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In Passing SESTA/FOSTA, Lawmakers Failed to Separate Their Good Intentions from Bad Law
The U.S. Senate just voted 97-2 to pass the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA, H.R. 1865), a bill that silences online speech by forcing Internet platforms to censor their users. As lobbyists and members of Congress applaud themselves for enacting a law tackling the problem of trafficking, let's be clear: Congress just made trafficking victims less safe, not more.
The version of FOSTA that just passed the Senate combined an earlier version of FOSTA (what we call FOSTA 2.0) with the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA, S. 1693). The history of SESTA/FOSTA—a bad bill that turned into a worse bill and then was rushed through votes in both houses of Congress—is a story about Congress' failure to see that its good intentions can result in bad law. It's a story of Congress' failure to listen to the constituents who'd be most affected by the laws it passed. It's also the story of some players in the tech sector choosing to settle for compromises and half-wins that will put ordinary people in danger.
[...] Throughout the SESTA/FOSTA debate, the bills' proponents provided little to no evidence that increased platform liability would do anything to reduce trafficking. On the other hand, the bills' opponents have presented a great deal of evidence that shutting down platforms where sexual services are advertised exposes trafficking victims to more danger.
Freedom Network USA—the largest national network of organizations working to reduce trafficking in their communities—spoke out early to express grave concerns [.pdf] that removing sexual ads from the Internet would also remove the best chance trafficking victims had of being found and helped by organizations like theirs as well as law enforcement agencies.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Revek on Friday March 23 2018, @01:54PM (32 children)
They want to eliminate all vice. They have the simplistic belief that if they just get rid of any vice that it will result in people being different.
This will be used way outside of its intended scope. It will affect people who have nothing to do with trafficking.
These sudo moralists will say it is justified because they never question their own morals or beliefs.
This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 23 2018, @02:29PM (7 children)
"While we can’t speculate on the agendas of the groups behind SESTA, we can study those same groups’ past advocacy work. Given that history, one could be forgiven for thinking that some of these groups see SESTA as a mere stepping stone to banning pornography from the Internet or blurring the legal distinctions between sex work and trafficking."
Too many laws in America are stalking horses for restricting, not just commercial sexual activity, but all unapproved sexual activity. And the people who'd be doing the approving don't look like people I want in charge of my or my kid's sex life.
Child pornography and sex trafficking are both real, serious, problems. We should deal with them, not work to make it harder for sex workers and horny teenagers. But for a lot of the pressure groups in this area, the second thing is _their actual goal_.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 23 2018, @03:16PM (6 children)
You miss the point. This has nothing to do with sex trafficking.
It has everything to do with internet censorship.
Today on WSWS: Behind the Facebook data scandal: The drive to censor the Internet [wsws.org].
It's merely a happy coincidence tying in with #MeToo that creating an atmosphere of sexual repression tends to create support for war. We're heading for World War 3, and the moon matrix is preparing you.
See also WSWS' articles on the CIA takeover of the D team. The CIA takeover of the Democratic Party [wsws.org].
Unless
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by arcz on Friday March 23 2018, @03:48PM (5 children)
(Score: 1, Troll) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 23 2018, @05:42PM (4 children)
I feel like you're mangling some talking point you heard somewhere...
All courts are Article III courts because Article III of the Constitution is what creates the Judicial branch of our government.
Article I creates the Legislative branch, which has no courts.
Article II creates the Executive branch, which has no courts.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Friday March 23 2018, @06:52PM (2 children)
FISC is referred to as an Article III court [wlu.edu]. Article III permits Congress to create federal courts.
However, there are Article I courts [wikipedia.org]:
See the link for lists of Article I and Article III tribunals. FISC is listed under Article III.
Can the Constitutionality of the FISA court ever be accurately determined? The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court appoints the judges, so maybe not.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by arcz on Friday March 23 2018, @07:14PM
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 23 2018, @09:06PM
Good point, takyon, you've proven me wrong.
(Score: 2) by arcz on Friday March 23 2018, @07:11PM
(Score: 5, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Friday March 23 2018, @02:49PM (18 children)
A great deal of what they're doing is vice: "Immoral or wicked behavior."
