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This deserves a lot more of a response but for now I'll just leave this: Liberty is about the ability of the individual to do things that others disapprove of.

This deserves a lot more of a response but for now I'll just leave this: Liberty is about the ability of the individual to do things that others disapprove of. You don't need liberty if everyone else approves of your actions. As a corollary, the exercise of liberty does not require a justification, because it's a liberty, practicality or "usefulness" or what-have-you play no part in it. It's onerous to require someone to justify their right to look at porn. It's even more onerous to ask people to put their name on a list as someone who desires the ability to look at porn. And indeed this is how freedoms are eroded. Because once you put things on a different footing and you require people to justify their freedoms then it becomes ever more difficult to justify anything. Can you justify eating a cheap, greasy cheeseburger? Can you justify watching "Jersey Shore"? Are you willing to? These are precisely the same sorts of tactics that have been used since the dawn of time for busybodies to rein in individual freedoms of others, and thereby to obtain greater authority over others. People often dismiss out of hand the notion that tyranny could possibly take hold over the first world democracies of the west in the 21st century. And to that I can only sigh. Perhaps it will not be known as tyranny, perhaps someone will come up with a different, more apt name once (if) we are in the clutches of it, but it will be every bit as bad and every bit as difficult to throw off, if not more so.

DanBC 13y ago
> People often dismiss out of hand the notion that tyranny could possibly take hold over the first world democracies of the west in the 21st century. And to that I can only sigh. Perhaps it will not be known as tyranny, perhaps someone will come up with a different, more apt name once, if, we are in the clutches of it, but it will be every bit as bad and every bit as difficult to throw off, if not more so. Jesus fucking christ you people should go look at what happens in real dictatorships sometime. A voluntary filter is not tyranny and it's fucking disgusting to compare optional filtering of semi-random webcontent with governments who murder and torture their citizens.
- dasil003 13y ago
  Exactly, nothing like that could ever happen here.
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  This perfectly illustrates my point. Of course this is not full on tyranny. It's just baby steps toward something which could represent a diminution in individual liberty every bit as severe and oppressive as full-on tyranny. As I said, maybe when that day comes people will have come up with a better name for it. For now we either call it tyranny and risk people dismissing it, as you have done, or we dare not call it tyranny and risk people not seeing it as a serious threat. P.S. At what level of infringement of individual liberty between "just a little" and "full on raging tyranny" is it acceptable to take notice and be seriously pissed off?
  - dhimes 13y ago
    Perhaps the new tyranny should be called, "security."
    - smsm42 13y ago
      It will be. "Security" and "child protection" are two most effective weapons of the tyranny right now. You can pass nearly anything on a wave of moral panic in the name of security or child protection.
- Yaa101 13y ago
  You shouldn't compare your situation with people on the other side of the fence because theirs is always worse than yours. You should just shut your mouth until yours is as bad as theirs. This is basicly what you are saying. And no surprise, I disagree with you!
- oggy 13y ago
  The GP did not say we're living in a dictatorship right now, merely that such a possibility in the future should not be dismissed out of hand. Oh and by the way, you are familiar with the fact that the American government has murdered its own citizens, and that a hundred of them have been detained (and I suppose it's safe to assume, tortured) in Guantanamo? Yes, I know they are most likely not random innocent people.
- e40 13y ago
