That's right! We need to send someone up there to make something that's not there out of what is there! And then it'll still be what's not there! And with any luck we can send somebody up there later to make what wasn't there before and what's still not there into an even bigger thing that isn't there! And maybe take something else that is there and put it into where there isn't something there, and make another thing that's not there!
shame comes with [human sexual desire], utterly regardless of societal norms or orientation.
I don't believe you.
you believe society can, or should, or has the resources, or would even be allowed to, chaperone a pedophile for the rest of their lives
Actually, no. I believe society can, should, and had better have the resources to chaperone children at all times. And the chaperone generally shouldn't be left alone with the child either.
you're pitting your idealized fantasy (no pun intended) about how things might work, versus the cold hard reality of how these situations really play out.
I'm not convinced that it's an impractical fantasy. I believe it would be very difficult to change the entrenched status quo, and that is why the cold hard reality is the cold hard reality that it is.
your stance assumes we know the pedophile urges about this person. that the person has volunteered this information about himself
Are you assuming that people have not done so? Usually "volunteered" after they're caught, so not exactly volunteered, I'll grant you. But "volunteering" it beforehand has dire consequences.
obviously, this information is not going to be freely offered. you can imagine why. so we leave children alone with this person, because we don't know, and then we find out the hard way the person likes children sexually
The "imagine why" bit is revealing. I can also imagine a world where we would know, because the ramifications of admitting something like this - before any children are actually harmed - would be that they're afforded counseling if they want it, and they're not allowed to be alone with children; no more, no less. If other adults are around, as I said before - I have no problem with that, unless the person is openly lewd toward children - in which case I'm sure the other adults would take immediate steps to stop it.
So, in what way is our current state of affairs better than the imaginary one I just described?
As it is, there are few instances where you should ever leave your children alone with someone. One of those is if it's their relative. Sadly, most child abuse occurs by the child's relative. And it is tragic when it happens. However, I still can't help but feel that it's caused primarily because they are driven underground by shame and the fear of people knowing. If anyone knew, they would almost certainly have loved ones taken away and never be permitted to see them - for a very long time.
base human sexual desire is always there, and human will power is often weak. during that moment of weakness, alone, around a child, the inevitable happens
Looking at a picture is a seemingly victimless crime. Abusing a child results in a young individual who may be scarred for life. The difference between the two is not necessarily a simple matter of variable willpower.
Copying is not theft.
Still, does this sort of thing actually come up in pop-ups? I've seen more naked people than I could count show up on my screen from mis-clicks, but not a one of them was underage, as far as I could tell. Even the "barely legal" ones were pretty obviously not children.
Unfortunately, "as far as I could tell" doesn't keep you out of prison if the DA wants to come across as non-lenient toward child porn. And "obviously not children" doesn't work either when the age of consent is 18. You can't tell the difference between "barely legal" and "barely not legal". Unless you have a guaranteed statement that the site kept its whatever-federal-code-number legal records (all models were above the age of 18 blah blah blah), you're not safe.
And if you're still not sure as to where you'd find questionable material, I have one word for you: amateur. Tired of stale, canned acting from girls with bleached hair and boob jobs, where the script is a semi-serious attempt to get a dude's load blown on her tits? Put "amatuer" + "porn" in the Google search field... not everything that shows up if you start browsing those sites is going to come with that legal disclaimer, or any disclaimer, other than "this site is not responsible for the stuff that people upload, browse at your own risk".
well more importantly, a guy wacking off to a child porn image is a guy who is someone who is sexually aroused by children. you are comfortable with such a person being free in your community?
He is clearly sexually aroused by pictures of children. Whether he will be sexually aroused by actual, live, children remains in question.
I would not be comfortable with such a person being alone with a child. However, if other adults were present, I'd expect them to be very careful to avoid drawing suspicion when they were around children, and in all probability avoid children in general and seem uninterested in being around them, as long as not given the opportunity for private encounters with them.
pedophilia is like a curse. because it renders you incompatible with free and open society.
I agree with you there.
if you demonstrate pedophile urges, you need to be permanently kept away from society. you only represent potential damage on young lives. your sexual urges means you have no right to freedom
And disagree there.
