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Comment by ranger_danger | Hacker News Reader

To me this is like saying you shouldn't use a knife because they are also used by criminals.

This kind of talk is simply modern politik-speak. I can't stand it and the people who fall for their deception. Stretch the truth to disarm the constituents

In what way? Torrents are used all over for content delivery. Battle.net uses a proprietary version of BitTorrent. It’s now owned by Microsoft. There’s many more legitimate uses as commented by many others.

Criminals using tools does not make the tools criminal.

It's a matter of numbers, if tens of thousands of criminals use tech X, and it has few genuine uses, it's going to be restricted.

This has precedent in illegal drug categorization, it's not just about the damage, but its ratio of noxious to helpful use.

That precedent was and still is legally used to federally regulate marijuana harsher than fentanyl, a precedent I strongly disagree with, so you'll have to forgive me for believing that the degree to which something causes harm matters more than the amount of misuse

Marihuana ruins millions of young minds.

This precedent is problematic I think. It seems like the populist way of addressing issues. Always just following the biggest outcry instead of the symptoms. Just because there are currently more illegitimate users for a a thing we shouldn't prevent legitimate uses I think. The ratio might just be skewed because in the legitimate world you grow your audience with marketing investing tons of capital, while for illegitimate use cases, the marketing is often just word of mouth because of features.

That's how most countries work, if enough people raise a big enough fuss, it's restricted like dangerous drugs.

Literally millions of people use it (whether they know it or not).

Societies should criminalize behavior and then (shocker!) enforce the laws! Let tools be tools.

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