The best thing about links is that they are small. Very small. And small things can be easily distributed over traffic-hungry 100% anonymous networks. If the repressions continue, we can expect high-performance Freenet-like network where you can get links to all sorts of content and the content can still be distributed over efficient (though not lawsuit-resilient) protocols like BitTorrent or FTP.
But imagine that all those resources wasted on boom.com and shit like it would have been spent on sane projects run by cost-conscious entrepreneurs? We would have been at least a few years ahead.
Hmmm... It worked fine for me. I just let it load all 10 pages, then instantly went to the first one (in Opera) and viewed them at my own pace just going forward (Alt+Right). It could have been done better, but it's good enough as it is.
While I disagree with the ruling (though it's not up to me to write the Norwegian laws), I can only applaud the sane fines. It's not 15000000$, it's just 15000$. Consider that in the USA you would be lucky to settle for that amount (the amount you are sued for would be x100) if you just shared the MP3s in KaZaA.
Dura lex, sad lex. If it's illegal to link to MP3s in Norway, so be it, but at least those Norsk people are happy to have sane judges and no mad bloodthirsty RIAA zombies.
You are using it wrong, then. Use the wheel with your index finger. Or jsut get one of the many mouses that have clickable scroll buttons (less popular now, but still available).
Look, my family doesn't even use the digital camera much and I don't really care about the music (so I don't download/buy much), but I still have 6Gb of photos (after 6 months of having a camera) and 10Gb of MP3s.
Well... Lying like a piece of shit you are... Discredited study? In your dreams, may be. And you don't know science from your ass. You probably think that creationism is science too, just because it agrees with your beliefs.
By all means, go ahead and destroy families by planting false memories of childhood traumas, you are no better than fucking Mengele. Don't forget to wash the blood from your hands afterwards. I also hope you work really hard on making life hell for every child who gets into your hands. Teach them real good that abuse destroyed their life, teach it well, until they start believing you. Make sure that if sex didn't finish them, your therapy will.
You are a monster, a poisonois snake maiming the souls of innocent kids.
What evidence is there that molecules leave their places in the brain? Sure, huge parts of our bodies are constantly rebuilt, but I see no reason to believe that all molecules are short-lived. For example, the DNA in a cell, which is not dividing, is not being rebuilt and is quite stable. The same is probably true for most other organic molecules - unless there is a compelling reason for them to be destroyed (such as to be rebuilt to avoid accumulating damage), they generally remain stable.
I am not a neuroscientist, though, so what do I know.
Of course, I didn't expect any agreement - although on the surface you make an attempt to appear rational, in this regard you are anything but.
The laws and morals you allude to do not have a reasonable justification, besides the claim that kids can't have sex. This is an obvious logical fallacy. There are many cases when the established position is wrong - slavery, homosexuality and sex with children is one of them.
The Rind et al. meta-study was debated outside of the scientific process, condemned by congress, etc. But it was later re-reviewed and it was concluded it did not contain errors. The fact that it was debated is not surprising, given, for example, your reaction to my post.
Your example, although welcome, are contrived. Most of these topics are not discussed by most adults either. Advantages/disadvantages of group sex.:) Why do they need to discuss it? Why does anyone need to discuss it? I am adult and I don't think I gave this problem any thought. Didn't prevent me from having sex. You make it sound big and scary, but there is nothing complex about it, unless you want to write a Ph.D. on group sex - you either have sex with one person or with several. What's so complex about it? The supervisor/coworker conflicts is irrelevant to kids, because guess what? They are not working anywhere. And if you include studying, then this problem was discussed countless times by teachers, whose own kids are in the class they teach. 5-year-old kids understand the simple idea of "different behaviour for home and class" just fine. Ditto for "subtle power shifts".
Really, you are full of it. There is either nothing complex in these problems (at the level necessary to have sex) or these are not interesting even to adults. Of course, you can still grasp the last argument and claim that it's illegal, so it must be bad. Feel free to do it, feel free...
