UK Proposes Banning Computer Generated Abuse 740
peterprior writes "The UK Justice Minister is planning to outlaw computer generated images and drawings of child sex abuse. While photographs and videos of child sex abuse are already illegal, undoubtedly to protect children from being exploited by these acts, what children will be protected by this new law? If there is no actual child involved is the law merely protecting against the possibility of offenders committing future crimes against real children?"
Thought Police! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pedophiles (Score:5, Insightful)
If they closed the loophole earlier ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Pedophiles (Score:5, Insightful)
Killing people because of what they think is most likely not a good idea.
Re:It's about psychology (Score:5, Insightful)
logical progression (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pedophiles (Score:5, Insightful)
Greeting citizen (Score:5, Insightful)
Hurting children is vile. Expression of vile ideas, is both forewarning and proof of freedom. The inability to recognize the difference is ignorance, and the first step towards tragedy.
Re:It's about psychology (Score:5, Insightful)
Coward (Score:5, Insightful)
It's illegal to rape anyone, or to kill anyone. Does that mean images, or say 90% of films in the case of the latter, should one day be outlawed? What of films like lolita? OK, so you can argue that these are movies made not for the purpose of people getting a sick pleasure out of it. Surely there will always be people who get pleasure out of graphic images in the way they were not intended.
I'm just afraid that once you start banning one form of fantasy produced content, not based on an act that has actually helping, what will stop law makers from using this as an example in the future for banning other forms of media? Kind of reminds me of the point the fellas over at South Park tried to make in the Cartoon Wars... either its all alright, or nothing is.
Re:Pedophiles (Score:3, Insightful)
We need to kill every actor who has pretended to kill someone immediately! and ban every movie with a murder in it. The bible is right out! none of that simulated murder is fit to print. And that talk of abuse in our laws!
"Massachusetts General Law chapter 265 1:
The unlawful k***ing of a human being accomplished in one or more of the following modes:
(1) with deliberately premed****** malice aforethought; or
(2) with extreme at****ty or cru***y; or
(3) in the commission or attempted commission of a felony punishable by d**th or imprisonment for life."
We need to get rid of those laws immediately! No telling what kind of sick bastard might read them!
Re:logical progression (Score:5, Insightful)
(Have i offended someone? Good!)
The topic is not easy, not at all. While i can perfectly agree that raping children is wrong, pedophilia in- and itself does not hurt anyone.
It's basically the same as homosexuality - something that's wired the wrong way (from a pure biological standpoint). That doesn't make these people bad, wrong, pervert, sick, or anything else like that.
The only difference is that homosexuality can be lived out between consenting adults, while pedophilia cannot.
However, current society treats pedophiles (and i'm talking about pedophiles, not rapists) like they already committed a crime.
Add to that the issue that from a biological standpoint sex is a.ok. from the time a girl can get pregnant, but depending on where you live you'll have to wait much longer than that.
Re:It's about psychology (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Pedophiles (Score:5, Insightful)
But Hollywood is profit driven, so how about just not watching it? I've spent US$0 on US movies in the US in the last 10 years (and I'm not BitTorrenting stuff), and you?
I think society would be better served by putting people like you in jail than *anybody* else.
After RFTA (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Loophole? (Score:2, Insightful)
The reasons they gave on the BBC site was that Pedos are using special software to turn photos into drawings. I would like to see this software, it sounds very cool.
Re:Pedophiles (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's about psychology (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't. It's free speech. When the creep tries to abuse a real child, that's when it's a crime, and that's when you bust them.
They don't. That's like asking what effect Bugs Bunny has on real rabbits.
It depends (Score:3, Insightful)
But what are the purposes of these images, from a social/personal/psychological perspective?
I can see a reasonable argument that their purpose is to create a feedback loop for someone who already has pleasurable thoughts about child sex abuse gaining additional pleasure from looking at them, which in turn feeds future pleasurable thoughts about child sex abuse. It is also not particularly hard to think that someone who obsesses about such things might be encouraged by that loop to make the jump into real life, for example when the computer generated images are no longer "extreme" enough.
There is, for instance, a recognised pattern with (adult) porn that certain types of user will inevitably seek out harder and harder stuff because the less extreme stuff no longer excites to the same degree.
