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This unwritten distinction exists only to allow targeted enforcement in service of harassment and oppression. There is no upside (even if getting away with spee

This unwritten distinction exists only to allow targeted enforcement in service of harassment and oppression. There is no upside (even if getting away with speeding feels good). We should strive to enforce all laws 100% of the time as that is the only fair option. If a law being enforced 100% of the time causes problems then rethink the law (i.e. raise the speed limit, or design the road slower).

airstrike 7mo ago
A system that solves for absolute compliance in every individual case does not result in the emergence of a fairer society. There are numerous cases, both in history and in fiction, that demonstrate as much.
- datsci_est_2015 7mo ago
  What, do you expect techbros to have media literacy? We wouldn’t be in any of this mess if they did.
  - cindyllm 7mo ago
    [dead]
- mastermage 7mo ago
  exactly what it ends up with is a surveillance state. Looking at you China.
gbalduzzi 7mo ago
> If a law being enforced 100% of the time causes problems then rethink the law (i.e. raise the speed limit, or design the road slower). Isn't this the point of the whole conversation we are having here? Laws on copyright were not created for current AI usage on open source project replication. They need to change, because if they are perfectly enforced by the letter, they result in actions that are clearly against the intent of the law itself. The underlying problem is that the world changes too fast for the laws so be fair immediately
- ompogUe 7mo ago
  ^This. A large % of jurisprudence is in just trying to keep up with how tech disrupts society.
  - randallsquared 7mo ago
    The reason that has to be done is precisely that the law has no common, well-architected rationale. The vast majority of law in common-law jurisdictions is ad hoc precedent from decades or centuries ago, patchwork laws that match current, ephemeral intuition about what the law should be, etc. Perfect and inevitable enforcement makes this situation a nightmare, given the expectation that the average US citizen commits multiple felonies per day. Something will have to give.
- godelski 7mo ago
  What would really help is for people to understand that that's the "spirit of the law" and the "letter of the law". People don't want the letter of the law enforced, they want the spirit. Using the example from above, speed limits were made for safety. They were set at a time and surprise, cars got safer. So people feel safer driving faster. They're breaking the letter of the law but not the spirit. I actually like to use law as an example of the limitations of natural languages. Because legalese is an attempt to formalize natural language, yet everyone seems to understand how hard it is to write good rules and how easy it is to find loopholes. But those are only possible if you enforce the letter of the law. Loopholes still exist but are much harder to circumvent with the spirit of the law. But it's also more ambiguous, so not without faults. You have to use some balance.
  - JambalayaJimbo 7mo ago
    >cars have gotten safer For their inhabitants, maybe not pedestrians though. Speeding laws are in part for protecting pedestrians
    - godelski 7mo ago
      In general cars have also gotten safer for pedestrians[0]. Modern cars are lighter and made of plastic. There's better visibility, sensors, and for most vehicles the shape of the car has improved things. American trucks are an interesting counter example but that's a more complicated issue. (The source has a comment that you can infer this being a concern with trucks but there's also a lot of sources on this that you can easily find) [0] https://www.fox7austin.com/news/data-40-year-high-auto-ped-deaths https://www.fox7austin.com/news/data-40-year-high-auto-ped-d...
namlem 7mo ago
There is an upside: oppressing people who consistently engage in antisocial behavior is good and necessary.
- Geezus_42 7mo ago
  The whole point is that only some of those engaging in anti-social behaviour recieve punishment.
  - namlem 7mo ago
    Right. People who only intermittently engage in such behaviors should be treated differently than people who consistently engage in them.
encom 7mo ago
If speed limits were automated rigidly enforced 100% of the time, it would be impossible to drive. >only to allow targeted enforcement in service of harassment and oppression That's absurd hyperbole. A competent policeman will recognise the difference between me driving 90 km/h on a 80 km/h road because I didn't notice the sign. And me driving 120 km/h out of complete disregard for human life. Should I get a fine for driving 90? Yea, probably. Is it a first time offence? Was anyone else on the road? Did the sign get knocked down? Is it day or night? Have I done this 15 times before? Is my wife in labour in the passenger seat? None of those are excuses, but could be grounds for a warning instead.