My supporting evidence are those cases where kids have sex with adults and do not immediately become crippled for life. There's been plenty of those, some publicised in the media, some in various online forums, some in research (the famous Rind et al. metastudy). There is evidence that harm is linked to abuse, to coertion, to violence and fear, and, of course, to the panic and aggressive treatment after the parents, police and doctors learn about the sex that happened.
You say you are a professional in this field, surely you must be able to answer a simple question: What exactly is so complicated about safe non-abusive plain vanilla sex with a non-coersive, friendly and considerate partner? Just give some simple examples.
For instance, "contraception is very complex and you can't explain to 13-year-olds how often they need to use contraceptive pills". Or "sex necessarily entails going steady, engagement and meeting the parents and 13-year-old kids can't be introduced as lovers". Or "frequent sexual contacts lead to madness and 13-year-olds won't be able to control themselves during the bouts".
Please, give an example. It's hard to prove a negative, but it should be easy for you to prove a positive - just give one good example, that's all.
Well, then start anywhere. You again make this questionable assertion that sex is very complicated, but you do not support it with anything other than sheer repetition. What exactly is so complicated about safe non-abusive plain vanilla sex with a non-coersive, friendly and considerate partner?
Correction accepted. But it would be great if the society allowed more unbiased research in this area so that we could eventually know with certainty, whether sex is harmful for children or not.
Lobby for legislation. Give 1000$ to some group fighting global warming. This would have a bigger effect than the rest of the actions combined. Lobbying has a huge leverage - you put in a dollar and eventually a 100$ of actions happen that lead to $1000s of consequences.
If you want energy-efficient houses, don't just spend 1000$ on insulating your house, spend 1000$ on lobbying to make such insulation mandatory.
The USA/Europe could build good public transportation in India and China (doesn't have to be excellent, people there aren't too picky) for free, may be in exchange for imposing a 500% tax on private road vehicles using hydrocarbon fuel.
This is extremely easy to do, quite cheap and neatly neutralises at least this particular potential threat.
Speaking of Hammers, I just finished reading Lucifer's Hammer, a book by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (yeah, it was collaboratively written) about a gigantic comet slamming into Earth, with tsunamis and rains and stuff. It was a little bit more drastic and rapid than the global warming will likely be, but still it painted a vivid picture of what happens when you lose the coastal cities to oceans...
He just exaggerated or you misunderstood. Moonedit is indeed closed source, Windows/Linux/BSD x86 only, that part is true. It's not a terrible editor - it has everything Notepad, which is generally enough. The UI is not horrible, it's just not standard Windows UI (so it's as good/bad as any non-native app). As for being a pain to use, I don't think so. There might be many deficiencies that annoy people (it doesn't seem to have Cyrillic support, which sux), but if you can use Notepad comfortably, you can collaboratively write using MoonEdit.
I'm simply trying to offer some of the reasoning behind the legal framework behind the age of consent.
What I would really like to know is to understand the reason, not just the reasoning, behind the age of consent. I know how the moralists justify these laws, but why did it happen several decades (?) ago that public attitude and laws became as they are today (economic reasons? health reasons? why did the society changed this way?).
but the general premise holds, at least in the eyes of society, and consequently the law. Sure, but why sex? If a 40 year old man offers a 5 year old kid to "drive his car" and it turns out that he was only interested in letting the kid drive the car (no sex, nothing), what would be the reaction of traffic cops? I doubt it would be even 1% as serious as if the man was trying to molest the kid, even though the first activity (driving) is much more dangerous. Ditto for letting a kid drink or smoke, letting him "play" with a gun, etc.
I can accept that kids are somewhat less capable than adults, but of all things, sex is probably the safest one, where it's really hard to mess things up, provided, of course, the kids had basic sex ed and know about contraception, STD prevention and safety (i.e. always use a condom, don't have sex with weirdos, ask your parents first).
