etplayer (u/etplayer)

etplayer commented on Beijing Pushes for a Direct Hand in Big Chinese Tech Firms wsj.com/articles/beijing-... · Posted by u/petethomas

bkeroack · 8 years ago

> Adds the voice of a civic minded, non-profit entity to the board.

Wat. We are talking about the PRC here. A totalitarian communist regime. "Less brutal"?

etplayer · 8 years ago

How is a state which allows and encourages wage labour and trade 'communist'? Totalitarian everyone agrees on, as to whether it is Communist or Socialist other than in name is heavily doubtful.

State intervention in a capitalist economy does not the abolition of the value-form make, it makes a state capitalist economy.

etplayer commented on Australian police sting brings down paedophile forum on dark web theguardian.com/society/2... · Posted by u/kristofferR

synicalx · 8 years ago

Ok this is ridiculous, only on HN could we see child pornography being defended as a victimless crime.

First of all, no child should be exploited in that way. Period. Not up for debate. Whether or not they feel victimised at the time by what has happened to them is irrelevant. So by viewing or obtaining CP, one is supporting and proliferating that material.

> I will have to question that.

Question all you want, I don't think you'll find any other sane rational person who thinks watching videos of children being raped is totally fine.

> There is no victim nor is anybody harmed by possession nor viewing. Thus it is not wrong.

Here it is again 'CP isn't wrong'. Yes it is, I don't see how you can think it's not.

> Just like not every straight/homosexual person is a rapist, not every paedophile is a rapist.

Really? Every paedophile is a paedophile. It's not a kink, it's not a fetish, it's not a sexuality, it's a mental health problem and one that can potentially have horrific outcomes if the resultant behaviours are welcomed and encouraged.

I'm not responding any more after this, because frankly if you think being a paedophile is totally fine then you need to get help.

etplayer · 8 years ago

>Here it is again 'CP isn't wrong'. Yes it is, I don't see how you can think it's not.

You haven't defined any criteria for 'wrong'; the person you are replying to is taking issue with the fact that the harm principle (a commonly accepted ideal of what is 'wrong' in individualist society) does not apply to any given instance of viewing or possessing child pornography. You have to define your criteria for 'wrong' rather than simply assert it. By defining criteria, only then can you be refuted in any meaningful sense, rather than a rally of "it's wrong" and "no it isn't wrong".

So if you say that it is wrong, please back up your meta-ethical position.

>It's not a kink, it's not a fetish, it's not a sexuality

Pedophilia is a fetish; it may be other things too, but it is a fetish for children, this is even in the 'plain' sense of the word fetish, which is to concentrate on a particular aspect above all else. The pedophile, rather than fetishising say "normal" features like breath, fetishises extreme youth.

>being a paedophile is totally fine then you need to get help

Nowhere did the poster say this.

etplayer commented on Australian police sting brings down paedophile forum on dark web theguardian.com/society/2... · Posted by u/kristofferR

KGIII · 8 years ago

It looks like it would be legal if it is distinguishable as being purely fictional, where what a reasonable person would believe is taken into account.

For those who do not want this type of search query to be in their history, have a link:

https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ceos/citizens-guide-us-fede...

If my reading is correct, images that are fictional, and appear fictional to a reasonable person - inferred by me through a number of law courses and not directly stated in the link, are not illegal. Drawings should be fine. CGI, maybe, depending on how easily it is distinguished as being fictional.

etplayer · 8 years ago

The PROTECT Act specifically had provisions against even drawings of any kind, however those parts to my knowledge were ruled unconstitutional. On the other hand, there are various state laws against the material; I don't have a better source than Wikipedia at the moment, but:

>Currently, such depictions are in a legal grey area due to parts of the PROTECT Act being ruled unconstitutional on a federal level; however, laws regulating lolicon and shotacon differs between states; several states have laws that explicitly prohibit cartoon pornography and similar depictions (such as video games in the state of New Jersey), while others usually have only vague laws on such content; in some states, such as California, such depictions specifically do not fall under state child pornography laws,[70] while the state of Utah explicitly bans it.[71]

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_drawn_pornogra...

etplayer commented on Australian police sting brings down paedophile forum on dark web theguardian.com/society/2... · Posted by u/kristofferR

bitwize · 8 years ago

But what if it's artificial child porn that looks like your child? Do you really want to enable that?

