That presupposes the driving force between pedophilia and rape are the same. According to those who study the two, they are not. Rape is overwhelmingly about power, while pedophilia has a much broader range of driving forces. Those who crave control rarely wish to temper their drives, while many, many pedophiles have talked openly about fighting a sometimes losing battle to overcome their drive to watch (or engage with) children. Access to pornography helps curb the drive to be gratified sexually. The size of the effect is not known, but that the effect exists is. It doesn't fulfill the need to control, so has nothing to do with rape. The pedophiles who also have a rapist's control issues won't be slowed in the slightest, but one who is driven entirely by sexual drive might. Unfortunately discussing the issue is so taboo in most cases that you can't even begin a conversation about the issue though. People who aren't trained psychologists frequently decide they know exactly what the cause is and what will and won't have any effect, even if they're otherwise left-brained people with a background in science who should damn well know better.
The drive might be slightly different but the lack of impulse control is the same. The lack of empathy is the same as well because neither are thinking of the damage they could be causing to the child or to society which has to support the child. Most people go out of their way to avoid damaging children. If a man has a dream or thought about killing his wife, it doesn't change the fact that a normal man has enough impulse control not to do that. Why should one category of thought be treated different from any other?
A pedophiles thoughts are no different than anyone elses sexual thoughts. If we can control our urges then so can the vast majority of pedophiles. How many people here have done every single sexual act they have ever thought about or considered? A lot of the stuff people think about doing they could never do in real life, some fantasies probably defy the law of physics or defy the social norms and are taboo but none of these people are treated as if by merely having those ideas that suddenly all their years of impulse control development would be rendered useless. I just don't get it, if we are dealing with adults part of being an adult is you can't do everything you think and while some adults do snap from time to time that is still considered rare.
I just called it "headline baiting" lol. It's what writers do when they want to make lots of money really fast but aren't good. His entire argument is idiotic and if he's not headline baiting for money, then he's a pedophile.
Why is this the only topic where if you defend a certain philosophical position a bunch of people accuse you of being a pedophile? This is no different than being called a communist because you don't support a certain economic policy or being called a witch or satanist because you don't believe in the King James version of the bible.
One other quick point in rereading your post. "Environment can make a sociopath or psychopath behave worse but it doesn't change the fact that sociopaths and psychopaths are most capable of that which you call "evil". is an absolutely false statement. The majority of sociopaths and psychopaths seem to be perfectly normal, and live their whole life without anyone ever knowing that they have said illness. 90% of the people working as stock brokers for example are clinically psychopaths. Should they all be jailed up in rubber rooms, or perhaps drugged in to "saneness" when their is no impact on society due to their illness? So you are wrong in your statement regarding their capability of committing "evil". Said "evil" is something every single person is capable of given the right social motivation.
Twenty years ago, we would call those same people "type-A" personalities. Be cautious following the trend of labeling people based on an agenda unless you uncover the full agenda. I have already stated that this is an agenda of Eugenics, and you only need to study history to see how correct I am.
That is because most people don't know the symptoms. There are people in our lives who we know never experience empathy, compassion, pity, we usually call them jerks, mean, assholes, pricks, but not psychopaths.
These people have always existed. Type-A personalities? You're not understanding that there is nothing inherently "normal" about something other than the fact that it fits neatly in the center of a bellcurve. Even if it's a eugenics agenda you aren't explaining to me why psychopaths are somehow beneficial for a community so that people would want to give birth to a potential psychopath. I would view it as similar to giving birth to someone who has downs syndrome, they will never have a truly normal life and their impact on society would be a disaster for themselves and everyone who experiences them. In this way yes I do think it's a mental illness and do think if we could find a genetic cure we should pursue it, but I don't think eugenics is going to help unless it's positive eugenics in the form of finding the genes associated with mental illnesses and letting parents choose to screen for and shut them off at the fetus level.
At this time there have been some genes found to be associated with violence and psychopathy. Little is known about these genes but one of the genes is called the warrior gene and it's associated with blind rage. That gene of course has to be triggered by the experiences the individual has and is a response to the environment. It might be possible to shut that gene off in a child and this alone could help but I'm not a geneticist so I cannot tell you what would happen.
I don't think it's necessary to believe in evil anymore just like I don't think it's necessary to believe in race. We can believe in genes and environment and determine which genes and environments produce evil behavior but on the other hand you have to think about it this way, even if we find the environment there is still the elements I mentioned of suggestion, of memes, which influence behavior of people. An "evil" meme would be a meme which triggers evil behavior in the receiver. Nazism might be an example of this.
I have no issues recognizing this fallacy, perhaps you should work on your logic skills so you don't present such rubbish. Just because someone want's to create something like this does not mean it's beneficial or should ever be used. We have nukes sure, but it's not like we are chain nuking each other are we? I think you will find the contrary, in anger Nukes have been used in 1 war. You present an extremely illogical reasoning for wanting mind probing.
The reason nukes weren't continuously used is because of MAD. The Soviets and many other countries have developed nukes and for that reason alone nukes couldn't be used. If one country were to obtain a tactical advantage through the use of nukes the nukes will be used without regard for the planet.
A trend does not make something correct, but you fail to address that issue. Why? Do you know how many trends we have that were based on false information and bad for society as a whole? Your whole point of logic is very skewed toward psychopathic and pathological. Yes you can stop it's use, but you need to grow a pair and stand up to people that do wrong. In fact it is your civic duty to stand up to policies such as this which harm society.
Correct or incorrect doesn't matter. What goes up must come down is gravity, if you throw a bunch of rocks up they'll fall down on your head whether you think getting smashed over the head with rocks is correct or not is irrelevant once the rocks have already been thrown. What you should be concerned about it making sure it doesn't land directly on your head.
God is not even at question in my statements other than my incorrect assumption that you were atheist. Apologies for the assumption, I should have asked. The question is the virtues and morality required for human beings to survive. You completely avoided my point that in essence, this is good and evil. This is our regulation mechanism. It's not done by necessarily a book, but rather by logical dialogue and discourse. Books can still be important, because we _must_ continue to observe history as we make decisions on morality, or we are doomed to repeat our same mistakes. Such as genocide, because we fail to fully review what we suggest and it's full implications.
We aren't regulated. Therefore the regulation method of good and evil do not work. No regulation method based on anything other than science can work. Science doesn't deal in good and evil, but in correctness and incorrectness measured by degrees.
That my good sir or madam, is a blatant lie. We have laws written to protect life, limb, property, thought, speech, etc... etc... and all of those laws deal with morality. As mentioned before, you may dislike the term "good and evil", but in essence this is morality. If you prefer change the terms to be "societal positive and negative", but the connotation will be identical.
Those laws don't work and are dumb. Is life protected? Is property protected? No it's not. For all we know those laws were written to control us rather than to protect us.
Exactly my point correct? To claim that you can measure psychopath's by DNA or any other method is absolutely flawed. You just admitted as much yourself. What you neglected to admit was that a mental illness is curable. Mental illness is curable and most often will cure itself given the correct environment in society. That is correct, no drugs needed, no DNA changes, simply a difference in society. This by the way has nothing to do with society changing it's definition of psychopath or sociopath.
Psychopathy has no cure. There isn't even an effective treatment for it. It might be treatable in the future but currently it's like being born mentally retarded, there is no cure. Some mental illnesses like depression can be cured by change in environment, and some such as downs syndrome cannot.
The idea that it is OK to "please" a child sexually is a common one with groups like NAMBLA. It is for the most part utter garbage.
There are two problems with this "pleasing" of a child. The first is the unequal power relationship between a child and any adult, but especially those with some relationship with the child. The teacher tells the child that it is OK if the teacher takes their pants and underwear off, so it must be OK. The babysitter shows the child what fun oral sex is. The problem is that until some point in development the child is incapable of doing anything but following directions from someone that has greater power than they do in the relationship. There is no getting away from that. Pleasing the child is irrelevant because they will say it is OK even if they are very uncomfortable and not enjoying the experience at all.
