Tell HN: How Unjust Laws Might Help and HN Might Hurt Society
First, I apologize for the sensationalist title. I assure you I’m neither suggesting we accept unjust laws or get rid of HN. But I made the point below in another thread (it got dead-ed) and it really hit me that people here needed to hear it. I assume everyone in their life has had a thought they felt needed to be shared so I’m hoping that will buy me a little forgiveness in the community’s eyes.

The article I commented on was one about a 17 year old who got put on the sexual predators watch list for having relations with a 15 year old at her high school (since she was considered an adult at 17 and he was not). The majority opinion of the comments was this was a disgusting abuse (I don’t disagree) but I made this point in response…

Let me explain my point. Politicians often aren’t the brightest bulbs in the set. They are people who can convince a lot of other people to like them which makes most the equivalent of good con men. So after they’re elected they tend not to think things through and make simplistic laws like “Any adult performing any sex act on a minor is guilty” (which of course ignores the 17 year old having consensual sex with the 15 year old in high school). But there are checks on a law’s power. Cops and Judges both have discretion for this very reason. But sometimes the system fails and you get lazy cops, a lazy judge and a lazy prosecutor who all don’t care enough to do their job. Then you end up with the situation quoted in the first part of this article.

But here’s the thing: Yes, I think it’s unjust and I think the politicians, lawyer, judge, cops, etc... in this story are all deplorable fools. But the world will always have deplorable fools and only when someone’s burned by them do the rest of us realize something’s wrong so we can fix it. As the article points out the law that got this woman into trouble no longer exists because people saw the abuse and demanded it be changed.

But as I looked at it I think I was wrong. In the end unjust laws ARE inherent in a democratic system. As long as our elected officials are judged more on likability than they are on intelligence there will be poorly conceived laws that hurt innocent people. But is that a necessary evil? It isn’t like Politicians are the only ones who can convince the masses of anything.

Which brings me back to Hacker News.

I love Hacker News. When I say it “might hurt society” I’m not suggesting it go anywhere. If it did I’d be devastated. But I think everyone here has to ask themselves if we’re part of the problem. More and more you see the intelligent people of the world seeking refuge with the likeminded. I think most of us who visit HN regularly are here because we’ve been turned off by the idiots in other forums. But those idiots have a vote in our election system and if those idiots can be made to see that certain laws are ill-conceived than maybe…just maybe…no one will have to have their life ruined by a stupid law.

To me HN, and sites like it, are like alcohol. They're a wonderful release that make life tolerable. But just as you can’t stay drunk all the time I think we all need to accept we can’t hide in here (or in other places with likeminded individuals). I think it’s our duty to go out and preach “rationality to the heathens” if you will. Only then will we be fulfilling our responsibility to society.

Or at least, that’s my 2 cents.

Please note: For some reason I can't reply to comments in this post. I've always felt it was rude not to reply to someone who took the time to reply to me so I wanted to add this little edit at the end to explain. But thanks for reading it none the less (God knows it turned out to be longer than I expected)