[d@DCC] Creativity and cultural policy (Was: Re: [CPI-UA] Cross

[mskala at ansuz.sooke.bc.ca]

On Sat, 10 Apr 2004, Kristofer Coward wrote:
> had sex with the subject of the child pornigraphy that I viewed. Of
> course, I was 15 at the time, and she was 16, so it was one of them
> allowable cases. I'll have to remember to include that on my list of

I don't know if I'd say that in a public forum myself... the age of
consent law for actual sex acts has exceptions to protect couples who are
underage but close to each other in age, but I don't know of any such
exceptions to the Canadian child pornography law.  I don't see any reason
why a minor couldn't be charged for possession or "access" of child
pornography in Canada.  They're already doing that in the States, as I
mentioned in my blog recently.

Bringing this back to topic:

> The idea that "download" is getting damaged the same way as "hacker" is
> upsetting. Reversing this trend does seem rather difficult.

I think a big part of the problem is that the original meanings of
"download" and "hacker" relate to specific technical concepts that the
average person doesn't need to know about and so doesn't know about.  If I
want to correct someone who's misusing the mathematical term "Abelian", I
first have to make sure that they know what a "group" is in the context of
mathematics... and if they don't know that, *and don't care*, then it's
very difficult for me to say anything that will sink in on the topic of
which groups are or are not Abelian.
-- 
Matthew Skala
mskala at ansuz.sooke.bc.ca                    Embrace and defend.
http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/

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