If these images even slightly reinforce that sex with children is acceptable or pleasurable, and if (in addition) they have no other legitimate purpose or value, then I think there must be a reasonable basis for arguing that banning them does not in any way infringe a freedom worthy of protection.
Yes, yes, once you get on the slippery slope of making that judgment it's all very complicated and risky. I don't know that I totally buy the foregoing reasoning myself. But a society which champions freedom of expression/thought/speech/action must perhaps still draw some limits or find some coherent basis for existence, or else risk becoming utterly dysfunctional. I fear the death of western culture by relativism of values whilst other (much less permissive) cultures, particularly in Asia and the Middle East, thrive by virtue of their strict enforcement of specific values.
However I'd be interested to hear counter-arguments or suggestions of what other value these types of pictures could possibly have to anyone.
As a totally alternative argument, consider that kiddy porn is a form of serious mental illness or addiction (I personally regard it as a form of mental illness), with the potential for dangerous symptoms to arise in some sufferers. Controlling access to these images can then be regarded as analagous to controlling access to addictive drugs.
Against the law? (Score:5, Insightful)
Look! Peados! (Score:5, Insightful)
Now just keep focusing on them whilst we take away all your rights.
Peadophilia is, statistically speaking, less of a threat to your children than lightning. Seeing as how most child abuse comes from a family member, the best way for parents to protect their child from molestation is to not molest them.
Yet this insignificant threat is used to scare people into allowing the government to take control of the Internet piece by piece. Our government has an overt disrespect for its subjects (remember, we are not citizens) and seems to think we should only have such rights as allow the economy to function and no more. They need shooting, all of them.
Re:Pedophiles (Score:5, Insightful)
No seriously though, this is really, discrimination against thought crime. Just because someone gets turned on by that kinda stuff doesn't mean they're going to go out there and do it. That's like saying "We should ban all TV's that contain themes such as murder". There's a HUGE difference between seeing Saddam Hussein's execution and watching the latest action flick at the movies. Likewise, if you have animated porn featuring controversial themes - underaged girls, rape, etc - how is that the same as videos which actually have real girls?
I'm sure there are heaps of guys out there who watch hentai or other animated pornography which feature underaged girls, rape and whatnot. And I'm sure these same people are sickened when they hear about pedophiles going out there and doing shit to little kids - I'm sure all of them are just as likely to want to beat the crap out of rapists and Michael Jackson, and so on.
The whole point is its a fantasy - a fantasy one could enjoy without their conscience coming and biting them. It's not like watching an animated 15 year old being raped in a high school is gonna make them more likely to go to a high school and do it...unless they're already messed up in the head.
Honestly, what's next? Banning of violent video games...? Oh wait...
~Jarik
Re:Pedophiles (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a world of difference between someone who thinks about committing an illegal or immoral act and someone who actually commits the act.
We should recognize that difference.
Preventive action, where you would imprison people who have dangerous thoughts or intentions is a very tricky and dangerous thing.
Very reminiscent of certain religions where impure thoughts are punished.
I am all for arresting and prosecuting producers and to some extent consumers of child pornography.
However this law will get abused, for political games I assure you.
By this line of reason. Anyone who watches an action flick is a killer.
Re:Pedophiles (Score:5, Insightful)
It is your god given right to be a sick bastard as long as you don't hurt anybody else in the process.
If it affects no one else you can be as much of a dick, religious nut, liberal, conservative, annoying git, asshat. weirdo, freak, or any other adjective you care to name, as you want.
Deciding to restrict actions from a society, even when they affect no one else is unacceptable because it opens the door to a very slippery slope. Because then you've got the problem of who gets to decide what's right, and I don't trust anybody with that decision, its far too arbitrary.
A Muslim will tell you not to eat pork, a Hindu will tell you not to eat beef, which one is right?
How about since it only matters to the individual, let each one decide form them selves?
I think the advent of realistic CG pron is a boon for society, people with specific leanings can now have their urges satisfied without having to involve other people. And its just possible that a market for a legal product would weaken the market for illegal pornography, you know the stuff that actually exploits children. Remember the laws banning child pornography were based on the fact that you have to have a child having sex to create it, the laws were not passed to protect the sensibilities of other people. with GC art no actual children are involved
Its simple economics, you remove the market for something and the suppliers will go away all by them selves when they see theres no money to be made. While it probably wont solve the problem completely I would think that stopping some is better than nothing.
Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Has anyone who has replied actually read TFA? I've in fact done a lot more as it's been covered on Radio 4 a fair amount.
The reason they want to ban it is because it's made by converting REAL CHILD PORN into computer generated images. In other words people know they can't distribute real child porn without being very careful, so they convert real child porn to this and get away with it. So demand for this sort of thing drives up demand for child porn and therefore child abuse.
But I'm sure none of you lot were bothered about that --- too busy getting a hardon about being the first to quote 1984?
Re:Posturig politicians (Score:5, Insightful)
Thing is that the mental patterns of serial killers may not be unique to serial killers. IIRC they have quite a lot in common with stock traders. The phrase "make a killing" is even used in the context of finance.
Also many governments specifically try and train people to be "serial killers", just that they tend to be called "soldiers" in that situation.
Re:Pedophiles (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess what I'm trying to say is that that particular aspect of this law is unenforcable, as there is no way you can establish the age of animated characters other than by asking the artists unless they are very obviously babies\small children as with lolicon type 'art'.
Re:It's about psychology (Score:3, Insightful)
If there is a rule that you can talk about everything except X, then you have freedom of speech with respect to (All possible topics of speech - X). So in a significant sense it would not be correct that you "don't have free speech at all". I understand, of course, that you would argue that "free speech" means "absolutely unconstrained speech".
Other questions:
1. Is speech "free" if it can be established statistically that a certain percentage of its audience will be induced to impact on another's freedom simply by hearing/reading/viewing it? Why does the chain of causation stop with the making and receiving of the speech, but not the consequences of it?
2. Is speech "not free" simply because there are criminal penalties? Or is it simply a legitimate trade off to say that if you choose to engage in the making or willing consumption of speech which the vast majority of rational people find utterly abhorrent, you also choose to take the risk that "society" will seek retribution against you, possibly in the form of violence and/or loss of liberty?
3. Does "free" speech extend to an unwilling audience, or an audience which cannot defend itself, or both? For example, is it ok to make racially derogatory sexual remarks to an audience of small children from minority backgrounds?
4. Should a person be held responsible for any consequences of their "free" speech? For example, should someone producing these types of images be regarded as an accessory to any eventual child abuse which takes place and towards which their images contibuted?
I'm playing devil's advocate to a certain extent here, because I tend to err on the side of libertarianism on such issues. But free speech advocates need to learn to work on a more complex set of assumptions than that there is no consequence whatsoever to speech, however hateful or provocative, and explain how society is to deal with those consequences with respect to the maker of the original speech.
If speech could never provoke real-world consequences, why would we speak at all?
Re:Thought Police! (Score:5, Insightful)
Use explicit sarcasm tags (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh, and you might need to type < (or gt) to get the tag delimiters to display OK.
Doesn't add up dude (Score:2, Insightful)
A serial killer is someone who has killed multiple people.
Do you see the logic gap?
If you would like to compare a serial killer and a serial child rapist, be my guest. But statistically, there are probably around 1 million "exclusive" pedophiles in North America and only about 80,000 of those are in prison. That's less than 8%, which is roughly the same incarceration rate as the general population.
Who is being executed here?
In the context of your example.... a child rapist is physically raping a child. Whereas the people we are talking about are enjoying a simulation of such a thing.
A serial killer is physically killing people. What's the corollary? Oh yeah... people engaging in simulated killing.
Which... is.... clearly.... pathological.
O wait....
Doh!!!!!
in reality, pedophiles are creepy and nobody likes them so it's easy to cast them as drooling sub-humans.
But is it reality?
Re:It's about psychology (Score:3, Insightful)
I want to live in that kind of society, not the kind that tries to protect me by limiting what I can and can't talk about because it may possibly put me in danger.
Re:logical progression (Score:3, Insightful)
I am sure the UK government is working on this. After all, children will grow up, and some of them might be abusers. We can't take the risk. Think of the children!... ("Oh, Wait" is not supported by the present "government by knee jerk" strategy)
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
I bet there's not a single documented case of this.
It's just a way to circumvent legitimate opposition to thought-crime laws.
