Re2: SCN Board Candidates and alt.sex.your.worst.nightmare

[Kurt Cockrum]

George said:
}>>[...me quoting Bob K...]
}>>  I would like to request that the alt.sex.* groups be part of the SCN
}>>  newsfeed.  [...]
}>>  [...]                                                        SCN practices
}>>  what it preaches and does not censor the newsfeed.  [...]
}>[me]
}>Well said, Bob!
}>
}>Apropos of this, Aki recently posted in
}><9506012225.AA08793 at grace.rt.cs.boeing.com> a list of nominees for the initial
}>SCN board.  I think it important that the candidates be *explicit* or at least
}>truthful about the boundaries of what they consider acceptable discourse in
}>public-access computer systems.  [...my stuff deleted...]
}
}I feel that free speech is important, both in practice as well as concept, 
}but if we are to have a group composed of age groups that are diverse and 
}varied, we either put up barriers based on age ( censorship_) or we don't 
}provide everything.

It's my opinion that exposure to graphic or talk sex does no harm to anybody.
I think one would be hard-pressed to provide evidence to the contrary,
unless the prospective censor wished to provide themselves as an example,
in which case we must consider the thesis that exposure to graphic sex
does indeed turn one into one of the lowest of the bottom-feeders, a censor,
self-serving confessions of serial killers notwithstanding.

We have to remember that much of the opposition to young folk seeing sex is
from the same folk who advocated firing Jocelyn Elders (successfully, to
the Clinton administration's great shame) for advocating that
masturbation be taught as a form of relief of sexual tension.
In fact, if those folk indeed resisted temptation, it's the best argument
for indulging that I have heard yet.  If they failed to resist temptation,
as did nearly all of the rest of us, what does that prove?  Just one thing:
we are all human beings, with human urges.  Nothing more.

A lot of the hoohah surrounding this issue comes from parents who have
extremely selective memories of their own privately constructed childhood
innocence.  Nobody ever remenbers what little hellions they were; they'd
prefer that their children conform to their internalized never-lived ideal,
instead of being like they were.

You know, adults really are not very bright; the disrespect that kids hold
for us is richly deserved in many cases.  There's no better way to get a
kid to do something than to forbid it to them.  There's no harder way to
get a kid to do something than to order them to do it.
Yet kids see all the foofaraw raised around sex by adults and can't help
but wondering, "well, if it's got them in an uproar, it must be pretty
interesting."  Besides, kids like to push adults buttons.  If adults would
just shut up about sex, kids probably would forget the whole thing.  Instead,
they keep harping on it, with predictable results.
Question of the day: how do you get a 4-year-old to put a bean up their nose?
Answer: Forbid them to do it, of course, and freak out when they do!!

After all, you haven't heard of any flags being burnt lately, have you?
It was the issue du jour for a while, but once the adults (read: establishment,
the powers-that-be, authority, etc.) lost interest, the kids did too.
Besides, that was only done to get people's goats.

}                     If we provide alt.sex, then we must provide all of 
}the other forums, over 10000, and our disks will choke.

OK, technical arguments must not be conflated with censorship.  We don't
need to provide access to .gif's (or provide a 1-gig disk and a 1-day expire
time -- can't that group have its own partition?); after all much better
quality printed images are available for those who get off on images.

Besides, you don't have to provide them all.  Just the ones people ask for.
Not the same thing.

However, sex talk satisfies deep human needs -- i. e. talking about sex
with other real live human beings, and I don't mean at $2/minute.  Sex is
a natural human activity, and a community center without areas for that is
going to be hard-pressed to say that they are free-speech advocates if
there never seems to be enough disk space for those "controversial" newsgroups.
Don't forget, people will be watching to see if it's really not enough disk
space, or whether bluenoses are getting appeased.  Besides, secondary storage
is getting cheaper and cheaper.

}I would propose that even if we want to add someone's particular desire, 
}that in a diverse group, the group can act on it.  If someone wished to 
}have downloadable QuikTime movies of "Deep Throat", we would not consider 
}that as an application of censorship if the organizatiopn declined to 
}carry it because of:
}	Storage space

I agree; see above.  However, it should be made explicit and the action
should be done in an open manner so that it could be verified.  I'd hate
to see a bluenose using lack of storage space as an excuse.  Storage space
must be really not available for that to work as a reason.  As time goes
on, it becomes less viable.

