkenhaus, P. (1990). Who am I? Self-understanding in toddlers. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 36, 217-238.
Also, you didn't explain why it would be unethical. If you want to protect life that is not sentient, plants and lab animals should be protected as much as babies. You are thinking with your emotions, not logic.
I'll answer just for fun. No it doesn't disgust me though I am trying to cut back on meat, especially red meat. Anyway, all the meat you eat is coming from cadavers and I bet you don't care.:)
More seriously, not liking to eat meat has no link with giving the right to live to a creature that is not sentient. You could decide to not eat meat for medical reasons for example. Your argument is flawed.
If someone killed your one year old child, is it not murder then?
Yes, but it would logically be the same kind of murder as if you killed my dog. The emotional link and the strenght of my hopes and dreams for my kid would be the reasons my own baby would be more important to me than my own dog. On the other hand, if you were talking about laws, do not forget that they do not necesseraly follow logic.
Can we let parents off the hook for screwing up their kids before they age of two, as long as they kill the kid before they become "sentient"?
It sounds ludicrous to me.
This is an extremely interesting question. Logically I don't see why not. The baby is not sentient so if it is killed there would be no problem. Since we are there, babies that show physical problems could be terminated too before they become sentient.
The thing is, babies are "embryos" that are continuing to develope in the real world. They receive stimuli and can react to stimuli but they are nothing more than small robots at that age. By that I mean they are not sentient yet.
If the parents willingly screw up their baby after the mother has had that creature in her belly for so long and then kill it without hesitation, I would be more concerned about the parents than the baby to tell you the truth...
I found your post quite interesting so I am definitely taking some time to answer.
There is a big difference between having the right to live and having human rights. For example, Apes are sentient but they do not understand our laws so they can't be held responsible. I wouldn't want to give special human rights to a being that can't respect my own human rights.
Would YOU like to see a number of purposefully brain damaged homo sapiens vat grown for medical experimentation?
To tell you the truth, I have no problem with that. These corpses have the "shell" of a human being but they are not mentally functional. They are not sentient. So basically they can't understand what we are doing to them... like a flower.
Also, I don't know if we can use "too much logic" when talking about life. If a person is physically sick or weak but sentient, we should try to help that person like we would like others to help us. If it's not the body but the brain that is sick then I feel otherwise. If someone is brain-dead we shouldn't keep the body alive.
At this age they are not self aware. Basically they don't know they exist. I don't see the difference between studying an embryo of that age and studyng plants.
We are already using animals that are aware of their existance in labs. Apes can recognise themselves in front of a mirror and we are using them so I feel this is really not a big issue and we should let science go ahead.
Now I'm going to start a very heated debate. We know that babies start to be self aware around the age of 2 so if you really want to test my logic I'll tell you my opinion. We could logically use babies to make tests. Why this horrifies people is because they are attached to their own babies but since these newborns are not sentient yet, where is the harm in using "lab babies"? They would have to be grown in artificial wombs and all that to dehumanize them but logically it shouldn't be stopped.
I might be modded down for opening a can of worms but try to have fun with this ethical puzzle.
No but your house, car, land, natural ressources and all that ARE loot to other nations. Those who have less will want to challenge the rich to get their share. A donation to help other countries does benefit you indirectly. You are paying for peace. You are paying to keep your way of life as it is and to keep your goods to yourself.
Of course giving money blindly is useless but helping them get food, water and education will help them earn their money instead of stealing yours.
Impoverished nations tend to want their share of the loot. That means problems, terrorism and possibly war.
If you help the poor, they will less likely want to steal your money. In other words, you'll be able to do whatever you want in peace. This means it benefits YOU.
Also, while permanent poverty doesn't necesseraly breed war as much as transient poverty, if these countries start to have a normal society it also means that they will create new products and research new technologies. If more people are trying to build a better society on earth, it benefits YOU.
Being selfish can be useful but teamwork has often been noted to help the individuals get a better life or, at least, survive. So as counter-intuitive as it may sound, sometimes the best way to get ahead is to invest on others.
Scientists at the European Space Agency are using techniques inspired by their experience with outer space.
And this is why companies should understand that science projects that are for the betterment of mankind and for the improvement of human knowledge are long term investments.
The problem is that the goal of corporations is to make a lot of profit in the short term. Rare are the corporations that are planning their growth in the long term. They plan for the coming years, not the coming 25 years.
