There were plenty of escapes from the fallacies presented by the performers that would've made a solid public statement after the performance. If the performers weren't the snowflakes they were,
As soon as I parse that sentence I'm going to be triggered mightily. A snowflake might presume that the Alt-Right is projecting their own shortcomings on others -- but you know, I'm trying to escape the fallacies I've presented.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Russians hack the DNC email server AFTER Clinton moved the emails to the correct server?
The DNC computers and emails have been hacked a few times now, and I wouldn't be shocked and surprised who did it. I think Hillary used a private server to PREVENT man-in-the-middle manipulations like creating an email that said; "Tell ISIS that we need to kill all the witnesses..." Also, it probably performed much better than the DNC server.
I doubt even 5% of the emails were even interesting so I doubt that Hillary wanted to prevent emails being released under FOI act.
I'm not sure if the emails she destroyed were personal or not -- I'm sure if it were a big deal, the FBI would have said so.
There's no proof that Hillary under oath -- she just gave an answer you don't like.
Not a big time Hillary fan, but after 30 years of lawsuits and legal hassles, I'm fairly sure if she were in the least bit dirty, something would have stuck by now.
I think Trump is coming to the realization during his briefings that he is the dumbest person in the room. He can't stand it if one person doesn't respect him. George Bush probably went through the same thing and he seemed defensive every time he spoke in public.
9/11 saved George Bush, but he still created a layer of Yes Men between him and the people. The only thing that would save Trump is an opportunity of a big war and drumming in the flag wavers. Such are the dangers of weak men.
> The effect of sustained identity politics has driven a generation into a new kind of "white" identity
I think we've "identified" that haters are bad, and feeling insulted by this, they've mystified their language, cleaned up their image, and rail about political correctness. They still seek the same goals of elimination and marginalization of the "other".
Now I do think some go overboard with PC -- but a lot of the outrage is just about having to be POLITE to people of difference. For instance, calling people Klan Members and Nazis is insulting, It's the same with calling people retarded, so we started calling them mentally challenged -- through association, that word is becoming impolite. I am pretty sure in another 10 years, calling someone "Alt-Right" will be considered reprehensible.
> Alt-Right != Nazi. Yes, but there is a jackboot in their size. I mean, put up their list of likes and dislikes and the biggest difference is an accent.
>What is an alt-right? He's someone that took the left-wing-identity-politics and applies the principles to European history. If you are going to go into historical geopolitics, at least do some name-dropping. Is this something about what an alt-right is not, or are you saying that the Europeans do a lot of identity. I suppose a King is an identity.
> The Alt-Right is an unintended consequence of the modern progressive's university curriculum. Damn. I never saw that on the curriculum. Of course Education is Progressive, unless it's stupid. They don't take knowledge OUT of my head after all.
> If the Alt-Right is racist then so are proponents of identity politics. And by extension then Poodles is racist. But less racists than them fucking Beagles.
> I, for one, think that identity politics is racist. You just said that, like some dogs. Not all dogs, but you know a lot of them are. And some of them are not rapists.
> Only that the broad brush denunciation is inaccurate They aren't all Nazis, but other than hating, outrage and pointing out that all problems stem from people not being them, well, what else is there to do at parties? Barbecue -- I forgot about the foods and drinks.
I think I'm not being geeky on Slashdot, but I just wanted to clarify and speak out about hateful Beagles.
I think the problem is that the DNC has it's own bubble, and the professional political establishment considers what makes a professional also makes a winner.
Hillary also kept pitching for the "I'm a woman" and LGBTQ and minorities. Everyone KNEW the Dems were supporting this so WHY always bring it up? They spent ZERO air time saying; "we want to get jobs to coal workers and bring opportunities to rural communities." Instead; "Coal is going out of style."
While I'm THINK that Bernie Sanders could have won -- I voted for him after all. It's mostly because he didn't EXCLUDE white males. He didn't have a message of who he was or wasn't -- just universal messages of what he planned to do for people. I hope the DNC learns this -- or dies. I'm not a fan of political parties in the first place.