The second problem is really the development of the child and their relationship with others. Assuming we are dealing with a child that has passed from the completely self-centered level of development (around three or four years of age) they actively want to please other people in their lives. This means they are going to do and say things to encourage abusive relationships even when it isn't something they are enjoying or benefiting from. This means the seven year old boy doesn't know what he is talking about when he says he is having fun with the priest.
The fact is this is what most of the child exploitation is and how it happens. I will say that I think the problem is completely different for older children, say above the age of 12 or so. For the most part these children are far more capable of dealing with their own feelings and dealing with unequal power relationships. There is a significant difference between expoitation of a nine year old and a fourteen year old. Today, this is only partially recognized legally.
What about if we have one adult with a very high IQ and a lot of social power with an adult with a very low IQ and limited social power? Is it exploitation?
On the other hand what if you have a child with an IQ higher than most adults, is the child capable of exploiting adults? Where does power come from?
I was taught that the most essential role of government was to protect the rights of the minorities against the will of the majority. I have also understood the smallest minority to be the individual. If 95% of a population can get their way, then so can I, just without them and their support. The government is there to stop them from taking away that right, not to join in on the madness in order to curry their favor by tacit support through inaction.
If I wanted to be ruled by a majority, I would just join the majority. If you don't think that quanitity can be used to measure accuracy, then don't pander to a mob's ostensible authority by lumping unique individuals together and calling them the majority. Don't be afraid to stand up for something because terrible people might call you names.
Tell me then why it's okay for government to remove human rights of prisoners and terrorist suspects?
For everyone wanting sources here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_child_pornography_and_child_sexual_abuse The current stats say that 1 in 10 children will be a victim of some sort of sexual offense by the time they turn 18. With the amount of people that I personally know who fall into that stat vs the total amount of people that I personally know, I can say that 1 in 10 stat is likely true.(http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs150/en/index.html) Most sexual abuse is never report to the police but those victims still report their abuse to someone else (like a family member, doctor, therapist, friend etc). So that's how they get those stats, it's not just the police were these studies get the rates from. To the Anonymous Coward, why would someone be in possession of any pornography and not pleasure themselves to it? Also every time I see some court case about someone being in possession there is no questions that those photos/videos are of children. It's quite impossible to be in possession of child pornography without knowing it.
What if it's teen pornography? It's not technically going to look like a child but it doesn't change the fact that under 18 is child pornography.
This asshole got 200 years for possession of CP. Probably could have gotten less, or at least equal, if he had simply raped and murdered some kids.
20 images? Thats all?! I was expecting to read 20 gigs of movies but 20 images? That could have been planted. Maybe the guy was a convicted sex offender?
And in a world where we don't respect human life, people are just bags of meat, and shooting some holes in them is no different then shooting at a side of pork.
Emotions matter, contrary to your faux-high-minded crap. Indeed, it's easy to argue that they're the only thing that matters. You can't rape a child and say, "Heh, she enjoyed it at the time! It's just society, man, that like, poisoned her thoughts, man." Children don't understand sex well enough to consent to it, and that "mental destruction" that you hand-wave away is just as devastating as physical scarring.
A lot of things in society mentally and physically destroy kids as much or worse than being raped but because corporations do it then it's justified.
Punishment is always a removal of human rights, the right to liberty, property heck in some places even the right to life. Why should free speech be different?
Nothing should be allowed to remove human rights for any individual in society because removing it for them removes it for us all.
This should never happen because anyone in their right mind should be fighting against someone being able to probe their thoughts. Evidence is one thing, however what you suggest is far worse than evidence. Better stand up now, make sure you keep the separation or else we are doomed.
Maybe nukes and biological weapons should never have been invented but the fact is they exist. The technology to read thoughts is currently under intense development just as the internet and robotics were under intense development in the early 80s. Back then we thought of it like it was something from scifi novels but today we live the novels.
This statement reeks of the same issue we have with "Monitoring tweets to detect sociopaths" and "DNS testing to determine future crimes". We see both already being discussed and both are rather poor attempts at Eugenics. A person's psychological state is not determined by DNA, or any what they may be typing now, but rather a result of sociological impact. Ever see the movie "Trading Places"? This would be a good start, but remember something. Eddie Murphey's character would have been jailed long before he was on the sidewalk by Eugenics if they could have tested his DNA. Walt and Mortimer would still be making $1.00 bets at the expense of fellow humans.
This brings me to your next point.
The fact is that is the trend. Everything is being watched or being put under surveillance and eventually it's going to reach our most private possessions which includes our tweets, our emails, anything which can be monitored. Whether I agree with it or not, it's going to happen and at this point it can't be stopped.
Absolute idiocy. Those two concepts are how we have, and maintain, sociological morals which are required for us to survive as a society. Without those two concepts we would still be running around with sticks trying to steal each others women and food, and would have never progressed to the point we have. Does that mean perhaps that "Good" and "Evil" should be defined in to something more socially acceptable to atheists like yourself? I'm okay with that, but you can't do away with morality and maintain society. If you believe it's possible, I will simply point you to the US's decline.
I'm not an atheist. I just don't believe in good and evil. I don't believe God cares about good and evil but I do believe God wants life protected which is why I do have enough of a sense to know its wrong to nuke the planet or pollute the planet. I think the majority of stuff you call good are probably based on something you read in a book rather than your actual experience or the calculation of the potential results. It's good for you if the results for you are good and it's bad for you if the results for you re bad but there is no objective "evil" that could be bad for everyone that we all currently agree upon. We can't agree the nuclear weapons and pollution are bad.
Since it's ugly to look at and you may see nothing wrong, how about Rome? Greece? Germany? The UK? Pick a history to study, and you will see that when morality no longer addresses "good" and "evil" even (and perhaps especially) for some people, society begins to decline in all areas. Remember that the goals of Governments for over 3000 years was setting and maintaining a set of morals and virtues, which in essence _are_ good and evil.
There is no objective good and evil. The closet thing we have to a public good is protection of the environment and protection of life and we can't even agree on that.
Again, you are plain old telling a fable with your comment "A sociopath or psychopath is not evil, they are simply retarded in a particular physical area of brain development.". This is not true at all, since anyone is capable of being either of those, and worse. This is based on evidence, not speculation. Why do you neglect the impact society has on a
We have to do away with the concept of good and evil. There is no good and evil.
Only someone that has never experienced evil could possibly say something like this. Oh, I assure you there is such a thing as evil, although that is perhaps a euphemism for the phrase "conscious intent to do harm". Some people are simply astonished to realize that there are people that wish them ill and do so on a scale that is difficult to imagine. We have a tradition of calling such people "evil".
We aren't talking about people with difficulties relating to others or to the real world. We are talking about fully developed and functioning individuals that simply have an overdeveloped sense of self importance to the extent that if it requires harming others for their own satisfaction or to achieve their goals, then so be it. No, I don't think you can write this off as some brain disorder or disfunction no matter how much you would like to.
They are called psychopaths. There is a science behind it. They aren't warlocks. They aren't possessed by the devil.
There is no scientifically objective basis for determining "evil". We can say destructive and replace that with "evil" in our discussion if you'd like.
Just as you can't objectively define "evil" you can also not objectively define "destructive". If I murder serial killers, is my action Destructive or Constructive? The nature of the universe is that order comes from chaos, and some structures feed on other simpler structures (destroying them as they "eat"). Construction and Destruction themselves are arbitrary terms depending on whether you think Chaos is Better that Order. It's all subjective. Once you begin to make definitions about what is beneficial or not, then you can indeed say that something is Constructive vs Destructive, and within the same set of definitions you can also define what is good or evil. At the base level everything is merely a collection of waveforms with no meaning or purpose, yet we can give meaning or purpose to action because we have defined those terms within us.
