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I was going to write a rebuttal to this, but mindslight is right. It is the government's job to restrict the usage of technologies that can be very dangerous. B

I was going to write a rebuttal to this, but mindslight is right. It is the government's job to restrict the usage of technologies that can be very dangerous. But in all the cases we have, the restriction is done via the law enforcers, not via the technology. It's mandated that you can't drive a car without a license. But the enforcement is done by the cops, not by the car. It's mandated that you can't own a gun unless you meet certain criteria. But the enforcement is done by the cops, not by the gun. And so on... It can be mandated that you can't use a phone while driving. But the enforcement must be done by the cops, not by the phone. If the cops don't do it correctly, then the right course of action is to fix that, not to restrict the phone. Because once we do start restricting ubiquitous personal devices in order to enforce the government's rules, it will never stop. Democracy can never work if freedom is granted by the government - the people must be able to do whatever they want, with the government potentially revoking a person's freedom after the violation if it finds one.

mindslight 8y ago
There are actually plenty of examples of devices themselves having legally mandated restrictions that undermine their own possible uses. There are even purpose-built computing devices (eg a car's ECU) which I am leaving out of this argument. The problem is that with software on a general purpose computer, the issue must be taken to its logical extreme. Presumably someone advocating for digital restrictions doesn't envision settling for merely having the default install exhibit a behavior that can be changed with two minutes of following online instructions. Simply creating a restriction is not enough - for it to be effective, it must be fortified. And that's the trouble, for the only way for that to happen is the platform to be fully locked down, removing the user's ability to modify. Phones are already perilously close to this regime, but manufacturers seem to not be seriously addressing rooting for right now. We can look to other areas (eg wifi routers) to see manufacturers only getting the idea because of half-baked government policy, and its needless chilling effects on software freedom. (of course I haven't said anything about texting and driving itself, so you should just assume I think it's a bad idea like any reasonable person. I'm just pointing out that arguing for outlawing Free phones to prevent it is of the same non-starter category as arguing for outlawing cars)

mindslight 8y ago

There are actually plenty of examples of devices themselves having legally mandated restrictions that undermine their own possible uses. There are even purpose-built computing devices (eg a car's ECU) which I am leaving out of this argument. The problem is that with software on a general purpose computer, the issue must be taken to its logical extreme. Presumably someone advocating for digital restrictions doesn't envision settling for merely having the default install exhibit a behavior that can be changed with two minutes of following online instructions. Simply creating a restriction is not enough - for it to be effective, it must be fortified. And that's the trouble, for the only way for that to happen is the platform to be fully locked down, removing the user's ability to modify. Phones are already perilously close to this regime, but manufacturers seem to not be seriously addressing rooting for right now. We can look to other areas (eg wifi routers) to see manufacturers only getting the idea because of half-baked government policy, and its needless chilling effects on software freedom. (of course I haven't said anything about texting and driving itself, so you should just assume I think it's a bad idea like any reasonable person. I'm just pointing out that arguing for outlawing Free phones to prevent it is of the same non-starter category as arguing for outlawing cars)