My gf and I have had discussions about teaching morals to kids. In that vein, I asked myself, would I teach piracy to my kids? Yes, it’s technically illegal and carries inherent risks. But so does teenage sex carry the risks of teenage pregnancy, and so we have an obligation to children to teach them how to practice safe sex. So, is it necessary to teach them how to stay safe in the sea? How to install adblockers, how to detect fake download sites that give you computer aids? Show them how to use a VPN and choosing the right one (a true pirate must always choose a VPN with port forwarding capabilities, so you can still seed) I feel like this is all valuable info we all learned as pirates the hard way, and valuable information to pass on to our kids.
I definitely want my kids to know about libgen. Want a book you want to read about? Wanna learn about dinosaurs from a college level textbook for whatever reason? Just go to libgen, son!
And I attribute most of my computer literacy and education to piracy, trying to install cracks to various games, trying to make games work, and modding the fuck out of skyrim as a young teenager. That, and also jailbreaking android phones. All the interesting things i’ve ever done with computers was probably against some BS terms of service.
So, is piracy something you would actively teach your kids? Sit them down and teach them how to install a Fallout 3 FitGirl repack? Or is this something you’d want them to figure out themselves?
Teaching how to do it safely might save their ass. And your own if they pirate at home.
- piracy is not theft
- “If buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing.”
- morality and legality don’t always correlate
- a good adblocker is worth more than an antivirus, you should always be running one regardless of activity
Remember how many years ago antiviruses kept track of such types of malware as adware and spyware? When did you last see that kind of alert when seeing ad filled pages or when using software from facebook on your computer?
Antiviruses don’t worth shit today. Their only purpose is to delete your keygens on the basis that kEyGeNs ArE mOrE lIkElY tO hAvE a ViRuS.
Piracy is just staying over at a friend’s house.
Doesn’t sound like an easy task, perhaps a good start would be teaching them how to tie knots and learn wind direction. Once they are old enough to travel book a vacation to somalia and introduce them to the place, that’s where most of piracy is going on these days
Absolutely. My entire network is behind a VPN, so they can’t fuck up. Windows is banned in my household, so I’m not worried about malware. I’m not paying 20 bucks a month for limited access to the ever shrinking Netflix library, which I can’t even use behind a VPN or share with other people. Piracy is the only way forward.
Windows is banned in my household, so l’m not worried about malware.
This is a false sense of security and just because you’re not running Windows doesn’t mean you’re immune to everything and can let your defenses down. For example, KDE recently had to announce that downloading themes will execute arbitrary code and cited someone who had personal information deleted because of downloading a theme.
I knew I would get a comment about this. Yes, I absolutely know that Linux is not at all immune to malware, but the chances of finding Linux malware on a typical piracy website are very low. That’s why Anti-virus is unecessary on Linux.
well its a step up at least…
Exactly, like how an ocean liner is a step up above a sailboat. That doesn’t mean you’re unsinkable and don’t need to worry about icebergs.
TempleOS! You will never find malware for that holy OS
in regards to privacy using something like windows already has you fucked up. As opposed to something like using KDE which might rm -rf your system.
My spirit animal!
Bro, I’ve started saying this line not that long ago, are we in a hive-mind?
Teaching kids good, healthy anticapitalist values is important. It’s also good to teach them some basic computing and privacy skills, because they’re not going to get that anywhere else. They’re going to be under lot of social peer pressure to have the latest phones and being connected on social media, consuming information from algorithms.They need to understand how to minimize the harm from Meta and the big tech.
Same applies to the copyright industry and their practices (along with corps who are heavily anti-repair like Apple) - they need to understand the exploitation model of capitalism and lobbying - from there, let them make their own choices.
Piracy is a great example of a topic where legality and morality aren’t the same.
Those kinds of topics are incredibly valuable teaching moments for children.
I would teach them when they are mature enough. Help them understand why some people think it is wrong, when/why you think it is acceptable, and how to do it safely.
You can teach them the difference between actual theft and copying. Explain how piracy has benefited humanity as a whole, explain why knowledge and cultural experiences shouldn’t be gate kept by mega-corps from underprivileged people.
There are so many valuable lessons that you as parents could pass on to your kids through the topic of piracy.
And as every major platform enshitifies and information of all kinds gets locked behind more paywalls, piracy will become a more and more important skill to have.
I taught my nephew and I wouldn’t see a moral problem on teaching my hypothetical kids how to.
Teach them how to root a device or at least do a grapheneos install. I’ll be honest I only know the latter.
And yes, teach them both piracy and emulation
Rooting isn’t recommended anyway, it completely destroys Android security. GrapheneOS is the best solution.
Didntbsay anything about security. But rooting is a good skill I want to learn
It varies depending on the manufacturer and model, though.
Sure. To prepare someone to become a responsible adult, they need information. Learn things good and bad. Understand especially WHY people do things and consequences of actions.
I mean if you exclude half the truth, your kids will not learn how to judge things and make decisions.
And things not being etically 100% correct is not a reason to hide them altogether. I mean my mom also reads murder mystery stories and murder is not okay… I think beginning with a certain age it is important to learn also about ambiguous stuff. It’s part of life.
That doesn’t mean I’d have to teach them myself. But I’d talk to them and make sure they learned the right things.
She read murder mystery stories, but not a guide about how to get away with murder
I read a few and saw a few movies that tell me otherwise… Discussing an hypothetical “perfect murder”… Detailing how they were murdered with a frozen icicle so there won’t be any weapon or fingerprints left…
I mean those examples are a bit exaggerated. But there are pretty realistic stories. And I’d say the lines between story and guide aren’t always that clear. That’s part of the thrill. The good ones are kinda detailed enough to be both.