This is true even for 7-year-olds. And with 13-year-olds the argument that they are mentally or emotionally incapable doesn't hold water at all. Can you name at least one thing/concept/idea/consequence about sex that a 13-year-old can't understand? I can't think of anything.
I had some petting and foreplay when I was a kid (with some other kids). There was no stress, no coercion, no long term psychological problems, depression, etc. I really fail to understand, what would be so horrible if actual penetration happened (again, provided that we knew about vriginity, contraception and STDs). I know it is a fact that many (most?) people have some healthy sexual experiences as children. Why do we then insist (as adults) that there is a huge difference between sex exploration between kids (which is normal, but still not something you can talk about with friends, colleagues, etc.) and intercourse with an adult partner (which is only a tad bit better than cannibalism:] ).
I dunno. I think the spectrum of possible relationships is richer than you imply. Personally I don't think I can find a potential female partner I would consider fully adequate even among adults. So if I were to start a relationship with a kid (say, 12 years) it wouldn't be much different from 18-20 year old students I've been exposed to (as a teacher).
I also know that when I was a kid, I much prefered the company of adults (not sexual), so why can't other children enjoy dating adults? As for the good/bad ideas, 99% of adults have bad ideas in their heads, so the tabula rasa state of a child can be particularly attractive from this point of view as well.
Dropping out from the 8th grade? Well, Mr. Redneck F. Moron, it's you who should be killed, not because you are retard, scum and a disgrace to human race, but because there are only so many oxygen atoms in the world and wasting them on shit like you is unacceptable. And also because if you ever have children, the horror of it would make Darwin turn in his grave.
According to several studies, about 25% of males can be sexually aroused by prepubescents. So many people actually entertain these thoughs. Just like a lot of males are turned on by (and watch a lot of) lesbian porn, many do the same with child porn. Of course, many successfully repress these thoughs, just like those few percents who believe all porn and masturbation are evil.
It's just that it's not a socially accepted discussion topic. I can only mention to close friends what kind of porn I watch and whether it includes child porn or not. And even then only when a situation warrants it.
So the answer to your question is: a minority, but quite substantial minority. Just don't for a second think that most of them have any risk becoming molesters. It's like with the lesbian porn - fantasy and reality are very different beasts, unless you are already a sick weirdo. Heck, even boyloving Michael Jackson apparently has enough restraint to not actually go as far as having intercourse with kids. If he can do it, so can all of us.
Most women (and men) are dumb. It's entirely possible to find a 13 year old menthally attractive. Don't forget that in many aspects kids are smarter than adults, because they haven't yet been dumbed down by the school and office work. Also, remember that many parents are attracted to their children (not necessarily sexually or romantically), so children must be sufficiently mentally developed.
Personally, I think these people should be put to death.
What happend to letting the punishment fit the crime? Or do you prefer the child molestors to kill their victims afterwards to lower their expected sentence to 20 years of jailtime?
Unfortunately, you are part of the problem, succumbing to the hysteria. It's not a new problem, it's called moral panic and it's comletely irrational and stupid. There is nothing particularly bad about molesting children and, as Rind et al. has shown, there usually is no long-term psychological harm to molested kids. In light of this, a death sentence for child molestors is no better than 10 years of jail for smoking pot.
people are more likely to commit crimes while on the internet
Absolutely! Here is the proof: U Want Me 2 Kill Him? - When a 14-year-old British boy was savagely stabbed, no one could have imagined the bizarre chat-room fantasy world that lay behind the attack. A story of a near-fatal Internet attraction.
Stories like this may not have much to do with statistical data, but they scare some people shitless. Oh! The IntarWeb made me do it! The voices on Slashdot told me to kill Aunt Mary! Aaaah! The sky is falling.