Re:Pedophiles (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey those are pretty cool, I'd probably get arrested & have to register as sex offender if I put one on the lawn, though...
Re:It depends (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Against the law? (Score:1, Insightful)
This argument obviously doesn't apply to generated child porn, so I don't really know if it should be illegal or not.
Photoshop 5 year old head onto 80 year old body? (Score:4, Insightful)
The law in it's heart is good, in practice is bad. It's basically a thoughtcrime.
Wouldn't it be better if the sickos could look at computer generated stuff, and give them a relatively safe outlet, instead of making it illegal and having them look at the real stuff since it all will be illegal?
I guess the old Coppertone adds will be outlawed, since the cartoon doggie pulling down the 6 year olds bathing bottom will be construed as beastiality, S&M, and child porn.
Re:It depends (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pedophiles (Score:2, Insightful)
I guess what I'm trying to say is that that particular aspect of this law is unenforcable, as there is no way you can establish the age of animated characters other than by asking the artists unless they are very obviously babies\small children as with lolicon type 'art'.
Its main characters look like children, id say around 8-10 years old by physical appearance. However its a fantasy world, these characters are all well over 100 years old thanks to being things like demons, angels, and such.
This is the problem with trying to create a though crime/prosecute a victimless crime, theres WAY too many loop holes, and all your evidence is in the hands of the defendant.
Re:It depends (Score:5, Insightful)
This was predominant theory half century ago, which supported bans on pornography, censorship etc. Then some countries lifted the ban under the less supported theory, that such material provides surrogate fulfilment. Statistically they were correct as the number of sex-related crimes fell sharply. Surely some of the sickos will go into feedback loop, but most of them will happily "go manual" while drooling on the pages/screens.
The most logical limit is very simple: Was any child actually abused to make that particular material? If yes, drag the producer to the jail, lock him up and throw away the key. Punish for real crime, not thoughtcrime.
Anyway, even for people that are not into this kind of "entertainment", it's quite important to defend freedom. If it's legal to publish sick offensive shit (with a limitation as above) it guarantees the right to publish anything less sick and less offensive, like the views of average people. Larry Flynt comes to mind...
And UK is "special" (like in "special olympics") when it comes to related issues. There's very few actual cases of this kind of abuse, but the local media paint a picture of a country with violent pedophile at every corner, in every bush and three of them in every dark alley. With this level of hysteria they may very well ban photos of children whatsoever or require permits and observation by govt inspector.
Re:Pedophiles (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Pedophiles (Score:2, Insightful)
[Frowning Old Woman] Did you know that under their clothes, children are all naked? And you dare look at them! Why, everywhere we go there are naked children, thinly veiled in clothing. Any time you glance at a child, it is therefore clear that you are committing a grievous offence against nature.[/Frowning Old Woman]
Some people watch too much commercial television, methinks. That's why the politicians get away with so much.
Protecting against what? (Score:5, Insightful)
We can't (yet?) predict whether someone will develop a paraphilia and we can't do anything about it. People just end up having different tastes for different (and often non-obvious) reasons. Whether or not poonography catering to a particular taste is available does not decide whether or not someone develops that taste; it can only be one of many influences.
Banning CP so hard that even mentioning it carries a mandatory prison sentence will still do nothing to "solve" paedophilia. It will only further cloud up the water and force the affected further into obscurity and violence.
What we need is an objective discussion of the issue. We need to view it as a controllable problem like alcoholism or an addiction. It's manageable, but only if we behave like mature, civilized human beings and treat issues like this with a bit of distance.
"Clean" child porn might allow paedophiles to blow off steam instead of waiting until the pent up sexual frustration makes them abduct, rape and kill some little girl. We don't really know, which is why we need scientific evaluation. And that is not possible while idiots with shotguns/the media are running around shouting: "I NEED TO KILLS Y'ALL OR IT MIGHT BE MY DAUGHTER!!1"
I think prohibition, the War on Drugs(TM) and similar endeavours have shown just how well complete demonization of an issue work towards safely controlling said issue.
Re:Pedophiles (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps you should add those who delight in thinking about others being slowly tortured to death to the list of people who should be slowly tortured to death for thinking about things.
"Obviously everyone who has modded me down thinks kid-fucking is okay."
