I disagree. I think the reason young adults are so confused is that we have had such a sexually closed culture. Its not "polite" to talk about. Its "dangerous" for kids to know about. ooooh scarey. Its no wonder that by the time they are 13 and have had maybe one quick health class on the topic (that was my experience), they know jack shit. They know what their friends tell them, and the silly little qips that pass for "education".
Knowledge is power. Don't ever hide your own sexual relationship with your wife from her, let her grow up knowing that its normal, and healthy. The most important thing, from all the people I have known and seen, is that she feels its not taboo to talk about it. Any of it. Be it attraction to women, or how to properly put a condom on a penis. Arm her with that knowledge, because if you don't, her peers will disarm her with their faulty knowledge.
Anyway, I am not a parent, but I have seen a few different kinds, and grown up seeing kids in different households, and, from everything I have seen, the less taboo it is, the less enticing it is. The more she knows, the more safe she can be when the time comes, and the greater the likelyhood that she will tell you and not feel ashamed when something does happen.
That is unless you want her to fall for lines like "You can't get pregnant the first time".
Don't assume others feel the same. I had dinner recently with a friend and his 15 year old lesbian daughter, and neither of them had any problem with the topic of sex and who is having it with whom at diner. In fact, she was probably the most pleasant, well adjusted, and mature 15 year old that I have had the pleasure of running into in the past decade.
Though you seem to have no answer to the assertion that I can't support a law that would brand people that I do not believe have done anything wrong. I can not, looking back at some of the relationships that I have seen, say "yes what this person did was bad, and he should be punished and rehabilitated".
I cant now, and will never support ANY law that has such a consequence for people that don't deserve it, and I don't care HOW MANY others it catches. Its is simply an extention of the idea that "it is better to let 100 guilty men go free than to convict one innocent man".
Now the law may not call these people innocent, but aside from the strict letter of the law, I simply know people, who have been in this situation, who did not do anything that I see as wrong, and I can't support the law, as it stands, because it means branding them as criminals.
It really is as simple as that, you can ignore the rest, because its just details.
I would rather all the coercive deamons go free, than to know that I, as a taxpayer, am paying to keep even a single person in confinement or under the invasive restrictions of probation for something that was not wrong.
No, you are misreading me. Its not hesitant, its an afterthought.
I said that IF I thought he coerced her, or treated her badly, I would have killed him. No issues at all. I like the guy.
A threat is "I am going to kill him for what he did". Except, I don't feel that way, so I didn't say that.
I said "I would have killed him if he had" which is probably an exaggeration. However, I do not have any moral blocks in my value system when it comes to dealing with people who willfully attack my family members. I love my family far more than the law.
That includes him. The flawed and human but overall stand up good guy who is raising my nephew, the one who never coerced my sister, and, if anything, was a bit of a pussy and let her walk all over him for a while. Though, thats my sister, the girl is like 5'4 and became a prison gaurd for gods sake.
I haven't personally lifted a finger against anyone to do violence (outside of sanctioned sport... I was a wrestler, studied martial arts, and like to occasionally spar) since I was a preteen.
> I can say, unequivicolly, I would opppose any suggestion that he acted in any way towards her in a manner > that is of any interest to the state, or that he belongs in jail.
Also...I might add.... if I felt differently about the matter, I still wouldn't have called the police. Its my sister, if I felt he had coerced her in any way, we would be talking about the former asshole thats buried in a pit of quick lime a few miles into the woods.
> we're not talking about relationships > we're talking about coercion
You are talking coercion, I am talking relationships, of all kinds, including the "lets just fuck and be friends" kind that sometimes actually works out, but far less often than its tried (at any age). This is the disconnect. I just don't see that sex with a 13 year old is always coercion. I don't believe that the standard of simply setting an age and patting ourselves on the back is even a little bit helpful.
> yes, a child does not know what the standards of behavior are in intimate situations. teach them coercion and > force is ok, and you have a person who now has years to go to unlearn the bad situations they were exposed > to. absolutely: it destroys you, it causes psychological harm, maybe permanently, if you are a child. why > don't you understand this simple concept?
You keep saying child. You may notice that I don't use that term. I fundamentally disagree that a 13 year old should be treated as a child. They are at the age that they should have already started preparing to be a full adult.
I do understand your points. I don't see how it applies to the laws we are talking about. The law is about sex and age. If you are talking Polanski case, then we agree, that was bad, and wrong. It was even bad and wrong for the reason you state.... coercion.
I am all for laws against coercion. I am very much against laws that try to be against coercion and instead ban something else. Under the laws you are defending, my nephews father belongs in jail. I think I can say I know both my sister and him very well (or did at the time, I don't see either of them much since they moved), and I can say, unequivicolly, I would opppose any suggestion that he acted in any way towards her in a manner that is of any interest to the state, or that he belongs in jail.
Now, how can I support a law that would put people, who I see as innocent of any real wrongdoing or harm, in jail? What part of that do you not understand? I never said coercion isn't bad. Just that I think vilification of all such relationships as coercive is, at best, intellectually dishonest.
> the issue is not arresting development. the issue is preventing experience to outpace the psychological > ability to incorporate it. then it destroys you.
This is the crux of the point of our disagreement. I don't think that psychological ability is developed until the experiences happen.... and... destroys you? Please. Relationships can cause pain, lots of it. They can do it at most any age to most any person. I do NOT believe that it is somehow more damaging for a 13 year old than for a 30 year old. The number of nights I have spent in the past 2 weeks up till 3 am counseling a 30 year old friend going through a breakup lead me to believe it can be a painful growth experience at any age.
I also believe this is based more on a misguided attempt to protect young adults and treat them like children than real harm. Psychological pain sucks. However, you don't build a tolerance for pain by avoiding it.
