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France to set legal age of sexual consent as 15
France plans to fix the legal age of sexual consent as 15, meaning sex with someone younger than that would be considered rape.
Equality Minister Marlène Schiappa welcomed the move, which follows advice from doctors and legal experts. Currently, prosecutors must prove sex with someone under 15 was forced in order to bring rape charges. The change comes amid uproar over two recent cases of men accused of having sex with 11-year-old girls.
Under the existing legislation, if there is no violence or coercion proved, offenders may only be charged with sexual abuse of a minor and not rape. This has a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a fine of €75,000 (£66,000; $87,000).
[...] The government is to approve the new age limit as part of a package of other laws against sexual violence and harassment in the coming weeks. It had been discussing whether to set the age as 13 or 15, which is what groups fighting violence against children had campaigned for.
Les commentaires déplorables.
Also at The Local, NPR, and SBS.
Related: French Porn Star Hits Back at President Emmanuel Macron's Plans to Censor Online Porn
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday March 08 2018, @07:14AM (8 children)
2c. Kill all (males|females). The remaining (females|males) will reproduce artificially.
I actually like this one, but without the killing part: just sterilize everyone, and do all reproduction artificially and let the state handle child-rearing. Right now, it's a disaster, with the people who make the very worst parents having the most kids, and the people who'd make good parents having few or none, and a huge number of kids growing up in poverty (with society basically outsourcing a lot of reproduction to improverished people through some meager handouts).
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday March 08 2018, @07:36AM (4 children)
If you think the problems we create are bad, ... [shopify.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday March 08 2018, @04:59PM (3 children)
Other countries seem to do just fine with their governments. Do Norwegians complain about their government? From over here, it seems like their government works decently well. Same for the Danish government and the Swiss government. The Japanese government doesn't seem too bad either; they sure do a much better job with public transit and trains than we do (or just about anyone for that matter).
Just because one country can't seem to have an effective government doesn't mean they're all necessarily like that.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday March 08 2018, @09:19PM (2 children)
Do the govts you listed substitute themselves for parenting (like the OP suggested some should try)?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Touché) by Grishnakh on Thursday March 08 2018, @09:35PM (1 child)
No, I don't think any governments do that, except maybe the US government where letting your young children out of your sight in public is a high crime and will get you arrested for "child abandonment". Meanwhile, over in Japan, young children (like 7-8) are pushed out of the home and made to walk themselves to school instead of having helicopter parents with them every minute of the day.
But if governments did decide to get into the business of parenting, it seems like those countries would probably figure out a pretty good way of doing it somehow, perhaps getting retired people involved with the kids to an extent, organizing activities to mix them with other parts of society, etc. In the US, they'd probably just set up big compounds resembling prisons, run by large corporations under contract.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday March 08 2018, @11:12PM
You mean like in those Second World countries, where the retired grandparents aren't automatically discarded into the jaws of an aged care industry which they can't afford, but kept nearby and contributing to the care and education of their grandchildren. Keeping the retired moderately active also improve their quality of life.
Who would have thought the natural way (which, as side effect, deny profits to an industry worth zillions in First World countries) could be better?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday March 08 2018, @07:49AM (1 child)
The cries from the religious and civil rights activists would be intense. It would be seen as eugenics, playing God, and/or an attempt to wipe out the disproportionately poor black population. It would probably spark a kind of civil war and intense domestic terrorism. It would never get proposed in the first place because America runs on Dunkin'... I mean it runs primarily on Jesus Christ. It's not clear that America has an overpopulation crisis or that additional people would be bad for the economy. There are also other, more conspiracy-y ways to get rid of citizens. Ground wars probably wouldn't do enough and we don't have conscription anymore. Ramping up the Drug War and playing both sides (dealer and DEA) could score some casualties. The CIA can give pointers. The CDC says heroin-related deaths [cdc.gov] increased by a factor of 5 from 2010-2016. And if you've seen the anemic White House summit(s) [soylentnews.org] on the issue, you'll know that the trend might not be reversing anytime soon. So for all we know, the plan is in full effect. And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday March 08 2018, @04:54PM
The cries from the religious and civil rights activists would be intense. It would be seen as eugenics, playing God, and/or an attempt to wipe out the disproportionately poor black population. It would probably spark a kind of civil war and intense domestic terrorism.
Well, how about we eliminate the sterilization part and just do the second part?
One significant issue is that, if we just continue with things as they are, populations are going to decrease. In most western countries, the only reasons populations are increasing at all is because of immigration. In Japan, it's decreasing, since they don't have much immigration. We're now finding that when a society is educated and prosperous and technological, no longer agrarian, and no longer treats women as second-class citizens mainly consigned to being incubators and domestic servants, that people just don't have many kids, if any. Assuming every society reaches this state of education and relative peace and prosperity and technologicalism eventually, then the phenomenon we have now of people migrating from poor countries to richer ones will slow down and finally stop, but the birth rates everywhere will be low, and population globally will start falling. At that point, what is society supposed to do? Sure, maybe we don't *need* 10B people, but smaller societies are less productive societies, and it's unlikely there's going to become a natural equilibrium: people just don't want to have 2.5 kids per couple when they're employed and have better things to do with their time than change diapers and aren't being forced into that line of work.
The society depicted in Brave New World may seem extreme from our current point-of-view, but I see it as the realistic choice when a society has reached the point where its members simply aren't willing to become unpaid volunteers doing the labor necessary to maintain or expand the population.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday March 08 2018, @11:37AM
That's a Brave New World you are describing.