After all, where could useless theoritical research from imbeciles that live in their heads like James Clerk Maxwell possibly lead us? Surely if you don't see an application at the time, the research is a waste of time...
This is what I was thinking. Also I kind of tried in the past since I'm using pidgin but most people like their emoticons and voice chat. They especially like their crazy, annoying, non ascii emoticons...
Also, I was using pidgin to get jabber through gmail. So basically I was connecting to google talk and I'm not sure google talk counts as jabber.
Also, removing freedom a small bit at a time will not create rage and indignation in society at large. We, here, understand what could happen but most people simply don't care. They still have their emoticons, dancing boobies and voice chat so they might be pissed but in a week everybody will have adapted.
Ok, but not everyone will necesserely want to keep a physical copy of the game after they played it. Look at the video games rentals. People are renting games for a very cheap fee and finishing them. They don't care about playing them again later. All that money goes to the video store and not to the developpers.
Also, there are a couple of movies that can be rented online or on your tv. (ex: http://www.videotron.com/services/en/television/vod-guide-vsd.jsp) You can watch it for x amount of time and then it's over. Since it is a digital product, it doesn't get a shorter lifespan. Is filesharing really that different? You get to keep the product if you want but aside of that, the downloader likely would not even have bought the game in the first place.
In either case, the developpers don't make any more money. Now, if you were to give me your game instead of selling it to me, what would be the difference? You could always tell me that you would not have a copy yourself, which is fine, but you still played the game. In that case, what would be the difference in giving one game to one person after another after they finish it and giving digital copies to everyone at the same time? After they are done, the copies will eventually be erased anyway and the final result is the same: We all played and didn't pay.
I'm not making an argument to support filesharing, I'm just saying your suggestion wasn't completely thought through.
Also, it's not because you don't pay for a game that you would have necesserely bought the game in the first place. There are a couple of zelda games that I'd like to try but unless I find free copies or extremely cheap secondhand copies, there is no way I'm paying for that. Especially since I'd need to buy a gamecube and a wii. The result? I never played them and I don't care that much.
Problems don't identify themselves as problems. Humans must identify them first.
Also, 16 000 is not much compared to the millions of downloads of firefox. In this context, it was quick. In a closed source project you can't even verify. For example, utorrent might have a backdoor for the authorities and nobody would know until it's too late.
You are coming to the conclusion that open source "sucks" because a trojan was supplied with one version of Mozilla Firefox. The problem with that reasoning is twofold:
1) The problem was detected nonetheless
2) It is being fixed rather quickly
Another problem with your reasoning is that you jump to saying "Long live microsoft!". While I applaud you for sharing your love, the link between a competitor's browser having a problem and your love of Microsoft is quite shallow.
For example, you could have said "long live Internet Explorer" and it would have made a bit more sense but not that much. Indeed, you assume that because Firefox has a problem, the other browser has no problems of its own.
Also, why Microsoft ? This is another flaw in your reasonning. There is opera, and safari for example. So exclusively backing Microsoft's product because of a problem with firefox is a weak argument at best.
In conclusion, I state that we can't support your love of Microsoft solely based on your argument.
You know, if we remove "You're an asshole." and "Way to go for cheap karma farming on slashkos though.", your comment is quite insightful. Why not try to be more civilized next time? So much hatred...
I agree about their conclusion. Destroying the environment for no apparent reason is a bad thing but I prefer to use more down to earth reasons to explain myself.
Not only does it destroy local ecosystems if it is done too many times but it also withdraws us from the beauty of nature. I'm probably not objective here since I love to hike in forests and mountains but each time I see someone in a city polluting casually by dropping garbage, or not caring about their local park, I can't help but get bitter.
Living in a beautiful environment makes me happy and I hope people don't need "moral" reasons to stop making their surrounding look like crap.
This seems to be bad journalism. The whole story is about how the teacher got fired because of a magic trick but at the end they also quickly say he wasn't following lesson plans and directions. So while the wizardry thing is funny, I doubt it's the whole story.
Sadly, the same could be said about you. I invite you to read about crime psychology, the usefulness of prison vs reinsertion and about how a surveillance society isn't really better at stopping crime.
You are right. And yet this crime has taken place because of what exactly? Prevention still has its place.
Also, I doubt most hacks are such high profil crimes so why should society pay for the unnatainable perfect security? So that a few very dangerous hackers have to take a bit more time to plan their crime? They will eventually succeed anyway. Security is an industry based on fears, not facts.
Good point. I didn't think about games and movies. I only had music and pictures in my mind.
On the other hand, there are independant movies being shown in a lot of cities (see Kino clubs) and there are independant games being made. These are not hollywood style blockbuster products but they are fun and interesting nonetheless.
Slashdot Mirror
I already gave my references here. Understand that it was a very general number to make the discussion easier.
While it is true that between 8 and 12 months a baby has a sense of the self, they don't yet understand that they are a unique individual in the world. They just understand that they can interact with the world. Babies understand that they are unique individuals between the age of 18 and 24 months.
I have a test, I mean a "game", for you and your kid. :)
Place him in front of a big mirror, alone. Let him watch himself for a few minutes. He will most probably try to interact with his reflection. After a while, pretend to wipe his face with a piece of clothing but, instead, put a mark on his nose with it. Now let him continue to interact with the mirror.
The day your kid starts to touch his own nose instead of the nose in the mirror is the day he starts to understand that he exists as an independant object in this world. It has been observed that no kid between 8 and 12 months touched their nose but 75% of the kids did at 21 months (Asendorpf, Warkentin and Baudonniere, 1996).
In other words, babies do not become sentient at the same time but almost all of them are at 24 months. So for biological experiments, I'd recommend not using babies after the age of 12 months. We could always use tests like the mirror test after that but we would definitely be playing with fire...
Ok look, you are not backing your ideas with facts. You are simply asking more questions. Murder and thievery can be ethical under opression so it's a question of context. As for rape, it can be ethical in a bdsm scenario I guess.
Your argument seems to be that babies, sentient or not, must be protected. If that's the case, any other being that is not sentient has the same rights to be protected and that includes plants. If you disagree, you must explain why.
If you say that a being must be able to feel pain to be protected, then that rules out plants but it doesn't rule out animals. So if you want to make an exception for human babies, you must explain why.
If a law is based on logic and if that law itself is logical and not a caricature of the observed fact, I don't see where it could lead to problems. If you base laws on feelings, you get laws based on "sins". These laws can't be explained except by "It doesn't feel right but I can't explain it".
The human connection with babies is a very real one; we're hardwired for it. In fact, if a mother were willing to give up her infant for scientific study, that would be a pretty good sign that she needs urgent psychiatric care. I'm not sure that science is worth overriding that link.I agree and this is why I say that they should be grown artificially to make sure there is no emotional link. Some mothers might be able to do it but there is an emotional risk. It has nothing to do with the baby itself though.
Further, we have a very useful allergy to dehumanization. As lizard-brained humans, we're not very good at separation of concerns. When it comes to dehumanization, things that shouldn't be slippery slopes are, in fact, slippery slopes.Well, that is not really true. If it was, then slaves would have never been used. I don't see any objective basis for your argument. Could you, perhaps, clarify your point?
When it comes to neuroscience, the benefit of working on humans as opposed to chimps is that humans can tell you things. You don't have that benefit with infants.The earth, the cells and the atoms don't talk either and yet we can still study them. You don't have to talk to your subject to learn something from it.
Anyway, when you observe a subject, you must make sure it doesn't know you are studying it because of the Pygmalion effect. So, I don't think your last point is really relevant.
Lewis, M. (1991). Ways of knowing: Objective self-awareness of consciousness. Developmental Review, 11, 231-243.
Asendorpf, J. B., Warkentin, V., & Baudonniere, P. (1996). Self-awareness and other-awareness. II: Mirror self-recognition, social contingency awareness, and synchronic imitation. Developmental Psychology, 32, 313-321.
Bullock, M., & Lutkenhaus, P. (1990). Who am I? Self-understanding in toddlers. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 36, 217-238.
Lewis, M. (1991). Ways of knowing: Objective self-awareness of consciousness. Developmental Review, 11, 231-243.
Asendorpf, J. B., Warkentin, V., & Baudonniere, P. (1996). Self-awareness and other-awareness. II: Mirror self-recognition, social contingency awareness, and synchronic imitation. Developmental Psychology, 32, 313-321.
Bullock, M., &Lutkenhaus, P. (1990). Who am I? Self-understanding in toddlers. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 36, 217-238.
Also, you didn't explain why it would be unethical. If you want to protect life that is not sentient, plants and lab animals should be protected as much as babies. You are thinking with your emotions, not logic.