> absolutely. sex is 100% natural and normal. sex is never the issue: coercion and abuse of power is the problem
I just don't see how abuse of power is the issue here. I have seen too many relationships by people in that age range with people my current age where abuse of power had nothing to do with it. In fact, I can think of at least one of these that left me feeling the older man got the worst in the end. He was crushed when she left him. I find it insulting to see that relationship belittled and relegated to abuse of his power.
I am not saying it can't be an issue, just that, I think there is ample evidence that it doesn't follow that that is whats going on.
Now the polanski case. Hey, he got her drunk till she couldn't resist and then had sex with her. I don't care what age she is, thats unacceptable. It REALLY bothers me that the age difference is so much bigger in peoples minds than the fact that he raped her, with nothing "Statuatory" about it. THAt is about abuse of power.
> you also have to be considered psychologically mature enough to know what exactly you are consenting to, what it implies, what its > effect on you will be in terms of self-esteem, etc
I would agree if I felt that this was possible. I don't think that anyone who hasn't been through these experiences CAN be "mature enough to know". Just being older doesn't convey maturity. My point of view is one that came through delaying sex until I was 19. I can tell you, at 19, I did not know exactly what I was consenting to. I still wouldn't say I was raped.
> yes, some archaic societies and historical ones pretty much agree 11 year old girls were fair game for marriage/ sex/ etc > > and these same societies also had things like slavery, absolute monarchy, cannibalism, etc. so there's no validity in pointing to brutal > societies to justify burtality
Being wrong about A doesn't mean they are wrong about B. They also drank water, drank wine, put tattoos and piercings on each other etc. The fact that they did it doesn't make the act wrong, anymore than you should be guilty of murder because you are friends with a murderer.
> in other words, we live in a modern advanced society. as such we recognize concepts like psychological maturity and informed consent and > human dignity. and we respect them, and we incorporate them in our legal codes and we punish people who violate the concepts. why?
Agreed, except, I think we are crazy to think that we have totally nailed it on what any of those mean. You have to draw lines somewhere or else, by your rational, even selling a soda or talking to a person who isn't mature enough to understand the consequences of habitually drinking soda or getting into conversations.
As I said, I do not believe, based on my own experiences, that Age = maturity. In fact, I think that these restrictions do nothing but delay maturity since the experiences that they try to prevent are actually the sorts of things that help a person mature. So essentially, I agree totally on informed consent but... I don't believe its always possible. I also don't think sex and love are things a person needs to be protected from. They are healthy, normal progressions in a persons life, and should be treated as such.
Realize, you are talking to someone who has no interest in anyone under 22 (the age my wife was when I met her), who has, within he past several years, had sex with 19 and 20 years olds and found them too lacking in maturity. However, I know girls who have consistantly since the time of mid teens dated men 6-16 years older than them. I saw nothing wrong with it then (and even stood up for my 15 year old sister to my mother when she was upset that my sister was dating a 30 year old).\
Frankly, I think people who see sex as something negative that people have to be protected from as THE PROBLEM.
1. I don't even know what movies he made. Until this recent news, he was an absolute nobody in my world. 2. I have LONG argued that the attitudes of our society is major reason that early teenagers are so woefully unprepared for what is happening in their bodies. 3. I actually do think there is potentially merrit in the older person/younger person relationship dynamic (my own wife is 7 years younger than me, my first girlfriend was 7 years older than me, my own sister has consistantly dated men between 6 and 16 years older than her... and has since she was 14) 4. I do believe that emotional maturity comes NOT from age but from living through emotional pain. Such delays in dating and sex left me having to deal with issues in my mid to late 20s, and wreaked havoc on my personal and professional lives. 5. 13 was marrying age for a lot longer than 18 has been. Men being attracted to newly sexually mature girls is an instinct reaching back to our mammalian ancestors. The only difference with us is, we have convinced ourselves that teenagers should be treated like (and allowed to act like) kids AND we are capable of projecting our feelings and experiences of pain onto our view of the lives of others, and through empathy and love find ourselves wanting to spare others of those pains (even when its what they need)
However.... the answer is yes, it would be different. (WHAT!?!?:) It would be different for none of those reasons. It would be different for a Congressman or Priest because they are people who make the laws and preach the "sin". For one of them to break the law or break their moral code of no sex outside o fmarriage (or at all for a priest), that makes them hypocrites.
Much like, I would not support outing a congressman for being gay... unless he were actively working against the interests of the gay community. Then his personal preferences vs his legislative actions would, together, say something about his character, where simply being gay wouldn't.
Thank you but I know the law. Actually, according to the Attorney General of my state (she was questioned about this on NPR recently) the age of consent here in MA is 16.
I happen to disagree with the law, and think it, and the attitude that sex is bad and dirty and something people must wait for, is HARMFUL. You may disagree with me, but I don't recall calling you a sociopath and moron for believing otherwise.
Frankly, while I might have sex with a 16 or 18 year old if they made an advance, I couldn't imagine being interested enough to make an advance on them myself. I can't remember the last time that I talked to anyone under 22 and actually found them that interesting. However, I try to make allowances for people who think differently than me, as long as they are not trying to coerce me into behaving how they want.
I am of the opinion that sex is like many experiences in life. You are not ready for it until you have been having it regularly for a while. Probably not until after a messy emotional breakup really. I don't see the advantage in delaying what is really , needed life learning.
I think there is something to be said for the old greek concept of pederastery. Why is it preferable that a young person have sex with other inexperienced young people? I think there is something to be said for being guided through an experience by someone older. We are not talking about little children here, we are talking about people at what was traditionally considered marrying age.
