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Survey Says To UK — Repeal Laws of Thermodynamics

Posted by kdawson on from the einstein-is-next-up-against-the-wall dept.

mostxlnt writes "As we noted, the new Tory UK government has launched a website asking its subjects which laws they'd most like repealed. There are proposals up for repeal of the Laws of Thermodynamics: Second, Third, and all (discussion thread on this one closed by a moderator). One comment on the Third [now apparently deleted] elucidated: 'Without the Third Law of Thermodynamics, it would be possible to build machines that would last forever and provide an endless source of cheap energy. thus solving both potential crises in energy supply as well as solving the greenhouse gas problem in one step... simples... eh?'"

23 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. When you open up the floodgates... by sortius_nod · · Score: 2, Insightful

    idiots pour through.

    1. Re:When you open up the floodgates... by Darkness404 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Not idiots, just trolls who want a few lulz.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    2. Re:When you open up the floodgates... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      idiots pour through.

      Whereas most smart people in Britain would rather repeal the law that Americans don't get British sarcasm and wit, but sadly that also seems to be an unchangeable law of nature...

    3. Re:When you open up the floodgates... by Tablizer · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Fox News has prior art. You're gonna get sued.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    4. Re:When you open up the floodgates... by delinear · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's far from a "real opportunity to be involved in politics", unless by that statement you mean it's "an opportunity to have their views ignored by politicians". If our government (and I'm aware that it's a different government, I've seen enough to know they're all basically the same) could ignore the views of 750,000 - 2,000,000 people who turned up in person to protest the Iraq war, what makes you think they won't ignore people who are only posting on the internet? We already have the precedent of government ignoring mass e-petitions on the number 10 petition site, so far as I can see this is no different, they'll cherry pick the laws they want to repeal, find a handful of petitioners and use that to justify that they're following the will of the people, meanwhile they'll conveniently ignore any large petitions to repeal laws they actually want to keep.

    5. Re:When you open up the floodgates... by John+Napkintosh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's far from a "real opportunity to be involved in politics", unless by that statement you mean it's "an opportunity to have their views ignored by politicians".

      Worse than that, it's an opportunity for politicians to selectively "hear" opinions which support a particular effort or view, and ignore the rest. If everyone were being ignored uniformly, that would at least be fair.

      --

      Long signatures suck.
  2. 4chan threw the vote by Luke+has+no+name · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No other way.

  3. Brilliant by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Government actually uses the internet for something potentially beneficial, and people troll it. I'm surprised there isn't anything related to lazers, mudkips, or Pedobear on there.

    1. Re:Brilliant by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well what the hell did you expect? The site is little more than theater - nobody in power is going to take it seriously one way or the other, so why not have a little fun with it?

    2. Re:Brilliant by JackieBrown · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So did I the first time I heard it. I knew there was a trick since the person had a giant idiot grin on his face while he cited the number of fatalities caused buy it.

      This is one of those tricks that idiots hear and like to repeat because it make them think they are looking clever. Have you ever know someone who memorized the answers to one or two incredibility difficult equations and kept spouting it out? My favorite are people who run their emails through a thesaurus so they can use bigger words even when they do not know what those new words mean.

      I think that we can all agree that we should work together.

      becomes

      I deliberate that we container all enunciate that we should vocation simultaneously.

  4. Re:Foolish by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You know, if you squint really, really hard, that rolled up newspaper looks an awful lot like an olive branch. The thing is, they both smart when you're being whacked with 'em.

  5. Re:Perfect laws? by Third+Position · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The reason this is largely being treated as a joke by the British people is that most of the unpopular laws are coming from Brussels, not London. There isn't much the British government can do about EU directives, besides withdraw from the EU. And that's not on the table.

    --
    American Third Position
    Finally, a real choice!
  6. "Tory" government!? by 91degrees · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Here was I thinking we had a coalition of Tory and Libs.

  7. Repealing the Second Law by Angst+Badger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I actually thought about this once, not that I have any illusions about being able to do it; it was just a Gedankenexperiment. My conclusion was that if the Second Law was eliminated, the odds are good that somewhere in the universe some process would enter a feedback loop, producing ever more energy at an ever accelerating rate, and the first we'd know about it would be when the shock wave washed over us at a substantial fraction of the speed of light.

    The universe as it stands may be a raw deal, but most imaginable tweaks to the laws of physics make it even worse.

    --
    Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
    1. Re:Repealing the Second Law by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The universe as it stands may be a raw deal, but most imaginable tweaks to the laws of physics make it even worse.

