There are some very good reasons not to encourage or allow child pornography which doesn't directly involve children.
And this 'safety is more important than freedom' mentality is how we lose our freedoms. We have this mentality to thank for the TSA and various other things which violate our freedoms in the US.
It is also nonsensical to suggest that people will go out and rape children if they view images of drawn children having sex or whatever other nonsense you were trying to imply.
But how social one must be depends on the kind of person they are. Some people are perfectly happy interacting with others mostly over the Internet (if they even do that that often), for instance.
Not everyone is an extrovert, and not everyone who isn't an extrovert is depressed, violent, or whatever other nonsense some people may think.
In that case, it probably is the main influence on your behavior.
And I just said that it may gather information if a country has shown itself to actually be a threat. Anything else is just paranoid warmongering, and we need less of that, not more. As a citizen of the US, paranoid governments have done more a disservice to me; not only are they wasting my tax dollars on nonsense, but they're claiming to be spying in my name.
Not spying on random countries isn't anymore of a disservice than not groping people at airports is.
What's the original recipe for 'Kentucky Fried Rat'? CocaCola?
If it is truly important that we find out what methods someone used to do something, it will be done. Finding out the exact recipes for CocaCoca and such just around very important.
And again, we don't live in a society without patents, and since the world is vastly different than it once was, there's no way to even be sure what would happen.
Just because the balance has gone out of whack doesn't mean the concept is inherently broken.
I certainly think government-enforced monopolies over ideas and methods are inherently broken and unjust.
That's like saying TSA agents grope people who try to get on US planes to better their country; it's nonsense. In very rare circumstances, I would tolerate the act of spying on countries we know to be hostile (and by that I'm not referring to random citizens who live in said countries), but that's all. I take freedom and privacy seriously, unlike some people.
I value freedom more than security and such. Patents/copyrights bring about censorship and a loss of control over real property, so can't accept them.
With that said, there's really no evidence that patents and copyrights help the situation; it's all speculation. Unless you have irrefutable evidence (and not just 'common sense' nonsense) that they truly do help, I don't see you convincing me that they're even useful for their stated purposes (although even if you did, I'd still be opposed to them).
Oh, so in your communist magical fantasy world, people get together in large scientific groups to produce technology purely for altruistic reasons.
No, I just expect people to come up with viable business models on their own, without resorting to government-enforced monopolies over ideas and methods that result in censorship and infringe upon people's property (read: physical property) rights.
How? So, a university spends tons of money and years of research refining a process which is far to sophisticated for you to understand, and you think they don't deserve some kind of exclusive rights?
but the goal is to protect against whack-jobs that send scary shit in the mail.
Innocent people should not have to sacrifice their freedom or privacy to stop the 'bad guys.' This is exactly the same mentality that leads to people getting groped at airports, getting spied on by the government, and sent away to free speech zones. I don't care who they want to protect us from; don't punish innocent people to do it.
There is no practical way for the government to actually spy on all of its citizens.
And they don't need to. Selective abuse is more than enough.
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I'm saying that training oneself to respond sexually to images that look like children will normally increase one's sexual response to children
It won't. There done.
and that's a bad thing.
That's subjective.
There are some very good reasons not to encourage or allow child pornography which doesn't directly involve children.
And this 'safety is more important than freedom' mentality is how we lose our freedoms. We have this mentality to thank for the TSA and various other things which violate our freedoms in the US.
It is also nonsensical to suggest that people will go out and rape children if they view images of drawn children having sex or whatever other nonsense you were trying to imply.
something that makes perfect sense
But censorship does not make sense. Arresting people for looking at images/videos also does not make sense.
Yes, but humans are also social creatures.
But how social one must be depends on the kind of person they are. Some people are perfectly happy interacting with others mostly over the Internet (if they even do that that often), for instance.
Not everyone is an extrovert, and not everyone who isn't an extrovert is depressed, violent, or whatever other nonsense some people may think.
In that case, it probably is the main influence on your behavior.
It doesn't seem to have much of an effect.
Oh, no! The terrorist bogeyman will get us!
I think I've heard about enough of that nonsense.
