Sorry, I just grokked what you were saying and realise how stupid my post was.
Better--though not quite perfect--analogy would be attempted murder by pulling the trigger on a gun you falsely believe to be loaded: doesn't work, but that you thought it would is obviously what should matter in deciding your punishment.
Similarly, if you believed it wasn't loaded and you pulled the trigger as a joke, and it ends up killing the person, you should perhaps be punished for negligence or something, but not for trying to kill someone.
People should be held accountable for what they try to do, what they know, what they can be reasonably expected to know. You don't blame people or let them off for 'luck', or for being tricked by a sufficiently sophisticated ruse. Why people don't get this, I don't understand. It seems like one of the most obvious and simple principles.
I'm a member of the ACLU, and I care about your freedom.
Really, though, it doesn't matter why they do it. I support them because they are protecting our freedom not because they want us to be free. Intentions are relevant to whether they're good people. Actions are relevant to whether they're good to have around.
would be willing to bet that for every instance you can come up with where government regulation gave us MORE liberty I could come up with ten where it took it away.
So you're saying nine times out of ten, government regulations have been anti-freedom in the past?
I'll buy that. It's where you conclude that 'nine times out of ten' is the same as 'ten times out of ten' and that therefore government cannot solve this problem that I get lost. How does that work again? I was always taught that 90% was less than 100%.
he only way to disincentivize the behavior, when one in fifty get caught and the rewards are frankly beyond my comprehension, is to make the penalty leviathan.
That's the same argument used for the ridiculously high penalties for piracy. Of course, stopping piracy to be of extremely low importance compared to government corruption, despite what the RIAA claims. But I just don't like the principle.
A guy can get more time than that for personal marijuana possession. Which is worse, possessing some plant leaves, or conspiring to mislead the 280 million american citizens you are sworn to serve?
A person can get more than 2.5 years in prison for possession of marijuana.
A federal official lying to federal investigators in an effort to mislead the American people is worse than possession of marijuana.
Therefore 2.5 years in prison is not too much for a federal official lying to federal investigators in an effort to mislead the American people or it's too much for possession of marijuana.
You're post is pretty much spot-on. I just felt the need to point out the ought-from-is you suggest.
It is not dogmatism, it is just pragmatism. If you have no means to know some belief you hold is actually a falsehood, you should consider it as a true belief. If you don't, the only thing you will ever know about universe is that you exist.
Your first paragraph seems to be predicated on belief being boolean. It's not. I suspect I'll live past the age of fifty, I'm pretty sure I won't have a heart attack in the next few hours, really sure I didn't die an hour ago, and I'm dead certain 1+1=2. Not being dead certain about everything does not lead to pan-scepticism. I don't think this is true of any knowledge. Saying 'We might be wrong' does not lead me to pure, useless solipsism, even if we can't possibly know if we're wrong. 'We might be wrong, and therefore we shouldn't act on the assumption that we're right' might. (The claim that we might be wrong could be useless, but it doesn't make the things we might be wrong about useless.)
Of course, this is all fairly irrelevant. But it's impossible to make a joke without people like me (and you, it seems) turning it into a philosophical debate. Rule #1 of hosting a party: Never invite more than one philosopher.:-)
If there job is what you say it is, then doing it is evil. 'I'm just doing my [evil] job' does not equal 'I'm not doing evil'. No, really, it doesn't.
But that's not their job. Sure, there may be employees whose jobs are to do that, but the job of the corporation is not to get out of providing the service their customers have paid for--and despite countless claims on Slashdot--a corporation's job is not 'make profit any way we can'.
The Chinese aren't Muslim. Does China face the same problems we do?
Al Qaeda and others have stated a lot of reasons for hating us. How about we stop pretending those are merely excuses and try addressing them? They fit. The 'we're not Muslim' argument is the excuse.
IANAL, but the law is not morality. A promise is a promise, whether it's a legally enforced contract or a legally ignored license. When you agree to a license, you're making a promise. If it's a sucky promise you don't want to make, don't make it.
If it gets bad enough, eventually enough people will care. (A lot of us do, just not enough to start a violent revolution.) We just have to be sure that the 'bad enough' threshold is higher than the gun-taking-away threshold.
Unfortunately, today's government can easily out-gun the population, so the 2nd Amendment no longer has the intended effect.
That's what I thought too, but then the Iraqis showed me how very, very wrong I was. A few thousand people with decent guns and limited training can be amazingly effective, even against the most powerful military in the world.
Agreed. Similarly, I was thinking about helping out Habitat for Humanity, but they don't work for gun rights, so I decided not to.
The ACLU fights for some rights. Maybe they pick and choose for poor reasons, but they aren't fighting against gun rights, so their failure to fight for them is no more relevant than the NRA's failure to fight malaria.
If I use the web without a mouse, I can't initiate a mouseover event (assuming I'm not controlling a mouse cursor with the keyboard or something.) What standard am I violating?
There are two golden rules in web design: code to the standards and degrade gracefully. Both are important.
How dare he post an opinion on this story that conflicts with another Slashdotter's opinion on another story? Doesn't he realise we all have to agree on everything in order for society to survive?
Slashdot Mirror
Parody of 'Is your father a thief? 'Cause he must have stolen the stars from the skies and put them in your eyes!'
Sorry, I just grokked what you were saying and realise how stupid my post was.