  A voluntary filter is not tyranny and it's fucking disgusting to compare optional filtering of semi-random webcontent with governments who murder and torture their citizens. You are the one that made the equivalence, not the person to which you replied. Nice straw man. This UK porn filter is a step on a path. Yes, that current position is not tyranny, but it's a step on the path to it. Frogs can't be dropped into boiling water, but you can turn up the heat a little bit at a time until they boil. That's what's happening in the US and UK right now. The end result will be tyranny, and it will end with murder and torture of citizens. Btw, in the US, we've already started murdering our citizens[1]. 1. http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/09/obama-assassinates-us-citizen http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/09/obama-assassin... EDIT: remove "Boiled" before frogs to clarify my intent. Thanks coldcode.
  - coldcode 13y ago
    You mean frogs I assume. Pre-boiled frogs don't mind a new dip.
    - dhimes 13y ago
      It's a legend anyhow, but an apt one. http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.asp http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.asp
      - Theodores 13y ago
        Don't believe that conspiracy-debunking-nonsense!! The truth is that the myth is true. However they have already censored all of the boiling frog videos from the internets.
    - personlurking 13y ago
      Unfortunately, I think many/most people are already pre-boiled, as it were.
  - personlurking 13y ago
    "but you can turn up the heat a little bit at a time until they boil." This has been called "kettling" in police jargon regarding crowd-control. For an older example, look to Roman general Fabius Maximus (from which the Fabian Society took its name) who used a new tactic [1], consisting of attrition, to defeat his enemies. Also, might as well mention that Sung Tzu (correct me if I'm wrong) said the weakest and dumbest way to enact political change is via military action, preferring subversion instead. 1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_strategy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_strategy
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  Where is your threshold that marks the point where the exercise of gov't authority becomes tyrannical?
- chmodd 13y ago
  > governments who murder and torture their citizens. What about governments that murder and torture citizens of other countries? The number of Iraqi and Afghani civilians killed by the US is pretty high - this fact alone is enough to make the US one of the worst human rights offenders in the world.
smegel 13y ago
And some Americans dismiss their constitution as out of date. It seems more relevant than ever.
- cinquemb 13y ago
  Even so, there are a lot of flaws within it unless some people are considered 3/5ths of persons on the basis of their skin. The idea is to transcend, not regress…
  - Afforess 13y ago
    That crap got tacked on at the end in the name of compromise. You should read the first drafts some time.
    - cinquemb 13y ago
      But it existed, and was the law of the land for some time right? But I guess since it was tacked on in the end in the name of a compromise all is forgiven, as people can tell from the current state of affairs today.
      - marshray 13y ago
        What I take away from it is that a document drafted by a bunch of slave owners has such miraculously little recognition for the practice of slavery.
  - smegel 13y ago
    But what if you transcend into something like modern day Britain? You let people start tweaking with some aspects, others will want to "modernize" its notion of free speech. It could be such a slippery slope.
    - cinquemb 13y ago
      If the people allow for something to happen and do nothing, then that is what will be (until otherwise confronted). The people who inhabited the world before us were no less immune to the philosophical issues that plague us today. Slippery slopes will always present themselves before us, as it has always been in our nature to create our own problems, but it matters more what will people do when the moment arises. I'm not condoning the actions of our nation states (Britain in this case), but as we have seen people and companies are standing in opposition with the issues at hand, and if people continue to do so to a point where it is agreed upon by more members of the community, then it will become the law of the land. Even the ideals brought forth in the constitution we're hardly original to it and we're fought for with the blood of about 1% of the population in the colony at the time [0]. But by no means does that some how make them more moral then the people who came before and those afterwards. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EiSymRrKI4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EiSymRrKI4
grabhive 13y ago
Extraordinarily well said.
wissler 13y ago
