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> Masks and temporary/permanent face altering techniques will explode as this technology takes hold Along with a corresponding explosion in legislation to prev

by J-dawg 8y ago

> Masks and temporary/permanent face altering techniques will explode as this technology takes hold Along with a corresponding explosion in legislation to prevent you from covering your face in public. It already exists in France (popularly known as the 'Burqa Ban', but I think it covers other face coverings). I'm especially curious to see how this will go down in the UK, which is increasingly authoritarian while often painfully politically correct. An ill-thought-out and ambiguous piece of law will be rushed through Parliament, with various exemptions for religious groups. The far right will become outraged about these exemptions, and stage protests. The "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" brigade will be out in force. The government will make vague statements about protecting us from terrorists. Paedophiles will definitely be mentioned at some point. Eventually there'll be farcical prosecutions of people who were just cycling to work with a pollution mask, or going to a fancy-dress party. And the police will continue to claim they're under-funded, while somehow finding the resources to pursue bullshit like this.

wilsonnb 8y ago
It's already illegal in many states in the US. Possibly at the local level as well. Here's the relevant law for Virginia. https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title18.2/chapter9/section18.2-422/ https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title18.2/chapter9/secti... It's a class 6 felony, which in VA means you'll be looking at "a term of imprisonment of not less than one year nor more than five years, or in the discretion of the jury or the court trying the case without a jury, confinement in jail for not more than 12 months and a fine of not more than $2,500, either or both".
- coolspot 8y ago
  > However, the provisions of this section shall not apply to persons (i) wearing traditional holiday costumes; It doesn't say I can't wear traditional holiday costume outside of holiday, so it should be okay to wear Halloween scary costume all year long.
  - JTbane 8y ago
    >However, the provisions of this section shall not apply to persons (i) wearing traditional holiday costumes; Perhaps you ought to dress up as Santa Claus when you want to rob a bank, then
- imglorp 8y ago
  That law doesn't cover cold, ie scarf or balaclava. Those things are common but you can't argue they're safety equipment. It also doesn't cover face confusing makeup. You're not hiding your features, just adding a bunch of fake ones. What disaster in the VA legislature led to this law?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
derefr 8y ago
You're allowed to cover your face in France, just not in such a way that it signals religious affiliation. The point of the French law is to prevent anyone from being able to identify, through observation in a public place, what a stranger's religion is (under the theory that you can't commit hate crimes if you can't identify your outgroup; and that a generation that grew up not seeing any hate crimes committed—even if there were people who wanted to commit them, but just found it impractical—might grow up to be less hateful.) (Anyone who wonders why France is unique in having such a law should remember that France changed hands between Protestant and Catholic monarchs roughly two dozen times, and each time there was a mini-crusade, with citizens of the religion-in-power urged to "coerce" citizens of the religion-out-of-power to converting with whatever means necessary. That died down enough that there was never a law made to stop it at the time, but France saw the potential for such cyclical violence to begin again when it joined the EU and began getting increasing levels of immigration from non-Christian cultures, and so figured that such a law was long past due.)
- everdev 8y ago
  So can you wear a cross necklace or a yamaka? Or use a Jesus fish bumper sticker?
  - J-dawg 8y ago
    Or to take the idea further, can you wear a cross necklace and a halloween mask? Or a hijab and a welding mask? One item is signalling your religion, the other is covering your face. Neither item is covering your face in a way that signals your religion. I feel like any attempt at imposing anti-privacy laws while keeping some pretence of a free society ultimately descends into farce, because the two ideas are basically incompatible.
    - derefr 8y ago
      No, you misunderstand; the law doesn't say anything about covering your face, it just says "you can't display your religious affiliation in public." A hijab happens to cover your face, but it's illegal to wear in public only because it's a religious telltale, not because of its function. You can't wear the cross necklace, or have the bumper-sticker; they signal religion. And you can wear the halloween mask, or the welding mask; they don't signal religion. There's nothing more to it than that, and there's no complex interaction. If you can still see the hijab under the welding mask (and you can; the welding mask doesn't cover the back of your head, or your neck) then the hijab has gotta go. (And, to be extra clear, it's a unilateral rule: nuns and priests can't wear their vestments in public either! They've gotta change into them at the church/nunnery, and change back before they leave.) On the other hand, if you wear a cross necklace under your clothes where nobody can see it, that's perfectly fine. Because, again, the point is that you can't signal your religion. The symbols aren't against the law; displaying them is. And so, actually, wearing a hijab would be fine if you wear, say, a motorcycle helmet over your head, and a bandana over the lower half of your face. You're covering all the same area—but, because nobody can tell that you're wearing a hijab, and because neither a motorcycle helmet nor a bandana signal religious affiliation, you're fine. The symbol is hidden, like the cross under your clothes is hidden. (Interestingly, since the point of the hijab tradition is to cover these areas, not to look a specific way, anything that covers these areas is "functionally" still a hijab as far as Islamic social norms are concerned. So wearing just the motorcycle helmet + bandana would actually be a perfectly legitimate way to cohere to your religious beliefs, without [legibly] signalling your religion. ...until, that is, every Muslim woman started doing it; then it'd become a legible religious symbol, and so be banned as well.)

