Re: A Global Village, or the future of porn on the net

[Arun Mehta <amehta@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in>]

At 10:00 24/07/96 +0000, Alex F wrote:
>
>why is it that Bill(ary) signed an unconstitutional law?  I 
>am referring to the CDA and the telephony bill. 

... arguments that I wholeheartedly support deleted..

>Anyway, getting off-topic again.  I'll be quiet now :)

Let me see if I can bring this back on track. We have some interesting
developments that could converge:

1) Legally, the Internet is more or less in the clear as far as indecency
is concerned. The moralists will rally again and put through a bill that
doesn't so blatantly violate the constitution, but for the time being
we're OK.

2) Porn is very, very popular. As a consultant, I often use Netscape from
the offices of my clients, and invariably take a peek at the bookmarks. 
Guess what is  pointed to more than anything else. By making a hullaballoo
about porn on the net, its enemies may have shot themselves in the foot:
it will attract people rather than repel.

3) Porn on the net by and large isn't all that great, so if there is a risk, 
it is that people might be bored. What you mostly have are stills of nudes
on the web and Usenet postings of indifferent quality.

4) the web is changing from static to dynamic through Java and the like. 
VRML in fact adds a 3-D element.


Stir, add some spicy curry, and see if you get:

Java classes for males and females corresponding to VRML
objects. The class methods might include kissing, hugging,
spanking, restraining...

A female object might be  initialized with Hillary Clinton's face, Evangelista's
body... 

Anyone could now write a script which you could view enacted on
your screen, or interact with one another as in MUDs. Why,
someone might write a translator 
that takes a story off alt.sex.whatever and produces
an appropriate script. People would only need to download the software and
appropriate objects once, then receive emscripts which could be
run in total privacy.
People should we willing to pay small amounts for use of the
classes and objects,
as well as for the scripts. Of course, it would only work in our
prudish societies if
the transactions were totally anonymous. If Digicash payment
systems were built-in,
that might be a reason for people to start adopting eCash.

Of  course, this opens up a whole can of worms. For instance,
given the violence of
many pornographic stories on Usenet, it won't be long before
famous personalities
routinely get violated in cyberspace. Talk about copyright: do
you have the right
to prevent someone from doing this to you?

I unfortunately lack  the bandwidth to find out the extent to
which porn on the net
is already moving in this direction. However, if you have
pointers, I'll go *find*
the bandwidth! Where on the net do people discuss such matters?
Arun Mehta Phone +91-11-6841172, 6849103 amehta@cpsr.org
http://www.cerfnet.com/~amehta/  finger amehta@cerfnet.com for public key