      The Winston Churchill rule: This is the worse universe, except for all others.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    2. Re:Repealing the Second Law by mrthoughtful · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well actually, the British Empire is no more, so the effects of UK legislation would be limited to it's borders.
      I'm pretty sure that biological processes require 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, so life in the UK would cease, but all of UK neighbours would benefit from the energy leakage of from (possibly) the only non-singularity free of the second law.

      --
      This comment was written with the intention to opt out of advertising.
  8. How will you know? by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well what the hell did you expect? The site is little more than theater

    It is because people like you are making it one.

    What if it's real? Why try to kill something that might actually help before it has a chance to show if it's theater or not?

    Why is it so hard to believe that a group being voted in on a wave of people finding the government unreasonable, might in fact want to git rid of some of the more egregious laws that have sprung up? It seems pretty obvious if you get rid of very unpopular laws you (and your group) are going to win more elections. So the thought that it's theater did not occur to me, if for no other reason than politician self-interest - and do you really want to bet against THAT?

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:How will you know? by Miseph · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Being theater is not mutually exclusive to being taken seriously. Just because they couldn't really care less, doesn't mean they are somehow above throwing the people a meaningless and symbolic bone to appease them. Never forget: good theater keeps the lights on and the players employed.

      --
      Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
    2. Re:How will you know? by excelsior_gr · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Because political parties are not even doing the things they promised *before* the elections. Should't they at least *try* to implement their political portfolios before they start pondering what their next move should be? In my opinion, this is just a distraction from their inneficiency to do what they promised, or at least something meaningfull. The fact that the discussion evolved into a Monty Python sketch shows that they cannot fool people any more with their rubbish. People are not taking them seriously any more.

    3. Re:How will you know? by FuckingNickName · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, I could give you mounds of evidence, but here's what stands out:

      Clegg, the overt organiser of this circus, has sold out his Party to a power shak^Hring agreement, abandoning pretty much every core platform on which they established their vote. More insidiously, he's accepting arrangements which make it look like the LDs are pushing for their manifesto when in fact they're doing precisely the opposite. For example, his Party has steadfastly put voting reform to Proportional Representation at the top of the political agenda for decades, but now he is proposing the Alternative Voting method - a "compromise" system even less Proportional than FPTP which will inevitably be voted against in any referendum, ensuring the status quo.

      The LDs have always been the "Party who cares"[tm], i.e. proposes more than just slight tweaks, and they've always been laughed at because, "They'd never really do that and can only say that because they'll never get into power." Well, now they do have a certain degree of power. And they're doing none of what they said. Instead, as just illustrated, their method will be to listen, propose a "compromise" which no-one wants at all, then wait until it's not imposed and nothing changes at all. The exceptions will be where laws were already going to be tweaked, in which case this site will be used as an excuse (digital economy, personal welfare).

      tl;dr We are living in a representative democracy, not a direct democracy. There is neither the framework, education, means nor (most importantly) interest to listen directly to the people. Even referendums are barely an exception as they're worded precisely by the government and (hi, EU!) sometimes just repeated until the population is worn down and the right answer is obtained.

    4. Re:How will you know? by mdwh2 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      We know that both the Lib Dems and Tories (both parties in the coalition) have promised a bill to repeal some laws - it was in their manifestos. Sure, they might lie, but I think it's quite reasonable to believe they will have some form of "freedom bill" (they've already repealed ID cards and biometric passports, for example).

      This site might be "theatre" in the sense that they already have their list of ideas, and this site is only there to add support to it - e.g., "We're repealing the Digital Economy Act because it's one of the top of the list, and we're doing what people want!" But is that a bad thing? I would be very happy if they repealed the DEA, and if this site gives them extra support to do that, I'm happy to support the site. Even though technically it might be "theatre", the site still has a use in giving them extra support for repealing those laws.

      I wouldn't want a site where the top ideas automatically get repealed, anyway - direct democracy has it's downsides, as well as the problem that online polls/voting can be very unreliable anyway. But having a site that helps to feed ideas that politicians might not have thought of could be of use.

  9. How is this news? by deblau · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I mean really, it's not even tagged "Funny". Probably because people trolling what appears to be a legitimate attempt by an oppressive government to actually be, you know, less oppressive, really isn't funny to begin with.

    Same goes for the previous "story", whose title is not just grossly misleading, but plain wrong. Curiously, these two stories have the same editor. And yes, I'm willing to risk my karma to point this out.

    --
    This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
  10. Re:Perfect laws? by makomk · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Of course, successive British governments have realised that people think this. So they've taken to passing all the really unpopular laws by asking their appointees in the EU to push for EU-wide laws on the subject. If necessary, any additional nastiness above and beyond what the EU is willing to do can be inserted into the British implementation of the EU directives. The press are guaranteed to still blame it all on Europe, and only people who've been paying close attention notice it's a load of bullshit.