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For the same reason any other submissions concerning political philosophy, economics, etc. are.

Quite many of those "off-topic" submissions climbed up to the top; probably because people here were interested enough in them. :)

If anyone is interested, and have any questions regarding the topic, feel free to ask! I am sure many people would love to join and be of help as well.

It's cheap and efficient to wear a mask, where it is the taxpayer's money being wasted on facial recognition systems, and on top of that: cameras don't prevent, and are not even being used to prosecute criminals, there are not enough resources to do that, as someone else already pointed it out:

> You only have to look at the widespread increase in CCTV use in Britain. Now when you get mugged in London the police can get you a little video of your hooded attackers for posterity. Except they only have time to go through the recordings if you got murdered, otherwise you will just get a crime number.

But hey, have fun with illusion of safety, deprived freedom and a complete waste of money.

I get your perspective, but just because someone has a red hair, it doesn't render their claims incorrect, or doesn't invalidate anything they say.

I have seen many people being dismissed by others merely because of their voice, which I find funny because they were supposed to focus on the content. It's the content that matters. If the presentation is not to your liking, that doesn't mean that person is wrong. On top of that, you don't need to be factually correct if you are convincing enough; sophistry anyone? Apparently people don't seek for the truth, it's enough if you put a pretty face on stage who has some charisma and you are all falling for it. Be skeptical. Focus on the actual content and ignore the irrelevant things, because they are, well, irrelevant. If you are easily distracted by the speaker's fly being open, that's on you, and yes, the outcome might be detrimental from the perspective of the speaker given the majority of the audience is easily distracted and ignores the actual argument because of the speaker's fly being open, or because he used the word "Micro$oft".

For the same reason we wouldn't need defamation laws if people had better critical thinking skills, as they wouldn't have mindlessly believed the defamation, and the person's life would not have been ruined.

Ultimately, it is your choice. Personally, I am not going to care about the irrelevancies because I focus on what is being said, and not how it is being said. I'm not going to dismiss you because I find your tone offensive, in fact, somehow I manage to not get offended nor care about the tone.

I respect Linus and Theo for their contributions, and I'm not going to judge their quality of code based on their actions unrelated to the code. Surely you, too, care about the quality of code and you won't disregard it when you find out it's been written by a transgender person, right?

If you genuinely care about the argument, you won't disregard it merely because of its irrelevancies, e.g. appearance or behavior you find obnoxious. If you do, then you certainly need to improve your ability to ignore those irrelevant things and focus on the argument.

P.S. I don't deny that presentation matters, but only because there are too many people who are way too keen on dismissing someone's argument because, for example, they find their hair funny. It sounds ridiculous to me, but that's just my opinion I guess.

Define "kind" and define "better for everyone".

People in that kind of setting don't care about your identity, they care about your contributions.

People are encouraged to stay on-topic (nowadays known as: cyber-bullying) rather than spamming the site with irrelevant personal details.

That's essentially the same problem I've had with what you had a problem. I'm confused.

> Try sci-hub

I thought you were a law-abiding, morally superior citizen, and the first comment from another post I find is incitement, which is the encouragement of another person to commit a crime. Well done, Sir. Made my day. :)

Well he's just too far gone.

> Most laws are actually against thing that can lead to bad situation.

https://mises.org/library/legalize-drunk-driving

But if they are sexually attracted to children and are "evil", then the creation of the videos and photos are just a "side-effect", the abuse probably would have taken place regardless, right? I had people telling me that possession of child pornography leads to child abuse, what do you think? I watch gore videos[1] sometimes online and I don't want to hurt people. I watch them to remind me that there are many violent people and places out there, that not everything is butterflies and sunshine. It makes me introspect. It makes me value the society that I live in that shelters me, and makes me realize how lucky I am.

EDIT: Actually, I'm trying to come up with reasons that apply to child pornography but without any success. Not saying that they are not going to offer you a "reasonable" insight, but at this moment I can't think of anything. Perhaps something anatomy related? Medical value/curiosity?

On another note: yeah, people do crazy shit for the likes and subscribers, it's pathetic and sickening. All those challenges, etc. Ugh. I try to avoid that side of the Internet. Is it just me or is there really a decline? Yesterday I read how in UK schools they had to remove analog clocks because kids couldn't tell the time off it.