- 5upplied_demand 7mo ago
  > If speed limits were automated rigidly enforced 100% of the time, it would be impossible to drive. Why? Plenty of people drive in areas with speed cameras, isn't that exactly how they work? > That's absurd hyperbole. A competent policeman will recognise the difference between me driving 90 km/h on a 80 km/h road because I didn't notice the sign. I'm not sure it is hyperbole or that we should assume competence/good faith. Multiple studies have shown that traffic laws, specifically, are enforced in an inconsistent matter that best correlates with the driver's race. [0] https://www.aclu-il.org/press-releases/black-and-latino-motorists-illinois-continue-experience-higher-rate-traffic-stops/ https://www.aclu-il.org/press-releases/black-and-latino-moto... [1] https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2020/may/black-drivers-more-likely-to-be-stopped-by-police.html?challenge=d06e90d7-4d8f-4b88-9d8c-10b73beb60f1 https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2020/may/bl...
- hamdingers 7mo ago
  > If speed limits were automated rigidly enforced 100% of the time, it would be impossible to drive. If you find it impossible to follow a simple speed limit, then getting you off the road is the ideal outcome.
  - encom 7mo ago
    Please shred your drivers license immediately, if you at any point in your life have exceeded the speed limit by any amount, or otherwise violated the traffic regulations in any way whatsoever.
terryf 7mo ago
The speed limit example is a great one. Consider a road that has a 35mph limit. Now - which of the following scenarios is SAFER: a) I'm driving on the road in a brand new 4x4 porsche on a sunny day with great visibility and brand new tyres. Doing 40mph. b) I'm driving on the same road in a 70s car with legal but somewhat worn out tyres, in the dark, while it's raining heavily. Doing 35mph. Of course technically option a is violating the law but no sane police officer will give you a fine in this case. Nor should they! A robot will, however. This is stupid.
- hamdingers 7mo ago
  The Cayenne would be safer going 35 instead of 40 regardless of all other variables. It's a trivial physics question, kinetic energy is a function of mass and velocity.
  - terryf 7mo ago
    I meant a 911 but thank you for answering a completely different point than what I was making.
    - ikr678 7mo ago
      The reason we have speed limits isnt due to vehciles being unable to 'handle' certain speeds though, it's to minimise the damage of an incident at that speed, which is entirely a matter of physics.
      - moron4hire 7mo ago
        No, that is not true. I used to work on road signage systems, where we would use test vehicles, sensors, and math to figure out what the correct signage should be for various sections of road. The standards are primarily concerned with maintain a margin of error for the "worst" cars on the road, i.e. the ones that meet only the minimum inspection requirements. What happens once that margin of error is exceeded was anyone's guess, but practically could be wildly different for specific scenarios that had more to do with the off-road environment than the exact parameters of the road. Two roads with identical bends would receive the same signage regardless of whether under steering through the curve would land you on a sidewalk or in a field or over a cliff.
efitz 7mo ago
What about drunk driving laws?
- emmelaich 7mo ago
  Same argument applies. Driving slowly for 1km 0.01 under the speed limit, over legal blood alco limit is safer than driving at the speed limit for 10kms just under the alco limit. It's very easy to come up with thought experiments to show that technically illegal scenarios are not necessarily more dangerous than some legal scenarios. The law is often made to be easy to apply, not for precision. Hard to see how anyone could see otherwise. That's not say that the laws are necessarily problematic. You have to draw the line somewhere.
array_key_first 7mo ago
Laws can't be enforced 100% of the time because many laws require intent, which is unknowable. You have to make an educated guess behind it. Even if someone tells you their intent, straight up, you still don't know their intent. You just know what they want you to think their intent is, which may or may not be the same thing. It's legitimately unknowable. Ideally, for a lot of things we want to punish people who knowingly do bad stuff, not people who do bad stuff because they thought it was good.
- bambax 7mo ago
  Very true but not in all cases. In case of speed limit intent does not matter; "I didn't know I was speeding" is no excuse. Same with DUI. In fact DUI should be a mitigating circumstance, because when you're drunk your ability to make decisions is impaired -- but the opposite happens, DUI is an aggravating circumstance.