Young girls and older men, historically, IS the norm. It used to be encouraged. Despite the negative press that the entire traditional mode of marriage (that is, arranged marriage, doweries etc) it DID have some benefits and did NOT always produce unhappy couples. In fact, some people in such relationships actually LIKE arranged marriages. Go figure. (I had a wonderful talk, on this topic, with the friends of a jewish girl that I was trying to get a date with)
We have a different society today, as I said, I have no interest in taking on the immense responsibility of guiding a young virgin through learning about sex and love. Hell, I have no interest in an older virgin (my first girlfriend was a 26 year old virgin... 7 years older than myself at the time...) however, I don't see why its good that nobody is allowed to. I don't think these issues are really that cut and dry.
My sister was dating an 18 year old (who years later, through random events, became my best friend) when she was 14, a 32 year old when she was 16 (who became the father of her child at 19). She turned out just fine. Admittedly, it often seemed like she was the mature one guiding them, but, hey, to each their own.
Besides... its just sex. Sex, relationships, love, breakups, they are all part of growing up. Everyone goes through it, and everyone takes a different path. I think thats wholly appropriate and healthy.
> I don't think it's worse, but I do think that having sex with a 13 year old is both predatory and pathetic, > if you're a [physically] grown adult anyway. The brain hasn't fully developed at 13.
When has the organ that changes over the course of your entire life from birth to death "fully developed" in your eyes? As a 31 year old myself, I would put it somewhere around 26 years old.
As for "predatory and pathetic"... I guess that depends on how you see sex. I don't tend to see it as bad or dirty. Its just something that people do with eachother, and hopefully both enjoy. Danger wise, on par with getting into someones car. In fact, with some people, its probably far less dangerous than getting in the car with them. Especially since we have simple medical protocols for dealing with the most likely possibilities.
The "dangers" are mostly overblown FUD, and I think comes out of the irrational fears of parents, who want to delay as long as possible their children having to experience the emotional pain that can come from falling in love with someone and having the relationship go sour and end.
I tend to believe that emotional growth only comes through those pains and experiences and as someone who did delay that until his 20s, I can say that I don't think I benefited from that. It took me until the age of 30 to mature emotionally enough to have a good stable relationship of the kind most people are starting to have at 24.
Will 13 year olds get into relationships with older people that will cause them pain. Yes, they will. Its part of being human, growing up, and mating. I think we vastly underestimate them to think that they need to be protected from such things and do them harm by delaying their natural development.
Fascinating. Though he doesn't say how old they were, as has been pointed out in blogs on this, its not uncommon for an older man to use terms like young boy to refer to people in their teens and 20s. Also there is some question as to... what is too young? or is it about age or about power? The more damning admission for me is NOT age, but the fact that he knew he was in a world of slaves and forced prostitution.
Thats what gets me about the Polanski thing. So what if she was 13! A 13 year old has probably gone through puberty. Being attracted to 13 year olds and having sex with them is just human nature. Its the fault of stupid ideas in parenting that have caused a culture of sexually retarded 13 year olds. Or as was said in that kinsey movie (I don't know if its an acutal quote by the man) "In an uninhibited society, a 12-year-old would know most of the biology which I will have to give you in formal lectures."
In any case... a paedophile is someone attracted to pre-pubecent children. He is CLEARLY not one of them.
On the other hand, he got her drunk and she didn't want to do it. Thats rape. Thats wrong at ANY age. I have seen blog post after blog post, and even now this man's defense of polanski who keep mentioning "sex with a 13 year old" and just seem to forget that it was RAPE. Why is sex with a 13 year old somehow worst than RAPE.
I find that disturbing.
The only saving grace here for him in my eyes is that it was so long ago. I see no real benefit in prosecurion of 30 year old crimes, unless the offender is believed to still be doing it.
Nobody likes having their ideas dismissed as dumb. It also annoys the hell out of me how dismissive people can be of the way others are treated. A person being told to do things under threat of physical detainment and imprisonment is pretty harsh. I find it highly offensive that anyone would condone threatening another person with such violence without a damned good reason.
Lock up the child molesters, murderers, and rapists. Punish thieves, and fraudsters. However, they are locking up farmers and flower peddlers, non-violent people, who do nothing but provide a product that they believe in, and their customers want. That I can't support and I am sickened that you or anyone else can.
If it doesn't piss you off, you are part of the problem.
Thinking again on that.... is that really the issue?
Arrest, confiscation of property, probation, house arrest. Whatever. They are all punishments, they are all use of state force against a person. I don't think ANY of it is in ANY WAY acceptable.
Yes but if you look at what I was responding to, its not about the robot threat, its about the time/interest function of the activity. If you can increase attack complexity/time required enough, you may not stop everyone from trying, but you may make it severely unprofitable (decreasing appeal/interest) and limited in scope (at best I have a handful of machines under my control, as opposed to hundreds or millions)
Its like servers. If you can stop the worm or script trying to take over your network wholesale, you reduce much of the problem. If your servers are worth going after individually (say because one of them has a million credit card numbers on it), you have a whole different problem.
If you are J Random user, stopping the script kiddies is good enough. J Random UberHacker probably has no interest in your system. Think of it like car thieves. There are more kids and random asshole thieves who will check your car door and move to the next if it is unlocked and then clean out your glove box if it is.
There are some who will still break in if you have a cd player or GPS on the seat.... less who will try to steal the whole car etc. So if you have an old beater, and lock your GPS in the glove box... you are probably doing enough. If you have a nissan altima, you better have a garage. (seriously, I personally have met more Altima owners who have had their cars stolen or broken into than ALL other makes/models combined)
hehehe I just got a roomba the other day. My rug has 12" squares of dark colors, with a 6" black square at the center of each colored square. Roomba starts seeing the black squares as "cliffs" and trys to back away, only to find more.... and quickly gets "stuck" on open carpet.
irobot has very odd documentation on how to fix this. They say "Do not block or disable the cliff sensors, as this may cause an unsafe operating condition". Clearly this says "If you block the sensor, it will work on your rug". They were right, the hard part is positioning the stickers/tape properly to block the sensor without looking like a damaged sensor or being ripped off as it moves.
