From: Alan Olsen <alano@teleport.com>
Date: Sun, 14 Apr 1996 15:57:42 +0800
To: "E. ALLEN SMITH" <EALLENSMITH@ocelot.Rutgers.EDU>
Subject: Re: Enforcing the CDA improperly may pervert Internet architecture
Message-ID: <2.2.32.19960414043501.00940608@mail.teleport.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 11:15 PM 4/13/96 EDT, E. ALLEN SMITH wrote:

>	Quite. It's interesting in that regard that, as well as differentiating
>between homosexual and heterosexual content, the W3C PICS scheme includes a
>filtration scheme for attacks on religions. One wonders if they considered that
>Scientology is currently (probably unjustifiedly) considered a religion?

The more the irrational and indefensible the faith, the more that the
proponents of that faith view any sort of debunking attempt as "an attack".
(It is not just Scientologists that suffer from this mentality.  I have seen
those of the more fanatical Christian varieties make the same claim.)

What these schemes will do is shield children from anything resembling a
"controversial" discussion.  (I expect Cypherpunks to be labeled as "could
cause criminal behaviour" or some such malarky by the more protective and
clueless.  (It may be true, but why warn them upfront? ]:> ))  You will see
the forces of "good" try and protect the little kidlets from anything that
might get them to think for themselves.  It is already happening in some
sectors of public thought, I expect the net to become its next victim.

Soon everything will be "Sanitized for your Protection".

---
Alan Olsen -- alano@teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction
        `finger -l alano@teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key 
                http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ 
  "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon