The Hodgeman/Long ads are amusing and entertaining, but just how successful have they been? Has Apple really increased their market share significantly? And while the Apple ads are funny, Apple has unknowingly pigeon-holed the PC and Mac into stereotypes. Microsoft capitalized on that. Apple may have ridden their initial brilliant idea too far.
I thought it was great and immensely better than the Bill and Jerry ads. They one-upped Apple in one fell swoop, breaking the I'm a cool twenty-something versus the nerdy looking guy message that Apple has been pushing. The message was PCs are more than just a inflexible box and more than the cool, hip....they do it all. Whether or not you agree with the statement the commercial is making, I think the move by Microsoft was brilliant.
Yes it is. The visible light spectrum makes up part of the radio frequency spectrum, just with a comparatively short wavelength of 380-750 nm, also called the "600 THz band".
And if interference really was a lie
For the avoidance of doubt, much of what lay people call "interference" results from poor selectivity at the receiver.
Correct, but that doesn't make the issue of interference a big lie. Furthermore, receiver selectivity does nothing when the interferer is on the same frequency. Antenna "selectivity" (i.e. "smart antennas", intelligent controllable pattern antennas) do little to nothing if the interferer is on the same azimuth as the intended receive signal. Things can be done to minimize interference, but I think some open spectrum proponents are under some belief that interference is a conspiracy to keep the old guard in place or line pockets with money. If there was some magic bullet to eliminate interference, it would be quickly adopted.
why hasn't anyone created a receiver that is totally insusceptible to interference in 100 years of radio engineering?
No receiver is perfectly selective, but a receiver with a more directional antenna (or even more than one antenna) can be more selective in the signals it receives and more effective at rejecting the signals that are interfering with it than a legacy receiver.
I agree, though the original poster was claiming that because electromagnetic waves can pass through each other, interference is a myth. It's not, but there are techniques to minimize it.
I think the open spectrum initiative has a few good ideas, some of which are in use now in unlicensed spectrum and arguably could be expanded. But the extreme position of opening the spectrum entirely as a big free for all with a few basic rules just doesn't take into account the needs of all spectrum users or the realities of radio engineering.
I fail to see how "liberating the spectrum" will bypass digital restrictions. If all media is restricted to the point where you can't get the intelligence (i.e. the music/sound/whatever) in an external form (analog voltage or digital bitstream), how can you transmit it, open or closed spectrum?
Internet broadcasting is essentially open spectrum without radio waves and propagation. Barring legal and bandwidth obstacles, you can transmit about anything you want. But if your favorite hip hop album is digitally restricted, there's no way to transmit it.
Furthermore, liberating the spectrum would simple give digital broadcasting protocols more spectrum to transmit their same digitally-restricted signals.
Let me rephrase my previous post. While you can pass two beams of light through each other, and you can pass two radio spectrum waves through each other, this is totally irrelevant to radio interference. Beam the two waves, whether visible light or radio spectrum into a receiver and while they can add and subtract, they can destroy information to the point where the intelligence can't be extracted. If you take the simplest model of a carrier modulated with intelligence by turning it on and off, one can create a interfering signal that is turned on when the intended signal is turned off. Match the phase and amplitude perfectly and no technology in the world will extract the signal, hence interference.
To say that interference is a big lie is an outrageously simple and wrong conclusion.
Yeah, no experience at all. But yeah, that you can pass two light beams through each other and emerge without loss of signal shows that the "radio interference story" the public has been fed is a lie.
But RF isn't visible light spectrum. And if interference really was a lie, why hasn't anyone created a receiver that is totally insusceptible to interference in 100 years of radio engineering? And if this was possible, technically it should be possible to receive and demodulate any signal at any level infinitely less than the noise floor. I'm not a physicist, but I'm sure there are people way smarter than me who would have done it already, because they'd be obscenely rich right now.
The over-simplified wrong answer that is open spectrum is painful obvious when you see statements like this:
28. Does this require everyone to get new radios and TV sets?
No. Existing technologies will continue to work. They will be replaced by customers as they â" we â" realize the benefits of the new technology.
Implementing open spectrum would immediately put any existing services into danger because it's the "new technology" that would enable open spectrum. Legacy technology wouldn't be able to participate in such an environment and would be susceptible to interference. Of course for people believing interference is a big lie, it's hard to grasp the concept.
Free spectrum would bring you vastly cheaper communications and true always on internet.
Free spectrum is a great idea if everyone follows the rules for accessing the spectrum. The kicker is once you enact the appropriate rules to make it work, it's no longer free spectrum. Then we're essentially back to where we started with more expensive equipment and an overly-complicated wireless infrastructure that is to communications what Vista is to operating systems.
I should add that it's doubtful free spectrum will provide any more true "always on" Internet. There's hundreds of megahertz of unlicensed spectrum available today, yet we still don't have Internet everywhere. You still need infrastructure and a means of backhauling the traffic; spectrum isn't necessarily the bottleneck.
Every time I read open spectrum rants, it's clear that the authors never had any real life wireless experience or their entire experience has been 802.11 Wifi. Or they're high.
The fact that you say EM "adds just as light does" illustrates my point:-)
Try and set up a chain of repeating 12' satellite dish broadcasters retrofitted for 802.11G like the one they set the distance record with. It got like 125 miles, so 10 or 15 of them ought to get out to the middle of nowhere. Latency would probably blow, but it's still better than satellite.
Building 10-15 125 mile links with 12' dishes is no trivial (or inexpensive) task when you consider the site acquisition and civil work to pull it off. The operational costs to maintain it in such a harsh environment aren't trivial either. And using 802.11G for this is a joke, and 10-15 125 mile links are going to have an availability that's horribly low, probably in the 70 or 80 percent range. FCC Part 101 (or whatever the equivalent is in Canada) licensed microwave is clearly the way go if they want any reasonable amount of bandwidth and availability, but the cost of this network will dwarf whatever monthly recurring they're paying now.
Pulling off an interesting wireless experiment with hacked and overextended hardware is a lot different than building a production network.
I get the joke:-) But I could do without Slashdot's apparent commentary with the "attention whoring" quip. This is supposed to a News for Nerds site, not a Cynical Opinions for Nerds site.
The signal is a complete nightmare from a common mode standpoint, but not differential, hence the reason for running differential mode in the first place. If you want to split hairs, twisted pair is not technically shielded cable, but it does exhibit better isolation characteristics than straight parallel wires, and is better than power lines for high frequency transmission....my original point.
Then why do they bother with the added cost and effort to twist the pair if it has no beneficial effect?
Although Wikipedia isn't the end-all-be-all of knowledge and information, read the article on twisted pair: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twisted_pair . Someone else apparently says the twisting tends to reduce interference.
No, I do mean self-shielding; the fact that it is fed balanced is a given. While balanced twisted pair doesn't have the same isolation as coaxial cable, there is somewhat of a shielding effect and it's much better for broadband data transmission than open wire that is spaced several wavelengths apart like BPL running on power lines.
What you're talking about is PLC which is the low frequency predecessor to BPL that is used for grid control functions. I think PLC goes up to about 500 khz. That technology is proven, works fairly well and doesn't interfere with radio spectrum. Many companies are using it for automatic meter reading systems (AMR), a market that BPL has been wanting to break into, though I believe hasn't due to overall costs. The original poster is essentially correct about the properties of powerlines not being suited for broadband. BPL uses radio frequencies from 1.8 Mhz to about 88 Mhz, depending on the system and capacity. These frequencies are severely attenuated on the lines and the lines act like a natural antenna, radiating them into the adjacent area. BPL signals have been detected up to a mile or two away from the lines and NTIA modeling showed that aircraft frequencies would probably be affected about 20 miles away. The FCC implemented mandatory frequency notching to protect aircraft frequencies and vendors have also designed optional frequency notching to protect other frequency bands when the carrier deems it necessary. From a market standpoint, BPL is at a severe disadvantage because the underlying technology just can't scale due to its many technical issues. After over ten years of development abroad and five years of a well-funded marketing and FCC-lobbying effort, there are only a handful of commercial BPL systems in the US and FCC reports show customer numbers below 10,000. BPL is included in the FCC's "Other" category, which should tell something about how insignificant it is. However, I think you'll see some traction in dirt poor countries where any bandwidth and any quality of service is acceptable and the wireless spectrum issues are ignored.
Well it's not clear from the article if it's 224Mbps for all 60 million users. Also, the premises could have 224Mbps locally, but the end to end a fraction of that.
There's no known BPL Internet access network in the world that is delivering 224 Mbs to end users. The few systems in the US are delivering speeds in the 1 to 8 Mbs range.
This is the same old "where do we draw the line" argument. Why is the speed limit 65 on highway? Why is marijuana illegal? Why do you have to be 21 to drink alcohol?
I don't see any value in Elvis impersonators, but I'm not for making them illegal. It's not an essential liberty, but it's not conceivable that Elvis impersonators in general do harm to society.
Again, show me a study that demonstrates child porn doesn't cause latent pedophiles to commit illegal acts. The onus is on the group desiring child pornography, not people like me. I mean for God's sake, it's not like I'm claiming diet soda causes pedophilia. There's not a chance that child porn is going to produce some sort of miracle cure for something. And the vast majority of people in the world have no need or desire for child pornography, so it's not like we are denying individuals something they can't live without. This is hardly a denial of expression. Some people do see value in it, but they are such a small minority of the population, and arguably some percentage of these people have or will commit illegal acts. There's no such thing as a "healthy" use of this material. Sexual relationshops between adults and children aren't normal. Fantasizing about it isn't normal.
You accuse me of being caught up in the "pervs", but you've essentially sanitized this into an issue about free society. The material is what it is. Framing this in a discussion about freedoms separates everyone from what this material really is. We can sit around all day talking about freedoms and free society, but it doesn't stop the reality of what this material is all about. To some this is a debate about free speech. To those of us that have families, children, and businesses to run, it's another unnecessary piece of social trash to deal with, not some legal precedence or an academic exercise. While I'm sounding like the far right talking heads I despise, it's the truth. What you call a "belief" is actually a belief held by the majority of people in the world. Tieing this to a freedom debate is a diversion, and you can't have realistic position on this topic unless you consider what the material really is. It's not that I have some oddball aversion to child porn, nearly the whole world considers it deplorable. If we have to remove bans on artificial child porn in the name of freedom and free society, then there's really no need for laws banning anything, except perhaps the most outrageous acts like murder. Of course, there's those who take pleasure in murder and suffering and if you believe in the afterlife, it's not so bad dying, so who am I to call it sick?
Is there a double standard if I'm not concerned about banning things like hate speech or even support the right to it? Sure. If it makes you happy, yes, perhaps I am drawing an arbitrary line, albeit one that is based on a risk assessment. There are risks with every decision. The risks for allowing this material to exist are much higher than without it. The risks to children outweigh the benefits that child porn viewers would receive. Additionally, the risks that a move to make this material illegal would pose to other freedoms such as freedom of expression are minimal. In fact, this material as others have pointed out is already outlawed in the US. While we may be losing freedoms under the guise of terrorism and homeland security, the virtual child porn issue is a non-issue in the grand scheme of things. I doubt you'll find a politician on either side of the aisle supporting a removal of the ban on this material anytime soon. If you feel so moved, please call your representative and see the reaction you get. I doubt you'll find anyone in a position of authority who would support the rights of a child pornography viewer if there's even a miniscule risk to children.
The key word in that sentence is *essential*. I'd die for this country fighting for essential freedoms. The ability to view artificial kidde porn isn't essential by any stretch of the imagination.
Furthermore, your assertion is based on a correlation rather than causation; a common logical fallacy. If you can show that child pornography causes pedophiles to abuse children, I'd be right there with you. However, I am only aware of a correlation between child abusers and their use of child pornography.
Can I ask you a question and have you answer honestly? Would you allow someone who openly uses virtual child porn but has no history of pedophilia to babysit your kids? Hire them for a job? Let them work at a school? Would you even associate with such a person?
My assertion is based on correlation to an extent. But have there been any studies to disprove causation? Is there anything beneficial to this material, other than entertainment, albeit very sick entertainment? No. Will eliminating this material stop all pedophiles? No. I won't argue that there could be a pediphile bit/gene. Could virtual child porn further develop such tendencies in those who may have them? Absolutely. In light of this and the fact that our "free society" will continue to go on without virtual kiddie porn, I see no logical reason to allow it. This isn't going to snowball into book burnings and thought police detaining people. The onus is on those wanting virtual child porn to prove that it's not detrimental to society, not the other way around. I'm not going to let an academic excercise in freedom and libery override what is naturally understood as abnormal in most civilized societies.
Slashdot Mirror
The Hodgeman/Long ads are amusing and entertaining, but just how successful have they been? Has Apple really increased their market share significantly? And while the Apple ads are funny, Apple has unknowingly pigeon-holed the PC and Mac into stereotypes. Microsoft capitalized on that. Apple may have ridden their initial brilliant idea too far.
