Hacker News Reader

> It might work in one country, but the result will only be this one country falling behind and becoming an irrelevant province of the earth.

I really doubt that, but that's one of the boogeymen that scares us away from questioning a lot of things.

It probably comes from false assumptions like "'we're' smart" or the "market makes the ideal decision", so all other paths except the one taken were inferior, perhaps fatally so.

View on HN

mmh, but really. You can pass laws forbidding certain stuff. But you cannot enforce that globally. Bans on certain weapons do work to some extent, but there are still people creating and using them. And these things are not only unethical, but also not really useful. Every attempt to use them ended badly for those who tried. Now imagine ruling out a technology that is effective and profitable and not so obviously unethical.

You're focusing too much on technology, but OK, let's go with that:

Let's say Canada banned social media tomorrow. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Reddit, etc. are all blocked and go dark. Implementation of the ban is perfect. In exactly what way would this cause Canada to "[fall] behind and [become] an irrelevant province of the earth"?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com