

'The Internet is for Porn' – Blackmail in 2033 - chmars
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/08/the-internet-is-for-porn-black.html

======
dageshi
"Are we going to see candidates for the highest posts raised from toddler-dom
in hermetically sealed media bubbles by their dynastic political parents"

In the UK I'd say this is pretty much the case now. Ed Miliband the current
leader of the labour party was a SPAD (Special Adviser) and so I'm pretty sure
was David Cameron (Prime Minister).

These people are very obviously taking a predefined career path destined for
high political office and avoiding any incriminating evidence of having a past
will be part and parcel of that.

~~~
arethuza
"predefined career path destined for high political office"

At least the Romans and with their _cursus honorum_ actually required things
like military service:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursus_honorum>

~~~
stephengillie
The US required it too, out of tradition, until Clinton's term. Why did we
stop?

~~~
DougWebb
Military services was never required for Congress or the President of the US:

"No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of
twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and
who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall
be chosen."

"No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty
Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not,
when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen."

"No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States,
at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the
Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who
shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen
Years a Resident within the United States."

Besides, as soon as the President is sworn into office, he's the Commander In
Chief of the armed forces, so if he wasn't already in the military he is at
that point.

~~~
stephengillie
_Military services was never required for Congress or the President of the US_

It was an unwritten requirement because nobody took non-veterans seriously as
presidential candidates.

~~~
DougWebb
Source:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_Unite...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States_by_military_service)

According to the table on that page, 11 US Presidents had no prior military
service. This goes all the way back to John Adams, President #2 and our first
Vice President. That's a full 25% that were not in the military. Many of the
others were in the militia or national guard, which until fairly recently was
not the same thing.

------
king_jester
"But it's also a side-effect of the web making it easy to construct social
networks among people with minority interests; suddenly all sorts of stuff
that was hidden back when it was just one person per 10,000 population town
emerges as a 30,000-strong continental community. The 0.01% are no longer
hidden, can no longer be marginalized. Never mind the 1% or the LGBT 10%."

This is completely off. We have seen first hand that knowledge of different
types of people existing hasn't stopped marginalization and oppression, both
on a personal and institutional basis. Just because groups of people can come
together online for various subjects doesn't mean that society as a whole is
more tolerant of those people. Legal prosecution and personal attacks continue
for people regardless of how many others like them they can communicate with
online.

What people will want to hide will remain of function of society at large,
including the internet and how it affects perceptions.

~~~
pavel_lishin
But the internet does allow these people to at least feel like they're not
alone. It also allows them to organize and fight back. There are still people
trying to marginalize and harass them, but it's getting harder every day.

------
peteretep
20 years ago, Clinton "didn't inhale" at college. Obama did coke, and it
wasn't a big deal. Also he's black. Acceptability changes based on what voters
consider to be normal.

~~~
clarkmoody
I think you meant to say that "acceptability changes based upon the agenda of
the media reporting on these candidates."

~~~
rprasad
Peteretep said that public perceptions on drug use have changed substantially
over the past 2 decade, and I think he meant to say what he actually did say.

It was not a matter of how the media reports it. The media gleefully reported
on all of the presidential candidates' drug use (or lack thereof). Voters
simply do not care any more.

------
btrautsc
i think we're already seeing a notable shift with our recent Presidents re:
drug use - from 'not inhaling', to smoking 'pot' and snorting a 'little'
cocaine... those politicians grew up in the 60's/70's when that was common
with teens & young adults, and their voter peers did much of the same...

i think (maybe hope) we can expect in 30 years, when politicians rising into
their 40s/50s are "outted" on sexting or lewd party photos - we the people
(their peers) will look and say, "sure I did that stuff and have dozens of
similar pictures, this must be a decent, normal human being"

~~~
roc
And, as with otherwise normalized marijuana and cocaine, we'll probably still
be looking the other way as kids in 2033 continue to get prosecuted, and
futures continue to be ruined, for the grand crime of having been caught doing
something that almost everyone has been doing for decades.

------
andrewflnr

      Familiarity frequently breeds tolerance (at least, when
      the subject matter is consensual and, within its
      own framework, non-transgressive)
    

FWIW, the qualification in parentheses is superfluous. Familiarity breeds
tolerance even when the subject matter is utterly immoral. I suspect this will
be painfully clear by 2033, if we're not too tolerant to notice.

