Comment by mabbo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mabbo | Hacker News Reader

I loathe the term "slippery slope", but I think this is one case that we really need to pay attention to for fear of one. There's a lot of little steps one can take to get to a really bad place.

Consider: a very outspoken left-wing musician says "I don't want any conservatives at my concert". The venue is hesitant, but this is big money. Well, we've got an agreement with this facial recognition company and this other people metadata company- yeah, we can probably make sure there's no one at your concert that we know has ever been to a pro-life rally or has liked more than 5 tweets by Donald Trump. They refuse the ticket sales, and they refuse the entry at the show. They claim they're concerned these people will be disruptive.

There's nothing illegal about doing that. There's nothing impossible about doing it either.

Then it's "Anyone who has ever joined a class action lawsuit against a fortune 500 company"- we're afraid if anything happens, you'll sue us!

Or how about "Anyone whose metadata indicates they'd vote in favour of politicians who vote against tax breaks for new stadiums"? Best keep your political views quiet, lest your 'corporate approval credit score' falls too low.

There's lots of great reasons why companies wouldn't want to do these things. But it's all technically feasible today, getting more accurate and more feasible over time.

Is it all that different from doing a background check on any one who wants to, e.g. work at your company, date your daughter, or visit the White House?

> Is it all that different from doing a background check on any one who wants to, e.g. work at your company, date your daughter, or visit the White House?

Yeah, it is different, because a background check doesn't show anything related to your political beliefs. I might be forgetting some small details, but it is basically just criminal history + employment history + address history + some basic finance stuff like credit scores.

Also, running a background check on someone who wants to date your daughter is kinda weird. I hope that a potential suitor encountering such a background check would laugh and walk away the second they get asked.

You might be thinking of “background check” as something different from what I am thinking.

If my daughter is dating a boy I’m going to ask around about the guy in whatever ways I want. I’m not limiting myself to the attributes you listed. That was my point.

Likewise if it’s my company, I can reject whatever job candidate I want for whatever reason I want, as long as I am following relevant non-discrimination laws etc. If I want to reject you because you wrote nasty things about me, which turned up in a google search (background check), I probably can

> You might be thinking of “background check” as something different from what I am thinking.

Oh yeah, good catch, I indeed was thinking of a different kind of a background check. I was thinking of an actual employer/police/financing/etc. type of a background check, which is pretty standardized in its scope.

Thanks for elaborating on it btw, I think I get your point now.

It's not a slippery slope, it's a cliff with banana peels on the ledge.

> There's nothing illegal about doing that

Depends where you are. Insofar as a concert is deemed a “public accommodation” that would probably be illegal under the DC Human Rights Act, which covers political affiliation along with a bunch of other things.

The federal government is narrowly circumscribed in how it can address these things but the state governments have general police powers and are not so limited.

The federal government doesn't seem to be so limited. They conjured up the authority for the Civil Rights Act out of thin air, limiting intrastate commerce in this way with no clear constitutional authority to do so. Hell Wickard v Filburn says the feds can tell you whether you can grow your own feed and feed it to your animals as that is "interstate commerce."

Therefore picking who can enter is interstate commerce, no?

How are you citing these cases and holding this, completely ridiculous position on the civil rights act, while simultaneously not understanding that attorneys aren't a protected class under the act?

I'm aware they aren't a protected class.

My position is clearly this isn't something just deferred to the state police powers. The fed can conjure up, via the interstate commerce clause, the requirement that businesses not discriminate even for local intrastate trade.

If you think that logic applies to the few attys that go to MSG, I think you should read back on those cases. I'm curious if you went to law school or not.

The example above was political opinion/affiliation, but sure we can also consider the situation of the lawyers.

If congress can invent the authority out of thin air to govern intrastate commerce with regard to enforcing all of the now protected classes, I'm curious why you think they absolutely cannot also deal with discrimination on the basis of political affiliation or whether one is affiliated with an entity litigating something you disagree with.

Never surprised when someone opposed to the Civil Rights Act misunderstands the basic premise and importance of Wickard v Filburn, which was not about "growing your own feed for private use."

In a nutshell, WvF was about a guy growing enough feed to sell and an additional surplus for his own use, in violation of Depression production controls introduced to restore the wheat industry from the complete collapse it suffered during the Depression. Filburn could have grown wheat for his own use, or for sale, since the threshold was set high enough for either purpose (but was deliberately set too low to allow for both for all but subsistence farmers). But Filburn wanted to have his cake and eat it too, and got caught doing both, which he could only do because he had violated the production controls. Very importantly, Filburn sold his wheat across state lines...

If Filburn's actions had been replicated at a national level, wheat prices would have plummeted, the U.S. wheat industry would have collapsed, again, and Filburn would likely have been murdered by his fellow farmers for destroying their industry.

IF you accept the aggregate effect on interstate commerce reasoning, then you agree with me that feds are not constrained from addressing mabbo's hypothetical of discriminating against people with regards to political affiliation. Such discrimination if replicated at the national level would have substantial influence on interstate trade. Even zooming in on much smaller effect (like limiting those employed by entities engage in litigation you disagree with) arguably create aggregate interstate influence as even smaller things like federally banning even intrastate trade of cathinone (a coffee/alcohol like drug predominantly used by a few relatively few ethnic minorities) seems to be accepted limitation of interstate trade in purview of federal power.

