If you aren't doing anything illegal...

Great Debates
181

Bricker I am a professional programmer and computer designer, but I would not claim that everyone should intuitively understand the basics of these fields. Just because you went to law school, and understand your local statutes, does not mean that we do.

There are stores in several states that sell various toys, and clearly have more than six identical versions of each. If someone had bought several in these states, and moved to Texas, do you really think they should know that they are now potentially breaking the law? How would they know that five do not carry a presumption of being for distribution while six do? How about if they had them in a suitcase while driving through Texas from New Mexico to Louisiana, and got stopped. Many years ago I got stopped, in Virginia, I believe, because my car resembled one involved in a hit and run. I had one carton of cigarettes in the back seat, and the trooper asked permission to search my bag, which I gave. If this had happened in Texas, and I had these toys in my bag, I still would have given permission never imagining that they were potentially illegal.

Your contention that someone breaking sodomy laws did not do so because of a later Supreme Court decision is odd on the face of it. If the Court rules that it is permissible to outlaw abortion, do you contend that someone having an abortion would not be breaking the law if a later Court makes abortion laws unconstitutional again. I am unaware that anyone convicted of breaking abortion laws before Roe v Wade had restitution made. I’m quite sure that you are not proposing each of us play lawyer and do what we want if we think the law is unconstitutional.

182

So, you would argue that this site does not establishe the point that governments are fully capable of enacting silly and stupid laws which can easily entrap the unwary?

183

Well, I don’t see what’s depressive about being carefree. I try not getting carried away with the awful personal consequences of my demise in my search for how to enjoy life, but I do realize that death is an important aspect in reasoning the meaning of existance, and contrary to what Der Trihs might think, I find it a rather important concern. (And contrary to what my teacher tried to teach me, I quite enjoy long sentences, so bear with me.)

Reading what wikipedia had to say about solipsism, I find a lot of the thinking similar to mine, but I don’t believe that only my own self exists. I realize it’s in the nature of having a self that you can’t prove whether or not there exist other selves, but I can’t see why my experience of the world should be the only one, or even how that would be possible.

I do have empathy for other people, and of course I realize what tremendous importance they have for the well-being of not only each other, but even me. However, I also see that although I may enjoy their company and support, I need not depend on them, ultimately all that reaches my consciousness passes through my brain. (Not to get too metaphysical, but I don’t see my brain or even my thoughts as “mine”, they’re simply the set of thoughts I’m receiving, even though “they” express themselves as “me”.) Anyway, anything that passes through “my” mind, I see as being under my control.

I believe this is where I have made the worst errors in expressing myself; The objective is not to dismiss problems altogether, but the feeling about problems being something “bad”. If you get stabbed in the arm, calculate with the pain so you can do something about it, but don’t percieve it as bad. Some might say not having bad feelings makes you unable to experiencing the good ones, but I don’t believe this is correct, as I can easily imagine an instant of perfect bliss, and if this moment were to last forever, or for the lifespan of the person experiencing it (Imagine the “person” was a computer only programmed for bliss).

My guess would be that I expressed myself in this way because the discussion started with something is neither worth feeling bad about or even being thought of as a personal concern.
Anyway, it’s getting late and I hope this clears up a bit, though I’m just getting tangled up in my own (?) thoughts and ready to sleep them out.

184

I argue that no such laws exist, and that the site you mention does nothing to show even one example of a law that does exist.

Granted, www.dumblaws.com DOES give plenty of examples that seem to fit the bill. The very first law offered for my home state of Virginia is:

The only problem is… there’s no such law. So far as I can tell, the website or its contributors simply made it up. They certainly don’t offer a citation to the Code of Virginia, and, indeed, they cannot, because there simply is no such law.

Their second example is:

That’s true, but very deceptive. It’s true that the law exists. But offering it alone makes it seem as though Virginia law does not prohibit corrupt practices of bribery by politicians. In fact, there are two laws: one prohibiting corrupt practices of bribery by politicians (§ 18.2-438, a Class 4 felony) and a second law – the one quoted – § 18.2-444, which punishes bribery in general.

SO taken in context, the law is not dumb at all.

That website proves nothing.