airstrike 7mo ago

A system that solves for absolute compliance in every individual case does not result in the emergence of a fairer society. There are numerous cases, both in history and in fiction, that demonstrate as much.

datsci_est_2015 7mo ago
What, do you expect techbros to have media literacy? We wouldn’t be in any of this mess if they did.
- cindyllm 7mo ago
  [dead]
mastermage 7mo ago
exactly what it ends up with is a surveillance state. Looking at you China.

gbalduzzi 7mo ago

> If a law being enforced 100% of the time causes problems then rethink the law (i.e. raise the speed limit, or design the road slower). Isn't this the point of the whole conversation we are having here? Laws on copyright were not created for current AI usage on open source project replication. They need to change, because if they are perfectly enforced by the letter, they result in actions that are clearly against the intent of the law itself. The underlying problem is that the world changes too fast for the laws so be fair immediately

ompogUe 7mo ago
^This. A large % of jurisprudence is in just trying to keep up with how tech disrupts society.
- randallsquared 7mo ago
  The reason that has to be done is precisely that the law has no common, well-architected rationale. The vast majority of law in common-law jurisdictions is ad hoc precedent from decades or centuries ago, patchwork laws that match current, ephemeral intuition about what the law should be, etc. Perfect and inevitable enforcement makes this situation a nightmare, given the expectation that the average US citizen commits multiple felonies per day. Something will have to give.
godelski 7mo ago
What would really help is for people to understand that that's the "spirit of the law" and the "letter of the law". People don't want the letter of the law enforced, they want the spirit. Using the example from above, speed limits were made for safety. They were set at a time and surprise, cars got safer. So people feel safer driving faster. They're breaking the letter of the law but not the spirit. I actually like to use law as an example of the limitations of natural languages. Because legalese is an attempt to formalize natural language, yet everyone seems to understand how hard it is to write good rules and how easy it is to find loopholes. But those are only possible if you enforce the letter of the law. Loopholes still exist but are much harder to circumvent with the spirit of the law. But it's also more ambiguous, so not without faults. You have to use some balance.
- JambalayaJimbo 7mo ago
  >cars have gotten safer For their inhabitants, maybe not pedestrians though. Speeding laws are in part for protecting pedestrians
  - godelski 7mo ago
    In general cars have also gotten safer for pedestrians[0]. Modern cars are lighter and made of plastic. There's better visibility, sensors, and for most vehicles the shape of the car has improved things. American trucks are an interesting counter example but that's a more complicated issue. (The source has a comment that you can infer this being a concern with trucks but there's also a lot of sources on this that you can easily find) [0] https://www.fox7austin.com/news/data-40-year-high-auto-ped-deaths https://www.fox7austin.com/news/data-40-year-high-auto-ped-d...

namlem 7mo ago

There is an upside: oppressing people who consistently engage in antisocial behavior is good and necessary.

Geezus_42 7mo ago
The whole point is that only some of those engaging in anti-social behaviour recieve punishment.
- namlem 7mo ago
  Right. People who only intermittently engage in such behaviors should be treated differently than people who consistently engage in them.

encom 7mo ago

If speed limits were automated rigidly enforced 100% of the time, it would be impossible to drive. >only to allow targeted enforcement in service of harassment and oppression That's absurd hyperbole. A competent policeman will recognise the difference between me driving 90 km/h on a 80 km/h road because I didn't notice the sign. And me driving 120 km/h out of complete disregard for human life. Should I get a fine for driving 90? Yea, probably. Is it a first time offence? Was anyone else on the road? Did the sign get knocked down? Is it day or night? Have I done this 15 times before? Is my wife in labour in the passenger seat? None of those are excuses, but could be grounds for a warning instead.

