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That's a good argument about drug violence being a consequence of its illegality as well as use, not just use. I wonder then about viewers of violent crime. If

• jacquesm 11y ago
  Those videos are abhorrent. I would never watch one simply because there can't possibly be any gain from it. But the one thing those IS characters probably do not realize is that those videos serve yet another purpose: they dehumanize IS, and in that sense they make it a lot easier to sleep well if we decide to end that nonsense in a more drastic fashion. After all, imagine the Nazi's taking selfies and sending multimedia out into the world about what was happening inside the concentration camps. The war would possibly have ended a lot sooner because quite a few people that were still defending the regime and were claiming 'wir haben es nicht gewusst' would have stood up to do something about it. One of those attempts might have succeeded. It would have also served as anti-propaganda in getting other nations to jump on board of the allies train sooner. I see IS as a last ditch attempt at consolidation, if it fails they might as well not have tried hence their flaunting of all the rules, nothing left to lose.
  • Nutmog 11y ago
    You might not like them, but the average person probably doesn't have the same resentment they have towards child porn viewers. I've seen people openly talking about watching such videos on the internet and edited versions are even broadcast on the news. It's not a crime and it's not demonized. Not seeing any strong reasons, I suspect the real answer is that people feel hate towards sexual deviants of any sort just as they always have. It used to be gays but now they're off limits, so pedophiles are about all they have left to hate. Maybe that combined with a bit of "think of the children!". There's also widespread hatred toward incest but it doesn't seem so severe, perhaps because when it's adults, only the former emotion applies, not the latter.
    • jacquesm 11y ago
      > You might not like them, but the average person probably doesn't have the same resentment they have towards child porn viewers. That's quite a claim. > I've seen people openly talking about watching such videos on the internet Not around me. > and edited versions are even broadcast on the news. Again, not any news that I've seen. We apparently inhabit completely different circles and cultures. > It's not a crime and it's not demonized. Posession of child pornography is a crime where I live. Watching it is hard to criminalize since you can't prove who watched what so I can see why that would not be a crime and should not be a crime. > Not seeing any strong reasons, I suspect the real answer is that people feel hate towards sexual deviants of any sort just as they always have. I don't see this either. You can be a 'sexual deviant' (your words, not mine) all you want, it's fine with me. But the line gets drawn where children get abused and that's why possession of child pornography (and not being of a paedophillic disposition) is a crime. > It used to be gays but now they're off limits, so pedophiles are about all they have left to hate. That's an insanely dumb line. Gays are 'off limits' because just like pedophiles they are people first. You don't get to bash gay people for their sexuality (or your own insecurities) any more than you get to bash pedophiles. That's not the point. The pedophiles that get bashed are the ones that act on their urges in such a way that they endanger the people that we happen to cherish most, our (collective) children and their behavior in such situations makes use of the power asymmetry between adults and children (who are all but defenseless). In that sense the outrage is no less than if a big adult guy would rape a slightly built woman. (Or at least, I would expect it to be no less, it certainly wouldn't be less for me.) > Maybe that combined with a bit of "think of the children!". No, we just don't expect the children to stand up for themselves. They're physically weak (in the case of child pornography there does not seem to be a lower limit on what gets people excited, it goes all the way to newborns...), they are small, they generally defer to the authority of the adults present and they end up scarred for life from these ordeals. > There's also widespread hatred toward incest but it doesn't seem so severe, perhaps because when it's adults, only the former emotion applies, not the latter. Incest is taboo in many cultures. There are several reasons for that (most of them good, some of them debatable) but the definition of incest is probably not what you think it is (it can involve consent and it may involve only adults). Incest is more about bloodlines than anything else.