4 ms·

Why should we not want this when the law is bad? The government should face pushback from all sides when attempting something odious.

aniviacat 2y ago
It's a democratic country. The voters decide if the laws their government passes are bad or not.
- immibis 2y ago
  There is actually no evidence this is the case, and there is evidence it is the opposite - that the less voters support something, the more likely it is to pass.
  - aniviacat 2y ago
    This claim appears blatantly false. If being unpopular makes a law more likely to pass, then surely the French government tars and feathers all French children every other week. No, they don't, since the voters would prevent that by voting for a different government.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      Obviously the claim exists within the space of bills that somebody actually wants. The premise is that things major industries or politically connected plutocrats want get passed over the interests of the general public for all of the usual reasons, not that things nobody wants get passed without explanation.
    - immibis 2y ago
      That law was never proposed. Only laws that are beneficial to the ruling class get proposed.
      - aniviacat 2y ago
        The voters decide who is part of the "ruling class". If the voters choose representatives who only pass laws which benefit themselves, then that is a choice the voters made. If the voters are unsatisfied with their choice, they can change their mind in the next vote. (Read: The status quo is the status quo because most people are prefer the status quo.)
        immibis 2y ago
        I wasn't aware I ever voted for Elon Musk to have money.
        aniviacat 2y ago
        Elon Musk never passed a law. The representatives chosen by the voters did. These representatives do not magically enter the government; they are selected by the voters. The voters freely decide wether they wish to have representatives who pass laws which are benefitial to Elon Musk.
        account42 2y ago
        > they are selected by the voters From a small in-group of well connected people. > The voters freely decide wether they wish to have representatives who pass laws which are benefitial to Elon Musk. No, the voters at best select a bundle of stances for/against various things. Effectively this means you have no input except for maybe one or two issues you care most about. In practice you do not even get to do that as your representatives are not bound to what they promised to get you to elect them.
        aniviacat 2y ago
        > From a small in-group of well connected people. You are free to run as a candidate, even if you are not a well-connected person. (But of course, the voters will choose to not vote for you.) > Effectively this means you have no input except for maybe one or two issues you care most about. You are free to vote for someone who fully represents your opinions (yourself). But noone else will vote for that person. Democracy is about making compromises; the government is an average of people's opinions. > In practice you do not even get to do that as your representatives are not bound to what they promised to get you to elect them. This is true. But if a candidate lies to you, you can vote for a different candidate in the next election. Repeatedly reelecting liars is a choice voters make voluntarily. The reason for bad laws is not that democracy doesn't work. The reason is that democracy does work, and other people keep having the wrong opinions ;)
- account42 2y ago
  By what means? Picking one of various parties that all colluded on the laws? Perhaps one that promises to oppose it but then does the opposite? Let's not pretend that voting of all things is an effective means to enact change on specific issues in a representative democracy.
jsnell 2y ago
One answers is that this case isn't actually a bad law. This appears to be blatant organized piracy. What's odious about copyright laws? This also appears to be pretty much the gold standard of due process. It's not like somebody submitting automated DMCA requests on videos with silent audio tracks or something. It's a court order for these specific domains, which would have been carefully curated and has been quite literally litigated. The other answer is that you really don't want big corporations to be ignoring laws they don't like, because odds are pretty good that your list of bad laws doesn't match theirs. Countries have sovereignty. If a company doesn't want to obey those laws, they should not operate in that country. If the law really were bad, the way you'd actually fix this is by the democratic process. That's up to the voters, not foreign corporations.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > One answers is that this case isn't actually a bad law. It's censoring DNS. That's a bad precedent. The technical capacity to do it shouldn't exist because otherwise it will be used for every other form of censorship, and deprive democratic countries of any moral or technical authority to object when authoritarian countries want to do it. It will also be ineffective, leading for calls to make it effective, but the only way to do that is totalitarianism. There is no good that comes from setting out on that road. > The other answer is that you really don't want big corporations to be ignoring laws they don't like, because odds are pretty good that your list of bad laws doesn't match theirs. Ignoring the law doesn't get them out of paying the penalty, but penalties are meant to be sane, not some Hollywood accounting nonsense where one person watching one illicit stream of a sporting event causes the event organizers six billion dollars in damages. Then if Cloudflare wants to say "yeah, we're not doing that" and just pay the $100,000 dollar fine, it's clear that they're standing on principle -- they're paying $100,000 in exchange for ostensibly nothing -- and there is nothing wrong with that. The purpose of the penalty is to deter the underlying wrongdoing, not to deter civil disobedience. Anyone should be able to say "I am going to suffer the consequences of this because my principles are worth more than the fine" without having some authoritarians ratchet up the penalty to infinity. > Countries have sovereignty. Democratic countries have checks and balances. One of the checks and balances is that if you pass a law people don't respect, they don't respect it. Then you have to choose between punishing not the evildoers, but the principled idealists -- or repealing the law.

