Comment by jerf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jerf | Hacker News Reader

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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 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.

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.

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