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?
Children playing on a computer unsupervised has to have rules and boundaries (and physical backups). No, I’m not going to teach children, who are not even in their teens, to download or install anything, ever, unless I want them to learn about ransomware specifically.
Preventing teenage pregnancy by obfuscating sex has the same idea.
I agree with the boundaries part. The second part though: they will figure it out either way… At least my brother did when he was young and our parentsgot a nice lawyer in voice for that (fucked up laws, I know, I know).
Personally I want them to learn about ransomware! If that cost me a PC… My fault.
Sorry I was unclear, I meant to say I’m not teaching children who are not yet in their teens. I can see how it could be misconstrued as not teaching them even when they are teens. I’ll make an edit to clarify.
I would teach teens how to torrent, about cyber-security and VMs, and how to know if something can or cannot be trusted.
Thanks for the clarification! A wish you an awesome start into the week :)