Of course... I made sure the rooms that I use it in have high enough thresholds that there is just no way roomba can make it to the back stairs:) but, under human control it could be done. Then it may not do more damage, but, thats some hassle and cost for you to get fixed.
Isaac Asimov was a writer, he wrote some cool stories. That means he didn't have to get into the nitty gritty of what that means. That is very hard to translate into an actual set of machine code.
Sure, the robotic welder is programmed to never use his welding implements on human flesh. However, if his sensor that detects flesh was damaged or otherwise disabled, and a new input stream told him this was metal, and new programing said "weld that shit".... is the robot breaking the law of robotics?
Some concepts are just too abstract to "code into the hardware" especially abstract ones like "harm" and "human". If you need better examples of this, check out law. Laws are often written slightly vague, or that do something strange to achieve an effect thats imperfect at best.
A few years back, here in MA, there was talk of making homelessness a protected minority class for hate crimes. The reason being simply that violent crimes against homeless people tend to break only one law, the actual physical assault and battery. This means prosecutors do not have many other charges to "stack" on particularly heinous offenders.... leading to people going to jail for a few months for ganging up on and almost killing a man.
Its kind of silly, and imperfect at best, but it was the closest rule they could come up with to what they wanted to see. Maybe it works good enough but... it hardly bodes well for being able to write strict codes "into the hardware" when we can't even write strict codes that work properly to begin with.
We are quite close. Think roomba...and then think.... scuba. There is a charging base station now... the ability to dump its contents (roomba) or get a new fill of water and dump the old (scuba) are logical next steps. However...
Once you add that ability, you add the ability for the roomba to make a bit of a mess, but a scuba could do damage, running around depositing water all over your house, then grabbing more. If virtual walls are all that keep them in place, they could be ignored, and your roomba or scuba driven right down the stairs.
Once there is a robot outfitted with a camera.... well then your privacy can be invaded at will, or it could be used to coordinate the damage done by others.
We are just a few steps away from robots in the home with real destructive capability.
I have thought the same solution could be found here as for Soccer hooliganism. Why not provide a few large arenas where people who want to fight and maybe kill each other can go and do it. Today, muslims from the east entrance, all comers from the west. Whichever side is left standing moves on to the next round robin.
That is, until I checked the FAQ and saw that irobot doesn't recommend covering or disabling the cliff sensors as it may cause an unsafe operating condition. Of course I looked around, saw that roomba couldn't get itself into real trouble, and blocked those sensors with tape.
Now Roomba is fearless. Perhaps this was a bad idea, but even if it teams up with the dirt dog, I am pretty sure that I can stomp either of them if they try to orchestrate an uprising.
Up to a point yes. Look at something like public key cryptography. I pgp encrypt a message and send it.Sure you can dedicate cycles to breaking the session key. It gets you ONE message. To get another message, you have to attack the next key. You might get my private key if you attack that. That gets you any messages that I send. Still, you are only getting my messages, until I change the key.
Longer keys and good passwords (depending on how the attack is being done), increase the time, AND decrease the usefulness. Sure, you can dedicate resources to attacking my messages, but... the damage is limited to that, until you do it all over again for the next key.
So that means now, which key to attack becomes a very practical consideration. Which message do you attack? Your resources are limited. What if it takes you a full day to hack one robot. Ok so you sat in front of my house, on wifi, all day... now you can.... drive my roomba around. You get to sit there another whole day to get my scuba... and that doesn't help you get my neighbors roomba.
Guess what? You MIGHT see the occasional hack of the occasional robot. You are not going to see massive robotnets. Make it so you take one, and you can then trivially take the next in seconds and... well...
Actually, I don't think growers, or distributors belong in jail.
No wait....
I think growers and distributors who do it on land they have rights to use, with equipment they purchased themselves, distribute to other adults (or their own children, or in the case of doctors, to children of parents who consent and agree that its a proper treatment), those that don't weigh down the product with silica particles (rare, but does happen), those who sell a bag at the weight they claim to sell it at... they should all be set free.
Those who do it on other peoples land, those who steal their grow equipment (or electricicty), those who fraudulently sell bags, or weigh down the product, they belong in the same place they would be if they did it as a legal enterprise. (and I mean jail, not a cushy CEO office)
Oh, I never suggested that. Not at all. I simply said I can't support making prisons bad places until we fix the laws. That is NOT a suggestion that prisons be nice, its a suggestion that fixing the reasons that we punish people is MORE IMPORTANT than fixing the punishment and should take precedence.
Dumb? Well Excuse me for having an opinion, saying what I can't support, why I can't support it, and what would need to change for me to support it. Thats so fucking dumb!
Maybe it would be smarter if I did it like a real politican and didn't even choose related items...
"I can't support making prisons a bad place, not so long as corn subsidies are on the books. If we got rid of corn subsidies, I could support making prisons a bad place". There... now I have said it like a real congressman.
Shit, at least my conditions were related to each other.... I can't support harsh prisons, because people are sent to prison who I do not believe deserve harsh treatment (or prison).
Slashdot Mirror
I disagree. I think the reason young adults are so confused is that we have had such a sexually closed culture. Its not "polite" to talk about. Its "dangerous" for kids to know about. ooooh scarey. Its no wonder that by the time they are 13 and have had maybe one quick health class on the topic (that was my experience), they know jack shit. They know what their friends tell them, and the silly little qips that pass for "education".
