Ian Clarke wrote: > On Mon, May 28, 2001 at 08:59:43AM +0900, Sam Joseph wrote: > > Think about the other example in my previous mail. If you send an image > > of me being brutally raped to somebody who gets off on looking at that > > kind of thing, then you are hurting me. Maybe you can say that I > > shouldn't care, but you can't tell me that you are not hurting me.
> Of course, talking about child pornography is always emotive, and > talking about it in clinical terms is always dangerous but: Firstly, the > crime is the rape, not the photograph. Of course, the photograph may > serve as a reminder of the rape, but it is the rape that has and is > continuing to hurt you. There is do direct causal link between one > person transferring the photograph to another who wishes to receive it, > and your hurt. I disagree. Who are you to say that me knowing that other people are deriving pleasure from my suffering doesn't add more hurt and pain on top of the experience of the rape itself? In the absence of Freenet I might have a chance to go to the authorities and ask them to stop the distribution of the images, and they might have some success, but Freenet prevents them or me from doing anything at all. I would put it to you, Ian, that the continued distribution of these images would serve to pile additional hurt and pain on me each day that I knew people were out there deriving pleasure from my suffering. Freenet would prevent me from ever achieveing emotional closure on the event > > What happens to my right to not have those kinds of images of myself > > shown to other people? > In most countries I am aware of, there is no such right. And that is the basis for giving people rights, whether such rights are currently supported or not. Freedom of speech didn't exist in any countries five hundred years ago, but that is hardly any basis to say that it shouldn't be introduced. Are you saying that I shouldn't have the right to not have images of myself suffering distributed? If you are that's fine. I just want to know your position on the matter. > > Think about the situation where someone gets images of me without my > > permission, and distributes them ... > In that case, it is obtaining the images that is wrong, not their distribution. Really. You're telling me that if I distribute images of a married person having an affair in an attempt to destroy his marriage, family, status in the community, then the people who support their distribution have no blame or responsibility in the matter? I might obtain such images and not distribute them. Undistributed they would do no harm, so how can obtaining the images be wrong if just by doing that I have not caused any harm. Seems to me that the danger of this whole anonymous business is that anybody can distribute anything they like without having to take responsibility for the action of distribution. You are trying to tell me that the act of distributing something is never wrong, and I just don't agree. Blair Strang wrote: > How are you supposed to even discuss free speech if every time > you try someone censors you? This is the whole point isn't it. The Freenet project is based on the premise that for free speech requires complete anonymity. Seems to me that free speech is much more complex than that. For free speech to really work, what you need is a community or society committed to action. We already have the internet to distribute data for us and I think it is already doing wonders in the world in terms of linking people, but authoritarian regimes will suppress Freenet in just the same way as the suppress the internet won't they? I mean if they realise they can't filter Freenet like they can filter the internet, they'll just ban it completely, and then what have we achieved. Seems to be the stronger play is to engage in a dialogue with those who don't believe in Free Speech. To respect the possibility that introducing complete and unadulterated free speech into a community is not always the right thing to do. The same arguments were made about needing to introduce the free market into Russia and look what it did for their economy. The point is not that free speech or free markets are bad, and indeed they are wonderful goals, but you do not necessarily achieve them by dropping components of them into a society that has existed for a long time to see what happens. Societies are like ecologies, introduce the wrong concepts (read organisms) at the wrong time can lead to complete destruction of that ecology. It is naive to proclaim that the provision of completely anonymous free speech to every person in the world will suddenly lead to a drop in suffering; in just the same way that to make nuclear energy available in portable form to everybody on the planet would "necessarily" be a good thing. CHEERS> SAM _______________________________________________ Chat mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.freenetproject.org/mailman/listinfo/chat