Consensual, informed adult choice and/or commerce is not "vice." Interfering with it is. So is making it harder for those who are affected by actual misdeeds, such as being forced to participate in something not of their choice, to report and/or deal with such things, and also with forcing legitimate behaviors underground where support systems (medical, financial, safety) have a much harder time being effective.
TL;DR: Fuck these legislators. With an extra-large pineapple.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday March 23 2018, @03:46PM (17 children)
Individuals do not determine what vice is or is not. Communities do. More precisely individuals can and do define what vice is for themselves, but the community has always had a vested interest in defining what is moral as a group. The modern USian notion of "Muh rights and you can't stopz muh freedums" is a very recent invention. And yes, I'm being way too flip with that as individual rights are extremely important. They are not everything, though. The community has every right to say you should not be permitted to glug down bootleg hooch with methanol and blind yourself requiring tax support for the remainder of your days. The community has every right to conclude smoking ads increase the number of smokers which increase public health costs and therefore such ads may be banned. The community has every right to decide that there is no way to differentiate prostitutes who are working independently from those who are in effect slaves and therefore such ads are not legal.
Do I agree that the problem will be solved that way? Haven't thought enough about it. Likely not. But a group of people trying to survive as a group have every right to pass laws regarding the conduct of the group - hopefully with respect for freedoms embedded... but not unlimitedly so.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 23 2018, @05:15PM (1 child)
Here's the thing: the people pushing this are not part of MY community.
When that is true, the whole "community" argument just falls apart.
They are a pressure group pushing their own interests... nothing more.
It's not as if this was some ordinance passed by a town council to apply within its own boundaries.
The U.S. as a whole DOES NOT constitute one "community". It is far too large and diverse for that.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday March 23 2018, @07:17PM
There are some gentlemen of the South who I'm sure would agree with your opinion. Sadly for your case, their opinion about whether morals could be imposed nationally did not obtain. [wikipedia.org]
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 23 2018, @05:47PM (1 child)
Within the limits defined by our interpretation of the Constitution, of course...
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday March 23 2018, @07:10PM
Of course. On both sides of the coin of liberty and the limits thereof.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Friday March 23 2018, @09:04PM (12 children)
This is the very "morals are relative" argument that led to "the community" backing various forms of involuntary slavery; sending the Jews and T5 "individuals" to the death camps; various pograms, inquisitions, and other forms of abuse and pillage; repression of women (then and now); the alienation and persecution of adult, consenting homosexuals; witch burnings and so on and so on.
Moral relativism is the refuge of the simpleminded and/or the turdpocket. What you are trying cast as relative is in actuality ignorance and/or vicious, disingenuous, selfish authoritarianism.
The fact is, the only moral and vice-free path forward for individuals and communities is to base all actions and rules upon respect of the individual:
I hereby invite you to peruse this chart; [fyngyrz.com] it provides a basic, but relatively complete, guide to constructing law in an ethical and moral manner, without descending into immoral and/or evil action.
Further, here's a bit on civil disobedience [fyngyrz.com] that is directly relevant to these issues. Should link following prove too onerous, here's a quote from someone who put it very well (also in the linked article):
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 23 2018, @11:41PM
Morals are relative. Sorry. Unless you can provide scientific evidence for the existence of absolute morality, you will not sway me. I'm not referring to cultural relativism, either, but the fact that morals are nothing more than subjective opinions, no matter how much some wish it were not so.
This does not mean you cannot say 'In my opinion, your actions are morally wrong.' That is just an opinion. You can be a hardcore libertarian while also realizing that there is no evidence for the existence of absolute morality, because being a libertarian or not depends on your beliefs regarding liberty and not whether you believe in absolute morality. Likewise, you can conduct a genocide while maintaining that morality is absolute; you merely have to say that what you're doing is morally righteous, which many such people do. The reality is that merely claiming that morality is absolute does not stop atrocities from occurring, because even if that were true, there is no known way of proving which morals are correct and which aren't. So, this idea that a belief in absolute morality will somehow solve our problems is demonstrably wrong. Not to mention that the supposed consequences of moral relativism have nothing to do with whether or not morality is absolute.
