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There are multiple reasons why the two situations are not comparable: 1. The elevator does not belong to you. The building manager setting whatever policies on

There are multiple reasons why the two situations are not comparable: 1. The elevator does not belong to you. The building manager setting whatever policies on its usage that they want does not violate your right to use your property however you like. For it to be analogous, during a blizzard the road would have to refuse to let your car onto it. 2. While you use the elevator, no one else (such as fire crews) can use it. You driving your car does not prevent anyone else from doing the same. 3. In a fire, there are alternative routes of escape other than the elevator. I suppose the same is not true in a skyscraper. Do elevators shut down in those too? If you're several kilometers from, say, a hospital, you may not have any reasonable alternatives to driving to the hospital in inclement weather. I wouldn't think that the idea that hardware should obey its operator would need to be defended in HN of all places.

tialaramex 4y ago
> I suppose the same is not true in a skyscraper. Do elevators shut down in those too? Generally, yes. In very tall buildings it will often be possible to seek authorization to use elevators for evacuation but you need to specifically arrange for the elevators and rest of the building to be suitable, in most cases it makes more sense for the evacuation plan to rely on stairwells instead. Walking down even 100 flights is a huge annoyance, but it's not impossible for able-bodied adults. You'll know if you visit a building where the elevators are to be used in evacuation because they'll say very clearly on them that's what you should do, it's part of the regulations authorizing such things in the US and other countries I looked at with this allowance. In addition most tall residential buildings have "Remain in place" strategies where evacuation would rarely be needed because the building is supposed to be designed so that most occupants are in no danger from likely emergencies such as a fire in another residence. > I wouldn't think that the idea that hardware should obey its operator would need to be defended in HN of all places. "I am entitled to whatever I want" is indeed a pretty common libertarian nonsense we see on HN but it tend to get shot down more often than not. There's no reason that hardware should be designed to do unreasonable things just because that's "obeying its operator".
- fluoridation 4y ago
  >There's no reason that hardware should be designed to do unreasonable things just because that's "obeying its operator". You're not talking about designing a piece of hardware to do unreasonable things. You're talking about designing a piece of hardware to be unable to do arbitrary things. Why do I say arbitrary? Because the designer is not omniscient. They cannot conceive of all the possible future situations in which their product will be used. Are you really unable to imagine situations where it might be necessary to drive on the road regardless of the conditions outside? That aside, this has nothing to do with libertarianism or "doing whatever you want". I'm not saying if you decide to drive on the road in such conditions you should not be liable if you cause an accident. I'm saying, simply, "people should be able to use their property however they like". That doesn't seem like such a controversial idea to me. Or are you saying you shouldn't be able to do that? You don't trust yourself to use your property responsibly?
  - jameshart 4y ago
    What if there were some situation where I needed to rig the battery of my car to discharge so fast it explodes? Since the hardware can be physically driven to do that, obviously the software should support doing it. The designers of the software are just nannying me by not enabling the 'self destruct' capability that my property has. They just don't trust me to use it responsibly.

tialaramex 4y ago

> I suppose the same is not true in a skyscraper. Do elevators shut down in those too? Generally, yes. In very tall buildings it will often be possible to seek authorization to use elevators for evacuation but you need to specifically arrange for the elevators and rest of the building to be suitable, in most cases it makes more sense for the evacuation plan to rely on stairwells instead. Walking down even 100 flights is a huge annoyance, but it's not impossible for able-bodied adults. You'll know if you visit a building where the elevators are to be used in evacuation because they'll say very clearly on them that's what you should do, it's part of the regulations authorizing such things in the US and other countries I looked at with this allowance. In addition most tall residential buildings have "Remain in place" strategies where evacuation would rarely be needed because the building is supposed to be designed so that most occupants are in no danger from likely emergencies such as a fire in another residence. > I wouldn't think that the idea that hardware should obey its operator would need to be defended in HN of all places. "I am entitled to whatever I want" is indeed a pretty common libertarian nonsense we see on HN but it tend to get shot down more often than not. There's no reason that hardware should be designed to do unreasonable things just because that's "obeying its operator".

fluoridation 4y ago
>There's no reason that hardware should be designed to do unreasonable things just because that's "obeying its operator". You're not talking about designing a piece of hardware to do unreasonable things. You're talking about designing a piece of hardware to be unable to do arbitrary things. Why do I say arbitrary? Because the designer is not omniscient. They cannot conceive of all the possible future situations in which their product will be used. Are you really unable to imagine situations where it might be necessary to drive on the road regardless of the conditions outside? That aside, this has nothing to do with libertarianism or "doing whatever you want". I'm not saying if you decide to drive on the road in such conditions you should not be liable if you cause an accident. I'm saying, simply, "people should be able to use their property however they like". That doesn't seem like such a controversial idea to me. Or are you saying you shouldn't be able to do that? You don't trust yourself to use your property responsibly?
- jameshart 4y ago
  What if there were some situation where I needed to rig the battery of my car to discharge so fast it explodes? Since the hardware can be physically driven to do that, obviously the software should support doing it. The designers of the software are just nannying me by not enabling the 'self destruct' capability that my property has. They just don't trust me to use it responsibly.