*scratches her head a little* Why does everyone care all of a sudden?

So, you're saying that you can capture images and not know what's on them? That doesn't seem sound...

Here we go...consider the following conversation:

You: AAAIIIEEEE!! Flies are crawling on me! Flies are crawling on me! Get 'em off!! They carry disease and are gross!!

Me: Ummm. No. That's actually a bit of fluff from a cottonwood tree. Kinda looks like a fly, though.

You: If it looks like a fly, then it IS a fly! AIIIEEEE!

Me: Ummm. Again, no. It's really not the same thing at all. Flies are living, breathing insects that meet certain criteria. THAT is a piece of cottonwood fluff, which just happens to look like a fl...

You: AIIIEEEE!!!

While the above fantastic analogous conversation will ultimately break down (all analogies do...), it illustrates a point.

Argumentation, the defense of a position or statement through the use of logic and reason, is at the core of human communication. If you can't explain yourself clearly enough, or defend the statements you make, then you lack the single most important tool-using faculty a human being has at his or her disposal.

Without it, you're nothing more than a torch-waving member of a mob.

absurdity:

So, what i'm getting from what you're saying is that the government constantly moniters your computer access, and if you do something wrong they come to your house, confiscate your computer, scan the hardrive, and if they find anything objectionable they throw you in prison?

Now that is absurd. What actually happens and how a lot of paedophiles get caught is having a computer problem and when you take it to PC World or similar they find the images and call the police.

The same used to happen with photo developing, the companies that supply the service reported child porn put through them. Things have just moved on from 35mm photography to digital.

This is pretty much what i'm talking about. The only arguments i'm seeing FOR the banning of ageplay and such are "Good job lindens!" and "these people are sick!" or perhaps the simple, most cliché, "they don't belong." Or perhaps for the other side "I'm not objectionable!"

They never note, however, that they lack any support for this oppinion. I'll concede to the fact that there is the rare, well contructed post for or against it. I just wanted people to stop yacking and actually debate.

Yet -- i do have bias. It's probably obvious to what side, aswell.

So, really what you're saying is that unless you're purposefully attempting to capture illegal images, there's practically no chance that you'll get thrown in the lock-up.

See my other posts on this. If someone wishes to wear diapers and do the whole adult baby thing, play angela landsbury in murder she wrote, use a child av and do regular things. great!
ageplay in thenon sexual sense fine with me knockyourselves out!


be a child escort and bother me in a sandbox, prepare to be ARed

You'd have to explain why the images were on your computer in the first place. Shrugging your shoulders and saying "Well it's really adults depicting kiddie porn" is not going to be a get out of jail free card.

Okay, now that you have defined your oppinion:
* For freedom of appearance
* For freedom of private sexual events
* Against sexual organisations having to do with children

Now, Care to explain -WHY- you hold these to be true?

Then I'll play devil's advocate here...just for the sheer exercise.

I oppose the representation of pedophilia-related AV roleplay for the following reason:

It reinforces a casual and accepting attitude about the actions represented. In spite of the fact that those activities are being performed in a virtual environment between two adults, every such action removes through desensitization the actual very real horror and trauma which are the end results of such things in Real Life.

Pedophilia is a sickness, and the result of such activity is a broken, scarred defenseless child. The virtual "play" which makes light of such a universally reprehensible act merely robs it of significance.

And if we truly care about our children, that cannot be allowed to happen.

Okay, yes that's true. But unless you were -trying- to get illegal images on your computer, how would they end up there?

The snapshots in SL aren't saved to your hard drive unless you want them to end up there. They are on SL's servers.

Hi,

this is a serious problem. For example, as far as I know it is illegal in China to utter anything critical against the government, an action Europeans and Americans have no legal problem with as long as they are not insulting or harrassing others. Ot the questionis, how to define "inappropiate" as used by the blog/rules posting?

