311–320 of 381 posts
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Except it is completely unequal because you've been given 3 chances to follow the laws of the society in which you live. And because sentencing will still be much less severe than that of murder.
Why three? Why not two or five? What's so special about three that it fits such a wide range of offenses?
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> That database must be a wet dream for law enforcement. Because obviously people buying a few pills of ecstasy or a tab of LSD are a serious danger to society and should be taken of the streets. /s
Because the police will totally arrest every single user and not focus on the high-volume buyers / sellers. /s
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> That database must be a wet dream for law enforcement. Because obviously people buying a few pills of ecstasy or a tab of LSD are a serious danger to society and should be taken of the streets. /s
Because the police will totally arrest every single user and not focus on the high-volume buyers / sellers. /s
You don't need a address to send mail - sellers.
Personal use can be huge amounts - buyers
I can't see many dealers using dark markets above plausible personal use amounts since you get caught importing dealable quantities you are screwed, dark market or not (And the mail system will get a % of buyers). You might have a $1000 per week habit or be a $1000 per week dealer. Who's to say?
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> Sure they do. It's called "conversation" or "correspondence" Conversation is action, not thought. > If we had telepathy There's a couple different things (in fiction, naturally) that go by that name; the active analog to oral communication is also action, the sort of passive integration associated (not exclusively, just as an example) many hive-mind collective organisms in sci-fi is thought rather than action, but…
> Conversation is action, not thought. I think the distinction here is a pretty dubious one. Consider, as a hypothetical, a situation in which one can actually tell "what someone else is thinking" based on a more advanced form of EEG. Would it still be "thought" as opposed to "conversation" if two people are doing it to each other simultaneously? Why is transcoding in terms of pixels on a monitor different from trans…
I don't think the philosophers engaged, either. Redefining thought to be imperceptible denies everything we actually do know about the biological process of thought, so it's not clear the discussion leads anywhere worth going.
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Perhaps. But within the context of gay rights it is the government that behaved improperly. Society bundled behaviour and innate characteristics into a single thing. That was wrong, and it is important to highlight that. Of course in a post homophobic world the distinction is rather irrelevant. It makes no difference to anyone if homosexuality is innate, or just a set of chosen behaviours. Why would it matter either…
There's still plenty of conservative people who believe the being gay is a personal choice, or perhaps something caused by your upbringing/environment, not something you're born with. Of course, this has as much veracity as the idea that the Earth is flat or that the Sun and planets revolve around it, but there's a lot of people who believe it.
It seems to me that the purpose of the "born with it" argument is to develop empathy among people who lack understanding. Because it helps explain why people act on their feelings, even if they are not a good idea. We can all relate to the power of lust, love etc. It is an important point to make. But that argument only has relevance to people who find it distasteful in the first place. The argument is a reaction to homophobia.
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Not everything that is illegal is wrong. E.g. being gay is illegal in many places.
There's a big discussion about what's bad about drugs. But I wonder if we can rationally work out what's bad about child porn. My understanding is that possessing it means you obtained it from someone, who probably wanted some kind of payment, who abused children to produce the material so he could get that payment. There are quite a few gaps there. What if it was published for free? What if children weren't physical…
If you believe the MPAA/RIAA's claims that piracy harms sales, there would be some moral case for piracy of CP. Although, there is still some direct harm from the distribution of the material (for the privacy for the victim). However it's more likely that (contra the MPAA) piracy actually serves as advertising, just like in the ordinary entertainment industry.
> What if children weren't physically abused but were secretly and anonymously photographed?
Still harmful for privacy reasons mentioned above, even if less harmful than actual physical abuse.
> Shouldn't there be exceptions for victimless child porn?
Probably, but the example I would reach for is art / drawings of obviously fictional characters, rather than any of the above. The fact that many CP laws extend to this is better evidence that lawmakers are being irrationally swayed by puritanism. (Or that puritanism breeds indifference. Maybe they don't care about the "deviants" interested in these sort of drawings enough to specifically target them, but they also don't care enough to carve out an exception.)
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Not everything that is illegal is wrong. E.g. being gay is illegal in many places.
Smart "would-be" criminals don't commit crimes; they make their intended action lawful, then act freely.
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People have the right to control what goes in their bodies. I don't have the ability to see if my weed is "violence free", because drug prohibition took that away. You can't hold me responsible for violence among marijuana cartels if you don't give me a clean source for my marijuana. It's like saying encryption is used by terrorists, so if I buy encryption I'm indirectly supporting terrorism.
You can be held responsible. You don't have a right to obtain a substance just because you want it. It doesn't matter if it "goes in your body" or not. That's not how rights work. You have to justify the value to society.
I would love to know how they got caught. There is probably something to learn about opsec from this. The paranoid side of me says Tor is unsafe (due to whatever - the authorities having backdoors on most hosting services, on your PC, due to the encryption being cracked by some unknown breakthrough or due to 90% of entry nodes being controlled by NSA). And NSA and FBI and co just have hundreds of people working on "p…
Dutch police claiming to have de-anonimized Tor: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DFNMsZOXoAIBdZ2.jpg
Also, considering this is a drug sting, which should be a really serious thing, it's strange that they make a joke on the page.
I would expect a plain HTML page saying "This hidden service hosted illegal activities. All transactions have been logged. If you participated in these activities, contact your local authorities."