And that's my point. I'm of the personal opinion that the discriminatory issues addressed in the civil rights act should have been clearly codified/amended in the constitution to unquestionably seal the federal power to address them. Rayiner (who I replied to) cast doubt on federal power to stop certain kinds of discrimination that would even have strong aggregate interstate effect (like political affiliation), and my point is if Rayiner is correct then perhaps much of the civil rights act was in the purview of the state police powers unless the federal powers are expanded.

And I'd like to point out my critique here is examining the kinetics in how these things are enforced and play out. At least one person here (not referring to parent gamblor) has accused me of being indicative of being a "racist" or somehow someone down with racism, and I hope we can move forward thinking about the kinetics of dealing with discrimination of various kinds without presuming the counterparty must be a racist who doesn't like civil rights. Lets keep in mind the interstate trade kinetics used to enforce the civil rights act have also been used to enforce racism.

You're literally just describing several decades of established interstate commerce case law.

In an interconnected, modern society, wholly intrastate commerce is a very, very, rare thing. It's almost impossible for retail to be wholly intrastate except for de minimis sales by itinerant merchants, as most supplies used in manufacture will have crossed state boundaries (but the courts do recognize when such commerce occurs and is excluded from the purview of federal regulation).

Service is more easily constrained to the intrastate level, since local regulation of services has always been a local power. But yes, in the aggregate discrimination can have interstate effects. Indeed, there is a fair amount of federal civil rights legislation or case law that is predicated on, and requires, aggregate discrimination in order to apply at the local level because isolated incidents don't give rise to federal jurisdiction.

I'm of the personal opinion that the discriminatory issues addressed in the civil rights act should have been clearly codified/amended in the constitution to unquestionably seal the federal power to address them.

Literally, the last phrase of the 14th Amendment.

But note that job title isn't a protected class under federal law, which is rayiner's point. And they aren't generally needed, since there are a number of state/local laws which make MSG's actions illegal. MSG doesn't simply risk fines, they risk the loss of their liquor license, their tax exemption, bookings from artists that don't want to be associated with the wanton use of facial recognition, and numerous tort lawsuits for excluding people with valid tickets.

Your statements seems to back my opinion then. That congress (in the context of today's viewpoint of interstate commerce) can clearly address commerce that discriminates based on political affiliation that have substantial potential aggregate effect on interstate commerce.

The state government has ruled that since they sell alcohol for consumption on premises, as part of their license that allows them to do that requires that they not ban patrons from the establishment, specifically, "groups or individuals cannot be excluded on the basis of criteria that are not directly related to the your duties under your [liquor] license."

If the city would get serious and simply say, "stop banning these people or stop selling alcohol", that would be the end of it.

I loathe the idea that a slippery slope is a logical fallacy. If you believe that, you reject all of science and predictive frameworks in general. You must look at a falling stone and believe we have no reason to think it will soon hit the ground.

That isn’t a slippery slope. That’s cause and effect.

A slippery slope would be “if we let that rock fall, soon it will be all rocks, and bigger rocks, and they’ll fall faster and faster until all life has ended, so legislate against falling rocks today”.

Why do you loathe the term "slippery slope?"

Because a few years ago they used that on gay marriage and they said no you will never have men dressed as women in libraries you're being silly.

The slippery slope is a real thing. Entropy is real. It takes work to maintain moral behavior.

Edit: some weirdo is going through my post history claiming this is phobic of something. What a weirdo.

His political views probably want a slippery slope in some policies.

Because it's generally a dishonest way to drum up fear and outrage, and shut down discussion using hand-waving rather than facts.

Not really defending the OP here, but technically a slippery slope is a logical fallacy. It basically implies that any situation will eventually result in the most extreme outcome; e.g., if you let a barber cut your hair, eventually they’ll start lopping off limbs too.

It is, of course, not actually used in this manner typically; but, it is probably important to remember that not all things push to absurdity I guess.

> if you let a barber cut your hair, eventually they’ll start lopping off limbs too.

Historically, they might have, but we decided barbers shouldn't be healthcare providers and now we have a shortage of healthcare providers.

Oh, if it's barber-level health care you want, it's going to be cheaper than regular health care.

> if you let a barber cut your hair, eventually they’ll start lopping off limbs too.

This literally happened until the government eventually stepped in to regulate it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barber_surgeon

Because you can pretty much extrapolate from whatever limited policy you don't like to essentially any arbitrary draconian and bad actions.

Not the OP, but in my experience "slippery slope" is basically an admission the real situation actually isn't bad enough to convince the audience and you have to instead present an imaginary bad situation.

For example, before gay marriage was legalised I heard people claim legalising gay marriage was a slippery slope to allowing paedophilia and bestiality. This has not proved to be the case in reality.

While I loathe the term slippery slope, my reasons are different.

Opponents of slippery slopes like to make the assumption the slope is steeper than what the original author may have had in mind. And so because we don’t find ourselves slipping down the slope fast enough, they declare the original argument bunk.

For example, in your argument about gay marriage, we haven’t accepted pedophilia and bestiality yet. But how long has gay marriage been legalized? What if the slope to pedophilia is 50 years long? We don’t know if in the future the stigma of being a “minor attracted person” will have worn off and people will be permitted to marry whoever or whatever they want without restrictions. Indeed, if someone will be happy marrying a dog because they have no faith in dating culture in the year 2060, why stop them? There is precedent for expanding the definition of marriage. What is the harm, especially as marriage grows increasingly meaningless and only provides an economic benefit?

So yea I hate slippery slopes. They are easily misrepresented.

Interesting use of a contrived example

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