Slashdot Mirror
The best thing about links is that they are small. Very small. And small things can be easily distributed over traffic-hungry 100% anonymous networks. If the repressions continue, we can expect high-performance Freenet-like network where you can get links to all sorts of content and the content can still be distributed over efficient (though not lawsuit-resilient) protocols like BitTorrent or FTP.
But imagine that all those resources wasted on boom.com and shit like it would have been spent on sane projects run by cost-conscious entrepreneurs? We would have been at least a few years ahead.
Hmmm... It worked fine for me. I just let it load all 10 pages, then instantly went to the first one (in Opera) and viewed them at my own pace just going forward (Alt+Right). It could have been done better, but it's good enough as it is.
While I disagree with the ruling (though it's not up to me to write the Norwegian laws), I can only applaud the sane fines. It's not 15000000$, it's just 15000$. Consider that in the USA you would be lucky to settle for that amount (the amount you are sued for would be x100) if you just shared the MP3s in KaZaA.
Dura lex, sad lex. If it's illegal to link to MP3s in Norway, so be it, but at least those Norsk people are happy to have sane judges and no mad bloodthirsty RIAA zombies.
You are using it wrong, then. Use the wheel with your index finger. Or jsut get one of the many mouses that have clickable scroll buttons (less popular now, but still available).
Look, my family doesn't even use the digital camera much and I don't really care about the music (so I don't download/buy much), but I still have 6Gb of photos (after 6 months of having a camera) and 10Gb of MP3s.
Well... Lying like a piece of shit you are... Discredited study? In your dreams, may be. And you don't know science from your ass. You probably think that creationism is science too, just because it agrees with your beliefs.
By all means, go ahead and destroy families by planting false memories of childhood traumas, you are no better than fucking Mengele. Don't forget to wash the blood from your hands afterwards. I also hope you work really hard on making life hell for every child who gets into your hands. Teach them real good that abuse destroyed their life, teach it well, until they start believing you. Make sure that if sex didn't finish them, your therapy will.
You are a monster, a poisonois snake maiming the souls of innocent kids.
What evidence is there that molecules leave their places in the brain? Sure, huge parts of our bodies are constantly rebuilt, but I see no reason to believe that all molecules are short-lived. For example, the DNA in a cell, which is not dividing, is not being rebuilt and is quite stable. The same is probably true for most other organic molecules - unless there is a compelling reason for them to be destroyed (such as to be rebuilt to avoid accumulating damage), they generally remain stable.
I am not a neuroscientist, though, so what do I know.
Of course, I didn't expect any agreement - although on the surface you make an attempt to appear rational, in this regard you are anything but.
:) Why do they need to discuss it? Why does anyone need to discuss it? I am adult and I don't think I gave this problem any thought. Didn't prevent me from having sex. You make it sound big and scary, but there is nothing complex about it, unless you want to write a Ph.D. on group sex - you either have sex with one person or with several. What's so complex about it? The supervisor/coworker conflicts is irrelevant to kids, because guess what? They are not working anywhere. And if you include studying, then this problem was discussed countless times by teachers, whose own kids are in the class they teach. 5-year-old kids understand the simple idea of "different behaviour for home and class" just fine. Ditto for "subtle power shifts".
The laws and morals you allude to do not have a reasonable justification, besides the claim that kids can't have sex. This is an obvious logical fallacy. There are many cases when the established position is wrong - slavery, homosexuality and sex with children is one of them.
The Rind et al. meta-study was debated outside of the scientific process, condemned by congress, etc. But it was later re-reviewed and it was concluded it did not contain errors. The fact that it was debated is not surprising, given, for example, your reaction to my post.
Your example, although welcome, are contrived. Most of these topics are not discussed by most adults either. Advantages/disadvantages of group sex.
Really, you are full of it. There is either nothing complex in these problems (at the level necessary to have sex) or these are not interesting even to adults. Of course, you can still grasp the last argument and claim that it's illegal, so it must be bad. Feel free to do it, feel free...