185

You’re right, but it’s so much more amusing when we do take it out of context. Admit it, it is funny that way. Keeping it in context kills the joke.

186

The problem comes, though, when somebody then tries to use the out of context law as support for an argument, as was done in this thread.

187

But see, I DO perceive some things as being bad, because they are. I am not a moral relativist. I believe that certain things are bad, and that it is not the responsibility of the victim to control their emotional reaction to those things. Sometimes, if you’re not outraged you’re not paying attention. And I’d rather be informed and unhappy than ignorant and “happy,” because proper information is its own kind of happiness and it’s something that’s deeper and more meaningful than mere bliss. To riff on Der Trihs’ earlier comment about being made into an idiot, say I’m wearing an outfit that makes me look ridiculous. I ask people how I look and they all lie and say I look fine. This may make me happy in the short term, but I am not participating in the same reality everyone else is, which IMO is automatically a Bad Thing. Extrapolate that out–would you really want the insular happiness of a lobotomy patient or someone trapped in a computer simulation? Or the much deeper and more meaningful happiness of one who participates fully in society, has the information (or at least tries for the information), and isn’t too proud to rely on others or let others rely on them as a way to bolster happiness. Maybe you don’t think there’s a difference between personal happiness and happiness in the context of a greater society, but I do. And when someone else in my society suffers I suffer too, because that’s what you do when you’re a social animal.

I also am one of those people who believes that we need the bad to experience the good, because I don’t believe there is such a thing as “a state of perfect bliss.” We live on Earth. In the world we have, there is light and dark, and pretending the dark isn’t there won’t take it away. (I don’t believe in a state of perfect misery either. Yin and yang.)

188

Extrapolate your version out, and we’ll all be suffering geniuses. What profoundly meaningful glory! Life is but a short breath, and when it’s gone, you won’t even miss it. Struggling for meaning, improvement, goods, anything is only worth it if you can make the means to be the ends, by truly enjoying them. But if you do, in the end, all there is to anything is plain and simple happiness.
Of course I respect someone who “acchieves” and is content with it, but setting out to acchieve in the world one believes other persons agree with him is real, while failing to enjoy it, and fearing of illusions that are somehow “less real”, doesn’t exactyl strike me as admirable.
What’s so unreal about illusions, anyway? I’m sure all of you know your Descartes, and while you might not believe in evil daemons (I’m not a cartesian myself), the notion that theroies in this vein almost by definition cannot be proven wrong, how can you be so sure that your possible illusion is far preferable to another? And remember, I’m not talking about illusions you might wake up from, as that would be an obvious let-down. (And no, I don’t fear waking up one day screaming “Oh Good Lord, all the suffering I’ve missed out on!”)

Perhaps an interresting way to see this would be to imagine a person who complains and complains about everything. Of course this person has become this way in no small part thanks to the outside world, and he would likely require help from the outside world to change. But, I’m sure you’ll agree that there’s a lot of these people about, and for most of them, it’s not their situation that must be changed, but themselves. And you can extrapolate THAT out.

I expect life to be a royal treat showing up on my door just like that, I didn’t ask it to come over.

189

Suppose that through some breakthrough of quantum technology, we invent a device that allows viewing of the past. So we could press some buttons, and pop up a little screen (with HD quality and DD5.1 sound) showing what was going on at 15 Elm Street in Chatanooga last Wednesday.

I think we’d all agree that look at what our neighbors were doing inside their houses yesterday would be an invasion of privacy. But what about what they were doing 10 years ago? 50 years ago? 100 years ago?

What if there was an unsolved violent crime a few days ago. Would it be OK to use this machine to see what happened, follow the perpetrator, and identify/locate him? Should this require a warrant of some sort?
If we are OK with using this hypothetical device once a warrant has been acquired (which, honestly, I would be, although I’d want a pretty strict standard to be required for these warrants), how is that different from keeping everyone under surveillance all the time everywhere, with all those data feeds going into a big storage database which can only be accessed through a warrant?
(Not that I’m endorsing that idea… I just think it’s an interesting way to think about it… if you are being videotaped every hour of the day but no one ever looks at those tapes, or even could if they wanted to, does it really invade your privacy?)