Knowledge is power. Don't ever hide your own sexual relationship with your wife from her, let her grow up knowing that its normal, and healthy. The most important thing, from all the people I have known and seen, is that she feels its not taboo to talk about it. Any of it. Be it attraction to women, or how to properly put a condom on a penis. Arm her with that knowledge, because if you don't, her peers will disarm her with their faulty knowledge.
Anyway, I am not a parent, but I have seen a few different kinds, and grown up seeing kids in different households, and, from everything I have seen, the less taboo it is, the less enticing it is. The more she knows, the more safe she can be when the time comes, and the greater the likelyhood that she will tell you and not feel ashamed when something does happen.
That is unless you want her to fall for lines like "You can't get pregnant the first time".
-Steve
Don't assume others feel the same. I had dinner recently with a friend and his 15 year old lesbian daughter, and neither of them had any problem with the topic of sex and who is having it with whom at diner. In fact, she was probably the most pleasant, well adjusted, and mature 15 year old that I have had the pleasure of running into in the past decade.
-Steve
Though you seem to have no answer to the assertion that I can't support a law that would brand people that I do not believe have done anything wrong. I can not, looking back at some of the relationships that I have seen, say "yes what this person did was bad, and he should be punished and rehabilitated".
I cant now, and will never support ANY law that has such a consequence for people that don't deserve it, and I don't care HOW MANY others it catches. Its is simply an extention of the idea that "it is better to let 100 guilty men go free than to convict one innocent man".
Now the law may not call these people innocent, but aside from the strict letter of the law, I simply know people, who have been in this situation, who did not do anything that I see as wrong, and I can't support the law, as it stands, because it means branding them as criminals.
It really is as simple as that, you can ignore the rest, because its just details.
I would rather all the coercive deamons go free, than to know that I, as a taxpayer, am paying to keep even a single person in confinement or under the invasive restrictions of probation for something that was not wrong.
-Steve
No, you are misreading me. Its not hesitant, its an afterthought.
I said that IF I thought he coerced her, or treated her badly, I would have killed him. No issues at all. I like the guy.
A threat is "I am going to kill him for what he did". Except, I don't feel that way, so I didn't say that.
I said "I would have killed him if he had" which is probably an exaggeration. However, I do not have any moral blocks in my value system when it comes to dealing with people who willfully attack my family members. I love my family far more than the law.
That includes him. The flawed and human but overall stand up good guy who is raising my nephew, the one who never coerced my sister, and, if anything, was a bit of a pussy and let her walk all over him for a while. Though, thats my sister, the girl is like 5'4 and became a prison gaurd for gods sake.
I haven't personally lifted a finger against anyone to do violence (outside of sanctioned sport... I was a wrestler, studied martial arts, and like to occasionally spar) since I was a preteen.
-Steve
> I can say, unequivicolly, I would opppose any suggestion that he acted in any way towards her in a manner
> that is of any interest to the state, or that he belongs in jail.
Also...I might add.... if I felt differently about the matter, I still wouldn't have called the police. Its my sister, if I felt he had coerced her in any way, we would be talking about the former asshole thats buried in a pit of quick lime a few miles into the woods.
-Steve
> we're not talking about relationships
> we're talking about coercion
You are talking coercion, I am talking relationships, of all kinds, including the "lets just fuck and be friends" kind that sometimes actually works out, but far less often than its tried (at any age). This is the disconnect. I just don't see that sex with a 13 year old is always coercion. I don't believe that the standard of simply setting an age and patting ourselves on the back is even a little bit helpful.
> yes, a child does not know what the standards of behavior are in intimate situations. teach them coercion and > force is ok, and you have a person who now has years to go to unlearn the bad situations they were exposed
> to. absolutely: it destroys you, it causes psychological harm, maybe permanently, if you are a child. why
> don't you understand this simple concept?
You keep saying child. You may notice that I don't use that term. I fundamentally disagree that a 13 year old should be treated as a child. They are at the age that they should have already started preparing to be a full adult.
I do understand your points. I don't see how it applies to the laws we are talking about. The law is about sex and age. If you are talking Polanski case, then we agree, that was bad, and wrong. It was even bad and wrong for the reason you state.... coercion.
I am all for laws against coercion. I am very much against laws that try to be against coercion and instead ban something else. Under the laws you are defending, my nephews father belongs in jail. I think I can say I know both my sister and him very well (or did at the time, I don't see either of them much since they moved), and I can say, unequivicolly, I would opppose any suggestion that he acted in any way towards her in a manner that is of any interest to the state, or that he belongs in jail.
Now, how can I support a law that would put people, who I see as innocent of any real wrongdoing or harm, in jail? What part of that do you not understand? I never said coercion isn't bad. Just that I think vilification of all such relationships as coercive is, at best, intellectually dishonest.
-Steve
Actually, its kind of a slow day. :)
Look, I know a guy in jail for this right now. Its a sore topic. The very idea of what he is being put through right now disgusts me.
-Steve
> the issue is not arresting development. the issue is preventing experience to outpace the psychological
> ability to incorporate it. then it destroys you.
This is the crux of the point of our disagreement. I don't think that psychological ability is developed until the experiences happen.... and... destroys you? Please. Relationships can cause pain, lots of it. They can do it at most any age to most any person. I do NOT believe that it is somehow more damaging for a 13 year old than for a 30 year old. The number of nights I have spent in the past 2 weeks up till 3 am counseling a 30 year old friend going through a breakup lead me to believe it can be a painful growth experience at any age.
I also believe this is based more on a misguided attempt to protect young adults and treat them like children than real harm. Psychological pain sucks. However, you don't build a tolerance for pain by avoiding it.
