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"If black powder and shot for a muzzle loader are available, has your right been abridged?" Your idea has been deemed dangerous by the internet police, and you

• perl4ever 6y ago
  "Our rights are naturally extended with technological advances in the same spirit" It seems to me that very frequently, people declare something to be completely different just because it uses new technology. And then people argue if it really is different or not. There's never an airtight proof of who is right. A saying that I think I may have first seen on HN is something about quantity having a quality all its own. E.g. maybe at some point from a musket to a rifle to a machine gun to a bazooka to a nuke, there is a line to be drawn.
  • banads 6y ago
    >“though I have no doubt exceptions can be brought forward, I think the following rule would be found generally true: that ages in which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will tend to be ages of despotism, whereas when the dominant weapon is cheap and simple, the common people have a chance. Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon — so long as there is no answer to it — gives claws to the weak.” -George Orwell