Re: What is Truth?

[Alan Olsen <alan@ctrl-alt-del.com>]

At 10:44 AM 7/17/97 -0700, Tim May wrote:
>There are some core issues in this debate:
>
>* What is truth? What is "adult material"? What is "violent material"? What
>is "appropriate for 10-year-olds"?

And not all 10-year olds are created equal.

Mine is able to handle alot of things that many adults cannot.  (She was in
the front row of the last H.P. Lovecraft film festival in the area.  Had
alot of fun and no nightmares.  Got some interesting looks from the people
running it...)  It depends on how the child was raised.  Most kids I have
seen are raised to be weak and fragile little ornaments for their parent's
ammusement.  They have little or no intelectual curiosity.  Many of them
have a hard time distinguishing fact from fiction.  (And some grow up that
way as well.)

>* Who can possibly determine this?

They will determine some standard, not based on any actual 10-year olds or
any knowledge of what is good for them.  It will be based on input from
various preasure groups as to what a "good little 10-year old" should be
like.  And what is "good for a 10-year old is good for America".

The real reason for these controls is to impose their "moral" views on the
rest of the net.  Children are of little concern here, except in enforcing
control over future generations.  What is important is exerting control
over the rest of the population.

>I conclude that the only possible option (that will withstand review by the
>courts, including eventually the Supreme Court) is "purely voluntary
>labeling, including none."

It will be as "purely voluntary" as taxes.  They will come up with various
"incentives" for pages to be rated.  Those "incentives" will be things like
"not being beaten with a rubber hose" or "not getting your feed to the net
cut".

>Whether search engines or browsers will index or point to unlabelled
>sites/material is of course up to _them_ (again, in a voluntary way).

But they will be "discouraged" through quasi-legal means from indexing
unrated and/or unauthourized pages.

Makes me want to build a web crawler that looks ONLY for offensive pages.

>The one possible legal sticking point is "misrepresentation" of labels. But
>even this problem goes away.

Labels are subjective.  I expect a few small fish will be made an example
of just to frighten others into complience.

>Digital signatures prevent others from forging labels.

If they are signed.  Many of the would-be labelers are not especially clued.

>What's left is then the original issue, e.g., "What if Tim's Rating Service
>says material is OK for children of all ages, and it isn't?" This is an
>_opinion_ issue, and the State must not get involved in opinions.

It comes down to an issue of "Lawyers, Guns and Money".  How bad do they
want to hurt you.  I expect that they will come up with some sort of
"certification authority" for labeling organizations.  Those who are not
"certified" will not be "recognised" by the filtering software.  

>There is no role whatsover for government in this issue, of course, any
>more than there is any role for government in regulating, overseeing,
>licensing, approving, or interfering with publishing in general.

And can you name ANY part of society that Government has been willing to
"leave alone"?  It does not matter what portion of society it is...  If it
is a "hot button issue", government feels compelled to get involved.  It is
part of the control freak nature of government.  Have you ever known a
government agency to "mind its own business"?  You are refering to a
philosophy not followed by the US government.

They will regulate until no Cypherpunk breathes free air...


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