Actually we are in tyranny's clutches and have been for a long time. That most don't recognize it for what it is shows just how powerful it is.
jivatmanx 13y ago
>People often dismiss out of hand the notion that tyranny could possibly take hold over the first world democracies of the west in the 21st century I think that the two most famous tyrannies, the Nazis and the USSR, have given us a very narrow impression of how tyranny can take hold. We think, as long as there isn't a charismatic Hitler/Lenin figure agitating for revolution and preaching a radical ideology, that we're safe. We should be concerned the about the general erosion of the republican immune system - 1. Judiciary: Laws weakening judges in favor of prosecutors, vast unfilled judge vacancies, the FISA court. 2. The Legislature: The utter contempt shown for the people's branch by the military/executive, the troubling trend of the public echoing this. 3. Worshiping the guys with rows of medals and funny hats, giving them massive political power (Keith Alexander). EDIT: I found two relevant James Madison quotes: "Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations" "The accumulation of all powers, Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. "
- tetrep 13y ago
  >We think, as long as there isn't a charismatic Hitler/Lenin figure agitating for revolution and preaching a radical ideology, that we're safe. i think this is exactly the delusion most suffer from, because there are many people consolidating power instead of just one the concept of tyranny seems farfetched and alien. there isn't a clear target beyond "the government" that is the source of the power creep and so people struggle to fight against it, much like a lion trying to catch a zebra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra#Stripes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra#Stripes)
  - InclinedPlane 13y ago
    Also, it's the difference between people who are hungry for power on their own and people who seek to limit personal freedom and devolve power to the state for everyone's "own good". The Mussolini/Stalin route isn't the only way to destroy freedom, it can just as easily happen at the hands of less flamboyant folks believing their acting in everyone's best interests. It's not the risk of Voldemort taking over, it's the risk of Dolores Umbridge doing so.
josh2600 13y ago
You make a number of excellent points, but the distinction you're drawing is actually more broad than just justification of liberty. Anytime one makes a differentiation between two things, beauty and ugliness, skill and stupidity, light and dark, one is making a value judgement. The act of segregation, in and of itself, implies evaluation, weighing and judgement. I believe that prejudgement (or prejudice) is antithetical to democracy. The idea that looking at porn should require justification is so wrong-headed I don't even know where to begin. Sometimes I feel like in the 21st century, our industry (tech) is focused on making dreams come true, whereas our body politic is only interested in rehashing the same problems we've dealt with since the dawn of time. Why the hell are we even discussing a pornography filter when there are so many real, gigantic problems out there. Maddening.
- personlurking 13y ago
  "Anytime one makes a differentiation between two things, beauty and ugliness, skill and stupidity, light and dark...." a continuation of the quoted part above https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYhmATD8hLk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYhmATD8hLk
- pessimizer 13y ago
  Because Cameron and Osbourne have trashed the economy, and are looking for a distraction? Wouldn't hurt to throw in a crackdown on violent video games - or maybe video nasties; New Zealand just banned Maniac, so there's a good one to put across the cover of The Sun.
- steveklabnik 13y ago
  > The act of segregation, in and of itself, implies evaluation, weighing and judgement. One of my favorite quotes: > when you don't create things, you become defined by your > tastes rather than ability. your tastes only narrow & > exclude people. so create. > > - _why the lucky stiff
zaroth 13y ago
And privacy being liberty's right hand, this is particularly frightening: "Whether Huawei is linked to the government or not (they insist not), it’s hardly encouraging to discover that even when TalkTalk subscribers turn filtering completely off, their traffic is still routed through Huawei’s system." Who needs PRISM when ISPs will just proxy all our network traffic through the Great Firewall!

