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Pretty sure I posted in this thread. In fact I know I did. It ended up as the first post on Page 3. Awesome modding there, no need to give a reason, just delete the post that clearly contains relevant, on-topic content? Whatevs. I'll try again.

Basically, David Cameron is insane. He evidently doesn't realize how ineffective this will be at anything anyway. It's like the whole blocking of piracy sites all over again. It won't stop anybody from actually using it. In this case all it will do is give lazy parents a happy thought blanket of not having to worry about actually parenting, because their benevolent overseer government has blocked pornographic materials. All it will really do is keep parents out of the loop. The younger generations that have grown up with modern PCs are unilaterally more savvy than their parents or those of the older generation. These blocks will only be a blip on their radar if they really want content, and the belief that the content is being blocked will prevent parents from actually taking responsibility for trying to give their children a moral framework on which to present decisions. As usual when it comes to crack-pots like this guy, they seem to view morality as a punitive restraint. a penalty that we are obliged to bear for being human. As such it's only natural that such unrealistic doofuses would endorse a standard informed by prohibitions backed by personal threats and psychological and legal sanctions.

From the BBC report on this topic:

In addition, the prime minister said possessing online pornography depicting rape would become illegal in England and Wales - in line with Scotland.

This one seems to be a bit of a slippery slope stemming from the obvious and reasonable illegality of other questionable materials, such as child pornography. However I think in this case it's a lot different. Child Pornography has huge moral and legal issues in that the subjects are never of legal age and cannot consent; additionally the very act of creating the material is child abuse in it's purest form. It's illegal and amoral and the only way a person could thing otherwise is if they themselves are immoral. *cough* Richard Stallman *cough* The difference is that in pornography depicting rape it is actors that are older and able to create and form their own decisions and who willingly take part in such recordings; making this illegal is only done in terms of the subjective moral framework of Cameron himself.

From BBC:

Mr.Cameron warned in a speech that access to online pornography was "corroding childhood".

Does he have any peer-reviewed studies that quantify this corrosion? No, of course not. It's a blanket statement made to get the support of old people that are so out of touch with technology they hate everything about it and related to it by default.

The irony, is that in legislating this, it is basically, "Do what we say willingly or we will force you to do it." You know who else might say something like that? Rapists. He'll never be happy until his own subjective moral code is the moral code everybody is forced to live by through legislation.

Cameron also makes several mentions that it is part of the Service Providers "Moral responsibility" to block pornography. Service providers provide a service. It is not their responsibility to ensure that the users of that service are subscribing to the moral framework of some arbitrary PM. if parents want to provide and teach their children a moral framework, they should be, you know, parenting. Not sitting around hoping their government will raise their kids for them- that's delegation. It's fundamentally the same as giving their kids a 2000 year old book and making them read it and try to make some form of moral compass from that, even though the rules laid out therein are prohibitions backed by personal threats and psychological sanctions. Nobody does that; even those that use Holy books with such lessons don't leave their kids to it; they still guide them morally.

No matter how much effort anybody puts into these blocks, pretty much any 12 year old will be able to workaround them using proxies. Congratulations Cameron you have won the "Self-righteous Prat of the year" award for doing absolutely nothing useful.

When it comes to stuff like this, I like to cite the ONE 'commandment' that lies at the core of social altruism.

Don't be a ****.

Dave Cameron is defying this altruistic commandment by essentially forcing his own arbitrary moral framework from a position of self-righteousness and moral indignation on everybody, because in his view these things that he is legislating against are "wrong".

Well, here's the problem with that. Here's my massive issue with that.

That same moral indignation and self-righteousness in application of their own subjective moral ruleset through laws goes back through the years through all sorts of other social issues that we now accept as normal and cannot see any moral problem with. Mixed Race marriages were fought in most countries during the 40's through 60's By people preaching from their self-built moral pedestals about how it's "Immoral".

Before that, Abolition of Slavery in various developed nations were fought in many countries during around 1900. The people in favour of slavery stood atop their self-built moral pedestals and told us that it was "immoral" to allow these people to be free, how they "needed our protection and guidance" and thus they should remain slaves.

See a problem here? Neither of these are something we see today. Today any morally upstanding person should see slavery and matrimonial racism as morally repugnant.

It's fundamentally the same here. Some traditionalist kook who has more power than brains has unilaterally decided that he knows what is right and in the interest of protecting his subjects he is going to force them to act a certain way through legislation.

Quote from FireroseNekowolf

he violated police orders

Why does this matter? Police aren't our masters. The only reason they can tell us what to do in most situations is because they have a gun.

stalked an innocent person who reacted

Attacking a person you think is following you is NOT REASONABLE IN ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. I don't know what craphole country you live in where it is. Confront? maybe. "Why the hell are you following me", etc. But just attack outright? That's stupid.

and shot him dead.

And you know what is even stupider is attacking a guy obviously holding a gun. Seems like the ideal time to not make threatening responses, as 'justified' as they may seem. One time I had a guy follow me for three blocks as I walked to work, it turned out he was just heading in the same direction. By your logic I should have turned around and started trying to beat the crap out of him.