If in Kasazachstan it would be illegal to view any person clad in a red robe for whatever reasons, there could only be a few solutions:

- LL is relying on a certain law and puts it into action for SL.
I am not in the US, and US law does not apply for me at all. Plus, it might bring my into conflict with the local law with things that aren't illegal in the US.

- LL is setting own rules or laws in SL
This is nearly the same: these laws can be in conflict with local laws wherever you want on this planet, and also can punish you even if the actions you did are legal in your local jurisdiction.


The third option is in my opinion the best: Tell the people tthey are reliable for whatever they do, in whatever location or law system they have, and give out the email adresses abd credentials like the payment methods or IP they use to communicate with LL if a government or prosecutor states an illegal activity, well knowing, that some people are able to cover their tracks in the net - there is no absolute possibility to identify someone at all. LL could get out of the crossfire, and the users should know what they do in RL, they are responsible for whatever they do.

Laws are alsways just as good as their enforcement, and if LL relies on denunciation, SL will be dead soon. First the groups PLAYING (you cannot control or harm someone in SL, don't forget) the said actions will leave, then the user counts drop, more leave, companies look at a wasteland even more deserted as it is right now, and the money will stop coming in.

Greetings, Xe

But you're still lumping the child escorts in with the kind I described by saying "ageplay in the non-sexual sense".
So can I assume that you agree that a couple who use this as part of their kink, only with each other, only in the privacy of their own land should be banned as well? Would you AR this couple if you happened to be passing by and saw them in their bedroom? I'm not accusing you of spying. We all do it. Two green dots on the minimap, you go have a peek to see if it's anything interesting. If you were just wandering around and saw two green dots and went over to see if it was, like, a store or a cool house or whatever... hell, for whatever reason you might go over and say hi... and saw this couple, a monogamous couple, married for 20 years, decided to get a little kinky and do something incredibly tabbo and naughty, would you AR them? Do you think these people should be banned? Should they be locked out of our world because their kink makes us all feel a little squicky?

And, if so, where do we stop?

Links, please? May we see the research that backs up your facts?

no actually I would continue on my way. What people do in private, or the illusion of private is up to them.

Okay. Call into question the specifics you'd like me to research for you, and I'll provide the links.

Personally, I don't have anything against any form of roleplay. There are things that I wouldn't want to see within my own sim (like the use of weapons), but who am I to judge what other people are allowed to do on their private land? I see no reason why I should care about their actions, just as I don't care what my RL neighbours do in their bedroom.

Aside from that, I also fail to see any harm in any kind of roleplay, as long as it isn't forced upon others (in the sense that they're forced to watch because a couple starts acting out in the middle of a shopping mall). As long as people perform their roleplay either on their own land or in sims built by and for like-minded people, there's nothing wrong with anything. Anyone who would take offense can simply stay away, no one is forced to teleport to their place.

About sexual ageplay in particular: even if people, against common sense and reason, argue that activities that are illegal in RL need to be prosecuted in virtual environments as well, sexual ageplay isn't and never was a crime. Adults are allowed to dress up however they like before they start humping each other. And that's what every roleplayer on the grid is: an adult. Avatars are simply their costume.

Alas, LL doesn't judge by reason or necessity, not even by morality. They simply consider what their investors would like to see and what not (although they don't seem to care much about small investors who merely own a single sim). Perhaps they try to find a middle way between resident and corporate interests, but in the end it's business sense and media feedback that dictates the rules.

Actually, You need some evidence to back up that claim. It acutally seems more logical to me that:

Pedophiles will ALWAYS exist. (assumption from the fact that pedophilia cannot be passed on.)
Pedophiles have urges, just like everyone else.

If pedophiles are like most people (which they most-likely are), as their urges progress they will have more desire to fullfil those urges.

If we give pedophiles a LEGAL release, they will fullfill their urges.

If they fullfil their urges, they will not seek to carry them out by ILLEGAL means. (IE: child rape)

Therefore, if we give pedophiles a legal release, then there will be less child rape/Illegal pedophile acts.

(this argument is hastilly written.)