Same goes for historical records.
And I think if you grow up completely sheltered from evil and true life, you’re bound to miss out, not to know aboud bad things. You won’t have any understanding or defense against it and will get exploited. And you’re missing half of the fun and intelligence that would otherwise be your potential. Also you can’t keep kids from having to make their own decisions forever. At some point they need the tools and knowledge to decide for themselves.
I can recommend the sci-fi dystopia “The Giver” about that. (The sheltering part, not the murder mysteries.) But read the book, the movie isn’t good at all. And read it while you’re young, it’s probably more suited for adolescents than for adults.
Yup! Better if they don’t make the same mistakes that we did at the start of our journeys at the sea. “Minecraft free download no viruses.exe” etc
MinecraftSP.exe
that’s it, that’s the whole query back in 2010 all the way to 2014
You mean tlauncher.exe
My first one is installing a probably malware loaded minecraft demo, tlauncher though was ok at some point and they sold out afterwars
Not a parent yet, so take this with a big grain of salt.
But if I were to talk about piracy from a moral standpoint, I would first talk about stealing. Yes, we all know it’s not the same, and it isn’t, but there will certainly be someone who says it is, and it’s better to clear that out. Besides, there are some parallels.
- Stealing is reprehensible, but extremely so when you steal for someone who much needs it himself. Shoplifting is bad and can lead to serious consequences. Stealing money from a poor person is extremely bad and can’t be justified.
- Stealing is when you take something and the owner doesn’t have it anymore. Piracy ain’t that.
Then a bit on moral and legal grounds of piracy:
- While piracy isn’t stealing, piracy does decrease profits of the rightful owner. When you pirate from someone who does not profit much off something, it’s same as stealing from poor man. Piracy is impactful, and it’s important to remember.
- Piracy may lead to legal consequences, which is why one shouldn’t normally pirate stuff regardless of morality. But if the conditions of rightful ownership (cost, regional or use restrictions etc.) are inadequate, there exists such a way.
And in any case, I think the later you tell your kids about “illegal doesn’t mean bad” the better. Could save a lot of trouble IMO.
Piracy decreases the profits of the publishers, publishers decrease the profits of the rightful owner. Piracy hurts the rich man, the rich man hurts the poor man. The publishers will still hurt the rightful owners whether piracy happens or not.
While piracy isn’t stealing, piracy does decrease profits of the rightful owner.
Only if you would otherwise have bought it. If you never had any intention to buy the thing, the rightful owner loses nothing.
I would have played no games or learnt adobe software while I was a kid if I haven’t pirated it.
I started playing some of my all time favorite games pirated, because my parents didn’t want to spend money on videogames and I had no credit card as a kid. Now, however, I purchased them all. (alr well, not all I’m still not rich and I didn’t deem all of them worth the money
thrown outdonated. Like Sims4, I’m glad I tried it, but it costs like (Steam says all DLCs are:) 1234.22 eur, insanity)
YES. My gf made the point that when our kids are young, when their frontal lobe hasn’t developed yet, we will teach them black and white morality. But that’s only half the truth, since stealing from walmart or a big chain has a different moral flavor than stealing some random person’s things. In a way, I acknowledge that piracy isn’t stealing, and carries with it enormous societal benefits, like the freedom of information, but it’s still illegal, and I don’t want them to be OK doing illegal things.
Maybe the perfect solution is to leave out the inconvenient fact that piracy is illegal when teaching them how to pirate. LOL
Taking something from Walmart removes the item. This can increase prices for other shoppers and has consequences.
Duplicating/downloading a movie or a games does not. It just creates an identical copy and removes nothing.
Those are not really two things you can compare. I am totally OK with the latter, I consider the former unlawful. I can still go and buy a license to pirated content if I feel it’s worth it after I consumed it. I guess Walmart would be very confused if you came back to pay for the banana you stole a week ago because you did enjoy it. Might even get you into trouble.
EDIT: And you’re right, it doesn’t make sense that piracy is illegal. The law should be changed. At least the punishment is ridiculous.
in my opinion, the key here is that asking “why?” is going to be the most important skill you can teach your kids early on. “because yes” or “because not” or “because i told so” is never a good answer, and learning to ask what moving parts there are to anything can and will open up a lot of options for things they will learn later on.
If buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing.
smart. though i would add that shoplifting can be bad, unless its from a corpo. but i understand not telling ur child that
If I teach them, they’ll find it boring. Better to be a role model and answer questions if they have them.
No. I plan on treating it as other adult things. "Oh, you got into this? Well, here is how you protect yourself. "
Computer literacy wise? I hope my daughter gets the curiosity into it. Other things as well. More you know and understand, the better.
Yes, when they’re older. I’d rather be the “dad, can you find this for me?” guy, and then when they’re older and start talking about wanting to set up their own Plex server or something I’ll show them how to do it, if they even want to. I would be perfectly happy being the perma media pirate for my family.
And what if they get a love letter because they were too stupid to practice safety?
How to install adblockers, how to detect fake download sites that give you computer aids? Show them how to use a VPN and choosing the right one (a true pirate must always choose a VPN with port forwarding capabilities, so you can still seed) I feel like this is all valuable info we all learned as pirates the hard way, and valuable information to pass on to our kids.
Absolutely, I would say whether you’re teaching piracy or not, those are essential things that everyone online must know about; it would be unethical to allow your kids to go online without that protection.