> absolutely. sex is 100% natural and normal. sex is never the issue: coercion and abuse of power is the problem
I just don't see how abuse of power is the issue here. I have seen too many relationships by people in that age range with people my current age where abuse of power had nothing to do with it. In fact, I can think of at least one of these that left me feeling the older man got the worst in the end. He was crushed when she left him. I find it insulting to see that relationship belittled and relegated to abuse of his power.
I am not saying it can't be an issue, just that, I think there is ample evidence that it doesn't follow that that is whats going on.
Now the polanski case. Hey, he got her drunk till she couldn't resist and then had sex with her. I don't care what age she is, thats unacceptable. It REALLY bothers me that the age difference is so much bigger in peoples minds than the fact that he raped her, with nothing "Statuatory" about it. THAt is about abuse of power.
-Steve
> you also have to be considered psychologically mature enough to know what exactly you are consenting to, what it implies, what its
> effect on you will be in terms of self-esteem, etc
I would agree if I felt that this was possible. I don't think that anyone who hasn't been through these experiences CAN be "mature enough to know". Just being older doesn't convey maturity. My point of view is one that came through delaying sex until I was 19. I can tell you, at 19, I did not know exactly what I was consenting to. I still wouldn't say I was raped.
> yes, some archaic societies and historical ones pretty much agree 11 year old girls were fair game for marriage/ sex/ etc
>
> and these same societies also had things like slavery, absolute monarchy, cannibalism, etc. so there's no validity in pointing to brutal > societies to justify burtality
Being wrong about A doesn't mean they are wrong about B. They also drank water, drank wine, put tattoos and piercings on each other etc. The fact that they did it doesn't make the act wrong, anymore than you should be guilty of murder because you are friends with a murderer.
> in other words, we live in a modern advanced society. as such we recognize concepts like psychological maturity and informed consent and
> human dignity. and we respect them, and we incorporate them in our legal codes and we punish people who violate the concepts. why?
Agreed, except, I think we are crazy to think that we have totally nailed it on what any of those mean. You have to draw lines somewhere or else, by your rational, even selling a soda or talking to a person who isn't mature enough to understand the consequences of habitually drinking soda or getting into conversations.
As I said, I do not believe, based on my own experiences, that Age = maturity. In fact, I think that these restrictions do nothing but delay maturity since the experiences that they try to prevent are actually the sorts of things that help a person mature. So essentially, I agree totally on informed consent but... I don't believe its always possible. I also don't think sex and love are things a person needs to be protected from. They are healthy, normal progressions in a persons life, and should be treated as such.
Realize, you are talking to someone who has no interest in anyone under 22 (the age my wife was when I met her), who has, within he past several years, had sex with 19 and 20 years olds and found them too lacking in maturity. However, I know girls who have consistantly since the time of mid teens dated men 6-16 years older than them. I saw nothing wrong with it then (and even stood up for my 15 year old sister to my mother when she was upset that my sister was dating a 30 year old).\
Frankly, I think people who see sex as something negative that people have to be protected from as THE PROBLEM.
-Steve
1. I don't even know what movies he made. Until this recent news, he was an absolute nobody in my world.
2. I have LONG argued that the attitudes of our society is major reason that early teenagers are so woefully unprepared for what is happening in their bodies.
3. I actually do think there is potentially merrit in the older person/younger person relationship dynamic (my own wife is 7 years younger than me, my first girlfriend was 7 years older than me, my own sister has consistantly dated men between 6 and 16 years older than her... and has since she was 14)
4. I do believe that emotional maturity comes NOT from age but from living through emotional pain. Such delays in dating and sex left me having to deal with issues in my mid to late 20s, and wreaked havoc on my personal and professional lives.
5. 13 was marrying age for a lot longer than 18 has been. Men being attracted to newly sexually mature girls is an instinct reaching back to our mammalian ancestors. The only difference with us is, we have convinced ourselves that teenagers should be treated like (and allowed to act like) kids AND we are capable of projecting our feelings and experiences of pain onto our view of the lives of others, and through empathy and love find ourselves wanting to spare others of those pains (even when its what they need)
However.... the answer is yes, it would be different. (WHAT!?!? :) It would be different for none of those reasons. It would be different for a Congressman or Priest because they are people who make the laws and preach the "sin". For one of them to break the law or break their moral code of no sex outside o fmarriage (or at all for a priest), that makes them hypocrites.
Much like, I would not support outing a congressman for being gay... unless he were actively working against the interests of the gay community. Then his personal preferences vs his legislative actions would, together, say something about his character, where simply being gay wouldn't.
I hope that answers your question.
-Steve
Thank you but I know the law. Actually, according to the Attorney General of my state (she was questioned about this on NPR recently) the age of consent here in MA is 16.
I happen to disagree with the law, and think it, and the attitude that sex is bad and dirty and something people must wait for, is HARMFUL. You may disagree with me, but I don't recall calling you a sociopath and moron for believing otherwise.
Frankly, while I might have sex with a 16 or 18 year old if they made an advance, I couldn't imagine being interested enough to make an advance on them myself. I can't remember the last time that I talked to anyone under 22 and actually found them that interesting. However, I try to make allowances for people who think differently than me, as long as they are not trying to coerce me into behaving how they want.
I am of the opinion that sex is like many experiences in life. You are not ready for it until you have been having it regularly for a while. Probably not until after a messy emotional breakup really. I don't see the advantage in delaying what is really , needed life learning.
I think there is something to be said for the old greek concept of pederastery. Why is it preferable that a young person have sex with other inexperienced young people? I think there is something to be said for being guided through an experience by someone older. We are not talking about little children here, we are talking about people at what was traditionally considered marrying age.