A more likely explanation is that they reckon that you're a hypocritical sicko who thinks that torture and death fantasies are OK because he's having them, but other sick fantasies he doesn't have must be prohibited at all costs.
Pencils... (Score:3, Insightful)
focus (Score:5, Insightful)
So everyone who's posted a comment detailing how computer-generated images hurt nobody is missing the point entirely. Nobody cares who is being hurt or not. It doesn't matter. "Abused child" is merely a meme that is being exploited by power-greedy politicians. Since our emotions do not differentiate between "real" and "computer-generated", they are triggered by both, and since fear is an emotion, politicians don't see why they should make a difference, either.
Logic doesn't apply here. Psychology does.
Mod parent up (Score:4, Insightful)
But this boils down to the key point that sexual orientation isn't a choice. Lots of people don't really think things through.
I'm happy I was born as a socially acceptable heterosexual... It must be living hell for all the people born pedophiles, knowing they will become an outcast the moment they tell anyone about their sexual orientation. Even though they have never hurt a child, and never will. I think we can safely assume there are vast numbers of pedophiles living "in the closet".
Re:Here in the US, we should just stick to Obscene (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pedophiles (Score:5, Insightful)
So it's legal to fuck her, but if you take a picture of it with your mobile phone, you go behind bars for 20 years.
Only politicians and lawyers can come up with that kind of thinking.
Re:It depends (Score:3, Insightful)
Nah the next step is to make them wear a hijab/burqa/chador, just like in those Islamic countries.
I'm sure many adults have bad thoughts, even illegal ones when they happen to see an adult they find attractive.
Some also have bad illegal thoughts when they happen to see an adult they find offensive.
So put everyone in a hijab?
Re:Pedophiles (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to mention that there's no clear link between those who indulge in child porn, and those who commit pedophilia.
It's just more scaremongering to drum up votes by a government that knows it's on the ropes. The unfortunate thing is, it might be working.
Re:peterprior must be a paedo (Score:5, Insightful)
Why, this CGI is gateway porno! Just like if I even try marijuana I'll be on crack, meth and heroin the very same week!
Re:After RFTA (Score:2, Insightful)
Nothing. Just as there's nothing to stop the police arresting them anyway, and the jury ignoring the claims that the girl who looks to them to possibly be 16/17 is actually a 400 year old demon in disguise.
The difficulties in judging the age show the absurdities in such a law, but I suspect that the age will be based on what a jury thinks, not what the defendant claims.
(It'll probably have to be over 18.)
Re:Pedophiles (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pedophiles (Score:5, Insightful)
Except such a thing is already illegal. The purpose of this proposed law is not to prevent such a thing. The purpose is to make it illegal to even conceive of such a thing in an art form.
People die due to climate change in the film The Day After Tomorrow. This film is not illegal, because nobody was harmed in the making of it. Artistic representations of helpless children are not actually helpless children. No children were harmed in the making of this porn.
Re:Pedophiles (Score:5, Insightful)
The vast majority of child sexual abuse happens at home or a friend's house, and takes place regularly over a long period by people who've never seen child porn, and don't seek it out, so they won't be caught irrespective of how many laws are passed banning pictures, literature, etc. Child predators who prey on strangers are such a statistically insignificant factor in the child abuse problem as a whole that killing them all wouldn't reduce it in any noticeable way.
"At least I have a firm stance on something that matters."
If you actually wanted to have a real impact on child abuse instead of indulging in tabloid-inspired rants, you'd be calling for teachers and others who work with children to receive comprehensive training about how to spot the signs of abuse, and raise topic with a child without frightening or embarrassing them, or putting them in a position where they falsely accuse somebody because they want to please the adult, or are afraid of getting in trouble (those who thinks kids always tell the truth don't know very many of them!).
"I have a firm stance, that everyone will disagree with aloud, but more than a few will silently agree with."
It's irrelevant how many people agree with you, because it doesn't change the fact that there are hundreds of kids who get abused by nice uncle Aubrey, their slightly older cousin Henry, or their best friend's dad for every one that suffers at the hands of a wandering sexual predator. Nobody's doing anything about them, because it's a much harder problem to solve, and doesn't offer tabloids and TV companies human interest stories with sobbing parents and calls for somebody to do something that politicians can legislate about.