DanBC 13y ago

> People often dismiss out of hand the notion that tyranny could possibly take hold over the first world democracies of the west in the 21st century. And to that I can only sigh. Perhaps it will not be known as tyranny, perhaps someone will come up with a different, more apt name once, if, we are in the clutches of it, but it will be every bit as bad and every bit as difficult to throw off, if not more so. Jesus fucking christ you people should go look at what happens in real dictatorships sometime. A voluntary filter is not tyranny and it's fucking disgusting to compare optional filtering of semi-random webcontent with governments who murder and torture their citizens.

dasil003 13y ago
Exactly, nothing like that could ever happen here.
InclinedPlane 13y ago
This perfectly illustrates my point. Of course this is not full on tyranny. It's just baby steps toward something which could represent a diminution in individual liberty every bit as severe and oppressive as full-on tyranny. As I said, maybe when that day comes people will have come up with a better name for it. For now we either call it tyranny and risk people dismissing it, as you have done, or we dare not call it tyranny and risk people not seeing it as a serious threat. P.S. At what level of infringement of individual liberty between "just a little" and "full on raging tyranny" is it acceptable to take notice and be seriously pissed off?
- dhimes 13y ago
  Perhaps the new tyranny should be called, "security."
  - smsm42 13y ago
    It will be. "Security" and "child protection" are two most effective weapons of the tyranny right now. You can pass nearly anything on a wave of moral panic in the name of security or child protection.
Yaa101 13y ago
You shouldn't compare your situation with people on the other side of the fence because theirs is always worse than yours. You should just shut your mouth until yours is as bad as theirs. This is basicly what you are saying. And no surprise, I disagree with you!
oggy 13y ago
The GP did not say we're living in a dictatorship right now, merely that such a possibility in the future should not be dismissed out of hand. Oh and by the way, you are familiar with the fact that the American government has murdered its own citizens, and that a hundred of them have been detained (and I suppose it's safe to assume, tortured) in Guantanamo? Yes, I know they are most likely not random innocent people.
e40 13y ago
A voluntary filter is not tyranny and it's fucking disgusting to compare optional filtering of semi-random webcontent with governments who murder and torture their citizens. You are the one that made the equivalence, not the person to which you replied. Nice straw man. This UK porn filter is a step on a path. Yes, that current position is not tyranny, but it's a step on the path to it. Frogs can't be dropped into boiling water, but you can turn up the heat a little bit at a time until they boil. That's what's happening in the US and UK right now. The end result will be tyranny, and it will end with murder and torture of citizens. Btw, in the US, we've already started murdering our citizens[1]. 1. http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/09/obama-assassinates-us-citizen http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/09/obama-assassin... EDIT: remove "Boiled" before frogs to clarify my intent. Thanks coldcode.
- coldcode 13y ago
  You mean frogs I assume. Pre-boiled frogs don't mind a new dip.
  - dhimes 13y ago
    It's a legend anyhow, but an apt one. http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.asp http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.asp
    - Theodores 13y ago
      Don't believe that conspiracy-debunking-nonsense!! The truth is that the myth is true. However they have already censored all of the boiling frog videos from the internets.
  - personlurking 13y ago
    Unfortunately, I think many/most people are already pre-boiled, as it were.
- personlurking 13y ago
  "but you can turn up the heat a little bit at a time until they boil." This has been called "kettling" in police jargon regarding crowd-control. For an older example, look to Roman general Fabius Maximus (from which the Fabian Society took its name) who used a new tactic [1], consisting of attrition, to defeat his enemies. Also, might as well mention that Sung Tzu (correct me if I'm wrong) said the weakest and dumbest way to enact political change is via military action, preferring subversion instead. 1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_strategy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_strategy
fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
Where is your threshold that marks the point where the exercise of gov't authority becomes tyrannical?
chmodd 13y ago
> governments who murder and torture their citizens. What about governments that murder and torture citizens of other countries? The number of Iraqi and Afghani civilians killed by the US is pretty high - this fact alone is enough to make the US one of the worst human rights offenders in the world.

smegel 13y ago

And some Americans dismiss their constitution as out of date. It seems more relevant than ever.

cinquemb 13y ago
Even so, there are a lot of flaws within it unless some people are considered 3/5ths of persons on the basis of their skin. The idea is to transcend, not regress…
- Afforess 13y ago
  That crap got tacked on at the end in the name of compromise. You should read the first drafts some time.
  - cinquemb 13y ago
    But it existed, and was the law of the land for some time right? But I guess since it was tacked on in the end in the name of a compromise all is forgiven, as people can tell from the current state of affairs today.
    - marshray 13y ago
      What I take away from it is that a document drafted by a bunch of slave owners has such miraculously little recognition for the practice of slavery.
- smegel 13y ago
  But what if you transcend into something like modern day Britain? You let people start tweaking with some aspects, others will want to "modernize" its notion of free speech. It could be such a slippery slope.
  - cinquemb 13y ago
    If the people allow for something to happen and do nothing, then that is what will be (until otherwise confronted). The people who inhabited the world before us were no less immune to the philosophical issues that plague us today. Slippery slopes will always present themselves before us, as it has always been in our nature to create our own problems, but it matters more what will people do when the moment arises. I'm not condoning the actions of our nation states (Britain in this case), but as we have seen people and companies are standing in opposition with the issues at hand, and if people continue to do so to a point where it is agreed upon by more members of the community, then it will become the law of the land. Even the ideals brought forth in the constitution we're hardly original to it and we're fought for with the blood of about 1% of the population in the colony at the time [0]. But by no means does that some how make them more moral then the people who came before and those afterwards. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EiSymRrKI4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EiSymRrKI4

grabhive 13y ago

Extraordinarily well said.