I apparently pissed off some Apple zealot who has mod points today. :-)
I thought it was great and immensely better than the Bill and Jerry ads. They one-upped Apple in one fell swoop, breaking the I'm a cool twenty-something versus the nerdy looking guy message that Apple has been pushing. The message was PCs are more than just a inflexible box and more than the cool, hip....they do it all. Whether or not you agree with the statement the commercial is making, I think the move by Microsoft was brilliant.
I'm still trying to figure out where you get free beer.
Says you.
We don't know what it's composed of, and it *could* be solid gold.
So we could expect that the Solid Gold Dancers could live there?
But RF isn't visible light spectrum.
Yes it is. The visible light spectrum makes up part of the radio frequency spectrum, just with a comparatively short wavelength of 380-750 nm, also called the "600 THz band".
And if interference really was a lie
For the avoidance of doubt, much of what lay people call "interference" results from poor selectivity at the receiver.
Correct, but that doesn't make the issue of interference a big lie. Furthermore, receiver selectivity does nothing when the interferer is on the same frequency. Antenna "selectivity" (i.e. "smart antennas", intelligent controllable pattern antennas) do little to nothing if the interferer is on the same azimuth as the intended receive signal. Things can be done to minimize interference, but I think some open spectrum proponents are under some belief that interference is a conspiracy to keep the old guard in place or line pockets with money. If there was some magic bullet to eliminate interference, it would be quickly adopted.
why hasn't anyone created a receiver that is totally insusceptible to interference in 100 years of radio engineering?
No receiver is perfectly selective, but a receiver with a more directional antenna (or even more than one antenna) can be more selective in the signals it receives and more effective at rejecting the signals that are interfering with it than a legacy receiver.
I agree, though the original poster was claiming that because electromagnetic waves can pass through each other, interference is a myth. It's not, but there are techniques to minimize it.
I think the open spectrum initiative has a few good ideas, some of which are in use now in unlicensed spectrum and arguably could be expanded. But the extreme position of opening the spectrum entirely as a big free for all with a few basic rules just doesn't take into account the needs of all spectrum users or the realities of radio engineering.
I fail to see how "liberating the spectrum" will bypass digital restrictions. If all media is restricted to the point where you can't get the intelligence (i.e. the music/sound/whatever) in an external form (analog voltage or digital bitstream), how can you transmit it, open or closed spectrum?
Internet broadcasting is essentially open spectrum without radio waves and propagation. Barring legal and bandwidth obstacles, you can transmit about anything you want. But if your favorite hip hop album is digitally restricted, there's no way to transmit it.
Furthermore, liberating the spectrum would simple give digital broadcasting protocols more spectrum to transmit their same digitally-restricted signals.
Let me rephrase my previous post. While you can pass two beams of light through each other, and you can pass two radio spectrum waves through each other, this is totally irrelevant to radio interference. Beam the two waves, whether visible light or radio spectrum into a receiver and while they can add and subtract, they can destroy information to the point where the intelligence can't be extracted. If you take the simplest model of a carrier modulated with intelligence by turning it on and off, one can create a interfering signal that is turned on when the intended signal is turned off. Match the phase and amplitude perfectly and no technology in the world will extract the signal, hence interference.
To say that interference is a big lie is an outrageously simple and wrong conclusion.
Yeah, no experience at all. But yeah, that you can pass two light beams through each other and emerge without loss of signal shows that the "radio interference story" the public has been fed is a lie.
But RF isn't visible light spectrum. And if interference really was a lie, why hasn't anyone created a receiver that is totally insusceptible to interference in 100 years of radio engineering? And if this was possible, technically it should be possible to receive and demodulate any signal at any level infinitely less than the noise floor. I'm not a physicist, but I'm sure there are people way smarter than me who would have done it already, because they'd be obscenely rich right now.
The over-simplified wrong answer that is open spectrum is painful obvious when you see statements like this:
28. Does this require everyone to get new radios and TV sets?
No. Existing technologies will continue to work. They will be replaced by customers as they â" we â" realize the benefits of the new technology.
Implementing open spectrum would immediately put any existing services into danger because it's the "new technology" that would enable open spectrum. Legacy technology wouldn't be able to participate in such an environment and would be susceptible to interference. Of course for people believing interference is a big lie, it's hard to grasp the concept.
Free spectrum would bring you vastly cheaper communications and true always on internet.