So what you're doing here is a distraction. Go ahead and argue in favor of liberty; chances are, I will personally agree with you. Asserting that morality is not relative is just a waste of time.
That other person is also wrong. What is and is not a "vice" is 100% subjective, and as such, is decided by individuals. A group of people who agree with one another may form, but that does not mean that the group is somehow more correct than a single individual with an opinion.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday March 24 2018, @02:23AM (2 children)
Don't confuse moral relativism with moral subjectivism; they're two entirely different things. All moral relativism means is that morals exist because of and in context of something else, rather than as free-floating Platonic ideal forms.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Saturday March 24 2018, @02:54PM (1 child)
My bad; thank you. I'll be more careful in the future. Can't edit posts, so there you go. :)
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday March 24 2018, @05:32PM
Oh, don't worry, almost no one knows the difference to begin with, and thinks of something closer to subjectivism when they say relativism.
To really make that kind of person's head explode, point out to them that Divine Command Theory is literally the Platonic Ideal of moral subjectivism :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday March 26 2018, @03:12PM (7 children)
They are also the very deontologic principles that leads to "the community" in the form of the Union declaring that individual states can be slaveholding against the individuals of the Confederacy, that "the community" in the form of the Allies intervening against the Axis was a moral action (or should the U.S. have stayed out if Pearl Harbor hadn't happened?), enshrining protections for LBGTQ as a matter of national and not local law, declaring that Southern universities cannot say Blacks cannot attend them and sending in Federal troops to enforce that.
You are very passionate about what you've written, and I found it food for thought. There was a period where I believed very similarly, and on some issues still do. (I found Heinlein a good influence in this regard, and still find the work of Williamson and Scalzi interesting.) I am sorry to say that it doesn't change my belief that the rights of the individual are balanced against those of the community and that both have legitimate interests. Rarely are issues as cut and dried as you present them as, especially in matters which you might believe to be solely the domain of informed/adult/personal choices - such choices often also carry consequence to the community. It must be that way because we cannot survive in isolation. We are forced to live together because without doing so we die separately. Thus the decisions as to what right/wrong, legal/illegal, and goodness/badness cannot occur in an individual vacuum.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Monday March 26 2018, @04:27PM (6 children)
You'll have to be more specific, as that's quite contrary to my experience. I'm very interested in what you might put on the table in this regard.
Informed*, personal / consensual choices rarely – as in, almost never – have any notable consequences WRT the survival of the community that arise solely from those choices. In a case where they do, I have no problem with your argument. But consider: when a choice drops truly harmful consequences – typically physical, financial, property, reputation – upon others without their consent, it is by definition no longer personal or consensual. So I have no problem with my argument, either. :)
However, when we actually look at real-world, specific incidents, for by far the vast majority of them the only serious consequences to the community are those suffered by the people making the choices, and/or by the community because of the community's interference..
Most serious follow-on effects - such as internecine violence among illegal drug users, sellers, and the authorities – are also a direct consequence of the community screwing with them in unwise ways.
Mind you, I'm not talking about things like the absurd proposition that there is any justification for any claim at all to a "right not to be offended."
The shoe is most definitely on the other (the community that is interfering) foot for pretty much everything that comes to mind for me, and I think this renders your position moot in most, perhaps nearly all, cases. If you have significant counter-examples, I'd be very interested to consider them. Always willing to learn.
At this point, the way I see it, is if we could get rid of the anti-personal-liberty laws, the community's self-inflicted consequences will go away. Leaving only those direct, significant consequences to the people making informed, personal, consensual choices. Sometimes there won't even be any of those. Pot smoking, for example, rarely (ever?) has any serious consequences that aren't externally inflicted by the community.
BTW, not a recreational drug user here, not since I was a teenager, other than a glass of wine to tune up the palette with my pasta once a week or so. I think almost all recreational drug use is foolish, at the very least. But I totally support people's choice to go that way if they like.
