Court OKs child porn prosecution of minors distributing pictures of themselves - Hackdot

Re:Court OKs child porn prosecution of minors distributing p... by dcow on Friday September 15, 2017 @09:29PM (#15262252)

Science has failed to define what a human life is (really what any life is). It has not enumerated the qualities that make us human nor has it established a plausible theory and effective model that allows us to assess the attributes of a developing fetus and declare, "this one is human, this one is still a pile of cells". (And that's not to say it hasn't been helpful in sussing out practical guidelines so far.) I respectfully disagree that terminating the life of a fish/mammal and a 3- or 6-month old human are effectively the same thing. We kill and eat animals because that's how our biology works, and thus it is mostly socially acceptable. We don't allow eating small human fetuses because they're, "basically just a mammal at that stage". There are things that make something decidedly not human, but so far we can't really agree on how to distinguish definitely a human from potentially a human. Until we understand exactly what makes us human, I'm uncomfortable simply sweeping that unknown under the rug, morally.

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Re:Court OKs child porn prosecution of minors distributing p... by trhway on Friday September 15, 2017 @10:32PM (#15262498)

>Science has failed to define what a human life is ... It has not enumerated the qualities that make us human ... "this one is human, this one is still a pile of cells".

Those questions you pose is not really of scientific domain - they are actually equivalent reformulation of the religious question when/where "soul" is created (equivalence of the "soul" and "human" questions is established by the religious dogma that only humans have "soul"). Science has Cro-Magnons, Neanderthals, Australopithecus, etc... It is the question of religion domain whether Neanderthals or our common ancestors all the way to ancient apes were "humans"/"had soul". If notion of "soul" exists where did it appear between us and those cells $2B years ago to which each of us is connected through the continuous chain of bodies?

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Re:Court OKs child porn prosecution of minors distributing p... by dcow on Friday September 15, 2017 @10:46PM (#15262549)

I agree. And that's part of the point. If we could scientifically agree on definition of human life, it would be way easier to navigate the abortion topic. But since we can't, it's currently entirely a social issue. The reason I didn't want to group abortion with CP under "silly socially issues" is that I'm still holding out on us being able to eventually understand our own humanity. And when we do, it may shed light on an agreeable framework under which to legislate termination of a fetus.

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Re:Court OKs child porn prosecution of minors distributing p... by Natsu on Friday September 15, 2017 @09:42PM (#15262312)

I'm not sure I see it that way. We're effectively biological computers that run an unknown, self-modifying program.

We know when the body begins to develop (conception), but we're uncertain as to what sensory input is being processed, whether that program is aware of its own state, and such things may vary between individuals.

We have bright lines, but none that have sufficient agreement about their use in all cases for legal purposes.

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Re:Court OKs child porn prosecution of minors distributing p... by dcow on Friday September 15, 2017 @10:10PM (#15262409)

We are indeed biological computers. But this is a social problem. Socially we develop moral and ethical frameworks (codified as laws) in order to navigate the scenarios that come up in this biological thing we call life. It's not innately wrong to lust for someone who is younger than [country.min_adult_years] old; it's actually pretty biologically natural. However we socially agree that children are sexually off limits because we legally consider them unable to consent to sexual intercourse. My point was that abortion should not be grouped with "other laws that exist to protect vulnerable children" because it's more about the definition of a human life which is really hard and not about the vulnerability of a developing child's brain or decision making ability, albeit understandably easily conflated.

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Re:Court OKs child porn prosecution of minors distributing p... by Natsu on Friday September 15, 2017 @11:03PM (#15262610)

It's not hard to form definitions, it's hard to form ones that people will agree upon because there are many different interests in play and many different values. And it's not really that difficult to know whether a proverbial 'clump of cells' is developing into what everyone normally agrees to be 'human' or not.

The hard part is in forming the laws and deciding whether they should value undeveloped members of the homo sapiens genus for their species, for being intelligent, their capacity to suffer, or other reasons, then balancing whatever rights are assigned against the rights of others.

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Re:Court OKs child porn prosecution of minors distributing p... by trhway on Friday September 15, 2017 @09:40PM (#15262303)

6 month old isn't a fish. You put words in my mouth. 3 month is about fish equivalent. 6 month is a pretty intelligent mammal and I'm against killing them.

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Re:Court OKs child porn prosecution of minors distributing p... by dcow on Friday September 15, 2017 @09:45PM (#15262317)

I didn't realize that's what you meant. edited. Sorry for unduly implying anything about your character--that was not my intention. I thought you were just generally grouping fish/mammals with 3-6month old fetus brain development. Regardless it doesn't change my point.

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