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The reason speed limits make such a great example for these arguments is because they're a preemptive law. Technically, nobody is directly harmed by speeding.

• hamdingers 6mo ago
  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 6mo 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 6mo ago
      What, do you expect techbros to have media literacy? We wouldn’t be in any of this mess if they did.
      • cindyllm 6mo ago
        [dead]
    • mastermage 6mo ago
      exactly what it ends up with is a surveillance state. Looking at you China.
  • gbalduzzi 6mo 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 6mo ago
      ^This. A large % of jurisprudence is in just trying to keep up with how tech disrupts society.
      • randallsquared 6mo 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 6mo 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.
  • namlem 6mo ago
    There is an upside: oppressing people who consistently engage in antisocial behavior is good and necessary.
    • Geezus_42 6mo ago
      The whole point is that only some of those engaging in anti-social behaviour recieve punishment.
      • namlem 6mo ago
        Right. People who only intermittently engage in such behaviors should be treated differently than people who consistently engage in them.
  • encom 6mo 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 6mo 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 6mo 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 6mo 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 6mo 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 6mo 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 6mo ago
        I meant a 911 but thank you for answering a completely different point than what I was making.
        • ikr678 6mo 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 6mo 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 6mo ago
    What about drunk driving laws?
    • emmelaich 6mo 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 6mo 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 6mo 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.
• okasaki 6mo ago
  Not really? If you're caught with burglary tools on private property that's still illegal even if you only took one step. Likewise if act in a way that makes someone feel that you're going to hit them that's assault regardless of whether you actually ever touch them. etc. Many such cases.
• derefr 6mo ago
  I think I would expect certain laws that are currently considered statutory / strict-liability laws, to be shifted to instead constitute only "evidence of negligence" and/or act as "aggravating conditions." So, in the case of speeding: - Speeding on its own would only automatically "warrant" the police to stop you / interview you / tell you off, and perhaps to follow you around for a while after they pull you over, to ensure you don't start speeding again (and to immediately pull you over again if you do.) I say "warrant" here because this doesn't actually give them any powers that private citizens don't have; rather, it protects them from you suing them for harassment for what they're doing. (Just like a "search warrant" doesn't give the police any additional powers per se, but rather protects them from civil and criminal damages associated with them breaking-and-entering into the specified location, destroying any property therein, etc.) - But speeding while in the process of committing some other "actual" crime, or speeding that contributes to some other crime being committed, may be an aggravating factor that multiplies the penalty associated with the other act, or changes the nominal charge for the other act. We might also then see a tweak for "threshold aggravations", such that e.g. - Speeding while also doing some other dumb thing — having your brake-lights broken, say — may be considered to "cross a threshold" where they add up to an arrest+charge, even though none of the individual violations has a penalty when considered independently. This would, AFAICT, translate well into a regime where there are little traffic-cop drones everywhere, maximizing speeding enforcement. If speeding is all they notice someone doing, they'd just be catch-and-release-ing people: pulling them over, squawking at them, and flying away. Literal slap-on-the-wrist tactics. Which is actually usefully deterrent on its own, if there are enough of these drones, and they just keep doing it, over and over again, to violators. (Do note that people can't just "not pull over" because they know there are no penalties involved; they would still be considered police, and "not complying with a police stop" would, as always, be a real crime with real penalties; if you run from the drone, it would summon actual cars to chase you!) --- Oddly, I think if you follow this legal paradigm to its natural conclusion, it could lead to a world where it could even be legal to e.g. drive your car home from the bar while intoxicated... as long as you're driving at 2mph, with your hazards on, and avoiding highways. But miss any of those factors, and it "co-aggravates" with a "driving recklessly for your reaction speed" charge, into an actual crime.
  • 6mo ago
• presentation 6mo ago
  Actually it does harm people. High speed traffic is noisy and unpleasant, flows unpredictably, and tears up roads faster.