Currently, in the USA it is clearly illegal to produce porn that resembles a real child, even if no child was exploited to produce it -- despite the fact that purely fictional (e.g., drawn) erotica featuring underage characters is still only of dubious legality. There are justifiable reasons for this.

etplayer · 8 years ago

>But what if it's artificial child porn that looks like your child?

I don't understand the problem. Let's assume that no real images are used as input to the artificial child image creation process. So what if it looks like your child? That is mere coincidence, and doesn't seem to me to be reason why it should be illegal to possess or produce.

>There are justifiable reasons for this.

Can you please elaborate on what these are, or where I can read about what they are? So far, the reasons I have been given and those that I have seen used for example in England when laws were being created (the CAJA 2009 law) have been poor reasons and unjustifiable restriction of freedom of expression in my view.

etplayer commented on Australian police sting brings down paedophile forum on dark web theguardian.com/society/2... · Posted by u/kristofferR

shirro · 8 years ago

I hope they got signed releases from the grown up victims whose non-consensual images were being posted. If not, then they are increasing the harm. If an a adult who valued privacy had a sex video stolen and then distributed by the police they would be livid. For it to happen to someone who was abused as a child is unconscionable. From that perspective artificial might be preferable.

etplayer · 8 years ago

Out of interest, in what way is harm increased? Does the same harm occur in cases in which the image is only being viewed?

etplayer commented on AIM will shut down after 20 years theverge.com/2017/10/6/16... · Posted by u/rbanffy

Banthum · 8 years ago

Yes it is. They didn't get the job done, so other firms stepped in and did it better.

Contrast this with communism, be where we'd all just be forced by law to use whatever AOL gave us, forever.

etplayer · 8 years ago

I know you're being facetious, but under a Communist society it's likely that there would be several popular hobby projects, similar to open source community's efforts. Things like AIM would be developed in private or cooperatively, just as modern software is written, but without the influence of capital and wage labour.

etplayer commented on Basic income is just the beginning as Finland looks to citizen-driven governance sitra.fi/en/blogs/basic-i... · Posted by u/greifswalder

nine_k · 8 years ago

The problem with socialism without free market is that it has been tried many times, and it drastically lowers productivity, leading to deficits. People start spending their copious free time in lines waiting for the rare and insufficient goods to arrive. If you think USSR was long ago and this time it will be different, look at Venezuela.

etplayer · 8 years ago

This was not a problem with Socialism, it was a problem with the form of economic planning used. We must also bear in mind that there are forms such as market Socialism. Neither the USSR nor Venezuela paid attention to cybernetic planning; scientists in the USSR were repeatedly shut down by bureaucrats for suggesting it.

There exist modern planning methods, though still academic, such as those elaborated by Cockshott and Cottrell in Towards a New Socialism, it's worth a look if you haven't seen it already.

Nobody is suggesting rigid five year plans any more.

etplayer commented on Basic income is just the beginning as Finland looks to citizen-driven governance sitra.fi/en/blogs/basic-i... · Posted by u/greifswalder

neon_electro · 8 years ago

Do you believe automation can have no net benefit for society, then? Is there no future where increasingly all of the basic needs of people can be taken care of by automation, freeing up humans to do creative work?

I would like to understand your viewpoint.

etplayer · 8 years ago

Automation certainly can benefit society (the majority of whom are workers), but in the way in which it is used at the moment does not benefit them in the fullest sense; they can take advantage of lower prices, but they can't take advantage of having much more free time to pursue creative hobbies, science, education and entertainment.

There are at least two possible solutions offered; the first is UBI in which everyone gets sufficient money to live off. Where exactly this money comes from and from what profits is up for question, and raises interesting questions about profitability in industries where there is higher organic composition of capital. The second option is one in which automation isn't used for profit at all, it is used simply to reduce working hours via ceasing commodity production and instead only the manufacture of use-values. In my opinion this second option (frequently called Socialism, endorsed by the likes of George Orwell, Einstein, Oscar Wilde, Marx and Engels) leads the way to an even greater emancipation and heightened productive capacity of society, given that there would no longer be any need to ensure high employment (high employment across industries is necessary for workers to buy back the products that they make, which generates profit). The second option also deals quite well with the psychological issues of living in a commodity-producing society brought up by the likes of Marcuse and Adorno.

Although the UBI solution to the problem of rising automation has rightfully earned the interest of many, I do not believe it goes far enough to ensure a more free, equitable and democratic society for all.