wissler 13y ago

Actually we are in tyranny's clutches and have been for a long time. That most don't recognize it for what it is shows just how powerful it is.

jivatmanx 13y ago

>People often dismiss out of hand the notion that tyranny could possibly take hold over the first world democracies of the west in the 21st century I think that the two most famous tyrannies, the Nazis and the USSR, have given us a very narrow impression of how tyranny can take hold. We think, as long as there isn't a charismatic Hitler/Lenin figure agitating for revolution and preaching a radical ideology, that we're safe. We should be concerned the about the general erosion of the republican immune system - 1. Judiciary: Laws weakening judges in favor of prosecutors, vast unfilled judge vacancies, the FISA court. 2. The Legislature: The utter contempt shown for the people's branch by the military/executive, the troubling trend of the public echoing this. 3. Worshiping the guys with rows of medals and funny hats, giving them massive political power (Keith Alexander). EDIT: I found two relevant James Madison quotes: "Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations" "The accumulation of all powers, Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. "

tetrep 13y ago
>We think, as long as there isn't a charismatic Hitler/Lenin figure agitating for revolution and preaching a radical ideology, that we're safe. i think this is exactly the delusion most suffer from, because there are many people consolidating power instead of just one the concept of tyranny seems farfetched and alien. there isn't a clear target beyond "the government" that is the source of the power creep and so people struggle to fight against it, much like a lion trying to catch a zebra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra#Stripes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra#Stripes)
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  Also, it's the difference between people who are hungry for power on their own and people who seek to limit personal freedom and devolve power to the state for everyone's "own good". The Mussolini/Stalin route isn't the only way to destroy freedom, it can just as easily happen at the hands of less flamboyant folks believing their acting in everyone's best interests. It's not the risk of Voldemort taking over, it's the risk of Dolores Umbridge doing so.

josh2600 13y ago

You make a number of excellent points, but the distinction you're drawing is actually more broad than just justification of liberty. Anytime one makes a differentiation between two things, beauty and ugliness, skill and stupidity, light and dark, one is making a value judgement. The act of segregation, in and of itself, implies evaluation, weighing and judgement. I believe that prejudgement (or prejudice) is antithetical to democracy. The idea that looking at porn should require justification is so wrong-headed I don't even know where to begin. Sometimes I feel like in the 21st century, our industry (tech) is focused on making dreams come true, whereas our body politic is only interested in rehashing the same problems we've dealt with since the dawn of time. Why the hell are we even discussing a pornography filter when there are so many real, gigantic problems out there. Maddening.

personlurking 13y ago
"Anytime one makes a differentiation between two things, beauty and ugliness, skill and stupidity, light and dark...." a continuation of the quoted part above https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYhmATD8hLk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYhmATD8hLk
pessimizer 13y ago
Because Cameron and Osbourne have trashed the economy, and are looking for a distraction? Wouldn't hurt to throw in a crackdown on violent video games - or maybe video nasties; New Zealand just banned Maniac, so there's a good one to put across the cover of The Sun.
steveklabnik 13y ago
> The act of segregation, in and of itself, implies evaluation, weighing and judgement. One of my favorite quotes: > when you don't create things, you become defined by your > tastes rather than ability. your tastes only narrow & > exclude people. so create. > > - _why the lucky stiff

zaroth 13y ago

And privacy being liberty's right hand, this is particularly frightening: "Whether Huawei is linked to the government or not (they insist not), it’s hardly encouraging to discover that even when TalkTalk subscribers turn filtering completely off, their traffic is still routed through Huawei’s system." Who needs PRISM when ISPs will just proxy all our network traffic through the Great Firewall!