Yes, there is something unethical going on: the 15-year old is misrepresenting herself. Parents may lie to their children about his being Goofy (which itself may be considered by some a questionable practice), but most older than 8 or 9 know he is a guy in a costume.
What is interesting for me in this dicussion are the power issues. We use aliases and avatars and such and to protect ourselves or to gain agency in the world. Where are the lines between self expression, self-protection, and abuse of power? Dana asks: "Suppose instead I write a program that invents new solutions to scientific or mathematical problems, solutions no human is capable of generating no matter what? Who is the owner of the solutions as intellectual property?" If one writes a program that invents a virus that hacks bank computers and steals millions, can it use the money? Should the person who wrote the program be held responsible in any way? I'm writing this between conferences with students, so I'm having a hard time keeping my thoughts together, but I've also been reading a lot about multiple personality disorder and can't help but wonder if this discussion doesn't relate to that in some way: if one I have multiple personalities and one of my alters commits a crime, who is held responsible? On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 9:09 AM, Jason Olshefsky <[email protected]>wrote: > I do think it's possible to make simplistic layers: vague gender identities > come to mind. In the vein of my Goofy analogy earlier as it relates to > rights, consider a 15-year-old girl has a 37-year-old male persona online; > he enters a chat room as a 15-year-old girl and tries to "pick up" other > 15-year-olds. Is there anything unethical or illegal going on? > > -- > Janice > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en.
