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There are some comments here that note that sci-hub or Aaron's action on JSTOR data is/was illegal. Just leaving this thought out here -- if laws are considere
by srean 6y ago
There are some comments here that note that sci-hub or Aaron's action on JSTOR data is/was illegal.
Just leaving this thought out here -- if laws are considered unjust, it is ok, even noble, to break them. That is how one got rid of apartheid, how colonies became independent and LGBT marriages came to be legally recognized.
If not for lawbreakers we would still be living in a world that approves of Turing's treatment post war.
- vinckr 6y agoRestricting access to scientific material just to make money is holding us all back and I wouldn't consider people who leak such material criminals.
- mellavora 6y agoCorrection: restricting public access to scientific material paid for by public funds...
- green_on_black 6y agoAnd the opposite is how Nazi Germany rose and continued.
- Grustaf 6y agoThat’s possibly true. It doesn’t follow that all illegal activity is just though.
- toxik 6y agoHow fortunate that this was never claimed.
- dang 6y agoPlease follow the site guidelines when posting here. They include: "Don't be snarky." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- toxik 6y agoI was not being snarky, I pointed out that the argument was made about a statement that was never made.
- dang 6y agoIt's fine to point that out, but the way you did it lands with me as snarky. There's a spectrum of how readers interpret such things (some would find it snarky, as I did, while others wouldn't)—but what's for certain is that the reader spectrum skews far more in that direction than commenters think it does. Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear. Since you only have to hit a small section of that spectrum to start a flamewar, we need comments to err on the side of not coming across that way [1]. There's another guideline that helps with this: "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." Although "How fortunate that" isn't exactly calling names, your comment could have been shortened in just this way. "This was never claimed" would make the same point without hitting any of the snark spectrum. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=disambiguate%20burden%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
- toxik 6y agoOn the other hand, I find that your suggestion sounds curt and impolite. I did not say idiotic, I did not suggest that the poster was in any way incapable. In fact I find it a bit rude to assume that I was acting in bad faith at all.
- bluesign 6y agoI agree that "if laws are considered unjust, it is ok, even noble, to break them." But it is kind of dangerous position at the same time. I am sure, people who stormed the capital are sincerely believe that situation was "Unjust" for them.
- srean 6y agoThere are nonviolent ways to break the law, usually that suffices. In a democracy/republic it should then come down to the numbers.
- young_unixer 6y agoAnd who decides which ones are unjust? I think intellectual property laws are always unjust, but most people disagree with me and they probably think that what sci-hub is doing is wrong. There are probably some murderers out there who think that murder is justifiable in some cases.