An Australian made the argument that there supposedly (dubious statistic) being x people who committed y crime at least once, that there must also be x people currently committing y crime. He even took it a step forward to suggest that this means that there are x people currently committing y crime on encrypted messengers, therefore encrypted messengers should be outlawed.
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Everyone’s a suspect. Everyone MUST be doing something illegal. It also throws out the idea of rehabilitation. Labeling people for life. So wonderful! Ban everything, subject everyone to a search of their personal property and person. Horrible ideas!!
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His logic is faulty. If X people commit a crime once, they can’t all be committing it currently. And since most people are not actively committing crime continuously, there is a number Z committing it at any one specific time. Therefore, Z people is a smaller, probably much smaller set of X. This kind of invalidates his theory from the start.
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Every dumb idea, every idiotic law, every stupid thing I hear about comes out of someone from Australia.
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This was Australia’s Prime Minister. His right wing Liberal National Party lost the federal election in 2022.
One of the officials his party appointed was caught appearing on NCOSE’s podcast (an infamous group of Christian fundamentalists from the U.S. who want to ban all porn). A report released in 2023 by Labor showed a group which wants to ban all porn and has links to those fundamentalists from the U.S. lobbying the government. They lobbied against more conventional porn and those “cartoons”.
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the number of (for lack of a better way of putting it) law-abiding people using encrypted messagers far outnumbers the number of people committing crimes using encrypted messages. Because, spoiler, the people committing crimes is a small minority of all the people in the world. The overwhelming majority of people…are not doing anything wrong. (and just so we are clear. For the small minority of people that are doing wrong, we should help them so that they stop doing wrong)
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on a related note. The number of people using TOR for legitimate purposes far outnumbers the number of people using TOR for illegal purposes.
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I heavily disagree and agree with it at the same time. I believe it all comes down to what crime exactly did they do and how the country deals with that crime.
It’s the “everyone who drives a car will run people down” or the “every person who owns a rifle with a “high capacity” magazine is planning a shooting spree” assumptions. When I then see videos of police emptying 17 rounds into someone. With an obviously “high capacity” magazine in their handgun.
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No, I believe in rehabilitation.
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Agreed. I don’t believe rehabilitation/redemption is impossible for anybody. I just believe that for some there simply isn’t enough time/resources on this Earth for them to fully heal and repent for any harm they might have caused. Some people have done such wrong that it would take several lifetimes for them to come to terms with what they’ve done. Thankfully, I also believe such people are rare, and that most people can be shown the error of their ways, or at least rendered a non-threat to themselves or others. And with advances in medicine, psychology, technology, etc., we can help more people become better, even if we don’t see it in our lifetime.
Or maybe I’m just too optimistic about this subject. I admit to holding several conflicting beliefs at once. For example, I believe nobody is irredeemable, but I also view humanity as inherently evil and destructive (including self-destructive). And my beliefs are subject to change if given information that seems to disprove my previous beliefs. So perhaps I have no idea what I’m talking about 
.
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Do you think Hitler and his merry band of Nazis could have been redeemed? I don’t.
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As I said, some crimes would take multiple lifetimes to make up for. Time that somebody like Hitler simply wouldn’t have. I believe the only true barrier to rehabilitation and redemption is the limited time we have on this Earth.
Some of the absolute worst people in the world were noted to have felt remorse for their crimes. Emperor Hirohito expressed deep guilt about his enabling of Japan’s war crimes, to the point suicidal ideation. He came to vehemently condemn what Japan had done during WW2, and declared an Imperial boycott against Yasukuni Shrine (where Japan’s war criminals are honored as “kami”, or Gods). He called Yasukuni “evil”, “tainted”. People try to pretend the Emperor had no power during this time, but that’s only half true. Hirohito personally greenlit stuff like the Three Alls genocide and the human experiments of Unit 731. He could’ve put his foot down; he chose not to.
Regardless, I thus believe that the notion of some people are beyond redemption is incredibly harmful and counterproductive. By saying that, we subconsciously justify throwing our hands in the air and giving up on some people. I find this completely unacceptable. The citizenry of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan gave their full backing to the conquests and genocides of the Axis. Should each and every one of them been condemned as an irredeemable monster? It’s logic like this which is used to justify Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That all of them were irredeemable and “deserved” it.
I say all this as a man of Korean descent, somebody who would personally butcher the veterans who used my ancestors as “comfort” slaves if I was given the opportunity. I was quite pleased when Shinzo Abe was assassinated. He claimed the “comfort women” (sex slave little girls) were “consenting prostitutes”. I shed not even a single tear for the man . Neither did all of Japan for that matter, cementing for me that he was a very unliked person who indeed “deserved” what he got. Perhaps that’s hypocritical, but hey, all humans are. Myself included. At least I acknowledge it and make no excuses for it.
Regardless: as I said, I rationally believe nobody, not even these rapists, are beyond redemption. Many of them have expressed remorse at what they’ve done, how they were caught up in the frenzy of war and only realized what monsters they’d become upon readjusting to civilian life. Even if my irrational brain would have none of it and would rather see these men treated twice as badly as what they inflicted upon the world, that’s my emotions talking; and sometimes we need to set those aside if we want to build a better tomorrow. Denazification. Rehabilitation. Redemption.
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I respect and admire your belief. I just don’t share it. As a man of Ashkenazi descent, I believe that there are evil people in this world. Never forgive, never forget.
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Never said evil did not exist. I made it clear about my belief in humanity’s default “evil” state. I simply believe that demons can be overcome. Just some people need help to see the light, and tragically some never get the chance to do so. Even worse, these people often harm so many others before finally being brought to heel. Yet, I still believe in redemption. That even beasts can be tamed.
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