Oooohkie dokey

Start here. You have made a definitive statement here that, basically, allowing it on SL desensitizes folks. Surely you have links to studies and research backing up this statement. It's a pretty big statement, saying that allowing it desensitizes us from the "very real horror".Again. Another definitive statement.
And one more. This one is almost certainly an opinion stated as fact.

Which is why I am asking for you to back up your statements.

Alester, I'm with you on this.

And it's why I do support Linden Labs with the decision about Ageplay. I just wish they had worded it like that.
Much as I am for freedoms, it's bad for business and thus, their right to try to get rid of it.
So, go LL on that front.

What bugs me is that most of the arguments on the "Con" side degrade into "OMG AGEPLAYERZ IS PEDOFILZ", which, in turn, degrades into "OMGLOL IF U DEFEND AGEPLAYING UR A PIDDLEFIEL", neither of which are true.

When talking about ageplay, talk about ageplay.
When talking about paedophilia, talk about that.

NO-ONE is defending paedophilia. Not that I've seen, anyway.

Sophia..........you continually demand "evidence" from others to back up their opinions. Well, I've seen "evidence" that they are backing up their claims. The same "evidence" you have provided......OPINIONS, based on common human decency, attitudes, and morals.

Since you are so adament about "facts"........let's hear your FACTS. Remember now, they must real facts. Your rules, you know?

Just because you think it does no harm DOES NOT make it a fact. Give me evidence........scientific, unrefutable factual evidence.

Or, maybe you could just get off you power, I'm smarter than you trip. My IQ is way above 80.........is yours?

One thing you may have to think about is, the people driving the avatars you have seen may simply be more kids, playing you to make you mad. Seeing some child avatars sitting on a poseball, shagging, does not mean that when you get them banned, you have fought the good fight. It just means some more dumb jokers have had a good laugh at your pompous, self-righteous armchair campaigner morals.

There's a heavy element of "being taken for a fool" in this whole topic, and it will spoil the whole Second Life experience if we allow that finding hot-topic roleplays and capering about doing them in front of Joe Public, is a legitimate way to amuse yourself.

On the other hand; What was Mel Brooks doing, with "Where are all the White Women at?" and "Springtime for Hitler?"

I'm asking for a oppinion and support.
It comes as an axiom that pseudopedophilia doesn't directly hurt anyone not directly involved. You can be across the grid and a pedophile can't bother you unless by IMs, which are easily blocked. You could be five meters from a pedophile, and (s)he could not be capable of harming you.

Furthermore, I've said the word "Evidence" a total of: ONE time. It was after someone actually did give me what i wanted: An oppinion with support.

I brought the support into question, though, because the support sempt like it lacked any ethos.

Has anyone figured out who is welcoming paedophiles to SL?

All evidence suggests the opposite. Our society has been playing violent computer games and watching violent movies and TV series for decades. Yet the criminality rate in both the USA as well as Western Europe is decreasing. If your theory of desensitization was true, we would see a dramatic increase of murder and other violent crimes. This is not the case.

People are able to distinguish between games / movies and reality. Have you ever watched a horror movie? If so, has it desensitized you in any way? Would you now be less shocked if you were to witness a violent crime?



This argument of the poor child is moot, since there are no children involved in sexual ageplay within SL. I could as well say "Shooting people is sickness, since the end result is often a severely injured or even dead person". It doesn't make shooting with virtual bullets in a virtual world dangerous or even "sick".
"Robs it of significance" is no reasonable argument. Virtual murder or murder scenes in movies don't rob real murder of its significance.



Everyone truly cares about children. But they are simply not involved here. Please argue based on the facts about sexual ageplay in SL, which is that adult persons in virtual costumes engage in a roleplay scene without even having sex in a biological sense. Furthermore, since there is zero evidence that Counterstrike sharpshooters or Everquest sword-swingers turn into RL serial killers, there is also zero reason to assume that anyone would act in reality the same way they do in computer games or other virtual environments.