190

Replace “IMO is automatically” with"for reasons I don’t bother explaining because I don’t have them, is", and you’re making some sort of sense. But I’m ever eager to hear any words on the famed meaning of liff.

191

Fear.If you make people afraid for their safety they will give up their rights.It is harder to do now because all violent crime has been dropping for years. You are safer now than 20 years ago. We publicize crime.Show it on tv and movies. It is exciting but not the fact.
In WW2 ,the movies showed the Natzis stopping people and saying “let me see your papers”. Now the government pushes for Fed I.D. cards. If you let them they will take your rigjhts away. If you are happy ,fine,but you are giving away my rights.I want to walk the street and answer to no one without probable cause.

192

Cost and risk of abuse.

I’m all for fighting for your rights, but this is just silly. Every freaking country in the world has a national ID card. I don’t get why it’s such a big deal to Americans.

193

No, Smiley, dear, it’s not quite the same. It means that some people have core beliefs that don’t necessarily lend themselves to rational analysis. Do you like chocolate? Yes? Why? Oh, because it tastes sweet and bitter? Well, why do you like sweet? It tastes good! What does that mean and why do you like it?

At base, there are always the emotions that don’t lend themselves to explanation. I happen to be with davenportavenger on this; I’d rather be aware than “happy.” If you want an explanation of that, I guess you’d have to say that being aware of reality (and my place in it) is a base part of *my * personal definition of happiness. On the other hand, it’s not as key an element to my happiness as it to davenportavenger’s; I’m sure I live a far more hedonistic lifestyle than s/he does.

There’s nothing wrong with your viewpoint and you’re certainly welcome to have it. Your values are simply different from those of many here; we actually care what happens to ourselves and others around us. But the claim that happiness is based entirely on viewpoint, while it has a certain element of truth to it, is one that couldn’t be held by anyone who has, for example, experienced third degree burns on 50% of his body. Attitude can make any situation better, but it can’t make them all good.

There’s also a matter of a bit of looking ahead. Are you willing to live with a Fuhrer? Does it not occur to you that not every situation would allow you to indulge that perfect internal happiness in which you currently rejoice? For example, let’s say that you’re taken captive and put to work sixteen hours a day picking cotton for people to whom it doesn’t even occur that you have an internal viewpoint. The idea that you could retain your happiness to the degree you do now is an extremely naive one. While happiness is something that tends to be dictated more by your innate base state than external factors, external factors can change one’s life so radically that inevitably it is going to have a profound, and possibly permanent, effect on that state.

Those of us who question governmental invasions of privacy are, by and large, not objecting to individual and trivial instances of their own privacy being invaded. They are looking at the history of the world, and the various ways that tyrants have taken powerm, often with the full cooperation of the citizenry - see Plato’s Republic as to a short and highly accurate description of the way democracies fail. We look back and say “how could the people have been so blind?” and then proceed to watch as many people around us seem to be perfectly willing to be that blind.

So, free spirit, enjoy your freedom now. Assume it’s truly free, and the chances are good that you won’t enjoy it long.

194

I’d still argue that awareness is basically worthless unless you enjoy it (or, at least, the consequences). And you can’t compare it to chocolate, either. While the enjoyment of chocolate is perfectly explainable, you’d have to know a lot more than I’d expect about how your brain and senses work, but your enjoyment of awareness is a far more conscious thing, and after your posts, I’d expect both you and davenport to be able to give a better explanation than that you “just prefer it to happiness”. Can’t you see the very idea of prefering something MEANS you enjoy them? And thus, you cannot prefer anything to enjoyment itself.

I agree I’m taking the mental integrity bit rather far, but how many of us get third degree burns covering half our bodies? And how many of us get it because of visual surveilance?
As long as the subject is not getting your privacy invaded (even without your knowledge), I still hold that there’s nothing to worry about. I’ve already admited that Watergate scenarios changes the discussion (and radically, too), but I don’t know enough about them to discuss them. My point is: Noone should bother about what other people know about you, especially if they don’t even let you know they know.
And for all the insufferable scenarios you’re fantasizing WILL happen to anyone who’s not constantly on their watch, remember the extreme examples of mental integrity: I really do believe there’s monks and mystics who wouldn’t care too much even about being imprisoned in Guantanamo. I’ve even had personal experiences (not half as strong as I’d expect trained monks have, but still) to convince me.