Nuclear fallout is destructive to all life on earth. That is fairly objective because no lifeform on earth that I know of would benefit from that. Pollution is like nuclear fallout, it's destructive to all life on earth, but you're right, while I can say it's destructive some people might think somehow that destroying life on earth would be good for the planet.
But you know, thanks to the internet we have more access to violent porn than ever yet there hasn't been an explosion of Ted Bundys. In fact rapes have gone down and violent crime in general has gone down. Explain?
I want to stop the next Ted Bundy too and I want to prevent rape, murder, torture, just like you do. I just don't think banning any kind of pornography will make a difference. People either have the ability to behave or they don't, they have impulse control or they don't, they have empathy or they don't. If we are dealing with psychopaths then they probably don't have any of that but what if the majority aren't psychopaths?
Why are we locking people up who clearly aren't psychopaths? If they aren't psychopaths how do you know they are capable of child molestation? It's not like everyone is equally capable. It's like with rape, why assume everyone is equally capable of rape?
You can take two people and put them in bad environments and one could turn into a serial killing rapist and the other could become a priest and the difference would be in the brains of the individuals not the environment. The same could be said about porn, while some people would view child porn or have rape fantasies and ultimately be unable to resist their urge to act on it, the vast majority of people would be able to resist the urge. I'm willing to bed the vast majority of people have had dark fantasies of some sort, or just dangerous thoughts, whether thoughts of murder, rape, torture, or anything else, but we don't condemn them for these thoughts so why do we make a special category for people with pedophile thoughts?
If you can think about killing your wife, your boss, or raping someone, and not get arrested, why should anyone else get arrested for whatever sick violent thought they think about? Creation of child pornography is not merely thinking about it so arrest people who create it but possession is just equal to thinking about it.
If Ted Bundy were a pedophile then we would ban all child porn. Since Ted Bundy is not a pedophile we should ban all the porn which produced Ted Bundy's behavior?
I think one critical error that the pro-ban crowd makes is that they assume anyone who views child porn is a psychopath like Ted Bundy. This is under the assumption that because they wouldn't want to view it, what kind of sick twisted person would want to view something like that? They have to be a psychopath to even think about it, but is that necessarily true? You have people who think about raping and murdering women in a fantasy context and you have porn which caters to these people and while you can probably make a correlation that yes many rapists also viewed that kind of porn you cannot blame the porn for making people into rapists.
The reason we cannot blame the porn is because not all consumers are equal. Some consumers have no empathy at all, and no impulse control, just like Ted Bundy. A person like Ted Bundy we all have to be afraid of, and not just if they view child porn but any violent or extreme porn which could provoke them to go on a rampage. Yet we aren't arguing to bane all violent or extreme porn and it probably isn't fair to the vast majority of consumers who aren't Ted Bundy and who wouldn't molest a child or act like a monster.
You have people who have fantasies about cannibalism, murder, rape, it's not just child porn and I don't even think child porn is the worst porn there is, but it's the only porn that gets banned as if it's the one kind of extreme porn which if anyone views it they are guaranteed to go molest a child, it's a logic that doesn't fit with the evidence. You would think that with the birth of the internet that there would be Ted Bundys everywhere by now and they'd be out raping and killing people all over the country but that explosion never happened even though the porn has become more plentiful, more sick, more extreme and violent.
So what exactly is the basis for banning child porn if there is no irrefutable evidence that it causes child molestation? And if you can find evidence that it does then it would logically prove that rape fantasies cause rape and murder fantasies cause murder.
The problem with the idea of people pleasuring themselves with the images is there is a very small distance from silently pleasuring yourself alone to inviting the neighborhood girl in and showing her the pictures with a "doesn't that look like fun?" comment.
How are most people possessing child porn caught? Does someone come and break their door down while they are silently pleasuring themselves at home? Or could it be that someone turns them in? Could it be that the neighborhood girl decides that while it looked like fun, it wasn't so much and tells her mother? Imagine all the cases where the girl doesn't tell anyone.
If you think this doesn't happen, you are wrong.
The problem with your argument is we don't know how many people possess child porn or how many people have viewed it or under what context. We know that not every viewer is equal, they don't all have the same brain or temperament. Just like for instance you have people who view straight porn, some of it is violent with rape and death scenes, but most of these people aren't going to become the next Ted Bundy.
In order to become the next Ted Bundy you have to be into extreme pornography along with being a complete psychopath. Ted Bundy wasn't just a porn addict, if that were all it took to be like him then virtually every male in America would be a Ted Bundy. It's because he was a psychopath, with no empathy, no compassion, no remorse, along with being a total pervert that made the difference.
Now lets take the Ted Bundy example and apply it to child pornography, yes the people who consume child porn are having creepy and dark fantasies.Most of those people are just thinking about it and exploring dark thoughts and wont actually prey on children. It's the same in that the porn Ted Bundy was into probably millions or thousands of other guys were into but there are relatively few guys who are willing to go to the lengths that he was willing to go, to go completely animal, to turn into a complete savage, to become a monster in order to satisfy an animal urge. It's not normal behavior to completely snap, to lose touch with reality, and to not have any empathy or impulse control and ultimately it's the lack of empathy or impulse control that allows for a Ted Bundy, not the pornography and not even the fantasies.
As a teenager did I view them is the same way? Yes, but that's because I was full of anger because of what happened during that period of time. It's taken years to get that anger under control. I still take personal every time I see someone get caught on the news, but I no longer get panic attacks, flash backs, punching holes in walls when I see someone get caught. I think the justice system for this kind of crime is both deterrence and retribution. The tough laws have prevented most commercial content being sold, because the people who would do it for cash won't do it because of the tough punishments. But there are still people who freely trade it on the darkwebs. Those are the people who are the most danger. They're not doing it for some quick buck or two, but because they are truly pedophiles. When someone is convicted of this type of crime they're not just thrown in jail. They also have to go through rehabilitation programs to get their problems under control. So when they get out of jail they don't recommit the crime. For someone like the guy who committed a crime similar to mine (Kidnapping, Multiple counts of 1st degree sexual assault on a minor under 12, possession/distribution/manufacturing of child pornography), I think the punishment should be retribution/protect the citizens with the death penalty. You can't trust someone who committed a crime so horrific like that again. For other crimes less than that, it should be deterrence/retribution with jail time and rehabilitation programs.
You admit that you've got anger as a result of what happened to you. I can understand the anger, especially toward child molesters, rapists, or just anyone who tortures a fellow human being. I don't think banning child porn deters child molestation but I do agree with banning the commercial distribution aspect because we don't want any profit incentive attached to these activities.
My view is that free speech and free thought is absolutely critical. People should have the right to think about any sick fantasy or thought they choose so long as no children are actually harmed. You mentioned that statistics show that most people who have child pornography are also child molesters but you didn't post any sources proving that or backing that statement up. Even if you proved a correlation it doesn't mean that the child porn caused the viewer to molest the child it could simply mean that most child molesters like child porn.
So what about people who aren't complete psychopaths, who aren't child molesters, who aren't child porn creators, and who aren't distributors, but who just happen to have some folder with some child porn files on their computer? They should be treated the same as child molesters and given life in prison?
As far as the death penalty goes, do you think only child predators deserve the death penalty or do all predators deserve it? Should all psychopaths be given the death penalty for the same reason? If we find a correlation between extremely violent crime and psychopathic brain type are you saying the solution is we should just kill everyone who has that brain type the moment we have the technology to detect who they are?
Someone could tell stories about how to molest children and maybe they write from experience and heck for sake of argument lets say a prisoner in prison for serial child molestation writes stories and books, should those books be banned?
Theoretically, yes. In practice, it's impossible to tell whether a book comes from experience. But this is already how it's done in my country, if you are convicted of anything you can't write a book, give an interview etc. about it as part of the punishment, based on the philosophy that noone should be able to profit from crime.
And by this logic, nobody should ever be punished because the damage is already done. Until we have Precrime, the only option is to punish criminals after the crime as a form of deterrence. Child porn consumers provide the incentive and money that drives the pedo porn industry.
