"You've rejected the examples where there's an obvious social benefit to publication such as videos/photographs of genocide. But you've happily included all the examples which the popular media commonly suggest are shared for kicks."
No, I rejected the ones in which someone is deliberately harmed in order to obtain the footage, which is then distributed for kicks. there is a difference.
You can't just assert a connection between two things (one which I see you're now trying to be deliberately vague about) and then demand that other people prove that there is no connection. It's doubly bad when you start suggesting restrictive laws should be enacted on the basis of your assertion.
I'm not suggesting laws. In fact you'll see if you read my comments that I disagree with them based on the possibility of abuse of said law.
Personally I think that if you want to say that there is no connection between ease of access to child porn, people paying for child porn, and therefore more being made... well given that everything we know about supply and demand would have to be thrown out for that not to be the case I think the onus is on you here.
Which bit is baseless? Do you disagree that the best moral solution should be sought? Or do you think it's "baseless" to suggest that government Internet censorship of CP is neither part of an optimal solution (to the problem of child abuse) nor even a moral option?
It's simple. Your assertion that a filter solution is neither moral nor effective is unsupported.
Is it likely to be *absolutely* effective? Hell no. is it likely to dissuade less technical users? Well sure we'd need some supporting evidence for that.
Oh, Nursie, you are awful. It came from yours and I didn't even need to pull:
And we all believe in market based solutions, right?
Your interpretation of that comment as a suggestion "that every solution must be based upon some particular belief system" is at fault there.
I don't think you realize just how personally unflattering your alternative explanation is. It's one thing to blithely go along with whatever authority proposes without thinking about it too much since it doesn't really personally impact you. It's a far worse proposition to have thought long and hard about a subject and come to such an abjectly poor conclusion
I came to this position having briefly played with freenet some years ago and seen what it was largely used for.
I quickly decided that I could not run a node and that I did not believe in free speech to the extent that, even without knowing exactly due to the nature of freenet, I would give my disk space and bandwidth over to that project.
I am not going to loudly advocate any sort of filter due to the possibilities for authoritarian misuse of such a thing, but you won't find me arguing against the concept. The exchange of pictures depicting the brutal abuse of minors is not an activity I will support, regardless of how other people feel about the freedom of speech implications.
You may think of my position as "personally unflattering" if you wish.
You haven't explained why there's something special about sex which means that publications with a sexual element are worse than, say, publications with a non-sexual violent element.
No, I haven't, because that's not my assertion. You made that bit up all by yourself.
By your argument, I assume you have evidence that there are many people who use easily found images of child abuse on the web as a gateway drug to paying for or producing child porn.
By your argument I assume you have concrete evidence to the contrary? That there is no market effect? No escalation from viewing to buying?
The solution which uses moral means and which works best is the best solution. (The proposed solution has neither property.
And that's another baseless assertion from you.
To suggest that every solution must be based upon some particular belief system is religion.
From which orifice are you pulling this particular accusation? Where did I suggest that?
I should probably leave now, you seem to be doing pretty well making stuff up and arguing against it yourself.
"Surely such videos have been uploaded to youtube, should youtube be shut down?"
This is why things can be filtered at the URL level. Of course there have been problems with the implementation of this and the heavy-handedness of application in countries like the UK, but it's certainly possible - pending contact with the site's owner within a reasonable timeframe.
And worst of all, how do we, the people, know that a website shut down for child porn actually had child porn on it? Maybe it was shut down for some other reason, we have no way to find out.
This is the only compelling reason I can see to object to such filters.
Yes, as mentioned in my original post, this is the only reason I have a problem with it.
As a general concept I'm fine with a CP filter. The problem is exactly transparency and the possibilities for it to be used by governments for their own ends.
"At what stage do you think media hysteria bombarded you sufficiently - as it has done with so many people - to think an image of child abuse is a special case, so much worse than any other sequence of bits which acts as evidence that some abuse has taken place? What about a picture/film of adult sexual abuse? If the adult is developmentally retarded? Animal abuse? A snuff film? An image of a dead baby? A woman executed for being raped? A war crime? Evidence of genocide?"
Because obviously, I could never come to these conclusions myself, no, it *has* to be media hysteria that has warped my fragile little mind. Has to be.
And I would apply this to all of your list up to and including the snuff film.
Blocking it puts off the 'casual' viewer and constricts the market. And we all believe in market based solutions, right?
