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from the a-marriage-is-formed-between-one-man-and-one-electronic-computing-device dept.
More than a dozen state legislatures are considering a bill called the "Human Trafficking Prevention Act," which has nothing to do with human trafficking and all to do with one man's crusade against pornography at the expense of free speech.
At its heart, the model bill would require device manufacturers to pre-install "obscenity" filters on devices like cell phones, tablets, and computers. Consumers would be forced to pony up $20 per device in order to surf the Internet without state censorship. The legislation is not only technologically unworkable, it violates the First Amendment and significantly burdens consumers and businesses.
Perhaps more shocking is the bill's provenance. The driving force behind the legislation is a man named Mark Sevier, who has been using the alias "Chris Severe" to contact legislators. According to the Daily Beast, Sevier is a disbarred attorney who has sued major tech companies, blaming them for his pornography addiction, and sued states for the right to marry his laptop. Reporters Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny uncovered a lengthy legal history for Sevier, including an open arrest warrant and stalking convictions, as well as evidence that Sevier misrepresented his own experience working with anti-trafficking non-profits.
The bill has been introduced in some form [in] Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, West Virginia, and Wyoming (list here). We recommend that any legislator who has to consider this bill read the Daily Beast's investigation.
[...] It’s unfortunate that the Human Trafficking Prevention Act has gained traction in so many states, but we're pleased to see that some, such as Wyoming and North Dakota, have already rejected it. Legislators should do the right thing: uphold the Constitution, protect consumers, and not use the problem of human trafficking as an excuse to promote this individual’s agenda against pornography.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/04/states-introduce-dubious-legislation-ransom-internet
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday April 26 2017, @05:56PM (4 children)
And who upholds the agreement with the enforcer, and who upholds THAT agreement? Turtles all the way down!
Then there's that minor matter of infinite time to negotiate all those contracts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @06:33PM (3 children)
Competition within a market of voluntary trade is an evolutionary process—it's an iterative process; there's no dependence on an infinite regression of turtles—you just have to start somewhere, a starting point that is usually primitive and ugly and woefully incomplete. Given enough time, variation (possibly random) and selection (possibly mindless) can turn hydrogen atoms into the ordered human mind.
That minor matter of time is a technical problem.
I mean, how can you not see this?
Representative democracy with voters comprised of the general public was logistically inconceivable until society had developed various technological advancements, such as the printing press, widespread literacy and worldliness, infrastructure for the dissemination of information, collating machines, etc.
Why are you vehemently opposed to even thinking about how society could be constructed so as to give greater autonomy to individuals? It's... bizarre.
I'm the peasant of yore musing about the possibility of casting my vote along with the nobleman, whereas you're one of the grunts wondering whether I should be burned at the stake for heresy.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday April 27 2017, @03:39AM (2 children)
Actually, I'm the guy saying your "solution" obviously has a gaping hole in it and is asking you kindly to suggest a way to close that hole before we jump headlong into new territory.
I would also ask that we not try to go there before we have dissolved all corporate charters.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27 2017, @12:28PM (1 child)
I'm the one who has been advocating evolutionary processes, not revolutionary processes.
However, you've got to be open to new ideas before you can even begin thinking about developing new organizational structures in parallel with the existing order of things. That's all I'm suggesting: Be interested in thinking about ways that society can be organized so as to give more autonomy to the individual, and to give society a foundation for tapping into the universe's most robust process for forging a practical shape for complex phenomena: Evolution by Variation and Selection.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday April 27 2017, @09:07PM
You also need to read the signs that say dead end so you can pick a better way before you burn a bunch of time on a fruitless search.