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Comment by jstanley | Hacker News Reader

Yes, you can extend the argument to everything. Though clearly it gets more controversial the further you extend it.

I don't personally think I should be punished for trying to move my explosives via an aeroplane just because you are afraid that some people might want to blow up the aeroplane.

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> I don't personally think I should be punished for trying to move my explosives via an aeroplane

Are we talking about a passenger airplane, or a specifically chartered flight to move said explosives where everyone onboard has consented to the risk?

Because if it's the former, then your views are insane.

So you should be able to order a 6 year old to stand in front of a speeding train and jump aside before it hits them. If they jump aside in time, no harm done and you should not be prosecuted.

You can't order anyone to do anything.

I can only assume you don't have children.

With the 6 year old you are creating a situation where there is an (x != 0)% probability they screw up and accidentally die. When taking explosives on a plane there is an (effectively) 0% probability you screw up and accidentally blow up the plane. Very difference circumstance.

But by speeding you're creating a much bigger than 0% probability you screw up and do something bad.

If the speed limits were set to the safest speed to drive at you would be right. They aren't though. They are, as the original post says, set arbitrarily.

Often they are set lower than the safest speed to be driving on that road (generally the speed that the rest of the traffic is traveling at). So by not speeding you increase the probability that you screw up and do something bad.

In California at least - the speed limit cannot be different (more than some statistical measure) of the real world speed people actually drive on the road. Theres a process for requesting a survey of actual vehicle speed for a street. If the measures speeds differ in a statistically significant way from the posted speed limit, the posted speed limit has to be changed.

Also, by speeding, you are adding to the kinetic energy available to cause mayhem and destruction if you do screw up. And remember, kinetic energy is proportional to the square of speed, so going twice as fast means your car has 4 times more energy.

When debating real-worth ethics, "What if I take your argument to an absurdly[1] extreme conclusion?" is really a null argument. This argument can always be made regardless of the real claim being made, and is therefore argumentatively irrelevant.

I just want to re-point out that in a mere 4 messages we started from "speeding should only be penalized if it actually harms someone" and got to "why can't you order a 6 year-old to stand in front of a train and jump out of the way".

[1]: This word is not extraneous. There is a form of extreme-based argument that is not useless, but one must be able to tie the argument to a reasonable claim that the extreme may actually occur. This is not one of those cases. There is no chance of people ordering children to stand in front of trains.

Your entire hypothesis rests on the fact that you believe that no law should be allowed that prevents an event from occurring. Thus a Boeing jet where faked screws are used should never lead to a prosecution if those fake screws hold fast. Thus if two independent operators sell and use these fake screws, only the ones who cause a crash should be prosecuted, even though the other group independently put the entire plane full of people at risk.

I hope that's a more "reasonable" example.

You do realize that harm caused and potential for harm are both considered heavily in criminal law, right? Bringing up a bunch of absurd examples doesn't change the fact that criminal law isn't 100% binary.

That last example wasn't hypothetical. And yep, that's my point, though a traffic violation is civil and not criminal law.

You should pay more attention to the names on posts. It wasn't "my" hypothesis.

And while that actually is a more reasonable example, I would suggest that something like "Doesn't your entire hypothesis rest on..." rather than assuming it does and then drawing a conclusion from that, then drawing a conclusion from that, then taking that conclusion to an absurd extreme, then mocking someone for that extreme would be more productive.

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