Sasha Chislenko wrote:
> I think mentions of children for imposing any social restrictions,
> from porn to drugs to smoking, are a part of the general tendency to
> call to "sacred values" of the society - be it Motherland, Our Lord,
> minorities or Holy Cows. The audience is supposed to panic at the mere
> mention that the Holy Stuff might possibly be harmed. Objections and
> discussions here always seem politically incorrect - partly because
> people do not feel like negotiating Holy Values, and partly because
> such attitude is very convenient for, and is supported by, the social
> manipulators [who often use these mentions to promote entirely
> unrelated regulations]
>
After reading Bruce Sterling's _Holy Fire_, I got the idea that US society is so protective of its children because they are the first immortal generation, and the values we teach them will become part of human society forever. So, in this sense, I can almost support heavy handed regulations (almost).
I came across a web site some months ago - I will try to dig it up - that was basically the history of the human race as the history of child abuse. Short version: children are 'pure', adults are poisoned with sin, it is ok to put a little of this sin into children, since they have so much innocence it won't harm them.
I think US society sexualizes children, then punishes anyone who 'crosses the line' as a collective atonement for the sexualization. (I have a friend currently serving 3 years in prison - he clicked on a link to order some alledged child porn, which of course was delivered by USPS agents).
On a related topic, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
> More complexly, the evolutionarily optimal sexual strategy for females
> isn't as straightforward as that for males. In the case of males, the
> strategy is simple: Screw everything in sight that you can possibly
> impregnate. In the case of females, who, at minimum, have to spend nine
> months pregnant, the strategy is to attract a single mate of the highest
> possible quality. Thus a woman may go out of her way to make herself
> more attractive, even out of personal rather than social causes, and
> still be looking for a compliment from only one man.
>
-Mike
-- ====================================================================== Michael Wiik Principal Messagenet Communications Research Washington DC Area Internet and WWW Consultants http://messagenet.com mwiik@messagenet.com ======================================================================