by J-dawg 8y ago

wilsonnb 8y ago

It's already illegal in many states in the US. Possibly at the local level as well. Here's the relevant law for Virginia. https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title18.2/chapter9/section18.2-422/ https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title18.2/chapter9/secti... It's a class 6 felony, which in VA means you'll be looking at "a term of imprisonment of not less than one year nor more than five years, or in the discretion of the jury or the court trying the case without a jury, confinement in jail for not more than 12 months and a fine of not more than $2,500, either or both".

coolspot 8y ago
> However, the provisions of this section shall not apply to persons (i) wearing traditional holiday costumes; It doesn't say I can't wear traditional holiday costume outside of holiday, so it should be okay to wear Halloween scary costume all year long.
- JTbane 8y ago
  >However, the provisions of this section shall not apply to persons (i) wearing traditional holiday costumes; Perhaps you ought to dress up as Santa Claus when you want to rob a bank, then
imglorp 8y ago
That law doesn't cover cold, ie scarf or balaclava. Those things are common but you can't argue they're safety equipment. It also doesn't cover face confusing makeup. You're not hiding your features, just adding a bunch of fake ones. What disaster in the VA legislature led to this law?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

derefr 8y ago

You're allowed to cover your face in France, just not in such a way that it signals religious affiliation. The point of the French law is to prevent anyone from being able to identify, through observation in a public place, what a stranger's religion is (under the theory that you can't commit hate crimes if you can't identify your outgroup; and that a generation that grew up not seeing any hate crimes committed—even if there were people who wanted to commit them, but just found it impractical—might grow up to be less hateful.) (Anyone who wonders why France is unique in having such a law should remember that France changed hands between Protestant and Catholic monarchs roughly two dozen times, and each time there was a mini-crusade, with citizens of the religion-in-power urged to "coerce" citizens of the religion-out-of-power to converting with whatever means necessary. That died down enough that there was never a law made to stop it at the time, but France saw the potential for such cyclical violence to begin again when it joined the EU and began getting increasing levels of immigration from non-Christian cultures, and so figured that such a law was long past due.)

everdev 8y ago
So can you wear a cross necklace or a yamaka? Or use a Jesus fish bumper sticker?
- J-dawg 8y ago
  Or to take the idea further, can you wear a cross necklace and a halloween mask? Or a hijab and a welding mask? One item is signalling your religion, the other is covering your face. Neither item is covering your face in a way that signals your religion. I feel like any attempt at imposing anti-privacy laws while keeping some pretence of a free society ultimately descends into farce, because the two ideas are basically incompatible.
  - derefr 8y ago
    No, you misunderstand; the law doesn't say anything about covering your face, it just says "you can't display your religious affiliation in public." A hijab happens to cover your face, but it's illegal to wear in public only because it's a religious telltale, not because of its function. You can't wear the cross necklace, or have the bumper-sticker; they signal religion. And you can wear the halloween mask, or the welding mask; they don't signal religion. There's nothing more to it than that, and there's no complex interaction. If you can still see the hijab under the welding mask (and you can; the welding mask doesn't cover the back of your head, or your neck) then the hijab has gotta go. (And, to be extra clear, it's a unilateral rule: nuns and priests can't wear their vestments in public either! They've gotta change into them at the church/nunnery, and change back before they leave.) On the other hand, if you wear a cross necklace under your clothes where nobody can see it, that's perfectly fine. Because, again, the point is that you can't signal your religion. The symbols aren't against the law; displaying them is. And so, actually, wearing a hijab would be fine if you wear, say, a motorcycle helmet over your head, and a bandana over the lower half of your face. You're covering all the same area—but, because nobody can tell that you're wearing a hijab, and because neither a motorcycle helmet nor a bandana signal religious affiliation, you're fine. The symbol is hidden, like the cross under your clothes is hidden. (Interestingly, since the point of the hijab tradition is to cover these areas, not to look a specific way, anything that covers these areas is "functionally" still a hijab as far as Islamic social norms are concerned. So wearing just the motorcycle helmet + bandana would actually be a perfectly legitimate way to cohere to your religious beliefs, without [legibly] signalling your religion. ...until, that is, every Muslim woman started doing it; then it'd become a legible religious symbol, and so be banned as well.)