I'll answer just for fun. No it doesn't disgust me though I am trying to cut back on meat, especially red meat. Anyway, all the meat you eat is coming from cadavers and I bet you don't care. :)
More seriously, not liking to eat meat has no link with giving the right to live to a creature that is not sentient. You could decide to not eat meat for medical reasons for example. Your argument is flawed.
Yes, but it would logically be the same kind of murder as if you killed my dog. The emotional link and the strenght of my hopes and dreams for my kid would be the reasons my own baby would be more important to me than my own dog. On the other hand, if you were talking about laws, do not forget that they do not necesseraly follow logic.
Can we let parents off the hook for screwing up their kids before they age of two, as long as they kill the kid before they become "sentient"? It sounds ludicrous to me.This is an extremely interesting question. Logically I don't see why not. The baby is not sentient so if it is killed there would be no problem. Since we are there, babies that show physical problems could be terminated too before they become sentient.
The thing is, babies are "embryos" that are continuing to develope in the real world. They receive stimuli and can react to stimuli but they are nothing more than small robots at that age. By that I mean they are not sentient yet.
If the parents willingly screw up their baby after the mother has had that creature in her belly for so long and then kill it without hesitation, I would be more concerned about the parents than the baby to tell you the truth...
I found your post quite interesting so I am definitely taking some time to answer.
There is a big difference between having the right to live and having human rights. For example, Apes are sentient but they do not understand our laws so they can't be held responsible. I wouldn't want to give special human rights to a being that can't respect my own human rights.
Would YOU like to see a number of purposefully brain damaged homo sapiens vat grown for medical experimentation?To tell you the truth, I have no problem with that. These corpses have the "shell" of a human being but they are not mentally functional. They are not sentient. So basically they can't understand what we are doing to them... like a flower.
Also, I don't know if we can use "too much logic" when talking about life. If a person is physically sick or weak but sentient, we should try to help that person like we would like others to help us. If it's not the body but the brain that is sick then I feel otherwise. If someone is brain-dead we shouldn't keep the body alive.
At this age they are not self aware. Basically they don't know they exist. I don't see the difference between studying an embryo of that age and studyng plants.
We are already using animals that are aware of their existance in labs. Apes can recognise themselves in front of a mirror and we are using them so I feel this is really not a big issue and we should let science go ahead.
Now I'm going to start a very heated debate. We know that babies start to be self aware around the age of 2 so if you really want to test my logic I'll tell you my opinion. We could logically use babies to make tests. Why this horrifies people is because they are attached to their own babies but since these newborns are not sentient yet, where is the harm in using "lab babies"? They would have to be grown in artificial wombs and all that to dehumanize them but logically it shouldn't be stopped.
I might be modded down for opening a can of worms but try to have fun with this ethical puzzle.
No but your house, car, land, natural ressources and all that ARE loot to other nations. Those who have less will want to challenge the rich to get their share. A donation to help other countries does benefit you indirectly. You are paying for peace. You are paying to keep your way of life as it is and to keep your goods to yourself.
Of course giving money blindly is useless but helping them get food, water and education will help them earn their money instead of stealing yours.
Impoverished nations tend to want their share of the loot. That means problems, terrorism and possibly war.
If you help the poor, they will less likely want to steal your money. In other words, you'll be able to do whatever you want in peace. This means it benefits YOU.
Also, while permanent poverty doesn't necesseraly breed war as much as transient poverty, if these countries start to have a normal society it also means that they will create new products and research new technologies. If more people are trying to build a better society on earth, it benefits YOU.
Being selfish can be useful but teamwork has often been noted to help the individuals get a better life or, at least, survive. So as counter-intuitive as it may sound, sometimes the best way to get ahead is to invest on others.
And who are you to say that humans are not carbon-based computers?
And this is why companies should understand that science projects that are for the betterment of mankind and for the improvement of human knowledge are long term investments.
The problem is that the goal of corporations is to make a lot of profit in the short term. Rare are the corporations that are planning their growth in the long term. They plan for the coming years, not the coming 25 years.
After all, where could useless theoritical research from imbeciles that live in their heads like James Clerk Maxwell possibly lead us? Surely if you don't see an application at the time, the research is a waste of time...
This is what I was thinking. Also I kind of tried in the past since I'm using pidgin but most people like their emoticons and voice chat. They especially like their crazy, annoying, non ascii emoticons...
Also, I was using pidgin to get jabber through gmail. So basically I was connecting to google talk and I'm not sure google talk counts as jabber.
