cforrester

Can you explain exactly what you were trying to accomplish with this comment? Government noninterference in access to abortion services provided by licensed medical practitioners meets my definition of social progress. If you feel the need to distill that down to "abortion is progress," I'm comfortable with that. Abortion is progress because it means that women have access to abortion that is less obstructed by non-medical interference.

This shot across the bow certainly is a good reminder for advocates of abortion access rights not to become complacent, as progress can be undone. I'm hopeful that it can act as a catalyst for advocates in the region. Extremist actions like this often create new advocates, as well as drawing external attention. There are already groups mobilizing from without and within to help Texan women who want or need an abortion, and conversely, groups hoping to take advantage of this law to target those women for what I would consider to be legal harassment. It seems like more of a gamble than you might be thinking.

The real problem those on the left have with this law is that it is a major advance against abortion, pure and simple.

I haven't seen anyone deny that the main issue is unreasonable restrictions on access to abortion. It's certainly valid to discuss the recklessness of the law's coercive mechanisms and their broader, negative side effects on unrelated groups.

I don't understand business as well as I would like to, but I wonder if these companies are sensing how much trouble they'll have keeping drivers if they can become collateral damage in social oppression. I'm not used to seeing these taxi companies offer potentially a fortune's worth of services to any of their drivers, but this law is unusually reckless, even by (de facto) abortion ban standards.

It's not the burning that directly leads to something better. It's more like a natural consequence caused by failing to adequately address people's need for something better; people who feel powerless in their quest for justice will treasure morsels of that justice whereever they can get it, such as direct attacks on the public institutions suppressing them.

The good that can come from it is motivation: it's more clear than ever that gradual reform is not occurring, and something has to change at a fundamental level. Enabling people to get justice civilly will sharply reduce the number of people resorting to incivility.

In most of the cases I've seen of police misconduct, a brief clip of the actual offending act is all that is necessary to establish that misconduct, making them valuable documentation for any court case. Edited footage between the beginning and end of the clip is easily detected.

Taking an egregious example of the murder of George Floyd, there is no context that could have preceded the footage of his murder that would have justified kneeling on a man's neck for over 9 minutes. It also would have been trivial to detect if someone had extended the video to make it appear that he knelt longer than he did.

What are some examples of situations where you imagine that footage taken by a regular citizen could be edited to make an officer's reasonable actions look like police brutality or other major forms of police misconduct?

I can't speak to the actual legality, but I strongly feel that a less-dysfunctional system would account for the intent of the officer. It is undeniably an attempt to suppress widespread dissemination of video documentation of their actions, by taking advantage of a known flaw in the technology most commonly used to do so. At the very least, this should be a fireable offence on the first infraction, akin to tampering with their body camera.

Here's hoping this backfires on a lot of them. Environmental integrity is not theirs to sell out from under the rest of us.

Personally, I think it's important to encourage corporations to take human rights into greater consideration. Complex as the issue is, it still results in Apple enriching itself and a nation which could reasonably be considered an apartheid state, by doing business there. In my view, that gives them at least some responsibility to speak out against human rights violations by states hosting economies in which they participate, if not to stop doing business there entirely...

And when you observe that mask mandating states don’t do significantly better than mask-free states, then a curious mind rightfully starts pondering.

If this is true, which I haven't confirmed, wouldn't that say more about the effectiveness of political policy rather than about masks themselves? When we have seen throughout the pandemic that healthcare workers have a dramatically lower rate of infection compared to the general population, despite having more direct contact with infected populations, it is clear to the that proper precautions including protective equipment (principally masks, for a respiratory disease) can impede COVID transmission heavily. With that being the case, the question becomes: has mask policy been effective in getting enough people to wear masks properly and consistently, in states where it is mandated?

You said it yourself, switching would be a complication, and manufacturers are happy to maximize that complication as much as possible. I consider it unethical to impose artificial hurdles to switching upon consumers, especially when they most likely aren't familiar with vendor lock-in.

iMessage is a good example for me. It replaces a federated, universally-compatible service with a centralized service that works only on Apple devices. The upgraded features are nice enough to be alluring, and now a significant portion of American smartphone users feel compelled to remain with Apple so that they don't experience any difficulties communicating. This is a sticking point for me in particular; I used to be a heavy user of multi-protocol messengers like Trillian, during the time when multiple providers offered mutually incompatible messaging services.

It’s tough because Google and others are huge, they buy out competitors, it’s not anything like the restaurant market.

Not just that, they go to great effort to lock you into their ecosystem so that the difficulty of changing becomes a big part of the calculation.

If I had to make a comparison, instead of a restaurant, I'd suggest a company town. When you buy a Company X phone, you're moving to Xville, where everything is sold with predatory prices and low variety by the company store.

Thank you for taking the time, I understand the concept you're explaining, it just sounds implausible. At the end of the day, they're still fantasizing about children, they've just found a way to believe that they're doing it in a way that is not mentally deleterious. I'll keep reading, but it's going to take something extraordinary to convince me that the link between sexual excitement and the qualities that make up the concept of a child is something that manifests in people who aren't paedophiles.