But I don't really have a problem with the concept of domain filtering or domain takedowns for child pornography.
I think it's dangerous to apply it to much else, and I'm not sure I can envisage a system that can actually stop it effectively, or maintain enough transparency to satisfy me that other "non-approved" content isn't being filtered.
And of course I totally disagree with the power being extended even to other illegal activities (file sharing, anarchist's cookbook type stuff, for instance). So for me it's hard to see what's best.
I apologise in advance to the gathered/. horde for not being absolutist enough.
I just hope that the 18+ rating for games comes through, because the current practice of banning games based on totally inconsistent criteria, whilst not applying similar criteria to other media, is ridiculous in the extreme.
I'm really not trying to brag about how awesome I am, I'm just saying I have choices and I have rights. Most people in the tech industry I have experience of are in a similar position. However I have never lived in the US so I don't pretend to know what your experiences are.
I have worked there very briefly and what I saw confirmed what I had heard about the long hours and little vacation time, which points to a very different balance between workers and managers/owners in the US compared to Europe and Australia.
Very true, I'm sure within the company I work for (it's huge) there are people right now trying to figure out how to do my job with machines, or replace me with cheaper overseas labour.
Fortunately the cheaper, overseas option has been tried several times and been shown not cost effective. And there seem to be enough opportunities around at the moment should I need them. I hope it stays that way!
(BTW, not American or in America, it's comparative boomtime here in Western Australia)
You *can* do all that stuff, it's pretty unlikely though.
Unless you are a coding god (and I'm pretty damn good) then you occasionally make mistakes (we're all human) and you'll always benefit from the perspective of another skilled professional.
I wouldn't work with anyone that had a serious opposition to reviews. Everyone misses something sooner or later. You are not as special as you think you are.
it comes down to "all the other guys subsidize, so we do too." Is this not the case?
Not so much, I was under the impression that all the other guys (where other guys are third world) can't get a market started in some places because euro and american farmers are subsidised out the wazoo.
Oh sure, both of these huge economic blocks love to talk about free markets, but when it comes to farming, we're just not willing to compete fairly in our internal or external markets.
Part of this is because France would just grind to a halt as farmers went into open revolt, and part of it is that you'd never get both parties (EU and US) to stop subsidising farmers at the same time. Especially if it looked like the other one was about to.
I gave you several examples of places it's deployed on a large scale and is not just used by geeks, whether "specifically" or otherwise. That's what I was replying to. Perhaps you need to work on your reading comprehension.
As for iPhones vS Android, the best figures I can find had Apple at 108 million total units by March this year, Android were 101 million by the end of last year. I have a funny feeling that in the mean time Android will have caught up, given its market share has been much larger than Apple's for quit some time. Your assertion of there being over twice as many iOS devices in the wild is unfounded.
No, most people don't give a crap about open, and never did I say otherwise. You, however, are full of shit.
I used my Google Apps for Domains email address to sign up for a normal Google account a little while back. This seemed weird but made most stuff work. Then a few months back I was made to merge the accounts, which took hours.
Now this!
My inbox is filling up with people's Google+ status updates, and there's nothing I can do with it. Irritating.
Sure, we can agree that, if we can also agree that games are generally the one area that linux folk, recognising that there are very few FOSS games, are willing to pay out.
I'd never dream of paying for an operating system, but I buy stuff off steam.
"The incentive for using Linux is at first the fact that it is free"
False. Other platforms are effectively free. I use linux because it is capable, useful and (to me) easy.
It also doesn't pick up infections like a $5 hooker, which windows does.
OTOH free allows it to do amazing things like have app stores. I just wouldn't do half so much with the computer if they weren't there. In that case free is the enabling mechanism, not really the reason itself.
Slashdot Mirror
"You've rejected the examples where there's an obvious social benefit to publication such as videos/photographs of genocide. But you've happily included all the examples which the popular media commonly suggest are shared for kicks."
No, I rejected the ones in which someone is deliberately harmed in order to obtain the footage, which is then distributed for kicks. there is a difference.
You can't just assert a connection between two things (one which I see you're now trying to be deliberately vague about) and then demand that other people prove that there is no connection. It's doubly bad when you start suggesting restrictive laws should be enacted on the basis of your assertion.
I'm not suggesting laws. In fact you'll see if you read my comments that I disagree with them based on the possibility of abuse of said law.
