Hacker News Reader

Comment by Clanan | Hacker News Reader

Like many things in politics and law, forming one's opinion must include considering a reverse situation - what if a wealthy individual funded the successful litigation of a "positive" entity? e.g. Bill Gates funding the destruction of the EFF (assuming someone had a case).

I was taught to do this in political classes (based on James Madison's discussion of factions), and it can have such a huge impact on motives and attitudes. For example, should government track all Muslims? What if in 10 years the government started tracking all Christians? Still think that tracking policy is a good idea??

View on HN

The idea of your technique is good, but I think you've left out important details and it has affected your analysis. Gawker was bankrupted not by the actual costs of defending themselves, but by the cost of a judgement against them.

If your assumptions are that Bollea's was a legitimate victim of Gawker's actions, and that we would need to protect the EFF from a similar outcome, it seems to be that what you're saying is that we need to prevent victims from winning court cases because the perpetrators who harmed them might be otherwise good people.

You're right, my comments definitely skimmed the topic. I was more addressing the parent's comment that we should look at the over-arching issue here, and not just this specific case.

> For example, should government track all Muslims? What if in 10 years the government started tracking all Christians?

It certainly works as an argument but it's scary it even has to come up this way. It's basically having to explain to someone else: "You know, muslims are people too".

"It could happen to you" is a symptom of failed education of the recipient. It's scary some people today still lack basic empathy, the basic considerations that "all people are equal and deserve the same respect as you owe yourself".

Not to detract from your point, of course. It's more understandable that someone wouldn't immediately connect the dots between "Bad thing happening to bad entity" and "Bad thing could also happen to good entity". Although I'd consider it a similar failure of education as well.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com