I'm saying that violent media is fine for general consumption because the typical consumer is not prone to acts of violence, and the fantasy they are engaging in is temporary. The same is not true of child sexual abuse, where the typical consumer does have a mental illness that compels them to sexualize children.

I'll do some more reading, but I find the concept extremely implausible. If the fictional child did not represent a child in their mind, there would be no need to seek out media featuring children. The 2D/3D attraction hypothesis you've presented would exist aside their paedophilia.

These are dissimilar due to the pathological nature of child pornography consumption. Consider instead if you had a true compulsion to commit acts of violence. I'm not so sure a psychologist would give you the all-clear to consume media which feeds into that compulsion, even if it would be fine for a mentally sound person.

That's the sticking point here: there is no mentally healthy market for child sexual abuse.

What is it that you think interests people in seeing sexualized depictions of children when it's not the children themselves? Perhaps someone who lacks empathy may simply not care that they're fantasizing about children being abused, but I'm honestly trying think of any other scenario that is more plausible than them being sexually attracted to children.

What unique quality does child sexual abuse add to fiction which would override the loss of sexual desire that the average person feels with children?

I'll look up the names and articles you've mentioned, thanks for that. I've seen some information about the effects of porn consumption, but it's difficult to relate the results of a study on typical porn consumers with the effects of media depicting child sexual abuse on those with a mental illness compelling them to sexualize children. That's an enormous sticking point that also differentiates the typical consumer of fiction with the consumer of depictions of child sexual abuse. We can't expect someone consuming specific types of media pathologically to react the same way as a typical person consuming media that does not aggravate an illness of theirs.

Seems that way, but I'm glad I could offer a dissenting opinion; ending child sexual abuse is a topic of particular importance to me.

I'm not trying to convince you or win imaginary victories. If they're interested in sharing information, I'm willing to read it. Otherwise, I will stick with the opinion I've formed based on what I've already read from relevant experts over the years.

Having read dispassionate descriptions of some of the scenes and plot lines in that series, i.e. what occurred rather than someone's opinion about it, the controversy makes total sense to me. The fact that other series are worse is pretty troubling, too. Child sexual abuse shouldn't be exploited for the excitement of those who want to harm them.

I would welcome some links to what you've read on this topic if you're willing. I briefly Googled Patrick Galbraith, and he does not appear to have the relevant education in psychology necessary to conduct such research, so I would strongly prefer medically-authoritative sources of information.

Based on what I've read, I have absolutely no reason to believe that people who are sexually excited by the concept of children are limited to drawings of them, or that sexualized content featuring children is consumed by people who do not fantasize about raping children.

As far as the blame, I'm comfortable blaming the publisher, too. There's a lot to abhor about someone who would choose to make money by sexualizing children for the entertainment of others.

My mistake. I think I confused it for that anime that's been causing some controversy lately, where the grown man has the body of a child.

As far as drawn media not victimizing anyone goes: based on what I've read about the issue of mental illness, it's harmful for a mentally ill individual to engage in activities which reinforces their pathologies. In the case of a paedophile, it seems like it would be harmful to reinforce the link between sexual desire and children by enabling their fantasies. I don't believe that any temporary relief that offers would offset the elevating risk of committing a violent offence by someone whose mental illness is worsening.

I don't blame them for refusing to sell child pornography regardless of the legality or the format. Media meant to trigger the pathologies of the mentally ill, such as content encouraging paedophiles to continue sexualizing children, isn't something that anyone has a duty to sell or distribute.

I think the problem with that concept is that it's not possible so long as he's actively sharing his opinions and having those opinions amplified by supporters. Ignoring that problem won't make it go away, and I don't support preventing him from using his personal resources to share his opinions. Drawing additional attention to his opinions may create more stress in the immediate term, but for the greater long-term benefit of discouraging similar attitudes from growing in prominence within the community.

I'm more concerned about his influence on the free software community: Stallman thankfully lacks direct influence over legal matters, but he has a direct influence over the community's form and function. Essentially, I believe that he discourages valuable contributions to free software by contributing negatively to the impression of what kind of community a potential contributor would be joining. I can't remember an example offhand, but I've heard of existing contributors dissuaded from continuing because of that, as well.

I would be more inclined to agree if not for the fact that the board invited him back. Standing by him through this would have been bad enough, let alone inviting him back after his resignation. I don't have confidence in a board which believes this to be a wise decision.

They shouldn't lose their positions because of Stallman's beliefs, but because of their own unwise decision to return him to a position of greater influence.

The signatories are largely people who work on free and open source software projects, and their stated goal in keeping people like Stallman out of positions of influence within the community is to increase participation in general by discouraging behaviour that drives potential contributors away.

Having read a number of articles on both sides of this issue, I see no reason to believe that their advocacy is anything but genuinely motivated by a desire for a better community.

They described what is presently the case, so that couldn't reasonably be considered prescriptivism.

These people are attacking Stallman to reinforce their self-image of being "good" and "progressive".

This is a poor assessment, as it doesn't account for the fact that people cultivate the environment they want to be a part of. Removing people like Stallman from positions of influence within the community changes the tone of the community; while you may believe that change would be for the worse, it's better to acknowledge that others genuinely believe the inverse, rather than dishonestly dismissing it as blind reinforcement of self-identity.