Edit: Regarding UBI, what is the incentive to stop companies from "offloading" the duty to pay a fair wage onto the state? I'm not really up to scratch on UBI details, so a response would be appreciated.

etplayer commented on Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’ nytimes.com/2017/09/29/wo... · Posted by u/mudil

duckingtest · 8 years ago

>There is no reason I see why a capitalist system cannot include intervention by the government

You're attempting to redefine the meaning of words to create a strawman where 'capitalism' can have any property you want, which then allows you to misrepresent an attack on a $random_negative_thing as an attack on 'capitalism'.

A system with state intervening in the market is called a mixed economy.

>It has also resulted in much higher rates of exploitation, as the workers of countries with more lax or unenforced labour laws suffer greatly for it.

The more protected against 'exploitation' people in a particular country are, the more likely they are to risk their lives trying to escape their socialist utopias.

If you weren't a hypocrite you would renounce your citizenship and relocate to a 'better' place, like Cuba or Venezuela.

etplayer · 8 years ago

>You're attempting to redefine the meaning of words to create a strawman

Isn't this exactly what post-Marxian authors did? By the time Marx was writing, it was clear what capitalism was - the predominant employment of wage labour, private ownership of social means of production, and accumulation of capital. The idea that a state which owns all or most of the productive capacity of society cannot be "capitalist" for some reason is outstandingly silly.

>The more protected against 'exploitation' people in a particular country are, the more likely they are to risk their lives trying to escape their socialist utopias.

This is a very ignorant statement; there exist heavy protections against high exploitation in the EU, but the EU is not a Socialist organisation nor are many people trying to escape it for its labour laws. There has not existed a Socialist society as of yet aside from the Paris Commune and Catalonia (which I must note, very few people tried to escape); before you reply that this is an NTS fallacy, I must say that the Socialist mode of production rests upon the abolition of the law of value (i.e commodities are not produced) and the working class as a whole hold ownership of the social means of production, and the functions of private property have been done away with. This was not observed in the regimes of the USSR, Soviet satellite states, Cuba or Venezuela.

>If you weren't a hypocrite you would renounce your citizenship and relocate to a 'better' place, like Cuba or Venezuela.

No. Cuba and Venezuela both operate the capitalist mode of production, and in fact Cuba is in very direct violation of the principles of non-alienated labour. How can a Socialist country be opposed to fair working conditions? This suggests to me that it is not Socialist at all. You must also note that I have not shown any appreciation for the economic models of either Cuba or Venezuela. The idea that I must support any country which calls itself "Socialist" is as absurd as saying that as a democrat I must support any country which calls itself "democratic", including the DPRK.

etplayer commented on Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’ nytimes.com/2017/09/29/wo... · Posted by u/mudil

adventured · 8 years ago

Capitalism is inseparable from a free market system. They are in fact the same thing and have been regarded as such for a century across all the writings of every modern proponent of free market economics. From Hayek to Mises to Friedman.

To the extent you have regulation, is the extent to which you lack a Capitalist economy. All systems opposite to Capitalism make use of extreme State control of the economy through various regulatory means. Whether we're talking rudimentary Socialism or its derivatives, including Fascism and Communism. It's an inversion. You can either have market-based economic levers or you can have State levers, or you can mix them and get a mixed economy to the extent you do so. Regulation is antithesis to Capitalism because it imposes State control over the economy. The more regulation you add, the less market freedom you must inherently have; the regulation removes possible action and decision making by free actors in the economy, it places those decisions into the hands of the State (ie out of the bounds of Capitalism to dictate).

etplayer · 8 years ago

>Capitalism is inseparable from a free market system.

No, it's not; there exists market Socialism, for example. There also exists mutualism. I don't know where you're getting this from other than the idea that authors in favour of capitalism also tend to prefer free market economics.

>Whether we're talking rudimentary Socialism or its derivatives, including Fascism and Communism.

Communism is actually the complete lack of state control but also the lack of commodity production and therefore the market.

>Regulation is antithesis to Capitalism because it imposes State control over the economy.

You have still failed to explain why lack of regulation is central to capitalism other than to name Hayek, Mises and Friedman who were in favour of free-market capitalism. Other authors who sought to describe capitalism prior to them didn't include "free market" as a core principle of capitalism.

There is no denying that the epitome of capitalist production is completely unencumbered by a State, but there is also no denying that the state must intervene in a capitalist economy to protect property rights on a large scale. There is also the idea that the the State itself cannot be a capitalist actor which is totally false; we see the State engaging in the employment of wage-labour and selling on the national and international market. This makes the state as capitalist as Microsoft or Google.