If he obeyed police

Again with the 'obey' crap. Police are not our masters. Hell half of them have below-average IQ. Fact is the only difference between if he handled it and if a Police Officer handled it is that the Police officer probably would have shot him instead. If they can shoot 14-year-old boys holding beer cans in the back of the head in "self-defense" and get off with paid leave I'm sure an incident like this would send an officer to the Bahamas.

stayed in his car, and didn't do anything like he was told to do, not a damn thing would've happened. It was entirely preventable

Right, complacence. From what I can tell there was a problem with burglaries in the area and it would seem prudent to investigate, regardless of what some police dispatcher said. I'm sure if Zimmerman knew that the person he was following would attack him (something confirmed by the aforementioned gunshot evidence) he wouldn't have followed. If anything I imagine the purpose was to at least be able to give any police that do decide to pull their thumbs out of their asses where he went.

and he instigated it

Not based on the evidence. Seems like the physical altercation was instigated by the victim. And no, being followed by somebody does not count as "instigating violence". That's a wholly irrational consideration. The evidence sort of points to Zimmerman being attacked as per his story. Of course ideally you wouldn't be carrying a gun for "protection" but ideally something non-lethal like bear spray or something, but It's in the U.S so if something can't kill somebody it's not worth carrying around.



As per the title: it's wrong. He was not found "innocent" he was found "not guilty". Juries/courts do not find people "innocent".

Quote from shplft

There is not much that I can do alone, that's why I am a member of a socialist organisation.

In the purest sense, I would hope. Unfortunately, when Socialist Party's get power, they somehow forget about their "goal of ending poverty by ending the accumulation of wealth."; eg. North Korea. of course, being a member of a political organisation isn't doing anything either. It's not even caring. It's just acting under the guise that you "care" so that, as I said, you can assert a moral high ground that you really do not have.

And when I say that we can do more about it, then I mean humanity.

Agreed. Certainly more can be done, however it is a question of political proximity. There are also numerous other factors that attribute to the particulars of the suffering that is indeed seen. For example, Much of Africa is Poor, underdeveloped, and in a state of almost perpetual famine. Now, what can we do? Well, if we believe the commercials, we can send money,food, etc. But the thing is that that is only a short term solution. The root cause of the problem is the rampant civil wars that are taking place in those countries, and the fact that, fundamentally, they don't have any established industry- they have no exports and thus cannot easily become part of the global marketplace. Of course the fact is they cannot even sustain themselves because of drought and changing ecological conditions. You cannot throw money at these problems. There is no simple solution that anybody- even all of humanity- could take part in to magically remove these issues. I contend that your motivations are no less political than those you appear to blame.

What you, BC_Programming, is doing is to not care about people suffering.

You have no basis for this conclusion.

The rest of the world might as well be a fiery inferno as long as you, BC_Programming, is comfortable.

You have no basis for this conclusion either. Just more nonsense being used to try to assert a Moral High ground.


In addition to countries that cannot maintain a stable economy and self-sustain,There is of course the flipside, which involves countries that actually do have a well-established and reasonable economy but who's governments exploit the people in such a way that it drastically reduces their quality of life. A good example of this is likely North Korea. If the problems with unindustrialized nations being unable to enter the global marketplace or even sustain themselves are insurmountable, these ones are even worse. The only way to 'rescue' from that sort of suffering is to stage a coup. Now, I'm no expert, but sitting around complaining about "imperialists" and "Oil wars" doesn't fix that. In fact those very effected countries had their own problems before. Eg. Iraq, Iran, And much of the Middle-East was very progressive in the 50's and 60's; it was changes in power and various religious coup's that took control and established a powerful theocracy in many of those nations. Quality of life and access to Food and Water hasn't been reduced as a result of any "Oil War"; it was the result of harsh Sharia Law (which perhaps not coincidentally it has in common with some other African countries such as Nigeria) restricting both societal freedoms as well as having a profound effect on various industries by either shutting them down or drastically reducing their operating capacity.

This is what makes it ironic. You are sort of saying that Western Countries need to do something about all this suffering, and yet Invading a Country that has invoked a powerful theocratic government that rules using Sharia law and punishes for the tamest of Crimes by literally tying people in a sack and throwing stones at them until they die, and you have decided to dismiss it as being "for Oil".

It may have been, it may not have been. But it's hard to ignore the fact that the collateral damage was destroying one or two theocratic governments that had been reducing their citizens quality of life for decades.

That means that you do not care if a solution to the problem is found, we shouldn't even try solving it. It's apathy.

No, it's not "apathy" it's realizing that sitting around complaining about "imperialist Oil Wars" doesn't actually fix any problems, and summarizing and making disjoint conclusions about people that you know absolutely nothing about and summarizing what "they think" (as if you have the slightest clue what I think or feel) to build a little Soapbox for you to stand on and take a moral high ground. Well, I'll just go right ahead and kick that Soapbox out from under you.