Re:It depends (Score:3, Insightful)
Crimes that only apply to criminals? That's a slippery slope, my friend...
Re:Thought Police! (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole "intent to arouse" thing is troublesome, to say the least. One, how do you discern intent and, two, arouse who? The average person, or someone who happens to have a very specific fetish?
I'm sure, long before the Internet and computers existed, there were individuals who got their jollies looking at the children's underwear photos in the Sears catalog. Sears certainly did not publish those photos with the "intent to arouse," and 99.99999% of those looking at the catalog would not have that reaction. When we start banning things because some teeny tiny minority of users MIGHT derive sexual pleasure from them in a manner that triggers the "eewwww!" factor in most people, we're getting mighty close to thoughtcrime.
So, if a photographer produces photos of underage children in their underwear that are in every way indistinguishable from the Sears photos, but markets them under a website called "hotpreteensintheirundies.com" and uses suggestive, lascivious language to describe them, these otherwise unremarkable images become "child porn." This reminds me of the famous case I recall from my college communications classes where a publication (was it Screw magazine? This was a long time ago...) was judged not to contain obscene material; however, because the publisher marketed it as "obscene," and used that word in promotion, it was considered to be obscene. This is ludicrous.
By rights, there should be no harm, no foul when it comes to images if (a)no children were actually physically assaulted or harmed (as in the underwear images above), or (b)no actual sexual activity is depicted, or (c)the individuals involved are actually 18+, or (d)the individuals depicted do not actually exist (as in computer or manually generated art). In all of these cases, no actual child was in any way harmed or sexually assaulted.
The notion that such images may possibly, maybe, under the right circumstances, in some very few rare and isolated cases inspire a potential pedophile to actually harm a child is irrelevant. (And, as others have pointed out, WE DON'T KNOW if this is the case, because hardly any studies have been done, and probably will never be done, because of the distasteful nature of the subject matter.) ANYTHING can potentially inspire a sick mind to do heinous things. (The book "Catcher in the Rye" and the movie "Taxi Driver" were never intended to inspire a potential assassin, yet they played a significant role in, respectively, motivating Chapman to kill Lennon, and Hinkley to shoot Reagan.) As soon as we start criminalizing things based on "maybes" and "mights" and unproven possible unintended effects on isolated psychopaths, then the Law has become an orderless, featureless blob of goo instead of a carefully crafted guideline to protect the safety of the general society.
But (HEAVY SIGH), we ARE talking about CHILDREN here. And, as we all know too well, anything that even slightly reeks of "protect the children" insures that common sense and logic will quickly be cast aside....
Re:It depends (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:logical progression (Score:5, Insightful)
Lusting after attractive 12 year olds is not wrong from a purely biological standpoint, in fact it makes perfect sense. In order to propagate your genes as much as possible, the best tactic is to impregnate as many young girls as possible. The sooner you get to them the better, since by having your children it prevents them having anyone else's for at least 9 months, not to mention the attachment they then form with you that makes it harder for others to impregnate them. From a purely animalistic point of view, girls just into puberty should be the most (physically) attractive.
As for homosexuality, it's a natural phenomenon. Sure, it reduced the chances of procreation, but it is a common enough genetic variation that it is considered normal.
Re:Pedophiles (Score:3, Insightful)
You largely defeated your own argument: South Park IS offensive to many people. But, being sane, intelligent beings, we traditionally haven't banned media based on it being offensive, because that's subjective. Things have been baned based on whether or not they are harmful. Computer generated films of ANYTHING are not harmful, and should not be the subject of any legislation.
Re:It depends (Score:4, Insightful)
This will continue, of course, until the fetishization of children decreases, and by that I mean the fetishzation of children by their parents and government.
Ignoring relatively recent human history where children in their early teens were married off, soldiers in wars, or running businesses/plantations/families, we have now created an overindulgent culture of keeping adults as children as long as humanly possible for the enjoyment of parents and politicians who exploit them.
An aquaintance of mine refers to her dog as "puppy" and treats him as such, regardless of the fact that the dog is 13 years old and on it's last legs. The dog is completely untrained, as to be expected, but now is not even getting some required medical care for a dog of it's age because that might be some sign that the animal isn't a puppy nor immortal.