I don't know, I know so many parents who are doing a great job. Their kids don't care much about social media, they are not interested in getting likes, not interested in being YouTubers, know the potential dangers of the Internet, and so on.

[1] Albeit I don't download them, but at the same time you can probably do the same with child pornography, though from a technical point of view you probably have them cached which could be considered possession I guess.

Ah, finally someone with a more positive tone (in contrast to mine) and a better way to articulate my thoughts. Thanks. :)

Did he say that you don't have the right to care? He did not.

You can care, you may not want these photos to be where they are, and you may attempt to have them removed if it is possible, but you don't have the right to punish people for not caring, and you don't have the right to force people to care for the things you do.

I personally hate being on photos, so I try to avoid it to my best ability. I also asked someone to have a photo of me removed from somewhere. This is all understandable. The problem occurs when you are trying to dictate other people's lives by threatening to use violence against them for not conforming to your beliefs, etc. No need to resort to violence, come on.

I have a feeling you would attempt to beat me up for my tone alone because you perceive it to be hostile. Not cool. :P

> You shouldn't care about people possessing child pornography, because if you do then it's because you should have "paid more attention to your kid and improved your parenting".

You are right; I don't care. You might possess illegal tactical plants: I don't care. Why should I?

> Yes, criminalizing possession of child pornography reduces the consumption, and therefore demand, of said child pornography.

Citation needed. I believe it's false on the same principles that apply to illegal substances. Criminalizing possession of illegal substances do NOT reduce the consumption, and do NOT reduce demand. I'm willing to change my view on this in presence of reliable evidence to support your claims. I somehow doubt if you were to revoke those laws you would see an increase in demand.

> I rather think reducing the number of child abuse cases is a worthier goal than stroking your misplaced sense of worth.

You are making the false assumption that possession of child pornography necessarily lead to child abuse, i.e. actual physical violence which I am deeply against. I need citation to support the claim that child pornography laws regarding possession of such do indeed significantly reduce the number of child abuses, and that possession of child pornography usually lead to child abuse.

Additionally, what constitutes child pornography varies greatly between places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_regarding_child_pornograp....

On another note: I hope you are aware of child neglect being a form of child abuse, which involves the lack of attention and safety of your offspring. You are responsible for your kid and nothing you say will change that. Please do educate yourself on child development and parenting as required. I know I would.

> I'm sorry if this offends you, or that you think your "freedom" (to own child porn?) is threatened by this

I know you are not sorry, but in any case: don't worry; I'm not offended, however, please save me from your covert and false accusations.

> Oh you're one of those guys. You just couldn't resist the urge to shoehorn your agenda and announce at the top of your lungs: "look at me guys! I'm rugged and tough and I don't care about your kids! I am so smart!".

Please save me from your evidently false accusations. If anything, I seem to be caring more about your offspring than you do. Read my previous comments. I'm literally straight out bashing lousy parents and telling them to pay more attention to their children and so on. People down-voted it. How is this in any way an indication of me not caring about your kids? You seem to be really confused.

> A: "Please pay more attention to your kid, improve your parenting as needed. Make sure your kid is safe, educate your kid of the risks and potential consequences of sharing photos on the Internet, etc. If you are not financially stable and you are unlikely to be able to feed your potential future kid, please use contraceptives instead or something."

> B: "You troll, you don't care about our kids! down-votes A's previous post"

You are hilarious. This is some serious cognitive dissonance, can't make this up.

> What I care about is measurable decreases in demand for child abuse content that are the result of criminalization [sic] of possession.

Citation needed.

> Finally, kindly knock off your stupid fucking derisive tone. I would wager a considerable amount of money that you wouldn't talk like that in person, with anybody.

You mean perceived (by you, and possibly others) derisive tone? Adding the word "kindly" does not make your sentence any less threatening where the threat may be non-existent but is still perceived by me. Please do re-read your comment and focus on evaluating YOUR tone while you are at it, as you don't seem to be doing any better. It's not an excuse, but unlike you, I'm not offended nor care about your tone which in no way invalidates anything you say. I care about content.

