this week, anyway; gets 35 years but it all seems to have been online stuff - nothing actual, all virtual; the man was probably a virgin (aged 29). Troubling. Of course inciting people to do abusive things is disturbing but where do we draw the line? Agatha Christie - we're coming to get you.

I also thought this was a thought-provoking case.

Here's a detailed account
www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-42921977

There are four points that suggested themselves to me. Firstly, the paedophile terminology doesn't seem to be correct. Dr Falder seems to have been motivated by sadism and the ages of his targets appear to have been incidental to that.

Secondly, I found the description of how he was tracked down fascinating and not entirely plausible, although were I to see the data, it might prove to be sound. As a secondary observation, I think it's curious that such resources were devoted to this man and with such prompt success, in comparison to the lack of success penetrating terrorist communications and operational planning and prosecuting big fishes in that area.

Thirdly, he's been imprisoned for a very long time for upsetting people. He hasn't stabbed or beaten anyone, stolen anyone's life savings or burned down a house with people inside. What he's done is extremely nasty, according to most people's system of values, but I'm disinclined to accept the principle that people can be punished for being nasty to others without actually causing them material injury or loss.

Lastly, I thought again about the mad or bad debate. Dr Falder's behaviour is unusual and is considered to deviate greatly from cultural norms. Is he just very different, or is there actually something clinically defective with him? To what extent do we conflate psychiatric measures of deviant behaviour with criminal measures? Alternatively, it may be thought that he's just a wicked person. But then it follows, uncomfortably, that he's chosen to do these things (and chosen, as we would deem, morally wrongly). That means he's not at all differentiated from us because we can all exercise our free wills to do what he did. So we regress to the mad or bad question again over how he came to make these choices.

Sounds like he is a waste of oxygen to me.

JK2006 wrote:
this week, anyway; gets 35 years but it all seems to have been online stuff - nothing actual, all virtual; the man was probably a virgin (aged 29). Troubling. Of course inciting people to do abusive things is disturbing but where do we draw the line? Agatha Christie - we're coming to get you.

Apparently he had a long term girlfriend who he shared a home with. How she was unaware of what was going on is beyond belief.
news.sky.com/story/paedophile-geophysici...an-130-charges-11083

Randall - a response to your 4 suggested points

Point 1:

The victims were children with evidence of psychological sadism in many cases. The consistent age of the victims - the paedophile element -
does not get negated because he was also sadistic.

= a non sequitur

Point 2:

You compare his tracking down with an apparant lack of action against terrorists. You suggest rather than establish a point or link.

= a non-sequitur

Point 3:

Good for you! But would have got above a C grade if you said why you are unprepared to accept that anyone should be punished if they don't commit material harm to another? Why is a broken jaw worse than a broken mind, for example?

Fourthly, "The mad or bad question"

You have steered your ship to this digression on the back of 2 non sequiturs and the negation of a principle without explanation.

I could say that you cant defend the guy on this basis just because he never served in the military..

But that would be a non sequitur..

I like Andrew's point re oxygen though, it has clarity and explanation as well as being pithy.....

what strikes me is that:

this whole case (apart from the man's weird obsessions as we think of them) is a classic case of the police trying to imply that the so-called Dark Web is not a 'safe' place for anyone and they are all-powerful and can track anyone.

Reality is that this bloke probably gave himself away on the normal web as he became more relaxed.

As 'Randall' rightly points out- authorities still cannot track down terrorists and the Dark Web is still an uncontrolled entity.

32 years sounds bizarre- surely he can appeal the length of time.

Still cannot understand why anyone falls for the idea of sending someone their intimate photos. There are millions of extremely naive people out there who probably need educating about life in general as the more knowledge out there..the less many seem to know.

## So Jimmy Savile's position as Britain's "worst abuser" has now been replaced or is the current one The World's Worst and Savile just Britain's??

wyot wrote:
Randall - a response to your 4 suggested points

Point 1:

The victims were children with evidence of psychological sadism in many cases.


Not all of the victims were children, so age is not a common factor across all of his behaviour. Sadism is a common factor. Paedophile terminology makes a better headline.




Point 2:

You compare his tracking down with an apparant lack of action against terrorists. You suggest rather than establish a point or link.


The point is self-evident in the comparison. We are told that evil terrorists and evil paedophiles both make use of "dark" web communication and encryption subterfuge to hide their activities. I would have thought the finite resources available to investigate criminal activities facilitated by these methods would be concentrated on people intent on blowing others to smithereens, not on people who trick others into sending them distasteful pictures. And I find the speed and success of the operation against this man quite a lot greater than efforts towards hunting ISIS figureheads, for example. This is particularly so given ISIS's deliberate public profile, rather than Dr Falder's private activities.





Point 3:

Good for you! But would have got above a C grade if you said why you are unprepared to accept that anyone should be punished if they don't commit material harm to another? Why is a broken jaw worse than a broken mind, for example?


I assumed a knowledge of the literature from the reader. I don't say that a broken jaw is worse than a broken mind: broken mind may well be worse. I say that we can't punish people for causing a broken mind AND adhere to the principles of a democratic society and our own laws. Briefly, there are three main arguments against punishing immaterial harm, or offence. 1) It's impossible to measure and assess in a consistent way, as it must be to comply with a system in which there is a fixed rule of law. 2) It locates criminal prohibition not in the actions of the protagonist, but in the reactions of the antagonist, violating the axioms that the law must be specific enough to allow one to know in advance what is criminal and that one is punished for what one has done - and not only when someone doesn't like it, or might not, or says they don't. 3) There is not necessarily a causal relationship between the protagonist's deeds and a broken mind, as you put it, in the way there is between a punch and the broken jaw. One person might experience severe and unpleasant psychological disturbance apparently in response to my horrible insults, while someone else might deride me or hold me in disdain. Without establishing the causal relationship, the rationale for punishing my insults because of the first person's psychological disturbance rests on post hoc ergo propter hoc, which again violates axiomatic legal principles inherent in our society.



Fourthly, "The mad or bad question"
You have steered your ship to this digression on the back of 2 non sequiturs and the negation of a principle without explanation.


I think it's a question worthy of discussion, and it doesn't depend on, or arise from, my other points. Is he bad or mad? And if he's bad, is it coz he's mad?

Like hedda, I'm struggling to imagine what an internet correspondant could possibly say to compel a person to send such extreme and personal material as reported, although I note that some of the more lurid stuff was just described or alluded to by Dr Falder, rather than actually depicted in image or video. I wonder if, in some of the cases and as with in-person sexual encounters, there might have been a degree of mutual, private exploration of a topic that went further than one party intended, or that some people thought negatively about later, or sought to re-characterise when someone else found out about it. I also think hedda's right about the police trying to convince the public of their panoptic potency, or agitate for more state control and monitoring of internet services.

Anyway I think it's a fascinating case from human, legal/policing and philosophical points of view.

wyot wrote:
I like Andrew's point re oxygen though, it has clarity and explanation as well as being pithy.....

He'll be better, wyot, when he's finished his night school course in law !!!!

Another leap forward into policing the web.