And I disagree with that on a philosophical level. I think even prisoners have a right to free speech. I don't think we should remove their right to free speech just because they are sick monsters. That doesn't mean we have to distribute it for them but they should have the right to write and possess it and upload their book to the internet to be sold if they choose. Even a serial killer has a right to write a book bragging about his exploits even if it makes us want to hate him.
Because they can be created without raping an actual child.
So target the actual molester and not the bits. Someone could tell stories about how to molest children and maybe they write from experience and heck for sake of argument lets say a prisoner in prison for serial child molestation writes stories and books, should those books be banned?
My point is the event already took place. The crime was already committed. The bits on the computer at best are digital representations of evidence of the crime but they aren't the crime. The bits did not molest the child.
The bits DO molest the child in a non-physical way. Lets say something horrific happens to you, such as, oh I dont know... rape? it is horrible and traumatic, but it is over and you are healing. Then the rapists put it on youtube. Now people can watch you get raped over and over and over. When you walk into the office everyone stops and looks at you and then tries to pretend to be busy. They don't say "Hey Bob, watched your rape video today!" but you know they did. It's on the internet for anyone and everyone to see, and anyone you meet in your life may or may not be thinking "I saw the guy once... where was... oh SHIT it's butt-rape guy from youtube!"
But that's not realistic, right? Because your rape video couldn't be on youtube, it would be illegal.
There already are embarrassing bits of me and everyone else on the internet. It's 2012. Everyone has nudes somewhere in digital form. Everyone has a sex tape floating around. Everyone can be searched up in a search engine. Anyone could be jacking off to anything I've done or said or thinking anything about any of the bits of me floating around. It sucks but lets not act like thats going to be solved by censorship. Child porn sucks but teenagers and adults have cellphones and take pics and snapshots which will probably be used against them later and thats not including stupid stuff people say online while in altered states.
We gotta learn to accept that all sorts of private aspects of our lives will be on the internet and that it will be on there forever. It's not just rape victims who have to deal with it.
Take your "philosophy" and shove up in your ass, you fucking pedophile! Are you reallyh that STUPID you imbecil? Any criminal could say "it's only atoms" in your world, coulnd't they? Fuck you, dumb ass.
This ^ is the exact kind of reaction that I'm against.You're emotionalism doesn't belong in the law, if you're upset or pissed off because of what happened to you then seek therapy like everybody else who has had a difficult childhood or a difficult adulthood. The fact that you would label someone a pedophile out of anger is exactly why we need to change these laws.
I'll disagree with you on one point. Good and Evil. Let me give you some definitions first. "Ethical code" or "morals" is something that people ascribe to a group but are more properly defined as belonging to an individual (although "groups" make some of these ethics into laws). An individual has a moral code. Everyone's is different. But, within your own moral code, when you do something that you, personally believe is "bad" or "wrong" (again, you believe - not some group), that is a good definition of evil. And trust me, by that definition evil does surely exist. Partly remorse exists because of evil (although certainly some of remorse is about lost opportunity). Good on the other hand comes from putting the welfare of another above your own. We as a species are good at doing this for our immediate family. Not too bad at doing it for our close "tribe", and get progressively worse at it the farther the relationship / political entity is from us. Trying to say that good and evil don't exist is simplistic. It may well be true that people have misconceptions about where and how they apply - but they do exist and do apply.
I don't feel like we need to think in good and evil. It's not about morals it's about consequences and an action can be perceived by society to be morally good and produce horrible consequences. We cannot objectively measure good and evil but we can measure consequences. Utilitarianism ethics would say child pornography possession and distribution is good because it produces happiness in a large segment of the population without harm, but it would also say child pornography creation is bad because it produces miserable consequences for the child. A utilitarian solution would be to ban child pornography creation but to legalize the distribution and possession. This makes perfect sense if you weigh it against an objective "greater good" but a lot of people would say that is evil.
So basically we cannot agree on good and evil because not everyone is a utilitarian and the only way to have an objective good is to go the utilitarian route. The greatest good for the greatest number or the greatest happiness for the greatest number. In my own calculations I don't have a concept of good and evil, I just have rational and irrational, good and bad consequences, good and bad results, so that not every action is for a good result. An evil action under utilitarianism would be to do an action which produces the greatest misery for the greatest number but once again it's difficult to identify exactly what that action is objectively and I would prefer we don't call it evil, but only call it the dumbest, least beneficial decision or action.
In a way you could say pollution is far more evil than pedophilia if you want to use utilitarianism as the measure, as pollution ruins human and non-human animal life of all ages, species etc. But you don't see big corporate CEO's who run earth destroying corporations receiving triple life sentences without parole like you do for child pornography possession even if under actual measures of damage to the eco-system and to quality of life the pollution has a much greater effect as the child who has to grow up with asthma is physically limited for life even moreso than the child who was raped.
I was raped as a child at the age of 7 and I am also a victim of child pornography as well. Chances are they're those images/videos of me being raped floating out there somewhere on the internet. Knowing that there are people pleasuring themselves to images and videos of me being brutally raped gave me extreme PTSD as a teenager. Actually this is something that still bugs the heck out of me every time I see something on the news about someone being caught with child pornography and still makes me physically sick. First off he is dead wrong about child porn laws being counterproductive. A high percentage of sexual abuse crimes committed against children are never reported. What happened to me was never reported. Also a high percentage of people charged with child pornography crimes are also found to have sexual abused a child at some point. When you take these two facts into account, chances are when someone gets caught with possession they also sexual abused a child at some point as well. I used to have a co-worker who got caught with a simple possession charge. After the police finished their investigation they found that he was also manufacturing and distributing as well. I've also seen multiple cases were the same thing has happened. So possession of child pornography laws do help to catch child molesters. Plus who the heck would be possession of it if they were not pleasuring themselves to it. And people who would pleasure themselves to it are pedophiles!
Another thing is how the heck do these laws prevent the media from reporting? Gee you never hear some journalist say something like "Oh man I really wanted to show some B roll of some nude 13 year old in this story but I can't because of these laws". Really??!?! This is just nonsense. The part about the Google Glasses was also a bunch of nonsense as well. The only thing I agree with him on is the teenagers sexting part. I think that teenagers shouldn't be charged with a crime for victimizing themselves. Because once these images get out there on the internet, all of the sudden these kids have pedophiles stalking them. Instead parents and schools need to teach kids about the risks associated with sexting. Other than that, what a complete loon this guy is. I've never really thought much about the Pirate Party before this. Mainly because they're not that big here in the US, I think the Libertarian Party(Which I gladly support) covers most of their views. But I've just lost all respect for the Pirate Party.
Do you view the people who view the images for pleasure in the same way that you view the rapist who harmed you? Should justice be about deterrence or retribution?
There is no reward for them to share it with others
But of course there is a reward!
You said it yourself, they are sharing, i.e. they expect something in return which is a form of trade.
Because it's implausible these paedophiles would/could be forced to only share already existing depictions without new ones, = new abuse taking place, such a system is doomed to fail.
Compare it to the world wide ban on trade in Ivory, even though there is an excess of elephants in S. Africa we need to ban all trade to protect the elephants in areas where they are still threatened by extinction.
It's not the same thing. People pay for ivory with money. Also you're still talking about mythical child porn rings. I'm not saying such rings don't exist but they aren't common. Most of the time it's just some person using peer to peer or going to 4chan, not some super secret child porn ring. I also don't think banning child porn does anything to help us detect those rings because we cannot set up a honeypot trap if we do ban child porn.