And I just said that it may gather information if a country has shown itself to actually be a threat. Anything else is just paranoid warmongering, and we need less of that, not more. As a citizen of the US, paranoid governments have done more a disservice to me; not only are they wasting my tax dollars on nonsense, but they're claiming to be spying in my name.
Not spying on random countries isn't anymore of a disservice than not groping people at airports is.
What's the original recipe for 'Kentucky Fried Rat'? CocaCola?
If it is truly important that we find out what methods someone used to do something, it will be done. Finding out the exact recipes for CocaCoca and such just around very important.
And again, we don't live in a society without patents, and since the world is vastly different than it once was, there's no way to even be sure what would happen.
Just because the balance has gone out of whack doesn't mean the concept is inherently broken.
I certainly think government-enforced monopolies over ideas and methods are inherently broken and unjust.
That child is screwed.
Whether that's true or not, someone would simply find out the secret eventually.
I can't accept freedom-violating government-enforced monopolies over ideas and methods.
I'll tell you the dirty little secret to improving security... profiling.
Meh... how about we just stop wasting our tax dollars? Selective harassment isn't much better.
So you think they spy just for the fun of it?
Where did I say that?
They are spying to better their countries.
That's like saying TSA agents grope people who try to get on US planes to better their country; it's nonsense. In very rare circumstances, I would tolerate the act of spying on countries we know to be hostile (and by that I'm not referring to random citizens who live in said countries), but that's all. I take freedom and privacy seriously, unlike some people.
I'm not sure what good ideas have to do with stealing. Your reply is truly a mystery to me.
I value freedom more than security and such. Patents/copyrights bring about censorship and a loss of control over real property, so can't accept them.
With that said, there's really no evidence that patents and copyrights help the situation; it's all speculation. Unless you have irrefutable evidence (and not just 'common sense' nonsense) that they truly do help, I don't see you convincing me that they're even useful for their stated purposes (although even if you did, I'd still be opposed to them).
Oh, so in your communist magical fantasy world, people get together in large scientific groups to produce technology purely for altruistic reasons.
No, I just expect people to come up with viable business models on their own, without resorting to government-enforced monopolies over ideas and methods that result in censorship and infringe upon people's property (read: physical property) rights.
How? So, a university spends tons of money and years of research refining a process which is far to sophisticated for you to understand, and you think they don't deserve some kind of exclusive rights?
No, I don't.
This is how the world works
Yeah, so let's just give up on trying to better ourselves.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The government can do no wrong and kids these days are out of control (haven't heard that last one before).
Then don't use the USPS.
That's not exactly a solution to this injustice, now is it? It simply shouldn't happen. Our government should not be doing such a thing.
By dropping the mail to USPS with the external address information you gave them explicit permission to use that external information.
But I didn't give them permission to log anything for such purposes.
Once it is in their system there is nothing you can do to refuse that piece of information being used
Sure there is. I fully expect my government to not violate people's privacy and conduct surveillance on them to stop the evil bogeymen.
The answer is that we have to severely restrict the government.
but the goal is to protect against whack-jobs that send scary shit in the mail.
Innocent people should not have to sacrifice their freedom or privacy to stop the 'bad guys.' This is exactly the same mentality that leads to people getting groped at airports, getting spied on by the government, and sent away to free speech zones. I don't care who they want to protect us from; don't punish innocent people to do it.
There is no practical way for the government to actually spy on all of its citizens.
And they don't need to. Selective abuse is more than enough.
Funny how that works.
It's not funny; it's sad.
Also the USPS is only taking pictures of the outside of the mail. Technically they only really know where the mail is going.
Which can be very important information.
If you don't want the government to know what your mail looks like, then don't ask the government to deliver it to you.
How about this: Don't keep the logs in the first place.
In practice, you're right, but this simply should not happen.
After all, that amendment protects against unreasonable searches
Well, this is unreasonable.
you're implicitly giving the USPS permission to read the visible surface.
But I gave them no permission to log everything.
Who actually thinks this is a good idea, besides our filthy government?
The history books you read were written by filthy terrorists!
Well, I do. Don't keep this information at all.
I thought we were talking about future abuses... As for past abuses of power that happened in the past, I already mentioned that there were many.
Really, though, he should be able to think of a few on his own.