Children are a wonderful part of life. Confining someone to a world without children is downright cruel and unusual. If they enjoy being around children in safe environments with other adults present, of course.
The images are a record of a criminal act. So in the same way a snuff film would be illegal, having a depiction of an illegal act is just propagating the illegal act. Same for statutory rape.
Not true. It is not propagating the illegal act, and even if it were, that is not the reason that it's illegal. I know this for an absolute fact because there are hundreds of other crimes for which it's not illegal to have a depiction of the crime. If your logic was sound it would work in all cases, for all crimes. It doesn't and it isn't.
Snuff films and child porn are illegal because people who like watching them frighten us, not because the acts depicted is illegal.
While this does give a loophole to pedophiles, I think it is an acceptable risk.
Agreed. As a matter of fact I would rather see people getting away with downloading CP through some "loophole" than see people who accidentally come across it (uh, no pun intended) have their life ruined because of it. I'm not convinced that they are the same as the people who actually abuse children. I'm not convinced any significant number of the latter will be caught using methods targeted for the former. And I'm not convinced that the prison terms we give to the latter (and justly so) are going to be worthwhile or beneficial, either to them or to society on the whole.
From a theoretical medical/psychological standpoint it's no different than any number of other addictions: massive quantities of happy drugs are produced by the body during an orgasm. These will very quickly condition a psychological dependence on whatever was being done, or watched, immediately in the context of the orgasm. The addict will likely feel completely miserable about their addiction, which only makes it that much stronger since they know they can return to the addiction for a momentary dose of their happy drugs. Putting the addict in prison will only turn them into an unhireable ex-con who's that much more miserable than before if and when they're finally released.
It's a dangerous game, and the only winning move is not to play: One fetish grows blasé due to over-stimulation and something new has to be found. The cycle can be halted and prevented from moving downward to less acceptable and even illegal fetishes if the fetish is reined in, such that an occasional guilty indulgence still feels risqué. When something once-forbidden starts to become routine and unexciting, new forbidden fruits start looking tasty.
Hello.
By the standards of the fashion industry, I'm morbidly obese... *gasp* she wears a size 12?!?!
Put that into terms that the nerds on Slashdot will understand, please and thank you.
The pigments used in most printing processes are CMYK, so I would expect there might be some issues with using RGB lighting while reading anything printed in color... unless the individual pigments reflect the RGB wavelengths adequately, it's not going to look right.
Approximate a point source by masking the light source with a sheet of paperboard with a pinhole poked through.
LOL. Do you actually believe that horseshit?
The amount of mercury in a single CFL wouldn't make you ill. Mostly because you won't absorb it. Mostly because it's only in vapor form when current hits the bulb. Meaning it condenses into liquid form the instant power is removed, such as if the glass envelope breaks. You're not going to breathe it, and skin contact with liquid mercury is not a big deal - you absorb very minute fractions of it. For comparison, I've held a gram or so of mercury in my hand before and it was no big deal.
He did only replace them when he noticed they were dim.
Whether or not it was his expertise is irrelevant. The point is and always has been that AC said,
"People saying
And you replied that it never happened. It did happen, and I cited the person who said it. Whether or not you appreciate the irony in the fact that he's a well-known scientific thinker, or that his area of expertise was in thermodynamics, is not particularly important.
Flying machines wasn't just some low-lying fruit belief that was held by ancient Babylonians, it was held by well-known, well-respected, highly credible scientists of their time.
And really, since science hadn't properly learnt to use fluid dynamics on air yet, there were no scientists who were qualified at that time as "experts" to make the statement, so you're going to have to consider the statements of scientists who weren't experts in heavier-than-air flight. They were all equally unqualified; they had nothing but the scientific method - logic and reason - and it failed each and every one of them until the Wright brothers finally proved them all wrong.
What I'm doing is pointing out the irony of your ignorance of the guy who claimed that heavier-than-air flight was impossible; I'm sure you've heard of him, but weren't aware that he had an opinion on heavier-than-air flying machines. Particularly ironic, because his area of expertise was heat, and we're talking about global warming.
Dynamically binding, you realize the magic. Statically binding, you see only the hierarchy.