~~~
jhuckestein
I agree. Always remember morality isn't absolute though. Morality is defined
by your peers/culture just as much as tolerance is. For example, some people
think same-sex marriages are immoral and others think it's immoral NOT to
allow them.

~~~
andrewflnr
Actually, I do believe morality is absolute. This _would_ be more painfully
clear by 2033, but it looks like we're already too tolerant to notice so I
don't have much hope.

------
halts
I think Facebook and other such sharing services are going to make candidates'
lives much more visible...for the presidency, everything is open to fair game
and things such as personal privacy mean less...because this person is vying
to be the most powerful person in the world.

It's common for medical and financial records to be released to the
public...so how can a candidate justify not releasing FB history? we might be
so used to/numb to social-sharing that it'll seem strange NOT to have it open
(i.e. "what do you have to hide?")

~~~
activepeanut
Can you imagine the pendulum swinging the other way 20 years from now?

<picture a presidential debate> "Mr Candidate, we found no inappropriate
behavior in your Facebook history, nor porn in your browser history, how do
you defend yourself from accusations of not being a man-of-the-people?"

~~~
slurgfest
That wouldn't be the charge, the charge would be 'what are you hiding?'

------
scotty79
I think most embarrassing thing someone will be able to dig up on you on 2033
will be some record of you violating one atheist commandment:
[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_HfSXLXtVnOI/SUEdIwEEDnI/AAAAAAAACC...](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_HfSXLXtVnOI/SUEdIwEEDnI/AAAAAAAACCI/oN3f2lnBYs8/s320/atheist+commandment.gif)

This could bury your political career.

~~~
arethuza
I would hope that, in the UK at least, that by 2033 violating the atheist
commandment about not believing in strange superstitions would be a cause for
burying a political career.

~~~
gizmo686
There us no commandment about believing in strange superstitions, there is
only a commandment about calling said superstitions God.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I thought the commandment meant that you're not allowed to push your goofy
superstitions on others through coersion.

~~~
scotty79
Not being an asshole is acommandment we can all agree on.

------
swalsh
Eh, while the web is amazing at publicly exposing everything. It also has a
ridiculously short lifespan. I would guess these kinds of things will be far
less of a factor then we imagine them to be.

~~~
eru
You mean short attention span? The lifespan of things on the net can be quite
long, thanks to various archives and caches.

~~~
gwern
The lifespan _can_ be quite long, but that doesn't mean it _will_ be for any
particular item. Many things from just a few years ago have vanished (as I
discover every time I run a linkchecker utility on my website looking for
broken links...). I think of it as a Poisson distribution.

What will happen is most people's histories will be mostly gone, and some will
be largely intact.

------
derleth
> I suspect that sexting will be redefined as non-criminal behaviour or as a
> minor offense, within the next couple of decades, simply because the
> alternative is to eventually criminalize a very large chunk of the
> population.

People were saying precisely the same thing about marijuana having to be
legalized by now because so many people in the 1970s were using it. What
happened?

Ultimately, having laws most people are guilty of breaking is a valuable tool
of social control. As long as selective enforcement is practical, having
_something_ on nearly everyone can be a huge tool.

So the future of blackmail will be like what we have now: Some people get away
with things that utterly _end_ others, based on a combination of gender,
social class, and who they're trying to appeal to. I doubt the laws
surrounding this will meaningfully change.

~~~
objclxt
I think Charles is probably wrong on this point, although not necessarily for
the reasons you state.

Simply because a law is violated by the majority of the population doesn't
ipso facto make it a bad law (although in some cases this is certainly true).
For example, many people break speeding limits, but we also accept that in
some cases speed limits are justified. It's a matter of degrees.

'Sexting' laws are similar to age of consent laws. For example, a 13 year old
girl (or boy) sending indecent images of themselves to someone many years
older than them is clearly a problem. Two 13 year olds sending indecent
pictures to each other may be morally concerning to some, but it's not going
to bother the law.

~~~
Symmetry
You're wrong about that last as a matter of law (at least in the US). Anyone
creating a sexual image of a subject who is 17 or younger is guilty of
creating child pornography, no matter what the circumstances are. I'm sure
that if Congress had considered the case of 17-year-olds taking pictures of
themselves they would have written the law differently, but they didn't. One
would also hope that prosecutors would exercise discretion about prosecuting
these cases, but while some might others certainly don't.

~~~
randallsquared
_One would also hope that prosecutors would exercise discretion about
prosecuting these cases, but while some might others certainly don't._

Draconian enforcement might be better in the long run, since the laws would
get changed.

~~~
gizmo686
You could also imagine a system where laws that are not enforced to some
degree of thoroughness automatically get repealed. This solves old laws that
are on the book but not used, as well as the concern of (highly) selective
enforcement.

~~~
eru
A bit like having to protect a trade mark?