The demographics keep moving towards the Democrats. There have never been more offended Latinos, women and immigrants from the Middle East. Heck, even the Mormons were having misgivings.
I don't know where the extra Republican votes came from.
This is Slashdot -- anyone here think that hacking voting machines is a strange thought with Russia's help?
The calculation on this punishment is; Does it embarrass the police or authority? Does it do so publicly? This equals harsh penalties.
It seems like using a computer to do a slight bit of damage, is treated with harsher penalties than someone holding up a liquor store. Of course harsher than ripping off thousands and ruining lives when running a bank -- but well, that's a different story.
Some kid was doing a prank, and it got out of hand. The fact that it accidentally caused more damage because of the shortcomings of a system should have ZERO to do with punishment.The intent of the perpetrator should be the main effect on punishment.
We have a punish happy system, and of course a douche nozzle like Joe -- that poor kid has the worst luck.
I use Little Snitch, and I only notice "pings" by Apple Mail when it boots up. After that -- nothing. Of course so many emails try and phone home, but I deny those requests. Have you actually looked at what data is going to these servers?
I don't care about pings -- I care about data. And other than crash reports, I'm not seeing Apple harvesting any. They are less intrusive than many games in my experience.
So CAFE is kind of like our Unemployment Rate; not really a good indicator of anything, but it's a consistent baseline to compare a bad standard from year to year.
I think the OP is showing an agenda; "Government can't do anything right." Well, there is a lot of inefficiency at various government agencies, they aren't all the same.
There are sometimes some stupid regulations, but we need SOMETHING to improve gas mileage. The EPA was getting defunded and staffed by hacks during the Bush administration. I'm pretty sure "funding" for regulatory agencies has not been an easy sell since then. But damn, I need the EPA and FDA to function because I need to breathe and I need to trust my food and drugs.
Are we going to let corporations regulate themselves? Oh Hell no. So we need better standards, but good standards to at least push SOME improvements may be good enough. I probably need to read more on the latest EPA tests -- if I wanted to weigh in on this, but if there are new tests, it would kind of invalidate the whole thread of this conversation.
Every country will eventually NEED to get access to that data. It's far more likely to be used to squash liberty than to solve the cases for 3 or 4 bad guys. If you need to hack a phone to catch someone, you are fishing. The dumb criminals of course will leave the evidence there -- but also everywhere else. The terrorist cell however, will use a burner phone or a damn pigeon.
America will not get more secure by more spying, but by stronger communities and job opportunities. Every one of these attacks is coming from a loner.
This is just another conduit to give "probable cause" for insurance companies not to pay up when they should. "No fault" means it doesn't matter the fault UNLESS you were committing a crime or using a cell phone. Someone hits you in the rear, and it's their fault and their insurance has to pay UNLESS you were doing something on their phone -- regardless of whether you were operating the vehicle correctly.
So the "implied consent" becomes an automatic verdict if you don't know EXACTLY what to say at the time of the crash -- and if you are out of sorts, good luck. The police will know your rights and how to gather evidence to make you look bad if they so desire -- and to help pay for their fancy new police station. If you are innocent, it might be years before you get a court hearing to challenge some expensive fine, and if you didn't gather your own electronic evidence, it's your word against a professional witness with a shiny badge.
The OP proposed ants with Nukes -- you can't change the proposed scenario and then claim its a mere nuisance! That's just no fair or worthy of a Slashdotter.;-)
Ants throwing sand grain sized nukes at us would definitely destroy us and all of humanity as well. There are more termites by weight than humans by weight (unless the McRib sandwich is available year round). If the ants ally with the termites, we'd have no cover from their many-nuke assault.
Your strategy sounds viable, we just send rockets with ants and their nuke sand at the aliens -- they'll never know what hit them. Bonus; if it fails, we got a patsy. No more of those damn red ants biting you at your picknick in Central Florida!
However, even us bumpkins on earth know to throttle down our engines when entering a dock.