> EDIT: I know I shouldn't reply to trolls, but your drivel ticked me off so, dumb as I am, I'm going to respond.

I put a warning for you, did you deliberately ignore it? Make no mistake, I don't mind that you are going to lose sleep over it, I just find it perplexing. Imagine you have epilepsy: are you going to ignore the warning that says "The following video contains flashing lights that may trigger seizures in individuals with epilepsy"? Are you going to call the person uploading the video a troll, too?

Yeah, that's what happens when you threaten them to deprive them of their freedom, to torture, and to murder them. Perhaps you are so civilized you resort to fines first, but what if they decide to not pay said fine? Are you going to put them in prison? What if they resist being mugged and kidnapped? How are you going to get them to prison if they resist? I suggest you search for many instances of the IRS shooting innocent people, they literally have armed squads for that purpose, they flashbang babies, etc.

Are you really surprised that most of them comply? What other choice do they have?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number :>

You can literally arbitrarily associate any number to anything and ban it based on that, which they did:

> In 2012, it was reported that the numbers 89, 6, and 4 each became banned search terms on search engines in China, because of the date (1989-06-04) of the June Fourth Massacre in Tiananmen Square.

> Due to the association with gangs, in 2012 a school district in Colorado banned the wearing of jerseys that bore the numbers 18, 14, or 13 (or the reverse, 81, 41, or 31).

> In 2017, far-right Slovak politician Marian Kotleba was criminally charged for donating 1,488 euro to a charity.

It's closely related to hate speech laws where the only requirement is perceived threat. Fun times. :D

Except it's not "everything is allowed", and the "ban and regulate everything" mentality seems to be more harmful, useless, waste of time and money in reality.

Regarding responsibility: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16933814

Hahahahaha. Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number

> An illegal number is a number that represents information which is illegal to possess, utter, propagate, or otherwise transmit in some legal jurisdiction. Any piece of digital information is representable as a number; consequently, if communicating a specific set of information is illegal in some way, then the number may be illegal as well.

Hmm? I don't see how it is related to anything I've said. I'm pretty much against social media, but I don't want them to be regulated or banned. If you don't like them, then stop using them, and at the same time I don't care if someone else uses them. I am not going to dictate how they should live their lives. It's not the government's job to prevent you from your own stupidity. It can't. For example saying "wah wah wah I can't control myself, I am fat because of the industry, Almighty Government, please help me!" is your own fault in case of overeating, you lack self-control. You are responsible for your behavior and the consequences of it, just as how you are responsible for your child. If a parent can't make an intelligent informed decision and look after their children, then they shouldn't give them these games, credit cards, etc. and the parents perhaps shouldn't even have children. If you can't feed your potential future offspring, then don't have one! If you don't like lootboxes, don't buy them. They are not inherently harmful to children and most of the games aren't rated for children, and even then you need a card to procure the items, that of which children do not have.

Building sites are dangerous for children and need to be banned because parents might take them to one and stop watching them while they jump off of a skyscraper.

Why should anyone take responsibility for what other people do? If I produce bleach and someone drinks it, why am I responsible for that? There are warnings everywhere, it's not my fault you ignore them or you are not cautious enough. We are heading towards the direction of abandoning all responsibility and shifting the blame to anyone but ourselves.

For people who think they won't be able to function without the State: https://mises.org/library/rothbard-and-nature-state

> However, the tone, structure of your arguments (namely, lots of wide assertions with scant evidence), and combative reactions is getting in the way of the points you are trying to make. It makes no matter if a view is the correct (for a certain definition of correct) one if one cannot communicate it effectively.

Emphasis on tone, and I do get that. People don't like my tone, and they don't like being told they are at fault and that they are doing a terrible job at being parents. By "effectively", you mean by sugarcoating the message I'm trying to convey? Look, my point was that prohibition, when there are other alternatives that doesn't involve depriving other people of something, won't make you any less responsible for your child. Look at some of the responses to my comments regarding that, it's fascinating to think that some of these people may really be parents.

> By definition criminals don't follow laws. It's a circular kind of logic.

My problem is that people are too keen on regulating and prohibiting anything in the name of safety and whatnot and do actually believe it's going to be effective. It's not.

