Comment by gjsman-1000
7 days ago
You're saying these laws exist, they actively restrict our devices and our freedoms, but it's okay because they're complaint-driven (aka snitching).
That's worse, not better. Freedom by definition isn't subject to the whims of my neighbors.
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Edit, posting too fast, because I can't reply directly: What you are advocating for is a police state. Think about it:
1. Laws should be intentionally overbroad: Make everything illegal, then only enforce when something goes wrong
2. Competence is determined retroactively: You only find out if you were "allowed" to do something after a disaster
3. Rights depend on outcomes: You had the right to wire that outlet... unless it sparked, then retroactively you didn't
4. Selective enforcement is good, actually: Laws that could be used against anyone but usually aren't are fine
This is nonsense.
I'm not in favor of extreme authoritarian laws being on the books at all for their abuse potential, but dystopian laws that exist but are only ever enforced in practice if you are a nuisance are obviously better than dystopian laws that exist and are regularly enforced. And actually "you're only not allowed to install an electrical outlet if you're too dumb to do it without starting a fire" seems like it's right about what the law should be, so if you only get in trouble if you start a fire... good? Likewise if you only end up in trouble for selling food in practice if you end up poisoning people. Sounds about right.
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Like I said,
> I'm not in favor of extreme authoritarian laws being on the books at all for their abuse potential
I'm not in favor of that. But obviously a police-state-on-the-books is better than a real-actual-police-state. Duh. Laws that are never enforced that say women can't wear pants or gay relationships are illegal are stupid. I like when legislators do "cleanup" bills to delete invalid laws and keep things tidy. The same laws if they are enforced are oppressive.
In practice I'm not sure that "you can do dangerous things as long as you are competent and are not negligent and don't injure others" is a bad guiding principle? Like yeah if it turns out you were not competent or you were negligent, then we (retroactively) say you should have at least known enough to not do that. Sounds reasonable. Especially if the law is effectively "thing is dangerous. Only people who know what they're doing should do it". It's on you then to know enough to know whether you know what you're doing. If you don't know whether you're competent enough, then I suppose you're not.
It would be better to have that explicitly be the law, but having it be the de facto law works well enough. It's sort of the same "if you know you know" kind of thing, but I guess with a different psychological filter where people are more likely to default to "I don't realize I can do this"? Personally I'd prefer we not infantilize people, so it's better to encourage them to better themselves and learn a skill rather than discouraging them and saying they "can't" do it, but maybe the type of people who allow themselves to be infantilized are exactly the ones you don't want to do it anyway.
Yeah, people on the Internet seriously freak out about things like driving drunk even if no one is hurt. The current de-facto legal interpretation is pretty good: drive as drunk as you want so long as you don't damage anything or hit a person.
Indeed, I think things like DUI checkpoints where you stop and question everyone passing through (or even those who turn around) are bad. There should be some observational evidence of poor driving or someone having reported you for negligently getting into and driving a vehicle when they know you've done significant drinking. Likewise I think the Build Back Better bill's provision to require all new cars to have some kind of anti-DUI sensors was an overstep.