Young girls and older men, historically, IS the norm. It used to be encouraged. Despite the negative press that the entire traditional mode of marriage (that is, arranged marriage, doweries etc) it DID have some benefits and did NOT always produce unhappy couples. In fact, some people in such relationships actually LIKE arranged marriages. Go figure. (I had a wonderful talk, on this topic, with the friends of a jewish girl that I was trying to get a date with)
We have a different society today, as I said, I have no interest in taking on the immense responsibility of guiding a young virgin through learning about sex and love. Hell, I have no interest in an older virgin (my first girlfriend was a 26 year old virgin... 7 years older than myself at the time...) however, I don't see why its good that nobody is allowed to. I don't think these issues are really that cut and dry.
My sister was dating an 18 year old (who years later, through random events, became my best friend) when she was 14, a 32 year old when she was 16 (who became the father of her child at 19). She turned out just fine. Admittedly, it often seemed like she was the mature one guiding them, but, hey, to each their own.
Besides... its just sex. Sex, relationships, love, breakups, they are all part of growing up. Everyone goes through it, and everyone takes a different path. I think thats wholly appropriate and healthy.
-Steve
> I don't think it's worse, but I do think that having sex with a 13 year old is both predatory and pathetic,
> if you're a [physically] grown adult anyway. The brain hasn't fully developed at 13.
When has the organ that changes over the course of your entire life from birth to death "fully developed" in your eyes? As a 31 year old myself, I would put it somewhere around 26 years old.
As for "predatory and pathetic"... I guess that depends on how you see sex. I don't tend to see it as bad or dirty. Its just something that people do with eachother, and hopefully both enjoy. Danger wise, on par with getting into someones car. In fact, with some people, its probably far less dangerous than getting in the car with them. Especially since we have simple medical protocols for dealing with the most likely possibilities.
The "dangers" are mostly overblown FUD, and I think comes out of the irrational fears of parents, who want to delay as long as possible their children having to experience the emotional pain that can come from falling in love with someone and having the relationship go sour and end.
I tend to believe that emotional growth only comes through those pains and experiences and as someone who did delay that until his 20s, I can say that I don't think I benefited from that. It took me until the age of 30 to mature emotionally enough to have a good stable relationship of the kind most people are starting to have at 24.
Will 13 year olds get into relationships with older people that will cause them pain. Yes, they will. Its part of being human, growing up, and mating. I think we vastly underestimate them to think that they need to be protected from such things and do them harm by delaying their natural development.
-Steve
Fascinating. Though he doesn't say how old they were, as has been pointed out in blogs on this, its not uncommon for an older man to use terms like young boy to refer to people in their teens and 20s. Also there is some question as to... what is too young? or is it about age or about power? The more damning admission for me is NOT age, but the fact that he knew he was in a world of slaves and forced prostitution.
Thats what gets me about the Polanski thing. So what if she was 13! A 13 year old has probably gone through puberty. Being attracted to 13 year olds and having sex with them is just human nature. Its the fault of stupid ideas in parenting that have caused a culture of sexually retarded 13 year olds. Or as was said in that kinsey movie (I don't know if its an acutal quote by the man) "In an uninhibited society, a 12-year-old
would know most of the biology which I will have to give you in formal lectures."
In any case... a paedophile is someone attracted to pre-pubecent children. He is CLEARLY not one of them.
On the other hand, he got her drunk and she didn't want to do it. Thats rape. Thats wrong at ANY age. I have seen blog post after blog post, and even now this man's defense of polanski who keep mentioning "sex with a 13 year old" and just seem to forget that it was RAPE. Why is sex with a 13 year old somehow worst than RAPE.
I find that disturbing.
The only saving grace here for him in my eyes is that it was so long ago. I see no real benefit in prosecurion of 30 year old crimes, unless the offender is believed to still be doing it.
-Steve
Nobody likes having their ideas dismissed as dumb. It also annoys the hell out of me how dismissive people can be of the way others are treated. A person being told to do things under threat of physical detainment and imprisonment is pretty harsh. I find it highly offensive that anyone would condone threatening another person with such violence without a damned good reason.
Lock up the child molesters, murderers, and rapists. Punish thieves, and fraudsters. However, they are locking up farmers and flower peddlers, non-violent people, who do nothing but provide a product that they believe in, and their customers want. That I can't support and I am sickened that you or anyone else can.
If it doesn't piss you off, you are part of the problem.
-Steve
Thinking again on that.... is that really the issue?
Arrest, confiscation of property, probation, house arrest. Whatever. They are all punishments, they are all use of state force against a person. I don't think ANY of it is in ANY WAY acceptable.
-Steve
Yes but if you look at what I was responding to, its not about the robot threat, its about the time/interest function of the activity. If you can increase attack complexity/time required enough, you may not stop everyone from trying, but you may make it severely unprofitable (decreasing appeal/interest) and limited in scope (at best I have a handful of machines under my control, as opposed to hundreds or millions)
Its like servers. If you can stop the worm or script trying to take over your network wholesale, you reduce much of the problem. If your servers are worth going after individually (say because one of them has a million credit card numbers on it), you have a whole different problem.
If you are J Random user, stopping the script kiddies is good enough. J Random UberHacker probably has no interest in your system. Think of it like car thieves. There are more kids and random asshole thieves who will check your car door and move to the next if it is unlocked and then clean out your glove box if it is.