}	Access to Minors

The barrier mentioned above only needs to be nominal, doesn't it?  Do we
actually have to call 911 if we learn that somebody on the other end of the
wire is a kid?  How would that happen anyway?
So, let the user sign a disclaimer saying they are over 18 and that they
will not allow young folk access to their terminal.  That way, if they
lie, the moral/ethical onus lies on them, not us.  I am willing to take
somebody's word that they are over 18 (or whatever the age is).  I am not
going to sue them if they turn out to have deceived me.  After all, I have
this signed disclaimer right there in this shoebox... :)
Access to the newsgroups in question perhaps should be accompanied by warning
messages (but see above, where I talk about how kids find out what's
interesting -- just by observing where the adults get all hot and bothered).

Besides, it makes more sense to provide empty or minimal .newsrc's to
users.  Let them find out what's there by exploration.  In other words,
let sleeping dogs lie.

}	Offence to other members

Uhhh, like being offended at censorship?  Why should being offended at graphic
sex take precedence over offence at lack of free speech?  Why not the other way
around?  If somebody is offended by feelthy pix they should not look at them.
We should not be responsible for the religion that others *choose* and the
boundaries it imposes on them.

It is said that in certain Islamic countries women must wear chadors (a
head-to-toe flowing garment that conceals the body) so that men aren't incited
to lustful thoughts, or otherwise offended.  But it seems entirely unfair to
hold a woman responsible for events that occur solely within the confines of
a man's cranium.  Should she be held responsible for things that the man is
likely obsessing about anyway solely because that culture forbids it?  In any
case, there's nothing she can do to control what goes thru the man's head.  In
this country, a similar analogy holds.

Sometimes, the only way somebody won't be offended by one's presence or
activities of life is for one to stop living, an unacceptable option for many.

We live in an increasingly diverse, multicultural society, for better or
for worse.  There are infinite opportunities for being offended, yet we
only have a finite lifetime.  People who get offended by commonplace activities
of others perhaps need to get counseling of some kind, and perhaps a sheet of
suitable references could be prepared.  In any case, why worry about it -- if
there's a hereafter, that's where it'll get sorted out anyway.

Somehow we need to start getting rational about what bothers us and what
doesn't.

}Where should we draw the line.  SCN is a new and still struggling 
}organization.

Certain persons who have declared candidacy for the board of directors no
doubt would like everything nice and sanitized for the benefit of visiting
firepersons and prospective grantors, but the fact is we are presumably a
community, which includes homeless people, sex fiends, prudes, clean
people and people who don't take a bath very often and everything
orthogonal to all of the preceding.  Sorry, life is not as clean and shiny
as those persons think it should be.

Presumably, because we are "new and still struggling", we need grants and
other money sources;  I would hope in our hunger for cash flow, that
we only approach grantors who also put a high value on free speech.
I would hope that we have the collective courage to turn down money that had
censorship strings attached.

No doubt there will be competition for the same money from FreeNets who decide
to compromise their ideals of free speech in order to obtain funding.
Well, this would just make us look better in some circles...if that
ever became the case, we could use that fact to promote ourselves!

}               It would be nice if we could pay for everything, but 
}consider that our net access is via the Seattle Public Library, not some 
}client or user.  We may decide in the future that we have the resources 
}to add all of alt and all of sci and all of art and all ...
}but we are not there yet.  I don't think that this is an issue for the 
}Board-of-Directors at this time for the same reasons as above.!

The issue of whether we have the space to carry all the groups is not the
same as whether we should carry certain groups because their content.  The
latter issue *is* one that the BOD should be concerned about, and user/members
should be concerned about the opinions of prospective BOD members on that
issue.  The first issue concerns chiefly the sysadmins.

One wishes that the candidates weren't mum on this; so far all the talk
has been from non-candidates.  Perhaps for the candidates this is all
moot since they are all ardent free speech supporters anyway?
-- kurt