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

[Janos Szablya]

Kurt,

PLEASE RE-READ YOUR ARGUMENTS AND ELIMINATE THE CONTRADICTIONS THEN 
REPOST IT SO I CAN TELL WHAT IT IS YOU ARE SAYING.

EXAMPLE:  ADULTS AREN'T VERY BRIGHT....
          USERS SIGN WAIVER THAT THEY ARE OVER 18
                    

         THEN YOU SLAM ISLAM AS A RELIGION.
         
Please explain your position clearly so I can understand why you 
just don't find these areas and "play"?

I have no problem with sexual material, but.... where does social 
responsibility begin and end?

I have no answers that are clear cut hear only we have issues that 
are greater than this thread that need to be addressed first and 
this issue should go on a back burner until it can be thought 
through. I feel the same way about violence/bombmaking it's just 
not the time when we are so far from being at the end of the first 
chapter of SCN.
         
  

On 3 Jun 1995, Kurt Cockrum wrote:

> 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
>