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Comment by thepangolino | Hacker News Reader

Hasn’t there already been rulings against those kind of clauses being shoehorned in terms and conditions?

I can’t make you sell your soul for subscribing to a service.

I don't think that's enforceable. You'd need some kind of soul extracting machine, or a soul-over-IP transfer mechanism. Maybe a soul mail-in option. You'd also need to implement some kind of soul storage warehouse. What would you do with all those souls anyway?

Sell them to shady executives.

The technical feasibility of soul extraction and storage isn't really the problem. It's the act of selling it that's the problem. I mean, we don't 'extract' and 'store' land/real estate, but we do buy and sell it. You can have a claim to land and not need to move it to your warehouse.

Just a title/deed system for souls would suffice. Since there's not a legal framework around the ownership of souls, I'm sure we could encourage its creation by starting a marketplace. Ultimately, however, I suspect 'soul' will finally be defined as "existing, being, with current human perceptions of free will" or somesuch and we will no longer have the ability to sell our souls for the licensing benefits of a product or service.

What rights does owning someone's soul give me over that person? If I sold my soul to the devil, he would have me for an eternity in Hell after I die. However the devil is an eternal being, and human law only applies to mortals. I have to assume that ownership of a soul is revoked after the death of that soul, since human authority is transcended by a higher body of power. If I sold my soul to Mark Zuckerberg, what would he do with that power over my mortal life?

The answers to these questions will be codified into the new law, because they cannot be determined scientifically (yet.)

Due to it's non physical nature I don't think we could ever define "soul" scientifically, except perhaps as "the aspect of the human being which is not physical". Is it possible to own something non-physical? There is precedent, such as patenting an algorithm, or owning shares in a software company.

OK what if line 950, subsection B of the TOS agreement, gave Facebook the option to harvest one of your kidneys? Would that be enforceable? The point of the regulation is to make clear consent for personal information to be used. Saying the person clearly agreed to their "personalized advertising contract" by accepting the TOS, which allows them to use all of your personal info is debatable.

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