Explain how, exactly.

There are things that you just don't do (like, say hitting a woman).

Unfortunately, if the population is large and anonymous enough, you always have someone who does something that you shouldn't do. That's when we need a law. You understand these laws don't fall from the sky, yes? They're the written down rules of society. And society needs rules, otherwise it's not a society, it's just a mob.

And posting sex pictures of other people without their consent is just the kind of stuff that you don't do. And if people don't get it, you have to tell them.

That is stupid. It's like saying blame the drivers for not giving a fuck about fuel injection. Users should not have to care about encryption. They should care about having secure and private communication, and how to make that happen is our job, it's why we are being paid more than burger flippers.

But you've heard of Hushmail, yes?

We have the technology. If we want, we can make strong crypto work. Problem is that most of the big players with the money to make it happen don't want, and the small guys either don't understand the technology and complexity (users) or are incapable of making it actually usable (techies).

Welcome to the Internet, great to have you here. When you hang around for a bit, you will notice that there are search engines beside Google, especially for adult content.

Has nothing to do with porn sites. There's very little about porn that's deep, or hidden, except maybe a few very, very extreme fetishes, but unless it's illegal in 120 countries, you are very likely to be no more than five minutes away from it as soon as you open a browser.

True, but the "it's just free market" screams also obscure and important point: It's not censorship when one store, newspaper or company does it. But what if everyone does it? If thanks to pressure from certain interest groups, your particular topic vanishes not from one store and newspaper, but from all of them?

When a story cannot be published even though both supply and demand exist, is that not censorship?

That is why it's right to question such changes when big companies do it. I'm not worried for porn, it'll always exist. But asking Google the simple question "why" is not wrong.

Little kids are not at all interested in porn. There've been very few studies on this, due to the obvious difficulties of getting the ethics board to approve, but from what I've read about it, their primary reaction is boredom. Like "what is this shit and how do I get back to what I wanted?".

Teens are interested in porn. And short of locking them all up in isolation cells, they will get it, because they're ready to dedicate even more time and effort to the task than the puritans do to "protect" them.

"Tame" for very specific definitions of that word. As many comedians here in Europe have said in one way or the other: American movies is where children are protected from seing the nipple they suckled on some years ago, but hacking people into pieces is perfectly fine.

This. The democracy we live in is highly vulnerable to dedicated groups or particulate interests. I've seen it up close when the Pirate Party here in Germany imploded (and went back from 4-7% of votes to 1-2% in one legislation period) because it had been infiltrated by too many people pushing their agendas in topics such as drugs, womens rights, public transport and such.

Small groups of people fanatically dedicated to one narrow interest can deliver a tremendeous amount of force, because they are focussed, unwavering and never stop to even consider compromises. They will always push over any moderate opponents.

All of Europe and probably most of the rest of the world was shaking its head over that one and wondering if someone had forgotten to tell you guys that it's the 20th century, not the 12th.

I agree in principle, but this is ludicrous. Firefox releases seem to be twice a week now, and we'll probably all live to see the version number overflow.

Yeah, there should be several competing plugins. But maybe FF can ask you which one you want after install, assuming that anyone with three working brain cells wants an adblocker.

Americans. Everyone who disagrees with them or who thinks that letting people starve on the streets might be unbecoming of a civilized nation must be a communist.

You're not very different from ISIS. For them everyone who disagrees with them is a to-be-slaughtered satan worshipper. Different words and details, same approach. Bush Jr. summed the american mindset up very good: If you're not with us, you are against us. In the small box that is your world, there is only space for two opinions, and nothing inbetween or to the sides.

I would pity you, but ignorance is a choice and not an accident, and I never pity people for self-inflicted misery.

The main problem we have is the default assumption.

From my perspective, anything that everyone involved is happy with is fine. Hetero- or homosexual, two, three or however many partners - it may not be for me, but who am I to judge the happiness of other people?

Society as a whole, however, has a concept in its mind, and even with a stronger tolerance for variety, it still very strongly sets this concept as the default assumption, and everything that deviates from the norm needs to justify itself.

All of this is true outside of sex and relationships, btw. -- there are also default concepts of a man and a woman, of a couple and a household. How you should be, what you should do. There are acceptable and "strange" hobbies, interests, professions, lifestyles, homes.

Even on the local level, we don't have even nearly the amount of involvement that the ancient world had.

But yes, of course, the pure size is a big factor.

Are you retarded or what? The plans of the new greece government are as far away from "socialist utopia" as a Ford Model T from a flying car.

Not really, no. But don't let facts spoil your ranting. Especially social changes often came about in times of crisis, because it is then that the ugly truth of the current system shows itself in full splendor.

If you don't understand that all extremist positions are evil, you've not paid attention in history class. Competition is good, but hypercompetitive environments are disasters to physical and mental health, society, culture and every aspect of humanity other than profit, profit, profit. On the opposite end, social security is good, but nanny-states (the real ones, not the "omg, the government actually moved a finger" hyperbole of american right-wingers) cut into innovation, progress and motivation to do anything at all.

It's clear advertisement companies have declared war on us, and think any and all means are permissable. No other mindset can explain these actions. If these people would not consider us enemies, they could not possibly look at themselves in a mirror.

So when will Firefox ship with ABE (or some other fork, don't use the original AdBlock, it has been sold to an advertisement company) and default to having it enabled?

I mean, aside from the hacking and privacy issues, every time I see the Internet on a browser without ad blocker, I can't believe people endure this crap.

That is the point. 13% of WHAT - of the GDP. Which had just imploded, thanks to austerity measures.

I posted elsewhere a car analogy. This is like me borrowing you money, then when you get into trouble forcing you to sell your car to pay your debt. Ok, so far it's more or less fine (though stupid of me if you need your car to earn money to pay me back). But here's the trick: After you sold your car, I tell you that since your net worth has dropped (you no longer own a car), you now have a different credit rating, and because of that, you owe me more money, higher interest, whatever. Please sell your bike, too. Yes, that will reduce your net worth further.