tcpip | Gaming News, Cthulhu, Sex Crimes

Recently read from the beginning to the current issue; The Order of the Stick, one of the funniest pieces of work from gamer culture. Roleplaying reviews this week included RuneQuest (3rd ed) and a very old Traveller module, Chamax and The Horde. Played some Traveller: The New Era on Tuesday and Dungeon! Dragonlords Dreamland scenerio went very well except for a very strange visitor.

Last night attended the arthouse film gathering in Collingwood with the usual suspects (Brendan, 2600AU crew, Paul from Polyester). Gorged ourselves at "The New Raffles" (opposite The Tote) and then watched three H.P. Lovecraft inspired films, including "The Call of Cthulhu", a 2005 film in a 1920s style, the very cheesy From Beyond and Dagon. On a related note, fishermen in New Zealand have caught a half-tonne squid. Ry'leh is nearby you know...I-ai! I-ai! Cthulhu, Ftan'g!

The war against youth marches on; a 13 year old in Italy gets pregnant to her 15 year old boyfriend. Her parents and the courts force her to have an abortion (link in Italian). A couple (one 16 the other 17) exchange sexual images of themselves to each other. They are charged and convicted of child pornography (from

erudito. In good ol Denver, a 13 year old girl has been charged as both offender and victim for having sex with her 12 year old boyfriend.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Are you being deliberately obtuse? There is a vast difference between how most people view an action that is totally foreseeable and preventable and one which is not.

Welfare systems are designed as a safety net for those who have unavoidable misfortune, not for those who feel like making bad choices and inflicting the financial result of that on the rest of the community. Nobody's saying the safety net should be closed down, just that people shouldn't be allowed to voluntarily use it as an alternative to making sensible life choices.

I'm still not sure where you stand on this. In an Australian context, are you saying the Parenting Payment should be abolished? And if not, under what circumstances should it remain? Are you saying that abortion should be compulsory if the parents cannot show sufficient financial backing to bring up a child? If not, what is your stance?

I'm not sure where your uncertainty arises. You're asking a question about abolishing a form of social security safety net immediately after I said "nobody's saying the safety net should be closed down". This simply forces me to repeat my last sentence. Apart from increasing the word count in your LJ, I don't see any purpose.

Anyhow, PP goes beyond just a form of social security. The government wants to encourage people to make babies, so it's a form of social engineering too, which takes it into another realm.

As to the second question, that's an interesting one. Ideally, I think it's a good idea. Minimising opportunities for people to intentionally inflict their own financial mismanagement upon the rest of the community is a good idea. Realistically, it's not going to happen, especially with the current religious wankers in power.

Apart from increasing the word count in your LJ, I don't see any purpose.

Apart from the fact I'm trying to ascertain what sort of conditional limitations you're suggesting.

Minimising opportunities for people to intentionally inflict their own financial mismanagement upon the rest of the community is a good idea.

True, but there are degrees. One can only predict in a generalised sense what future financial ability is going to be; further one has to compare the proposal of compulsory abortions with the desire for adoption.

Thus I do not think it is a good idea to force a person to have an abortion based on perceptions of their capacity to raise a child.

Realistically, it's not going to happen, especially with the current religious wankers in power.

One does not have to be a "religious wanker" to respect the right of a person to control their own body.

That's an emotive sidestep manoeuvre. The assertion that religious wankers will not promote abortion and will therefore not implement a system which forces such says nothing about the opinions of those who are not religious wankers.

The "right of a person to control their own body" is an over-simplification and mis-characterisation of the issue. I believe we should have the right of absolute control over our own destinies and our own bodies so long, as with all rights, we do not infringe on the rights of others.

The results of the right to do anything you want to your own body might cause great cost to the community. At that point, we have three choices:
A) Allow such behaviour and allow the person access to communal resources no matter what.
B) Allow such behaviour and deny the person communal resources to deal with the results.
C) Try to prevent or alter the situation.

Going with A sets the system up to be rorted. (eg. Underage girls having babies to get handouts from the government.) B is unworkable in this particular area, since the victim is the child, not the one who caused the situation. Note that if we are talking about bringing up children, C still contains a number of options, including forced adoption.

Part of having rights is taking responsibility for ones actions, not just sitting back and doing whatever the hell you please and making other people pay for it.

Going with A sets the system up to be rorted. (eg. Underage girls having babies to get handouts from the government

Seriously, do you think this is a potential problem?

Certainly it's a potential problem. The media reported cases of girls having babies for the sake of the baby bonus. However, the media is biased towards anything with shock value and don't often provide anything statistically useful. The cases may be so low in number that we, as a society, don't consider it important.

The question in such matters generally amounts to "at what point does it matter?" All systems will be rorted, but there's a point below which it's not worthwhile, socially and/or economically, trying to circumvent that. I've seen figures which say that 3% of those on PP are teenagers. If those who receive PP as teenagers get it for an average of 4 years as teenagers and then 11 years after, that implies that about 12% if PP recipients started as teenagers. I've not seen any reliable sources of data on the issue of intent. The CIS has its opinion and others disagree.

Well certainly the Federal government's "Baby Bonus" is possibility the worst thought out of all parenting/welfare payments.

I am certainly not worried if 12% of PP recipients start off as teenagers; the late teens to early twenties are, biologically speaking for women in the post-industrial societies, the best time to have a child - except the social circumstances also mean that said women are having children in their thirties.

Gaming News, Cthulhu, Sex Crimes

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