The gravitational distortion used to propel the crafts FTL are not likely going to be used -- or at least not at full strength in a confined area as they'd be shifting other ships around as well. Of course any gravity distortion field is likely to have a VERY large area of distortion (like one wave peak to peak the length of a planet) and it would take an order of magnitude less ships to diffuse the light.
HOWEVER, any analysis of the light passing through such a distortion would probably create a very wide gamut of light -- any analysis with a interferometer would show such an anomaly. Since we haven't heard of one - likely no gravity distorting drives.
MY GUESS is that it isn't the star getting dimmer, but an astronomical event that made the star brighter has passed. I'm thinking like the exhaust at the pole of a black hole pointing at the star causing a huge flare. As the orbits of the star to the black hole have passed - it's energetic activity has passed.
I'd look for a black hole above or below the galactic plane of orbit to the West or East of the star for about 20 light years.
The sort of people who use "yes I'm a terrorist" as an excuse to remove your civil rights -- or at least load up charges, are the same douche-bags who would falsify evidence because they KNEW you were guilty.
Nobody is convinced by "yes I'm a terrorist" but the dishonest and eager. It seems our local PD mentality runs all the way to our HS. If they can't find real terrorists, they keep lowering the bar to call SOMEONE a terrorist.
I can hear it now; "OK, we didn't find any weapons, but we do know that you lied when you said you packed your own bag. Scum like you will never learn."
It swells my heart with pride to say that the TSA has caught everyone checking YES on the question; "I am a terrorist and thanks for asking!" And exactly ZERO smart assess who can't help themselves by making fun of Homeland Security have gone unpunished.
To date, they may have saved the planet, or at least dealt with up-armored homeless people before this and the urine smell on subways escalates beyond control. Does all this splendiferous success merit a $1 trillion dollar price tag? Some cynic might say that for $500 billion we could win hearts and minds by building hospitals and schools in the nations that breed terrorism, but those are the same people check "I am a terrorist and thanks for asking!", and we'll take care of them all eventually, as our policies get more invasive and dumber.
I think that if someone brings up "I have a mental illness" that it should be treated like someone broke their leg. You don't have to dance on egg shells to talk about a foot race -- but don't expect the person with the broken leg to keep up. And insulting such a thing, well, then you should be considered an ass, or someone with Asperger or Narcissistic Personality Disorder. That doesn't mean people can't talk about empathy, just that they shouldn't expect you to have any. Maybe everything we find annoying will one day be treatable. It's hard to say what is really in your control or not -- and people without a disorder or who have been around it, won't understand that just a few chemicals can make night and day differences in a person.
If anything, we will find more of us have SOME kind of ailment that has been holding us back. The "self made men" out there will of course, think that we are becoming an "excuse society" urged on by Radio talk show pundits and the like, who make sure any expense that could be borne by big business or government, not take away from paying pundits and billionaires.
We can all sympathize with the cancer patient or the battle scarred warrior with PTSDs (at least we FINALLY call it something beyond Shell Shock). Depression and other ailments can be just as debilitating -- or even more so, yet they don't garner the "respect" of the obvious ailments. "I don't want to" sounds like an excuse, so people without the mental energy to do what they need to be doing, find ways to conceal that they have any problem -- even to themselves.
AFAIK, the FBI can't prosecute US citizens for thought crimes.
But how is a website or BBS showing material NOT a thought crime? You might say; the materials are prohibited. But we could outlaw bibles, and then everyone with a bible would be an outlaw. What ABOUT the bible is illegal? Reading the words, of course. They'll say it's possession, but really, it's in what you might learn, think and how it might change your behavior. No clear smoking gun on Pedophilia.
So this is a thought crime. They can see, view and hear but don't DO. Crime is an act that harms people. Until someone actually affects a person or property -- no crime. The only crime is based on prohibited material.
Is the crime in viewing an actual minor, or in viewing someone who LOOKS like a minor -- or a cartoon? What if I'm married to a 26 year old woman who 4 feet tall and looks really cute? Do I go to jail? Sure these people may clearly be looking for kids -- or maybe someone likes tiny women, but how do you define such a thing and does it really matter?