Better--though not quite perfect--analogy would be attempted murder by pulling the trigger on a gun you falsely believe to be loaded: doesn't work, but that you thought it would is obviously what should matter in deciding your punishment.
Similarly, if you believed it wasn't loaded and you pulled the trigger as a joke, and it ends up killing the person, you should perhaps be punished for negligence or something, but not for trying to kill someone.
People should be held accountable for what they try to do, what they know, what they can be reasonably expected to know. You don't blame people or let them off for 'luck', or for being tricked by a sufficiently sophisticated ruse. Why people don't get this, I don't understand. It seems like one of the most obvious and simple principles.
Uh...yeah, just like attempted murder. Thinking about it is legal. Attempting it is not.
Did you even read the summary? That's mentioned as one of the two already in place. YouTube is adding a different system.
I'm a member of the ACLU, and I care about your freedom.
Really, though, it doesn't matter why they do it. I support them because they are protecting our freedom not because they want us to be free. Intentions are relevant to whether they're good people. Actions are relevant to whether they're good to have around.
They're good people.
In many places in the US, it's illegal to wear a mask in public.
A lot of 'their property' is actually public property they've been given the right to use on the condition of obeying basic rules.
Oh, sorry, did I inject facts into the debate? Sorry, I know that just confuses things.
So you're saying nine times out of ten, government regulations have been anti-freedom in the past?
I'll buy that. It's where you conclude that 'nine times out of ten' is the same as 'ten times out of ten' and that therefore government cannot solve this problem that I get lost. How does that work again? I was always taught that 90% was less than 100%.
We don't need Wikipedia. It's the title of a Deep Space Nine episode, and is explained therein.
Silly TNG fans.
That's the same argument used for the ridiculously high penalties for piracy. Of course, stopping piracy to be of extremely low importance compared to government corruption, despite what the RIAA claims. But I just don't like the principle.
You're post is pretty much spot-on. I just felt the need to point out the ought-from-is you suggest.
Amen.
The problem is that on Y!A you get honour points even if you're wrong. Ten if your incorrect answer is chosen as 'best answer'. This is not a terribly rare occurrence.
Other questions get tons of trolls and ideologues. Check out the Religion section sometime. It's scary.
Your first paragraph seems to be predicated on belief being boolean. It's not. I suspect I'll live past the age of fifty, I'm pretty sure I won't have a heart attack in the next few hours, really sure I didn't die an hour ago, and I'm dead certain 1+1=2. Not being dead certain about everything does not lead to pan-scepticism. I don't think this is true of any knowledge. Saying 'We might be wrong' does not lead me to pure, useless solipsism, even if we can't possibly know if we're wrong. 'We might be wrong, and therefore we shouldn't act on the assumption that we're right' might. (The claim that we might be wrong could be useless, but it doesn't make the things we might be wrong about useless.)
Of course, this is all fairly irrelevant. But it's impossible to make a joke without people like me (and you, it seems) turning it into a philosophical debate. Rule #1 of hosting a party: Never invite more than one philosopher. :-)
I thought this was only true for emergency admittance. As in 'I'm bleeding! Help!' not 'I have cancer.'
If there job is what you say it is, then doing it is evil. 'I'm just doing my [evil] job' does not equal 'I'm not doing evil'. No, really, it doesn't.
But that's not their job. Sure, there may be employees whose jobs are to do that, but the job of the corporation is not to get out of providing the service their customers have paid for--and despite countless claims on Slashdot--a corporation's job is not 'make profit any way we can'.
I'm in the US, but I don't subscribe to the New York Times.
13% is not 100%. If that other 87% runs out and tries to buy a copy of the paper, will there enough?
I'm sure they have the capacity to whip up 50 000 000 more copies in a couple hours, right?
The Chinese aren't Muslim. Does China face the same problems we do?
Al Qaeda and others have stated a lot of reasons for hating us. How about we stop pretending those are merely excuses and try addressing them? They fit. The 'we're not Muslim' argument is the excuse.
IANAL, but the law is not morality. A promise is a promise, whether it's a legally enforced contract or a legally ignored license. When you agree to a license, you're making a promise. If it's a sucky promise you don't want to make, don't make it.
If it gets bad enough, eventually enough people will care. (A lot of us do, just not enough to start a violent revolution.) We just have to be sure that the 'bad enough' threshold is higher than the gun-taking-away threshold.
No more will our precious American jobs be stolen by those evil Mexicans. Those jobs will go to good ol' US citizens^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hrobots.
That's what I thought too, but then the Iraqis showed me how very, very wrong I was. A few thousand people with decent guns and limited training can be amazingly effective, even against the most powerful military in the world.
Agreed. Similarly, I was thinking about helping out Habitat for Humanity, but they don't work for gun rights, so I decided not to.
The ACLU fights for some rights. Maybe they pick and choose for poor reasons, but they aren't fighting against gun rights, so their failure to fight for them is no more relevant than the NRA's failure to fight malaria.
If I use the web without a mouse, I can't initiate a mouseover event (assuming I'm not controlling a mouse cursor with the keyboard or something.) What standard am I violating?
There are two golden rules in web design: code to the standards and degrade gracefully. Both are important.
How dare he post an opinion on this story that conflicts with another Slashdotter's opinion on another story? Doesn't he realise we all have to agree on everything in order for society to survive?
Wait, so all immigrants are illegal now?