Comment by _cs2017_ | Hacker News Reader

Comment by _cs2017_ | Hacker News Reader

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Suppose you have 1000 such books today. Suppose each court case takes 1 year to resolve with 100% success probability (far, far too optimistic of an assumption). Suppose Amazon goes to court, and 1 year from now, all these books are taken down.

In the meantime, within that year, 1000 more authors create books like this. By the end of the year you have 1000 resolved cases and 1000 new cases. This can continue forever, with the result that 1000 books are always available for sale.

You might say, the authors could be penalized so as to scare new authors away from this. However, the probability that a court will impose sufficiently large fines on the authors is close to zero. Even if they did, many authors could be (or claim to be) based abroad and therefore (in practice) cannot be fined by the US court system.

Do you have any solution to this problem that doesn't involve Amazon acting without a court decision?

If someone sees a problem with my example, please let me know. I am not trying to impose my views on anyone, I'm genuinely trying to understand the mechanisms at play, the concerns, and the possible solutions.

I don't see a problem. A court decision is preceded by a fair argument between two parties. Any other way is gravitating toward the way of bolsheviks snatching the power and shooting who they believed were cause of evil. (Which was fast and very efficient; do you like it?) The point is not to achieve the desired outcome quickly, but to deal with situation in the right way.

You're right that the faster you try to solve a problem, the more likely you are to solve it badly. Where is the right trade off?

At one extreme lie revolutionary fanatics destroying lives. At the other, a gigantic bureaucracy that watches passively while the lives it's supposed to protect are being destroyed.

IMO the answer depends on the nature of the problem. It would be unwise to require a court order before police is allowed to shoot down an armed assailant killing people in the street. It would be unwise to allow police without a court order to break into any house they suspect of illicit activities.

I don't have a strong argument about this particular situation. I can comfortably argue that the courts will not solve the problem at all. But you can respond that solving the problem through private corporations puts us on a dangerous path. You can say that the fix is so dangerous that it's better to leave this problem alone despite the deaths it causes. I would admit that your criticism is valid.

Ultimately, it seems the choice here will be completely subjective, based on personal preferences about the importance of free speech versus the importance of saving human lives, and other similar factors. I cannot see a realistic solution that most reasonable people will be comfortable with.

Words cannot cause physical harm.

If your doctor gives you advice, which if followed, caused you physical harm, not only have they opened themselves up to a malpractice lawsuit, their advice caused harm.

Ok but this isn't censorship related.

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