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> The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia Isn't this true though. If a country decided
by xmprt 6y ago
> The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia
Isn't this true though. If a country decided one day that 2+2=5 and wrote laws around it and enforced it then in that country you have to say 2+2=5 even if the laws of mathematics would disagree. It would be a dystopian place to live but that's just how laws work (assuming we're talking about some sort of authoritative regime where you can't challenge this law).
I think programmers are at a much greater luxury though because there is not really a thing called the laws of computer science. There are certain problems like P=NP or the halting problem but ad tracking is so far removed from that to the point that if we decided one day that it made sense to outlaw tracking, it could be done. It would kill a lot of businesses and would probably be a bad thing but to say that we shouldn't take into account lay people's wants when designing software systems is wrong.
- themacguffinman 6y agoIt's not really true because Australia can't "enforce" 2+2=5, they can only punish Australians who say otherwise, which isn't meaningful enforcement. Suppose that Australia enacts a law that says: passwords must only be accessible to the government but no one else. How can Australia reliably enforce that? Regardless of what the government decrees, other people can exploit the same backdoors that the government uses to access passwords. At most, they can punish people who do that against their wishes, but only after the password has already been accessed and only if they find out. Governments aren't omniscient or omnipotent, what they can enforce is limited by natural laws. We have yet to find a way to overcome natural laws.