There are some who will still break in if you have a cd player or GPS on the seat.... less who will try to steal the whole car etc. So if you have an old beater, and lock your GPS in the glove box... you are probably doing enough. If you have a nissan altima, you better have a garage. (seriously, I personally have met more Altima owners who have had their cars stolen or broken into than ALL other makes/models combined)
-Steve
hehehe I just got a roomba the other day. My rug has 12" squares of dark colors, with a 6" black square at the center of each colored square. Roomba starts seeing the black squares as "cliffs" and trys to back away, only to find more.... and quickly gets "stuck" on open carpet.
irobot has very odd documentation on how to fix this. They say "Do not block or disable the cliff sensors, as this may cause an unsafe operating condition". Clearly this says "If you block the sensor, it will work on your rug". They were right, the hard part is positioning the stickers/tape properly to block the sensor without looking like a damaged sensor or being ripped off as it moves.
Of course... I made sure the rooms that I use it in have high enough thresholds that there is just no way roomba can make it to the back stairs :) but, under human control it could be done. Then it may not do more damage, but, thats some hassle and cost for you to get fixed.
Isaac Asimov was a writer, he wrote some cool stories. That means he didn't have to get into the nitty gritty of what that means. That is very hard to translate into an actual set of machine code.
Sure, the robotic welder is programmed to never use his welding implements on human flesh. However, if his sensor that detects flesh was damaged or otherwise disabled, and a new input stream told him this was metal, and new programing said "weld that shit".... is the robot breaking the law of robotics?
Some concepts are just too abstract to "code into the hardware" especially abstract ones like "harm" and "human". If you need better examples of this, check out law. Laws are often written slightly vague, or that do something strange to achieve an effect thats imperfect at best.
A few years back, here in MA, there was talk of making homelessness a protected minority class for hate crimes. The reason being simply that violent crimes against homeless people tend to break only one law, the actual physical assault and battery. This means prosecutors do not have many other charges to "stack" on particularly heinous offenders.... leading to people going to jail for a few months for ganging up on and almost killing a man.
Its kind of silly, and imperfect at best, but it was the closest rule they could come up with to what they wanted to see. Maybe it works good enough but... it hardly bodes well for being able to write strict codes "into the hardware" when we can't even write strict codes that work properly to begin with.
-Steve
We are quite close. Think roomba...and then think.... scuba. There is a charging base station now... the ability to dump its contents (roomba) or get a new fill of water and dump the old (scuba) are logical next steps. However...
Once you add that ability, you add the ability for the roomba to make a bit of a mess, but a scuba could do damage, running around depositing water all over your house, then grabbing more. If virtual walls are all that keep them in place, they could be ignored, and your roomba or scuba driven right down the stairs.
Once there is a robot outfitted with a camera.... well then your privacy can be invaded at will, or it could be used to coordinate the damage done by others.
We are just a few steps away from robots in the home with real destructive capability.
-Steve
I have thought the same solution could be found here as for Soccer hooliganism. Why not provide a few large arenas where people who want to fight and maybe kill each other can go and do it. Today, muslims from the east entrance, all comers from the west. Whichever side is left standing moves on to the next round robin.
-Steve
Shit, mine is scared of one of our rugs.
That is, until I checked the FAQ and saw that irobot doesn't recommend covering or disabling the cliff sensors as it may cause an unsafe operating condition. Of course I looked around, saw that roomba couldn't get itself into real trouble, and blocked those sensors with tape.
Now Roomba is fearless. Perhaps this was a bad idea, but even if it teams up with the dirt dog, I am pretty sure that I can stomp either of them if they try to orchestrate an uprising.
-Steve
Up to a point yes. Look at something like public key cryptography. I pgp encrypt a message and send it.Sure you can dedicate cycles to breaking the session key. It gets you ONE message. To get another message, you have to attack the next key. You might get my private key if you attack that. That gets you any messages that I send. Still, you are only getting my messages, until I change the key.
Longer keys and good passwords (depending on how the attack is being done), increase the time, AND decrease the usefulness. Sure, you can dedicate resources to attacking my messages, but... the damage is limited to that, until you do it all over again for the next key.
So that means now, which key to attack becomes a very practical consideration. Which message do you attack? Your resources are limited. What if it takes you a full day to hack one robot. Ok so you sat in front of my house, on wifi, all day... now you can.... drive my roomba around. You get to sit there another whole day to get my scuba... and that doesn't help you get my neighbors roomba.
Guess what? You MIGHT see the occasional hack of the occasional robot. You are not going to see massive robotnets. Make it so you take one, and you can then trivially take the next in seconds and... well...
-Steve
Actually, I don't think growers, or distributors belong in jail.
No wait....
I think growers and distributors who do it on land they have rights to use, with equipment they purchased themselves, distribute to other adults (or their own children, or in the case of doctors, to children of parents who consent and agree that its a proper treatment), those that don't weigh down the product with silica particles (rare, but does happen), those who sell a bag at the weight they claim to sell it at... they should all be set free.
Those who do it on other peoples land, those who steal their grow equipment (or electricicty), those who fraudulently sell bags, or weigh down the product, they belong in the same place they would be if they did it as a legal enterprise. (and I mean jail, not a cushy CEO office)
-Steve
Oh, I never suggested that. Not at all. I simply said I can't support making prisons bad places until we fix the laws. That is NOT a suggestion that prisons be nice, its a suggestion that fixing the reasons that we punish people is MORE IMPORTANT than fixing the punishment and should take precedence.
-Steve
Dumb? Well Excuse me for having an opinion, saying what I can't support, why I can't support it, and what would need to change for me to support it. Thats so fucking dumb!
Maybe it would be smarter if I did it like a real politican and didn't even choose related items...
"I can't support making prisons a bad place, not so long as corn subsidies are on the books. If we got rid of corn subsidies, I could support making prisons a bad place". There... now I have said it like a real congressman.
Shit, at least my conditions were related to each other.... I can't support harsh prisons, because people are sent to prison who I do not believe deserve harsh treatment (or prison).
-Steve