Free spectrum is a great idea if everyone follows the rules for accessing the spectrum. The kicker is once you enact the appropriate rules to make it work, it's no longer free spectrum. Then we're essentially back to where we started with more expensive equipment and an overly-complicated wireless infrastructure that is to communications what Vista is to operating systems.
I should add that it's doubtful free spectrum will provide any more true "always on" Internet. There's hundreds of megahertz of unlicensed spectrum available today, yet we still don't have Internet everywhere. You still need infrastructure and a means of backhauling the traffic; spectrum isn't necessarily the bottleneck.
Every time I read open spectrum rants, it's clear that the authors never had any real life wireless experience or their entire experience has been 802.11 Wifi. Or they're high.
The fact that you say EM "adds just as light does" illustrates my point :-)
Try and set up a chain of repeating 12' satellite dish broadcasters retrofitted for 802.11G like the one they set the distance record with. It got like 125 miles, so 10 or 15 of them ought to get out to the middle of nowhere. Latency would probably blow, but it's still better than satellite.
Building 10-15 125 mile links with 12' dishes is no trivial (or inexpensive) task when you consider the site acquisition and civil work to pull it off. The operational costs to maintain it in such a harsh environment aren't trivial either. And using 802.11G for this is a joke, and 10-15 125 mile links are going to have an availability that's horribly low, probably in the 70 or 80 percent range. FCC Part 101 (or whatever the equivalent is in Canada) licensed microwave is clearly the way go if they want any reasonable amount of bandwidth and availability, but the cost of this network will dwarf whatever monthly recurring they're paying now.
Pulling off an interesting wireless experiment with hacked and overextended hardware is a lot different than building a production network.
It's quite nice if you want to use the same techniques you learned 15 years ago and not bother to change how you do, well, anything
Apparently the author never heard of vi and gcc on Linux...
I get the joke :-) But I could do without Slashdot's apparent commentary with the "attention whoring" quip. This is supposed to a News for Nerds site, not a Cynical Opinions for Nerds site.
Pr0n makes people less horny and Al Queda opens a puppy store...details at 11.
The signal is a complete nightmare from a common mode standpoint, but not differential, hence the reason for running differential mode in the first place. If you want to split hairs, twisted pair is not technically shielded cable, but it does exhibit better isolation characteristics than straight parallel wires, and is better than power lines for high frequency transmission....my original point.
Then why do they bother with the added cost and effort to twist the pair if it has no beneficial effect?
Although Wikipedia isn't the end-all-be-all of knowledge and information, read the article on twisted pair: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twisted_pair . Someone else apparently says the twisting tends to reduce interference.
No, I do mean self-shielding; the fact that it is fed balanced is a given. While balanced twisted pair doesn't have the same isolation as coaxial cable, there is somewhat of a shielding effect and it's much better for broadband data transmission than open wire that is spaced several wavelengths apart like BPL running on power lines.
What you're talking about is PLC which is the low frequency predecessor to BPL that is used for grid control functions. I think PLC goes up to about 500 khz. That technology is proven, works fairly well and doesn't interfere with radio spectrum. Many companies are using it for automatic meter reading systems (AMR), a market that BPL has been wanting to break into, though I believe hasn't due to overall costs. The original poster is essentially correct about the properties of powerlines not being suited for broadband. BPL uses radio frequencies from 1.8 Mhz to about 88 Mhz, depending on the system and capacity. These frequencies are severely attenuated on the lines and the lines act like a natural antenna, radiating them into the adjacent area. BPL signals have been detected up to a mile or two away from the lines and NTIA modeling showed that aircraft frequencies would probably be affected about 20 miles away. The FCC implemented mandatory frequency notching to protect aircraft frequencies and vendors have also designed optional frequency notching to protect other frequency bands when the carrier deems it necessary. From a market standpoint, BPL is at a severe disadvantage because the underlying technology just can't scale due to its many technical issues. After over ten years of development abroad and five years of a well-funded marketing and FCC-lobbying effort, there are only a handful of commercial BPL systems in the US and FCC reports show customer numbers below 10,000. BPL is included in the FCC's "Other" category, which should tell something about how insignificant it is. However, I think you'll see some traction in dirt poor countries where any bandwidth and any quality of service is acceptable and the wireless spectrum issues are ignored.
Well it's not clear from the article if it's 224Mbps for all 60 million users. Also, the premises could have 224Mbps locally, but the end to end a fraction of that.
There's no known BPL Internet access network in the world that is delivering 224 Mbs to end users. The few systems in the US are delivering speeds in the 1 to 8 Mbs range.
