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yeah, this is yet another reason why our laws should not be written in terms of "potential future harm" but "actual past harm". Possessing lots of people's inf
by ledauphin 6y ago
yeah, this is yet another reason why our laws should not be written in terms of "potential future harm" but "actual past harm".
Possessing lots of people's information, as skeevy as it may sound in our modern era, should not be a crime. Misusing it should be. If you can't point to specific harms, you end up in a dystopia of "precrime". You also tend to give actual human beings (like this one) _less_ credit than large corporations (full of lots of human beings) for their ability to, over time, forgo doing the actual harm that they _could_ given the (massive) resources that they have.
- aqme28 6y agoI understand your point in this case, but I can think of plenty of examples where "potential future harm" is a good reason to make something illegal. Any reckless behavior, for example.
- i_haz_rabies 6y agoSpreading lies that could lead to an insurrection?
- ledauphin 6y agothis one would put nearly every journalist in jail at some point in history. given that it's up to the selfsame govt we're currently discussing to determine what constitutes a lie, this is truly not the best example one could find.
- ledauphin 6y agoit's fundamentally a problem of proof and abuse of power. It's much less clear how one proves recklessness vs actual harm, and much easier to abuse power when the only standard for judgement is "what somebody else thinks is the inevitable (future) outcome" of a given action.
- aqme28 6y agoI see your point about the potential for abuse of power when the negative outcome is difficult to assess, but I don't think that's a strong enough concern to negate a whole class of laws. How would you propose we disallow dumping of industrial chemicals that may be too novel to have had a full harm assessment?