* Legally speaking, "adult" is covered by informed... it's an extremely dubious metric to use, but that's a separate issue.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday March 26 2018, @11:04PM (5 children)
OK. Just as a for-example: What happens when you overdose on an opiate? You can start with the physiologic symptoms but I'm more interested in what happens when you're discovered in such a condition and the next 72 hours afterward.
What additional consequences occur when you do so regularly?
You are a prostitute, and you get pregnant. What happens at that point? What occurs if (when) you contract HIV?
What occurs to a 70 year old person whose life savings are taken away by a scam artist? What occurs if that person isn't caught?
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday March 27 2018, @01:42AM (4 children)
Okay; note that my answers are in the context of the current economic model. Before all that long, I don't think there will be a shortage of resources, as I expect automation will bring in an "economy of plenty" and economic triage will then not be needed. The available-resources picture for covering people for errors would also change radically if we stopped wasting money on the world's most useless and bloated military. But we're not in either of those places, so:
Your overdose scenario can be a very good example of the community foolishly acting to disadvantage its members. If you do something to yourself, the community does not owe you medical care. If the community chooses to set up rules that says it will, or has to, provide such care at the community's expense, this is bad law, imposing those unlooked-for and undeserving costs upon the non-consenting. This is a very good example of where bad law can magnify the harm that comes from people's personal and consensual choices by imposing costs on everyone else.
My suggestion would be, if it's the community dealing with this, then subsequent to lab tests to confirm the overdose, put them on a cheap cot and see if they wake up before they starve to death, then kick them out or bury them in a pit if they die. If the family, friends etc., want to deal with it, then they can pay for it. Or, if the person who overdosed obviously has the resources, the community could take them in payment, and then provide care up until they run out, returning what can be returned of any left if they don't run out. If the problem is unknown, the costs can be contained as mentioned above by immediate lab work, which is neither expensive or slow (I was married to a surgeon for many years, so I am quite familiar with all this.) You might still be able to collect the costs, although they wouldn't be that high, from the individual's estate, presuming they don't survive. Or even if they do. Collection is a current thing.
You have fewer opiate users. Also, some (very few) people may learn from the example. Because people who abuse drugs, very definitely including alcohol, are inherently being stupid. You can't fix stupid; if it's that the person is constantly stupid because they are stupid, well, there you go. If it's a smart person being stupid, they might take a lesson from someone else's demise. Might.
You'll also have fewer users because no one is sitting around daring them to use – there's no "I'm a bad boy/girl cachet left. Just "I'm stupid." That's why a lot of people don't drink, including me: it's stupid. It's legal, but entirely unattractive to me. It's like other stupid things; don't choose to jump off cliffs or out of perfectly good aircraft, don't ingest drugs for the "fun" of it. Stay completely, utterly away from anything with "ADDICTIVE" on the label. Which should always be there if that's the case, opiates being an excellent example of this.
Also, higher quality drugs, with dependable dosage levels, would be available in a drugs-are-legal environment (because profit motivates such things, just as with alcohol) resulting in a much clearer line between a person who made a choice and person who is a victim of random drug quality/dosage. The latter is one of the (many) costs that the drug war imposes upon people making these choices. That cost is entirely artificial.
You have a baby or an abortion, same as now. Non-medically required abortions should be early, prior to differentiation of a nervous system, otherwise it's murder of an innocent. If you need medical care, you buy it. Same as now. The father is liable for support. We have genetic testing; records of clients and a totally above-board legal framework that let the worker locate the father would be a good step upwards for society.
If prostitution wasn't criminalized, they'd have better resources in terms of education, healthcare, associations, legal counsel, etc. Many of the prostitute's current problems are artificially imposed by bad law upon people making these personal/consensual choices.
You get treatment, presuming you can pay for it, or, if the community decides to cover it, the community does. Same as now. People get HIV. That someone paid them for the causative act is relevant, how?