Besides, copper telephone lines used for ADSL aren't shielded either.
Twisted pair copper is self-shielding; it's one of the reasons why we use it today in telephony instead of the old open straight wire.
Does the defendant work for SCO?
This is the same old "where do we draw the line" argument. Why is the speed limit 65 on highway? Why is marijuana illegal? Why do you have to be 21 to drink alcohol?
I don't see any value in Elvis impersonators, but I'm not for making them illegal. It's not an essential liberty, but it's not conceivable that Elvis impersonators in general do harm to society.
Again, show me a study that demonstrates child porn doesn't cause latent pedophiles to commit illegal acts. The onus is on the group desiring child pornography, not people like me. I mean for God's sake, it's not like I'm claiming diet soda causes pedophilia. There's not a chance that child porn is going to produce some sort of miracle cure for something. And the vast majority of people in the world have no need or desire for child pornography, so it's not like we are denying individuals something they can't live without. This is hardly a denial of expression. Some people do see value in it, but they are such a small minority of the population, and arguably some percentage of these people have or will commit illegal acts. There's no such thing as a "healthy" use of this material. Sexual relationshops between adults and children aren't normal. Fantasizing about it isn't normal.
You accuse me of being caught up in the "pervs", but you've essentially sanitized this into an issue about free society. The material is what it is. Framing this in a discussion about freedoms separates everyone from what this material really is. We can sit around all day talking about freedoms and free society, but it doesn't stop the reality of what this material is all about. To some this is a debate about free speech. To those of us that have families, children, and businesses to run, it's another unnecessary piece of social trash to deal with, not some legal precedence or an academic exercise. While I'm sounding like the far right talking heads I despise, it's the truth. What you call a "belief" is actually a belief held by the majority of people in the world. Tieing this to a freedom debate is a diversion, and you can't have realistic position on this topic unless you consider what the material really is. It's not that I have some oddball aversion to child porn, nearly the whole world considers it deplorable. If we have to remove bans on artificial child porn in the name of freedom and free society, then there's really no need for laws banning anything, except perhaps the most outrageous acts like murder. Of course, there's those who take pleasure in murder and suffering and if you believe in the afterlife, it's not so bad dying, so who am I to call it sick?
Is there a double standard if I'm not concerned about banning things like hate speech or even support the right to it? Sure. If it makes you happy, yes, perhaps I am drawing an arbitrary line, albeit one that is based on a risk assessment. There are risks with every decision. The risks for allowing this material to exist are much higher than without it. The risks to children outweigh the benefits that child porn viewers would receive. Additionally, the risks that a move to make this material illegal would pose to other freedoms such as freedom of expression are minimal. In fact, this material as others have pointed out is already outlawed in the US. While we may be losing freedoms under the guise of terrorism and homeland security, the virtual child porn issue is a non-issue in the grand scheme of things. I doubt you'll find a politician on either side of the aisle supporting a removal of the ban on this material anytime soon. If you feel so moved, please call your representative and see the reaction you get. I doubt you'll find anyone in a position of authority who would support the rights of a child pornography viewer if there's even a miniscule risk to children.
The key word in that sentence is *essential*. I'd die for this country fighting for essential freedoms. The ability to view artificial kidde porn isn't essential by any stretch of the imagination.
Furthermore, your assertion is based on a correlation rather than causation; a common logical fallacy. If you can show that child pornography causes pedophiles to abuse children, I'd be right there with you. However, I am only aware of a correlation between child abusers and their use of child pornography.
Can I ask you a question and have you answer honestly? Would you allow someone who openly uses virtual child porn but has no history of pedophilia to babysit your kids? Hire them for a job? Let them work at a school? Would you even associate with such a person?
My assertion is based on correlation to an extent. But have there been any studies to disprove causation? Is there anything beneficial to this material, other than entertainment, albeit very sick entertainment? No. Will eliminating this material stop all pedophiles? No. I won't argue that there could be a pediphile bit/gene. Could virtual child porn further develop such tendencies in those who may have them? Absolutely. In light of this and the fact that our "free society" will continue to go on without virtual kiddie porn, I see no logical reason to allow it. This isn't going to snowball into book burnings and thought police detaining people. The onus is on those wanting virtual child porn to prove that it's not detrimental to society, not the other way around. I'm not going to let an academic excercise in freedom and libery override what is naturally understood as abnormal in most civilized societies.