We should keep in mind that it's not something that happens magically in the ether. Blogs are written by real people; what the future of the medium is like depends *entirely* on who those people are & what they choose to write.
We can creatively shape the medium as participants, both by writing things worth reading, and as readers by directing attention to the best blogs we can find & thus helping the cream to rise.
Hmm. It's true, the same sort of things *were* said about the first newspapers. Of course, it's also true that early newspapers were a lot more like the blogs of today than like today's mainstream media: they were independent, aggressive, personal, propagandistic, & often wildly inaccurate.
There's no inherent reason to assume that the blogosphere won't be lulled into complacency over time, as well. After all, just because you have access to a medium doesn't mean you'll use it; photocopying brought print publication within reach of the unwashed masses, but how many people do you know who write zines?
(Zines were going to be a revolution too, anyone remember that??)
What about when they replaced the words "suicide bomber" with "homocide bomber" in a quote from Hillary Clinton?
I'm not actually so offended that they misquoted someone. That's just par for the course in mainstream news. But s/suicide bomber/homocide bomber/g is just so creepy & inaccurate & manipulative.
There's no sense to judging blogs by the lowest common denominator. It's just a medium. Some blogs are trustworthy, newsworthy information & others are crap & lies. That's not a reflection of the ultimate potential of the medium; it just reflects the fact that there's a very low barrier to entry.
If you made the same kind of analysis of "things that are written on paper," you could say: "What good can come of this writing-on-paper idea?? It's mostly just scrawled phone numbers & grocery lists!"
I agree, one of the main roles blogs are serving at this point is as gatekeepers & aggregators. (TFA doesn't grok this; a librarian's idea of metadata is a card catalogue.)
I use a Twiddler2, & it's completely programmable (though the programming mode is a bit lame), so it can be optimized for anything you like. (I designed a set of chords for myself based on a frequency analysis of a large corpus of my own text.)
Because the outrage isn't really about how anyone is hurt or changed, it's about taboos being broken. In our culture, violently converting a child to a religion that will cause them to spend the rest of their life in pain & fear is acceptable, & having consensual sex with 12 year olds isn't. It's that simple.
Think about the South American tribes where men traditionally consider themselves "naked" if they aren't wearing a little string tied around their penis, & fully clothed if they are.
It's not completely arbitrary-- sex & death are more likely to accumulate taboos than other things, for instance-- but it is mostly arbitrary. That's just what human beings do.
Knowing that she's 12 leaves us in the dark about a crucial fact-- a fact that would be crucial, anyway, if we lived in a society that thought in the way that most humans have thought for most of human (pre)history-- namely, had she had her first period? Was she sexually mature?
The question of whether she was a "teen" or a "pre-teen" belongs to this funny little oddity of a human culture we live in, & strikes me as roughly as relevant, from a rational perspective, as whether she was a "punk" or a "goth."
There's commonsense biological & anthropological reasons to expect that someone's sexual desirability should be discerable & discerned at any age. Often, in many societies both historical & modern, marriages are arranged while one partner or the other is still quite young. Therefore it is quite logical to see young children as potential sexual partners.
Perhaps it is this biological reality, combined with the western incapacity to comprehend the future, that leads to the confusion of actually having sex with children before they grow up.
(Of course it's also a biological reality that most Homo sapiens are sexually mature at around 12/13 -- which by itself doesn't sit well with this society.)
But-- um-- this isn't a TV crime show. This is a whole complex society, where child abuse is stunningly common. I can't imagine that in the big picture, the best way government resources can be directed to solve this pervasive problem is to try to compile comprehensive records of the cosmetic changes in a single large hotel-- even if such a thing was remotely possible in the real world.
Whether something is a good thing to do, & whether it's effective policy to outlaw it, are largely separate issues.
Furthermore, outlawing pictures of things that are not good to do is yet another step removed, & thus the consequences deserve even more scrutiny.
Obviously any harm that can be avoided, should be. But that does leave the questions: is there harm? & (often much trickier) can it in fact be avoided?
Forced sex with anyone, & particularly children, should be avoided as much as possible. But (to take just one aspect of the problem) what would be the overall consequences of free distribution of those pictures which have already been made? It's not a simple question-- it could go either way-- & the general cloud that hangs over the issue makes it next to impossible to rationally discuss it.
BTW, while I can't refer to specific cases of prosecution for the production or distribution of porn with 17 year olds in the US, that doesn't mean there isn't any-- I'm not that familiar with pornography enforcement in general-- & furthermore even if there hasn't been a single case, there's clearly a chilling effect. Everyone's deathly afraid of taking any sort of nude pictures without careful age verification (even if there's no sex involved).
I agree, though this is much less about the arguments over "child porn" & more about the definition of "child."
IMHO it should be obvious that making pictures of 17 year olds illegal just muddies the water. The best argument seems to be that it's a "slippery slope"-- well yes, it's a slippery slope towards having to actually examine the issue, instead of being a reactionary prude & averting your eyes.
Whenever you try to have this sort of discussion, the age of the theoretical "child porn" goes down as far as is necessary for the opposite side to feel like they're at liberty to ignore the substance of what you said: "Are you saying it's OK to have sex with EIGHT year olds?? THREE year olds??? You're a sicko & I win!! Nyah nyah!"
As long as 16 is legal in the Netherlands, of course, even those who remain stubbornly unaware of the fact that information is in fact free can't help but realize that it's hardly a matter of whether 16-17 will be available-- just of what proportion will moan in English.