My supporting evidence are those cases where kids have sex with adults and do not immediately become crippled for life. There's been plenty of those, some publicised in the media, some in various online forums, some in research (the famous Rind et al. metastudy). There is evidence that harm is linked to abuse, to coertion, to violence and fear, and, of course, to the panic and aggressive treatment after the parents, police and doctors learn about the sex that happened.
You say you are a professional in this field, surely you must be able to answer a simple question: What exactly is so complicated about safe non-abusive plain vanilla sex with a non-coersive, friendly and considerate partner? Just give some simple examples.
For instance, "contraception is very complex and you can't explain to 13-year-olds how often they need to use contraceptive pills". Or "sex necessarily entails going steady, engagement and meeting the parents and 13-year-old kids can't be introduced as lovers". Or "frequent sexual contacts lead to madness and 13-year-olds won't be able to control themselves during the bouts".
Please, give an example. It's hard to prove a negative, but it should be easy for you to prove a positive - just give one good example, that's all.
Well, then start anywhere. You again make this questionable assertion that sex is very complicated, but you do not support it with anything other than sheer repetition. What exactly is so complicated about safe non-abusive plain vanilla sex with a non-coersive, friendly and considerate partner?
Correction accepted. But it would be great if the society allowed more unbiased research in this area so that we could eventually know with certainty, whether sex is harmful for children or not.
Lobby for legislation. Give 1000$ to some group fighting global warming. This would have a bigger effect than the rest of the actions combined. Lobbying has a huge leverage - you put in a dollar and eventually a 100$ of actions happen that lead to $1000s of consequences.
If you want energy-efficient houses, don't just spend 1000$ on insulating your house, spend 1000$ on lobbying to make such insulation mandatory.
The USA/Europe could build good public transportation in India and China (doesn't have to be excellent, people there aren't too picky) for free, may be in exchange for imposing a 500% tax on private road vehicles using hydrocarbon fuel.
This is extremely easy to do, quite cheap and neatly neutralises at least this particular potential threat.
Speaking of Hammers, I just finished reading Lucifer's Hammer, a book by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (yeah, it was collaboratively written) about a gigantic comet slamming into Earth, with tsunamis and rains and stuff. It was a little bit more drastic and rapid than the global warming will likely be, but still it painted a vivid picture of what happens when you lose the coastal cities to oceans...
He just exaggerated or you misunderstood. Moonedit is indeed closed source, Windows/Linux/BSD x86 only, that part is true. It's not a terrible editor - it has everything Notepad, which is generally enough. The UI is not horrible, it's just not standard Windows UI (so it's as good/bad as any non-native app). As for being a pain to use, I don't think so. There might be many deficiencies that annoy people (it doesn't seem to have Cyrillic support, which sux), but if you can use Notepad comfortably, you can collaboratively write using MoonEdit.
I'm simply trying to offer some of the reasoning behind the legal framework behind the age of consent.
:] ).
What I would really like to know is to understand the reason, not just the reasoning, behind the age of consent. I know how the moralists justify these laws, but why did it happen several decades (?) ago that public attitude and laws became as they are today (economic reasons? health reasons? why did the society changed this way?).
but the general premise holds, at least in the eyes of society, and consequently the law.
Sure, but why sex? If a 40 year old man offers a 5 year old kid to "drive his car" and it turns out that he was only interested in letting the kid drive the car (no sex, nothing), what would be the reaction of traffic cops? I doubt it would be even 1% as serious as if the man was trying to molest the kid, even though the first activity (driving) is much more dangerous. Ditto for letting a kid drink or smoke, letting him "play" with a gun, etc.
I can accept that kids are somewhat less capable than adults, but of all things, sex is probably the safest one, where it's really hard to mess things up, provided, of course, the kids had basic sex ed and know about contraception, STD prevention and safety (i.e. always use a condom, don't have sex with weirdos, ask your parents first).
