Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Decline And Fall, Part 103030323019

The May 21, 2014 Houston Chronicle has a news story about a bunch of people arrested for trading child p0rn in the New York City area.  There's a description of those arrested that sounds like the start to a very complicated joke -- but there's nothing funny about this:
NEW YORK (AP) — A police officer, a paramedic, a rabbi, a nurse and a Boy Scout leader were among at least 70 people arrested in the New York City...
The police officer was the police chief of Mount Pleasant, N.Y.  Societies thrive or die based on how common the sick and twisted are.  They seem to be getting more common.

2 comments:

  1. I'm not sure they're all that more common, especially if you read descriptions of Victorian England. One of the side effects of the poor security of the Internet is that privacy has effectively disappeared and surveillance is easier than ever before. This makes discovery of these networks far easier since the security of the weakest link is the security of the network.

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  2. Maybe I am comparing the situation to 1960, when it was, I think, really hard to find such stuff. (Much of which is now slick magazines would have been hard to find even under the counter in nudist bookstores then.) I suspect that few Americans, even if they worked very hard at it, would have been able to find such materials. The Internet makes it easier for people to find their moral defects.

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