The user in this case is assuming there is privacy. They are viewing material to get stimulated. They didn't touch anyone.
I hate taking the side of Pedos -- but we don't even know if all these people are actual pedophiles. Some of them might just be into extremes and next week they'll be looking at chubby chicks. Some of them may have been abused in the past. If you criminalize this -- you don't have a situation where people can seek help. There are so many cases in our own history where stigmatizing causes MORE of the thing we are trying to reduce.
This is thought crime -- pure and simple. And if the rights of people who have done NO HARM are not considered, as reprehensible as they are, then the long arm of the law might do a reach-around into something else, like colluding with each other to change laws we think are wrong.
I agree. While I abhor sexual abuse of children (required statement), it's an easy target of outrage but has far-reaching consequences to charge criminal offenses of people who view such things on the internet. It is a thought crime -- the abuse of the children is the people making the content -- and I think it should end there.
Free access to porn has shown a relative drop in rapes. Violence in games shows a huge drop in violence (relative to the same demographic without video games -- though not sure where they find those anymore).
I think the next battlefield will be on realistic sex robots. People will be morally outraged if they look this way or that. There's no abuse because it's a mechanism. If it stops rapists, sex addicts and molesters from doing damage to real people -- what is the harm?
I think too often we have morals based laws, that don't really meet the public interest of; "what does the most good for the most people?" Sure, we all might be creeped out by someone's preferences, but by not criminalizing the USE of materials, we can better get the CREATORS of harm. And in the future, STDs, Prostitution, and Sexual offenses may take a nose dive as Sexbots hit the scene.
It would be interesting to see the real stats on whether viewing makes someone more or less likely to abuse a kid. Perhaps there's a difference when there is a blog of people reinforcing how "OK" it is. The real question is; what path prevents child abuse?
Slashdot Mirror
There were plenty of escapes from the fallacies presented by the performers that would've made a solid public statement after the performance. If the performers weren't the snowflakes they were,
As soon as I parse that sentence I'm going to be triggered mightily. A snowflake might presume that the Alt-Right is projecting their own shortcomings on others -- but you know, I'm trying to escape the fallacies I've presented.
I don't think the experts said; 'Shut up." That was bloggers supporting the experts.
The problem most likely was the experts saying persuasive arguments and the Trump voters hearing; "blah, blah blah Science, blah blah blah."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Russians hack the DNC email server AFTER Clinton moved the emails to the correct server?
The DNC computers and emails have been hacked a few times now, and I wouldn't be shocked and surprised who did it. I think Hillary used a private server to PREVENT man-in-the-middle manipulations like creating an email that said; "Tell ISIS that we need to kill all the witnesses..." Also, it probably performed much better than the DNC server.
I doubt even 5% of the emails were even interesting so I doubt that Hillary wanted to prevent emails being released under FOI act.
I'm not sure if the emails she destroyed were personal or not -- I'm sure if it were a big deal, the FBI would have said so.
There's no proof that Hillary under oath -- she just gave an answer you don't like.
Not a big time Hillary fan, but after 30 years of lawsuits and legal hassles, I'm fairly sure if she were in the least bit dirty, something would have stuck by now.
I think Trump is coming to the realization during his briefings that he is the dumbest person in the room. He can't stand it if one person doesn't respect him. George Bush probably went through the same thing and he seemed defensive every time he spoke in public.
9/11 saved George Bush, but he still created a layer of Yes Men between him and the people. The only thing that would save Trump is an opportunity of a big war and drumming in the flag wavers. Such are the dangers of weak men.
I think you said one sentence that was true, and that was "No." You should have quit while you were ahead.
> The effect of sustained identity politics has driven a generation into a new kind of "white" identity
I think we've "identified" that haters are bad, and feeling insulted by this, they've mystified their language, cleaned up their image, and rail about political correctness. They still seek the same goals of elimination and marginalization of the "other".
Now I do think some go overboard with PC -- but a lot of the outrage is just about having to be POLITE to people of difference.
