Ian Clarke: > On Mon, May 28, 2001 at 01:59:19PM +0900, Sam Joseph wrote: > > > 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. > >=20 > > 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?
> If I was horribly mauled by a dog when I was younger, and was therefore > terrified of dogs, and my neighbour got a dog - which meant that I > couldn't sleep at night, do I have the *right* to demand that my > neighbour get rid of his new pet? Of course not. It is not the fact > that my neighbour has a dog that really causes me pain, but the fact > that I had previously been traumatised by a dog,=A0a fact that dogs > remind me of. Now, there is, of course, a huge difference between > trading child pornography and owning a dog, but for the purposes of this > debate, the analogy holds. There is no analogy whatsoever. We're not talking about somebody getting a dog that happens to remind you of your experience. We're talking about you being horribly mauled by dogs and somebody videoing that, and then distributing that video over the internet. The two actions, your neighbour buying a dog, and your neighbour distributing images of you being savagely mauled by dogs are completely different activities, and I think many people would agree with me that they warranted completely different responses. > > 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. > I believe that you should have the right not to have the suffering > inflicted in the first place, but I do not think you have the right to > ban anything that reminds you of that suffering. Fair enough. But I'm not talking about banning anything that reminds you of the suffering. I'm talking about you having the right to get in touch with people who are distributing the images of you actually suffering, which seems completely different to me. > > > In that case, it is obtaining the images that is wrong, not their > > distribution. > >=20 > > 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? > This is perfectly legal, and happens all the time. Not if the images are fakes, right. Then its defamation of character. If someone is spreading round muck about me, I believe I have the right to find out who it is and take it up with them. > > 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. > Ah, so you think that taking pictures of a child being sexually abused > is ok provided they are not distributed? Wow. That's a pretty lowly and pathetic piece of reasoning. If you actually read my last email you'll notice that you're taking that comment out of context. I had clearly started talking about images of a married person having an affair. I don't think you'll find anywhere that I suggested taking pictures of child being sexually abused would not cause any harm. But it's interesting that you chose to try and twist things in that fashion. It seems that you are trying to distract attention from the point I was making, i.e. that you said that obtaining images (of some nature, child porn, blackmail photos whatever) would be the thing that was wrong, and not the distribution. And instead of addressing the point that I was making that actually its the process of distributing blackmail photo's that causes the harm, you turn to a kind of childish spin on things. I was suggesting that for all the kind of images that we are discussing, it is both the production and the distribution that can cause harm. Still, it's fair enough if you want to avoid the meaningful part of the discussion, but I don't think that it's going to help you convince people that widespread Freenet usage is in their best interest. Hey, look, I think that Freenet incorporates some interesting and excellent technology, I just can't quite figure out why the anonymity part is actually necessary. I mean it seems to me that people would be much more willing to use the system if they had some degree of control about what was stored on their nodes. The fact that the system is decentralized and delivers robust caching functionality is more than enough to help promote the sharing of information and the promotion of free speech, i.e. those who advocate free speech have a much better chance of getting their views aired because they're not relying on a particular ISP to support their web pages. The anonymity might add something in some artificial situation where some oppressive government was incredibly stupid. I mean if they find things they find objectionable on Freenet, they'll just ban people from using it, to the extent that they might make computers illegal. What exactly have you achieved under these circumstances? People who might have actually had access to computers and some degree of access to sites on the world wide web will actually have less freedom to produce and consume information, share opinions etc. So it seems to me there's no guarantee that the presence of anonymity will help improve the chances of Freedom of speech taking place in countries with oppressive regimes, and back at home we have a technology that allows people to distribute files completely anonynmously, without having to take any responsibility for either distributing them, or supporting the distribution process. It seems to me that the flip side of freedom of speech is taking responsibility for what you say. If you go round crying wolf, the society may want to call you to account. Now I guess it sems like I am just trying to attack what you are doing, but don't get confused. I'm not trying to attack your project, I'm just trying to reason through the pros and cons, in a dispassionate manner. What I am beginning to suspect is that you don't really understand the long-term effects of the technology you are creating, in much the same way that the Los Alamos team did not really understand the effects of what they were creating. That's not a crime, and I don't even think its a reason for you to stop working on your project. I would just like to think that you might consider that what you are creating has the potential to do as much harm as good, and may not end up achieving good in the way you imagine it to. Oh well, I guess I can't expect you to read all of that, I guess I'll just wait for another cheap shot argumentative technique, where you try to dodge the issues I'm raising. CHEERS> SAM _______________________________________________ Chat mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.freenetproject.org/mailman/listinfo/chat