195

I don’t understand this. Can you dumb it down for me?

Most of us are not monks or mystics. Are you saying that we should all have the integrity of the Dalai Lama, or else we’re terrible people who don’t make any sense? Even I’ve never said that.

196

[hijack of sorts]
I read, once upon a time, an SF short that was predicated on precisely that idea. The inventor of the device anonymously releases the device to the world, and is not identified before he dies, but he spends the last few years of his life waving hello to the empty room when he wakes up every morning - obviously anticipating that eventually people would use the device to backtrack and figure out who he was, and watch his whole life.

There was considerable speculation in the story about how such a device might be used, especially in its early days. One passage I remember in particular, paraphrased, of course, since this is from memory: Mrs. Steven Palkins and Mrs. Emmet Brigham were neighbors in rural Arizona, miles away from each other and the nearest town. They agreed to keep their devices focused on a bulletion board in each others’ kitchens, where they each posted a sign saying everything was OK. If either had any trouble, they’d take down the sign, and if they had time, write another explaining what the emergency was.

One afternoon, about the time her husband usually got home, an intruder broke into Mrs. Palkins’ house and dragged her into her bedroom and began to assault her before she had a chance to so much as touch her trouble sign. The police arrived in fifteen minutes, and Mrs. Palkins never spoke to her friend again.

The implication being, of course, that Mrs. Brigham was in the habit of watching her friend’s bedroom, and thus knew to send the police… but learning of this peepery made Mrs. Palkins furious.

Fascinating concept.
[/hos]

197

Cost is a practical issue and not really relevant to the current discussion.

Risk of abuse is the kicker, obviously. I wonder if at some point there will be some sort of paradigm shift in how computer technology is built and regulated and described which will allow someone to say “this big super-mainframe-5000 computer will store all the video feeds from all your houses and will not be accessible without a court order”, and have that statement be something that everyone absolutely trusts?

198

Another wrinkle on the question from an op-ed on The GOP’s Bankruptcy of Ideas:

Obviously, this is pure scaremongering. Since the Administration has done nothing illegal (which is certainly true in the opinion of the Republican base, whether or not it is true in reality), the Democrats can investigate until the cows come home for all it matters.

199

Might have gone a bit to my head. I still believe that people can’t do anything without liking what they do (at least more than what they’d have to do if they didn’t). AND I believe the awarenesscrowd is a bit blinded by their own words.
Ignoring pain/ suffering is bad if it leads to more pain/ suffering . I agree.
However, as I’ve said before, it’s not the alarm signals that should be avoided, it’s the “bad” feeling they give. And I don’t mean that people unable to avoid bad feelings are bad people, only that not feeling down is something worth striving for, and thus, so should everybody. Because feeling bad, in itself is undesirable.
Enjoying life is good unless it leads disillusioned people towards more suffering. I agree. But again, there’s no conflict between how good/bad your experience is, and being aware of what’s going on.
As stupid animals living in the forest, a pain in the foot is a good suggestion we should do something about it.
As enlightened animals with language, the knowledge we are hurt will do. But good feelings makes life worthwile.

What I’m saying is if you push your arguments to the extreme, I’ll do the same with mine. It doesn’t make sense to argue that everyone should have the integrity of the Dalai Lama, nor does it make sense to mention third degree burns in a debate about surveilance. I (and OP, as far as I can see) hold that people should not worry about their privacy being invaded (without their knowledge, and no “real” consequences as long as they’re not criminals). Someone disagrees. I mentioned personal integrity, might have taken it a bit too far, then the consequences of surveilance was taken to paranoid extremes, and voila! Ball rolling.

200

I used to work at a downtown office with big picture windows. I saw black guys stopped over and over. They police would take their cars apart and leave them to clean up the mess.It was more than a daily event. We know that behavior was wrong. Someone who stepped over the line on a regular basis can not be expected to know where to draw the line. We need protection from criminals and from the police. Police are just people with all the idiosyccracies of any other person. We give then authority over our lives,but I want clear dividing lines. There has to be a clear reason to stop me. I have the right to go about my business without answering to anybody unless clear probable cause exists.