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It calls into question the very idea of "illegal content." If you think about it, what does it mean that content is illegal? How can you forbid a set of ones a

It calls into question the very idea of "illegal content." If you think about it, what does it mean that content is illegal? How can you forbid a set of ones and zeroes? It's a fake idea we've invented, and new technology has a way of forcing us to realize that. That said, practically, the world will adapt however it adapts. If we can survive the advent of unbreakable encryption, a little trolling won't matter much.

foepys 9y ago
That's a very naive view. While illegal content might "only" get you incarcerated in most of the western world, it will get you straight up killed in a lot of the other countries. This doesn't stop just because the technology is unable to delete anything.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  It does stop. When a technology becomes important, countries who forbid that technology miss out. The tech migrates elsewhere, taking talent with it. How many times have we seen that pattern? You can try to make Ethereum illegal if you want, but it'd be a tactical mistake. Ditto for unbreakable encryption. In fact, explain why it makes no sense to make unbreakable encryption illegal. Show your work. I suspect the same argument you'd use for that will apply to this. Required reading: http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23
otp124 9y ago
> How can you forbid a set of ones and zeroes? The courts seem to think they can make some numbers illegal: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number
DanHulton 9y ago
It's not a fake idea. There's all kinds of illegal content. The encoding is irrelevant.
joshuamcginnis 9y ago
> How can you forbid a set of ones and zeroes? This is like asking, "How can you forbid a set of iron atoms?" in reference to guns.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  Yes. And that leads straight to the question of morals and ethics, which the courts of every country are built around. Guns can cause harm. Does information? If someone photographs your private life and makes it public, that could be called information. But it's not quite the same: That's an action that goes against your will, and it seems quite ethical to let you enforce it. Yet even still, how do you propose to do that? What happens when a service literally cannot delete the information? And when that service becomes crucial infrastructure, what then? These are questions that technology is going to force us to address. Pretending that it's naive won't change that. Decentralization is coming.
  - yladiz 9y ago
    If what you’re getting at is does raw information in and of itself cause harm? No, but I would argue that information can directly cause harm when learned, which is the only way information is used (information has no meaning if it cannot be applied and learned). Example: learning the information that a loved one has passed can cause a person harm.
    - sillysaurus3 9y ago
      It can cause negative feelings, sure. But is that the same as causing harm? I mean this quite seriously: Should feelings alone be enshrined and protected? It's a strange question with no clear answers.
      - yladiz 9y ago
        Note that grief can directly cause harm and can kill.
  - 9y ago
yladiz 9y ago
To take it to a logical extreme: using this argument you can say that calling digital child porn photos illegal because they are just ones and zeros is silly, which is obviously not true. Illegal content is not a “fake” idea, even it it’s used in bad ways by bad actors. Ones and zeros aren’t illegal because numbers aren’t illegal, but it’s the arrangement of those ones and zeros, the context, that is key.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  Everyone is doing their best to wriggle their way away from this question, but I'm going to force you to address it: What happens when everyone automatically receives all content, and the content cannot be deleted? Now assume the service is something everyone uses. Imagine it's a decentralized internet, and banning it will cause your country to fall behind. What do you do then? This isn't quite a baseless hypothetical. It's one logical outcome of decentralization. And sooner or later, we're going to need to answer these hard questions.
  - yladiz 9y ago
    Before I can answer that question, how would you force everyone to receive all content, and force them to ingest it? Being decentralized doesn’t imply you receive all content.
    - sillysaurus3 9y ago
      Let's just say we're lucky Bitcoin wasn't built with an image renderer from the very beginning. But that's also an answer to your question. It's easy to imagine if Bitcoin were. So let's say it was. What do you do now that Bitcoin is $6k? (It's easy to argue that Bitcoin may not have attained $6k if it embedded an image renderer. But I think a future service will attain the same importance.)

foepys 9y ago

That's a very naive view. While illegal content might "only" get you incarcerated in most of the western world, it will get you straight up killed in a lot of the other countries. This doesn't stop just because the technology is unable to delete anything.

sillysaurus3 9y ago
It does stop. When a technology becomes important, countries who forbid that technology miss out. The tech migrates elsewhere, taking talent with it. How many times have we seen that pattern? You can try to make Ethereum illegal if you want, but it'd be a tactical mistake. Ditto for unbreakable encryption. In fact, explain why it makes no sense to make unbreakable encryption illegal. Show your work. I suspect the same argument you'd use for that will apply to this. Required reading: http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23

otp124 9y ago

> How can you forbid a set of ones and zeroes? The courts seem to think they can make some numbers illegal: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number

DanHulton 9y ago

It's not a fake idea. There's all kinds of illegal content. The encoding is irrelevant.

joshuamcginnis 9y ago

> How can you forbid a set of ones and zeroes? This is like asking, "How can you forbid a set of iron atoms?" in reference to guns.

sillysaurus3 9y ago
Yes. And that leads straight to the question of morals and ethics, which the courts of every country are built around. Guns can cause harm. Does information? If someone photographs your private life and makes it public, that could be called information. But it's not quite the same: That's an action that goes against your will, and it seems quite ethical to let you enforce it. Yet even still, how do you propose to do that? What happens when a service literally cannot delete the information? And when that service becomes crucial infrastructure, what then? These are questions that technology is going to force us to address. Pretending that it's naive won't change that. Decentralization is coming.
- yladiz 9y ago
  If what you’re getting at is does raw information in and of itself cause harm? No, but I would argue that information can directly cause harm when learned, which is the only way information is used (information has no meaning if it cannot be applied and learned). Example: learning the information that a loved one has passed can cause a person harm.
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    It can cause negative feelings, sure. But is that the same as causing harm? I mean this quite seriously: Should feelings alone be enshrined and protected? It's a strange question with no clear answers.
    - yladiz 9y ago
      Note that grief can directly cause harm and can kill.
- 9y ago

yladiz 9y ago

To take it to a logical extreme: using this argument you can say that calling digital child porn photos illegal because they are just ones and zeros is silly, which is obviously not true. Illegal content is not a “fake” idea, even it it’s used in bad ways by bad actors. Ones and zeros aren’t illegal because numbers aren’t illegal, but it’s the arrangement of those ones and zeros, the context, that is key.

sillysaurus3 9y ago
Everyone is doing their best to wriggle their way away from this question, but I'm going to force you to address it: What happens when everyone automatically receives all content, and the content cannot be deleted? Now assume the service is something everyone uses. Imagine it's a decentralized internet, and banning it will cause your country to fall behind. What do you do then? This isn't quite a baseless hypothetical. It's one logical outcome of decentralization. And sooner or later, we're going to need to answer these hard questions.
- yladiz 9y ago
  Before I can answer that question, how would you force everyone to receive all content, and force them to ingest it? Being decentralized doesn’t imply you receive all content.
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    Let's just say we're lucky Bitcoin wasn't built with an image renderer from the very beginning. But that's also an answer to your question. It's easy to imagine if Bitcoin were. So let's say it was. What do you do now that Bitcoin is $6k? (It's easy to argue that Bitcoin may not have attained $6k if it embedded an image renderer. But I think a future service will attain the same importance.)