On Sun, 27 May 2001 05:40:48 +0900 Sam Joseph <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
writes:
> Ian Clarke wrote:
>
> > On Sun, May 27, 2001 at 05:02:03AM +0900, Sam Joseph wrote:
> > Freedom of Speech is all about
> > tolerating things of which you disapprove, since you expect
> > people who disapprove of your opinions to tolerate your right
> > to express them.
>
> Is it? Okay fair enough. But what about tolerating those who are
> doing
> things contrary to the rights of other people? I mean Freenet is
Everyone should have the right to privacy and secrecy, surely, and spies
should be found and stoped, I guess. But when you are hurting people it
would not way on my mind at all to see your privacy and secrecy violated
in order to stop you. I don't know how we can build a moral code into
computers or any network without censorship, so, I guess we will just
have to fight evil in the real world, instead of the digital one.
> Should we defend the rights of those disseminating ideas that help
> governments oppress individuals? I mean maybe the point of Freenet
Everyone's right to free speech must be defended, yes, even bad ideas or
lies, but the actions of an oppressive goverment can be countered as well
as helped by the same system, freenet. Should we allow countries other
than the US to have nuclear weapons? Well, I think it is more a question
of how would YOU feel if your enemy were the only one with a kind of
weapon that can desimate you? That must be how other countries feel, so,
lets let everyone have these terrible weapons, to give them a sense of
security. Then once everyone knows that thier weapons are just as much a
threat to you as yours are to them, they might settle down and behave
themselves.
Good people might be hurt by freenet, but bad people can be hurt by
freenet too, and much worse I imagine. :)
> is
> that no one should be allowed to judge what can be used for
> oppression
> and what can't.
Yes, you must judge only for yourself and your children what data is good
or bad, right or wrong, until your children become adults and must think
for themselves.
>
> I am very happy to tolerate people expressing the idea that child
> pornography is good or bad or .. - god why do I always end up on
> that,
> okay, lets say anything I disapprove of. I would fight to the death
> to
> defend your right to express your opinion about something, be it
> life or
> death for unborn children, the right to sodomize, the right to fly
> like
> a bird, whatever, but isn't that different from your right to
> disseminate images of me doing unspeakable things to donkeys, or
> whatever?
You might be hurt by such dissemination, but there is no way to prevent
it without giveing the power of censorship to someone, who would then
most likely be corrupted by that power sooner or later.
>
> Seems to me like there is a fundamental gap between the right to
> expressing one's opinion and the right to distribute images, files,
> whatever. Maybe we can't draw the line in terms of computer
What if someone calls you a donkey's butt kisser on live TV, would that
hurt you in any way? What if someone told his friends that he saw you
doing unspeakable things to a donkey. Would that not be the same thing,
esentialy, as distributeing pictures of you doing those things? I think
it would be the same thing. Speech, pictures, music, software, it all
amounts to the same thing. It is all information. And the freedom is in
the expresson of information, not in merely thinking thoughts.
> Maybe the bottom line is that we have to make it free to distribute
> all
> kinds of data under any circumstances, which is what Freenet
> advocates,
> right? Why does that make me feel uncomfortable? Am I just some
> crazy
> facist who has to overcome his terrible inhibitions and embrace the
> brave new world?
Not facist, no, for that would mean you want to have total control over
everyone and everything for yourself and only yourself. But control over
information by any sentient being or group of beings is inherintly wrong.
There is no right way to handle it. Eventualy anything you attempt to
do would be corrupted and become extremely difficult to fight against.
Even if your intention is noble, such as stoping a serial killer who gets
his kicks out of distributeing movies and pictures of his crimes on
freenet as they happen or soon after, it would be corrupted by people who
want to silence good people who are trying to distribute secret
government documents from China about the killings of christians and
such. You cannot create a system of censorship that cannot be corrupted.
It is not possible.
You need to accept the fact that censorship is inherintly wrong, even if
the oposite, total information anarchy, can hurt good people, it is still
far better than the harm done by bad people with the power to control
information.
The best way to fight the evil of this world is to do it in real life, by
confronting people who you KNOW are hurting people, and doing whatever
you can to stop them. Also by being just generaly good people, helping
people wherever and whenever you can.
The government has to stop treating people like they are little kids who
can't think for themselves, at some point in our lives we MUST stand on
our own two feet and think for ourselves or we will never grow to become
great beings of light and truth!
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