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No, you can't just take a statement and call it a "law", even in a facetious sense. Murphy's law, Betteridge's law, or other facetious laws are at least roughl
by gaur 10y ago
No, you can't just take a statement and call it a "law", even in a facetious sense.
Murphy's law, Betteridge's law, or other facetious laws are at least roughly formulated as "if X, then Y" (or sometimes "Y happens"), which mimics the structure of actual scientific laws. Stallman's statement is formulated as "if X, then maybe Y" (or "Y could happen").
- bertiewhykovich 10y ago"If corporations dominate society and write the laws, then each advance or change in technology is an opening for them to further restrict or mistreat its users." Also, you definitely can, tongue-in-cheek, call a general statement a "law." It's not meant to be taken in a literal sense; it's meant for humorous or broadly pragmatic effect.
- gaur 10y agoYou've explicitly rewritten it as "if X, then maybe Y", exactly as I said. "If corporations write the laws, then maybe they will restrict or mistreat their users." That's not a law.
- loup-vaillant 10y agoThat's not a "maybe" any more by now. Corporation are meant to maximise profits, at the expense of everything else, except braking the law —and even that is debatable. Some jurisdictions even have laws to enforce that mindset. As soon as profit maximization is at odds with the user's interests (that's pretty much all the time), the corporation will naturally act against the user's interests. From this, I'm pretty sure "law" is a relatively accurate descriptor.
- tehlike 10y agothat sounds like you are trying too hard to not see what he's trying to say.
- flukus 10y ago> No, you can't just take a statement and call it a "law", even in a facetious sense. Well he did, so apparently you can.