Also, if someone has sex with you, knowing they have HIV, and does not disclose this prior to the act, then they have harmed you intentionally, and they should be liable – and I know that's the case in some jurisdictions already. So again, same as now. Although I have some ideas about sexual consent that would really help out here. All "you can't non-consensually harm others" laws are smart laws. No one should get away with non-consensual intentional harm to another person. That's as anti-liberty/insane as it gets. If you learn you have HIV, then buy some sex toys, some hand cream, and hope like hell they find a cure. Or find a partner who also has HIV, that might work out. You have sex with someone who doesn't have it without informing them so they know you have it prior to any contact, they might be willing to kill you themselves, and I wouldn't convict them for it – their right to strike back arises from your non-consensual harm to them. Knowingly giving someone HIV or any other serious STD is straight-up non-consensual harm, and in spades.
There are many laws against doing non-consensual harm to others. This is exactly that. Same as now. If it's actually a scam, it's illegal. The attempt is made to catch the one who did the harm. If it's not a scam, it's your consequence, enjoy. Current legal examples are trips to Vegas, the stock market, the options portion of the stock market, kickstarter, etc. We know how to deal with this. The key is consent being offered by an informed buyer. You sell something, you make damn sure the buyer is informed. If they aren't, you're scamming, and you are criminally liable.
You're reduced by whatever was taken. Same as now. Also, probably same as if they catch the scam artist, same as now. Also, they probably won't catch them, same as now. The world is not a padded room.
----
So, if you make an informed choice that harms yourself, they you should bear the consequences, unless the community wants to bear them for you (which is almost always a very poor choice on the part of the community.) You can bear the consequences by paying for ameliorating whatever you did to yourself and/or your consenting partner(s), or by suffering through the consequences, or having them do you in. The community, if they decide to cover your choice, may be able to, if it's smart (obviously not that smart already if they're covering for your informed and freely chosen consequences, but...), recoup costs from you and/or your consenting partner(s) and/or your estate, if there are any resources to recover.
If you make a choice that harms the non-consenting you are liable. The community can protect itself from this by declining to provide you with a safety net. If the community decides to provide a safety net, it is consenting to cover you. Which is not too bright IMHO, as they are imposing those consequences on the non-consenting in so doing.
I am of course aware that all of this requires a considerable re-jiggering of law, and is unlikely in the extreme, because not only are people stupid, lawmakers are stupid.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday March 27 2018, @10:54PM (3 children)
Thanks for the reply. I thought about it considerably over today. There are elements I disagree with, but don't have time today to respond to. (Hopefully I'll be able to sometime before the weekend is up, but I want to disagree in a way that is respectful of the time and stance you've taken).
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday March 27 2018, @11:26PM (2 children)
No worries, thanks for the reply.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday April 04 2018, @02:05PM (1 child)
There are many other examples I could give – to me it is self-evident that no person is an island and your choices impact me as mine impact you. People don’t survive otherwise. And I think those include many of the ones that you may consider “personal.”
Specific example of where “personal” matters induce societal cost are ones I highlighted. I understand you’d prefer the system to be different. But they are the way they are right now, and they well could be (I think are) that way because they’re wanted to be that way over any other potential solution.
All vices which are regulated these days, for example, generally have some public costs to them. Alcohol (methanol from bootleg hooch is sufficient to say you can’t home distill. Cirrhosis from extended excess usage and complications of dependence is more than I want to go to here but also carries a public health cost because we don’t just “let people die” without helping them if they want it). Drugs, let’s not even get started – I’m not talking pot. Making fentanyl legally OTC will not solve the opioid problem and I’ve seen too many addicts to believe otherwise. (It will be interesting to see if the ‘make pot legal’ reduces it actually washes.) Prostitution: STD’s. You want to sleep around, OK, but the county VD clinic doesn’t have to just subsidize a career choice with free healthcare let alone the pregnancy risk – such behavior can be proscribed. (Yet that same county clinic needs to exist and accept all comers, so to speak – history has shown it becomes a public health emergency otherwise). Gambling - illegal gaming is illegal for reasons more than just the right people aren’t making money and that’s all I’ll say right now. Smoking is about the only unregulated vice that is legal to practice in public, we just now tax the hell out of it. Ironically, it is the most likely one to directly impact someone else’s health.