This is true even for 7-year-olds. And with 13-year-olds the argument that they are mentally or emotionally incapable doesn't hold water at all. Can you name at least one thing/concept/idea/consequence about sex that a 13-year-old can't understand? I can't think of anything.
I had some petting and foreplay when I was a kid (with some other kids). There was no stress, no coercion, no long term psychological problems, depression, etc. I really fail to understand, what would be so horrible if actual penetration happened (again, provided that we knew about vriginity, contraception and STDs). I know it is a fact that many (most?) people have some healthy sexual experiences as children. Why do we then insist (as adults) that there is a huge difference between sex exploration between kids (which is normal, but still not something you can talk about with friends, colleagues, etc.) and intercourse with an adult partner (which is only a tad bit better than cannibalism
I dunno. I think the spectrum of possible relationships is richer than you imply. Personally I don't think I can find a potential female partner I would consider fully adequate even among adults. So if I were to start a relationship with a kid (say, 12 years) it wouldn't be much different from 18-20 year old students I've been exposed to (as a teacher).
I also know that when I was a kid, I much prefered the company of adults (not sexual), so why can't other children enjoy dating adults? As for the good/bad ideas, 99% of adults have bad ideas in their heads, so the tabula rasa state of a child can be particularly attractive from this point of view as well.
Still the question remains - if you don't care about lifes of humans, why do you care about potential phychological damage to some kid?
Oh the Logical one! Please provide us a compelling reason why in your scheme of things child molestation is still considered a serious crime.
If individual life can easily be replaced, who the fuck cares about the virginity of a 13 year old girl?
Dropping out from the 8th grade? Well, Mr. Redneck F. Moron, it's you who should be killed, not because you are retard, scum and a disgrace to human race, but because there are only so many oxygen atoms in the world and wasting them on shit like you is unacceptable. And also because if you ever have children, the horror of it would make Darwin turn in his grave.
According to several studies, about 25% of males can be sexually aroused by prepubescents. So many people actually entertain these thoughs. Just like a lot of males are turned on by (and watch a lot of) lesbian porn, many do the same with child porn. Of course, many successfully repress these thoughs, just like those few percents who believe all porn and masturbation are evil.
It's just that it's not a socially accepted discussion topic. I can only mention to close friends what kind of porn I watch and whether it includes child porn or not. And even then only when a situation warrants it.
So the answer to your question is: a minority, but quite substantial minority. Just don't for a second think that most of them have any risk becoming molesters. It's like with the lesbian porn - fantasy and reality are very different beasts, unless you are already a sick weirdo. Heck, even boyloving Michael Jackson apparently has enough restraint to not actually go as far as having intercourse with kids. If he can do it, so can all of us.
Most women (and men) are dumb. It's entirely possible to find a 13 year old menthally attractive. Don't forget that in many aspects kids are smarter than adults, because they haven't yet been dumbed down by the school and office work. Also, remember that many parents are attracted to their children (not necessarily sexually or romantically), so children must be sufficiently mentally developed.
Personally, I think these people should be put to death.
What happend to letting the punishment fit the crime? Or do you prefer the child molestors to kill their victims afterwards to lower their expected sentence to 20 years of jailtime?
Unfortunately, you are part of the problem, succumbing to the hysteria. It's not a new problem, it's called moral panic and it's comletely irrational and stupid. There is nothing particularly bad about molesting children and, as Rind et al. has shown, there usually is no long-term psychological harm to molested kids. In light of this, a death sentence for child molestors is no better than 10 years of jail for smoking pot.
people are more likely to commit crimes while on the internet
Absolutely! Here is the proof:
U Want Me 2 Kill Him? - When a 14-year-old British boy was savagely stabbed, no one could have imagined the bizarre chat-room fantasy world that lay behind the attack. A story of a near-fatal Internet attraction.
Stories like this may not have much to do with statistical data, but they scare some people shitless. Oh! The IntarWeb made me do it! The voices on Slashdot told me to kill Aunt Mary! Aaaah! The sky is falling.