Sadly, most of the "parents" I know now are doing similar things with their children. I've overheard conversations between parents chiding each other for cutting junior's hair ("His curls are so cute! We can't cut them!", "Yes, but he's 8 and looks like a roadie from Foghat"), not letting a 6 year old stay up until 3a.m ("She's playing! We have to let children be children!", "Yes dear, but I have to set up for Foghat in the morning."), and my favorite told to my idiot 14 year old nephew ("It doesn't matter what grade that teacher gave you, as long as you tried your best that's all that matters."). Having tried that technique of project completion with employers has met with limited success.
Luckily, if the child might be showing any signs of rebellion, intelligence, or desire to flourish on their own terms, there are a slew of "disease du jour" and designer drugs to keep them in that glassy-eyed / dopey-smiled state of puppiness. Autism/aspergers/marjoram/whatever is always available in case junior shows a but too much resistance. Pigeon hole them now, keep them in size XXL diapers when they're 16, and keep them from ever leaving mommey and daddy's side. Because as long as they stay, mommy and daddy aren't really, you know, grown-ups or old themselves.
Now I'm sure there are plenty of kids with "real" mental issues out there. I suspect if the bell curve is to be believed that at least 50% of the population has difficulty telling one end of a chalupa from another, and if special-ed classes and living with their parents until they're 40 gets my drive-thru order right at least most of the time, then it can't be all that bad.
Before I get modded for being too off topic, let me seamlessly tie that right back in to the article somehow.
Although real child abuse does occur, most likely it isn't the creepy guy in the street with the bad haircut and thick glasses on slashdot, it's the parent, family relative, or friend that does most of the molesting/abuse. The german sex-ring isn't photographing little Briegh or Taylour as they play in the back yard, it's the baby sitter or cousin or uncle Joe who is doing far worse when no one's watching, and since families rarely turn in one of their own, it's just quietly kept under wraps like the Catholic Church did with "misbehaving" priests who had a taste for alter boys.
Politicians, knowing this but powerless to prevent it, love to pick up the banner of saving the children from some unknown danger from one of those southeast asian countries with a sex-ring and is much more marketable than passing laws that would prosecute a mother as an accessory who stands by allowing their children to be molested by their new boyfriend but pretending it isn't happening because she doesn't want to "rock the boat".
It doesn't matter that laws that would prosecute a completely digitally created image where no abuse occurred to anyone would also include 450 year old paintings that show fat naked cherubs (with little penii!) flying around Aphrodite getting it on, consenting adults role playing together (any second they'll have the urge to molest real kids, like them homosexuals!), or the XTian bible raping virgi
Re:Thought Police! (Score:2, Insightful)
See how you contradict yourself here?
It's motive, means, and opportunity [wikipedia.org]. Only motive is a matter of thought, and it only needs to be proven if there's not direct evidence; if fifty witnesses see you commit a crime and you're apprehended immediately, no one needs to consider your motive to convict you.
It's not that having a motive is a crime, it's that we generally believe that people do things for reasons; the jury is only going to believe that John murdered Joe if they can imagine a reason.
There is no greater cause than freedom.
I'm sorry that friends of yours were sexually abused. People who sexually abuse people need to be removed from polite society. People who are accomplices in the sexual abuse of other people need to be removed from polite society.
But people who view images of sexual abuse are no more guilty of abuse than people who watch slasher pics - or the news - are guilty of murder. And people who create or view entirely synthetic images of sexual abuse have done nothing that violates the rights of others.
Re:Pedophiles (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, computer generated abuse is still abuse, computer generated murder is still murder, and computer generated criminal damage is still criminal damage.
Pretty soon the police will come and arrest everyone who has ever played Doom/Quake/GTA/everything else, throw Carmack's ass in prison for several million counts of aiding and abetting, lock the Cloverfield guys up for what they did to the Statue of Liberty and call PETA on anyone who ever let their tamagotchi die.
Please put the kneejerk response aside and think logically before you speak. Laws (and the endorsement of them) are not to be taken lightly.
Re:That's it! (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't seen the 2 girls 1 cup, is that new?
If I rewrite my journals so instead of hookers the girls are teenagers, are the UK police going to come across the pond after me? Or is it only illustrations? Text can tittilate also, you know.