For instance, calling people Klan Members and Nazis is insulting, It's the same with calling people retarded, so we started calling them mentally challenged -- through association, that word is becoming impolite. I am pretty sure in another 10 years, calling someone "Alt-Right" will be considered reprehensible.
> Alt-Right != Nazi.
Yes, but there is a jackboot in their size. I mean, put up their list of likes and dislikes and the biggest difference is an accent.
>What is an alt-right? He's someone that took the left-wing-identity-politics and applies the principles to European history.
If you are going to go into historical geopolitics, at least do some name-dropping. Is this something about what an alt-right is not, or are you saying that the Europeans do a lot of identity. I suppose a King is an identity.
> The Alt-Right is an unintended consequence of the modern progressive's university curriculum.
Damn. I never saw that on the curriculum. Of course Education is Progressive, unless it's stupid. They don't take knowledge OUT of my head after all.
> If the Alt-Right is racist then so are proponents of identity politics.
And by extension then Poodles is racist. But less racists than them fucking Beagles.
> I, for one, think that identity politics is racist.
You just said that, like some dogs. Not all dogs, but you know a lot of them are. And some of them are not rapists.
> Only that the broad brush denunciation is inaccurate
They aren't all Nazis, but other than hating, outrage and pointing out that all problems stem from people not being them, well, what else is there to do at parties? Barbecue -- I forgot about the foods and drinks.
I think I'm not being geeky on Slashdot, but I just wanted to clarify and speak out about hateful Beagles.
I think the problem is that the DNC has it's own bubble, and the professional political establishment considers what makes a professional also makes a winner.
Hillary also kept pitching for the "I'm a woman" and LGBTQ and minorities. Everyone KNEW the Dems were supporting this so WHY always bring it up? They spent ZERO air time saying; "we want to get jobs to coal workers and bring opportunities to rural communities." Instead; "Coal is going out of style."
While I'm THINK that Bernie Sanders could have won -- I voted for him after all. It's mostly because he didn't EXCLUDE white males. He didn't have a message of who he was or wasn't -- just universal messages of what he planned to do for people. I hope the DNC learns this -- or dies. I'm not a fan of political parties in the first place.
The demographics keep moving towards the Democrats. There have never been more offended Latinos, women and immigrants from the Middle East. Heck, even the Mormons were having misgivings.
I don't know where the extra Republican votes came from.
This is Slashdot -- anyone here think that hacking voting machines is a strange thought with Russia's help?
The calculation on this punishment is; Does it embarrass the police or authority? Does it do so publicly? This equals harsh penalties.
It seems like using a computer to do a slight bit of damage, is treated with harsher penalties than someone holding up a liquor store. Of course harsher than ripping off thousands and ruining lives when running a bank -- but well, that's a different story.
Some kid was doing a prank, and it got out of hand. The fact that it accidentally caused more damage because of the shortcomings of a system should have ZERO to do with punishment.The intent of the perpetrator should be the main effect on punishment.
We have a punish happy system, and of course a douche nozzle like Joe -- that poor kid has the worst luck.
Due to the Slashdot effect, Google will find that 'peristalsis' is inexplicably trending upward.
I use Little Snitch, and I only notice "pings" by Apple Mail when it boots up. After that -- nothing. Of course so many emails try and phone home, but I deny those requests. Have you actually looked at what data is going to these servers?
I don't care about pings -- I care about data. And other than crash reports, I'm not seeing Apple harvesting any. They are less intrusive than many games in my experience.
Thanks for the details on that.
So CAFE is kind of like our Unemployment Rate; not really a good indicator of anything, but it's a consistent baseline to compare a bad standard from year to year.
I think the OP is showing an agenda; "Government can't do anything right." Well, there is a lot of inefficiency at various government agencies, they aren't all the same.
There are sometimes some stupid regulations, but we need SOMETHING to improve gas mileage. The EPA was getting defunded and staffed by hacks during the Bush administration. I'm pretty sure "funding" for regulatory agencies has not been an easy sell since then. But damn, I need the EPA and FDA to function because I need to breathe and I need to trust my food and drugs.
