[81512] in Cypherpunks
Re: Thoughtcrime (Re: My War)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Igor Chudov @ home)
Mon Jun 9 23:39:18 1997
To: shamrock@netcom.com (Lucky Green)
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 1997 21:52:30 -0500 (CDT)
Cc: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.19970609183534.0069ac1c@netcom13.netcom.com> from "Lucky Green" at Jun 9, 97 06:35:34 pm
From: ichudov@algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home)
Reply-To: ichudov@algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home)
Lucky Green wrote:
> Let us assume that it is unethical to force children to participate in the
> production of child pornography. (For the benefit of Kent and the more
> ignorant people on this list, I will state that I firmly believe this to be
> true, despite the fact that doing so should be irrelevant for the argument.)
>
> Furthermore, let us assume that there are a number of individuals who enjoy
> looking at hard core child pornography.
>
> The question then is: does going after the distributors provide a benefit
> to the children being (potentially) used for such pictures?
> The answer is clearly no. By limiting the distribution of an individual
> picture, you increase the total number of pictures required to satisfy
> market demand. That means more children will be required to meet demand.
How do you justify that "clearly"?
I think that your analysis is incorrect.
This is a supply and demand situation. It is very simple to show (as any
microeconomics textbook does) that a tax on the product reduces the amount
of product sold and produced.
Since a unit of product is probably one picture of a child, there are
less units produced if they are taxed.
In the case of child porn, all this persecution is a form of tax, although
not very quantifiable.
igor
> Thus, by going after the distributors, Se7en causes more children to be
> violated by child pornographers.
>
> The only question that remains is: how can he live with this?
>
> Logic != base emotions,
>
> --Lucky Green <shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.
>
> Put a stake through the heart of DES! Join the quest at
> http://www.frii.com/~rcv/deschall.htm
>
- Igor.