Let's say you - a law-abiding citizen - need a "good reason" which is determined by the court to carry a knife, and good reason does not include self-defense, and it excludes any knives that would be actually effective against perpetrators with a knife, for example. Now, by definition a criminal doesn't care about this law, and you have no ways of defending yourself. How is this legislation (prohibition) in favor of the law-abiding citizen? It straight out deprives said citizen from the means of defending themselves. In addition to that, pepper sprays are also illegal. How are you supposed to defend yourself by other than running away (not doable in many scenarios), not going outside and assuming they won't break into your house, or hiring bodyguards when you can't afford it? Just put yourself in a scenario. You are a law-abiding citizen and you live in London. I hope you agree that there are many areas that are not exactly safe. Do you like the fact that you are unable to defend yourself without breaking the law? Prohibition is not exactly on your side, is it? What do you think?

Sources:

https://www.gov.uk/buying-carrying-knives https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/firearms

For some fun:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/127 or the full response at https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/203615.

Do you think criminals care about the laws? Do you disagree with what I've said, or are you trying to be fallacious here and imply that because I don't have a solution, it somehow renders my claim wrong and makes criminals care about the laws? Additionally, I did not claim that a society shouldn't have laws. It's a broad subject, if you want to gain some knowledge, perhaps you could start here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8Z82avLO14

https://mises.org/library/society-without-state

https://mises.org/library/anatomy-state

https://mises.org/library/lessons-young-economist

[...]

Not the point. The point is that it's not banned merely because it could contribute to health and financial issues. According to many people here, it should. I'm merely mocking their idiocy to prove a point, hence why my karma went from 20 to 4 within hours.

I'll let you in on a little secret: regulations and expectations don't always reflect reality, and in many cases you'd be surprised what's in your food and how your food has been handled. Ignorance is bliss, and thinking that regulations and expectations have significant effects are naive to say the least. Let me ask you, and any further down-voter, do you live under a rock?

Albeit it's about pollution, it's still worth reading: https://mises.org/library/libertarian-manifesto-pollution

Regulate the amount of calories people can consume to prevent or treat obesity! Enforce it! Don't ever stop!

Slower speeds can increase the time to get from A to B therefore increasing fatigue which decreases attention which could lead to accidents, albeit they might not be completely fatal.

It's a great game, isn't it?

It is unfortunate that you have been down-voted. It seems that thinking is a luxury these days. Prohibition supposedly works even though a pile of empirical evidence suggests otherwise, and the Government supposedly has good intentions. All they have to do is claim it's (whatever the heck they want) for the safety of you, your kids, and vulnerable people, and they can do virtually anything. They are doing just exactly that. It's OK though, in this case they give you the illusion of safety at the cost of other people without said other people even realizing it, and you can shift the blame: you no longer have to admit to yourself that you are a horrible parent and keep continuing the terrible parenting.

I wonder if the same people who have down-voted you and I also spoke out against Facebook and its anti-privacy issues.

EDIT: my friend just bought a bag of chips assuming it will taste good but it really doesn't. I guess if he's not allowed to taste it before buying, then it's gambling! Did you know that eating chips could contribute to numerous health and financial issues? Ban chips effective immediately! Think about the children!

:)

Well it is known that criminals don't care about the laws, right? Imagine my shock when I hear that there are stabbings on a daily basis in a country where carrying a knife without "good reason" (that the court decides) is illegal! Makes me so confused! I thought these laws work!

Regarding safety: alcohol is perfectly legal and I'm sure we can all agree on that it is extremely (more so than other substances) detrimental to health and other members of the society. On the basis of banning things for safety, it should be banned. Fun fact: it isn't. Another fun fact: prohibition wouldn't work.

> Speeding is not dangerous in itself, until you actually hit somebody. By your logic there should be no speed limit anywhere but only charges when you hit somebody.

Elaborate on how speed limits work or how come they are effective, if they indeed are. Maybe we can work out something. :)

I would also like you to point out its relevance to the prohibition of loot crates for the "safety of our kids and vulnerable people".

Regarding speed limits, I recommend https://mises.org/library/privatization-roads-and-highways.