Slashdot Mirror
We should keep in mind that it's not something that happens magically in the ether. Blogs are written by real people; what the future of the medium is like depends *entirely* on who those people are & what they choose to write.
We can creatively shape the medium as participants, both by writing things worth reading, and as readers by directing attention to the best blogs we can find & thus helping the cream to rise.
<3
Hmm. It's true, the same sort of things *were* said about the first newspapers. Of course, it's also true that early newspapers were a lot more like the blogs of today than like today's mainstream media: they were independent, aggressive, personal, propagandistic, & often wildly inaccurate.
There's no inherent reason to assume that the blogosphere won't be lulled into complacency over time, as well. After all, just because you have access to a medium doesn't mean you'll use it; photocopying brought print publication within reach of the unwashed masses, but how many people do you know who write zines?
(Zines were going to be a revolution too, anyone remember that??)
<3
I think trees have souls! Trees are nice.
<3
The primary irritating thing about FOX News is that they obsessively refer to themselves as impartial.
If their tagline was "news from a right wing perspective" I think they would get less shit, & deserve less.
<3
Sigh, FOX News.
What about when they replaced the words "suicide bomber" with "homocide bomber" in a quote from Hillary Clinton?
I'm not actually so offended that they misquoted someone. That's just par for the course in mainstream news. But s/suicide bomber/homocide bomber/g is just so creepy & inaccurate & manipulative.
Poop.
<3
There's no sense to judging blogs by the lowest common denominator. It's just a medium. Some blogs are trustworthy, newsworthy information & others are crap & lies. That's not a reflection of the ultimate potential of the medium; it just reflects the fact that there's a very low barrier to entry.
If you made the same kind of analysis of "things that are written on paper," you could say: "What good can come of this writing-on-paper idea?? It's mostly just scrawled phone numbers & grocery lists!"
<3
I agree, one of the main roles blogs are serving at this point is as gatekeepers & aggregators. (TFA doesn't grok this; a librarian's idea of metadata is a card catalogue.)
<3
It's not a funny joke; it's a Funny Joke.
<3
The only disadvantage I see to this plan is that "mod article down!!" would cease to be a Funny Joke..
<3
I use a Twiddler2, & it's completely programmable (though the programming mode is a bit lame), so it can be optimized for anything you like. (I designed a set of chords for myself based on a frequency analysis of a large corpus of my own text.)
<3
Think about the South American tribes where men traditionally consider themselves "naked" if they aren't wearing a little string tied around their penis, & fully clothed if they are.
It's not completely arbitrary-- sex & death are more likely to accumulate taboos than other things, for instance-- but it is mostly arbitrary. That's just what human beings do.
Kind of sad.
The question of whether she was a "teen" or a "pre-teen" belongs to this funny little oddity of a human culture we live in, & strikes me as roughly as relevant, from a rational perspective, as whether she was a "punk" or a "goth."
Perhaps it is this biological reality, combined with the western incapacity to comprehend the future, that leads to the confusion of actually having sex with children before they grow up.
(Of course it's also a biological reality that most Homo sapiens are sexually mature at around 12/13 -- which by itself doesn't sit well with this society.)
But-- um-- this isn't a TV crime show. This is a whole complex society, where child abuse is stunningly common. I can't imagine that in the big picture, the best way government resources can be directed to solve this pervasive problem is to try to compile comprehensive records of the cosmetic changes in a single large hotel-- even if such a thing was remotely possible in the real world.
Whether something is a good thing to do, & whether it's effective policy to outlaw it, are largely separate issues. Furthermore, outlawing pictures of things that are not good to do is yet another step removed, & thus the consequences deserve even more scrutiny.
Forced sex with anyone, & particularly children, should be avoided as much as possible. But (to take just one aspect of the problem) what would be the overall consequences of free distribution of those pictures which have already been made? It's not a simple question-- it could go either way-- & the general cloud that hangs over the issue makes it next to impossible to rationally discuss it.
BTW, while I can't refer to specific cases of prosecution for the production or distribution of porn with 17 year olds in the US, that doesn't mean there isn't any-- I'm not that familiar with pornography enforcement in general-- & furthermore even if there hasn't been a single case, there's clearly a chilling effect. Everyone's deathly afraid of taking any sort of nude pictures without careful age verification (even if there's no sex involved).
I agree, though this is much less about the arguments over "child porn" & more about the definition of "child." IMHO it should be obvious that making pictures of 17 year olds illegal just muddies the water. The best argument seems to be that it's a "slippery slope"-- well yes, it's a slippery slope towards having to actually examine the issue, instead of being a reactionary prude & averting your eyes. Whenever you try to have this sort of discussion, the age of the theoretical "child porn" goes down as far as is necessary for the opposite side to feel like they're at liberty to ignore the substance of what you said: "Are you saying it's OK to have sex with EIGHT year olds?? THREE year olds??? You're a sicko & I win!! Nyah nyah!" As long as 16 is legal in the Netherlands, of course, even those who remain stubbornly unaware of the fact that information is in fact free can't help but realize that it's hardly a matter of whether 16-17 will be available-- just of what proportion will moan in English.
Or with the Port Orleans hotel in Disney World! 3
Part of Google's business model is doing random cool stuff. I don't think that's unreasonable. Advertising likes eyeballs, & eyeballs like cool stuff.