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That presupposes the driving force between pedophilia and rape are the same. According to those who study the two, they are not. Rape is overwhelmingly about power, while pedophilia has a much broader range of driving forces. Those who crave control rarely wish to temper their drives, while many, many pedophiles have talked openly about fighting a sometimes losing battle to overcome their drive to watch (or engage with) children. Access to pornography helps curb the drive to be gratified sexually. The size of the effect is not known, but that the effect exists is. It doesn't fulfill the need to control, so has nothing to do with rape. The pedophiles who also have a rapist's control issues won't be slowed in the slightest, but one who is driven entirely by sexual drive might. Unfortunately discussing the issue is so taboo in most cases that you can't even begin a conversation about the issue though. People who aren't trained psychologists frequently decide they know exactly what the cause is and what will and won't have any effect, even if they're otherwise left-brained people with a background in science who should damn well know better.
The drive might be slightly different but the lack of impulse control is the same. The lack of empathy is the same as well because neither are thinking of the damage they could be causing to the child or to society which has to support the child. Most people go out of their way to avoid damaging children. If a man has a dream or thought about killing his wife, it doesn't change the fact that a normal man has enough impulse control not to do that. Why should one category of thought be treated different from any other?
A pedophiles thoughts are no different than anyone elses sexual thoughts. If we can control our urges then so can the vast majority of pedophiles. How many people here have done every single sexual act they have ever thought about or considered? A lot of the stuff people think about doing they could never do in real life, some fantasies probably defy the law of physics or defy the social norms and are taboo but none of these people are treated as if by merely having those ideas that suddenly all their years of impulse control development would be rendered useless. I just don't get it, if we are dealing with adults part of being an adult is you can't do everything you think and while some adults do snap from time to time that is still considered rare.
I just called it "headline baiting" lol. It's what writers do when they want to make lots of money really fast but aren't good. His entire argument is idiotic and if he's not headline baiting for money, then he's a pedophile.
Why is this the only topic where if you defend a certain philosophical position a bunch of people accuse you of being a pedophile? This is no different than being called a communist because you don't support a certain economic policy or being called a witch or satanist because you don't believe in the King James version of the bible.
The police have better things to do than go after someone who had images/videos of a 16/17 year old. They go after people who have images of children. All of the court cases I've seen involve children, not teenagers. 80% of child porn involves people under the age of 12. http://web.archive.org/web/20071202021456/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/04/16/international/i170148D42.DTL
How do you know what the police will do? 80% of child porn cases? What about the other 20%?
One other quick point in rereading your post. "Environment can make a sociopath or psychopath behave worse but it doesn't change the fact that sociopaths and psychopaths are most capable of that which you call "evil". is an absolutely false statement. The majority of sociopaths and psychopaths seem to be perfectly normal, and live their whole life without anyone ever knowing that they have said illness. 90% of the people working as stock brokers for example are clinically psychopaths. Should they all be jailed up in rubber rooms, or perhaps drugged in to "saneness" when their is no impact on society due to their illness? So you are wrong in your statement regarding their capability of committing "evil". Said "evil" is something every single person is capable of given the right social motivation.
Twenty years ago, we would call those same people "type-A" personalities. Be cautious following the trend of labeling people based on an agenda unless you uncover the full agenda. I have already stated that this is an agenda of Eugenics, and you only need to study history to see how correct I am.
That is because most people don't know the symptoms. There are people in our lives who we know never experience empathy, compassion, pity, we usually call them jerks, mean, assholes, pricks, but not psychopaths.
These people have always existed. Type-A personalities? You're not understanding that there is nothing inherently "normal" about something other than the fact that it fits neatly in the center of a bellcurve. Even if it's a eugenics agenda you aren't explaining to me why psychopaths are somehow beneficial for a community so that people would want to give birth to a potential psychopath. I would view it as similar to giving birth to someone who has downs syndrome, they will never have a truly normal life and their impact on society would be a disaster for themselves and everyone who experiences them. In this way yes I do think it's a mental illness and do think if we could find a genetic cure we should pursue it, but I don't think eugenics is going to help unless it's positive eugenics in the form of finding the genes associated with mental illnesses and letting parents choose to screen for and shut them off at the fetus level.
At this time there have been some genes found to be associated with violence and psychopathy. Little is known about these genes but one of the genes is called the warrior gene and it's associated with blind rage. That gene of course has to be triggered by the experiences the individual has and is a response to the environment. It might be possible to shut that gene off in a child and this alone could help but I'm not a geneticist so I cannot tell you what would happen.
I don't think it's necessary to believe in evil anymore just like I don't think it's necessary to believe in race. We can believe in genes and environment and determine which genes and environments produce evil behavior but on the other hand you have to think about it this way, even if we find the environment there is still the elements I mentioned of suggestion, of memes, which influence behavior of people. An "evil" meme would be a meme which triggers evil behavior in the receiver. Nazism might be an example of this.
I have no issues recognizing this fallacy, perhaps you should work on your logic skills so you don't present such rubbish. Just because someone want's to create something like this does not mean it's beneficial or should ever be used. We have nukes sure, but it's not like we are chain nuking each other are we? I think you will find the contrary, in anger Nukes have been used in 1 war. You present an extremely illogical reasoning for wanting mind probing.
The reason nukes weren't continuously used is because of MAD. The Soviets and many other countries have developed nukes and for that reason alone nukes couldn't be used. If one country were to obtain a tactical advantage through the use of nukes the nukes will be used without regard for the planet.
A trend does not make something correct, but you fail to address that issue. Why? Do you know how many trends we have that were based on false information and bad for society as a whole? Your whole point of logic is very skewed toward psychopathic and pathological. Yes you can stop it's use, but you need to grow a pair and stand up to people that do wrong. In fact it is your civic duty to stand up to policies such as this which harm society.
Correct or incorrect doesn't matter. What goes up must come down is gravity, if you throw a bunch of rocks up they'll fall down on your head whether you think getting smashed over the head with rocks is correct or not is irrelevant once the rocks have already been thrown. What you should be concerned about it making sure it doesn't land directly on your head.
God is not even at question in my statements other than my incorrect assumption that you were atheist. Apologies for the assumption, I should have asked. The question is the virtues and morality required for human beings to survive. You completely avoided my point that in essence, this is good and evil. This is our regulation mechanism. It's not done by necessarily a book, but rather by logical dialogue and discourse. Books can still be important, because we _must_ continue to observe history as we make decisions on morality, or we are doomed to repeat our same mistakes. Such as genocide, because we fail to fully review what we suggest and it's full implications.
We aren't regulated. Therefore the regulation method of good and evil do not work. No regulation method based on anything other than science can work. Science doesn't deal in good and evil, but in correctness and incorrectness measured by degrees.
That my good sir or madam, is a blatant lie. We have laws written to protect life, limb, property, thought, speech, etc... etc... and all of those laws deal with morality. As mentioned before, you may dislike the term "good and evil", but in essence this is morality. If you prefer change the terms to be "societal positive and negative", but the connotation will be identical.
Those laws don't work and are dumb. Is life protected? Is property protected? No it's not. For all we know those laws were written to control us rather than to protect us.
Exactly my point correct? To claim that you can measure psychopath's by DNA or any other method is absolutely flawed. You just admitted as much yourself. What you neglected to admit was that a mental illness is curable. Mental illness is curable and most often will cure itself given the correct environment in society. That is correct, no drugs needed, no DNA changes, simply a difference in society. This by the way has nothing to do with society changing it's definition of psychopath or sociopath.
Psychopathy has no cure. There isn't even an effective treatment for it. It might be treatable in the future but currently it's like being born mentally retarded, there is no cure. Some mental illnesses like depression can be cured by change in environment, and some such as downs syndrome cannot.
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The idea that it is OK to "please" a child sexually is a common one with groups like NAMBLA. It is for the most part utter garbage.
There are two problems with this "pleasing" of a child. The first is the unequal power relationship between a child and any adult, but especially those with some relationship with the child. The teacher tells the child that it is OK if the teacher takes their pants and underwear off, so it must be OK. The babysitter shows the child what fun oral sex is. The problem is that until some point in development the child is incapable of doing anything but following directions from someone that has greater power than they do in the relationship. There is no getting away from that. Pleasing the child is irrelevant because they will say it is OK even if they are very uncomfortable and not enjoying the experience at all.
