“Kosher” Phone
I hate stories like this: ‘Kosher’ Phone Merges Technology, Faith. For a religion that supposedly believes and teaches in free will, why do we need a phone that blocks sex line numbers and the like? The story is about the ultra-orthodox, though, who always take things a little too far in my opinion. Unfortunately, the craziness reflects on all Jews.
On the other hand, I know many people that would love it if their cell phone simply made phone calls! There’s got to be an untapped market there.
November 18th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
Well, the link has gone dead so I can’t respond properly. But I think your view of free will is simplistic if you think someone who believes in free will still wouldn’t want a little help with temptation.
My rather naive view of human workings has competing subsystems. Free will means that I can actually choose between the subsystems but if one is shouting rather loudly and frequently it can be hard. Much simpler to make a single, once for all time decision when the destructive alternative is relatively quiescent. For example this is why I have no TV. Much easier to make the occasional choice not to buy a TV rather than an hourly choice not to turn it on. With pornography it used to be much easier, just make the occasional choice not to buy a magazine. Now it’s an hourly choice (at least when you’re on your own) not to look for such stuff on the internet. It would be even harder if ads for such things arrived in your email complete with pictures. Thank God, I don’t get such emails and that most email clients allow turning off the automatic loading of pictures.
I note that I’m getting daily spam ads on my cell phone here in China. And it has photo and video capabilities. I think the purveyors of porn are missing an opportunity but i don’t think it will take them very long. Yikes.
November 18th, 2006 at 11:19 pm
As I reread my post, I’m not sure what I meant by that comment. I think there was some indication that the rabbi’s were not allowing their followers to use any other phone — hence the “kosher” designation and my comment that they were taking it too far.
November 18th, 2006 at 11:41 pm
Fair enough. With the link down it wasn’t clear what you were actually reacting too. I’m reminded of Christians being forbidden to watch movies or own TVs. Even though I think those are wise choices
it doesn’t make sense to forbid them.