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> certain configurations of numbers being illegal All matter and objects can be broken down into a configuration of numbers (of electrons, protons, etc.). Eith
by ballenf 8y ago
> certain configurations of numbers being illegal
All matter and objects can be broken down into a configuration of numbers (of electrons, protons, etc.). Either possession of things can be illegal or not. To exempt "digital" things will be less and less a clear line as technology advances (3d printers and, presumably, eventually "replicators"). I don't know the answer, but "they're just numbers" doesn't help us solve these difficult questions.
A gun is just iron and various other metals arranged in particular configuration and yet we don't have a problem regulating metals in that manner. Bits are just bits until they're in a configuration that is illegal under current law.
Maybe the law should be different, but saying "it's just numbers" isn't very illuminating, imo.
- mooseburger 8y agoNo, having an image of [thing] is not the same as having [thing], ceci n'est pas une pipe. Replicators would change that, true. Reductively, a gun is a pile of atoms, like everything else, but unlike child pornography, it has the capability of acting upon the material world.