The second problem is really the development of the child and their relationship with others. Assuming we are dealing with a child that has passed from the completely self-centered level of development (around three or four years of age) they actively want to please other people in their lives. This means they are going to do and say things to encourage abusive relationships even when it isn't something they are enjoying or benefiting from. This means the seven year old boy doesn't know what he is talking about when he says he is having fun with the priest.
The fact is this is what most of the child exploitation is and how it happens. I will say that I think the problem is completely different for older children, say above the age of 12 or so. For the most part these children are far more capable of dealing with their own feelings and dealing with unequal power relationships. There is a significant difference between expoitation of a nine year old and a fourteen year old. Today, this is only partially recognized legally.
What about if we have one adult with a very high IQ and a lot of social power with an adult with a very low IQ and limited social power? Is it exploitation?
On the other hand what if you have a child with an IQ higher than most adults, is the child capable of exploiting adults? Where does power come from?
I was taught that the most essential role of government was to protect the rights of the minorities against the will of the majority. I have also understood the smallest minority to be the individual. If 95% of a population can get their way, then so can I, just without them and their support. The government is there to stop them from taking away that right, not to join in on the madness in order to curry their favor by tacit support through inaction.
If I wanted to be ruled by a majority, I would just join the majority. If you don't think that quanitity can be used to measure accuracy, then don't pander to a mob's ostensible authority by lumping unique individuals together and calling them the majority. Don't be afraid to stand up for something because terrible people might call you names.
Tell me then why it's okay for government to remove human rights of prisoners and terrorist suspects?
For everyone wanting sources here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_child_pornography_and_child_sexual_abuse
The current stats say that 1 in 10 children will be a victim of some sort of sexual offense by the time they turn 18. With the amount of people that I personally know who fall into that stat vs the total amount of people that I personally know, I can say that 1 in 10 stat is likely true.(http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs150/en/index.html) Most sexual abuse is never report to the police but those victims still report their abuse to someone else (like a family member, doctor, therapist, friend etc). So that's how they get those stats, it's not just the police were these studies get the rates from.
To the Anonymous Coward, why would someone be in possession of any pornography and not pleasure themselves to it? Also every time I see some court case about someone being in possession there is no questions that those photos/videos are of children. It's quite impossible to be in possession of child pornography without knowing it.
What if it's teen pornography? It's not technically going to look like a child but it doesn't change the fact that under 18 is child pornography.
This asshole got 200 years for possession of CP. Probably could have gotten less, or at least equal, if he had simply raped and murdered some kids.
20 images? Thats all?! I was expecting to read 20 gigs of movies but 20 images? That could have been planted. Maybe the guy was a convicted sex offender?
And in a world where we don't respect human life, people are just bags of meat, and shooting some holes in them is no different then shooting at a side of pork.
Emotions matter, contrary to your faux-high-minded crap. Indeed, it's easy to argue that they're the only thing that matters. You can't rape a child and say, "Heh, she enjoyed it at the time! It's just society, man, that like, poisoned her thoughts, man." Children don't understand sex well enough to consent to it, and that "mental destruction" that you hand-wave away is just as devastating as physical scarring.
A lot of things in society mentally and physically destroy kids as much or worse than being raped but because corporations do it then it's justified.
Punishment is always a removal of human rights, the right to liberty, property heck in some places even the right to life. Why should free speech be different?
Nothing should be allowed to remove human rights for any individual in society because removing it for them removes it for us all.
This should never happen because anyone in their right mind should be fighting against someone being able to probe their thoughts. Evidence is one thing, however what you suggest is far worse than evidence. Better stand up now, make sure you keep the separation or else we are doomed.
Maybe nukes and biological weapons should never have been invented but the fact is they exist. The technology to read thoughts is currently under intense development just as the internet and robotics were under intense development in the early 80s. Back then we thought of it like it was something from scifi novels but today we live the novels.
This statement reeks of the same issue we have with "Monitoring tweets to detect sociopaths" and "DNS testing to determine future crimes". We see both already being discussed and both are rather poor attempts at Eugenics. A person's psychological state is not determined by DNA, or any what they may be typing now, but rather a result of sociological impact. Ever see the movie "Trading Places"? This would be a good start, but remember something. Eddie Murphey's character would have been jailed long before he was on the sidewalk by Eugenics if they could have tested his DNA. Walt and Mortimer would still be making $1.00 bets at the expense of fellow humans.
This brings me to your next point.
The fact is that is the trend. Everything is being watched or being put under surveillance and eventually it's going to reach our most private possessions which includes our tweets, our emails, anything which can be monitored. Whether I agree with it or not, it's going to happen and at this point it can't be stopped.
Absolute idiocy. Those two concepts are how we have, and maintain, sociological morals which are required for us to survive as a society. Without those two concepts we would still be running around with sticks trying to steal each others women and food, and would have never progressed to the point we have. Does that mean perhaps that "Good" and "Evil" should be defined in to something more socially acceptable to atheists like yourself? I'm okay with that, but you can't do away with morality and maintain society. If you believe it's possible, I will simply point you to the US's decline.
I'm not an atheist. I just don't believe in good and evil. I don't believe God cares about good and evil but I do believe God wants life protected which is why I do have enough of a sense to know its wrong to nuke the planet or pollute the planet. I think the majority of stuff you call good are probably based on something you read in a book rather than your actual experience or the calculation of the potential results. It's good for you if the results for you are good and it's bad for you if the results for you re bad but there is no objective "evil" that could be bad for everyone that we all currently agree upon. We can't agree the nuclear weapons and pollution are bad.
Since it's ugly to look at and you may see nothing wrong, how about Rome? Greece? Germany? The UK? Pick a history to study, and you will see that when morality no longer addresses "good" and "evil" even (and perhaps especially) for some people, society begins to decline in all areas. Remember that the goals of Governments for over 3000 years was setting and maintaining a set of morals and virtues, which in essence _are_ good and evil.
There is no objective good and evil. The closet thing we have to a public good is protection of the environment and protection of life and we can't even agree on that.
Again, you are plain old telling a fable with your comment "A sociopath or psychopath is not evil, they are simply retarded in a particular physical area of brain development.". This is not true at all, since anyone is capable of being either of those, and worse. This is based on evidence, not speculation. Why do you neglect the impact society has on a
We have to do away with the concept of good and evil. There is no good and evil.
Only someone that has never experienced evil could possibly say something like this. Oh, I assure you there is such a thing as evil, although that is perhaps a euphemism for the phrase "conscious intent to do harm". Some people are simply astonished to realize that there are people that wish them ill and do so on a scale that is difficult to imagine. We have a tradition of calling such people "evil".
We aren't talking about people with difficulties relating to others or to the real world. We are talking about fully developed and functioning individuals that simply have an overdeveloped sense of self importance to the extent that if it requires harming others for their own satisfaction or to achieve their goals, then so be it. No, I don't think you can write this off as some brain disorder or disfunction no matter how much you would like to.
They are called psychopaths. There is a science behind it. They aren't warlocks. They aren't possessed by the devil.
There is no scientifically objective basis for determining "evil". We can say destructive and replace that with "evil" in our discussion if you'd like.
Just as you can't objectively define "evil" you can also not objectively define "destructive". If I murder serial killers, is my action Destructive or Constructive? The nature of the universe is that order comes from chaos, and some structures feed on other simpler structures (destroying them as they "eat"). Construction and Destruction themselves are arbitrary terms depending on whether you think Chaos is Better that Order. It's all subjective. Once you begin to make definitions about what is beneficial or not, then you can indeed say that something is Constructive vs Destructive, and within the same set of definitions you can also define what is good or evil. At the base level everything is merely a collection of waveforms with no meaning or purpose, yet we can give meaning or purpose to action because we have defined those terms within us.
