Comment by akira2501 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by akira2501 | Hacker News Reader

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> Are you basically saying that simulated CSAM should be illegal because not banning it would be offensive to real victims of actual abuse?

No, it's because it will likely lead to those consuming it turning to real life sexual abuse. The behavior says "I'm attracted to children." We have a lot of good data on where this precisely leads to when entirely unsupervised or unchecked.

> but kinda orthogonal to the whole "and also you get 20+ years in the locker" thing.

You've constantly created this strawman but it appears nowhere in my actual argument. To be clear it should be like DUIs, with small penalties on first time offenses increasing to much larger ones upon repetition of the crime.

> it's pretty much impossible to restrict this

Right. It's impossible to stop people committing murder as well. It's also impossible to catch every perpetrator. Yet we don't strain ourselves to have the laws on the books, and it's quite possible the laws, and the penalties themselves, have a "chilling effect" when it comes to criminality.

Or, if your sensibility of diminished rights is so offended, then it can be a trade. If you want to consume AI child pornography you have to voluntarily add your name to a public list. Those on this list will obviously be restricted from certain careers, certain public settings, and will be monitored when entering certain areas.

Which sounds more appropriate to you?

> No, it's because it will likely lead to those consuming it turning to real life sexual abuse. The behavior says "I'm attracted to children." We have a lot of good data on where this precisely leads to when entirely unsupervised or unchecked.

For one thing, again, we don't have quality studies clearly showing that.

But let's suppose that we do, and they agree. If so, then shouldn't the attraction itself be penalized, since it's inherently problematic? You're essentially saying that it's okay to nab people for doing something that is in and of itself harmless, because it is sufficient evidence that they will inevitably cause harm in the future.

I do have to note that it is, in fact, fairly straightforward to medically diagnose pedophilia in a controlled setting - should we just routinely run everyone through this procedure and compile the "sick pedo list" preemptively this way? If not, why not?

> You've constantly created this strawman but it appears nowhere in my actual argument.

My "strawman" is the actual situation today that you were, at least initially, trying to defend.

> Right. It's impossible to stop people committing murder as well. It's also impossible to catch every perpetrator. Yet we don't strain ourselves to have the laws on the books, and it's quite possible the laws, and the penalties themselves, have a "chilling effect" when it comes to criminality.

That can be measured, and we did - and yes, they do, but it's specifically the likelihood of getting caught, not so much the severity of the punishment (which is one of the reasons why we don't torture people as form of punishment anymore, at least not officially).

The point, however, was that nobody is "handing" them anything. It's all done with tools that are, at least at present, readily available and legal in our society, and this doesn't change whether you make some ways of using those tools illegal or not, nor is it impossible to detect such private use unless you're willing to go full panopticon or ban the tools.

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