The reason I'm not "doing anything" is because I have my own problems. Everybody has their own problems. Every country has it's own problems. For many countries in Africa these problems are rather large, but they have a toppled government or in many cases something completely provisional, because their governments get toppled on an almost yearly basis. And when the governments aren't being toppled, they are trying to fight Rebel factions. The issue in this case is within the country, not without it. A lot of the aide, supplies, and money sent to help the more common folk of those countries that are very likely to be living in horrible conditions has to be practically delivered in person otherwise it get's "confiscated".

The fact of the matter is that there is no simple solution to the problems of those countries, and they certainly aren't going to come up with any solutions if all they can do is fight with themselves. Their own countrymen are the ones making them suffer in those cases where suffering exists, either through action or inaction. This is only made worse when you have people like the Pope saying that Condoms cause AIDS.

Internet connections do not kill people.

But they cost money. Imagine if all the money invested into ISP backbones was instead invested in rebuilding Ethiopia's industrial sector! Of course with a grasp on reality the conclusion is that not much would have changed in terms of the quality of Life in Ethiopia, because it's a bit hard to manage the rebuilding of an industry when the governments are so frequently in shambles, But it's the same as saying "How much food could be bought for the price of a missile?" Except that statement is even stupider, because When ti comes to resolving suffering in countries like North Korea, You'll have to use missiles.

As a side note, the creation and manufacturing of said missiles gives countless people Jobs, too. In fact, some less-industrialized but aggressive nations like Iran probably give countless people Jobs by building all sorts of weapons that go against the Geneva conventions. basically, you oversimplify to a ridiculous degree.

Missiles on the other hand have never done humanity any good.

In order to appropriately relieve the "suffering" of people in many nations, it will require wresting control from the governments of those nations which purposely keep conditions the way they are. You can't do that even with the finest toasted Teacakes. Even ignoring their capabilities, their presence can be a powerful motivator. While military equipment costs money to build and deploy, it costs even more to rebuild a country (countries) that have been decimated by a war, which is a bit easier if they are defenseless.

In general what you seem to be appealing to is the common sense of altruism which is present in everybody. But your happy socialist world is not possible with humanity. Altruistic principles go hand in hand with "cheats" just as seen in other species. It comes with a safe degree of wariness, rather than complete trust that everybody else is entirely altruistic. All it takes is a single person in a purely altruistic society to want a little bit more than everybody else, and it becomes a dictatorship. If for the sake of argument every single person in the United States became perfectly bound to their altruistic tendencies except for one arrogant Janitor in Minnesota, within a year we'd be pledging allegiance to a Mop.

It's really beyond me that people can just not care about the fact that people are starving by the millions and dying in wars for oil and imperialism. You don't understand the suffering of others.

It's not a matter of caring about it. Additionally:

-Starving by the millions

You provide no particular timescale for this, But I'll fill in that it takes about a week for around that many people to die in the entire world. So this is a rather exorbinant hyperbole. Statistically speaking, There are around 22,000 Deaths a day as a result of Starvation and Malnutrition. A very large number, but a far cry from "millions". s mentioned, the countries where this occurs have been destroyed by wars. Not for "oil" or "imperialism" but primarily through the greed of their very own residents and intense, ongoing Civil Wars. You can't fix this with a picnic lunch. Fundamentally there would be fewer people starving in those locations if there were fewer people born; which is why education has been one of the primary goal of organizations like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Which does a hell of a lot more to try to eliminate long-term suffering in African nations than any Socialist armchair philosophy. Education on Contraceptives and their use is important, because with a lower birthrate you have a population decline that allows it to reach a sustainable level. On the other hand, you have other organizations with other interests which naturally do not have the people involved at heart, such as the Vatican, which argues against the Education of the populace of said countries by spreading the outright falsification that Condoms actually cause AIDS. I'm not really sure why a person would do this in such a country, but I'm not surprised that the organization behind it is a living hypocrisy.

-dying in wars for oil and imperialism.

presumably, this is in regards to things such as the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. This may come as a big surprise but life wasn't exactly lollipops and Rainbows there before the war, either. Afghanistan was ruled by A powerful theocracy that prescribed Sharia Law, like many Middle-Eastern countries. Iraq was a bit better off but not by much. It's unfortunate because before the theocratic powers took control of many Islamic nations and Invoked Sharia Law, the countries were quite progressive, particularly in countries like Bangladesh. Women could dress as they wished, Vote, and were practically autonomous. Hard to imagine that today that country has become steeped in Sharia Law to the point where A woman walking out on the street without a male escort that is either their Father, Husband, or Brother can be sentences to Death by Stoning. of course, if that Woman is a Virgin then they will Rape her before sentencing because according to Sharia Law they cannot execute a Virgin.

It is of course the progressiveness of Bangladesh mere decades ago that should be cause for concern in any western nation which is (comparatively) free from such powerful religious influence. This concern should pique for countries like the United States, which appears to be slowly changing into a Christian-led theocracy.

What makes it worse is that both sides expect an apocalypse.