If society is going to provide medical care (and meals via charity and all-too-insufficient shelter – IMVHO these shouldn’t be charity but state functions but that’s my opinion,) to those who ask for it then society has every right to create rules around the behaviors which put people at risk for their use. Your mileage may vary, and you might not believe that society should offer such things. Doing so is the human thing to do. If you go to the Emergency Room can they turn you away if you can’t pay? You may or may not believe in that, but I believe the system we have in this regard is broken but at least functional. I like living in a country where such things exist. We should have them. But their cost is that society gets to have a say in what you might see as personal matters, lest the demand for them reach to unattainable supply goals (if they're not there already).
The core of our disagreement is likely that you see individual liberty as the foundational cornerstone around which all other ethical rights and obligations should flow around. I don’t. On the other hand, I don’t believe that a collectivist obligation to society or societal control should be the foundational cornerstone of ethics and law is correct, either. Personally I try (imperfectly) for altruism, and practically I think altruism requires the balancing between the two as where the center exists. And in so doing I recognize nothing is truly personal nor truly public and there is neither absolute freedom nor obligation. But I’m likely to side with the case which minimizes suffering. (Which is a whole ‘nother round, because from what I’ve read I think you think your solution does the same at a remove.)
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday April 04 2018, @04:59PM
This is not sufficiently true to be a blanket condition. If I choose to read some random book of fiction and you don't, these choices are not impactful in any way that justifies a valid use of force to either make you read the book, or prevent me from reading it. So WRT many such issues, we are islands, we can't even see each other from our islands they are so isolated, and so law on such matters is entirely inappropriate. Now: I would ask that before you might decide I'm just being pedantic, please read the rest of my response.
If I physically harm you, this does create a circumstance that justifies a valid use of counter force. For instance, I scratch or punch or stab or shoot you. I'm an advocate of:
The supporting concept is that your right to remain free of non-consensual harm and formalized reprisal by society both depend entirely upon your never initiating non-consensual arm to others. But implicit in this is also a dark shadow of if society non-consensually harms me or mine, they'd better have a reason I can agree with or they're in the same boat. This is the dangerous side of making bad law; when unjustified harm is offered, reactions are likely to be both severe and justifiable.
As to offense: If I am offended by a choice you make, this cannot give rise to a justified use of force. I have to be harmed, and harming myself - for instance, having a mental conniption because I saw someone's nipple or junk - doesn't count. That's me being stupid, not someone harming me.
There's a world of discussion on a per-issue and all-consequences to non-consenting parties basis to be had here; on top of which conflicting rights to be free of unjustified use of force lie heavily.
For instance: If we decide, as a community (let's say majority vote just so there's a concrete concept of "community" in play) that we are going to provide medical care for all, in the context of "it will cost us in taxes", then we have balanced the harming of taxpayer's finances against the harm of leaving someone without adequate medical care and come down on the side of providing care is more important than protecting the taxpayer from financial harm. Both are real cases of harm; both deserve careful consideration. And just for the record, I think that harming the taxpayer to provide care for all is the right answer at this point in time. But I recognize the questions, and consider both instances of harm to be entirely valid.
Since you mentioned gambling: the "problem" here, at least as most of our misguided social engineers see it, is that gambling unwisely, even in the face of forbidding going into gambling-caused debt, can reduce a person's financial state to zero, and now we have someone who society might feel a need to support. One decent answer to this is to tax gambling in proportion to the expenses that society can be determined to be subject to. For the record, this sort of thing just begs for regulation to make it balance out; but not to make gambling itself illegal. Gambling outside the bounds of legality - gambling with borrowed money, for instance, is perfectly reasonable for a "that should be illegal" discussion - again, this is a solid place to look for reasonable solutions. That can address a whole multitude of problems without telling people in a blanket fashion that "they cannot gamble", period.
I created this as a top-level guide to trying to navigate these ideas [fyngyrz.com]
I think you have that right: I see it as the starting point from which we should evaluate everything else. Exceptions and caveats should exist, one obvious issue is when one right impacts another. But it's not just individual liberty: I think it is very important to distinguish when society takes a hit on the nose, as opposed to when society is offended; just the same as it should be with an individual.
I agree. I think that we can both afford it, and that we should do it. However, the "then"...