Are we going to let corporations regulate themselves? Oh Hell no. So we need better standards, but good standards to at least push SOME improvements may be good enough. I probably need to read more on the latest EPA tests -- if I wanted to weigh in on this, but if there are new tests, it would kind of invalidate the whole thread of this conversation.
Every country will eventually NEED to get access to that data. It's far more likely to be used to squash liberty than to solve the cases for 3 or 4 bad guys. If you need to hack a phone to catch someone, you are fishing. The dumb criminals of course will leave the evidence there -- but also everywhere else. The terrorist cell however, will use a burner phone or a damn pigeon.
America will not get more secure by more spying, but by stronger communities and job opportunities. Every one of these attacks is coming from a loner.
This is just another conduit to give "probable cause" for insurance companies not to pay up when they should. "No fault" means it doesn't matter the fault UNLESS you were committing a crime or using a cell phone. Someone hits you in the rear, and it's their fault and their insurance has to pay UNLESS you were doing something on their phone -- regardless of whether you were operating the vehicle correctly.
So the "implied consent" becomes an automatic verdict if you don't know EXACTLY what to say at the time of the crash -- and if you are out of sorts, good luck. The police will know your rights and how to gather evidence to make you look bad if they so desire -- and to help pay for their fancy new police station. If you are innocent, it might be years before you get a court hearing to challenge some expensive fine, and if you didn't gather your own electronic evidence, it's your word against a professional witness with a shiny badge.
The attack would not be after the Dyson Sphere, it would be after the ships, the aliens and then after that, the picnic baskets.
You are just not thinking strategically.
The OP proposed ants with Nukes -- you can't change the proposed scenario and then claim its a mere nuisance! That's just no fair or worthy of a Slashdotter. ;-)
Ants throwing sand grain sized nukes at us would definitely destroy us and all of humanity as well. There are more termites by weight than humans by weight (unless the McRib sandwich is available year round). If the ants ally with the termites, we'd have no cover from their many-nuke assault.
Your strategy sounds viable, we just send rockets with ants and their nuke sand at the aliens -- they'll never know what hit them. Bonus; if it fails, we got a patsy. No more of those damn red ants biting you at your picknick in Central Florida!
However, even us bumpkins on earth know to throttle down our engines when entering a dock.
The gravitational distortion used to propel the crafts FTL are not likely going to be used -- or at least not at full strength in a confined area as they'd be shifting other ships around as well. Of course any gravity distortion field is likely to have a VERY large area of distortion (like one wave peak to peak the length of a planet) and it would take an order of magnitude less ships to diffuse the light.
HOWEVER, any analysis of the light passing through such a distortion would probably create a very wide gamut of light -- any analysis with a interferometer would show such an anomaly. Since we haven't heard of one - likely no gravity distorting drives.
MY GUESS is that it isn't the star getting dimmer, but an astronomical event that made the star brighter has passed. I'm thinking like the exhaust at the pole of a black hole pointing at the star causing a huge flare. As the orbits of the star to the black hole have passed - it's energetic activity has passed.
I'd look for a black hole above or below the galactic plane of orbit to the West or East of the star for about 20 light years.
The sort of people who use "yes I'm a terrorist" as an excuse to remove your civil rights -- or at least load up charges, are the same douche-bags who would falsify evidence because they KNEW you were guilty.
Nobody is convinced by "yes I'm a terrorist" but the dishonest and eager. It seems our local PD mentality runs all the way to our HS. If they can't find real terrorists, they keep lowering the bar to call SOMEONE a terrorist.
I can hear it now; "OK, we didn't find any weapons, but we do know that you lied when you said you packed your own bag. Scum like you will never learn."
It swells my heart with pride to say that the TSA has caught everyone checking YES on the question; "I am a terrorist and thanks for asking!" And exactly ZERO smart assess who can't help themselves by making fun of Homeland Security have gone unpunished.
To date, they may have saved the planet, or at least dealt with up-armored homeless people before this and the urine smell on subways escalates beyond control. Does all this splendiferous success merit a $1 trillion dollar price tag? Some cynic might say that for $500 billion we could win hearts and minds by building hospitals and schools in the nations that breed terrorism, but those are the same people check "I am a terrorist and thanks for asking!", and we'll take care of them all eventually, as our policies get more invasive and dumber.
