3 ms·

It still strikes me that it can be illegal to be in possession of a device which has a certain combination of positive and negative polarities embedded in it.

It still strikes me that it can be illegal to be in possession of a device which has a certain combination of positive and negative polarities embedded in it. Shakespeare's typing monkeys come to mind.

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gbear605 8y ago
In the end, everything is just subatomic particles arranged in different ways, so why should anything be illegal? If you’re going to reduce one idea to its base elements, you should at least be consistent. On the other hand, perhaps if we think about everything at a more reasonable level, we can see why some digital things should be illegal, just as some physical things should be illegal.
- internet_user 8y ago
  Illegal physical things? illegal digital things? What's next, illegal source code? Maybe you should just start with illegal thoughts right off the bat?
darkpuma 8y ago
Does it also strike you as strange that it can be illegal to make certain cuts on a piece of metal? (e.g. machine gun manufacture laws that exist on nearly every corner of the planet) I find that these kind of reductive arguments floated for digital subjects fall apart when you remove the computer from the equation.
- colejohnson66 8y ago
  > I find that these kind of reductive arguments floated for digital subjects fall apart when you remove the computer from the equation. The “illegal numbers” concept is something I find interesting. Just because a certain number can be used to decrypt BluRays, it’s illegal
  - dTal 8y ago
    That only seems odd because it's a flawed intuition pump: a "number" feels like a small, innocent, abstract and singular thing, while "data" feels large and complex and rich with potential. But a "number" can be any size. A dump of Wikipedia is a "number". All information, and hence all secrets, are "numbers". The notion of an "illegal number" is just a weird way of phrasing the idea of government-enforced secrecy. 128 bits is about the threshold where a "number" stops behaving like our intuition of a number, and starts being rare enough that you won't arrive at an "illegal" number by counting or chance, i.e. it is now a "file" for all practical purposes: https://qntm.org/number https://qntm.org/number
- huffmsa 8y ago
  Yes actually I do think they're ridiculous for physical things too. I take a pretty libertarian lean on most things.
chillacy 8y ago
A living body and dead body have the same number of particles and mass, why do people make a big deal about it?

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gbear605 8y ago

In the end, everything is just subatomic particles arranged in different ways, so why should anything be illegal? If you’re going to reduce one idea to its base elements, you should at least be consistent. On the other hand, perhaps if we think about everything at a more reasonable level, we can see why some digital things should be illegal, just as some physical things should be illegal.

internet_user 8y ago
Illegal physical things? illegal digital things? What's next, illegal source code? Maybe you should just start with illegal thoughts right off the bat?

darkpuma 8y ago

Does it also strike you as strange that it can be illegal to make certain cuts on a piece of metal? (e.g. machine gun manufacture laws that exist on nearly every corner of the planet) I find that these kind of reductive arguments floated for digital subjects fall apart when you remove the computer from the equation.

colejohnson66 8y ago
> I find that these kind of reductive arguments floated for digital subjects fall apart when you remove the computer from the equation. The “illegal numbers” concept is something I find interesting. Just because a certain number can be used to decrypt BluRays, it’s illegal
- dTal 8y ago
  That only seems odd because it's a flawed intuition pump: a "number" feels like a small, innocent, abstract and singular thing, while "data" feels large and complex and rich with potential. But a "number" can be any size. A dump of Wikipedia is a "number". All information, and hence all secrets, are "numbers". The notion of an "illegal number" is just a weird way of phrasing the idea of government-enforced secrecy. 128 bits is about the threshold where a "number" stops behaving like our intuition of a number, and starts being rare enough that you won't arrive at an "illegal" number by counting or chance, i.e. it is now a "file" for all practical purposes: https://qntm.org/number https://qntm.org/number
huffmsa 8y ago
Yes actually I do think they're ridiculous for physical things too. I take a pretty libertarian lean on most things.

chillacy 8y ago

A living body and dead body have the same number of particles and mass, why do people make a big deal about it?