Also, removing freedom a small bit at a time will not create rage and indignation in society at large. We, here, understand what could happen but most people simply don't care. They still have their emoticons, dancing boobies and voice chat so they might be pissed but in a week everybody will have adapted.
Seriously, it's the boiling frog allegory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
Ok, but not everyone will necesserely want to keep a physical copy of the game after they played it. Look at the video games rentals. People are renting games for a very cheap fee and finishing them. They don't care about playing them again later. All that money goes to the video store and not to the developpers.
Also, there are a couple of movies that can be rented online or on your tv. (ex: http://www.videotron.com/services/en/television/vod-guide-vsd.jsp) You can watch it for x amount of time and then it's over. Since it is a digital product, it doesn't get a shorter lifespan. Is filesharing really that different? You get to keep the product if you want but aside of that, the downloader likely would not even have bought the game in the first place.
In either case, the developpers don't make any more money. Now, if you were to give me your game instead of selling it to me, what would be the difference? You could always tell me that you would not have a copy yourself, which is fine, but you still played the game. In that case, what would be the difference in giving one game to one person after another after they finish it and giving digital copies to everyone at the same time? After they are done, the copies will eventually be erased anyway and the final result is the same: We all played and didn't pay.
I'm not making an argument to support filesharing, I'm just saying your suggestion wasn't completely thought through.
Also, it's not because you don't pay for a game that you would have necesserely bought the game in the first place. There are a couple of zelda games that I'd like to try but unless I find free copies or extremely cheap secondhand copies, there is no way I'm paying for that. Especially since I'd need to buy a gamecube and a wii. The result? I never played them and I don't care that much.
You must be new here...
Slashdot is now an experimental weapon to take over the intertubes. Its aim is to supplant even the biggest of botnets.
We are succeeding... one website at a time.
Problems don't identify themselves as problems. Humans must identify them first.
Also, 16 000 is not much compared to the millions of downloads of firefox. In this context, it was quick. In a closed source project you can't even verify. For example, utorrent might have a backdoor for the authorities and nobody would know until it's too late.
Your reasoning is flawed.
You are coming to the conclusion that open source "sucks" because a trojan was supplied with one version of Mozilla Firefox. The problem with that reasoning is twofold:
1) The problem was detected nonetheless
2) It is being fixed rather quickly
Another problem with your reasoning is that you jump to saying "Long live microsoft!". While I applaud you for sharing your love, the link between a competitor's browser having a problem and your love of Microsoft is quite shallow.
For example, you could have said "long live Internet Explorer" and it would have made a bit more sense but not that much. Indeed, you assume that because Firefox has a problem, the other browser has no problems of its own.
Also, why Microsoft ? This is another flaw in your reasonning. There is opera, and safari for example. So exclusively backing Microsoft's product because of a problem with firefox is a weak argument at best.
In conclusion, I state that we can't support your love of Microsoft solely based on your argument.
Thank you for your precious time.
Sincerely,
Me
You know, if we remove "You're an asshole." and "Way to go for cheap karma farming on slashkos though.", your comment is quite insightful. Why not try to be more civilized next time? So much hatred...
I agree about their conclusion. Destroying the environment for no apparent reason is a bad thing but I prefer to use more down to earth reasons to explain myself.
Not only does it destroy local ecosystems if it is done too many times but it also withdraws us from the beauty of nature. I'm probably not objective here since I love to hike in forests and mountains but each time I see someone in a city polluting casually by dropping garbage, or not caring about their local park, I can't help but get bitter.
Living in a beautiful environment makes me happy and I hope people don't need "moral" reasons to stop making their surrounding look like crap.
This seems to be bad journalism. The whole story is about how the teacher got fired because of a magic trick but at the end they also quickly say he wasn't following lesson plans and directions. So while the wizardry thing is funny, I doubt it's the whole story.
Sadly, the same could be said about you. I invite you to read about crime psychology, the usefulness of prison vs reinsertion and about how a surveillance society isn't really better at stopping crime.
You are right. And yet this crime has taken place because of what exactly? Prevention still has its place.
Also, I doubt most hacks are such high profil crimes so why should society pay for the unnatainable perfect security? So that a few very dangerous hackers have to take a bit more time to plan their crime? They will eventually succeed anyway. Security is an industry based on fears, not facts.
Good point. I didn't think about games and movies. I only had music and pictures in my mind.
On the other hand, there are independant movies being shown in a lot of cities (see Kino clubs) and there are independant games being made. These are not hollywood style blockbuster products but they are fun and interesting nonetheless.