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Comment by jhanschoo | Hacker News Reader

While it is repugnant, whether or not it is immoral is another matter. If it is immoral, it likely deserves being criminalized, whereas if it is not immoral, democratic liberal ideals suggest that the law should protect such manufacture from unjust censure instead.

The case against filmed CP is straightforward: minors are harmed in the process. But what is being harmed in generated imagery? If nothing is harmed, what is the basis for it being immoral?

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Unintended consequences abound.

Once Pandora's Box of deep fakes is open, are we going to permit racists to generate genocidal imagery to slake their hatred for $ETHNICITY ?

I mean, as long as only fake Elbonians are dying unspeakably, it's OK, no?

Because the same people who just gotta have that stuff would never want to operationalize that ickniness, would they?

How about just "no"?

Why is GTA OK, then? And what about Command & Conquer, or Mafia?

Yet just "no" would be an immoral act itself, since it is discrimination against an act that is morally neutral. Let us leave aside the question of the morality of the act that you hypothesize we might eventually decide to commit, and assume it is immoral. (I phrase it this way since these "unintended consequences" don't follow as a matter of fact but require people to decide to perform them.) Even if we in future might end up deciding to commit an immoral act, that is no justification to continue committing the present immoral act.

I'm sincerely confused as to whether you're rejecting or embracing activities that could lead others astray.

> are we going to permit racists to generate genocidal imagery to slake their hatred for $ETHNICITY ?

Umm... yes?

> are we going to permit racists to generate genocidal imagery to slake their hatred for $ETHNICITY ?

I could be mistaken but I’m pretty sure this Is currently perfectly legal in the United States.

I'm not arguing legality.

I'm saying this sounds like folly.

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