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If the modifications a person makes have the potential to kill members of the public, I think you're wrong. This is new technology; laws and regulations need t

• postmeta 8y ago
  Or guns? /jk
• AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  > If the modifications a person makes have the potential to kill members of the public, I think you're wrong. Literally everything has the potential to kill members of the public. A bug in your mobile device app could interact with a bug in the hardware and cause the battery to catch fire in the middle of the night and burn down an apartment building. If you install casters on the office copy machine, it may slide down an incline, through a 10th story window and kill someone in the street. > This is new technology; laws and regulations need to reach a stage where they're able to protect against the worst from happening. There are two classic methods of discouraging harm. The original, which works fine for low volume modifications, is that if you do something reckless you get held liable after the fact. The method you're proposing is to do safety testing ahead of time. But that is only reasonable for products that are mass produced. If you're going to make a million of something, it makes sense to analyze it ahead of time because the high fixed cost of doing that can be amortized over a million units whereas the amount of harm prevented is multiplied by a million units. That method is highly inefficient for one off modifications where the opposite is true.
  • lwhi 8y ago
    I think you're greatly underestimating the danger involved.