Tami [slashdot.org] (link NSFW) is only about four foot eight, if I draw her (only flat chested instead of those big fat boobies) would I be breaking the law in England? How about if I draw "Bighead" [slashdot.org], the hooker with the smallest boobs I've ever seen?
I't nice to know that politicians in other countries are as fucktardedly brain dead as ours. There's hope for my country after all!
Re:logical progression (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Pedophiles (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if you'd also support the police keeping an eye on people who read literature which has child-sex themes? Perhaps monitoring those who check out "Lolita" at the library?
I'd say you picked a fitting career for yourself. Congratulations.
Re:Thought Police! (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is the 'perpetrators' intentions troublesome? Surely its obvious that it bears on the degree of the crime, and whether a crime was even comitted.
Surely you can agree there is a difference between a man forgetting to turn off the stove and burning down his home killing his family... and a man plotting to set a fire, burn down his house and killing his family?
Surely the former deserves sympathy, while the latter deserves to be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
One, how do you discern intent and,
Same way intent is always determined. You look for evidence. You present the evidence. And a jury decides. Its not perfect. And criminals often go free, and sometimes innocent people are convicted. But that's life in an imperfect world.
How else would you have it?
two, arouse who? The average person, or someone who happens to have a very specific fetish?
Why would it matter WHO. If the intent was to arouse someone, then its intent was to arouse someone. If the intent was not to arouse someone, but someone got aroused anyway, then it still not intent to arouse.
And, as we all know too well, anything that even slightly reeks of "protect the children" insures that common sense and logic will quickly be cast aside....
1) If society as a whole finds something so distasteful that they want to purge it completely, why is it illogical that they would pass laws forbidding computer generated depictions of it? Why shouldn't they?
2) What is the benefit to society of allowing or even legally protecting computer generated child porn? If society near universally doesn't want it, and considers the extreme minority that does want it to be sick and in need of help at best and a perverted deviant criminal at worst...
At the end of the day there is no escaping the tyranny of the majority...if almost everybody agrees on something, then society will do it. There's no stopping that. There's no point in trying to stop it.
If you want to change this, you'll have to change the way society thinks. Slavery wasn't abolished because it was illogical and common sense... it took time and effort to convince enough people to think of them as people, that racism and slavery were wrong. Good luck doing that for child porn though; as even the most open minded people generally think its beyond distasteful. They might see the validity of an argument for computer generated child porn not hurting anyone... but that's a long way from getting their support -- they are hardly going to march in protest of the child pornographers rights, to protect them from injustice. We'll fully legalize drugs, prostitution, gambling, and gay marriage long before we'll legalize any form of child porn.
There's just virtually no support for it.
So let it be banned, there's no stopping it, and no real point to trying to legalize it anyway.
But be vigilant against politicians milking it for their own gain, or to slip other legislation through. We can't stop anti-child-porn legislation from passing, have little reason to stop it from passing... but we should be vigilant that we aren't passing anti-child-porn legislation that really has nothing to do with child-porn. Letting customs seize and search laptops for child-porn for example, is NOT about child-porn at all... its about letting customs seize and search everyone's laptops for whatever they want.
If I make a drawing of a building being blown up.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Do any real people get killed because I draw pictures of explosions??
It's the exact same thing as making *fictional* kiddie porn illegal: a *representation* of something is being equated with *the real thing*.
As I've said numerous times -- how is this not Thought Crime??
Re:Pedophiles (Score:4, Insightful)
Good luck with that, already it's not uncommon to see characters that are "legal lolis", women who haven't developed but are 20+. It's more common in H games but it turns up in anime some too, for example the teacher in Doki Doki School Hours. She looks like she's a grade schooler but she's in her 20s. And while it's not terribly common there are cases of this occurring in real life so it's not completely fantasy. So if the author swears the girl who looks like she's 8 years old is really 25 does that mean it's OK? Or will the law just allow the police/prosecutors/etc. to decide what age they think the girl is supposed to be and prosecute based on that? I'm guessing it'll be the latter and that path will lead to horrid abuse, people will be getting thrown in jail that never really committed a crime.
This is about control, not protecting any children.
Re:Pedophiles (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Pedophiles (Score:4, Insightful)