5upplied_demand 7mo ago
> If speed limits were automated rigidly enforced 100% of the time, it would be impossible to drive. Why? Plenty of people drive in areas with speed cameras, isn't that exactly how they work? > That's absurd hyperbole. A competent policeman will recognise the difference between me driving 90 km/h on a 80 km/h road because I didn't notice the sign. I'm not sure it is hyperbole or that we should assume competence/good faith. Multiple studies have shown that traffic laws, specifically, are enforced in an inconsistent matter that best correlates with the driver's race. [0] https://www.aclu-il.org/press-releases/black-and-latino-motorists-illinois-continue-experience-higher-rate-traffic-stops/ https://www.aclu-il.org/press-releases/black-and-latino-moto... [1] https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2020/may/black-drivers-more-likely-to-be-stopped-by-police.html?challenge=d06e90d7-4d8f-4b88-9d8c-10b73beb60f1 https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2020/may/bl...
hamdingers 7mo ago
> If speed limits were automated rigidly enforced 100% of the time, it would be impossible to drive. If you find it impossible to follow a simple speed limit, then getting you off the road is the ideal outcome.
- encom 7mo ago
  Please shred your drivers license immediately, if you at any point in your life have exceeded the speed limit by any amount, or otherwise violated the traffic regulations in any way whatsoever.

terryf 7mo ago

The speed limit example is a great one. Consider a road that has a 35mph limit. Now - which of the following scenarios is SAFER: a) I'm driving on the road in a brand new 4x4 porsche on a sunny day with great visibility and brand new tyres. Doing 40mph. b) I'm driving on the same road in a 70s car with legal but somewhat worn out tyres, in the dark, while it's raining heavily. Doing 35mph. Of course technically option a is violating the law but no sane police officer will give you a fine in this case. Nor should they! A robot will, however. This is stupid.

hamdingers 7mo ago
The Cayenne would be safer going 35 instead of 40 regardless of all other variables. It's a trivial physics question, kinetic energy is a function of mass and velocity.
- terryf 7mo ago
  I meant a 911 but thank you for answering a completely different point than what I was making.
  - ikr678 7mo ago
    The reason we have speed limits isnt due to vehciles being unable to 'handle' certain speeds though, it's to minimise the damage of an incident at that speed, which is entirely a matter of physics.
    - moron4hire 7mo ago
      No, that is not true. I used to work on road signage systems, where we would use test vehicles, sensors, and math to figure out what the correct signage should be for various sections of road. The standards are primarily concerned with maintain a margin of error for the "worst" cars on the road, i.e. the ones that meet only the minimum inspection requirements. What happens once that margin of error is exceeded was anyone's guess, but practically could be wildly different for specific scenarios that had more to do with the off-road environment than the exact parameters of the road. Two roads with identical bends would receive the same signage regardless of whether under steering through the curve would land you on a sidewalk or in a field or over a cliff.

efitz 7mo ago

What about drunk driving laws?

emmelaich 7mo ago
Same argument applies. Driving slowly for 1km 0.01 under the speed limit, over legal blood alco limit is safer than driving at the speed limit for 10kms just under the alco limit. It's very easy to come up with thought experiments to show that technically illegal scenarios are not necessarily more dangerous than some legal scenarios. The law is often made to be easy to apply, not for precision. Hard to see how anyone could see otherwise. That's not say that the laws are necessarily problematic. You have to draw the line somewhere.

array_key_first 7mo ago

Laws can't be enforced 100% of the time because many laws require intent, which is unknowable. You have to make an educated guess behind it. Even if someone tells you their intent, straight up, you still don't know their intent. You just know what they want you to think their intent is, which may or may not be the same thing. It's legitimately unknowable. Ideally, for a lot of things we want to punish people who knowingly do bad stuff, not people who do bad stuff because they thought it was good.

bambax 7mo ago
Very true but not in all cases. In case of speed limit intent does not matter; "I didn't know I was speeding" is no excuse. Same with DUI. In fact DUI should be a mitigating circumstance, because when you're drunk your ability to make decisions is impaired -- but the opposite happens, DUI is an aggravating circumstance.