I think that if someone brings up "I have a mental illness" that it should be treated like someone broke their leg. You don't have to dance on egg shells to talk about a foot race -- but don't expect the person with the broken leg to keep up. And insulting such a thing, well, then you should be considered an ass, or someone with Asperger or Narcissistic Personality Disorder. That doesn't mean people can't talk about empathy, just that they shouldn't expect you to have any. Maybe everything we find annoying will one day be treatable. It's hard to say what is really in your control or not -- and people without a disorder or who have been around it, won't understand that just a few chemicals can make night and day differences in a person.
If anything, we will find more of us have SOME kind of ailment that has been holding us back. The "self made men" out there will of course, think that we are becoming an "excuse society" urged on by Radio talk show pundits and the like, who make sure any expense that could be borne by big business or government, not take away from paying pundits and billionaires.
We can all sympathize with the cancer patient or the battle scarred warrior with PTSDs (at least we FINALLY call it something beyond Shell Shock). Depression and other ailments can be just as debilitating -- or even more so, yet they don't garner the "respect" of the obvious ailments. "I don't want to" sounds like an excuse, so people without the mental energy to do what they need to be doing, find ways to conceal that they have any problem -- even to themselves.
AFAIK, the FBI can't prosecute US citizens for thought crimes.
But how is a website or BBS showing material NOT a thought crime? You might say; the materials are prohibited. But we could outlaw bibles, and then everyone with a bible would be an outlaw. What ABOUT the bible is illegal? Reading the words, of course. They'll say it's possession, but really, it's in what you might learn, think and how it might change your behavior. No clear smoking gun on Pedophilia.
So this is a thought crime. They can see, view and hear but don't DO. Crime is an act that harms people. Until someone actually affects a person or property -- no crime. The only crime is based on prohibited material.
Is the crime in viewing an actual minor, or in viewing someone who LOOKS like a minor -- or a cartoon? What if I'm married to a 26 year old woman who 4 feet tall and looks really cute? Do I go to jail? Sure these people may clearly be looking for kids -- or maybe someone likes tiny women, but how do you define such a thing and does it really matter?
The user in this case is assuming there is privacy. They are viewing material to get stimulated. They didn't touch anyone.
I hate taking the side of Pedos -- but we don't even know if all these people are actual pedophiles. Some of them might just be into extremes and next week they'll be looking at chubby chicks. Some of them may have been abused in the past. If you criminalize this -- you don't have a situation where people can seek help. There are so many cases in our own history where stigmatizing causes MORE of the thing we are trying to reduce.
This is thought crime -- pure and simple. And if the rights of people who have done NO HARM are not considered, as reprehensible as they are, then the long arm of the law might do a reach-around into something else, like colluding with each other to change laws we think are wrong.
I agree. While I abhor sexual abuse of children (required statement), it's an easy target of outrage but has far-reaching consequences to charge criminal offenses of people who view such things on the internet. It is a thought crime -- the abuse of the children is the people making the content -- and I think it should end there.
Free access to porn has shown a relative drop in rapes. Violence in games shows a huge drop in violence (relative to the same demographic without video games -- though not sure where they find those anymore).
I think the next battlefield will be on realistic sex robots. People will be morally outraged if they look this way or that. There's no abuse because it's a mechanism. If it stops rapists, sex addicts and molesters from doing damage to real people -- what is the harm?
I think too often we have morals based laws, that don't really meet the public interest of; "what does the most good for the most people?" Sure, we all might be creeped out by someone's preferences, but by not criminalizing the USE of materials, we can better get the CREATORS of harm. And in the future, STDs, Prostitution, and Sexual offenses may take a nose dive as Sexbots hit the scene.
It would be interesting to see the real stats on whether viewing makes someone more or less likely to abuse a kid. Perhaps there's a difference when there is a blog of people reinforcing how "OK" it is. The real question is; what path prevents child abuse?