Personally I think that if you want to say that there is no connection between ease of access to child porn, people paying for child porn, and therefore more being made... well given that everything we know about supply and demand would have to be thrown out for that not to be the case I think the onus is on you here.
Which bit is baseless? Do you disagree that the best moral solution should be sought? Or do you think it's "baseless" to suggest that government Internet censorship of CP is neither part of an optimal solution (to the problem of child abuse) nor even a moral option?
It's simple. Your assertion that a filter solution is neither moral nor effective is unsupported.
Is it likely to be *absolutely* effective? Hell no. is it likely to dissuade less technical users? Well sure we'd need some supporting evidence for that.
Oh, Nursie, you are awful. It came from yours and I didn't even need to pull:
And we all believe in market based solutions, right?
Your interpretation of that comment as a suggestion "that every solution must be based upon some particular belief system" is at fault there.
I don't think you realize just how personally unflattering your alternative explanation is. It's one thing to blithely go along with whatever authority proposes without thinking about it too much since it doesn't really personally impact you. It's a far worse proposition to have thought long and hard about a subject and come to such an abjectly poor conclusion
I came to this position having briefly played with freenet some years ago and seen what it was largely used for.
I quickly decided that I could not run a node and that I did not believe in free speech to the extent that, even without knowing exactly due to the nature of freenet, I would give my disk space and bandwidth over to that project.
I am not going to loudly advocate any sort of filter due to the possibilities for authoritarian misuse of such a thing, but you won't find me arguing against the concept. The exchange of pictures depicting the brutal abuse of minors is not an activity I will support, regardless of how other people feel about the freedom of speech implications.
You may think of my position as "personally unflattering" if you wish.
That's great. You install it on all the systems you have administrative control over.
And there you go selectively quoting me. Your argument skills really are very poor aren't they?
You haven't explained why there's something special about sex which means that publications with a sexual element are worse than, say, publications with a non-sexual violent element.
No, I haven't, because that's not my assertion. You made that bit up all by yourself.
By your argument, I assume you have evidence that there are many people who use easily found images of child abuse on the web as a gateway drug to paying for or producing child porn.
By your argument I assume you have concrete evidence to the contrary? That there is no market effect? No escalation from viewing to buying?
The solution which uses moral means and which works best is the best solution. (The proposed solution has neither property.
And that's another baseless assertion from you.
To suggest that every solution must be based upon some particular belief system is religion.
From which orifice are you pulling this particular accusation?
Where did I suggest that?
I should probably leave now, you seem to be doing pretty well making stuff up and arguing against it yourself.
"Surely such videos have been uploaded to youtube, should youtube be shut down?"
This is why things can be filtered at the URL level. Of course there have been problems with the implementation of this and the heavy-handedness of application in countries like the UK, but it's certainly possible - pending contact with the site's owner within a reasonable timeframe.
And worst of all, how do we, the people, know that a website shut down for child porn actually had child porn on it? Maybe it was shut down for some other reason, we have no way to find out.
This is the only compelling reason I can see to object to such filters.
Yes, as mentioned in my original post, this is the only reason I have a problem with it.
As a general concept I'm fine with a CP filter. The problem is exactly transparency and the possibilities for it to be used by governments for their own ends.
"At what stage do you think media hysteria bombarded you sufficiently - as it has done with so many people - to think an image of child abuse is a special case, so much worse than any other sequence of bits which acts as evidence that some abuse has taken place? What about a picture/film of adult sexual abuse? If the adult is developmentally retarded? Animal abuse? A snuff film? An image of a dead baby? A woman executed for being raped? A war crime? Evidence of genocide?"
Because obviously, I could never come to these conclusions myself, no, it *has* to be media hysteria that has warped my fragile little mind. Has to be.
And I would apply this to all of your list up to and including the snuff film.
Blocking it puts off the 'casual' viewer and constricts the market. And we all believe in market based solutions, right?
But I don't really have a problem with the concept of domain filtering or domain takedowns for child pornography.
I think it's dangerous to apply it to much else, and I'm not sure I can envisage a system that can actually stop it effectively, or maintain enough transparency to satisfy me that other "non-approved" content isn't being filtered.
And of course I totally disagree with the power being extended even to other illegal activities (file sharing, anarchist's cookbook type stuff, for instance). So for me it's hard to see what's best.
I apologise in advance to the gathered /. horde for not being absolutist enough.