Only when those rules don't interfere with personal / consensual informed choice. Remember: The "personal / consensual" part of that requires consent from those who are affected. The general classes of "affected" would be physically harmed; financially harmed; property harmed; reputation harmed. That may not be exhaustive, but it's a good starting point.
Some expectations, like expecting your property value to be something specific based on your neighbor's property value, I consider to be outright unreasonable. However, things like expecting your property and the resources that are shared (air and water, for instance) to remain entirely unpolluted by your neighbor, I do consider reasonable. So there are some subtleties and the only way to really call them out is to explore specific issues.
I agree the system is broken; if we want this capability - and I think we should have it - then in the current context, where the cost ends up somewhere, we have to establish a proper system for dealing with the cost. That's where things are broken.
But I also think this is going to go away relatively shortly in historical terms. Automation is very likely to bring about an economy of plenty, and that should fix the whole "medical care is only available to those with resources" problem. From now until then, however, the system will continue to be broken, because as individuals depend on their financial state for their ability to survive, much less thrive, they will be "tuned" to hoard those resources, leaving little or none for the "have nots."
Some of those costs are illusory, or self-inflicted. Recreational drug laws and prostitution laws being high profile poster children for many of these.
Nothing will "solve" these problems, because the nature of them is that they arise simply because people make poor choices, not because they are legal or illegal.
My problem with the recreational drug laws is that they don't go any worthy distance at all towards "solving" the problem of recreational drug use, but instead, create an entirely new raft of problems that benefit only the owners of prisons, the leeches in the legal system, and the pulpits of lying, disingenuous politicians and other pundits-for-profit, while making the actual problems of the drug user much, much worse.
When the cure is not only worse than the disease, but isn't actually a cure, a mistake has been made. That's recreational drug law in a nutshell.
I want to emphasize here that I consider recreational drug use beyond the very most mild cases (coffee, wine for the palette rather than the head) to be well on the stupid side of decision making. But I understand that people make stupid decisions all the time.
That leads me to this: I think that rather than trying to pile on mommy laws until hell won't have it, the optimum role of government in this mess is education. I am in the very front row when it comes to saying that the government presently does an incredibly shitty job of educating the public. I could go on for hours about it, and most of what I have to say about it would massively offend the religious, the sexually repressed, the capital-L libertarians, the lefties, the righties, the authoritarians... you get the general idea.
You started with:
This I know. But it doesn't mean I should stop nudging folks, trying to make them think about the things that many of them take for granted. Any change in the right direction seems to me to be a good thing. And in those cases where I am wrong, I still see no downside to having made people think about the issue.
Yes, I know the people who will actually think, as opposed to regurgitate what they've been told are few and far between. We can't fix stupid. Yet.
(Score: 4, Informative) by tangomargarine on Friday March 23 2018, @09:18PM (3 children)
pseudo [wikipedia.org] and sudo [wikipedia.org] are two very different things.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 23 2018, @09:38PM
They are (roughly) homophones. I'd suggest that perhaps Revek [soylentnews.org] *likes* homophones, but he might misunderstand that too, and think I'm addressing his sexual orientation.
Life is hard sometimes. ;)
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Saturday March 24 2018, @01:46AM
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday March 28 2018, @12:12AM
Pseudo make me a sandwich!
oh... uh... ew. :)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Marand on Friday March 23 2018, @11:06PM
It's probably not a coincidence that it's also a win for the big businesses that want the internet to be a consumption-only TV 2.0. I read the article and some of its follow-up links, and one of the concerns here is that this begins chipping away at immunities granted by Section 230, which protects platform owners from liability over most user-generated content. Every new exception added makes it that much riskier (and more costly) to allow user content at all, leading us slowly to a largely read-only internet where sites like SN, reddit, and /. are too risky to run.
I say "largely" because huge businesses could still manage without Section 230 by employing moderator teams and strict "offend nobody" content policies; user content would technically still exist that way, but in a bland, milquetoast form, sanitised for the lowest common denominator. Which is precisely the sort of content corporations and advertisers tend to want and encourage already, so eroding the protections of a law that helps their smaller competition is a win for them.