aniviacat 2y ago

It's a democratic country. The voters decide if the laws their government passes are bad or not.

immibis 2y ago
There is actually no evidence this is the case, and there is evidence it is the opposite - that the less voters support something, the more likely it is to pass.
- aniviacat 2y ago
  This claim appears blatantly false. If being unpopular makes a law more likely to pass, then surely the French government tars and feathers all French children every other week. No, they don't, since the voters would prevent that by voting for a different government.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    Obviously the claim exists within the space of bills that somebody actually wants. The premise is that things major industries or politically connected plutocrats want get passed over the interests of the general public for all of the usual reasons, not that things nobody wants get passed without explanation.
  - immibis 2y ago
    That law was never proposed. Only laws that are beneficial to the ruling class get proposed.
    - aniviacat 2y ago
      The voters decide who is part of the "ruling class". If the voters choose representatives who only pass laws which benefit themselves, then that is a choice the voters made. If the voters are unsatisfied with their choice, they can change their mind in the next vote. (Read: The status quo is the status quo because most people are prefer the status quo.)
      - immibis 2y ago
        I wasn't aware I ever voted for Elon Musk to have money.
        aniviacat 2y ago
        Elon Musk never passed a law. The representatives chosen by the voters did. These representatives do not magically enter the government; they are selected by the voters. The voters freely decide wether they wish to have representatives who pass laws which are benefitial to Elon Musk.
        account42 2y ago
        > they are selected by the voters From a small in-group of well connected people. > The voters freely decide wether they wish to have representatives who pass laws which are benefitial to Elon Musk. No, the voters at best select a bundle of stances for/against various things. Effectively this means you have no input except for maybe one or two issues you care most about. In practice you do not even get to do that as your representatives are not bound to what they promised to get you to elect them.
        aniviacat 2y ago
        > From a small in-group of well connected people. You are free to run as a candidate, even if you are not a well-connected person. (But of course, the voters will choose to not vote for you.) > Effectively this means you have no input except for maybe one or two issues you care most about. You are free to vote for someone who fully represents your opinions (yourself). But noone else will vote for that person. Democracy is about making compromises; the government is an average of people's opinions. > In practice you do not even get to do that as your representatives are not bound to what they promised to get you to elect them. This is true. But if a candidate lies to you, you can vote for a different candidate in the next election. Repeatedly reelecting liars is a choice voters make voluntarily. The reason for bad laws is not that democracy doesn't work. The reason is that democracy does work, and other people keep having the wrong opinions ;)
account42 2y ago
By what means? Picking one of various parties that all colluded on the laws? Perhaps one that promises to oppose it but then does the opposite? Let's not pretend that voting of all things is an effective means to enact change on specific issues in a representative democracy.

jsnell 2y ago

One answers is that this case isn't actually a bad law. This appears to be blatant organized piracy. What's odious about copyright laws? This also appears to be pretty much the gold standard of due process. It's not like somebody submitting automated DMCA requests on videos with silent audio tracks or something. It's a court order for these specific domains, which would have been carefully curated and has been quite literally litigated. The other answer is that you really don't want big corporations to be ignoring laws they don't like, because odds are pretty good that your list of bad laws doesn't match theirs. Countries have sovereignty. If a company doesn't want to obey those laws, they should not operate in that country. If the law really were bad, the way you'd actually fix this is by the democratic process. That's up to the voters, not foreign corporations.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> One answers is that this case isn't actually a bad law. It's censoring DNS. That's a bad precedent. The technical capacity to do it shouldn't exist because otherwise it will be used for every other form of censorship, and deprive democratic countries of any moral or technical authority to object when authoritarian countries want to do it. It will also be ineffective, leading for calls to make it effective, but the only way to do that is totalitarianism. There is no good that comes from setting out on that road. > The other answer is that you really don't want big corporations to be ignoring laws they don't like, because odds are pretty good that your list of bad laws doesn't match theirs. Ignoring the law doesn't get them out of paying the penalty, but penalties are meant to be sane, not some Hollywood accounting nonsense where one person watching one illicit stream of a sporting event causes the event organizers six billion dollars in damages. Then if Cloudflare wants to say "yeah, we're not doing that" and just pay the $100,000 dollar fine, it's clear that they're standing on principle -- they're paying $100,000 in exchange for ostensibly nothing -- and there is nothing wrong with that. The purpose of the penalty is to deter the underlying wrongdoing, not to deter civil disobedience. Anyone should be able to say "I am going to suffer the consequences of this because my principles are worth more than the fine" without having some authoritarians ratchet up the penalty to infinity. > Countries have sovereignty. Democratic countries have checks and balances. One of the checks and balances is that if you pass a law people don't respect, they don't respect it. Then you have to choose between punishing not the evildoers, but the principled idealists -- or repealing the law.