I just hope that the 18+ rating for games comes through, because the current practice of banning games based on totally inconsistent criteria, whilst not applying similar criteria to other media, is ridiculous in the extreme.
If you can do that you must live in a small town. I don't do small towns.
I mean, unless you're Bill Gates or something.
Not that this justifies it, or that I disagree with you, but here in Australia the cost of living is vastly higher than the united states.
The US and AU dollars are at rough parity, but it goes a hell of a lot further in the US.
I'm really not trying to brag about how awesome I am, I'm just saying I have choices and I have rights. Most people in the tech industry I have experience of are in a similar position. However I have never lived in the US so I don't pretend to know what your experiences are.
I have worked there very briefly and what I saw confirmed what I had heard about the long hours and little vacation time, which points to a very different balance between workers and managers/owners in the US compared to Europe and Australia.
Very true, I'm sure within the company I work for (it's huge) there are people right now trying to figure out how to do my job with machines, or replace me with cheaper overseas labour.
Fortunately the cheaper, overseas option has been tried several times and been shown not cost effective. And there seem to be enough opportunities around at the moment should I need them. I hope it stays that way!
(BTW, not American or in America, it's comparative boomtime here in Western Australia)
I'm not really sure that whacking a shellfish against a rock is tool use, nor swimming under stuff.
I was going to bring up the octopus that use coconut shells as cover, but they aren't fish!
Yeah, really not. I can tell him to take a hike and sell my skills elsewhere.
I know one of those.
He was a failure as a software engineer, and had behavioural problems. So he went to do an MBA.
He now sucks ass with an MBA.
You *can* do all that stuff, it's pretty unlikely though.
Unless you are a coding god (and I'm pretty damn good) then you occasionally make mistakes (we're all human) and you'll always benefit from the perspective of another skilled professional.
I wouldn't work with anyone that had a serious opposition to reviews. Everyone misses something sooner or later. You are not as special as you think you are.
"Yes, some innocent people (but not good people) may be executed wrongly"
Get the fuck out of democracy, now. You're too stupid to have the vote.
True, my previous comment was rather one-sided. You can't have food production in europe grinding to a complete halt in case the worst happens.
I don't know where the line is exactly.
it comes down to "all the other guys subsidize, so we do too." Is this not the case?
Not so much, I was under the impression that all the other guys (where other guys are third world) can't get a market started in some places because euro and american farmers are subsidised out the wazoo.
Oh sure, both of these huge economic blocks love to talk about free markets, but when it comes to farming, we're just not willing to compete fairly in our internal or external markets.
Part of this is because France would just grind to a halt as farmers went into open revolt, and part of it is that you'd never get both parties (EU and US) to stop subsidising farmers at the same time. Especially if it looked like the other one was about to.
You said linux was a geek-centric project.
I gave you several examples of places it's deployed on a large scale and is not just used by geeks, whether "specifically" or otherwise. That's what I was replying to. Perhaps you need to work on your reading comprehension.
As for iPhones vS Android, the best figures I can find had Apple at 108 million total units by March this year, Android were 101 million by the end of last year. I have a funny feeling that in the mean time Android will have caught up, given its market share has been much larger than Apple's for quit some time. Your assertion of there being over twice as many iOS devices in the wild is unfounded.
No, most people don't give a crap about open, and never did I say otherwise. You, however, are full of shit.
Linux. Geek Centric "project"
LOL. Linux runs the world now. Routers, NAS boxes, mobile phones, servers, supercomputers... all of these things.
Just because only us geeks run it on the desktop doesn't really mean squat.
Irritating isn't it?
I used my Google Apps for Domains email address to sign up for a normal Google account a little while back. This seemed weird but made most stuff work. Then a few months back I was made to merge the accounts, which took hours.
Now this!
My inbox is filling up with people's Google+ status updates, and there's nothing I can do with it. Irritating.
Sure, we can agree that, if we can also agree that games are generally the one area that linux folk, recognising that there are very few FOSS games, are willing to pay out.
I'd never dream of paying for an operating system, but I buy stuff off steam.
I don't know why I said data formats twice... tired...
"The incentive for using Linux is at first the fact that it is free"
False.
Other platforms are effectively free. I use linux because it is capable, useful and (to me) easy.
It also doesn't pick up infections like a $5 hooker, which windows does.
OTOH free allows it to do amazing things like have app stores. I just wouldn't do half so much with the computer if they weren't there. In that case free is the enabling mechanism, not really the reason itself.