Comment by shadowfiend | Hacker News Reader

Comment by shadowfiend | Hacker News Reader

It's always said that one of the huge advantages of programming compared to other disciplines is the extremely low barrier of entry and the extremely low cost of taking a risk. You can develop something and all it costs you is time, so scrapping it is far easier than in any physical design situation.

I don't think it's possible to discount how critical to this point of view our freedoms are. When you have a certain faith in the justice system (one generally corroborated by experience) and in the law, you have one less thing to worry about. We innovate because we not only don't fear wasting $N in materials in addition to our time, we also don't fear being dragged off to prison. Indeed, even if we did fear being dragged off to prison, I can't think of any situation where you could unintentionally get the death sentence for programming. Programming!

Yes, SOPA and PIPA are bad, and yes, we should oppose them. But sometimes it's good to take a step back and look at what “bad” really looks like. And take a minute to think “Wow. We are fighting such minor battles in comparison.” Just a minute. Then it's time to get back in the fight. Because the minor losses slowly, imperceptibly, take you to the major battles.

We innovate because we not only don't fear wasting $N in materials in addition to our time, we also don't fear being dragged off to prison.

That's generally true, but not in all cases.

Because I have Crohn's Disease, I've toyed with the idea of creating an app that would let a patient track their symptoms and diet, etc., to figure out what are the factors that cause a flare-up for them; and later upload the history to their doctor. But knowing (a) the regulations in the USA surrounding medical devices (does this count as one? who knows without a lawyer) and (b) the potential for liability for even the stupidest things, I've decided that the potential danger for me is nowhere near worth it.

Arguably that makes my statement true :) You didn't innovate precisely because you did fear those things.

That said, you're right that we're not 100% free in this sense, even as software developers. We are just more free in this sense than many other hobbies/interests/occupations.

Interesting fact here is that one of the applications with the highest turnover on the Android market is some medical reference app (Anesthesia Central).

It sells for 100 EUR.

There might be some relation between the price of the app and potential liabilities.

It probably contains licensed content, and medical textbooks and the like are particularly expensive. 100 EUR may well represent a _discount_ from the price of the materials it's based on.

I hate to be THAT guy... but if SOPA passed, it could be more than just devices we're entrusting our lives to. I could engineer something like bit-torrent (which has legit uses), and be accused of helping people pirate. That could end in jail.

Just reinforces the point, that we have to work hard to keep our freedom.

I think you must be thinking of a different law or bill, because SOPA doesn't say anything of the sort.

Is that your opinion as a judge or lawyer who has studied the law in depth, someone with a reasonable law background that's actually read it, someone that just read it, or someone that's read a summery of it from a unbiased source?

Or just your guess based on hearsay?

PS: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.3261:

SEC. 204. AMENDMENTS TO SENTENCING GUIDELINES.

(H) ensure reasonable consistency with other relevant directives and Guidelines and Federal statutes; Note: You can't actually define what this means even if you read all relevant legal precedents, because it's allows monkey patching of the law by these guys http://www.ussc.gov/ an independent agency in the judicial branch of government.

This provides a good overview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzqMoOk9NWc

Speak to a doctor. It's possible that there is a simple "shibboleth" you can use like "I am not your lawyer and this is not legal advise" for lawyers.

Pretty sure the doctor would refer him to a specialist. In this case, a lawyer.

I'm pretty sure saying "I am not a lawyer" does not protect you from the consequences of giving out bad legal advice (at least in the US).

There are lots of apps that let you track your weight, blood pressure, BF%, periods, blood glucose, diet, calories, exercises completed, etc and you don't hear about problems with those kinds of apps. You can also make a generalized version so it would be an equivalent of a digital notepad, that happens to be really suited to what a Crohn's Disease tracker would need.

This is somewhat off topic, but a friend of mine is working on something that sounds similar to what you described. I don't know their regulatory hurdles though. It might be worth it to contact them:

http://crohnology.com/

I think it's also important to recognize what are the steps that are leading to a situation like that, too, and not wait until it's too late to change anything.

Yes we are fortunate to live in a country where "it could be worse". No we should not sit back and relish that fact, I'd rather focus on "it could be better".

This is absolutely terrible. The world would be a much better place without people/countries that think/act this way.

You know what the scary thing is, though? We're headed in a similar direction. NDAA '12 was signed into a law and it essentially gives the government the right to detain U.S. citizens indefinitely. For what crime? If someone is merely "suspected" of sympathizing with or providing any level of support to groups the U.S. designates as terrorist organization or an affiliate or associated force may be imprisoned without charge or trial "until the end of hostilities."

I'm appalled at how much protest and awareness was raised against SOPA, but nothing against the NDAA. But hey, we might have uncontrolled access to the internet while being indefinitely detained...

> I don't think it's possible to discount how critical to this point of view our freedoms are.

Thomas Hobbes had precisely this insight back in the mid-1600s.

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