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Comment by foobiekr | Hacker News Reader

Yeah. It's amazing that people in technology so often are unable to comprehend that the legal system is not a bunch of statements where debating the meaning of words or symbols or obscure things like rendering somehow are magic to bypass the law's intent.

The simple answer is, it's not "what it looked like to the other person" it's the intent of the author.

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You have an optimistic view of the legal system. Sure intent matters, but you may still get arrested, spend many nights in jail, get fired from your job, and spend thousands of dollars on legal fees and bail while the system figures out your intent.

I’d note in America many nights can easily mean many years in jail without a trial.

South America maybe?

A nitpick, but for your latter point it depends on the question.

In some cases it's the intent that matters, but the law often tries to avoid questions about actual intent because that's too difficult to figure out. Instead the question might hinge on what a reasonable person would have thought, or what the victim actually thought.

> often tries to avoid questions about actual intent because that's too difficult to figure out.

Of course the law tries to avoid it. But that’s sometimes impossible, thus disagreements and trials and judges and whatnot.

It’s not like ambiguity causes everything to crash. It just requires judgement that usually gets settled before it gets to court.

Only anglo-tard, 'guess the intent' legal systems. "Is he a person having bad thoughts?"

Yep. What Color are your bits.

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