Nuclear fallout is destructive to all life on earth. That is fairly objective because no lifeform on earth that I know of would benefit from that. Pollution is like nuclear fallout, it's destructive to all life on earth, but you're right, while I can say it's destructive some people might think somehow that destroying life on earth would be good for the planet.
But you know, thanks to the internet we have more access to violent porn than ever yet there hasn't been an explosion of Ted Bundys. In fact rapes have gone down and violent crime in general has gone down. Explain?
I want to stop the next Ted Bundy too and I want to prevent rape, murder, torture, just like you do. I just don't think banning any kind of pornography will make a difference. People either have the ability to behave or they don't, they have impulse control or they don't, they have empathy or they don't. If we are dealing with psychopaths then they probably don't have any of that but what if the majority aren't psychopaths?
Why are we locking people up who clearly aren't psychopaths? If they aren't psychopaths how do you know they are capable of child molestation? It's not like everyone is equally capable. It's like with rape, why assume everyone is equally capable of rape?
You can take two people and put them in bad environments and one could turn into a serial killing rapist and the other could become a priest and the difference would be in the brains of the individuals not the environment. The same could be said about porn, while some people would view child porn or have rape fantasies and ultimately be unable to resist their urge to act on it, the vast majority of people would be able to resist the urge. I'm willing to bed the vast majority of people have had dark fantasies of some sort, or just dangerous thoughts, whether thoughts of murder, rape, torture, or anything else, but we don't condemn them for these thoughts so why do we make a special category for people with pedophile thoughts?
If you can think about killing your wife, your boss, or raping someone, and not get arrested, why should anyone else get arrested for whatever sick violent thought they think about? Creation of child pornography is not merely thinking about it so arrest people who create it but possession is just equal to thinking about it.
If Ted Bundy were a pedophile then we would ban all child porn. Since Ted Bundy is not a pedophile we should ban all the porn which produced Ted Bundy's behavior?
I think one critical error that the pro-ban crowd makes is that they assume anyone who views child porn is a psychopath like Ted Bundy. This is under the assumption that because they wouldn't want to view it, what kind of sick twisted person would want to view something like that? They have to be a psychopath to even think about it, but is that necessarily true? You have people who think about raping and murdering women in a fantasy context and you have porn which caters to these people and while you can probably make a correlation that yes many rapists also viewed that kind of porn you cannot blame the porn for making people into rapists.
The reason we cannot blame the porn is because not all consumers are equal. Some consumers have no empathy at all, and no impulse control, just like Ted Bundy. A person like Ted Bundy we all have to be afraid of, and not just if they view child porn but any violent or extreme porn which could provoke them to go on a rampage. Yet we aren't arguing to bane all violent or extreme porn and it probably isn't fair to the vast majority of consumers who aren't Ted Bundy and who wouldn't molest a child or act like a monster.
You have people who have fantasies about cannibalism, murder, rape, it's not just child porn and I don't even think child porn is the worst porn there is, but it's the only porn that gets banned as if it's the one kind of extreme porn which if anyone views it they are guaranteed to go molest a child, it's a logic that doesn't fit with the evidence. You would think that with the birth of the internet that there would be Ted Bundys everywhere by now and they'd be out raping and killing people all over the country but that explosion never happened even though the porn has become more plentiful, more sick, more extreme and violent.
So what exactly is the basis for banning child porn if there is no irrefutable evidence that it causes child molestation? And if you can find evidence that it does then it would logically prove that rape fantasies cause rape and murder fantasies cause murder.
The problem with the idea of people pleasuring themselves with the images is there is a very small distance from silently pleasuring yourself alone to inviting the neighborhood girl in and showing her the pictures with a "doesn't that look like fun?" comment.
How are most people possessing child porn caught? Does someone come and break their door down while they are silently pleasuring themselves at home? Or could it be that someone turns them in? Could it be that the neighborhood girl decides that while it looked like fun, it wasn't so much and tells her mother? Imagine all the cases where the girl doesn't tell anyone.
If you think this doesn't happen, you are wrong.
The problem with your argument is we don't know how many people possess child porn or how many people have viewed it or under what context. We know that not every viewer is equal, they don't all have the same brain or temperament. Just like for instance you have people who view straight porn, some of it is violent with rape and death scenes, but most of these people aren't going to become the next Ted Bundy.
In order to become the next Ted Bundy you have to be into extreme pornography along with being a complete psychopath. Ted Bundy wasn't just a porn addict, if that were all it took to be like him then virtually every male in America would be a Ted Bundy. It's because he was a psychopath, with no empathy, no compassion, no remorse, along with being a total pervert that made the difference.
Now lets take the Ted Bundy example and apply it to child pornography, yes the people who consume child porn are having creepy and dark fantasies.Most of those people are just thinking about it and exploring dark thoughts and wont actually prey on children. It's the same in that the porn Ted Bundy was into probably millions or thousands of other guys were into but there are relatively few guys who are willing to go to the lengths that he was willing to go, to go completely animal, to turn into a complete savage, to become a monster in order to satisfy an animal urge. It's not normal behavior to completely snap, to lose touch with reality, and to not have any empathy or impulse control and ultimately it's the lack of empathy or impulse control that allows for a Ted Bundy, not the pornography and not even the fantasies.
As a teenager did I view them is the same way? Yes, but that's because I was full of anger because of what happened during that period of time. It's taken years to get that anger under control. I still take personal every time I see someone get caught on the news, but I no longer get panic attacks, flash backs, punching holes in walls when I see someone get caught. I think the justice system for this kind of crime is both deterrence and retribution. The tough laws have prevented most commercial content being sold, because the people who would do it for cash won't do it because of the tough punishments. But there are still people who freely trade it on the darkwebs. Those are the people who are the most danger. They're not doing it for some quick buck or two, but because they are truly pedophiles. When someone is convicted of this type of crime they're not just thrown in jail. They also have to go through rehabilitation programs to get their problems under control. So when they get out of jail they don't recommit the crime. For someone like the guy who committed a crime similar to mine (Kidnapping, Multiple counts of 1st degree sexual assault on a minor under 12, possession/distribution/manufacturing of child pornography), I think the punishment should be retribution/protect the citizens with the death penalty. You can't trust someone who committed a crime so horrific like that again. For other crimes less than that, it should be deterrence/retribution with jail time and rehabilitation programs.
You admit that you've got anger as a result of what happened to you. I can understand the anger, especially toward child molesters, rapists, or just anyone who tortures a fellow human being. I don't think banning child porn deters child molestation but I do agree with banning the commercial distribution aspect because we don't want any profit incentive attached to these activities.
My view is that free speech and free thought is absolutely critical. People should have the right to think about any sick fantasy or thought they choose so long as no children are actually harmed. You mentioned that statistics show that most people who have child pornography are also child molesters but you didn't post any sources proving that or backing that statement up. Even if you proved a correlation it doesn't mean that the child porn caused the viewer to molest the child it could simply mean that most child molesters like child porn.
So what about people who aren't complete psychopaths, who aren't child molesters, who aren't child porn creators, and who aren't distributors, but who just happen to have some folder with some child porn files on their computer? They should be treated the same as child molesters and given life in prison?
As far as the death penalty goes, do you think only child predators deserve the death penalty or do all predators deserve it? Should all psychopaths be given the death penalty for the same reason? If we find a correlation between extremely violent crime and psychopathic brain type are you saying the solution is we should just kill everyone who has that brain type the moment we have the technology to detect who they are?
Someone could tell stories about how to molest children and maybe they write from experience and heck for sake of argument lets say a prisoner in prison for serial child molestation writes stories and books, should those books be banned?
Theoretically, yes. In practice, it's impossible to tell whether a book comes from experience. But this is already how it's done in my country, if you are convicted of anything you can't write a book, give an interview etc. about it as part of the punishment, based on the philosophy that noone should be able to profit from crime.
And by this logic, nobody should ever be punished because the damage is already done. Until we have Precrime, the only option is to punish criminals after the crime as a form of deterrence. Child porn consumers provide the incentive and money that drives the pedo porn industry.
