Wollff

retributive violence against individual actors is not the same as dismantling oppressive systems

My problem is that I only understand one of those things. The other is meaningless hot air, spewed exclusively by intellectual elites who may or may not have any idea of what that is even supposed to mean.

work of creating resilient communities and networks of mutual aid to replace those heirarchies.

And that explanation doesn't tell me anything either. Put up a guillotine. Put the man in. Let the blade fall. I understand that. Create a network of mutual aid to replace hierarchies? Never saw that happen. Never learned about that, or how that is supposed to work. Don't know what that is supposed to mean, or how that is supposed to play out.

If you assume anyone knows about any of that, and if you assume that anyone can imagine anything concrete about that, you are out of touch. You are communicating ineffectively. At least to me. And probably to most other people as well.

Yes we do. Plenty of stuff is banned by federal law.

Do you get what I mean? If you do, why are you being so overly literal here?

Snuff films, for the same reason as CP/CSAM

And action movies are not. Neither are horror or slasher movies. Neither is porn. Even though each of them might (or might not) inspire and incentivize illegal deeds.

It is not a general principle we subscribe to. It is enforced very selectively, and only in areas that we find most shocking. Which is understandable, but neither reasonable, nor consistent. I don't know about you, but I think criminal law should be based on principles which are reasonable and consistent.

One such principle may be: "Media which may inspire illegal action, should be illegal themselves"

But that's not consistently enforced, but selectively, limited by criteria which seem dubious at best.

This is what I mean, when I say "This argument does not hold water"

These are all banned to stop demand.

And that's the interesting question: Why only these things, and nothing else? There is plenty of stuff out there which may inspire people toward illegal action, from real world depictions of violence, to action movies.

No worries! I hope I was not too much of a dick in my response, and I totally understand why and how you would read things the way you did. I'll just try to express myself more clearly in the future. You know, this communication thing? It's a never ending struggle! :D

My greatest internet achievement: I came up with the name for that story!

Okay, not quite, I came up with calling it "The Dagobah Story", but close enough! :D

And of course there are the trolls!

Even they are still properly trolly around here! How nostalgic! Maybe not even a bot.

I’m just pretty sure that people are either making it up or ascribing normal, terrestrial things that they don’t understand as fantastical things.

Yes.

As I said: If there were aliens, those fantastical things, are the descriptions I would expect through most of human history. And in most non US places. After all, aliens are a modern US legend, invented from Americans, for Americans.

I didn't say that there were any aliens anywhere. Or that there were any other fantastical things anywhere.

That “almost everywhere that isn’t the US, even today” is superstitious and wouldn’t know what aliens are

Didn't we just establish that aliens are superstition? I think you are overestimating how many people share "aliens" as the most popular superstition which comes to mind first.

Most of the US shares that. A lot of other places probably don't. Don't underestimate how many strange stories about strange things in the night are out there :D

The statement is disgusting and not really defensable by itself

I hate it when this happens. Why do feelings always play into this discussion? "The statement is disgusting", is not an argument, and should never be part of any discussion.

No matter how disgusted a statement might make you feel, if it has a good argument behind it, it should be regarded as true.

I agree that the argument doesn't quite work. And that's that.

“child porn isn’t abuse and should be legal”

I think that this is not true. It definitely is abuse. But I also think that the argument for why it is so, is not that trivial.

I mean, can you make it? Try it out!

Let's say someone distributes CP. How does what happens here, the sending of 0s and 1s across a wire, constitute abuse?

If you think about it like that, it doesn't.

Of course if you take into account a broader context, then this argument does break down. For the details you would probably need complex words and terms like "retraumatization" and "inability to consent", and "right to one's own image", and know a bit about what those things are, and how they work.

I wouldn't expect every 16 year old today to be able to get all of that straight. And I would not expect any 16 year old in the early 2000s, an age long, long before metoo, and any sensitivity toward sexual trauma, to be able to get that.

Thinking that isn’t going to lead to more actual children being exploited is extremely naive.

That particular argument doesn't hold water. We don't generally subscribe to this kind of argument.

The general principle behind the specific argument you bring up here is this: All expression which is likely to inspire someone toward illegal action should itself be illegal.

CP is likely to inspire some people toward child abuse. Child abuse is illegal. Thus the distribution of CP should be illegal.

We don't do this anywhere else.

Descriptions of non consesnual violence are likely to inspire some people toward non consensual violence. Non consensual violence is illegal. Thus the distribution of all descriptions of non consensual violence should be illegal.

If we take this seriously, we have to ban action movies. And I am not even getting into the whole porn debate...

No, the only valid reason for banning the distribution of child porn which I can think of, lies in the rights of the victims. The victims were abused, and their image was used without their consent. Without them even possibly being able to give consent to any of that, or the distribution that follows.

So anyone who shares child porn, is guaranteed to share a piece of media which shows someone being subjected to a crime, while they couldn't possibly give consent for that to be recorded, or shared publicly. Making it illegal to share someone being a victim of a crime, without them being able to consent to that being shared, is a reasoning which has far fewer problems than what you propose here.

You didn't get the point I made.

And I just went: "Children of time trilogy? That one only got 2 books!"

Seems like at some point in 2022 it has grown to a trilogy. Nice! Thanks for pointing that out, I now know what I'll read next :D

So… what were they mistaking the aliens for?

Ghosts. Spirits. Dragons. Or any other mythical creatures, or mythical phenomena of your choice.

If there were aliens, those are the descriptions I would expect through most of human history. And those are the descriptions I would expect in basically all the world, almost everywhere that isn't the US, even today.