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Comment by Benjammer | Hacker News Reader

I can confirm from talking to people who know him, and watching him speak about it at length in a small group, private setting, Ashton cares deeply about fighting child exploitation. His life outside of acting and family seems to basically consist of helping run his VC fund and working at Thorn, his company that works with governments to fight child exploitation online. He got emotional talking about Thorn and the work they've done. It's some of the most serious shit imaginable to fight against and deal with. I also wouldn't be surprised if he's had technical experts explain to him at least some of the problems with government oversight like this, and probably figures it's a valid tradeoff if it helps reduce child exploitation to any meaningful degree. He's honestly not a dumb guy at all.

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>probably figures it's a valid tradeoff if it helps reduce child exploitation to any meaningful degree.

Without actual numbers and rational arguments, this is so subjective it is moot.

People arguing against this aren't against fighting child sexual abuse or even sexual abuse in general. But the entire thing is so riddled with "what ifs" and more, that it's a hard sell to justify another step to the road of potential total control.

Every parent wants their children to have as many lifelines as possible in case something bad happens, to let them experiment safely without predators lurking. What we should be asking is how much we're willing to give up for each lifeline, and at what point we have to accept nature (or in this case, society) just isn't going to be fair.

It seems it's just a matter of having different principles and values than others at their very core. To wit, FTA:

"In recent months, Johansson has stressed that privacy and encryption should not stand in the way of law enforcement"

my values, on the other hand, are the exact opposite (law enforcement should not stand in the way of privacy and encryption), and thus dictate a different preference.

I mean you could also say the same about 13 virgins at the end of someone’s life.

Not every value is as other value.

true, but when resolving a disagreement (not necessarily agreeing), as this discussion was, I find it most productive to identify the root cause.

> He's honestly not a dumb guy at all.

From your description he seems very irrational and led by emotion. His goal is noble but that's where it ends. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

That doesn't rebut the line you quote.

I really couldn't care less how emotional and heartfelt he gets about the problem of child exploitation. I get it, it's a major and awful problem in many contexts of the world. Emotions about ugly, disgusting things however should never be a door opener for throwing away other also extremely important fundamentals like the right to privacy, anonymity and fighting back mass state surveillance as much as possible.

Once the emotional tearjerker arguments have been used to support those things, the cynical bureaucrats and autocrats that make policy later use these tools for so many other sinister things. If Kutcher has more brains than emotion, and is serious about a genuinely better world, he should be aware of these other important fundamentals too and base his proposals for fighting exploitation on them.

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