And I disagree with that on a philosophical level. I think even prisoners have a right to free speech. I don't think we should remove their right to free speech just because they are sick monsters. That doesn't mean we have to distribute it for them but they should have the right to write and possess it and upload their book to the internet to be sold if they choose. Even a serial killer has a right to write a book bragging about his exploits even if it makes us want to hate him.
Because they can be created without raping an actual child.
So target the actual molester and not the bits. Someone could tell stories about how to molest children and maybe they write from experience and heck for sake of argument lets say a prisoner in prison for serial child molestation writes stories and books, should those books be banned?
My point is the event already took place. The crime was already committed. The bits on the computer at best are digital representations of evidence of the crime but they aren't the crime. The bits did not molest the child.
The bits DO molest the child in a non-physical way. Lets say something horrific happens to you, such as, oh I dont know... rape? it is horrible and traumatic, but it is over and you are healing. Then the rapists put it on youtube. Now people can watch you get raped over and over and over. When you walk into the office everyone stops and looks at you and then tries to pretend to be busy. They don't say "Hey Bob, watched your rape video today!" but you know they did. It's on the internet for anyone and everyone to see, and anyone you meet in your life may or may not be thinking "I saw the guy once... where was... oh SHIT it's butt-rape guy from youtube!"
But that's not realistic, right? Because your rape video couldn't be on youtube, it would be illegal.
There already are embarrassing bits of me and everyone else on the internet. It's 2012. Everyone has nudes somewhere in digital form. Everyone has a sex tape floating around. Everyone can be searched up in a search engine. Anyone could be jacking off to anything I've done or said or thinking anything about any of the bits of me floating around. It sucks but lets not act like thats going to be solved by censorship. Child porn sucks but teenagers and adults have cellphones and take pics and snapshots which will probably be used against them later and thats not including stupid stuff people say online while in altered states.
We gotta learn to accept that all sorts of private aspects of our lives will be on the internet and that it will be on there forever. It's not just rape victims who have to deal with it.
Take your "philosophy" and shove up in your ass, you fucking pedophile! Are you reallyh that STUPID you imbecil? Any criminal could say "it's only atoms" in your world, coulnd't they? Fuck you, dumb ass.
This ^ is the exact kind of reaction that I'm against.You're emotionalism doesn't belong in the law, if you're upset or pissed off because of what happened to you then seek therapy like everybody else who has had a difficult childhood or a difficult adulthood. The fact that you would label someone a pedophile out of anger is exactly why we need to change these laws.
I'll disagree with you on one point. Good and Evil. Let me give you some definitions first. "Ethical code" or "morals" is something that people ascribe to a group but are more properly defined as belonging to an individual (although "groups" make some of these ethics into laws). An individual has a moral code. Everyone's is different. But, within your own moral code, when you do something that you, personally believe is "bad" or "wrong" (again, you believe - not some group), that is a good definition of evil. And trust me, by that definition evil does surely exist. Partly remorse exists because of evil (although certainly some of remorse is about lost opportunity). Good on the other hand comes from putting the welfare of another above your own. We as a species are good at doing this for our immediate family. Not too bad at doing it for our close "tribe", and get progressively worse at it the farther the relationship / political entity is from us. Trying to say that good and evil don't exist is simplistic. It may well be true that people have misconceptions about where and how they apply - but they do exist and do apply.
I don't feel like we need to think in good and evil. It's not about morals it's about consequences and an action can be perceived by society to be morally good and produce horrible consequences. We cannot objectively measure good and evil but we can measure consequences. Utilitarianism ethics would say child pornography possession and distribution is good because it produces happiness in a large segment of the population without harm, but it would also say child pornography creation is bad because it produces miserable consequences for the child. A utilitarian solution would be to ban child pornography creation but to legalize the distribution and possession. This makes perfect sense if you weigh it against an objective "greater good" but a lot of people would say that is evil.
So basically we cannot agree on good and evil because not everyone is a utilitarian and the only way to have an objective good is to go the utilitarian route. The greatest good for the greatest number or the greatest happiness for the greatest number. In my own calculations I don't have a concept of good and evil, I just have rational and irrational, good and bad consequences, good and bad results, so that not every action is for a good result. An evil action under utilitarianism would be to do an action which produces the greatest misery for the greatest number but once again it's difficult to identify exactly what that action is objectively and I would prefer we don't call it evil, but only call it the dumbest, least beneficial decision or action.
In a way you could say pollution is far more evil than pedophilia if you want to use utilitarianism as the measure, as pollution ruins human and non-human animal life of all ages, species etc. But you don't see big corporate CEO's who run earth destroying corporations receiving triple life sentences without parole like you do for child pornography possession even if under actual measures of damage to the eco-system and to quality of life the pollution has a much greater effect as the child who has to grow up with asthma is physically limited for life even moreso than the child who was raped.
I was raped as a child at the age of 7 and I am also a victim of child pornography as well. Chances are they're those images/videos of me being raped floating out there somewhere on the internet. Knowing that there are people pleasuring themselves to images and videos of me being brutally raped gave me extreme PTSD as a teenager. Actually this is something that still bugs the heck out of me every time I see something on the news about someone being caught with child pornography and still makes me physically sick. First off he is dead wrong about child porn laws being counterproductive. A high percentage of sexual abuse crimes committed against children are never reported. What happened to me was never reported. Also a high percentage of people charged with child pornography crimes are also found to have sexual abused a child at some point. When you take these two facts into account, chances are when someone gets caught with possession they also sexual abused a child at some point as well. I used to have a co-worker who got caught with a simple possession charge. After the police finished their investigation they found that he was also manufacturing and distributing as well. I've also seen multiple cases were the same thing has happened. So possession of child pornography laws do help to catch child molesters. Plus who the heck would be possession of it if they were not pleasuring themselves to it. And people who would pleasure themselves to it are pedophiles!
Another thing is how the heck do these laws prevent the media from reporting? Gee you never hear some journalist say something like "Oh man I really wanted to show some B roll of some nude 13 year old in this story but I can't because of these laws". Really??!?! This is just nonsense. The part about the Google Glasses was also a bunch of nonsense as well. The only thing I agree with him on is the teenagers sexting part. I think that teenagers shouldn't be charged with a crime for victimizing themselves. Because once these images get out there on the internet, all of the sudden these kids have pedophiles stalking them. Instead parents and schools need to teach kids about the risks associated with sexting. Other than that, what a complete loon this guy is. I've never really thought much about the Pirate Party before this. Mainly because they're not that big here in the US, I think the Libertarian Party(Which I gladly support) covers most of their views. But I've just lost all respect for the Pirate Party.
Do you view the people who view the images for pleasure in the same way that you view the rapist who harmed you? Should justice be about deterrence or retribution?
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/247321.php
http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/tools-toys/this-is-your-brain-on-fmri
http://gizmodo.com/5922208/scientists-invent-mind+reading-system-that-lets-you-type-with-your-brain
http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/high-tech-mind-readers-are-latest-effort-detect-lies
http://www.hlntv.com/article/2012/04/06/mobile-brain-scanner-ibrain-stephen-hawking
Do more research. It's already here even if you don't know about it.
There is no reward for them to share it with others
But of course there is a reward!
You said it yourself, they are sharing, i.e. they expect something in return which is a form of trade.
Because it's implausible these paedophiles would/could be forced to only share already existing depictions without new ones, = new abuse taking place, such a system is doomed to fail.
Compare it to the world wide ban on trade in Ivory, even though there is an excess of elephants in S. Africa we need to ban all trade to protect the elephants in areas where they are still threatened by extinction.
It's not the same thing. People pay for ivory with money. Also you're still talking about mythical child porn rings. I'm not saying such rings don't exist but they aren't common. Most of the time it's just some person using peer to peer or going to 4chan, not some super secret child porn ring. I also don't think banning child porn does anything to help us detect those rings because we cannot set up a honeypot trap if we do ban child porn.