Additionally, I would rather you avoid the use of "by your logic" when in fact it does not conform to my "logic", it conforms to your perceived and false interpretation of what my logic might be, which you extended to an entirely different issue and imagine that it somehow undermines my argument. There is a difference between having speed limits enforced by X and assuming that the majority of people would respect it, and banning loot crates on the premise that it benefits the kids and vulnerable people while depriving "non-vulnerable" or "less vulnerable" adults completely on the same premise.

Your kids won't be able to use your money to buy loot crates which contain items that are either unknown or known, but have no way of knowing which you'll receive after opening the crate.

Look, they say it's for the safety of your kids and vulnerable individuals: it must be good and do not dissent!

The Government has good intentions. /s

> I'm assuming you're referring to the royal you here.

Yes, definitely. Would you like to compare our e-p3nis?

> I suspect you're in favor of making all opiods [sic] legal as well?

Nice fallacy, but I'll take the bait.

Yes, in fact I am in favor of decriminalization of these substances, and Portugal is a great example of how decriminalization does not lead to anything you so anticipate. It does not lead to increased drug use, and leads to decreased drug-related injuries, and so on and so on. You can look up the evaluation of drug liberalization in Portugal. Decriminalization works and is effective, with its evident positive consequences. How about the war on drugs? How is it working out for you?

> California's Legal Weed Is So Heavily Taxed and Regulated That the Black Market Might Survive (source: https://reason.com/reasontv/2018/04/02/californias-new-recre...)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_cartel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War

While we are at it, let's ban Kratom, too. Gotta support the Big Pharma, gotta eliminate the competition to make people with chronic pain wait and pay more. FDA claimed Kratom is an opioid and it has no medical value, and at the same time they are trying to extract the alkaloids from Kratom to make a prescription drug out of it. Fuck!ng A.

Anyone here with chronic pain that would like to see Kratom banned? Please speak up! Who wants to destroy their safer and cheaper route of management of their pain? :D

chuckles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_liberalization#Portugal

https://mic.com/articles/110344/14-years-after-portugal-decr...

https://mises.org/library/mises-explains-drug-war

https://mises.org/library/war-drugs-war-freedom

https://mises.org/library/nullify-war-drugs

> What's the benefit of allowing lootboxes?

What's the benefit of X? They're invented by business as a new way of attracting Y. Why shouldn't this be regulated or banned?

Feel free to substitute X and Y by virtually anything.

> A discussion can be had without words such as "oppressed".

Read the comment to what I was replying.

For the same reason you are perfectly fine with government surveillance and prohibition aggressively enforced by the State.

Just stop giving your kids money, or pay more attention to their spending habits. If you think attention to your kid is oppressive surveillance, then there is no hope for you. Apparently children are oppressed by their parents' attention and they are suddenly capable of looking after themselves, yet at the same time you are in favor of prohibition of in-game loot crates because children are not capable of looking after themselves, but you also can't look after them because that would be oppressive. The cognitive dissonance is real.

> Aske Mottelson, one of the paper's authors, says the algorithm's ability to detect lies is comparable to that of a polygraph.

So in other words: useless.

> However, it has its limits and shouldn't be used in courtrooms or other high-stakes environments, he said.

Good thinking. Anxious people (innocent people are often anxious, I'd say) would most likely fail at the test.

Come on, you can't detect lies based on physiological indices such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity. Those are unreliable, and not proof or evidence of anything.

"Polygraphs measure arousal, which can be affected by anxiety, anxiety disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), nervousness, fear, confusion, hypoglycemia, psychosis, depression, substance induced states (nicotine, stimulants), substance withdrawal state (alcohol withdrawal) or other emotions; polygraphs do not measure "lies". A polygraph cannot differentiate anxiety caused by dishonesty and anxiety caused by something else."

Law? These are people who have access to your data, how am I, a stranger, any different from any other stranger who have access to your data? Would it be OK if I indirectly obtained your password and use it to access your data or something?

Mind you, I was speaking in general about people who claim they don't care about their privacy, or about these companies collecting their personal data, or having a history of their private messages, etc.

How can you not care about them saving your conversations in plain text, but then suddenly care about it when I ask you to show it to me? The only difference seems to be that I'm actively, personally, directly asking you for it, but ultimately it would be the same outcome.